The Irish American

My first St. Patrick’s Day in New York, I was fired. Or rather, the day after my first St. Patrick’s Day in New York, I was fired.
My first St. Patrick’s Day in New York, I was fired. Or rather, the day after my first St. Patrick’s Day in New York, I was fired.

I was fired from my waitress job because I didn’t show up for work on St. Patrick’s Day. But in all fairness to myself, it was an unjust firing. I had asked, and been granted, the day off but at the last minute my manager, the cigar-chomping Mr. C, reneged and said I had to work.

He liked to play favorites and “Jackie” was getting the day off instead of me. The fact that Jackie was sitting on his knee as he told me this, and the fact that she had only just joined the staff, didn’t sit well with me.

When I was young I used to dream about gunmen coming to our house.
When I was young I used to dream about gunmen coming to our house.

I would hear them downstairs confronting my mother. I would want to go to her but I would be afraid. I would wake up with my heart pounding.

I was traumatized by Irish history. I remember not wanting to turn the page in my history book. Every planned insurrection would start out hopeful enough, but turn the page and there was a traitor or leaked information – the British would put down the Rebellion in the most horrific manner. (I always connected Cromwell’s sack of Drogheda with the murder of the Holy Innocents that we learned about in Catechism class.)