Joshua Then and Now

by Mordecai Richler

  “Seymour, you ought to be taking it easy. What in the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “Quick,” he had said, dropping his trousers, “we’ve got to change. I need your underwear.”

  “You’re out of your mind. Nothing will get me into those goddamn lace panties.”

  “Put them into your pocket, then. But I need your shorts,” he had said, tugging at Joshua’s belt.

  “It’s late-night closing. Try Simpson’s.”

  “Come on,” he had said, unzipping him.

  “What if somebody found us here like this, dear?”

  “No jokes, please.”

  So they had exchanged underwear, and Joshua had lingered at the bar until closing time, forgetting all about his car parked outside. And the next morning Stuart Donald McMaster had come to the house.

  Now Seymour was back in the hospital, the Jewish General, and Joshua went there directly from Morty’s office. A minor attack, Morty had said, but Seymour had aged, leaping a generation in ten days. His face seemed drawn, his eyes without heat. He had already lost twelve pounds and had been ordered to shed another ten. He had given up smoking and had been put on a salt-free diet. Seymour diminished. All the same, Joshua should have known better than to enter his room without knocking. A shapely black nurse leaped away from his bed.

  “Hi,” Seymour said. “I’d like you to meet Ms. Brenda Hopkinson. What a mind! Honestly, she’s one of the most intelligent women I’ve ever met. Brenda’s a Seventh Day Adventist. It’s fascinating. She’s given me a book to read on it. I’ll lend it to you.”

  “Excuse me,” Brenda said, leaving the room.

  “Pour yourself a drink,” Seymour said, indicating the bottles on his bedside table. “You’ll find ice cubes floating in the sink.”

  “You’re looking better.”

  “And you’re looking worse. If you’ve come here to depress me, go now. Your visit is untimely, to say the least.”

  “You know where I’m going from here?” Joshua asked, helping himself to a Scotch. “I’m going to the Royal Vic. I’m going to take Pauline off all that stupefying shit they’ve been feeding her in there. I’m going to bring her home.”

  “You mean she’s better?”

  “I’m taking her home. The hell with them. Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “On the contrary. I think it’s about time. Wait,” he said, pulling back his blanket and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “You could need help. I’m coming too.”

  “No, Seymour. I’m going alone.”

  “Come here.” Seymour hugged him, his eyes welling with tears. “Hey, you know what we are?”

  “What?”

  “We are the boys of Room forty-two. I’m going to cry. Go. Get out. No, wait. If you can drop by tomorrow, would you please bring me my black bag? I’ve got something in there for Brenda. And send her in on the way out, will you? Hey, Josh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We are the boys of Room forty-two.”

  Nurse MacGregor was not surprised to see Joshua at the Royal Vic. Bristling, she said, “Dr. Grant wishes to see you immediately. He will take no responsibility.”

  “I haven’t come to see Dr. Grant, but I have come to take responsibility. I’m taking my wife home.”

  “But Mr. Shapiro,” she said, the color drained from her face, “your wife left this morning. Isn’t she with you?”

  “My wife what?”

  “Oh, heavens! Oh my God! Come with me. Quickly.”

  Outside, Joshua dashed into the street, grabbing the first taxi to come along, and shouting out his address without even bothering to look at the driver.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t Denny Dimwit himself. I’m honored. I won’t have the back seat washed out for a month.”

  “I’m sorry,” Joshua offered in a failing voice, “that you have to drive a taxi at your age.”

  Uncle Oscar was sixty-nine.

  “What do you mean, sorry, I’m my own boss, aren’t I? My friends ask me what I do now, I tell them I go out at night, cruise around, pick up girls, and drive them home.”

  Joshua tried to light a cigarette, but couldn’t manage it, his hands were shaking so badly.

  “Aren’t you going to laugh?”

  He managed a laugh.

  “I pick up fares, you know, they see my name on the license plate there, and they ask if we’re related. I say, sure we are. They’ve read your stuff. Or they’ve seen you on TV. Once or twice they’ve given me big tips. More often they’re angry. They say, ‘You know, I think that guy is full of shit most of the time.’ ”

  “They may just happen to be right. Could you drive faster, please?”

  “Faster. Slower. We’re all heading for the same place. Six feet under. But you’re earning some living, I hear.”

  “Thousands.”

  “You know, Dimwit, that’s what I should of done. Become a TV personality.”

  “What you should have done, you old fart, was to hold on to your junk instead of breaking it up for scrap. You were sitting on a fortune all those years. Ha, ha, ha.”

  “Ha, ha, ha, yourself. Prick. I wasn’t going to become some faggola antique dealer, that’s your department in our family, isn’t it? Or haven’t you been listening to the radio today?”

  Joshua didn’t know what he was talking about and he didn’t care. They were on Wood Avenue. Home. Fumbling, dropping his money on the floor, an embarrassed Joshua managed to settle the fare and hurry into the house.

  “Pauline,” he called. “Pauline.”

  She wasn’t there, of course. But a troubled Susy told him the phone hadn’t stopped ringing since he left. The Star, the Gazette, the New York correspondent of the Daily Express. CBC, BBC. Reporters from Toronto. News of the World.

  10

  IN A STATEMENT READ TO BRITISH REPORTERS AND LATER repeated for the benefit of CBC-TV cameras, the young but as-yet-untested film-maker Ralph Murdoch declared that when he had sold his father’s correspondence with Joshua Shapiro to Rocky Mountain University, he had in fact been aware of its scurrilous nature. He felt that he could not destroy the letters because of their literary importance, and what they had to say about the nature of a love that once dared not speak its name. He did regret the many, possibly unsubstantiated references to the sexual predilections of literary figures who were still alive. He sympathized with their protests. But – and on this point he was most emphatic – the curator of the rare manuscripts collection at Rocky Mountain University had assured him, at the time of the purchase, that the correspondence would not be made available to scholars for at least twenty-five years. In response to a question that had initially been put forward by his stepsister, young Murdoch allowed that according to the terms of his father’s will he did share, with the other surviving children, in royalties from all future editions of his novels. However, he emphatically denied that he had leaked the letters himself in order to profit now. He also refused to speculate on how his father’s stifled passion for Shapiro had affected his subsequent life and work. As for the still-living Shapiro, or “Uncle Josh,” as he called him, he wished him no ill. On the contrary, he remembered him fondly.

  Dr. Colin Fraser, curator of the rare manuscript collection at Rocky Mountain University, could not understand who might have slipped into the library and surreptitiously photographed pages from the correspondence. To Alberta’s outraged minister of culture he justified the large fee paid for its purchase by saying that it was, after all, of some fifty percent Canadian content, and he had been unwilling to see it pass, like so many other national treasures, into eager American hands. Although Shapiro, he continued, could not be reckoned a writer of the first rank, he had written a book of some significance on the Spanish Civil War and was considered by many to be a sporting journalist of note. When asked if there had been many competing American offers for the correspondence, he refused to either confirm or deny this. “We are nobody’s cultural colony any more,” he said.

  Margar
et Robinson, Murdoch’s first wife and Ralph’s mother, and a well-known literary agent who still represented Shapiro, forth-rightly claimed she was in a position to say that neither man was homosexual. The letters, she insisted, were no more than a bad joke, written by two young men for fun and profit. “Wherever he is, Sidney must be roaring with laughter. But in Joshua’s case, there’s his family to consider. I’m afraid my son has behaved very badly indeed.”

  Dr. Fraser, apprised of Ms. Robinson’s comments, observed, “What else can she say? And, in any event, she has certainly not questioned the authenticity of the correspondence.”

  Reuben phoned Joshua the morning after the story broke. “Hey, Oscar says he picked you up in his taxi, yesterday I think it was, and you were too cheap to tip him.”

  “He’s right.”

  “And what’s this shit I’m reading in the Gazette? I buy it for the sports, not to read my son’s a pig.”

  Joshua explained. Then he phoned the senator in Ottawa, explaining again.

  “Sue them, my boy,” the senator said.

  “I’d rather not.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to.”

  Which turned out to be bad advice.

  Joshua, shoving past TV crews and reporters gathered outside his door, went to see Dickie Abbott. He had him issue a denial, as well as send a letter to Rocky Mountain University threatening to sue for slander and invasion of privacy. The considered statement Joshua typed out and handed to reporters won him some support. Then the roof fell in.

  Out of California, over the wires, there floated a photograph (slightly out of focus, copyright Ellen Markham Studios) which showed Joshua and Murdoch kissing at a Beverly Hills poolside. It was supported by a story that an enterprising Daily Express reporter had bought from a black chambermaid at the Century Plaza Hotel. Blessed with a retentive memory, she recalled that Murdoch and Shapiro had shared a room there one night. “I do hope I’m not getting anybody into trouble,” Mrs. Cartwright said, “because I sure know what prejudice is.”

  Esther’s photograph appeared in newspapers from coast to fabled coast. Standing in front of her Winnipeg massage parlor, she wore a sandwich board that proclaimed: MY SON’S GAY, BUT THAT’S O.K.

  The phone never stopped ringing, but Joshua didn’t dare switch to an unlisted number in case Pauline was trying to get through to him. Pauline, Pauline. Alex, who had begun to screen all calls for him, let Seymour through.

  “Hey, is that you, honey poo?”

  “It’s no joke, Seymour.”

  “I want my panties back. I want them right now.”

  The photograph of Joshua and Murdoch kissing had made page one of both the Star and the Gazette. There was another story on the sports pages. Players’ representatives from three NHL teams had announced that Joshua Shapiro was no longer welcome in their dressing rooms. “Hell,” one player was quoted as saying, “I’m still too ashamed to get undressed in front of my wife. How can we allow him in here any more?”

  A spokesman for the Canadian League of Homophiles declared that this was a clear case of sexual discrimination and proposed to lodge an immediate complaint with the Canadian Civil Rights Commission. Then a television producer, a friend, managed to get Joshua on the phone.

  “Come on, Josh. Give us a break. We won’t cut or edit. We’ll run your statement in full.”

  “Sorry. I’d love to appear on your show, but I’m washing my hair tonight.”

  “Do you want me to say that on the air?”

  “Say anything you like, love.”

  Early the next morning, he managed to slip out the back door without being seen. The snows were melting everywhere. Buds were fattening on the trees. Tomorrow afternoon all the regulars at The King’s Arms were going to the opening ball game at The Big O. Joshua made it downtown, where he wanted to speak to a detective he trusted about Pauline. Unfortunately, he ran into Eli Seligson outside his Guy Street office, Eli hurrying to catch a plane for Zurich.

  “I want to tell you something,” Eli said. “They’ve included one of your so-called essays in a book on my son’s reading list at school. I’ve written a letter of protest to the principal.”

  Joshua grabbed him, driving him against a mailbox. “Eli, your father was a black-marketeer and you are a shit. I hear your desk drawers at home are crammed with hot banknotes.”

  “Whatever I am,” he said, struggling free, “thank God I’m not what you are. Feh!” And he ran for a taxi.

  And right there, heaving with anger, Joshua decided to fix him. He would plant some vintage banknotes of his own in Eli’s desk. The police would find them after the break-in, obliging Eli to answer some embarrassing questions. Har, har, har.

  11

  STUART DONALD McMASTER WAS SPEAKING, SEATED opposite a watchful Reuben in a booth at El Ponderosa on the Decarie Strip. McMaster digging into his turf ‘n’ surf, Reuben sipping his V.O. slowly. “I remember the day exactly, a Tuesday, pissing with rain. I had tickets for the opener – my luck – laid on by that fuck Ginsberg of Upper Belmont. Rogers was supposed to pitch. You know how many games he’d win if he was with L.A. or Boston? Plenty. Shit, that’s some arm, and I remember Don Newcombe when he was with the Royals. Couldn’t take the pressure, that boy. El Foldo in the series every time. Rogers was supposed to throw, and there I was with Ginsberg’s box seats. So it rained. It was really pissing out there.”

  “Your luck. Yeah. Right.”

  “It was a couple of days after Pauline clean disappeared from the Royal Vic. There one minute, gone the next. Everybody jumping. Joshua hollering. Hoo boy!”

  Reuben nodded.

  “His wife taking off like that into the wild blue yonder. I don’t mean to pry, but have you any idea of her whereabouts yet?”

  “No.”

  “Geez, do you think she knows what kind of shit he’s in now?”

  “If she reads the newspapers, she does.”

  “Would you like us to try to find her?”

  “No.”

  “Look, Reuben, I hate to even think this, and sure as shit I wouldn’t say it to him. But we’ve been around. We know the score. What if she’s committed suicide?”

  “That’s possible.”

  “Hey, you’re some cool cucumber.”

  “Yeah. Right,” Reuben said, ordering another V.O. “You were saying there was no game.”

  “Yeah. No game. I mean, they weren’t going to cancel until the last minute, those boys. Oy vey, rain checks. Refunds, yet. And I couldn’t take my grandchildren to a movie instead, because there wasn’t one playing in all of Montreal where they weren’t showing fucking, between men and women if you were lucky, but more likely between women and women or men and men. But I don’t have to tell you about faggolas. You’ve got your plate full now, you and him. I’ve seen the pictures in the newspapers, you know. Who hasn’t? But I don’t believe a word of it,” he said, probing, unable to forget the black satin panties with the lace trim.

  “Good. Right. It was a Tuesday.”

  “Two days after Pauline had skedaddled. Anyhoo, I took the kids back to my daughter’s place. N.D.G. Benny’s Farm. Then I noticed one of our cars parked outside of Ma Heller’s, and I can do with a burger and a beer, so I pull over. And what do you know, but it’s Henri Lupien sitting there. Detective from my station. One of the best.”

  “Is that the one you had out following Josh all those nights?”

  “Nobody was following Josh. He imagined it. Anyhoo, I joined Lupien and I don’t know what started it, but suddenly we were talking about the break-ins in Westmount. The kinky ones. Somebody taking the trouble to soak the labels off Pinsky’s vino bottles. Somebody diddling with the bathroom scales in Dr. Cole’s house and altering the signature on his A. Y. Jackson. Etc., etc. We both agree that we are dealing with a real joker. Maybe even a psycho.”

  “Or maybe my son.”

  “And we decide, as neither of us has anything special to do, we will go back to the station and run through the fi
les one more time, just because it’s such a puzzle, and we are genuinely intrigued. We’re sitting there – mulling over the files, bouncing theories around, laughing a lot – when the call comes in. Ring ring. If it hadn’t been pissing. If I had been able to go to the ball game. Shit. There’s a prowler reported in the Seligson house on Edgehill. Eli Seligson, he’s one of your Jewish heavies. Very active in community affairs. Anti-Defamation League. Etc., etc. We bust a Jewish kid peddling pot in the Alexis Nihon Plaza and we hear from Seligson, you bet. The kid lost an uncle eight times removed in the Holocaust. He suffers from allergies. Don’t ruin the pecker’s life. Boo hoo. We catch a yenta shoplifting – we get a lot of that now, you’d be surprised – and Seligson’s on the line. Let my people go, blah blah blah. He’s an accountant, the big stuff, and the night the call comes in he’s in Geneva or Liechtenstein, registering kosher companies. The call comes in and I’ve got this gut feeling. My balls are tingling. My mouth is dry. I’ve been a cop for thirty years now, and your balls are tingling, you don’t ignore it.

  “Anyhoo, we take off for Edgehill and of course I still have no idea it’s him, and like a horse’s ass I don’t even notice the car down below, on the Boulevard, or I would have recognized it and so help me, we never would’ve gone in with our guns drawn. I mean, I would have known he wasn’t armed. I wouldn’t have been scared. But you take a prowler and you never know what you’re going to run into. Maybe he’s a psycho. Or stoned out of his mind. Stop smiling at me like that. I didn’t know it was him.”

  “You’re an honest cop, Stu. I know that.”

  “The rain’s belting down. Some pisser. Henri takes the back door, me the front, and we don’t know there’s another door in the dining room, leading onto a small balcony, and that he could jump from there. We count to ten, me in front, him in back, and in we charge. Gang-busters. He hears us. He takes off like he was shot out of a cannon. Through the dining room – onto the balcony – into the garden. Down the stone steps to the Boulevard and into his car. Vroom, vroom. We still don’t know it’s him. I swear we don’t. So we run for our own car and take off after him, the siren going, me with my gun ready. We are gaining on him as he turns into Lansdowne, hitting maybe seventy going down that hill, never mind the rain, the damn fool, and as we are approaching Sherbrooke I can see it coming like I’m already watching a replay. He’s going to charge through the red light and cars are already beginning to move across Sherbrooke. Wham. Crash. Bang. Dead bodies everywhere.”