Losing Joe's Place (16 page)

“Mr. Cardone, where is it?
Where is it
?”

“In the corner with the broom!” I called back.

A second later, he burst out, carrying his trusty butterfly net. Waving it at face level to clear a path for himself, he barreled out the door just as a sports car hit the pot hole on Bathurst Street. A month in traction had done nothing to dull his reflexes. The hurtling hubcap found the net like a homing pigeon.

Chocolate Memories went berserk.

Still on the sidewalk, slightly out of breath, Plotnick examined the hubcap with evident pleasure. Then he stood in the doorway and made his announcement.

“Okay, out!”

At first, no one took him seriously. But when he started prodding people with the butterfly net, they got the message. They still thought it was part of the show, so there was a lot of laughing and cheering as they filed out, pausing to congratulate Plotnick and pat him on the back.

“Go home!” he told them. “You're bringing down the property values!”

They remained a little longer on the sidewalk outside 1 Pitt Street, giving our landlord one last round of applause. Then they gradually dispersed.

He turned to us, the staff. “Go to bed. I'm having an ulcer.”

“Oh, sure, Mr. Plotnick.” I grinned. “You just want to be alone to dive into that cash box.”

“I have to hide, Mr. Cardone. That fascist doctor could be coming after me any minute. I'm not supposed to be out till tomorrow.” He checked the clock. “Ah! It
is
tomorrow. The first of the month. That'll be $685, please.”

We stared at him. “Mr. Plotnick!” I cried. “Is that all you can think about after what you've seen here tonight? We've all worked like crazy to make this place a success for you!”

Plotnick shrugged. “I don't want no deadbeats in my building.”

I was furious. “You'd better be nice to us! We're the only ones who know the secret recipe for the Chocolate Memory, which is the backbone of the whole menu!”

Plotnick reached over and dipped a pudgy finger into a half-finished dessert. He licked at it experimentally. “Big deal. Cake mix.”

Where money is involved, Plotnick is always right. When Plotnick is wrong, see above. We wrote him a check. At least this time we could afford it.

Out on the sidewalk, Ferguson and Don confronted Jessica.

“All right,” said Don, “you've dodged us for a whole summer, made us look like idiots, and almost turned two friends against each other.” Ferguson nodded feelingly. “Now we've got something to say to you. We want you to know that we don't care who you would have picked. In fact, we couldn't care less. Right, Peachfuzz?”

“Right,” the Peach confirmed. “It doesn't interest us in the slightest.”

“But I've made my choice,” she said.

They both leaned forward tensely.

“I pick — Jason.”

She picked
Jason
? Since when was I one of the choices? This was the girl who went out of her way to date everybody I knew
except me
!

“Hah!” Don slammed his fist into his palm. “Jason's with us. He wouldn't stab his friends in the back. Would you, Jason?”

My eyes were glazing over. I started having lightning visions Jessica at the supermarket; casserole day; the seven-day menu. Sure, she'd always run off at the end, but that was a mad dash for class. Come to think of it, for a girl with not one but two boyfriends, she'd hung around me a lot. And coming to work at Chocolate Memories — she hadn't needed a job before. She must have been trying to get close to me!

Don tapped me on the shoulder. “Would you, Jason?”

“Uh — uh — no,” I said feebly.

She shrugged. “Oh, well. No hard feelings. It's been nice meeting you guys. Have a good trip home.” Then she turned and headed for Bathurst Street.

She picked Jason! All this time she'd been trying to get through to me. But everything she'd said or done had just made me madder. I was so jealous and resentful at being third choice — worse!
no
choice! that I'd missed what was right in front of my nose!

She picked Jason.

And tomorrow Jason was going back to Owen Sound, and she might as well have picked Plotnick. It was a masterstroke of stupidity best summed up in three words: I blew it.

Mr. Wonderful and the Peach were slapping each other on the back, talking about solidarity and how “ … we showed her!” But I was rooted to the spot, watching Jessica disappear around the corner. I wanted to throw myself to the pavement, kicking and screaming.

Then they must have caught a glimpse of the look on my face, because suddenly, Don gave me a shove.

“What are you standing here for, you moron? If you run, you can still catch her.”

Ferguson pushed, too. “Don't approach her from behind,” he advised. “Go wide out and cut in front.”

I ran like crazy.

* * *

It must have been four
A.M
., and it might have been a dream, but I don't think so. The quiet on Pitt Street was shattered by a half-demented voice in the street below.

“Yoo-hoo! Hamish!
Eat your heart out!”

We said good-bye to all our neighbors, and even had a chat with the Phantom through his closed door. God's Grandmother made us a package of sandwiches to eat on the train.

At the bank, we cleaned out our joint account. With the success of Chocolate Memories, we were taking home over $700, plus the half-months' rent we'd be getting back from Joe. Not bad for three guys whose parents had been expecting them to come crawling home in bankruptcy on Day Two.

Don grabbed the bank draft out of my hands. “This goes towards getting us back to Toronto next summer.”

I stared at him. “You mean you'd come back, after all we've been through?”

“Well, of course!” roared Mr. Wonderful. “Sure, we had a few problems, but we improvised, we side-stepped, we overcame. That's living!”

Ferguson nodded in agreement. “This was the only way to spend the summer. I was wrong, and you guys were right.”

Don threw an arm around him. “Welcome to Planet Earth, Peachfuzz. It took a long time, but you finally realized there's more to life than Stonehenge. I never thought I'd say this, but I like you!”

“I
have
to come back next year,” Ferguson added. “Plastics Unlimited is flying me down in their jet. If I work for them every summer, they're going to pay my way through Harvard and start me as a junior vice-president.”

“Liking you is going to be harder than I thought,” said Don through clenched teeth.

“I'll be down here before you guys,” I said casually. “Visiting Joe and — you know — uh —” I reddened “ — Jessica.”

They looked at me pityingly.

“Peachfuzz and I are willing to overlook your temporary insanity this time, Jason,” said Don. “Just don't expect such special treatment ever again.”

Rootbeer, his beard still patchy-pink, was loading our luggage into the Camaro so he could drive us to the train station. He slammed the trunk shut and squeezed into the driver's seat. “I hate following train schedules. It puts you under so much stress.”

“We'll be okay,” Ferguson assured him. “There's plenty of time.”

Plotnick appeared at the door of Chocolate Memories to wish us
bon voyage
. “Ah, good-bye, Mr. Cardone, Mr. Champion, Mr. Peach. It seems like only yesterday you first arrived. It won't be the same without you.”

“Sure,” I said sarcastically. “Now you'll have to pay real waiters.”

The landlord was undaunted. “I feel like you're my own children. You're three beautiful boys for doing such wonderful things for an old man.”

I sighed. “Good-bye, Mr. Plotnick. It's been real.”

“One last thing,” said Plotnick as we all climbed into the car. “If you should see your brother before I do, tell him he has till September 30th to move out.”

“What
? We paid the rent, remember?”

“Certainly. For September. Then, on October 1st, I'm going into partnership with my oldest and dearest friend, Hamish. We're going condominium.”

My mouth dropped open. “Condominium?!”

“This is a very fashionable neighborhood, Mr. Cardone. Chocolate Memories is right here on Pitt Street. It's a disgrace for a broken-down old building like this to be so close to such a fancy night spot.”

“But — we can't lose that apartment!”

“Don't worry, Mr. Cardone. Your brother will have first pick of the new condominiums. Prices start at $150,000. Tell your brother to see Hamish. He'll like him. A prince of a fellow.”

I was really steaming. This was the last straw. We'd been polite and respectful to that grease-spattered, potbellied, meat-fork-toting crook for the last time! “
Mr. Plotnick, you're a
 —”

Rootbeer stepped on the gas, and the Camaro roared away, leaving my last sentence unfinished. It's a good thing, too. It never would have gotten by the censors.

 

 

    
    

“That's the most ridiculous story I've ever heard in my life!” snarled Joe, marching up and down our living room in Owen Sound, practice-swinging an aluminum baseball bat. The image was clear. In the path of that bat could be one, two, or all three of our heads if Joe got any madder.

Ferguson, Don, and I were flaked out on the floor, frantically scouring all three Toronto newspapers for a new apartment for my brother.

“But it's all true, Joe! Every last word! You talked to Plotnick! We didn't get you evicted! He's going condo!”

“And whose fault is that?” roared Joe. “You couldn't be satisfied with living in the city! You had to fool around with cake mix, and show my rotten landlord how much money he could make with that dump!”

“But I explained that.”

“You lost the apartment! There's no explanation! Keep looking! You find me a place, or else!”

I turned back to the paper, and Joe continued his swinging, the bat whirring menacingly through the air. I wondered why I was so afraid of him. After the things I'd seen and done this summer, Godzilla shouldn't have scared me, let alone one puny bodybuilder. The guy who'd slept on our floor for two months was twice as big and twenty times as strong. Joe Cardone was a relatively minor hazard, like being afraid of broken pavement because you might turn your ankle.

“Here's a pretty good deal in the suburbs,” ventured Ferguson. “One bedroom, air conditioning —”

“Forget the suburbs!” interrupted Joe. You lost downtown, you find downtown!”

“Downtown's pretty expensive,” commented Don.

“Of course it's expensive! That's why I wanted to keep the place I already had! But no — I had to have a dessert chef for a brother, and
he
had to have two stupid friends!”

I suppose we could have defended ourselves a little better. For instance, we might have pointed out that Joe could have caught a later flight, and stayed to give us a thorough briefing instead of that stupid message. Also, he could have phoned us a couple of times from Europe to ask how things were going, and give us a number to reach him in case of emergency. All we got were pictures of him lugging girls around beaches. But you don't say things like that to Joe Cardone when he's armed with a bat, and you're armed with
The Toronto Star
.

It seemed so unfair, after all our scrambling and struggling and sweating to keep Plotnick happy and save that apartment, to be accused of losing it because we were stupid. In that one summer, we'd fought for that place more than Joe ever had the whole time he'd lived there. If we hadn't been on our toes, the apartment would have been lost ten times! We were heroes! It had taken a reconciliation between Plotnick and his worst enemy in the world to get that lease from our protective custody! We hadn't done
one thing wrong!

I was about to voice these thoughts to Joe when there was a cry of shock from Don. “Hey, look!” He grabbed the page of ads from Ferguson's hands, and turned it around. There, under the headline
Off-beat Comic Behind Bars
was a picture of our Rootbeer, smiling serenely out the grill-covered window of a paddy wagon.

“It's Rootbeer!” I said lovingly, remembering a few tight spots where Rootbeer had been our hairy fairy godfather.

Don began to read:

“Rootbeer Racinette, the new-wave comedian who's been wowing audiences at Toronto's Chocolate Memories, was arrested by police yesterday for running an illegal gambling operation. The exact nature of the offense has not been released, but officers confiscated a two-by-four and an undisclosed amount of cash. Racinette, who holds the world record for the largest chewing-gum bubble, is expected to be released on his own recognizance later today.”

Ferguson grabbed the paper from Don, and continued,
“Chocolate Memories, the popular dessert spot that housed Racinette's meteoric rise to fame, has been shut down by court order, pending resolution of a $1.5 million lawsuit by the D-Lishus Corporation. D-Lishus claims that its popular chocolate cake mix was unlawfully pirated by the restaurant. Chocolate Memories declined comment, but an anonymous inside source was quoted as saying, ‘D-Lishus is a bunch of low-class bums for pestering an old man.'”

We laughed, and even Joe thought it was a little bit funny.

I ripped the paper away from the Peach, and finished the article.

“Racinette, twenty-three, should have no shortage of opportunities for his unique talents now that Chocolate Memories is in suspended animation. Offers for North American tours have been flooding in, although the six-foot-ten comedian denies that he has considered any of them. ‘I'm under too much stress to think about that kind of stuff. Maybe Joe Cardone will come back from Europe and be my manager.'”

Joe let out a holler that was pure joy. The murderous look on his face was replaced by a goofy grin. “He wants
me
to be his manager!” he chuckled. “That's fantastic!”

“It couldn't have happened without Chocolate Memories,” I was quick to point out. “I think you have something to say to your dessert chef brother and his two stupid friends.”

“All right, sorry I blew my stack,” he mumbled. “Hey, I don't even need an apartment. I'm going on tour! Good old Rootbeer.”

My brother was in ecstasy. He threw down the bat and began to pace around the house. “Think of it — New York, L.A., San Francisco …”

As Joe continued to list all the great cities they'd tour, my eyes met Ferguson's and Don's. It was like Joe was the little kid, and we were the older brothers now. Success wasn't measured in particulars. It was the big picture that counted. You go to Toronto for the summer, and you make it through alive. All the rest is just details.

* * *

It was about a week later. When I came home from school, my mother was baking a cake.

“Want to lick the spoon?” she offered.

“Get real, Mom,” I replied. “I'm past all that now.”