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. - Fuck.

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 shit 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! - Fuck!

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?

Fuck 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, 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 fucking 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 fuck 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 that's a cold one, young Brady?

I'd say it's the coldest yet.

- The coldest yet, he says. - He does.

He does.

How's your father?

The best. Never better.

Good, good, and your mother will be home soon?

She will. She'll be back on the road by Christmas.

She has to get the cakes ready for Uncle Alo's party.

Uncle Alo. Now, this town should be proud of him.

Your mother told me about the great job he has in London.

Aye, 10 men under him.

Well, I best be off.

I have the good Lord here for Benny Maguire.

Good luck, now.

What does Benny Maguire want with the good Lord?

I think he fell off his buckrake.

Them buckrakes are a curse.

Richard Kimble ponders his fate as he looks at the world for the last time...

and sees only darkness.

But in that darkness, fate moves its huge hand.

Go on, fugitive. Go on, run!

You're only a hoppity bastard, one-armed man.

Yeah, hoppity bollocks.

- At least Richard Kimble has two arms. - The Fugitive.

Fuck! It's the hoppity bitch!

Now, if there's one thing worse than a pig...

it's a bogman up from the country for the day to do the Christmas shopping.

We'd see them in the cafe with their caps and their boots and their bony arses.

They called it dancing. It looked more like wading through manure.

What's that dance they're doing, Francie?

It's called the bogman tango, Joe.

The bogman tango?

Out with the backside, up with the nose.

Well, here's me face and me arse is coming.

The incredible Joe Purcell, ladies and gentlemen...