In the evening the families in the neighborhood would migrate to the stoop or front porch and social interaction of an urban area would begin. When I was at the home of my Grandparent's, which was just down the street from my own home, I found a way to put money in my pocket. The local men would pay me to walk to the corner bar and get the bartender to fill their beer buckets. If I made it back without spilling any of the precious liquid I got a nice tip.
In order to avoid spilling the beer I learned to sip the foam (head) off the bucket before I crossed the street. There was never a time that I did this that I didn't love the taste of the beer. I also liked the way it made me feel. I was somehow changed from being shy and introverted to being a teller of stories. In my Irish hood many people, especially the old ones, still spoke the old language and my Grandmother began to call me scéalaí (storyteller). I later learned that she may have been calling me a liar, an early indication of things to come.
By the time I was 9-years-old I had become an altar boy at my Parish church. My serving partner was the head Grandson of a St. Louis Mafia family Capo and we both learned about the perks of his status. We would get out of school to serve at funerals and we were the regular crew for the 6 A.M. weekday mass both of which took us out of class and the funeral tips were serious moneymakers for the time.
It was during this period that I started hitting the church wine every day. As I look back on it I see that it made life with the Nuns at school somewhat easier. This was the path I chose, the make it easy path, the try not to feel path, the path that I followed for the next 50 or so years until I walked into Friendship House and was ready to change and willing to do whatever it took to do to it.
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