by Brian Doyle
The last high C is a volcano. The walls of the church are rumbling. The stained-glass windows are shaking. The people are pushing and stumbling to get out of their rows. The world is coming to an end.
Mr. George is finished. The last awful chord rings off the walls and ceiling like a dying monster.
Mr. George sits there. He looks like he’s been shot.
The Sandy Hillers are yelling, “Oh my God!” and stumbling out the door. Reverend is trying to calm people down.
Billy and me, we’re hypnotized now by what we’ve done.
Now Mr. George suddenly stands up.
He looks right up at the organ loft. He’s looking right at us but he can’t see us through the slats. He moves.
“Let’s go!” I say to Billy. “He’s coming!” “SHAZAM!” says Billy.
We head out and into the hall. Too late! He’s coming up the stairs two at a time. The only place to hide is behind the open door.
He’s breathing very hard. Now he stops breathing. He’s right beside us on the other side of the door. He goes quiet into the pipe room.
“I know you’re there, Batson. And maybe O’Boy too, eh? My two summer boys. Well, what you did to Mr. George’s piece that he worked so hard on wasn’t very nice! Was it? I know you’re in there hiding. Why don’t you come out and confess to Mr. George? Come on now. The fun is over. Let’s have a little talk…”
I have the key to the door in the left pocket of my shorts. When Mr. George is far enough in the room, Billy and me, we slam the door shut and I lock it with the key.
Then we run.
Outside the church the Sandy Hillers are in shock. “That organist must be crazy!”
“If my ears are ruined I’m going to sue him.”
“Where did Skippy Skidmore get a useless tool like that!”
“They say that he likes to fiddle with little boys!” “Reverend should fire the likes of him!”
All of a sudden I say to Billy, “I forgot my granny’s umbrella!”
“You can’t go back!” says Billy.
“I have to,” I say. “I can’t lose that umbrella!”
I run down the back stairs past the choir boys coming up.
“Boy O’Boy,” they’re saying as I push past them on the stairs. “Where ya been, O’Boy?” “You’re late O’Boy!” “You shoulda heard Mr. Georges special recital!” “It sounded like when an insane asylum burns down!”
I go up the side stairs. Granny’s umbrella is on the floor outside the locked door. I go and pick it up.
“I can see you, O’Boy!” whispers Mr. George. “It was you!” I can see one of his awful multiple eyes at the keyhole.
“No!” I say. I feel like shoving the pointy sharp end of the umbrella into the keyhole.
“I’m going to catch you, O’Boy. And when I do, I’m going to hurt you! I’m going to hurt you in a way you’ll never forget. I’ll find you. I’ll find you and I’ll get you. And when I do, you’re going to be a very, very sorry boy!
A beautiful boy. But you won’t be beautiful anymore! I’ll take away that beauty from you!”
You already have, Mr. George.
I leave with my granny’s umbrella.
Mr. George is pounding on the door.
“Don’t sleep at night, O’Boy! I’ll be thinking of you, my beautiful Boy O’Boy!” he screams.
24
Bounty
THE TROOP ship, the Andrea Doria, came home to Montreal yesterday. Buz will be here this afternoon! At the Union Station! He’ll get off the train at one o’clock! Buz! The wounded war hero! Our Buz!
I can tell him about Mr. George. I think I will tell him. I’m minding Phil out in the yard. I’m practicing on him. Pretending he’s Buz.
“Buz,” I say to Phil, “there’s a man at choir, the organist for the summer. He was always being nice to me, giving me money and buying me ice cream sundaes at Imbro’s.”
Phil’s nose is running. He’s trying to stick a stick that he has in my eye.
Start again.
“Buz, a man at choir cut a piece of his cape so the choir cat wouldn’t have to move.”
Phil is trying to stab my cat Cheap with the stick. Cheap runs under the back shed.
“Buz, the organist at choir said he’d give me one of his war medals if… Buz, would you give away one of your war medals to some kid?”
Better go in. My father’s home for lunch and there’s arguing. Sometimes if I’m there they’ll stop for a while.
My mother has burned a pot of macaroni and cheese on the stove. The kitchen is full of smoke. Phil is howling and choking. My father takes him out in the yard and puts him on his long rope. My mother is at the kitchen table. She’s leaning back. Her belly is a way out.
“Any time now,” she says. “Please, God! Or why don’t we wait until it gets just a little bit hotter!”
I slip out the front and call on Billy and we head over Angel Square and up to the Byward Market and up to the Union Station. At the station there’s Laflammes running around and Lenny Lipshitz and a bunch of people from Cobourg Street all probably there to welcome home Buz.
There’s a band getting ready to play on the steps in the station going down to where the trains are. There’s a huge crowd of people carrying flowers and babies and flags.
Now everybody’s yelling,’’The train is here! The train has arrived! The troops are home!”
Now the station man pulls open the big iron gates and we see some soldiers and sailors walking in from the platform carrying big duffel bags on their shoulders. People start walking toward them. They start walking faster. Now people are running into each other’s arms. There’s squealing and crying and laughing. Now more sailors and some airmen but no Buz yet.
Behind us, on the stairs, the band starts playing.
But there’s something else exciting happening. People are stumbling down the stairs, sliding down the brass railings.
Everybody’s yelling about money. Somebody giving money away. Somebody crazy. A crazy old guy throwing money around. A nutty millionaire is giving away fifty-dollar bills! Anybody in uniform! Hurry, he’s down over there! It’s crazy McLean from Merrickville! The millionaire nut from Merrickville is in town and he’s gone berserk! He’s giving everybody in uniform a fifty-dollar bill! My stars! Hurry!
The crowd is moving this way and that way all of a sudden, like minnows all together.
The soldiers and sailors and airmen coming through the gate are laughing and cheering. Somebody’s giving them fifty dollars. Come see! Come see!
Then I see Buz. Then I see Mrs. Sawyer running and hugging Buz. Now the nut millionaire is going over to Buz. Right up to him. Gives him a fifty-dollar bill. Buz salutes him and smiles his handsome smile. Buz has a cast on his wrist. His war wound.
I run up to Buz. So does Billy. Buz shakes hands with us. He’s bigger, a lot bigger than when he left. Now he gives us big hugs. He’s with two other guys. Two friends of his — big sailors. He tells us their names. They hug Mrs. Sawyer. They have nobody to hug. They have to take another train up to Maniwaki. Somebody will hug them up there.
I can hardly pay attention to all of it. I’m just looking at Buz.
Oh, Buz! We thought you’d never… does your wrist hurt.. .did your plane crash.. .were you scared, Buz…were you…did you get your medals, Buz…
Now Buz is looking over my shoulder. He turns me around. He puts his air force cap on me. He straightens it. It’s too big. Like my shoes.
Here comes the millionaire again, right for us!
He’s got a fistful of fifties!
“Salute!” Buz says. “Salute him!”
I salute. The millionaire gives me a fifty-dollar bill out of his fist. He steps back and looks me up and down.
“And here’s another fifty for the shoes! That’s quite the uniform there, son!” he says. And moves on.
A hundred dollars! My horrorscope! My bounty!
I give back Buz’s cap and stuff the money in the left
pocket of my shorts.
We start to walk a few steps toward the band on the stairs. The cymbals are crashing and the drums pounding and the trombones are flashing in the bright sunlight pouring in the high windows of the Union Station.
Now there’s something else flashing that sinks my heart and makes my knees weak and my stomach roll over. I swallow hard.
It’s a pair of glasses flashing in the sunbeams from the high windows of the Union Station.
It’s Mr. George. He’s looking at me and Billy.
25
Sorriest Organ Player
MY MOTHER’S sitting on the bed. She’s wiping her hands and face with a cold cloth I just got her. Now she wants her Blue Grass Eau de Parfum and I get it for her out of the smooth-as-satin drawer. She squirts a squirt of Blue Grass on each wrist. I take the bottle and before I put it back in the drawer I squirt it at Phil. Phil roars.
“Don’t do that,” my mother says. “You know he hates that!”
Too bad.
What are we going to do with Phil once the baby comes to live in Lowertown?
“Go and ask Billy if he’ll mind Phil for a few minutes while you go and get your father. Because I think it’s just about time for me to go to the hospital. And I can’t chase after Phil right now.”
“Billy hates Phil! He’s afraid of him!” I say.
“Tell him it’s just for half an hour. Tell him I’ll give him a dime.”
“Never mind the dime,” I say. “I’ll give him a dollar! I’m rich, remember?”
“I want you to hide that money. When I get back from the hospital with the baby I’ll put it in the bank for you. And don’t tell your father about it. He’ll probably hear about it anyway but let’s keep it a secret as long as we can.
I give the two fifty-dollar bills to Mrs. Batson to keep for me and Billy goes to mind Phil and I flap slap up to the Lafayette beer parlor to get my father.
Yesterday at the station Mr. George started walking toward Billy and me. Could he see that we were with Buz and the two sailors and Mrs. Sawyer and some Laflammes? Maybe not. It was so crowded that he wasn’t sure. That’s why he was coming so slow.
“Buz!” I said. Buz was talking to Mrs. Sawyer and some people.
“Buz!” I said. Buz didn’t hear me.
“Buz!” I said, reaching up to his ear and pulling on the hard cast on his wrist.
“Buz,” I said. He was listening now.
“See that man, the man with the thick glasses and the reddish brown hair coming over to us? That man is the choir organist and he put his hand in my pants and he made me do dirty things in Heney Park one night with him and he did Billy too.”
Buz heard every word I said.
Mr. George saw now that Billy and me were with some people. He was coming over almost sideways, being real polite.
“Excuse me, flight lieutenant,” he says to Buz. “I’d like to have, if I may, a few words with these two fine lads from our choir about their recent attendance. It won’t take long, just a little chat. Can you come along, boys?”
Buz says something to the two big sailors and steps up. He puts out his cast hand as if to shake hands with Mr. George and when Mr. George looks down at the cast Buz’s other hand shoots out and plucks Mr. Georges glasses off his face.
Mr. George now can hardly see.
“Hold him there,” Buz says to the two sailors, and they grab Mr. George’s arms and pull them back. Nobody seems to notice, it’s so crowded. Mrs. Sawyer is chatting with some people and the whole place is still buzzing about the nut millionaire and the band is blaring away.
Buz holds the glasses up near Mr. George’s ear.
“Listen to this,” he says and snaps the glasses in two. “That’s what’s going to happen to the rest of you if you ever bother these boys again.”
“My glasses. You broke my glasses…” says Mr. George.
Buz is feeling in Mr. George’s jacket and his pants pockets and comes out with his wallet and goes through the wallet. He takes out a card.
Buz reads off the card.
“T.D.S. George, 428 Rideau Street, Apartment 1201. Now get this,” says Buz. “You never, never go near these boys again. You never have anything to do with them. You don’t follow them, you don’t talk to them, you don’t look at them, you don’t even think about them. And if I ever hear about you ever again, I’ve got your address here and we’ll come for you, my friends and I, and you’ll wind up the sorriest organ player that ever had a fondness for fiddling with choir boys…”
Buz gave him back his wallet but kept the glasses and the I.D card.
“Away you go now,” said Buz.
And away went Mr. George into the crowd…
I go into the tavern and up to my father’s table.
“Mother says you better come home. Baby’s on the way!” I say, out of breath.
“I’ll just finish this beer and I’ll be right there,” says my father. “I hear you’re rich!”
I turn and head toward the door through the smoke and beer fumes and crashing bottles and glasses.
“And tell her not to be in such a rush!” shouts my father to me and gets a big laugh all around the table.
Really funny.
Going home, I’m thinking about when I told Buz all about how Mr. George was wounded in the legs in the war. Buz said it was probably a lie because with that poor eyesight, with those eyes, they would never let him in the army. All lies about being wounded and the woman with the truffles and shooting the German soldier who was squatting under the tree and everything…
“But what about his uniform? He had on an army uniform. And the medals. He had medals,” I said to Buz.
“Probably bought them,” said Buz.
FOR SALE:
Army uniforms. War Medals,
(ask inside)
Read everything.
Going home, I’m wondering about the baby that’s coming. He? She? Two of them? Not another Phil, I hope.
With some of my hundred dollars I’m going to get a really good pair of shoes. The best pair. And they’re going to fit! And I’m going to get a new sweater. Not a sweater with the sleeves unraveling. And new pants. Pants with two pockets, left and right.
Dramatis Personae
Granny — a beautiful lady who will be with Martin forever
Martin O’Boy — a victim
Father — he doesn’t care
Mother — tries to care, but can’t
Dr. O’Malley — a nodding doctor
Father Fortier — he says the words
Phil — not a normal twin
Cheap — a boy’s best friend with one ear
a man — he attacks from the slaughterhouse
Baron Strathcona — just an old baron with a fountain named after him
Miss Gilhooly — a teacher who tries to waste time
Grampa — a retired soccer player whose heart is somewhere else
Mrs. Sawyer — she waits for her son, Buz
Turkey lady — she has blue hair
Ketchup lady — her face is painted
Mrs. Laflamme — mother of Horseball and many others
Mr. Laflamme — the coughing father of all the Laflammes
Buz Sawyer — a war hero
Billy Batson — more prey for a predator
Mrs. Batson — a woman of mystery
Lenny Lipshitz — a gambler with a lying face
Lenny Lipshitz’s father — rag man
Mr. Lipshitz’s horse — he’s tired, except during celebrations
Aztecs — they killed the beautiful boy
baby in the belly — it wants to come out and live in Lowertown, or does it?
Mr. Skippy — he likes his summer boys
Billy Batson — the other one in the comics who turns into Captain Marvel by saying SHAZAM!
Captain Marvel — he wears a tight red suit with yellow trim
Dr. Radmore — an animal sadist
Ketchy Balls — another sadist, this
time a teacher
Killer Bodnoff — accurate with an ice-ball
Bing Crosby — could cause trouble for a choir boy
Bob Hope — supposed to be funny but isn’t
Dorothy Lamour — her nightgown makes Billy say SHAZAM!
Mr. T.D.S. George — a predator
Billy’s father — supposed to be a very nice, kind man
Veronica Lake — she charms men’s hearts with her hair-do
Christian Brothers — they wear long black dresses
Abbott and Costello — two funny guys in the movies
drunk shoe salesman — an air-conditioning expert
Lefebvres shoe lady — she gives discounts
Old Faithful — a kicked pail with special contents
St. Alban — martyr
Sheena the jungle girl — not many clothes on
ice house man — a man with a specially shaped head
Dick Dork, Darce the Arse and Dumb Doug — three foolish summer boys
Fred MacMurray — he looks just like Captain Marvel except for the clothes
Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson — an unhappily married couple
Alan Ladd — Veronica Lake wants to kiss him
Geranium Mayburger and Mr. Blue Cheeks — characters from Angel Square
Sixpouce and Goliath — different-sized lacrosse players
Yvon Robert and The Mask — two friendly wrestlers who try to kill each other
Percy Kelso — don’t call him Tomato unless you want to die
Imbro’s waitress — she wears a huge pencil in her hair
Old Man Petigorsky — a shoemaker who thinks he’s funny
hundred-year-old fly swatter — “They never knew what hit ’em!”
Andrews Sisters — they sing to Abbott and Costello
Reverend — he puts the Sandy Hillers to sleep
Sandy Hillers — they get blown out of their church pews
Merrickville Millionaire — he loves a uniform
two big sailors — nobody to hug them just yet
