My Notorious Life Read Online Free Page A

face.
    —Cherry Street.
    —I’m called Mag. You?
    —Axie Muldoon. And this is Dutchie my sister.
    —Ha! said a big rough boy who known he was good-looking. —Ax and Dutch. What kind of crank names is that?
    I did not say what kind. Nor how my sister was Dutchess Muldoon named by our Da like royalty and I was our dear Annie called Axie by Mam because I was forever axing so many questions. I only scowled at thisbig b*ll*cks. He was cocky and black-haired with a dangerous jaw that jutted out in a hard underbite.
    —Ax Muldoon, he muttered. —A girl named Ax.
    —You’ve the mug of a bulldog, I says, —so is that your name then, Bulldog?
    —Name’s Charlie, he says with a smirk.
    —Bulldog, I says, and smiled at big Mag.
    —Don’t make no problems with him, she said. —Charlie’s the pet and so clever he charms all the matrons. Any trouble, they marrow you good.
    Dutch began to snivel at the idea of a marrowing but quieted down when she smelled dinner arriving. We was served each a bowl of soup, thick with carrots and potatoes. Chicken fat floated in golden rings on the surface. Our Joe was on my lap, and hummed while I fed him. We three was just about bamboozled into thinking there was never a better place than this Asylum, when Mrs. Reardon comes along with her arms out for Joe.
    —We’ll have the baby from you, she says. —He’ll sleep in the nursery.
    —That’s our brother! He sleeps with us.
    But the hag lifted him up under the arms.
    I pulled his legs. She pulled back. Joe was stretched like a taffy between us, twisting himself and screeching.
    —He’s our brother, we cried, as I hammered her.
    In a blink, two more apron ladies had a hold of me.
    —She’s a hellcat, cried Mrs. R. —Keep her down.
    —PUGGA MAHONE, alla yiz, I said, which is Irish for Kiss My *ss.
    —None of your papist curses, said Mrs. Rump who now had a grip on my hair.
    I bit her.
    —Dear Lord in Heaven, she screamed, my teeth in her arm.
    I kicked at both them matrons and flailed, swinging. The orphans went wild with laughter and remarks, with that Bulldog Charlie the loudest, cheering. —Atta girl, Ax.
    —Silence! said Reardon, ringing a bell like a mad steeple. —We do not tolerate heathen behavior here. I saw a red mark on the white meat of her forearm and I was that starved I might have gone for seconds had she not grabbed me by the ear. —Apologize!
    I would not. She twisted my ear like it was a doorknob and I cried out in pain.
    —I’ll give you a hiding and lock you away, said she, but still got no sorry out of me. Apology or none, Mrs. R. had won the prize of Joe. She carried him off even as he wailed for us, —AxieDutch. He called us always the one name, AxieDutch. But the hard-hearted cow did not turn nor relent.
    Miserable, but full of our dinner, me and Dutchie followed the mess of girls in a line up the stairs, then to a room of nothing but washbasins.
    —You will scrub yourselves, girls, a matron said. She gave us a cloth for it and raved on about how we were dirty. —You are like one of the darker races.
    More evidence she would soon try to sell us.
    She handed us a gown to sleep in and took away our clothes, held them away with her nose wrinkled. —Infested, she said, and put them in the bin.
    Next Mrs. R. sentenced us each to sleep in a cot alone.
    —My sister sleeps with me, I cried, and wrangled with them again till they gave up in exhaustion. At last we two Muldoon girls clamped around each other in our narrow crib, and slept. We was each the only safe thing we knew now, in that dark Asylum.
    *  *  *
    In the morning, we and the orphans was all rousted up with Mrs. Rump banging a gong. There was nothing tender about it, not like our mother who sang low to us in her lilty voice. —Wake yourselfs, it’s a new day. Up with yiz all, ya Flibbertigibbets.
    The matrons now gave us blue smocks with new itchy woolies, and nice charity boots used only a little. —Thank you very much, I said to Mrs.