by Brian Doyle
“There are 696 muscles and 206 bones in Buz’s body. And he only broke one of those bones,” I say.
“I’ll be glad when he comes home. I hope it’s soon,” says Billy. Then he’s quiet. Billy’s always quiet now. Looking far away. He’s not the same as he was. After that night when his father escaped from the loony bin. I feel like asking Billy when’s your father coming back from the war but I won’t. Too mean.
I tell him instead about my horrorscope. About the bounty. Billy tells me about a dream he always has of finding money — pennies and nickels on the ground and then seeing more and more quarters and fifty-cent pieces and bigger silver dollars and he’s picking as many of them up as he can but he can’t hold any more and they’re spilling all over the place and people are coming to take it all away.
At the ice house it’s the same man who gave me the small block the last time.
“Hi, there, pretty boy! Didn’t grow into those shoes yet, eh? And who’s your little friend? What’s your name, little friend?”
“His name’s Billy,” I say.
“I’m not askin’ you. Am I askin’ you? I’m askin’ him. What’s your other name, Billy?”
“Batson. Billy Batson.”
“Oh! Like in the comics. Captain Marvel. SHAZAM! Let’s see you say SHAZAM! See what happens.”
“He doesn’t want to,” I say.
“Who’s askin’ you? Shut up, pretty boy. Go ahead. Say it. SHAZAM! Let’s see what happens. I’ll give pretty boy a nice big block of ice today if you do.”
Billy waits a bit and then says a little shazam that you can hardly hear.
“I don’t hear no big BOOM! Do you? Wait a minute. Aren’t you Art Batson’s boy? Guy who lost his mind? Went nuts. Started attacking people? Sure you are. You were just a little kid then. Before the war. They put him away. I worked at the slaughterhouse with him — somewhere like that. Or was it at the paper mill? I forget. That’s you, all right. Yeah. His brain just went nuts. Started assaulting strangers. They locked him up…”
We can hear the little bell from the Good Shepherd Convent down the street. Pretty little bell. They ring it at noon always.
Billy’s sobbing.
“It’s not him,” says Billy. Billy’s looking down.
Pisspot-head stares for a long time at Billy. Then he looks at me, says this to me…
“Well, maybe I’m wrong. There’s lots of crazy people around. Maybe I’ve got the wrong guy.” He gives me a wink. “Here’s an extra big block of the best hard ice for your wagon. And here’s a sack to cover it. If you hurry home, maybe none of it will be melted! Okay, Billy Batson?”
I don’t say anything. I want this big block of ice. It’s my birthday, you know.
Outside Petigorsky’s Shoe Repair on St. Patrick Street old man Petigorsky is out sweeping off his front step. I can tell he can hear my shoes flopping on the sidewalk. He stops sweeping and watches my shoes coming.
“Boys, boys,” he says smiling, “I know you can’t stop because of the ice you have maybe melting but you know I could shorten those shoes for you in a jiffy no charge.”
“You could shorten the shoes?”
“Easy,” he says. “I would just whack the front ends off them mit my little machete! Like a circumcision! HA! HA! HA! You wouldn’t even have to take them off! HA! HA! HA!”
Really funny, Mr. Petigorsky.
At home Billy helps me with the block of ice. We use the ice tongs and we both carry the big block into the kitchen. We get on two chairs and lift the heavy ice up and into the top of the ice box.
My mother is out in the yard with Phil. I can see on the table flour and a bowl and some baking powder and vanilla and squares of chocolate.
Looks like we might be having a birthday cake.
I’ve got two cents in my pocket so I ask Billy if he wants to go over to Prevost’s store on Cobourg and get a grab bag and watch the hundred-year-old fly swatter.
When the time is right I’m going to ask Billy to say the truth about his father.
In the store we get the grab bag and open it and share. Billy likes the blackballs and I don’t so the sharing is easy. I like the gum drops, he doesn’t.
The old man is in his chair in the corner. He’s the fly swatter. He is Mr. Prevost’s grandfather. The chair they’ve got him in is like a kid’s highchair with a tray in front. On the tray there’s spilt sugar. The old man has a fly swatter in each hand sticking straight up from each bony fist. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t even seem to be breathing. He’s waiting for nineteen flies to be there at once. Mr. Prevost told me that his record is eighteen. That was last Christmas. But they were tame flies that they bought the old man for Christmas from Radmore’s pet shop. Dr. Radmore used to grow flies in an incubator to sell to people with pet snakes and frogs before they put him in jail for torturing dogs and cats.
But it’s going to be very hard for the old fly swatter to break the record because these are wild and wild flies are a lot smarter and quicker.
The old man waits.
There are twelve there. But they keep coming and going. Off to the side where the old man’s eyes are looking now there are two more flies, one on top of the other, buzzing very loud. The old man’s eyes are glistening. He doesn’t want to break the record. He wants these two.
Down come the two swatters. One on the buzzing two. The other on the group of twelve.
Direct hit!
The old man’s toothless mouth gapes open and he laughs like a goat.
“THEY NEVER KNEW WHAT HIT ’EM!” he shouts. “They never knew what hit ’em!”
“Billy,” I say. “Look at me.”
Billy looks up from the dead flies into my face. I give him the face that my granny said everybody would have to believe.
“Will you tell me the truth, Billy, if I ask you?”
Billy’s lips are black from the blackballs. “SHAZAM!” says Billy.
“Was that your father that night, when the police came? Was it, Billy?”
“BOOM!” says Billy.
“Was it, Billy?”
“Yes,” says Billy.
We go home to my place to see if there’s anything going on about my birthday.
My mother asked some people to come over and have a piece of birthday cake. Lenny Lipshitz and his mother came over and had a piece but they left right away. Lenny said he had to go because he was supposed to help his father put a new shoe on their old horse, but the way Lenny looked when he told about the horse made everybody believe it was a lie.
My mother just had time to explain to Mrs. Lipshitz about the writing on the cake before they left.
The cake said:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
PHIL
A
You see, while she was writing on the cake with the squeeze thing she had to stop and put it down because there was a pot boiling on the stove. Soon as her back was turned Phil grabbed the squeeze thing and fell down the cellar stairs with it and broke it so she couldn’t finish writing
— ND
MARTIN
Billy wants the piece of cake with the A on it. A for ATLAS for STAMINA.
Mrs. Batson stayed home, too sad to come. Mrs. Sawyer sits on the good side of the couch with her saucer of cake and reads the letter from Buz for the hundredth time.
The boat Buz is coming home on is named the Andrea Doria. Any day now. Any day.
Horseball and some Laflammes come over and finish the cake. Horseballs trying to get everybody to sing the birthday song but soon as it gets started in comes Mr. Laflamme trying to tell everybody something but he’s coughing so much we cant understand him but he at last gets it out.
“… on the radio… atomic bomb… Japan.
We all pile out the door and into the Laflammes’ house to listen to their radio. (We can’t hear anything on our radio because the tubes are too weak.)
Laflammes’ radio tells us that a whole city in Japan was wiped out and thousands of people were kille
d by one bomb. An atomic bomb.
The name of the bomb was Little Boy.
And now the war will be over for sure.
Cheap and I, we’re imagining what it would be like if they dropped the atomic bomb, Little Boy, on Papineau Street at the corner of Cobourg. Everything flattened. All as flat as Angel Square. Everybody dead. Dead as Granny. Burnt up. My mother and the baby inside her and my father and Grampa in the Home and all the Laflammes and Billy and his mother and his one-eyed father wherever he is and Mrs. Sawyer and Lenny Lipshitz and his mother and his father and his father’s horse and the human fly swatter and…
Just Cheap and me standing there alone for some reason. A miracle.
And then through the smoke comes Buz. Out of the cloud of dust walks Buz with his kit bag over his shoulder… and we run up to him… trying to explain…
I guess they never knew what hit ’em!
“Well,” I say to Cheap. “Happy birthday, Martin O’ Boy!”
And now I just thought of something.
Cheap and me, we didn’t get any cake.
20
Mr. George Borrows a Boy
MR. GEORGE is not at choir practice tonight. He's in the church, though. He’s above us practicing a fancy piece on the pipe organ for Reverend’s special Service of Celebration when the war gets over, which will be pretty soon now because everybody in Japan is practically dead from the atomic bomb, Little Boy.
Down through the heat pipes we can hear the music pounding. We can hardly sing our hymns everything is so loud. And Mr. Skippy’s foot is slapping, slapping to keep our beat, so we can practice even though Mr. George is trying to drown us out. The music he’s playing is called CROWN IMPERIAL. A celebration! He plays so loud, he plays so happy, so joyous. I can just see his face, his many eyes flashing, he’s in heaven. Oh Boy. Oh Boy. Oh Boy.
Around the middle of our practice, while Mr. Skippy is flapping his loose foot on the floor keeping time, we hear the organ stop and soon we hear stair number nine creak and Mr. George comes in. He doesn’t even look at me and I don’t look at him.
“Mr. Skippy, may I borrow one of your summer boys to come up to the chapel with me and turn the pages of my music for me while I’m practicing?”
Mr. George is looking over the choir. His eyes are sweeping over the group, the thick glasses glittering from the ceiling lights, his eyes looking like many eyes. He’s going to pick one of us. I’m sure it’s going to be me, his favorite. If it’s me I’m not going. I’m going to say I have to leave early to mind my brother — it’s an emergency.
“Of course,” says Mr. Skippy, “you may borrow one of the boys. Take your pick. Choose one, any one!”
Mr. George’s eyes go right over me and onto Billy.
“Billy, you’ll come and help me out, won’t you, like a good lad…come along.”
Billy and Mr. George leave together.
Mr. George has his big hand on Billy’s shoulder.
I hate Mr. George.
I’d like to fix him some way. Hurt him. But I don’t know what to do. What would my granny do? Turn around real quick and stab him in the face!
Choir practice is over.
Little Boy killed 150,000 people, the paper said.
That’s a lot of black cars, Granny.
Somebody fixed the light in the stairs so it’s not dark there anymore. You don’t have to hang on to the railing to go up and down. Mr. George is still practicing. The pipe organ is shaking the walls. You can feel the rumbling in the wooden stairs.
Out on King Edward Avenue you can hear Mr. George’s special music. Its rumbling behind the stained-glass windows of the church. Low notes rumbling and high notes running up and down like pretty water.
I walk a little further down the hill. Music far away now. I wonder what it sounds like up in the organ loft where Mr. George put us that day, right inside the music — all those organ pipes. Me and the summer boys.
Down near the corner of King Edward and Rideau there’s another street dance party. There are sailors dancing with pretty girls. The girls are wearing the sailors’ hats tilted on their heads. A Glen Miller record is playing over the loud speakers. There are soldiers there too. The sailors are saying that they can dance better than the soldiers.
The soldiers say yeah, maybe, but they can kiss more girls than the sailors can and everybody laughs.
I can’t hear Mr. George’s music at all from here. The church is up the hill and far away.
What could I do to hurt Mr. George?
What could I do, Granny?
21
That’s What You Get
IT'S OVER! The war’s over! There’s another atomic bomb! “City wiped off Jap map!” says the Ottawa Journal. The city is called Nagasaki. The name of the bomb this time is Fat Man.
Thousands and thousands of people are burnt alive. More black cars, Granny.
Everybody’s going wild. They gave up! It’s over! They couldn’t take it anymore. Two atomic bombs. Wiped out, flattened two cities in Japan!
There are parties everywhere. They’re getting ready for a big party on Cobourg Street. The streets are full of torn paper and bottles and confetti and glass from last night when everybody ran out of their houses and got drunk.
Everybody wants to have a parade. Be in a parade. Bring something to make noise with! Near the corner of St. Patrick and Cobourg there’s a flat wagon. Some people are building a gallows, where you hang people until they are dead. They’re painting a sign. So far it says HANG H.
My mother’s belly is so big she can hardly walk. The baby was supposed to come a few days ago. Around the time everybody got killed in Japan. Now everybody’s killed again but the baby still won’t come out. Scared maybe.
Near Petigorsky’s Shoe Repair a bunch of people are making a huge body out of straw and old clothes. There’s a sign beside the straw body that says HIROHITO.
“What’s a Hirohito?” some kid says.
“Hirohito is the king of Japan,” I say. I guess the kid never reads the paper.
The Lee Kung Laundry is closed. No steam pouring out the door. But there’s music and singing pouring out the upstairs windows.
I walk up York Street to the Lafayette beer parlor. There’s a big fan vent flapping away in the wall beside the door blowing cigarette smoke and beer fumes and stomach gas out onto the street. There’s a roar of talking and shouting behind the door. I push open the door and stick my head in to see if I can see my father. The fumes and belches and smoke and noise hit me in the face like a slab of wood. I can’t see if he’s in there or not. The place is full of men and smoke and shouting and singing and laughing and bottles and glasses clinking and rattling and breaking and pounding on tables. The men at the table near the door look at my head peeking in.
“Get out!” they all say. “Come back in ten years!” And then they all laugh. Now I see my father further in but he doesn’t see me. He’s telling a joke and everybody’s laughing. My father’s very funny when he’s out.
He’s not always funny when he’s at home.
I could never tell my father what Mr. George made me do. What he did in Heney Park. My father wouldn’t help me, I know he wouldn’t. He’d probably say, “.. .that’s what you get for spending your time singing with the Protestants…”
On the doors of Woolworth’s on Rideau there are some printed signs stuck there. One sign says:
FOR SALE.
Army uniforms. War medals.
(ask inside)
Why would anybody want to sell their army uniform? Sell their medals? The other signs say:
GIRL TO IRON, WASH DISHES.
Twice weekly Evenings 30 cents per hour
BED SITTING ROOM.
1 quiet girl—$30.00 a month—Catherine Street
DURATION LEG-DO.
Sheer looking as nylons! Big 4 ounce bottle only 49 cents!
Creamy Golden Velvety Skin tone
I have to read everything. I can’t help it.
I’m
imagining the Quiet Girl in the Bed Sitting Room spreading the Creamy Golden Velvety Skin guck on her legs to look like nylon stockings before she goes out to get the job Twice Weekly Evenings ironing and washing the dishes. I know you wash dishes but I didn’t know you ironed dishes.
There’s a big party starting on Confusion Square. The war monument is crawling with kids riding the huge black iron horses and sitting on the iron soldiers’ shoulders and helmet heads and riding the big black gun. They’re hiding under the wheels of the big gun. They’re under the wheels and under the horses’ iron feet. If the horses move and the gun rolls, they will be crushed. But it can’t happen, Granny, it’s only a statue.
And I can’t tell my mother about Mr. George because she wouldn’t know what to do and just cry and burn the pots on the stove and Phil would start howling and bawling.
Slab wood trucks and coal trucks are driving around full of people with signs and flags. It’s over say the signs. And Hang Hirohito!
A milkman’s horse still has his feedbag tied on his head. He’s nodding to get the oats up into his mouth. There’s a Union Jack flag stuck down into the bag. When the horse nods, the flag waves.
And I can’t tell Mr. Skippy. Because maybe he wouldn’t believe me and anyway he’s Mr. George’s friend.
I go down toward the Français theater.
People are yelling at people on their verandas and hanging out windows.
“Soon there’ll be no more gas rationing!”
“So what? You haven’t got a car anyway!”
Playing at the Français theater is Buck Privates starring Abbott and Costello. Bud and Lou go in the army by mistake. The Andrews Sisters sing “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” I saw it.
I go down the alleyway behind the theater to see if the fire-escape door is open. There’s a small lineup for the movie. Maybe I can make some money.
The fire escape door’s not open. No money to be made today.
Around the front, going into the show, I see Mr. George. And going in with him…
