Joshua Then and Now (55 page)

“Pour yourself a drink,” Seymour said, indicating the bottles on his bedside table. “You’ll find ice cubes floating in the sink.”

“You’re looking better.”

“And you’re looking worse. If you’ve come here to depress me, go now. Your visit is untimely, to say the least.”

“You know where I’m going from here?” Joshua asked, helping himself to a Scotch. “I’m going to the Royal Vic. I’m going to take Pauline off all that stupefying shit they’ve been feeding her in there. I’m going to bring her home.”

“You mean she’s better?”

“I’m taking her home. The hell with them. Do you think I’m crazy?”

“On the contrary. I think it’s about time. Wait,” he said, pulling back his blanket and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “You could need help. I’m coming too.”

“No, Seymour. I’m going alone.”

“Come here.” Seymour hugged him, his eyes welling with tears. “Hey, you know what we are?”

“What?”

“We are the boys of Room forty-two. I’m going to cry. Go. Get out. No, wait. If you can drop by tomorrow, would you please bring me my black bag? I’ve got something in there for Brenda. And send her in on the way out, will you? Hey, Josh.”

“Yeah.”

“We are the boys of Room forty-two.”

Nurse MacGregor was not surprised to see Joshua at the Royal Vic. Bristling, she said, “Dr. Grant wishes to see you immediately. He will take no responsibility.”

“I haven’t come to see Dr. Grant, but I have come to take responsibility. I’m taking my wife home.”

“But Mr. Shapiro,” she said, the color drained from her face, “your wife left this morning. Isn’t she with you?”

“My wife what?”

“Oh, heavens! Oh my God! Come with me. Quickly.”

Outside, Joshua dashed into the street, grabbing the first taxi to come along, and shouting out his address without even bothering to look at the driver.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Denny Dimwit himself. I’m honored. I won’t have the back seat washed out for a month.”

“I’m sorry,” Joshua offered in a failing voice, “that you have to drive a taxi at your age.”

Uncle Oscar was sixty-nine.

“What do you mean, sorry, I’m my own boss, aren’t I? My friends ask me what I do now, I tell them I go out at night, cruise around, pick up girls, and drive them home.”

Joshua tried to light a cigarette, but couldn’t manage it, his hands were shaking so badly.

“Aren’t you going to laugh?”

He managed a laugh.

“I pick up fares, you know, they see my name on the license plate there, and they ask if we’re related. I say, sure we are. They’ve read your stuff. Or they’ve seen you on
TV
. Once or twice they’ve given me big tips. More often they’re angry. They say, ‘You know, I think that guy is full of shit most of the time.’ ”

“They may just happen to be right. Could you drive faster, please?”

“Faster. Slower. We’re all heading for the same place. Six feet under. But you’re earning some living, I hear.”

“Thousands.”

“You know, Dimwit, that’s what I should of done. Become a
TV
personality.”

“What you should have done, you old fart, was to hold on to your junk instead of breaking it up for scrap. You were sitting on a fortune all those years. Ha, ha, ha.”

“Ha, ha, ha, yourself. Prick. I wasn’t going to become some faggola antique dealer, that’s your department in our family, isn’t it? Or haven’t you been listening to the radio today?”

Joshua didn’t know what he was talking about and he didn’t care. They were on Wood Avenue. Home. Fumbling, dropping his money on the floor, an embarrassed Joshua managed to settle the fare and hurry into the house.

“Pauline,” he called. “Pauline.”

She wasn’t there, of course. But a troubled Susy told him the phone hadn’t stopped ringing since he left. The
Star
, the
Gazette
, the New York correspondent of the
Daily Express
.
CBC, BBC
. Reporters from Toronto.
News of the World
.

I
N A STATEMENT READ TO BRITISH REPORTERS AND LATER
repeated for the benefit of
CBC-TV
cameras, the young but as-yet-untested film-maker Ralph Murdoch declared that when he had sold his father’s correspondence with Joshua Shapiro to Rocky Mountain University, he had in fact been aware of its scurrilous nature. He felt that he could not destroy the letters because of their literary importance, and what they had to say about the nature of a love that once dared not speak its name. He did regret the many, possibly unsubstantiated references to the sexual predilections of literary figures who were still alive. He sympathized with their protests. But – and on this point he was most emphatic – the curator of the rare manuscripts collection at Rocky Mountain University had assured him, at the time of the purchase, that the correspondence would not be made available to scholars for at least twenty-five years. In response to a question that had initially been put forward by his stepsister, young Murdoch allowed that according to the terms of his father’s will he did share, with the other surviving children, in royalties from all future editions of his novels. However, he emphatically denied that he had leaked the letters himself in order to profit now. He also refused to speculate on how his father’s stifled passion for Shapiro had affected his subsequent life and work. As for the still-living
Shapiro, or “Uncle Josh,” as he called him, he wished him no ill. On the contrary, he remembered him fondly.

Dr. Colin Fraser, curator of the rare manuscript collection at Rocky Mountain University, could not understand who might have slipped into the library and surreptitiously photographed pages from the correspondence. To Alberta’s outraged minister of culture he justified the large fee paid for its purchase by saying that it was, after all, of some fifty percent Canadian content, and he had been unwilling to see it pass, like so many other national treasures, into eager American hands. Although Shapiro, he continued, could not be reckoned a writer of the first rank, he had written a book of some significance on the Spanish Civil War and was considered by many to be a sporting journalist of note. When asked if there had been many competing American offers for the correspondence, he refused to either confirm or deny this. “We are nobody’s cultural colony any more,” he said.

Margaret Robinson, Murdoch’s first wife and Ralph’s mother, and a well-known literary agent who still represented Shapiro, forth-rightly claimed she was in a position to say that neither man was homosexual. The letters, she insisted, were no more than a bad joke, written by two young men for fun and profit. “Wherever he is, Sidney must be roaring with laughter. But in Joshua’s case, there’s his family to consider. I’m afraid my son has behaved very badly indeed.”

Dr. Fraser, apprised of Ms. Robinson’s comments, observed, “What else can she say? And, in any event, she has certainly not questioned the authenticity of the correspondence.”

Reuben phoned Joshua the morning after the story broke. “Hey, Oscar says he picked you up in his taxi, yesterday I think it was, and you were too cheap to tip him.”

“He’s right.”

“And what’s this shit I’m reading in the
Gazette?
I buy it for the sports, not to read my son’s a pig.”

Joshua explained. Then he phoned the senator in Ottawa, explaining again.

“Sue them, my boy,” the senator said.

“I’d rather not.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to.”

Which turned out to be bad advice.

Joshua, shoving past
TV
crews and reporters gathered outside his door, went to see Dickie Abbott. He had him issue a denial, as well as send a letter to Rocky Mountain University threatening to sue for slander and invasion of privacy. The considered statement Joshua typed out and handed to reporters won him some support. Then the roof fell in.

Out of California, over the wires, there floated a photograph (slightly out of focus, copyright Ellen Markham Studios) which showed Joshua and Murdoch kissing at a Beverly Hills poolside. It was supported by a story that an enterprising
Daily Express
reporter had bought from a black chambermaid at the Century Plaza Hotel. Blessed with a retentive memory, she recalled that Murdoch and Shapiro had shared a room there one night. “I do hope I’m not getting anybody into trouble,” Mrs. Cartwright said, “because I sure know what prejudice is.”

Esther’s photograph appeared in newspapers from coast to fabled coast. Standing in front of her Winnipeg massage parlor, she wore a sandwich board that proclaimed:
MY SON’S GAY, BUT THAT’S O.K
.

The phone never stopped ringing, but Joshua didn’t dare switch to an unlisted number in case Pauline was trying to get through to him. Pauline, Pauline. Alex, who had begun to screen all calls for him, let Seymour through.

“Hey, is that you, honey poo?”

“It’s no joke, Seymour.”

“I want my panties back. I want them right now.”

The photograph of Joshua and Murdoch kissing had made page one of both the
Star
and the
Gazette
. There was another story on the
sports pages. Players’ representatives from three
NHL
teams had announced that Joshua Shapiro was no longer welcome in their dressing rooms. “Hell,” one player was quoted as saying, “I’m still too ashamed to get undressed in front of my wife. How can we allow
him
in here any more?”

A spokesman for the Canadian League of Homophiles declared that this was a clear case of sexual discrimination and proposed to lodge an immediate complaint with the Canadian Civil Rights Commission. Then a television producer, a friend, managed to get Joshua on the phone.

“Come on, Josh. Give us a break. We won’t cut or edit. We’ll run your statement in full.”

“Sorry. I’d love to appear on your show, but I’m washing my hair tonight.”

“Do you want me to say that on the air?”

“Say anything you like, love.”

Early the next morning, he managed to slip out the back door without being seen. The snows were melting everywhere. Buds were fattening on the trees. Tomorrow afternoon all the regulars at The King’s Arms were going to the opening ball game at The Big O. Joshua made it downtown, where he wanted to speak to a detective he trusted about Pauline. Unfortunately, he ran into Eli Seligson outside his Guy Street office, Eli hurrying to catch a plane for Zurich.

“I want to tell you something,” Eli said. “They’ve included one of your so-called essays in a book on my son’s reading list at school. I’ve written a letter of protest to the principal.”

Joshua grabbed him, driving him against a mailbox. “Eli, your father was a black-marketeer and you are a shit. I hear your desk drawers at home are crammed with hot banknotes.”

“Whatever I am,” he said, struggling free, “thank God I’m not what you are. Feh!” And he ran for a taxi.

And right there, heaving with anger, Joshua decided to fix him. He would plant some vintage banknotes of his own in Eli’s desk. The police would find them after the break-in, obliging Eli to answer some embarrassing questions. Har, har, har.

S
TUART DONALD McMASTER WAS SPEAKING, SEATED
opposite a watchful Reuben in a booth at El Ponderosa on the Decarie Strip. McMaster digging into his turf ‘n’ surf, Reuben sipping his V.O. slowly. “I remember the day exactly, a Tuesday, pissing with rain. I had tickets for the opener – my luck – laid on by that fuck Ginsberg of Upper Belmont. Rogers was supposed to pitch. You know how many games he’d win if he was with L.A. or Boston? Plenty. Shit, that’s some arm, and I remember Don Newcombe when he was with the Royals. Couldn’t take the pressure, that boy. El Foldo in the series every time. Rogers was supposed to throw, and there I was with Ginsberg’s box seats. So it rained. It was really pissing out there.”

“Your luck. Yeah. Right.”

“It was a couple of days after Pauline clean disappeared from the Royal Vic. There one minute, gone the next. Everybody jumping. Joshua hollering. Hoo boy!”

Reuben nodded.

“His wife taking off like that into the wild blue yonder. I don’t mean to pry, but have you any idea of her whereabouts yet?”

“No.”

“Geez, do you think she knows what kind of shit he’s in now?”

“If she reads the newspapers, she does.”

“Would you like us to try to find her?”

“No.”

“Look, Reuben, I hate to even think this, and sure as shit I wouldn’t say it to him. But we’ve been around. We know the score. What if she’s committed suicide?”

“That’s possible.”

“Hey, you’re some cool cucumber.”

“Yeah. Right,” Reuben said, ordering another V.O. “You were saying there was no game.”

“Yeah. No game. I mean, they weren’t going to cancel until the last minute, those boys. Oy vey, rain checks. Refunds, yet. And I couldn’t take my grandchildren to a movie instead, because there wasn’t one playing in all of Montreal where they weren’t showing fucking, between men and women if you were lucky, but more likely between women and women or men and men. But I don’t have to tell you about faggolas. You’ve got your plate full now, you and him. I’ve seen the pictures in the newspapers, you know. Who hasn’t? But I don’t believe a word of it,” he said, probing, unable to forget the black satin panties with the lace trim.

“Good. Right. It was a Tuesday.”

“Two days after Pauline had skedaddled. Anyhoo, I took the kids back to my daughter’s place. N.D.G. Benny’s Farm. Then I noticed one of our cars parked outside of Ma Heller’s, and I can do with a burger and a beer, so I pull over. And what do you know, but it’s Henri Lupien sitting there. Detective from my station. One of the best.”

“Is that the one you had out following Josh all those nights?”

“Nobody was following Josh. He imagined it. Anyhoo, I joined Lupien and I don’t know what started it, but suddenly we were talking about the break-ins in Westmount. The kinky ones. Somebody taking the trouble to soak the labels off Pinsky’s vino bottles. Somebody diddling with the bathroom scales in Dr. Cole’s house and altering the signature on his A. Y. Jackson. Etc., etc. We both agree that we are dealing with a real joker. Maybe even a psycho.”