Pure Spring (6 page)

Grampa Rip planted some catnip seeds this morning in a pot and we put it in the windowsill.

“The sun and this water will do the work,” says Grampa Rip.

There are girls skipping rope on the sandy sidewalk. There are melting lumps of snow disappearing down the laneways. And little rivers running.

Another robin!

Spring is trying to come.

The trees want to explode.

And the flowers want to drive their heads up through the soft earth in all the parks.

This afternoon, right after lunch, Grampa Rip left the apartment all dressed up in his watch and chain to go to McEvoy's and another funeral wake. I'll be home at five to meet him and we'll make the supper together.

I'm wearing my Pure Spring shirt because it looks so good on me. I washed it last night and this morning Grampa helped me iron it without burning a big hole in the back of it.

I have the sleeves rolled up to show my biceps. A hundred times each with the cans of Habitant soup at noon today makes the biceps swell and push tight against the roll of the sleeves.

Will she remember me?

Last night I dreamt a dream that Cheap was in love with a cat with silk stockings and pale-blue panties with rose-pink-colored ribbon trim and big blue eyes and wavy brown hair and a little straw hat with a bow and pouty lips just like Gerty's.

Will she ever find out that I stole from her store? Will it show on my face?

I park my bike, put Cheap in his harness and leash and then my heart sinks from my chest down to the sidewalk.

The store is closed! Of course it's closed. It's Sunday! But wait. The lunch part is open. It's a different door.

Cheap stays beside me while I open the door. We go in. Together. We're partners.

There are three booths and four stools. The smell is fried onions and vanilla milkshakes.

There are two customers. Lovers, it looks like. They're in the end booth farthest from the door. The milkshake machine is buzzing away. They're getting a plate with two hamburgers on it. They're not sitting across from each other in the booth. They're both on one side. Sitting close. Hamburgers on one plate, not two.

Their waiter is Gerty. Gerty herself. She has on a long white apron tied at the back. No straw hat. A ribbon this time tying her hair over one shoulder. Blue.

I sit on the first of the four stools and put Cheap on the second stool and stroke him hard so he'll stay.

She comes around the counter, pours the milkshake out of the metal container into a tall glass jar and punches in two straws and takes the milkshake over to the lovers. She comes back behind the counter.

I have big plans for what I'm going to say. Tell her I stole. Tell her she's beautiful and I love her. Tell her I dreamt that my cat was in love with a female cat that looked just like her...

But here's what I say: “Set up a vanilla shake fer me, heavy on the vanilla and a double saucer of straight cream for my partner here, the thicker the better!”

I've seen a thousand cowboy movies. I'm one of those cowboys ordering drinks in the saloon.

Cheap looks up at me. He's never heard my voice like
this. He thinks for a second I'm somebody else. His ear goes back.

She turns and with her back to us pours the ice cream and milk and vanilla and puts it in the mixer. She pours a saucer of cream. She puts both in front of us. Her eyes are sparkling. She's got a little smile. She got the cowboy joke right away.

“I was wondering if I'd see you again,” she says, and I nearly fall off the stool.

Soon a pretty lady comes in — a lady shaped like a pear, and comes behind the counter and takes Gerty's apron and puts it on.

“Thank you, dear,” she says.

Gerty comes and sits on the other side of Cheap. Cheap is standing on the stool with his front paws on the counter licking up his cream that was ordered for him by some stranger from an old cowboy movie.

“Do you take your cat with you everywhere you go?”

“Sometimes.”

“What's his name? Is it a him?”

“His name's Cheap.”

“Cheep. Like a bird noise?”

“No. Cheap. He cost ten cents.”

She thinks I'm funny! She laughs a happy laugh and throws her brown hair over her other shoulder.

“My grampa has a cat,” she says. “It just sleeps and eats and, well, you know. It's got no personality and probably a very tiny brain...”

“Was that your grampa in the store last week?”

“Yes. He's not feeling very well. He's weak. He's trying to sell the store.”

“Is he too weak to go down the cellar?”

She nods. She wrinkles her brow, making a sad face.

I knew it. That's why it was so easy for Randy to steal from him. Randy and I. Stealing from the weak.

“When you first came in I thought you were working but it's Sunday so I wondered. Isn't that your work shirt...Pure Spring shirt...”

She's peering at the shoulder. Close to me. She smells like...what...lilacs?

“Do you work here and in the store?” I ask, stuck for something — anything — to say.

“No,” she says. “Just filling in when the regular waitress is on her break.”

We go out. I put Cheap in the basket and we walk my bike down to Strathcona Park.

The water's not turned on yet in Baron Strathcona's fountain. But it will be soon.

She tells me all about herself. Her father — she doesn't remember him — was killed in the war. In his pictures he's very handsome. She'll show me sometime. Her mother died last spring. Tuberculosis. TB. She was tired all the time. Then coughing up blood. Gerty quit school to stay home and take care of her mother. She didn't go back. Now she lives in the house next door to the store with her grampa...

“I live with a grampa, too...” I say.

A grampa. It sounds so stupid.

We're silent walking along. She's waiting, I know, for
me to tell her everything about me. Fair is fair. But I don't. I can't.

Strathcona Park is almost covered in ice water. The snow is melting so fast that you can hear the water gurgling everywhere. They've already dynamited the ice on the Rideau River and the water is deep and fast. The river is full, bursting.

Sounds of water slurping, burbling everywhere.

And redwing blackbirds are back —
Konk-a-ree! Konk-a-ree!
— up and down the riverbank and in our ears. Cheap is glaring at the birds.

Gerty gets a little unfriendly because I didn't share.

“Why do you wear that shirt even when you're not working? Don't you have a shirt of your own?”

“Grampa Rip told me it looked good on me and so I put it on to come and see you.”

“For me?” She's friendly again.

“Yes.”

“It does look very good on you. With sleeves rolled and everything and so nicely ironed! Who ironed it?”

“I ironed it. Grampa Rip showed me. I can sew, too. And cook. I can cook. Grampa Rip says that a man who can't iron and wash and sew and cook is not a man as far as he's concerned!”

Gerty likes what I just said. I can see in her face the way she looks at me.

Thank you, Grampa Rip.

On our way back, Gerty walks beside me this time instead of on the other side of the bicycle.

In front of her house her little finger touches my little finger.

“When does the Pure Spring truck come back again?” she says.

“Not for another week or so, according to my boss, Randy,” I say.

“That's too bad,” says Gerty, and then with a small smile she blushes because of what she just said.

Cheap and I whiz like bullets home. We're late.

The maple tree is about to explode above the Gray Man on the bench in Dundonald Park across the street from our apartment on Somerset Street where the famous spy smasher, Igor, once lived.

I forgot to turn off the radio when I left today. Grampa won't like that. Wastes electricity, he says.

While I'm opening the door, Nat “King” Cole is just finishing up his beautiful song — “...we're not too young to know / This love will last...”

Now the violins and piano finish it off...

But no Grampa Rip.

He's late. He's never late.

Something's wrong.

Now there's noise outside. I open the door.

It's Grampa Rip. He's with a very short sandy-colored man in an army uniform that's too big for him. His nose is very red and his eyes are close together. His army boots seem way too big for him. He clicks his heels together and snaps to attention and salutes me. He's looking up at me, staring with his tiny eyes. Green eyes. The fingers of his
saluting hand are stubby and red and the nails are bitten down short. He holds his salute.

There's a bowl of pennies and nickels and dimes on the hall table. Grampa always puts his change in there.

“His name is Sandy,” says Grampa Rip. “He found me. I got lost. He brought me home. I'm tired. Give him fifty cents out of the bowl.”

Grampa pats Sandy on his sandy-colored head. Grampa's big hand covers the head.

“He's a friend of mine. We go away back. I'm goin' to bed.”

I give Sandy five dimes and he salutes again.

Then, down the stairs, his big boots bang-banging and he's gone.

8

“I'
M VERY
matutinal this morning,” Grampa is saying after reveille and an extra verse of “Up Lad” (there'll be time enough for sleep after you're dead). He's been up since 5:00 A.M. in the morning. Said he was starving after a wonderful night's sleep. Frying up a batch of pork rinds.

“Matutinal?” I say.

“Right!” he says. “Latin for the Greek goddess of dawn, Matuta! Very handy word. Impress your friends with knowledge. Be the most popular kid on the block!”

I get to the Pure Spring truck early. I look in the window and see my birth certificate on the seat. He's giving it back to me. I slip it in my wallet.

“You're early,” Randy says behind me.

“I'm very
matutinal
this morning,” I say.

“Yeah, right, smart ass! I figure I'd give your birth certificate back. I felt sorry for ya. You were sick and crazy there. I got worried. Maybe I was a bit hard on ya. Maybe
we can be pals? No hard feelings?” He puts out his hand. “Shake?”

I take my hand out of my pocket and put it out. His hand is small and hard and rough and strong. We shake.

“Pals?” says Randy.

“Mm,” I say.

I don't think I ever said “mm” in my whole life before. It sounds like yes but not quite.

Maybe Randy's not so bad after all. A liar and a thief, yes. But, so am I. So am I a liar and a thief.

We drive off. Lots of silence.

Then Randy: “What's this fancy word business? Why cancha talk English? Ya said you were
what
this morning?”

“Matutinal,” I say.

“Ma toot in al...”

“Greek goddess of dawn — Matuta. Means you like the morning. A morning person. I was up early because my Grampa Rip couldn't sleep because he was hungry —”

“Matoota! Well, why don't you just say you got up early? Why do you wanna say all this nutty stuff? I thought we were pals...my last helper was useless, he was lazy and stoopid and he picked his nose and ate it but at least he didn't come up with all this baloney about Latin words and Greek goddesses and crap. What's wrong with you anyway?”

Inside, I'm smiling. Two reasons. One. I'm making a list of everything we've ever stolen — the name of the store, the date, the number of cases, the method. Two, I'm smiling because of Gerty. Because of you, Gerty! Now I'm
not so afraid of Randy any more. I've got much nicer things to think about.

Randy is back on the subject of how charming he is.

“I like ‘em tall, I like ‘em short, I like ‘em skinny, I like ‘em chubby. It don't matter...they all come to Randy... they can't help themselves...”

I'm drinking my one free Honee Orange for the day and eating peanuts. Randy lifted two bags on our way out of our last store without paying for them.

Do stolen peanuts taste better than bought peanuts? Randy says they do. And, oh, they taste so warm, Gerty, it's like chewing sweet bark and the salt on them on your tongue and the crunchiness and the butternutty sunflowery orange smell of the oil on them and when you stick your nose right into the package you get all of it specially when you lick the salt, stick your tongue inside and lick the cellophane...and pour down the warm Honee Orange, down your throat until it feels smooth and sweet and it makes your nose squeeze up it's so delicious, and then you're not thirsty any more for a while and...what's Randy talking about now...?

“...tulips. Boy oh boy I can hardly wait for all those tulips to come up. You know what a tulip reminds me of?”

“What,” I say.

“Guess,” says Randy.

I can guess but I won't.

“I don't know,” I say.

“A woman's patootie, banana brain!”

Banana brain? Where does he get these brilliant sayings? Patootie?

“Anyway, the tulips in Ottawa when they come up they all come from Holland, did ya know that? I was over in Holland in the war. The women, the girls really loved old Randy over there, you know what I'm sayin'? Their favorite Canuck was yours truly and you better believe it. Near wore me out, they did! Come closer to killin' me than the Germans did and that's the truth!”

What was that last thing she said to me? Could you come to me sooner? No, it wasn't that. When will I see you again? No. She said when does the truck come again. I said a week or so. She said, “That's too bad.” What beautiful words. That's. Too. Bad. Like music.

Randy again: “But no more of that for Randy. Cause ol' Randy's married now. Settled down. Got the most beautiful...you ever see the movie
Neptune's Daughter
starring Esther Williams? Technicolor? Esther sells bathing suits. Designs them or something. Every five minutes she comes out in a new bathing suit. Drives ya crazy! This handsome guy tries to get her into bed. Sings her this stupid song about how cold it is outside. And, oh yeah, Red Skelton falls in the pool — he's the funny guy. Anyway, my new wife looks a lot like Esther...long legs, beautiful skin, lovely breasts.”