by Brian Doyle
I looked straight into her eyes and said I had twenty cents when we started.
“Then Lenny,” she said, “you’ll give Martin back seventeen cents and never, never GAMBLE again!”
“But,” Lenny said, “it wasn’t seventeen cents, it was only ten cents. I won only ten cents from him!”
Lenny was looking down at Miss Gilhooly’s big shoes and then up over her shoulder at the Union Jack flying over York Street School and his mouth was acting funny and his face was in pain.
“You’re lying, Lenny,” Miss Gilhooly said very quietly. “Now, you’ll give Martin back his seventeen cents immediately or we go to the principal.”
Of course, Lenny didn’t want to go to the principal and get tortured and maybe executed so he gave over the seventeen cents.
On my way home going past Provost’s candy store I remembered something awful.
That morning I had two dimes that I found in the gutter just outside our house and I spent seven cents of it on a big Crispy Crunch chocolate bar and got a toothache for a while chewing away on the whole thing on my way to school.
So I really had only thirteen cents when I started GAMBLING.
Lennie was not lying. I was the liar.
I told my granny about it. She told me I have the kind of beautiful face that people will always want to believe. People want to believe what a beautiful face says.
And nobody will ever want to believe what Lenny Lipshitz says.
“Does that mean I always have to tell the truth?” I asked my granny.
“Yes,” she said. “Telling the truth is best.”
Then she said that I was a beautiful, beautiful boy and I’d have to learn to live with that the rest of my born days.
While I’m waiting for my mother and Phil to come back from the bank, I’m looking through my pile of National Geographic magazines — the ones that my granny used to bring over when she was finished reading them.
My favorite is the one about the Aztecs, the Nahuatl people of Mexico long, long ago. The Aztecs, every spring, would take the most beautiful boy of the tribe and give him presents and wonderful food and expensive clothes and money and parties with beautiful girls and music and rub him with oil and give him a crown and have a big parade for him and then at the end of it they would stretch his beautiful naked body across a golden altar and the priests would hold him down stretched out on his back as far as they could stretch him while everybody watched and prayed and with a silver knife they would cut out his heart and lift it up to give to the gods. So the crops would grow.
There was a colored painting of the altar and the Aztec priests cutting out the heart of the beautiful boy.
The knife and the blood.
4
Mr. George and the Choir Cat
MY MOTHER and Phil are back from the bank. Phil is howling and acting up. My mother gives me a whole dollar.
“Go up to Lefebvre’s Shoe Market and get yourself a pair of running boots. They’re ninety-nine cents. You can keep the cent left over. Those two women, two officials from the Assistance, seem to think you’re not being brought up right. Neglected. You’d think they’d have the common decency to wait at least till after the funeral to come and load this on me. Bunch of busybodies.”
My mother sits on the chesterfield. She’s tired and her eyes are red. She’s sitting on the part where there’s no spring sticking up through.
There’s a baby in her belly that’s going to come out soon.
I walk up Cobourg Street past Heney Park on my way to sing in the Protestant choir. Billy Batson is with me. We’re both supposed to be the summer boys in the choir. We take the places of some of the regular boys who go away from Lowertown all summer to their uncles’ farms or to their shacks and cabins along the rivers.
Were supposed to be Mr. Skippy Skidmore’s summer boys.
Mr. Skippy Skidmore is our music teacher and choir master at York Street School. While I was singing in the school choir Mr. Skippy came right over and stood beside me and put his hands in my curly hair and put his ear down close to my mouth and listened to just me while practically the whole school was singing in the gym. We were singing “God Save the King” or some song like that.
Billy said Mr. Skippy did the same to him.
Billy Batson makes me laugh. He has the same name as the boy in the comic books who can change into Captain Marvel.
In the comics, a homeless orphan called Billy Batson meets a wizard who gives him a magic word to say. The word is SHAZAM!
S is for Solomon equals wisdom
H is for Hercules equals strength
A is for Atlas equals stamina
Z is for Zeus equals power and leadership
A is for Achilles equals courage
and
M is for Mercury equals speed.
The homeless orphan Billy Batson says SHAZAM! and then there’s a picture that says BOOM! and Billy changes into Captain Marvel who looks a lot like Fred MacMurray, the movie star, except for his clothes. Captain Marvel has a tight red suit on with a yellow belt, yellow cuffs, yellow boots and a white cape with yellow trim.
And on his chest is a yellow lightning bolt.
When my friend Billy sees danger or needs help or is afraid or wants to help somebody in trouble or gets into a fight on Angel Square on the way to school or gets excited about something he says the word SHAZAM! and shuts his eyes and waits.
Of course, nothing happens. Nothing goes BOOM! and he doesn’t change into Captain Marvel, but he says the word gives him supernatural powers and makes his brain swell up like Captain Marvel’s chest.
We walk up Cobourg Street past Heney Park where last winter the little boy got run over by a coal truck after he slid on his cardboard sleigh down off the hill onto Clarence Street.
Then we stop to look in Radmore’s pet shop window, the filthy window on Rideau Street, at the kittens and puppies and rabbits in there. This is where they got Cheap, my cat, last year for my birthday.
I am thinking about how, after Mr. Skippy listened to my voice and choir was over and I went to math class, our math teacher, Ketchy Balls, gave me a piece of paper with a note written that said I was supposed to come to St. Albans Church when the summer holidays started and sing in the choir there. The note was from Mr. S. Skidmore. Did the S. stand for Skippy?
After Ketchy Balls gave me the note he hit me on the legs with his secret stick.
He keeps a stick shoved up the sleeve of his coat. If a boy (never a girl) is doing something else instead of doing his math work, Ketchy Balls reaches into his secret sleeve and whips out the stick and stings him across the bare legs with it.
While I was trying to read the note (Mr. Skippy wasn’t a very good writer), Ketchy Balls whipped out his stick and cut a red mark on my leg.
“You’re supposed to be working on your math work right now, not reading notes from people!” said Ketchy Balls.
Everybody hates Ketchy Balls. One day last winter Killer Bodnoff hit him on the back of the head with an ice ball and knocked his hat off at recess. That afternoon Ketchy Balls tried to find out who did it but nobody would tell so all the boys in the room got the strap. What a man Ketchy Balls is.
Billy and me, we walk down Rideau Street past Imbro’s Restaurant where everybody’s in there munching on spaghetti and meat sauce and licking up delicious ice cream sundaes.
Past the public library where Billy always goes to get books to read.
I don’t go there very often to get books. I read mostly Granny’s old National Geographic magazines or comics or the Ottawa Journal.
I’m a very good reader. I could even read before I went to school. My granny taught me.
The first thing I read was what was written on lots of our knives and forks and spoons in our kitchen drawer:
Chateau Laurier Hotel
Billy and me, we pass by the Little Theatre and up King Edward Avenue into Sandy Hill. Playing at the Little Theatre is Road to Morocco with my favorite singer Bing Cro
sby and his stupid friend named Bob Hope. Bob Hope is supposed to be funny but he isn’t. Bing gets to sing “Moonlight Becomes You” to the beautiful Dorothy Lamour. I saw it and tell Billy all about it. I tell him about what Dorothy Lamour was wearing.
“She was wearing only half of a tight nightgown with a split all the way up the side and she had a big beautiful flower in her hair,” I tell Billy.
“SHAZAM!” says Billy.
To get to choir you go down the back wooden steps of the church and in. Then you go to the basement. Ten stairs to the dark landing. Then turn right in the dark and go down five more. Then into the light of the choir hall.
Mr. Skippy is right there.
“Well!” he says. “We’re here, are we? Martin and Billy. My two new summer boys. Well. Welcome. You know you get paid, don’t you? Twenty-five cents for practicing three times a week? Not twenty-five cents for each practice but twenty-five cents for three practices. And twenty-five cents for Sunday service and another twenty-five cents for Evensong! That’s how much per week? Of course! It’s seventy-five cents a week. For singing! A king’s ransom, don’t you think? Now, if you’re late for choir you get docked one cent a minute for every minute you’re late. Now, you’ll notice that these steps you just came down are made of wood. Some of them creak! If you’re late for choir you’re going to wish the steps didn’t creak. Especially step number nine!”
He winks at a big man standing against the wall with an army uniform on. There are about ten other boys around the hall.
“Right, Mr. George?”
“Right you are, Mr. Skippy,” says the man.
“Yes,” says Mr. Skippy, “number nine squeaks the loudest. If you can remember, it’s good to skip that step. Go from step number eight right over nine onto the landing. Don’t thump on the landing. Then tippy-toe the last five and peek around into the choir hall before you come in. If Mr. Skippy has his back turned you can slip into your place which is right here. Yes, you may call me Mr. Skippy. Then when Mr. Skippy turns around from the piano and faces the choir and raises his hand to conduct the singing maybe he won’t notice. But he sometimes does! And then Mr. Skippy might say this: A miracle! A boy is invisible and only seconds later, he’s visible! How can this be possible? An empty bench becomes an occupied bench! Oh, this modern world! What will they think of next! Sing well, my summer boys!’”
Mr. Skippy is called Skippy because of his crippled foot. His ankle is really skinny. It’s like a broom handle almost. And his foot is sort of like a slipper. Floppy like a leather slipper. When he walks, his foot slaps down on the floor with a whack.
Whack-a-whack, whack-a-whack, here comes Mr. Skippy Skidmore.
But the best thing Mr. Skippy does with his foot is when he’s conducting the choir. He slaps his foot on the floor to keep time. You always know the beat when you’re singing hymns because of Mr. Skippy s foot.
“O God our help in ages past
Our SLAP in SLAP to SLAP…”
We practice some hymns and then there’s a choir recess and then we sing some more.
All the time we’re singing, Mr. George is standing against the wall with his hands in his pockets, looking at us. He’s got thick glasses on and sometimes it looks like he has more than two eyes. He’s got reddish brown hair and a small mouth and his bottom teeth are further out than his top teeth. He’s got a big chest and a big bum but a really narrow waist. Near the end of the practice he looks at me for a long time and then he winks.
While we’re still singing he goes over to a big soft chair and looks into the chair. Suddenly I notice there’s a big beautiful black cat sleeping in there. The choir cat. Mr. George leans over and pets the beautiful cat once. Then he goes into the other part of the choir hall where there’s a sort of kitchen and comes back out with a pair of big scissors.
He lifts a long white cape from the back of the chair but the cat’s sleeping on the end of the cape.
Mr. George takes the scissors and cuts off the end of the cape that the cat is sleeping on so he can get the cape off the chair without bothering the cat! Lucky cat!
Then he puts on the cape, waves to all the boys and the last we all see is the cape going out the door with the end cut off of it, and then we hear step number nine do a heavy squeak.
“Amen!” sings the choir, and the practice is over.
Just before he disappeared out the door, Mr. George gave another big wink from behind his thick glasses.
The wink was right at me again.
5
The Ideal Father
WALKING HOME from choir practice with Billy Batson. Going by the Little Theatre again we see the sign about the movie Road to Morocco starring Bing Crosby. I sing some of my favorite songs to Billy like Bing Crosby sings in the movie to Dorothy Lamour: “Moonlight becomes you…It goes with your hair…You certainly know the right things to wear…”
Billy says did I see Mr. George at choir cut his cape so the beautiful choir cat wouldn’t have to disturb himself? Yes. I saw. Everybody saw.
What kind of a person would do that?
A very kind, considerate person, we guess.
I tell Billy about how my father once yanked up his scarf my cat Cheap was sleeping on on the bed and sent Cheap flying against the wall.
What kind of a person would do that?
A mean, cruel person, we guess.
Billy starts telling me again about his father. Billy’s father went away to the war more than five years ago and should be home soon now that the war’s almost over.
Billy loves his father. He says his father was always bringing him presents and taking him places — hardware stores and lumber yards where they’d go to get stuff and bring it all home and build all kinds of things. And how they always dug in their garden together all the time.
And how they’d find worms there and put them in a can with some moss and put them in the icebox and save them until they had a chance to go down to the Ottawa River near the Rideau Falls at night and catch a bunch of catfish and take them home and his mother would cook them and they’d sit down together and have a big catfish feast…
We pass by Imbro’s Restaurant again and stop for a while and watch through the window people gobbling ice cream sundaes. In one of the booths along the side I think I see the back of Mr. George’s head. Or maybe it’s not.
On the corner of Rideau and Augusta Street there’s a sign nailed to the telephone pole:
Street Dance: honouring 20 repats recently
arrived on the Isle de France;
an interesting evening of foxtrot, waltzes,
spot dances and old time dances,
door prizes and new features e.g.
“fat woman’s race!”
Public address system set up.
Public is cordially invited to attend.
We can hear the music coming out of the public address system. We go down there to see if we can see the fat ladies have their race but it’s too late, it’s over.
There’s soldiers and girls dancing and kids running around and people laughing and eating.
The horse that pulls a chip wagon is standing there asleep through all the racket.
There’s an Ottawa Journal lying on a bench.
I pick it up on the way by.
I read some of the stuff in there to Billy as we walk home.
Wife butcher-knifes Vet husband to death over uncooked supper: son, Henry, 10 years old
and
Lady with 27 cats in her bed. Husband sleeps in the kitchen.
and
Take wonderful Lux toilet soap whipped cream lather facials daily like Veronica Lake does. Soon your Romance complexion will charm mens hearts!
There’s a picture of Veronica Lake with her beautiful hair covering one eye. I show the picture to Billy. “SHAZAM!” says Billy.
It’s going to be dark soon.
They’re playing football on Heney Street beside the park. There are two Christian Brothers from Brebeuf school playing w
ith their long black dresses on. One Brother lifts his skirts with one hand and holds the football out in front of himself with the other hand and kicks the football. It goes so high above Heney Park it almost disappears. You can see the Brothers underpants when he kicks.
It’s the other Brothers turn. He tries to kick but his leg goes higher than the ball. He’s not a very good kicker. His leg gets tangled up in his dress and he falls over.
All the kids around laugh.
On Papineau Street Horseball’s big family is spilling out of the windows.
At my place, number three Papineau, I can hear shouting. Fighting. Arguing.
Billy’s looking at me funny. What’s he thinking? Is he thinking about his ideal father?
When my parents fight, my twin brother, Phil, howls and roars.
Phil can’t talk. Phil can’t think. He can’t even eat right. His food is always all over the place. He can’t go to the toilet on his own. Except in his diapers that my mother changes on him every morning and every night. And he’s always hurting himself. Somebody has to be there all the time.
When he’s happy he likes to run around in a circle. Or he likes to wag his head. He holds on to the end of his iron bed and throws his head, wags his head back and forward in a sort of a circle, looks at the floor, the wall, the ceiling and the floor again except his eyes are closed, again and again and again.
I ask Billy if he wants to do something. Trade comics maybe, go to his place maybe.
No, he can’t. Billy never invites me to his place. I’ve never been inside number seven Papineau. I’ve been at Horseball’s house many times even though you have to stand up against the wall it’s so crowded in there.
And everybody’s been in Buz Sawyer’s place. Buz was always inviting everybody over — giving treats and telling stories.
