Pure Spring (7 page)

I'm wondering what Grampa Rip would say about Randy. “This fella needs to have the inside of his head hosed out...” Something like that, probably.

“...legs long like Esther's, really narrow waist, nice
breasts like that, nice beautiful smile like that — except her hair...her hair is more thicker and curly blonde, golden blonde. You should see her in her Esther Williams swim suit. She has one, ya know. I bought one for her. I buy her everything. Did ya know. They like ya to buy stuff fer them. Nice stuff. They'll do anything for you if you buy them stuff. And praise their hair. They like that. You know what I'm sayin'?”

Oh, Gerty, I wish I was with you right now instead of this...this...

What Happened • Three

Y
OUR FATHER
was showing everybody the car he borrowed. Proud of it, he was.

“A brand-new '51 Buick, four-door sedan. One thousand, nine hundred and ninety-five bucks is what she cost!”

You remembered how worried was Horrors' face as you drove off skidding down the snow-packed street. You waved. Trying to say with the wave to Horrors not to worry. Everything will be all right with the car.

Your father driving off, never looking back.

Some of the neighbors were out in the street to say good-bye. Mrs. Laflamme was whispering to Mrs. Sawyer, “It's for the best. She hasn't been the same all this time — four or five years, is it? — since she lost the baby. And Phil is more and more of a burden...getting bigger
and bigger...harder to handle!”

“And she gets absolutely no help at home...”

“It will be hard for a while but it's best in the long run...''

“It's very sad, it is.”

Phil was in a good mood when you helped put him in the backseat. He had extra napkins on, in case. He had a rubber toy that squeaked when he squeezed. He showed it to you. His strange eyes. He has feelings, you thought.

Your mother was standing fussing with her clothes and her purse.

“Come on,” your father was saying. “Hurry up and get in! The next time we take you anywhere we'll leave you at home!”

Your father couldn't wait to get driving Horrors' new car.

Cheap was in the living-room window, saying goodbye.

Mrs. Laflamme would feed him. Not to worry.

You drove off. It had started to snow. Big flakes. Mild weather.

“Snowstorm coming. Doesn't matter to us, though. Not in this machine! We're going to find Highway 15. Then it's straight down 15 to Smiths Falls! It's a long drive. So just sit back and relax!”

You drove through the thickening storm.

Phil was happy squeezing his rubber toy, making it squeak and giggling and bubbling.

Your father, taking a sip from his small rye bottle, was singing.

Your mother sat staring straight ahead. Your father
singing. Happy. Another sip of his rye: “There's no tomorrow...when love is true...”

Another sip.

“What a beautiful machine is this car!”

Your father, the singer. They loved it in the tavern when he sang. If they only knew what he was like at home!

“There's no tomorrow / There's just tonight!...”

9

W
E ‘RE ON
Cobourg Street near where I used to live on Papineau. We go into Prevost's Lunch Room and Grocery where I used to go all the time when I was a kid with my friend Billy Batson. The ancient man is still sitting in the corner there in his highchair killing flies. I remember him. Hard to believe he's still alive. It's easy in the spring. These flies are very slow. They're not awake yet.

I'm a little surprised that Randy's not stealing from here but I don't say anything. Then we go down to the corner to St. Patrick Street Confectioners. Same thing.

Same thing happens in the other little store, Lachaine's. I used to go there on my way to school. It's right near Heney Park where an awful thing happened to me one time. A man named Mr. George hurt me there once. But that's over now.

“I've decided,” says Randy, “since we're pals and everything now, I'm going to take you home to my place for lunch.”

“Your place.”

“Yep, I live right down there. Number 60 Cobourg Street, Apartment 403.”

I look across at number three Papineau, the house where I used to live. And number five, where my hero Buz lived with his mother. And number seven where my friend Billy Batson used to live. And number one. Horseball Laflamme and his big family.

While Randy's talking to Mr. Lachaine I stroll down Cobourg Street to Papineau and try to look in the window of my old house, number three. I see a strange couch and a sad-looking table. A small airplane is droning in the sky over Lowertown. The sound of the droning plane makes me think of when I was a little kid, home from school, sick, lying in my mother's bed under the special comforter, sick with fever, wishing I was in that little plane going somewhere, anywhere, droning away, trailing my life behind me...

Randy's back.

“Bring your lunch up. We'll have lunch together.”

The truck is parked at the back of 60 Cobourg Street, under the fire escape. It's a big brown apartment building with dirty windows.

We go in. A little elevator shakes while it takes us to the fourth floor. We go down the dark dirty hallway to his door beside the garbage chute.

There's a rusty nail in the door — probably to hang something on — a wreath at Christmas, maybe.

We go in and we're in the kitchen. There are dirty dishes
all over the place and there's spilled food on the oilcloth floor.

“I want to show you something,” Randy says. We go in the living room and Randy goes over to a book shelf that's filled mostly with magazines and old newspapers.

There's a folder on the top shelf beside a clock that is stopped and covered with dust. He takes it down and opens it. There are some pages, a bit yellow, with funny-looking typing on them.

“‘Member I told you 'bout the Commie spy smasher, Igor? The Russians were gonna kill him because he squealed? Igor, who lived in yer apartment? Well, that night when he escaped, I stole these papers from a bag he had, a cloth bag with wooden handles. There's nine pages. All in funny letters. Probably Russian. Looks like lists or something. And some Ottawa places. And some Canadian names. I thought the papers would be worth something but Igor, he disappeared so...you know. You never know...might be worth something some day. Quite a coincidence, eh?”

He puts the folder back up beside the dusty clock.

Randy puts me back in the kitchen now. It's a mess. Dirty dishes. Leftover breakfast in the frying pan. Stained tablecloth. Sour milk in a milk bottle. Moldy cheese on the windowsill. Torn, dirty curtain.

Grampa Rip would be disgusted. “Are there bears livin' here?” he might say.

I sit at the table and set my brown lunch bag in front
of me. I've got pork sandwiches today. Pork and sweet mustard. But nothing to drink. I've had my one free drink for the day.

“Go down to the truck and get a Lemon 'N Lime for me and a Honee Orange for you.”

“But I already had my drink for the day.”

“Never mind that. Go! And when you come back sit by the window so you can look down and see the truck. Make sure no kids are around tryin' to steal drinks!”

Funny how crooks don't trust anybody.

I get back with the drinks and sit at the window and start eating my lunch while I'm watching the truck down there through the black iron fire escape.

The Honee Orange and the pork are good. And the sweet mustard.

Suddenly I see down there some kids around the truck. They are looking all around.

“I'm going down to the truck!” I shout. “There's kids going to steal!”

“Okay!” Randy shouts from the other room.

I go down and chase the kids. I tell them the driver is crazy and he has a gun. They run off.

I go back up the slow, shaky elevator.

I sit at the kitchen table with Randy.

“What do you think of Jews?” says Randy. This is going to be our lunch conversation.

“Jews? What do you mean, Jews?” I don't think anything about Jews.

“Do you know who Karl Marx is?”

“Does he work at Pure Spring?” I like to play dumb with Randy. Playing dumb makes me sort of invisible.

“No, dummy. Karl Marx is dead. A hundred years ago he dreamed up Communism. Karl Marx was a Jew. Jews with their crazy ideas. Why do you think Hitler tried to kill them all? He almost made it. You know why he hated them, tried to exterminate them?”

“Because he was crazy?”

“No, because he was a Christian.”

I nearly choke on my Honee Orange at this last bit of wisdom.

“Yes, a Christian. A Christian who loved Jesus Christ. And who do you think killed Jesus Christ? The Jews killed Jesus Christ. Killed our Lord. And now the Commies are making religion illegal!”

I'm going to forget about trying to eat the rest of my lunch. I think I'd rather be having a lunch date with Adolf Hitler than Randy.

Randy's rolling.

“Did you know that in Communist Russia today, this very minute, while we're having this educational discussion...”

Educational discussion?

“...this educational discussion, if you are caught praying to God in Russia they stick a tube in your head and suck out your brains and feed them to the pigs?”

That's it. I'm going down to the truck.

“Where ya goin'?”

“I need some air.”

“Having trouble with a little bit of reality there, sissy? Boy O'Boy with the fancy Latin words. There's lots you don't know.”

“Where's your wife?” I say, surprising myself.

There's a long pause. He's looking out the window. I'm heading out the door.

“She's gone shopping,” he says.

Up the street in Heney Park there are couples strolling, hand in hand, stopping from time to time to kiss. In the spring.

The redwing blackbirds are sounding like referee's whistles.

Oh, Gerty!

I have to tell you everything but I'm afraid.

And Grampa Rip, too. Tell him. What will he think of me?

10

T
HE TREES
are exploding. If you look at a tree and look away and look back, it's already bigger!

Gerty and I are on the streetcar. People are dressed up. It's Sunday. The sun is shining, the birds are chasing each other and chirping through the bushes, the church bells are ringing, people are sweeping and cleaning and the clothes on the clotheslines are dancing.

I rode my bicycle over to her place. We're taking the streetcar back to my place. Then we'll take the streetcar back to her place and then I'll ride my bicycle back to my place. Busy, busy, busy!

Even the streetcar conductor is whistling and humming a tune. Gerty and I know what it is. It's “Because of You” by Tony Bennett. The streetcar conductor isn't Tony Bennett. But that's all right. I do a little imitation of Tony Bennett (you sing high is how you do it): “Because of you the sun will shine...Forever...”

But my voice is too low and it cracks. Gerty laughs. I love the way she laughs.

She's wearing the little straw hat with the robin's-egg-blue ribbon and the rosebud-shaped bow.

Blue is her favorite color. A lot of her clothes are blue.

Outside my apartment there are two chickadees fighting over the hairs I stuck in the screen of our round bathroom window.

“That's a good idea. I'm going to try that. My hair is quite long so when I brush it there are good strong long hairs for nest building stuck in the brush,” says Gerty.

I know, Gerty. I could build a nest out of your hair and live in it the rest of my life, I almost say but I don't.

The apartment is warm because the oil furnace is still on. I hang up my jacket. Gerty has on a pullover sweater.

“I think I'll take this off,” she says. “Hold down my blouse at the back.”

I hold the bottom of her blue silk blouse at the back so it won't come up with the sweater while she pulls it over her head. Then she shakes her hair out, smooths down the front of her blouse and straightens out her blue ribbon.

“There,” she says and looks at me as much as to say, How do I look, and I fall into her eyes and drown myself there.

I bring her into the living room and we see Grampa Rip from the back in his huge rocking chair.

Gerty is looking around like she just walked into a
giant's museum. She's looking up at Grampa Rip's very large painting of the Virgin Mary and her son. The Virgin Mary is dressed in blue.

The chair moves and Cheap jumps off and then Grampa gets out. He's all dressed and ready to go to another funeral wake at McEvoy's. We're going to go, too. But lunch, first.

“How do you do, miss,” he says to Gerty and takes her hand in his big fingers. “I'm pleased to report that we're having pork hocks and fried potatoes for lunch on this lovely spring day!”

I'm a little embarrassed because I think that maybe somebody as beautiful and delicate and feminine as Gerty would be horrified at the big fat ankle of a pig covered with thick bristly tough skin squatting on a plate in front of her like a swollen toad.

“I like pork hock,” says Gerty. “My grampa makes the best pork hock in Sandy Hill. And he used to pickle them but since Gramma died...”

I can tell Grampa Rip likes her already.

“Well, young miss, you'll have to be very frank with me during lunch and compare your grandfather's hock with mine!”

While Gerty helps me set the table Grampa talks at the stove over the boiling hocks and frying potatoes with onions.

“You know, you have the same name as a famous figure in literature. Gerty McDowell. In James Joyce's great novel
Ulysses
, a very large whack of an important chapter is dedicated
to her. And I must say your appearance is remarkably similar!”