Summary: Chapter XI
Frank decides to start a soccer team with his brother
Malachy and his friend Billy Campbell. Frank remembers a red flapper
dress his mother bought in New York, which she keeps to remind her
of her dancing days, and the dress inspires him with a name for
the team: “The Red Hearts of Limerick.” Frank takes the dress from
its place in an old trunk and cuts red hearts out of it for the
uniforms. While looking in the trunk, Frank finds some old papers.
He looks through them and learns from the date on his parents’ marriage
certificate that he was born only six months after they wed. Frank
wonders if his was a miraculous birth.
Mikey Molloy has just turned sixteen, and his father,
Peter, takes him to the pub for his first pint. The Molloys bring
Frank along and buy him a lemonade. Frank asks Mikey what it means
that he was born early, and Mikey tells him he is a bastard and
is doomed to spend eternity in Limbo. He also explains to Frank
how babies are conceived. Frank is worried, and Mikey gives him
a penny so he can pay to light a candle and pray to the Virgin Mary
to save his soul.
The barman happens to say, “Everything has an opposite,”
and this sets something off in Peter Molloy, who decides that if
he is the pint-drinking champion of Limerick, he could also be “the
champion of no pints at all.” He tells his son that he’ll stop drinking,
stop driving his wife mad, and move the family to England. After
the Molloys leave, Frank cannot resist using the penny to buy toffee instead
of using it to pray for his soul.
On Saturday morning, Frank’s team beats a group of rich
boys in a soccer game. Frank makes the goal that wins the game,
which he decides was divinely ordained to prove Frank is not doomed.
Frank starts delivering coal with his next-door neighbor,
Mr. Hannon, who suffers from sores on his legs. Frank feels like
a real man, and he loves being able to ride on the float next to
Mr. Hannon, who is gentle and kind, and to who urges Frank to go
to school and read books and one day leave Ireland for America.
One day Hannon waits for him outside his school, and Frank’s classmates
are jealous of Frank’s manly job. They ask Frank if he can put in
a good word for them at the coal yard.
Frank’s eyes are irritated by the coal dust, and one
day they are so bad that even though Mr. Hannon’s legs are getting
worse and worse, Angela will not let Frank continue working. On
the first day that Mr. Hannon would have had to manage alone, his
legs are too bad for him to go to work. He is hospitalized, and
told he cannot work again. Mrs. Hannon invites Frank over, and tells
him that he gave Mr. Hannon “the feeling of a son.” Frank cries.
