The Butcher Boy

Why you, Francie?

Why?

It'd have broken

your poor mother's heart.

I'm sorry, Mr. Leddy.

When I was a young lad,

20 or 30 or 40 years ago...

I lived in a town

where they were all after me...

on account of what I had done

on Mrs. Nugent.

If she hadn't poked her nose in

between me and Joe...

everything would have been all right.

Me Geronimo. Who are you?

Sitting Bull.

Let's do a war cry.

Now look around for white man.

Of all the wrong things I done,

I suppose the apples were the first.

They started all the trouble.

And Francie Brady didn't need

any old snake to give him one.

He robbed them himself.

- Francie!

- Come on, Joe. Come on.

What do you mean, come on?

Come on, it's not that high.

- Don't worry, kemosabe, I got you.

- Oh, f***.

Come on, Francie, get a move on.

Come on!

Yeah, all right, Joe.

How many have we got now?

Just keep shaking, Francie.

- I'll shake the living sh*t out of her, Joe.

- Another 100 and we're right.

- Nugents aren't gonna get the better of us.

- No way, boy.

And who butts in, only Phillip Nugent...

his head full of amazing facts,

like the boiling point of water...

and the number of eyes on a fly head.

Sure, it's yourself, Phillip, isn't it?

Doing a bit of reading, now?

Comics, Francie.

We've got to have them, Joe.

Tell you what, Phillip. We'll swap.

One of your ma's Cox's Pippins

for all of them comics.

It's only fair, Phillip.

Now, Joe, he isn't really that bad.

- What are you doing? Get out!

- Jesus, Francie, it's Mrs. Nugent.

- Run, Joe, run!

- F***!

It has got nothing to do

with knowing kids or anything else!

I knew the kind of you lot

long before I went to England.

- Well...

- And I should've had more sense...

than to let my Phillip

near the likes of him.

I mean, not that it's

the poor child's fault.

What do you expect from a house

where the father's never in?

Lying about in pubs

from morning till night.

He's no better than a pig!

It is small wonder

that the boy is the way he is.

What chance has he got,

living in a pigsty?

But if he's seen near my Phillip again,

there'll be trouble. Mark my words.

Pigs!

That's all youse are!

The whole town knows that.

Pigs.

It's that old Mrs. Nugent.

What are we gonna do about her?

I don't know, but be Christ,

I know what I'm going to do with you!

Stop it, Jim. Will you stop it, please?

Well, I don't know if me da

was a pig or not...

but one thing she was right about,

he sure could drink.

He was the best drinker in the town.

and how. Man has realized his dream.

Now he must control it.

What would you do, Joe, if you won

a million billion trillion dollars?

I'd buy a million billion trillion

Flash bars, Francie.

Hey, fish, do you know

what I'm going to tell you?

F*** off.

Now, fish, what do you think of that?

Hey, come back with my arrow.

Do you know you were only

5 pounds weight...

when you were born, Francie?

Ma...

what's the chair doing on the table?

You'd never let me down, Francie,

would you?

You know I wouldn't, Ma.

I'm away off up the town now, Francie.

I have to get the baking started

for your Uncle Alo's Christmas party.

You dropped your tablets, Ma.

Dr. Boyd said they'd cure me.

I think they're making me worse.

Come on, Annie.

I'm so sorry.

Well, there you go, Joe.

That's Ma off on her travels, then.

Where is she off to, Francie?

They say she had a breakdown, Joe.

What's a breakdown?

That's when you're took off to the garage,

when the truck comes and tows you away.

I'll tell you,

there's some craic in this town.

There sure is. The garage.

"Hand me down a spanner, eh, Mike? I think

Mrs. Brady's ankle needs tightening."

Joe.

Do you think the one-armed man did it?

Well, you know, he probably did.

That bastard. I'm gonna kill him.

Now, the thing about Mrs. Nugent is

she came back from England...

with all these airs and graces and

walked around as if she owned the town.

But here's one little pig

that's going to teach her different.

There you are, Mrs. Nugent and Phillip.

- Just let me by, please.

- Of course, but that'll be a shilling.

- A shilling?

- Yeah.

- What are you talking about?

- And half for Phillip.

So there's 1 shilling for you and sixpence

for Phillip, all together one and six.

One and six, please.

You don't have to pay money

to go by here.

Sorry, Mrs. Nugent, but a tax is a tax.

If you don't pay it, it's not gonna

be fair for everybody else, is it?

Tax? What are you talking about, tax?

The pig toll tax, Mrs. Nugent.

I've work to do,

I can't sit about here all day.

So come on, now,

1 shilling plus sixpence.

Would you run away home now

and stop all this nonsense?

Tell you what, Mrs. Nugent.

I'll let you go this time,

but you remember, now...

in future, you make sure

you have that pig toll tax ready.

And I ain't fooling, Mrs. Nooge.

Do you know what it is?

It's a bad state of affairs...

when people won't pay a tax

to get by.

- What tax is that, now, Francie?

- Don't you start with me, Joe.

Thank you, Mr. Leddy.

I swear, it was mad...

Hello, Mr. Leddy.

Francie.

There you are, now, ladies.

Francie, there you are.

Well, I'm nowhere else, ladies.

Could I have two tins of sardines

and a loaf of bread?

- How's your mother, Francie?

- She's flying.

She's in the garage and it won't be long

till she's home. They'll give her a service.

"Hand me down a spanner, Mike. I think

Mrs. Brady's head needs tightening."

Francie. Francie, that's a good one.

Keeping the home fires burning, Francie?

The incredible Francie Brady.

Now, if you ladies will excuse me...

I must be off up to town

on toll-tax business.

Toll tax? I never heard of that, Francie.

What would that be?

It's invented by me.

But of course, Nugent won't pay it.

You might as well try to get

blood from stone.

- Nugent? Mrs. Nugent?

- Be it on her own head...

she'll not get by so easy the next time...

- Getting by? Getting by where, Francie?

On the footpath, where else?

There's no denying it, Francie,

you're a rare character.

I know.

It's a dud.

It's a dud from the day we got it.

A f***ing dud, Da, that's what it is.

I should have known better

than to trust the likes of Traynor.

He'll not sell me a dud television

and get away with it.

Work!

Be Christ, it'll not best me!

"Your father was a great man one time,"

they'd say.

Be Christ, a great musician.

He could have been someone.

Sure, hadn't he met Eddie Calvert?

"And who the f***

is Eddie Calvert?" I'd ask them.

Well, that's the end

of the cowboys, I guess.

Da, there's nothing but dry bread

in the house.

There's not even a rasher.

Are you deaf?

I guess it's all down to Francie now.

The incredible Francie Brady.

No more cowboys, Joe.

Cowboys, good luck.

Why not, Francie?

Da. He fixed the telly good and proper.

We won't be seeing John Wayne

around here again.

Hack at a bit of ice,

there, Francie, go on.

Hacking away, boys?

Hacking away, now, Father.

That's a cold one. Would you say

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