The Stubborn Season

by Lauren B. Davis

  “Yup. Wearing buttons on their shirts, painting it on the goddamn trees!” Joe’s spoon clattered as it hit the tabletop, and he rotated his wrists until the joints popped. “I went out to the Beach, you know. I saw what they’re doing. I saw the signs. Swastikas up and down the boardwalk, all over the canoe club, on the porches. ‘No Jews’ scrawled on a bench. I sat my Jewish ass down, I can tell ya. Guys who don’t even know what the hell Hitler stands for are walking around with a swazi in one hand and a stiff-arm salute on the other. They’ve been showing up at baseball games.”

  Rory pressed his palms together as though warming up for something. He felt the adrenaline start to flow, sluicing a pathway through his veins, clearing out the anger he felt at Douglas and Margaret and the whole damn mess. It had been three days ago, but he couldn’t get it out of his head and it was making him edgy.

  “There might be more trouble,” he said.

  There were five softball games being played that night, and the crowd of spectators numbered in the thousands. Rory and Joe sat on the small hill that made up the periphery of Christie Pits Park. It was the game between the Harbord Playground team, which was mostly Jewish boys from the neighbourhood, and the team from St. Peter’s church at Bathurst and Bloor, on which Rory and Joe focused most of their attention. Shouts of “Heil Hitler” were heard now and then, and other voices called, “Get out of the country, go to Germany if ya like Hitler so much!”

  “Fascists!” Joe bellowed and stood up so everyone could see him.

  People jeered each other back and forth.

  “Kike!” someone yelled.

  Rory scanned the crowd. He knew a number of guys by sight. The Christie Pit gang was out in full force, young guys with their shirtsleeves rolled high to show off their muscles. Rory could see them on the south hill, drinking beer and cheering every time the Catholic boys made a run. He thought somebody must have put a call out to the pool halls and the bookmakers around College and Spadina because some of the local Jewish toughs from Euclid Avenue were there, and the Spadina Avenue Gang, too. Mostly these young men kept their jackets on, and Rory wondered what they might be carrying beneath them.

  Now and then the Pit Gang partly unfurled a banner with what looked like a swastika on it. Skirmishes across the park stopped as quickly as they started. In the second inning a fight broke out. A guy behind Joe leaned over and told him in a low voice that a gentile had been hit with a lead pipe and two young Jews had been chased from the park. The game resumed after ten minutes. Rumours spread that the Pit Gang was drinking pretty heavily.

  St. Peter’s won the game, five to four.

  “Look,” Joe said and elbowed Rory in the ribs. “Those guys are the Willowdale Swastika Supporters.” On the small hill near the south of the park, the knot of Pit Gang-ers was joined by nearly thirty others. Two of them stepped to the front and held up a white blanket emblazoned with a swastika.

  “Heil Hitler,” they yelled, and the words echoed across the park.

  Rory saw two red-faced players from the Harbord Playground team start to rush forward, and then they were pulled back by their friends. The flag and its emblem was held high. For a moment nothing happened, and Rory felt the tension thicken as, one by one, people began to point and mutter. He saw a boy hit the earth with his bat, small clouds of dirt flying up from the force of his rage. A skinny kid wearing a yarmulke who’d been playing second base threw down his catcher’s mitt and kicked it.

  Fury ran through the Jews like a giant sheet flapped over their heads, snapped at the end with a great crack. All heads turned toward the southern end of the park, toward the gently rippling swastika. Then one kid picked up a bat. As though it were a signal, the rest of the team began picking up anything they could find—bats, sticks, rocks. They, and their supporters, surged across the diamond toward the small hill. For a few seconds it looked like the men on the hilltop with the flag might stand their ground. With every step the crowd of Jews grew in number, and the Nazi supporters scattered throughout the crowd hesitated. Then they ran around the Jews but failed to gain the lead. The Jewish boys closed the gap between them and the flag bearers. The Pit Gang scrambled down the southern slope onto Bloor Street, banner in hand, the Jews in pursuit. The rest of the Nazi supporters began swinging their fists, picking up bats and rocks and wading in to fight in earnest.

  “Well, all right, then,” said Joe, and he rushed forward.

  Rory followed right behind him, both men pulling lengths of pipe from under their jackets.

  The police, who had been hanging around anticipating trouble, were powerless in the face of so many people. They struggled to bring one knot of brawlers under control, only to have another hundred go unchecked. A sea of bodies, hurling stones and slugging each other with bats and fists and trash can lids and anything else that came to hand, rolled in wave after wave along the street. A man with a tire iron used it as a stave to block off the blows of a man with a crowbar.

  The riot spread along Bloor Street. Reinforcements from the Pit Gang poured in. Truckloads of Jews from down at Spadina and College began to arrive, carrying pool cues, chains, pickaxes and bricks. They yelled to whomever they passed on the street, “Gevalt, me shlugt yidn!” Help! They’re beating Jews!

  The surging mass moved along Bloor to Montrose Avenue. The air was a massive confusion of grunts and screams. Rory found himself next to a bearded rabbi with a broom in his hand. The man looked at Rory for a moment, unsure which side he was on, then, when Rory punched a man wearing a swastika button, smiled and said, “Shalom.”

  “Shalom,” replied Rory and spun around to knock the legs out from under a thug coming at him with a broken bottle.

  The next morning all of Toronto was in a state of shock, and Margaret was among those most disturbed. She didn’t know that Rory was across town in a shanty tent nursing badly bruised ribs, a black eye and a knot on his head the size of an orange. No one had been killed, but scores were in hospital, mostly with head injuries, and who knew how many more were being treated in the privacy of their own homes. Even with horses and motorcycles, the police hadn’t been able to stop the violence until nearly midnight. Thousands of people had been involved in what was being called a race riot. The mayor had agreed to take swift steps against Nazis and called on Police Chief Draper to account for himself. All league baseball games were cancelled for the duration, although for the duration of what was unclear.

  Margaret finished reading, having twice gone over both the Telegram, which insisted a Jewish Communist conspiracy was to blame, and the Star, which said it was the fault of the Swastika Clubs. She folded the papers carefully and put them in the ever-growing pile in a corner of the kitchen.

  “You will stay home today, Irene. And probably for the rest of the week. The city is coming apart,” she said, and Irene nearly burst out laughing, for when was the last time her mother had let her out of her sight?

  Three nights later, Rory and the other bindlestiffs sat in a circle around the fires. Many of the men drank canned heat. They scooped the pink jelly from a can of Sterno into a sock, strained it and mixed the highly potent cocktail with soda pop and water. When they passed the cup to Rory, he said a quiet no thank you, which the old-timers respected, and the cup passed on. Talk of the riot hadn’t lasted long here, for the men had all seen violence before and didn’t find it surprising. They swapped stories about their travels across the drought-plagued prairies, up into the Gaspé, the lumber and railway camps, over the Rockies and through the big cities, from Halifax to Victoria. They told tales about the town clown-cops and the city harness-bulls who were famous for either their brutality or their compassion. They told of meals handed out and women who had sympathy for them, and if the number of silken thighs and dimpled smiles were exaggerated in the interests of keeping morale as high as possible, such lies were overlooked.

  Rory paid little attention. The banter and the bluster soothed him. He felt he was back in a world he understood. He wished things had turne
d out differently at his sister’s; he wished he’d never gone to visit in the first place. He knew he’d failed some kind of test there and he wasn’t proud of himself.

  1933

  He has spent the night in the railway station waiting room, surrounded by others of what he’s come to think of as his tribe. More women sleep in the stations than out in the street, which makes it safer, because the men try not to scare them, try to behave like protective males, especially if the women have children with them. However, it also makes it more dangerous. It is not unheard of that the sicker among them troll the stations looking for girls. This night, though, has passed without incident, and even over the crying of a baby, he’s been able to get a couple of hours of shut-eye.

  At six-thirty he rouses himself, washes in the public toilets for a nickel and heads to the employment office. It is lonely and dark on the street and the buildings stand soldier-stiff with No Help Wanted signs hanging like tarnished medals in the windows. Nearly sixty men are lined up ahead of him, and the office doesn’t open until nine. His stomach feels like it’s pushing up against his spine but he dares not eat the little food he has left. He makes a fist and presses it into his belly. Everywhere he looks men clap their hands and swing their arms, partly because the air is cold, but mostly because it’s something to do. He shoves his hands in his pockets.

  At eight-thirty the line is around the block so far he can’t see the end. A man tries to edge in somewhere, but hoots and curses drive him to the back, his pleas about the sick wife falling on tragedy-deafened ears. At nine o’clock when the door opens as many shuffle in as can fit, and the guard closes the doors behind them, with some pushing and shoving because no one wants to be the last one who just couldn’t squeeze in. They stand waiting for the phones to ring. Behind a low separation office workers move about, largely ignoring the crowd. What is there to say until the phones ring?

  At last one does, and when the clerk hangs up he turns to the expectant mass and says, “Dishwasher. Dollar and a half a day. One day’s work. Desk number three.” Men dash to the counter and plead their case. There are babies at home. They are hungry. They have worked in a restaurant all their lives. The clerk selects two men and sends them on their way. Two men so the employer can choose the best between them. The rest, dejected, turn to wait again. After an hour, the group is turned out, forced to go to the back of the line, and the next group is herded in. Of the first group, five have found work, none for more than three days.

  He is not among the chosen.

  He spends the rest of the day in the public library, trying not to fall asleep, for if he does, they will turn him out. It is hard, with his eyelids like stones and every muscle weighted and wooden. He tries to concentrate on Ovid, on Rousseau, on Victor Hugo. Hunger makes him drowsy. Once his head falls back and he wakes himself up with a snort. He looks around with his heart beating hard, sure someone has heard and will make him go. Go where? Just away. Go away. Move on. Can’t stay here.

  The library closes and he heads west, picking newspapers off the street and from trash cans along the way. He hasn’t had his boots off in more than seventy-three hours and his feet are a mass of blisters. He limps badly. He has a third of a roll of sausage in his pack and the heel of a day-old loaf, paid for with the last of the window-washing money, so he doesn’t have to line up outside the relief house. He’s had enough of lining up for one day.

  When he gets to the park he picks a bench far away from the street and the fountain, but with a view of the paths so he can see if anyone tries to creep up on him. He hasn’t counted on how tired he was. He eats the bread and sausage, trying to save some for the next day but unable to make himself stop chewing. The food hits his system like a drug and the last of his resistance against sleep gives way. As soon as he’s settled under the thin layer of newspapers, his head on his pack, he falls into a deep slumber.

  The patrolman swings his nightstick with all the force in his arm. The blow lands on the soles of his blistered feet and sends a jolt of searing pain to the top of his skull. He thinks his heart will stop and before he knows what he’s doing, he jumps up and raises his hands to defend himself.

  The cop takes him away in handcuffs, down to the city lockup on a thirty-day vagrancy ticket, and tells him he should be glad it isn’t more, that he could have him up on charges of attacking a police officer, resisting arrest, and if the jails weren’t already so full he’d do just that. As he’s hustled along the street a woman nudges the man she’s with and they stare at him, shaking their heads. He isn’t even ashamed, not very much. All he can think of is that he’ll be eating regular for the next month at least.

  13

  December 1933

  For Irene, school was both a blessing and a curse. It was her only escape from home, where for the better part of a day she was absolved of her mother’s nest of bitter sorrow and her father’s abdication into alcoholism. However, school was also a daily reminder that the MacNeils were not like other families, that she was not like other girls, and if she found relief from the stranglehold of her own home, she must also cope with the chilly hinterland of not belonging.

  Today Irene approached Jarvis Collegiate dawdling, as she did every day, no matter the weather. She walked past the tidy houses along Maitland. Some had angels in their windows and wreaths hung on their doors in anticipation of Christmas.

  Uncle Rory had been gone for more than a month, and the holidays were nearing. Irene found the prospect of Christmas exhausting. Every year her mother made a miraculous effort. Every doorway, every nook and cranny was decorated. Cookies were baked from morning until night, even if they were made without raisins, without real butter, without candied cherries—all too expensive these days—and were mostly oatmeal and flour. Somehow money would be found for a small turkey and sweet potatoes and cranberries.

  It was as though her mother wanted the holidays to be perfect in order to make up for the rest of the year. It was always a bittersweet time, for while Irene marvelled at how her mother managed to pull it together and to seem so happy and gay, she also knew that January would be a month of drooping exhaustion and bleak moods. Still, for a few days at least, they’d be the perfect little family.

  Not exactly like other families, for they will not have friends over. They will not go to parties. Irene will not go door to door singing carols, nor will she go to skating parties or hayrides. The three of them will stay indoors and listen to the King’s address on the radio, eat the food and open the presents. Her father will drink only so much and no more. His knuckles will be white on the arms of his dining-room chair, but he will manage, for he too will keep sacred the miracle of Margaret’s Christmas.

  It was like those ceasefires you heard about in the trenches in France during the war, where on Christmas Eve the Germans and the British had crawled from behind their sandbags and met in no man’s land, sharing tea and brandy for one night only, and then resuming the shelling the next day. It was an undefended time, which only made Irene realize how hard it was the rest of the year and made it worse when the moment passed.

  Irene climbed the steep school stairs.

  Life was more complicated for her than for other fourteen-year-old girls. For example, there were now rules involved with how she should get through her school day. She must not approach anyone who did not approach her first. She must neither make eye contact nor seem to avoid it. She must not be seen to hesitate before entering a room, not be seen to be gathering her courage. She could enter into a conversation if invited to do so by being asked a question, but should not initiate. If she had to go to the girls’ room she should use the toilet quickly, wash her hands and then, rather than running out of the washroom like a scared rabbit, she should take a moment to comb her hair, smooth her eyebrows or pinch a little colour into her cheeks, just like the other girls. She should answer questions in class if called upon or raise her hand occasionally if she absolutely knew the answer, but not so often as to make it seem she were trying to
be teacher’s pet or a know-it-all. Most of all, she should always have a book with her. A book gave her a reason to sit in a chair or at a table by herself, it gave her something to do instead of waiting to be spoken to, to be noticed, to be included.

  Mrs. Duff’s class was Irene’s most favourite and at the same time least favourite class. On one hand she loved Mrs. Duff, loved the way she bumbled around, her breath smelling of the humbugs she always sucked. On the other, she feared the relaxed structure of the class, the way the girls paired up to practise their sewing. Violet made no secret of avoiding Irene, and Angela McMurphy had rolled her eyes last week and refused to let Irene use the scissors. Irene heard her whisper to Vera Carver about not letting people who had lunacy in their families near sharp things. Vera hadn’t even had the good grace to look ashamed when she saw Irene had overheard them. Ebbie had said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t be absurd!” but even Ebbie kept her distance.

  Today Irene planned to finish a pair of pyjamas for her father’s Christmas present. The other girls would be making similar gifts. No one had money for store-bought presents. Last month she had made a pretty frilly apron for her mother, which she knew was a silly gift even as she made it. When would her mother ever wear such a thing, intended as it was for cocktail parties and afternoon teas? Still, it was pretty enough, and she was proud of the little Scottie dogs she’d embroidered around the edge.

  “Take your seats, girls,” said Mrs. Duff, in her high-pitched, reedy voice. “We’ve much to do today! Only three more classes before Christmas!” She clapped her plump hands while girls scattered to gather cloth from the cubbyholes at the back of the room.

  Girls fluttered around, laying out material and onion-skin patterns, squabbling over who got to use the sewing machines first, who took whose box of pins, and did anyone find a red tin thimble. Irene went to a table at the end of the room. She’d finished the shirt, which was the most difficult part of the pyjamas. She had the bottom half already started, having laid out the pattern last week. Now all she had to do was cut the fabric, run up the side seams, put elastic in the waistband and then hem them at home. She smoothed the material. It was a nice pattern, a tartan. Her father would like it. She picked up the scissors.