Once Upon a Time in West Toronto

by Terri Favro

  That’s when the panic sets in. He tries to scream and sit up. He smacks his forehead against the smooth surface and falls back to the ground. He reaches up, touches the solid roof above him. His fingertips tell him it’s cold and smooth. A metal table, he thinks. The canning table at the end of the cellar.

  Calmati, says the voice again. Marcello closes his eyes.

  By the time Ed drives Ida to Atlas Avenue, the street has been barricaded. He slows the car as they drive past. They see fire trucks, police cars, Consumers Gas vans, a Toronto Star car, and an ambulance parked in front of the exploded house, the street and sidewalk littered with debris.

  Now that the gas has been cut off, neighbours come drifting back: women in aprons who were in the middle of preparing the noonday meal when the gas men told them to get out now!; old men in undershirts and bedroom slippers carrying rolled copies of Corriere Canadese; kids who keep climbing on the barricade to be shooed away by cops. Photographers from the newspapers shoot off rolls of film while a man with a notebook talks to neighbours wandering along the barricade. They try to explain to the reporters what they heard, what they saw, in a mixture of Italian, English, and hand gestures. Many of the women are crying. Some stand just outside the barricade with rosaries. Word has spread that that nice young abruzzese, the big guy with the pretty wife, living just over the way next to the Agnellis, is trapped under the house.

  Ed finally finds a parking spot, about three blocks away on St. Clair. “Now, Ida,” he says, turning to hold her hand. “You stay here with Georgia and I’ll go tell them you’re Marcello’s —”

  Ida throws open the car door and runs.

  “Could have predicted that,” says Georgia, raising an eyebrow at Ed.

  The two of them take off after Ida. Ed is impressed by how quickly she can run in heels. When she reaches the barricade at Atlas and St. Clair, a cop grabs her arm, motioning to get back.

  Ed catches up as she pleads with the cop: “Please sir, my husband is trapped in the house, you must let me through.”

  “It’s too dangerous, ma’am. You go home for now. Could take a while to get him out.”

  “I won’t leave without my husband,” says Ida, gripping the barricade.

  The cop looks at the chaos around them, then to Ida in her Air Canada uniform. He motions over a fireman.

  As Ed rushes up, panting, he hears the cop say, “…The guy’s wife…” and the fireman, glancing at Ida, responds, “We’re gonna need her, eventually. For identification. Has she got people with her?”

  “Right here,” says Ed, raising his hand and seizing Georgia’s. “We’ll look after Mrs. Umbriaco.”

  One of the neighbours, an elderly man, recognizing Ida, shuffles over with a lawn chair. “You sit, missus,” he says, putting the lawn chair firmly on the ground next to her. “My wife and me go to church and pray for Marcello. He save his friend.”

  “Grazie,” whispers Ida nodding her head at the old man, then takes his hand and kisses it.

  Ida sits in the lawn chair, a tiny, blonde spectator in an Air Canada uniform watching from the sidelines, Ed and Georgia on either side of her. They wait.

  As the work crew starts debating whether to use a backhoe to shift a piece of roof, Ed notices a grey-haired guy in a hacking jacket and riding boots, standing on the edge of the debris field to watch the rescue effort. The guy looks ridiculous, as if he was off on a Sunday morning steeplechase.

  Ida stands up and strides towards the man and taps him on his shoulder. When he turns, she hauls back and slaps him full in the face. Although she’s about half the guy’s size, he staggers back, but it’s not clear whether he’s hurt or just surprised.

  “Faccia di stronzo!” Ida yells at him. When she hauls back to slap him again, Lou Agnelli rushes up to lead her away. Ida tries to fight him off but he holds her by the arms.

  A reporter from the Star clicks his camera shutter.

  It’s the Feast of St. Arturo, also known as the Weeping Saint. When Mass lets out at St. Lucy’s, neighbours start to wander up to the barricade, dressed for a celebration. Father Dave Como is among them, his red head bobbing above the others as he muscles his way through the crowd. He’s wearing jeans and a black clerical shirt and collar as if he was half in, half out of his cassock when he heard the news. He carries a small black case inside of which, Ed suspects, are bottles of holy water and olive oil, a prayer book, and a stole. The tools of last rites.

  “Marcello’s … wife … is here, Dave,” says Ed, giving the priest a look and nodding at Ida.

  Dave crouches down next to her. “Mrs. Umbriaco? I know Marcello. Do you want to pray with me?” he asks.

  She shakes her head but clings to his hand. “You go ahead. I just wait for Marcello.”

  In the fifth hour, Marcello tries to move his legs and arms to keep the blood flowing, but his body is beginning to feel like a sack of lead sinking into the earth. The air smells like rosewater. Marcello feels peaceful. He could die like this, right now. He thinks he just might do that.

  The rosewater fragrance is disappearing, replaced with the odours of earth and oil and dust. Marcello can hear a roaring sound. Some type of machine. Voices sink down to him from above, muffled and distant, as though he’s underwater.

  “I’m here!” he tries to shout. It comes out as a croak, but louder than he thought he could manage. He starts banging with both fists.

  The metal slides to one side, then rises straight up. The light of the setting sun slices painfully through the edges of Marcello’s vision. Like watching the end of an eclipse. He turns his face away from the light. There’s another sound now; he hears it faintly. Drums or a flock of birds. No, it’s clapping.

  Marcello’s rescue makes the national network TV news twice that day: at six p.m. (when the rescue is still underway), then again at eleven p.m. (by which time Marcello, against doctor’s orders, has released himself from the hospital with antibiotics and eye drops; by news time, he’s drinking beer with Lou and listening to the rescue on the Agnellis’ TV set, since he and Ida don’t have one of their own). Although Marcello can still scarcely see or hear, he enjoys it when Lou turns up the sound of the crowd clapping.

  “It’s like something out of a damn movie,” laughs Marcello hoarsely.

  The story goes out in time for the dinnertime news: “Today was supposed to be a happy day in the Corso Italia neighbourhood at Oakwood and St. Clair West—the Feast of St. Arturo di Napoli, known as the Weeping Saint. But for the Umbriacos, Ida and Marcello, of Barrie Avenue, it turned out to be a day of heroism, near-tragedy, and triumph…. Our reporter speaks with the wife of Marcello Umbriaco, the brave Italian-Canadian workman trapped in the rubble, a young man working his way through university, trying to better his station in life when pressure by an impatient customer caused corners to be cut and a terrible tragedy to occur….”

  And so it goes. The story has everything. The hard-working immigrant. The uncaring rich guy. The feisty wife who just happens to be a sexy stewardess. The tragedy. The rescue. The neighbours gathered at the barricade who say that Marcello’s survival was as much a miracle as the real tears wept by the image of St. Arturo. Some of them swear that Marcello talked to the Saint Arturo the whole time he was buried, while others claim he was comforted by the Holy Ghost itself.

  The news report is picked up by broadcast affiliates across eastern Canada and down through the Niagara Frontier of Western New York state, making Marcello a one-day hero in the Golden Horseshoe, Buffalo, Tonawanda, Cheektowaga, all the way down to Rochester.

  Inside the house, Lina Agnelli posts herself on a chair under the kitchen phone with a note pad, taking messages from some callers, letting others speak with Ida immediately, like those nice people from the radio show As It Happens. Waiting for Marcello to return from the hospital, Ida sits at the kitchen table with Ed and Georgia, drinking homemade vodka dropped off by a Ukrai
nian family who moved in a few blocks west of the neighbourhood.

  “Very good for the nerves,” Lina assures Ida, refilling her glass.

  No one on Barrie Avenue goes to bed that evening. After the late news, Marcello and Ida sit on the Agnellis’ front porch with a crowd of neighbours who want to shake Marcello’s hand and chew over the events of the day. Ida keeps trying to get Marcello, slouched in Mrs. Agnelli’s chaise, his eyes wrapped in gauze, home and into bed. He keeps refusing.

  “I just want to stay out here in the open, breathe the air, and talk,” says Marcello hoarsely. “Could you get me another Carling, cara?”

  By two a.m., most people have drifted home. Best damn festa of Sant’Arturo we ever have is the general opinion.

  Ida finally manages to get Marcello—who is more than a little drunk—into their half of the semi. After guiding him to the bedroom, she places a hand on his forehead. “I’m frightened,” she says.

  Marcello yawns. “What for, frightened? It’s all over.”

  “I let people take my picture and yours. I told everyone where we live. Men from the Star. And someone from—come si dice?—the CBC. I was so upset, I talk, talk, talk, telling everyone our business! Now everyone knows where we live. Maybe they recognize us, even with the new name.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” mumbles Marcello.

  “But they know how to find us. Maybe we should move, go to another city…”

  “Let them come,” he answers, and drops into sleep.

  7. ZOO STORY

  TORONTO, COLLEGE AND SPADINA, 1975

  OCTOBER BRINGS STEADY RAIN. A curtain of grey fog hangs across the Toronto skyline for days on end, obscuring the needle-like tower rising on the waterfront. Benny’s crew stands at the curb empty-handed. No one wants their car washed in dirty weather.

  With no money coming in, Benny’s stash inside I, Robot grows thinner. Vera makes things worse by convincing Benny to take Claire to Doctor’s Hospital for a checkup. A nurse takes blood from her arm, then shoos Benny away and sends Claire into a white-curtained cubicle. She shuffles back into the waiting room with a tear-stained face and a sheaf of papers, which she silently hands to Benny, who shows them to Vera when they return home.

  “Mostly vitamins,” says Vera, frowning. “Your little lady must be anemic.”

  “The nurse said something about sugar in her blood,” says Benny, staring at the mysterious scribble on a prescription.

  Vera gives him a serious look. “Diabetes? That ain’t good for a pregnant girl.”

  Benny shrugs. He tries not to let on to Vera how worried he is about Claire. She’s gone from being a skinny, smart-mouthed, knocked-up teenager to a bloated, lethargic lump of a woman who barely speaks or moves. Her ankles are so swollen, she can’t lace up her shoes. Her face has taken on the taut, shiny texture of a boiled egg.

  Claire says the doctor wants her to come back to the hospital for more tests, but she refuses. “That asshole stuck something cold up me, Benny,” she whimpers.

  He doesn’t bother Claire about medical stuff again, until Vera urges him to get her prescription filled: “The baby could be born sick if your girlfriend don’t look after herself. Better do what the doctor says.”

  Benny slowly walks Claire to the Shoppers Drug Mart at Bloor and Spadina to search the shelves for folic acid and iron. As they wait in line at the pharmacy counter to pay, Benny casually slips a bottle of aspirin in his pocket—might come in handy when Claire’s labour pains start. Then they go to a health food store where an emaciated hippie charges them two bucks for a bitter-tasting energy tea—Vera’s idea. Benny feels ripped off, but it’s impossible to steal anything in the tiny shop.

  “Fat as she is, she looks like a ghost,” says Vera. “Anyone can see your girlfriend needs a boost.”

  Benny worries the next boost is going to be out into the street. I, Robot only contains a few more bills. If he can’t earn money, he won’t be able to make the rent, and he and Claire will be evicted.

  He’s down to his last ten bucks when a green Volkswagen bug pulls into Gentlemen’s Hand Touch, the first customer they’ve seen in days. As the car rolls out of the spinning brushes and Benny rushes up to wipe down the chassis with his shammy, he recognizes Scott behind the wheel. He and the other men rub the hood and doors for everything they’re worth. When Benny cleans the driver’s side-view mirror, Scott cranks down the car’s tiny window.

  “I’ve got a job. There’s a hundred bucks in it.”

  Benny hesitates. Since meeting Scott, he has spent many afternoons in his house—on the butcher block, the bed, even on his writing desk. Every time, ten dollars appeared without Benny even asking. If it weren’t for Scott’s ten-spots, Benny and Claire would have been flat broke weeks ago.

  But a hundred bucks? What the hell more could he possibly do to Scott to jack up the going rate that much? Benny is almost afraid to find out.

  “When?” asks Benny.

  “Around three this afternoon,” says Scott. “Is there somewhere I can pick you up?”

  “MEAT,” says Benny. “Right around the corner.”

  Scott nods, rolls down the window, and drives the bug away. But first he tips everyone on the crew two bucks apiece.

  Don stuffs his two-dollar bill into his pocket, lights a cigarette, and blows the smoke at Benny. “Who’s the fag?”

  “Some writer,” says Benny. “He’s always getting me to haul junk out of his house.”

  “Guess he’s too delicate to do the job himself,” says Don, and snorts out a laugh.

  Under the striped awning of MEAT, Benny shivers inside his plastic windbreaker. Nerves, he thinks. He wishes he had enough extra cash to buy a pack of smokes. He’s thinking of bumming one off the dark-eyed guy with the slushy accent at the Portuguese clothing store when Scott pulls up in the bug, sending a wave of backed-up sewer water as high as the store’s awning. As they drive off, Benny notices the butcher barrelling out the front door of MEAT to give Scott a piece of his mind, but they’re already too far away. In the side-view, Benny can see the guy shaking his fist at their disappearing rear end.

  First thing Scott does, thank God, is offer him a cigarette.

  Benny lights up, inhales, and asks, “Where we headed?”

  “North,” says Scott. “Do you know what writer’s block is?”

  Benny shakes his head and grips the edge of the seat. The little car’s underpowered engine sounds like Prima’s old sewing machine as it grinds its way to top speed to merge with traffic on the parkway. Benny spots a sign reading DVP SCARBOROUGH, followed by another with the silhouette of an antlered animal—a moose, maybe, or a deer?—outlined in white against a green background. Where the hell are they going? He’s never been north of Bloor Street before; the other guys on the crew always claim that everyone north of Bloor is richer than God. Good place for B&Es, confirms Don. But he doesn’t think that Scott is taking him to a break and enter.

  Having finally merged the bug into the slow lane, Scott says, “Writer’s block is an unforgiving bitch. A cock tease. You ever wanted to do something in your life very badly and just couldn’t find it within yourself to do it?”

  Benny remembers that day in the shed with Rocco. His abandoned plan to go out west and find Marcello and Ida. His desire to take revenge one day on the guys who have hurt him, especially Frank Andolini, and that sadistic jerk from Hamilton with the cake and the air-conditioned Caddy. Of course, Benny doesn’t really think of these as failures but rather delayed goals. There’s still lots of time for revenge. He could try to make Scott feel good about himself by admitting his own disappointments, but Benny doesn’t feel like making himself look weak. In fact, Scott likes it better when he’s tough and hard, when he acts like what Scott calls “the big dog.”

  “If I really want to do something, I just do it,” lies Benny. “So, no, I don’t know what the fuc
k you’re talking about Scott.”

  Scott makes a little sighing sound. Benny can tell he’s getting excited. “That’s what I like about you, Ben. You’re always so sure about things. That’s why I know you can help me. See, writer’s block is stopping me from finishing my book. And if I don’t finish my book, what am I? I can’t write, can’t get my wife pregnant—what am I good for, Benny?”

  Benny lights a new smoke off the end of the old one. “Fucked if I know.”

  “Well, here’s the thing. I figured out a way to get past the block. I went to see a psychotherapist.”

  “A shrink,” says Benny, who has read the word somewhere, probably in Arthur C. Clarke. That guy’s always writing about intellectual shit.

  “Right. Know what he said? That I should find a way to act out the scene I’m trying to write. You’re going to help me.”

  Benny scratches his head. He’s getting a hundred bucks to play-act a scene from a science fiction book? “Sounds like fun,” he mutters, but his stomach clenches. There’s something about this that is beginning to remind him of some of the weirder stuff Niagara Glen Kowalchuk used to make him do.

  “Oh, it’ll be fun all right,” nods Scott. “But a little dangerous too. Guy like you, though, you don’t mind a little physical risk. Right?”

  “Of course not,” says Benny, alarmed.

  “It’s just you look so much like my hero,” says Scott, sounding a little too excited. “That’s one of the first things that struck me when I met you. How much you looked like Giro.”

  “Like who?”

  “Giro. He’s the hero in my books. It means ‘I travel’ in Italian.”

  “I know what the hell it means,” Benny snaps back. “What does Giro do in this book of yours?”

  Scott laughs and pats Benny’s thigh again. “Hand-to-hand combat with wild animals. But don’t worry. They will be well fed by now, so chances are all they’ll do is burp in your face.”