“I’d say so.”
“Into the kitchen with us,” said Clinton. “Leave these women to blubber in peace.”
“You should have seen Percival’s face,” said Manfred. “And you know what? He thought we were in the wrong apartment.”
“He was right, of course.” Clay would sometimes say strange things like that. It was best to ignore him.
I said, “It’s the fanciest digs I ever saw.”
“I have a certain flair for home decoration,” Clay admitted. “That impossibly gaudy mirror over there, that is Ozikean’s doing.”
“You need a mirror!” said Manfred, in that overexcited way he had. “When a room doesn’t have a mirror, bad things can’t get out, and good things can’t get in.”
“What sort of things did you have in mind?” I asked Manny.
“It is aboriginal mumbo-jumbo,” stated Clinton.
“What do you mean, aboriginal mumbo-jumbo?” Manfred had colored slightly.
“Isn’t this something you learnt from your bizarre Grandfather Rivers?”
“You know who told me about mirrors? Brother Isaiah.”
“Oh, no. Not the blind monk creature again!”
“If Brother Isaiah says a room needs a mirror,” I said, “she stays right there on the wall. That boy knows his stuff.”
But the mirror didn’t stay on the wall. It was, I’ll own, an extremely large affair, that mirror. Often people will stick up a mirror and other people will say, “It’s like there’s a whole other room over there.” In this case, it was like there was a whole other universe. So Chloe had me take it down, and I stored it in the Sherwood’s basement. And I often wondered what sort of bad things were trapped inside our apartment, and what good things were banging on the walls, trying to get in.
TWENTY-THREE
THE TORONTO GARDENS WERE BUILT IN 1947. WW II was good to old Clinton, he spent a lot of time building an airbase near Regina that never received a solitary airplane, he manufactured a certain flywheel necessary to some bit of machinery inside some piece of weaponry. At any rate, by the time Adolf was put down, Clinton had greenbacks popping out of his ears. So Clay announced the building of the Toronto Gardens, which he said would be the finest hockey arena in the world.
The construction of that edifice set some sort of record for safety—the lack of it, that is. There were scores of injuries and no less than seventeen workers died. There is a story that one death was no accident, that a worker pushed another off the high scaffolding during an argument about a woman. This started the rumor that the Toronto Gardens is haunted. I believe a ghost is wandering around the place, but I don’t believe it’s an offed construction worker. No, sir, I think it’s just some old-time hockey boy who’s got no place to go. If there is life after death (what a thought), I know where I’m headed.
It used to be that there was a secret entrance to the Gardens, which was used only by me and Clay, and women either too well known or too unsightly to be seen with Clay Clinton. This entrance led first of all to a tiny apartment that the architect had secreted away at Clay’s behest, and then there was a long hallway, dark and always smelling like mud, that led to a private booth at the north end of the ice, where Clay and I and the occasional visiting potentate could watch the action. But after Clay’s death, this secret entrance was bricked over, Clay not wanting people to discover the dirty socks and underwear that lay scattered about his little hallway.
So we pull up to the front main entrance. The sidewalk is packed with people, shoulder to shoulder. As bad as the Maple Leaves are (and they would have a tough time mustering a win against the world-record losers, the South Grouse Louses), the Toronto townfolk always turn out to see them. I’ve heard it said that Torontonians wouldn’t show up in such numbers if the Leaves were any good. People go to see them for the same reason that some people watch automobile races, the possibility of great catastrophe.
It’s like stepping into a wind-whipped ocean, we get swallowed up by the throng. I watch Blue Hermann’s bald and speckled head bob away. He’s calling out for help, but it’s a small sound against the rumble of the crowd. The Claire thing reaches over people and manages to lock his long fingers around Blue’s collar. Iain squeezes next to me and wraps his hand around my elbow. I don’t shake him off. For one thing, it’s better than being trampled and/or crushed to death. For another, Iain is none too steady on his own pegs, and I would hate for something bad to happen to the lad.
I see something that stops me dead in my tracks. There’s a beggar standing in the middle of all this commotion. He’s being whipped around like a dead leaf in a hurricane. In one hand a battered tin cup rattles to the tune of maybe eight cents. In the other hand this beggar holds a stenciled sign that reads: BLIND AS A BAT.
What shocks me is this mook’s face. He is Brother Isaiah.
The beggar breaks into a broad grin and shakes his tin cup with enthusiasm. “Blind!” he sings out. “Blind as a bat! Couldn’t see the sun if it landed in my backyard! Amblyopic to the max!” Mind you, the beggar is about the same age as Brother Isaiah was when I knew him, somewhere in his midthirties.
I point him out with my dragon-head walking stick. “Iain,” says I, “give this bum a copper or two.”
“How come?”
“The King always gives out a copper or two.”
Iain reaches into one of his many pockets and comes up with about sixty-five cents. He tosses it into the tin cup.
“Hey, thanks heaps!” says the beggar. “But—this won’t get you through the Pearly Gates!”
“Who asked you?” I demand.
The beggar gets bounced away. He calls out, “Blind! Blind as a mole! Couldn’t see the moon if it fell on me!”
We make it through the front doors. Claire and Blue are standing off to one side, squeezed into a corner. Blue Hermann is breathing heavily and sweat is beaded on his upper lip. The Wringer of Life has wrung him again.
The walls of the Toronto Gardens foyer are covered with pictures. The biggest is a painted portrait of Clay and Jane Clinton. They’re posed with Clay sitting down, one leg draped easily over the other, Jane standing behind him and resting a hand on his shoulder. This painting is a heap of lies. Clay’s potbelly is gone and the artist has lightened up the rum-ruddiness of Clinton’s face. Around the age of fifty-two, blood vessels started exploding on Clay’s face, and sometimes his aspect was like a road map. The other lies have to do with Janey. Not that the artist hedged on the weight or changed her complexion or anything. No, the big lie is that she was there at all, with Clay.
Over there is a photograph of Manfred Armstrong Ozikean.
I look back at Clay Bors Clinton. He’s still grinning.
No, I tell him.
No, I don’t think we better had, Clay-boy. He’s doing fine right here. Everybody’s happy. It’s a bad idea. What the hell was you thinking? I believe I’ll put the kibosh on that deal pronto.
Hand on the elbow.
Blue, I got a quote for the Daily Planet. Take this down. Clay Clinton came up with an idea for a trade, but the King ix-nayed it. I said no, forget about it, and it never happened. Print that up in the Daily Planet, will you, Hermann?
I know Hermann will run that story, because I’m director of hockey operations here at the Toronto Gardens. That’s my job. My office is right down this way. I notice that Blue Hermann is following along. Lord, he looks awful. He must have caught a hangover that won’t let go. He likely wants a scoop. All right, Hermann, I’ll give you all the gen on the Toronto Maple Leaves. You want a quote about tonight’s game against the Canadiens? Surely. You know me, Blue, I got the gift of the gab and I’ve kissed the Blarney Stone. Step into my office. Well, sir, the Montreal defense is a little like Old Mother Leary. Ancient and holy. That’s a quote for you, Hermann, print that up in the Daily Planet. Wait a second. Lonny Chandrian is in my office. What can I do for you, Lonny? Why haven’t you got your head usher’s outfit on? You can’t do tonight’s game in that fa
ncy checkered sports jacket. By the by, what the hell happened to your hair? You just got two little gray strips that circle around your sticky-out ears. Not many boys go bald at sixteen, Lonny. I think maybe you better see your family doctor.
Now, Hermann, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, about tonight’s game. Run along now, Lonny. Change into your head usher’s outfit. If you see Mr. Clinton, tell him I’ll be along directly. I’m just having a chat with Hermann, star reporter from the Daily Planet. Who’s that over there? That there is the Claire thing, Lonny. That is Iain. You surely ask a lot of questions for a head usher. Director of hockey operations? Wait a second here.
Hand on my elbow.
I’ll go sit on my chesterfield. Yes, all right, that’s a good idea. Iain, I hope I don’t have to fire Lonny. It would break his mother’s heart. What do you suppose got into the boy? He dresses like an oddball, he thinks he’s got my job! Rest for a while? Are you crazy, Iain? Big game tonight, Leaves versus Canadiens. Traditional rivalry. Ottawa? No, we played Ottawa last week. Got stung for seven goals, mostly because Jim McMann stank up the joint. What’s that, Lonny? McMann died? McMann might have played like a dead man, and if he ever plays another game like that, by Jesus he’ll wish he were dead, but as far as I know he’s fit as a fiddle, although I’m putting the rookie Linehan between the pipes tonight. Iain, can I go back to my room now? I’m a wee bit slackered. Maybe Mrs. Ames could give me a little something. Blue Hermann, I got a quote for the Daily Planet. Take this down. “Leary Says No. En-Oh. No.” I put the kibosh on that deal, Blue-boy. Good idea, Iain, I believe I will stretch out. It’s been a long day. Always a lot of excitement when the Canadiens come into the Gardens. Traditional rivalry. The best kind. Traditional rivalry.
TWENTY-FOUR
MANNY, CLAY, AND JANE took to hanging around our apartment on St. Nicholas. We played a lot of card games (mostly Bugger-Your-Neighbor, which Clinton was especially good at), and then we’d sit around and not do much at all.
This one evening, Manny and Jane were sitting on the sofa hand in hand. Chloe had caught a chill and was taking a hot bath. She caught an awful lot of chills, it seemed, and took a corresponding number of baths, languishing there in the steam with her teeth chattering. I myself was putting some electrical tape around the blade of my hockey stick, which was fad back then. (The lads still do it, which means it caught on pretty good.) Clay Clinton was pacing up and down in our little apartment, deep in thought. Then he stopped dead. “I’ll tell you what, large Man-Freddy,” he said. “Let’s you and I have an arm wrestle.”
“That’s an excellent idea, Clay,” I muttered. “Why don’t you have an arm wrestle with Manny, and then you can have a head-butting contest with a trolley?”
“Care to place a little wager on the outcome?” Clinton demanded.
“Manny ain’t about to arm wrestle with you,” I told him. “Let’s let him make up his own mind, shall we? Manfred!”
“Hm-mmm?”
Janey said, “I hate it when you get like this, Clayton.”
“I’m bored,” the man responded.
“Read a book,” Manfred suggested. That’s what he was doing. He was reading a book Jane had recommended, Man’s Descent From the Gods, by Anthony Mario Ludovici. Actually I hadn’t seen him turn a page for quite some time.
“I don’t much like books,” announced Clay.
“You got all sorts of books,” I pointed out.
“Doesn’t mean I like them, does it?”
“Why don’t you sit down quietly,” Janey suggested, “and try to figure out just why you act the way you do.”
“Oh, you have some objection to the way I act? You didn’t used to, Janey. You didn’t have any objection as recently as, let me see, yesterday afternoon.” Clinton turned back to Manfred. “What do you say, Ozikean? How about it?”
“How about what, Clay?”
“An arm wrestle, you bloody berk. My Lord, you have an attention span of about three seconds.”
“Why don’t you read a book?” Manfred suggested.
“Think of it as training,” Clay said. “It will strengthen the arm. Ergo, you can shoot the puck harder.”
“Right-o,” mumbled myself. “That’s just what the Wizard needs, a harder shot. Why, that Hamilton defenseman who went down to block one last week, he says Manny needs a harder shot, because the puck didn’t quite knock out all of his teeth. There’s still a couple of molars poking around back there.”
“Yes,” Clay argued, “but muscles atrophy with lack of use.”
“Clay,” I told him, “I don’t see how an arm wrestle with you is going to give Manny much of a workout.”
“Yes, yes, Percival, my pest, you’ve voiced your opinion. What you haven’t done is backed it up with lucre.”
“All right, then, Clinton. Ten bucks says Manfred rips your arm out of its socket.”
“Little Brother!” scolded Janey.
“Heck, it’s as easy a ten spot as I’m ever likely to make. Manfred will crank him down in no time.”
Janey said, “Manfred, tell them you don’t care to do it.”
“I don’t care to do it,” said Ozikean, not looking up from the pages of his book—he wasn’t engrossed, mind you; it was more like he was afraid that the words might melt away if he took his eyes off them.
“Why not?” we asked Manfred.
“Why not?” Manfred asked Jane.
“It’s stupid, that’s why not.”
“It’s stupid, guys,” Manfred told us.
“Since when, Man-Freddy,” cried Clinton, a touch exasperated, “has that ever stopped you?”
“Yeah!” Manfred turned over his book. “I say, okay.”
Manfred and Clay wandered over to the big dining table. They set chairs so that they faced across one of the corners. The pair of them gripped hands and clutched the table’s edge with the other. Clay and Manny spent a long time working on the clasp, releasing and curling their fingers. Clay was especially persnickety, pushing Manfred’s elbow an eighth of an inch this way, moving his own elbow an eighth of an inch back. It took a couple of minutes before the two of them were prepared.
“Percival, my prince,” whispered Clay.
“On your marks … set … go.”
Manny threw Clay’s arm over like it was a blade of grass. But just before Clay’s hand was to hit the tabletop there was a sound—half sob, half scream—and Clay’s hand stopped. Clinton’s face had reddened and his gray eyes turned a lunatic black. How in creation Clay held his hand like that, an inch away from beaten, Ozikean bearing down with his full and considerable strength, is a mystery I’ll never figure. Say what you will about the man, Clay Bors Clinton had grit. That’s how he died, too. Disease started knocking him over with flying tackles and leglocks, but Clay Clinton just kept rolling along. Finally disease talked Clay’s heart into helping, and in 1967 the heart more or less exploded. I may not believe in broken hearts, but I believe they can go up like trod-on land mines, because I seen it happen to Clay.
Ozikean’s jowls were vibrating, so you know he wasn’t fooling about. Clinton’s face was beaded by sweat at this point, and he was squeezing his eyes shut, trying to rid them of the sting. Clay managed to gasp out a small call—“Leary.” I went into the kitchen and soaked one of the little tea towels under the faucet. I took it back and wiped Clay’s face, the back of his neck. Janey took the tea towel from me and did the same for Manfred.
There was no sound in the room except for breathing.
Then Janey whispered, “Draw.”
Manfred nodded. “Draw.”
Clay ushered out a smile. “No draw.”
This was errant foolishness on Clinton’s part. It was obvious that something was going to give. If Clay was lucky, his energy would give out, and then he would end up no worse than exhausted. Or Clay’s spirit would buckle, which would render him petulant and sulky for at least three days. As it was, Clinton’s wrist gave way. It did so with a nasty cracking sound.
Manfred placed Clay’s limp hand on the table gently.
“Good show, old boy!” said Clay, his voice strangled somewhere in his socks.
“Jesus, Jesus,” sang Manfred miserably.
“Well—” Clay Clinton stood up, or tried to. His legs wobbled on him and he had to sit back down. “Fortunately,” he said, “Grim Jim lives fairly close by.”
This was the medical doctor who worked for the Ottawa Patriots. His right name was James Grimm, you see, so we all called him Grim Jim.
“He would be the boy to see,” I admitted.
This time Clay managed to stand. He threw his good arm around Janey Millson’s shoulder for support.
I went to the bathroom to get a big towel to use for a sling. Chloe was there in the steam and the bubbles. She was ghostly pale, no color in her lips or her nipples. Chloe’s teeth chattered, but she tried her best to be chipper. “Hi, Pookie!”
“I’m taking Clay over to see Grim Jim,” I explained.
Chloe screamed and splashed the bathwater. She was an excitable lass. “What happened?”
“Well,” I took a deep breath, “Manfred just broke Clay’s wrist.”
Grim Jim lit a cigar and settled back on his chair. “Why is it that nothing in my medical training prepared me for this?” he asked. “You’ve been arm wrestling with Manny Oz, correct?”
Clinton nodded.
“And now you come to me with a sore wrist.” Grim Jim chuckled a bit and rotated the stogie. “I’ll have to write this one up for the journals.”
Clinton wore no expression on his face, meaning he was angry as shit. “Yes, well, Dr. Grimm, I have to tell you that it hurts quite a bit. Your flippancy is a slap in the face of the Hippocratic Oath.”
“Would you like some aspirin tablets, Clay?” cooed Grim Jim. “Would you like me to kiss it better?” Grim Jim was a gaunt, balding cuss who resembled the Great Leveler more than it was good for a doctor to do.
“I would not like aspirin, Grimm,” said Clay.
King Leary Page 13
