Easy Avenue

by Brian Doyle

  Now and then the lights of a car passed evenly over the ceiling, and the bed lit up a bit, and I could see the lump in the covers about half way down where my feet were pointing up. And I felt the silk of the comforter with my hands and pushed my head just a little into the feathers of the pillow.

  And the light sometimes glittered off the gold door-knob of the door and the silver candlesticks in front of the mirror and the shiny brass posts of the bed and the copper statues of angels and eagles and the glittering mirrors.

  And the oak and mahogany furniture sat there solid and heavy and quiet.

  And sleep tried to come.

  Sleep tried to come quietly and silently slipping over me so I could slide down the long slide of sleep.

  Suddenly my eyes clicked open and I saw that the end of the bed was shaped differently in the dark. There was a shape between the posts. A person was standing there.

  A car went by and the light passed evenly over the ceiling and flashed off the gold and the silver and the brass and the copper and for a second over the face of Miss Collar-Cuff. And off the tears on her cheeks.

  “It’s all right,” she said, standing there. “It’s all right. I’ll go away in a minute. I just wanted to watch you sleeping. May I watch you sleeping?”

  I closed my eyes and waited.

  And then sleep came.

  What a job.

  A lot better than the Cinderella Book Store.

  10 Success

  DOUG HAD his bony, hairy arms across my notebook in science class. His greasy hair was stuck right near my face and he was making me sick. Also making me sick was the smell of the stink perfume some of the Hi-Y guys were pouring on Mr. Tool’s stuffed owl.

  Doug leaned over because he saw me filling out part of the Hi-Y application form. I had put next to the word ADDRESS, the words 210 Easy Avenue. When I saw that he saw me, I tucked the form into my science notebook with all the pictures of the grasshopper. Then he put his bony, hairy arms across my book.

  “Haven’t you got that thing filled out yet?” he said. “Do you ever take your girlfriend Fleurette anywhere? Where does she live? What do you do when you take her somewhere?”

  “None of your business, Doug,” I said.

  “Is she dirty?” Doug said. His eyebrow was moving up and down.

  “Doug, get your arms off of my notebook!” I said. I was going to say, “or I’ll punch your ugly face off!” but I didn’t. I guess I didn’t because I wanted to be in the Hi-Y and be a success. And Doug could get me in.

  After school while we were waiting for the Uplands bus I told Fleurette all about my job with Miss Collar-Cuff—the lions and War and Peace and my sort of dream in the big bed and how she came in the room to watch me sleep.

  “Oh, Hubbo,” she said, “you’re so good at things. Someday you’re going to be somebody. You’re going to be a big success.”

  On the bus we were snuggled up and I asked her if she wanted to go to the Mayfair Theatre on Saturday to see the movie The Jolson Story. I could pay our way.

  At home, when I told Mrs. O’Driscoll about Miss Collar-Cuff crying beside the bed she shook her head and looked very sad.

  “Poor thing,” she said, “all that money and so lonely and unhappy. Isn’t it awful? I wonder what O’Driscoll would say? I don’t know what he’d maybe say but I know what he’d probably do. He’d probably move in with her as a handyman or something and then get her to give him her checkbook and help her spend all her money and get her to put him in her will and inherit every cent she’s got and the house and the car...and that’s probably what he’s doing right now, sweet talking some rich old lady out of her vast fortune on some fancy ranch somewhere with oil wells and gold mines...”

  On Saturday at the Mayfair Theatre during The Jolson Story Fleurette started to cry when they sang the Anniversary Waltz about his parents who were married for such a long time and who were so happy and who loved each other. Then she said that I was really lucky because Mrs. O’Driscoll loved me so much and always thought of me and was always nice to me and did things for me all the time and hugged me all the time. She put her head on my shoulder and I started asking her about her family, and I asked her who the man with the black hair and dark eyes was and she said that he was her father and that he was very kind and that he had to travel around all the time because of his job but he always came home whenever he could and brought her and her mother gifts and loved them very much, and how he was a wonderful man. I tried to see her face when she was saying these things but I couldn’t because her chin was tucked in my neck. I asked her who the man with the red hair was and she told me that he was her uncle and that he would come over sometimes and bring gifts and see how they were and that he was kind and very funny and would tell them funny stories of things that happened to him in his travels. And her voice sounded different when she was telling all this and I tried to see her face but I couldn’t.

  We were talking so much that the people behind us told us to shut up and if we wanted to argue we should go somewhere else. Funny how sometimes when you are talking about private things people think you are arguing.

  After the show we saw the handsome Hi-Y guy who ran the Tuck Shop. He was with his girlfriend with the fancy clothes. I said hello to them as they passed by but they didn’t answer me.

  “Do you know them?” Fleurette asked. “What are you saying hello to them for if you don’t even know them?”

  I didn’t know what to tell her.

  A few weeks later I had guidance again and Mr. Stubbs was telling us all about success.

  He mumbled quite a bit and looked up at the ceiling and out the window and at his shoes a lot. He would start saying something about how to be a big success and then he’d mumble lower and lower until you could hardly hear him and then he’d be looking out the window and up at the sky and although his lips would still be moving there would be no sound coming out and all the kids would be saying “There he goes again,” and “Goodbye Mr. Stubbs,” and singing bits of songs like “Dream” and “Rock-a-bye Baby.”

  Then he would seem to wake up and look around the room at the blackboard and at his desk and at the students and at the door and at all the pictures on the walls of big successes like Napoleon and Prime Minister King and Shakespeare and Lassie, the famous movie star dog, and everybody. It seemed like he had just landed there from somewhere else, some other planet maybe, and was trying to figure out where he was. His shirt was always wrinkled and dirty-looking and his tie was tied so that the thin part was longer than the wide part and the shoulders of his suit were quite lumpy, as though there were golf balls or something stuffed in the lining. His fly was usually open part way, and there was always egg or soup or something on his pants.

  He didn’t look very successful.

  Then when he found out where he was he’d walk over to another part of the room and try again, telling us about how to be a big success in life.

  And the kids would be saying stuff like “He’s back,” or “He’s okay,” and singing parts of songs like “Hello, Everybody, Hello!” or “When the Lights Go On Again.”

  This day we had a test.

  He gave everybody a little piece of paper and told us to open our guidance books.

  There were two drawings.

  One was a picture of a doctor in a nice white lab coat. He was holding a clipboard and he had a stethoscope around his neck and a round metal disk on his forehead. He was very handsome and was smiling with a row of perfect teeth at a beautiful lady who was lying in a bed and smiling right back at him. Her hair was done up like she was all better and would hop right out of bed any minute now and go right to the dance with the handsome doctor.

  Beside it was a drawing of a garbageman carrying a big pail of stinking garbage over to a truck with another guy in the back standing there waiting to catch the pail up to his waist in garbage. The guy carrying the pail was bent over a bit with lines showing how sore his back was. There were flies swarming around his head and
sitting on his lips.

  There was a question under the two drawings: “Which would you rather be? A or B?”

  The test wasn’t too hard. We had to write down A or B on the little piece of paper and sign our name on it and hand it in.

  A was for the doctor.

  B was for the garbageman.

  As a joke I put down B and signed my name and handed it in.

  While we were reading a little story in our book about a crippled orphan who became a billionaire somehow, Mr. Stubbs was going over the pieces of paper we handed in. I saw him put one piece of paper aside. It turned out to be mine.

  At the end of the class while everybody was crammed in the doorway and trampling on each other trying to get out, I heard the name O’Driscoll.

  I stopped at his desk to see if I heard what I heard.

  “Come after school so that we can have a guidance chat,” Mr. Stubbs said.

  “But I have to go to gymnastics practice,” I said.

  “It’s compulsory,” he said. “You failed your test. You said B, O’Driscoll. The answer is A. A for doctor.”

  “But I just did it as a joke,” I said.

  “No you didn’t.”

  “No, really. I want to be a doctor. I only said garbage-man as a kind of joke. For a bit of a laugh.”

  “Not funny. After school.”

  “I could change it. I could put A down. I want to be a doctor worse than anything. It’s been my life-long ambition since I was about six months old to be a doctor. And not just an ordinary doctor. A brain surgeon. I want to cure everybody in Canada and be famous and rich and get the Nobel Prize for doctoring and have a statue of me in the park. And start my own hospital...”

  It was no use.

  Mr. Stubbs was already looking out the window again. His eyes were fogging over fast. He was gone on a long one this time.

  Later that day I found out that just about everybody in the class had put down B for garbageman.

  After school Mr. Stubbs and I started all over again.

  “You put down B for garbageman,” he said.

  “But I only did it as a joke. I don’t want to be a garbageman.” I looked at the clock. The gym team was already warming up. Tonight after practice the coach would put up the list of the eight guys who would make the team. Four seniors and four juniors.

  “What about all the others who put down B for garbageman?” I said. “What about them?”

  “They were only fooling,” he said. “Making a joke.”

  “So was I,” I said.

  “No you weren’t,” he said. He had his jacket buttoned wrong. He looked like he was going to fall apart.

  “You see, I know where you come from. You come from Uplands Emergency Shelter. You people have got to think about your future. You’ve got to be more ambitious. Look at these pictures on the wall here. You could be like Shakespeare or Prime Minister King or Napoleon. Or Lassie.”

  “Lassie’s a dog,” I said, but he didn’t hear me.

  He was off on his success speech. I waited until he really got rolling about success, and sure enough, he started mumbling and murmuring and his eyes rolled up and he was looking out the window up at the sky and mumbling himself into a real hypnotic trance. He was heading out on a very long journey. I waited until he was really gone and then I slipped out and ran down to get changed for gymnastic practice.

  After practice we all gathered around the bulletin board while the coach put up the list saying who made the team.

  My name was on the list.

  The next day in science class I secretly took out the Hi-Y application form.

  Beside the word TEAMS I wrote “Glebe Gym Team.”

  Beside the word TELEPHONE I put Miss Collar-Cuff’s number, and I put “Tuesdays and Thursdays only.”

  Beside the words MAKE AND YEAR OF FATHER’S CAR I put “Cadillac” because that’s the kind of car Miss Collar-Cuff had in her locked garage.

  11 Mysterious Money

  DENNY DINGLE was first in our class in everything but English. But he was always near the top in that too because I used to explain everything to him that we read.

  But suddenly something happened to him that made him come just about last in everything.

  A new girl came to class.

  And Denny started acting like the boy with no brain.

  She had on a very frilly blouse that you could see through. She had on a tight red skirt with a slit up the side. She had on silk stockings with seams straight up the back. She had on red high-heeled shoes. She had a tiny chain around her left ankle. She had bracelets around her wrists. She had a silver tiara in her long blond straight silky hair. She had lipstick on her very curvy lips and she had long eyelashes and she had rouge on her cheeks. And a black beauty spot beside her mouth.

  And big cold blue eyes.

  She walked very slowly, carrying her books, her chin up, not looking at anybody.

  Like a queen.

  When she came in the room, she came in last. Everybody knew she would be last. She came in, walking slowly, her high heels clicking on the floor, click, click, as she walked, the little wind she made full of perfume when she went by you, the sound of her jingling bracelets as she slid into her desk, the room so silent, as if a tiger had just strolled in and sat down.

  Her name was Melody Bleach.

  I looked over at Denny Dingle as Melody took her seat. He had a funny look on his face.

  The next day when Melody Bleach came clicking in, I watched Denny. He was looking at her, following her with his eyes. He looked like Melody had just hit him over the head with a big wet fish.

  The next day when Melody Bleach came in, I watched Denny. He was watching her, his mouth hanging open, his eyes glazed over, as though he were being hypnotized by Dracula.

  The next day, Denny wasn’t there when Melody Bleach came in. I knew he was at school because he was on the bus with me that morning. Something was wrong. Suddenly, just as we heard Melody’s bracelets jangling on her desk as she sat down, in came Denny. He had been following her. He walked in the room like a zombie. If he had been wrapped in bandages he would have been a perfect mummy. You could have snapped your fingers in front of his face and he wouldn’t have noticed.

  On the bus that night he sat there staring straight ahead. I felt his head to see if he had a fever. A little while later he spoke. I couldn’t hear him at first because of all the noise and arguing behind us. I put my ear up to his mouth.

  “I know where her locker is,” is what he said.

  He sounded like he just confessed to a murder.

  He sounded like he said, “I just murdered my whole family.”

  Poor Denny. He was in bad shape.

  The next day before class I followed him. He walked from his locker in the basement near the gym, up to the first floor outside the auditorium where most of our class was hanging around waiting for the assembly doors to open.

  He walked by while everybody stared at him and went up to the second floor and then to the third floor, to the lockers near the art room.

  Melody was standing with her locker door open, using the mirror that hung on the inside of the door. She was touching up her beauty spot with a makeup pencil.

  Denny stood behind her. She raised her eyes and looked at Denny’s reflection. Her eyelashes, when they came up, just about knocked the mirror off the door.

  “Do you like me?” she said.

  Denny’s lips moved, but nothing seemed to come out. His face was the color of ashes, which made his pimples stand out like little red lights.

  “Am I pretty?” said Melody Bleach, going back to work with her pencil.

  She had her tongue stuck out a bit. Some people do that when they concentrate. Suddenly I remembered her. She used to go to York Street School. She used to stick her tongue out like that when she tried to write. Her parents must have gotten rich or something, because where would she get all the fancy clothes? I remembered everybody used to say that she wet herself sitting
in her seat in grade three.

  “Do you think I’m pretty?” she asked Denny again.

  “Yes,” Denny said, tearing his eyes away from her reflection and looking down at his feet.

  “Come here,” said Melody, pointing to the floor beside her. “You may carry my books.” On the floor her books were piled in a neat stack, the math set and the pencil box on top.

  Denny picked up her books and followed her down the hall.

  But that afternoon, something happened to me that took my mind off Denny. And off almost everything.

  We were in English class.

  Chubby came to the door while the Hi-Y guys were doing their humming song. They were all staring at their books pretending to read but humming. Whenever the teacher came down the aisle to try and find out who was doing the humming, another Hi-Y guy would start on the other side of the room.

  Chubby came to the door and said something to the teacher. Then the teacher looked down at me and nodded, and then came part way down the aisle and pointed at me and told me in a sort of a whisper that the principal wanted to see me.

  The Hi-Y guys hummed a little tune to go with my walk to the door.

  Chubby was out in the hall leaning a lot on his cane and puffing. He said that we had to go down to the office because there was something important. I thought it was because of the humming and that I was being blamed for it.

  All the way down the stairs I was planning what I would say. I was going to tell Chubby about how we were taking the same story for months now, and how I’d read it so many times I almost knew it off by heart. So that he wouldn’t think I was wasting my time humming.

  I thought that if I made conversation with him, got him talking while we were going downstairs, it would take his mind off the pain. He was so crippled. And there was sweat on his lip.

  “What do the words Alere and Flammam mean?” I asked Chubby. Alere and Flammam were the two words written in stone on the shield over the front doors of the school.

  “Alere Flammam is Latin,” said Chubby as he struggled down each step. “It means ‘Kindle the torch’ or ‘exalt the flame’ or ‘hold up the fire’...” We were almost at the bottom of the stairs. “...or ‘raise the torch’ or ‘brandish the spark’ or ‘ignite the lamp’ or ‘elevate the ember’...that sort of thing.”