by Brian Doyle
Then we saw Denny walking across the floor toward her. Everybody was watching Denny. He was walking all wrong. When his right leg went out, so did his right arm. And then his left leg went out at the same time as his left arm. Everybody waited to see what would happen to him. When he got to her, he must have asked her for a dance. We saw her shake her head.
No.
Then Denny walked all the way back across the floor. It was a long walk. The floor seemed as big as the parade square at Uplands. Right leg, right arm. Left leg, left arm.
Poor Denny.
I left the dance and went to meet Fleurette at the Commerce door.
I had talked it over with Mrs. O’Driscoll and she had said it was a good idea.
I was going to buy Fleurette a present with some of the mysterious money.
I had on new underwear and new pants and new socks and shoes and a new shirt. Spoiling everything, I had on my long old raggedy coat and my galoshes with the soles flapping and the missing buckles.
We walked down cold Rideau Street and went into A. J. Freiman’s. The heat blasted us in the swinging doors. We went up to the third floor on the elevator. The elevator lady had on a braided uniform and a cute cap and she called out what was on each floor and then opened the two doors by pulling down the handle with her red-gloved hand and saying, “Watch your step, please,” but we didn’t have to watch our step because she hit it right on.
They kept the girls’ clothes on the third floor.
Over in the shoe department Fleurette told the man she wanted to try on some blue and white saddle shoes.
I saw the mother of a guy named Eddie I used to go to York Street School with. She was working in the girls’ dress department. She saw me coming over and came to meet me a bit. She asked me what I was doing in the girls’ clothing department, and I told her that a friend and I were buying some new clothes for her.
“Isn’t that nice,” she said. “Clothes are expensive these days.” I could tell that she was, in a kind way, really asking where we got the money.
“I saw you come in,” she said. “I think I know your friend. Doesn’t she live around Friel Street somewhere? Pretty girl. I’ve seen her.”
“We don’t live in Lowertown anymore,” I said. “We moved to Uplands Emergency Shelter. We got some money from a man my aunt knows.”
I knew it sounded strange when I said it. Eddie’s mother raised her eyebrows a bit. I wouldn’t have lied about it, but I didn’t feel like trying to explain to her what I couldn’t even explain to myself.
She was a nice lady, not too nosy, so we talked for a while about Lowertown and Uplands until Fleurette came over wearing her new shoes over her old woollen stockings and carrying her ripped galoshes and her coat. Then Eddie’s mother took her over to look at some more things and they disappeared for a while. I felt sort of silly standing around in the girls’ clothing department by myself. So I went over and played with the X-ray machine. I stuck my foot in and pushed the button. I looked through the glass. I could see the bones of my feet. They were a kind of green color.
When Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell came back she had on new blue and white saddle shoes, new pink lisle stockings, a new blue skirt, a new pink angora sweater and a new blue ribbon in her long curly black hair.
She stood in front of one of the tall triple mirrors and opened one of them a bit so she could see her back. Then she pulled the other one towards her a little so that she could see me looking at her. I turned the first part of the mirror so that I could see reflections of a million Fleurettes in the other mirrors getting further and further and smaller away.
They all looked beautiful.
A little way up Rideau Street, in front of the Chateau Laurier, we met Victor, the guy who ran the Tuck Shop, and his girlfriend, Virginia. Victor had on a silky-silver new bomber jacket with the white fur collar turned up, a set of shiny black earmuffs, a white silk scarf showing where his jacket was half zipped up, a pair of fur-lined gloves turned down so you could see the fur, smooth, light-gray gabardine draped slacks with a special stitched seam down the side, and open flight boots with the fuzzy white wool lining flashing when he walked.
He showed us his shiny-white even teeth as he passed by with Virginia.
Virginia had on a brown mink hat with the fur just down to her eyes, a long beige camelhair coat open at the throat showing her shiny necklace; the split in her coat made her long high-heeled cowhide black soft leather boots swish out when she walked. Her silver earrings glistened in the lights from the Chateau Laurier and the twinkling snow.
She showed us a big row of shiny-white even teeth as she passed by with Victor.
“Oh, my,” said Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell. “Oh, my!”, after they’d passed by. “That’s one of those dopes that comes over to our school and bumps into us and everything.”
We walked up to Rideau Street a little more, crossing Rideau Street Bridge, and stopped by Sir Galahad’s statue in front of the Parliament Buildings.
Fleurette was looking straight ahead.
“How do they get teeth like that?” she said. “Do they buy them or what do they do? Are they false teeth or what? Maybe they paint them on or something. Maybe they’re drawn on. Or they buy them at the joke shop or something. Bill’s Joke Shop.” She was talking like Mrs. O’Driscoll. Not talking sense. “My mother says it’s their diet,” Fleurette said. “What do they do, eat pearls for breakfast or something? Maybe they feed them oysters and grains of sand or...maybe they’re injected with something...maybe they get ground-up diamonds and put it in their food.”
She was in one of her Hi-Y moods.
As we were leaving the statue I saw a guy I sort of knew in Lowertown. His name was Tommy and he was with his friend Sammy. Fleurette and Tommy had a little conversation about Christmas. Fleurette was being really nice to him.
We went down Sparks Street to Bank Street and waited for the streetcar.
“Or maybe they take those sequins, those shiny things, and eat them in their cereal in the morning.”
The streetcar came along and it was jammed and we jammed on.
“Maybe they’re in the chiclet business. Maybe those are just chiclets!”
Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell calmed down a bit and smiled at me with her black eyes and after a while made me smile too and she put our two dimes in.
People were crowding and pushing, trying to get on and off at each stop while we moved deeper and deeper into the back of the streetcar. By the time we got to the Avenues we got a seat. By the time we got to Sunnyside Avenue by the Mayfair Theatre in Ottawa South and got up to get off, the car was only half full.
We got off at Coulter’s Drug Store and started walking down the rest of Bank Street towards the Uplands Bus Terminal. The running lights from the Mayfair Theatre made shadows move on the snowbanks.
The Uplands Bus Terminal windows were dripping with dirt. Inside, the rich people were near the door and the poor people were lying on the benches and standing around with their broken parcels and their bags.
As we were getting off the bus at Uplands I was telling her something about Doug and Mr. Tool and going berserk and everything, and suddenly Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell stopped and turned.
“Doug!” she said. “Doug is the name of one of those guys that come over to our school with all those dirty sayings and grabbing at us! Doug is that slimy-looking guy with the grease on his head. Doug! That’s your Hi-Y friend? That skinny, ugly guy! Do you know what he shouted at me last week? Feel Street! Did you used to live on Feel Street! You told him that! Nobody else knows that but you! You promised never to tell that!” She was screaming at me now. “You told him about Feel Street. What they said about me in Lowertown!”
“I didn’t!” I said. “I didn’t tell him anything about you. He was always asking me but I never said one word about you. Never!”
“You’re a liar!” she screamed. “Nobody else knows that but you. It must have been you!”
“I
didn’t!” I said. “Honest to God, I didn’t!”
“And I’m a liar too,” she shouted. “Did you know that? The man with the black hair? He’s my father all right! But he’s not like I said. Remember the cast on my mother’s wrist? And the man with the red hair? He’s not my uncle! He’s just a man. And there are other men who come over. And sometimes they bring presents or money. But I don’t know who they are! They bring ribbons maybe! Like you!”
She was tearing the ribbon out of her hair.
“You told about Feel Street! You traitor!” she said between her teeth. Her eyes were black as coal. “You blabbed all over...”
She threw the ribbon down in the snow and stomped on it.
Then she hit me in the face. Then she ran to Building Eight.
“Is that what you do?” I yelled after her. “Hit people?”
That’s all I could think of to say.
The next morning Mrs. O’Driscoll found all the new clothes in a pile in the hall outside our door.
14 Sixty-Four Pieces
ALL THROUGH CHRISTMAS and January and February and March Fleurette wouldn’t talk to me.
In science Doug and some of the other Hi-Y troublemakers were moved to another class. I only saw Doug a couple of times in the boys’ dressing room selling chocolate bars. Mrs. O’Driscoll said once she thought there was something funny going on about those chocolate bars and the Tuck Shop, but I didn’t pay much attention to what she said.
At Miss Collar-Cuff ‘s we were up to Book One Part Two of War and Peace, where two thousand Russian soldiers marched seven hundred miles to Austria and wore out their boots. That was four thousand worn-out boots. We were on page one hundred and twenty-five. One thousand three hundred pages to go.
Quite a big book.
One day I joined the library club and they gave me a job, one day a week after school, putting books back on the shelves.
One day in English class I told the teacher I was reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. He kept me after class and told me that being a liar would never make me a success in life.
One day Melody Bleach quit school and soon Denny’s pimples got a little better and so did his marks.
One day in guidance class I finished filling out the Hi-Y application form. Here’s what it said.
NAME: Hulbert O’Driscoll
ADDRESS: 210 Easy Avenue
PHONE NUMBER: Central 34141 (Tuesdays and Thursdays only)
AMBITION: Brain Surgeon
EXPERIENCE IN CLUBS: Library Club
AWARDS: Glebe Gymnastics Sweater
TEAMS: Gym Team
FATHER’S OCCUPATION: Doctor and Lawyer
MAKE AND YEAR OF FATHER’S CAR: Brand-New Cadillac
RELIGION: Lutheran
After gymnastics that night, Doug was in the boys’ dressing room selling chocolate bars.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “If you get that girl Fleurette to talk to me and get her to go out with me, I’ll get you into the Hi-Y even without an application form.”
“How did you know about Feel Street?” I said. I hated looking at his face.
“I was selling chocolate bars over at Lisgar Collegiate. There’s a guy there, my chocolate-bar partner over there, he knows her. He told me.”
“What guy?”
“A guy from where she used to go to school.”
“What’s his name?”
“Killer Bodnoff is his name,” said Doug. “Will you do it? Get her to talk to me and I’ll get you into the Hi-Y. No application form. I know your application form is a fake. I saw you put down 210 Easy Avenue. I checked. You don’t live there. An old lady lives there. Is it a deal? I can get you in.”
“No, it’s not a deal,” I said. “You’re stealing those chocolate bars, aren’t you?”
“Prove it,” said Doug, his eyebrow going up and down.
I had my application form in my pocket, and on the way home I stopped at the top of the Bank Street Bridge.
You can only tear a piece of paper in half six times. I took the Hi-Y application form out of my pocket and folded it in half. Then I tore it down the crease and put one piece exactly on the other. Then I tore them in half again. Now I had four pieces. Then I put the two pieces on top of the other two and tore again. Now I had eight. I did it again and had sixteen. Mrs. O’Driscoll once told me that no matter how big the piece of paper was, you could only tear it in half five or six times. If it was the size of Lansdowne Park or the size of Ottawa you could only tear it in half a half a dozen times or so. Then it would be too small to tear anymore.
I tore again and had thirty-two.
My fingers were hurting and I was swearing and crying, and I tore once more for sixty-four. That was all I could do. Mrs. O’Driscoll was right. Six times.
I threw the sixty-four pieces of the Hi-Y application form up in the air over the railing of the Bank Street Bridge.
They floated down like snowflakes and fluttered down on the broken black melting spring ice of the Rideau Canal.
15 Uranus
IT WAS near the end of May.
The next day was a school holiday because of a teachers’ convention so I was coming in on the Uplands bus in the afternoon to go to Miss Collar-Cuff’s. It was a strange time of the day to be on the bus. It was very quiet. In fact, the only other person on the bus with me was Mrs. O’Driscoll, who was going shopping.
When we transferred to the streetcar in Ottawa South, Mrs. O’Driscoll suddenly said she had some extra time so she’d be able to get off at Easy Avenue and come down to Miss Collar-Cuff’s with me for a short visit before she went ahead to do her shopping.
“Might as well have a look at her, see where my boy is spending a lot of his time,” she said out of the corner of her mouth.
I had a feeling of terror that maybe Mrs. O’Driscoll would spoil everything. Maybe she’d go into one of her long speeches or something. Embarrass me. Start talking about O’Driscoll and the war or say something about the money. Or start singing.
“Maybe you haven’t got time. Taking an extra streetcar might make you late for shopping,” I said.
“I’ve got lots of time. Never been late for shopping in my life. Not gonna start now, Hubbo, I can tell you that for sure. How can you be late for shopping?”
“Maybe Miss Collar-Cuff will be asleep. You won’t be able to see her,” I said.
“Yasso?” said Mrs. O’Driscoll, making a joke. “Let me worry about that. At least I’ll be able to have a look at this awful fancy house of hers. Give her some tips. Rearrange her furniture for her.” She gave me an elbow in the ribs. She was in a very good mood.
“Sometimes she just sits there. She won’t even talk,” I said, still trying to discourage her. “She never has visitors,” I said.
The streetcar was close now. Two stops to go before Easy Avenue.
Mrs. O’Driscoll was all of a sudden quiet and I could feel her stiffen up as I leaned over to ring the bell. She had an expression on her face that didn’t look like her. A blank expression. Looking straight ahead. Her hat straight on her head. She was almost like a photograph. Her eyes looking at nothing. Sitting straight in her seat. Her hands folded in her lap.
“Please don’t come,” I heard myself say.
Then the photograph spoke.
“You’re afraid you might be ashamed of me, is that it, Hubbo?” said the photograph.
“No! No, it’s just that...”
“Well, don’t you worry about it. I wouldn’t do that to you. There’ll be time to meet your Miss Collar-Cuff. Anyway, you’re right. I might be late for shopping. You’d better get going. This is your stop, isn’t it?”
The streetcar driver was looking at me in his mirror. Was I going to get off or what?
“Go on. I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Mrs. O’Driscoll.
I got off and watched the streetcar move along the track. I gave a little wave as Mrs. O’Driscoll’s window went by. She didn’t look. She was staring straight ahead with tha
t expression I had never seen before.
I felt like diving under the wheels of the streetcar and getting crushed.
I walked slowly down Easy Avenue and went into her rich house there. Miss Collar-Cuff was sitting reading while I hung up my coat and then went into the kitchen to make her some tea.
After a few sips of tea she put down her cup and said something that made my heart jump.
“Well,” she said, “one of these times you must bring your Mrs. O’Driscoll over for a little visit. I’d very much like to meet her.”
“Yes, Miss,” I said to Miss Collar-Cuff. “Would next Thursday be okay?”
After I read to her a little bit from War and Peace she fell asleep in her chair. I got up quietly and went into the den to spend some time with the books in there. About half an hour later I went back into the living room to see if she wanted more tea but she was still asleep. The fire was almost out so I went out to the garage to get some wood. I opened and closed the driver’s door of the Cadillac a few times to hear it chunk and I sat behind the wheel for a while.
When I came back in she was standing up, leaning on the back of her big chair. Her face was very tight and her lips were pressed together. And her eyes were staring straight ahead and glassy, like the lion’s eyes. I put my shoulder under her arm and my arm around her back and we went up the stairs together to her bedroom.
Then I went back downstairs and phoned her nurse.
I brought her some tea and cookies upstairs and then some juice and later some ice water but she didn’t want any of it. She dozed off while I read to her some more, and I tucked her in a bit and turned out her light and went downstairs to answer the door. It was the nurse, and after she went up to see Miss Collar-Cuff she came down and told me I might as well go home. She was going to call the doctor and stay the night.
When I got home I told Mrs. O’Driscoll Miss Collar-Cuff was sick. Mrs. O’Driscoll didn’t say much. She just gave me my supper and then went right to bed.
