Boy O'Boy (8 page)

Buz told us after that we were very lucky and that he was pretty sure Tomato would have dropped Billy into the Rideau River and he’d be a Popsicle by now. Right after that Buz went off to war.

Buz took care of us. When he comes home from the war he’ll take care of us again. I wish he’d hurry up. We miss Buz.

There’s the front door.

My father’s home.

It’s payday, so he’ll be drunk.

I hope he doesn’t come in our room and sit on the bed and turn on the light and wake Phil up like he sometimes does. When he does come in he tells me all kinds of stuff about what we’re going to do together — go fishing, go to the lumber yard and get some boards and how we’re going to build a teeter-totter for Phil and how he’s going to buy me things like boxing gloves and roller skates and a bicycle, all that stuff, and the next day he doesn’t even remember all the things he said…

Here he comes up the stairs…one step at a time.

Maybe Buz will come home soon and make us all some lemonade…

Now he’s in the bathroom. He’s so filled up with beer that it takes him forever…

Or Buz’s friend will come with the convertible.

Now he sits on their squeaky bed to take off his heavy shoes…

First one shoe hits the floor with a loud bang. Phil makes a grunting noise. Still asleep…

The drunker my father is the more time it takes to drop the other shoe…

I miss my granny. How brave she must have been when she turned around all of a sudden and stabbed that guy near Baron Strathcona’s fountain…

It will be a long time before the other shoe falls. I’ll get up and take a bath while I’m waiting. Cheap comes with me.

Cheap stands on his hind legs and leans on his elbow on the side of the tub and watches me. Now and then he reaches his right paw down and scoops the water to see how hot it is.

Cheap would like to get in the tub with me. He’d like to sit on my chest and help me wash myself maybe.

I think Cheap wants to be a human, a person, instead of being just a cat. I think he’d like to do the things that I do. I think he’d like to sit at the kitchen table and eat snap crackle and pop with me and maybe when he’s half finished, reach over and pull the sugar bowl to him and put some extra sugar in his bowl.

And sometimes when he looks at Phil I think he’d like to tell Phil to quit ruining everything all the time.

And when my father boots the enamel basin, Cheap runs and hides but he peeks out almost right away — even before the basin has stopped rolling — and glares at my father as if to say, “Why are you acting like a common animal?”

I think Cheap would like to come to the show with me. I could buy him a ticket and he could sit in the seat beside me. We could watch Alan Ladd pet his little cat before he goes out and murders people or we could watch Abbott and Costello being scared to death by moving candles and revolving rooms and pictures on the wall with moving eyes that follow them everywhere.

Cheap and I, eating popcorn together at the show.

Maybe we’d get some chocolate-covered peanuts. That would be good. But maybe Cheap wouldn’t like the chocolate on the peanuts. He doesn’t like chocolate. I remember now. He likes peanuts though. But they stick to his teeth and it takes him about a half an hour to get straightened out after.

And he likes cherry Coke. But I don’t think he’d be able to drink with a straw. You need lips to suck on a straw.

Cheap hasn’t got lips for some reason.

I go back to bed. Cheap lies next to me.

I’m thinking about Mr. George.

Wondering about him.

BANG! There goes the other shoe.

Tears for my granny now. Sleep now.

M
R. GEORGE says I have to stay after choir again today to work with him to cure the Bing Crosby problem.

“We have to root out this Bing Crosby business, don’t we, Mr. O’Boy, before it spreads like wildfire and infects all of our summer boys! Don’t you agree?”

Mr. George and I work for a while on staying on the note only as it is written and not dragging it like Bing does. Mr. George tells me I’m improving immensely and then we stop working on the problem and he starts telling me about the war and his adventures there.

Everybody’s gone but us.

He tells how he shot a German soldier. How bad he felt after. He still feels bad.

He feels bad because he shot the soldier while he was going to the toilet under a tree in a farmer’s field. Squatting there with his pants down. Mr. George feels bad.

Are there tears in his eyes behind the thick glasses?

Mr. George tells me that some of his friends are still over in the war but they’ll be home soon because the war’s almost over. Would I like to meet his friends? He’s going to the Union Station one of these days pretty soon to meet them when they arrive. He thinks they’ll be coming on a big ship called the
Andrea Doria
to Montreal and then the train to Ottawa. I could go with him to meet them at the Union Station.

We leave the church and walk together down the hill to Rideau Street. He’s telling more about the war. How he has seven pieces of steel in his leg. He was wounded in Germany by shrapnel. Shrapnel is little pieces of jagged, dirty metal that fly all over the place like bullets when a shell lands near you and explodes. The pieces of flying metal buzz like bees.

I see Billy coming out of the public library with some books. Billy doesn’t see us where we are across the street.

“Let’s cross over here,” Mr. George says. Then he sees Billy. “Isn’t that your friend Billy Batson coming out of the library?”

“Yes, it is,” I say. “Billy!” I call out but there’s two streetcars going by and Billy doesn’t hear me.

“Let’s not cross just yet. We don’t want to talk to Billy just now, do we?”

The two streetcars are gone and so is Billy.

“He’s gone anyway,” I say.

“Let’s cross then,” says Mr. George.

Now we’re in front of Imbro’s Restaurant.

“Martin O’Boy?” says Mr. George. “I have a splendid idea! Why don’t you and I go right into Imbro’s here and I shall buy two ice cream sundaes — one for you and one for me. Imbro’s is famous for its delicious ice cream sundaes!”

Every time I walk by Imbro’s I always look in and see people eating delicious ice cream sundaes but I’ve never had one.

In Imbro’s around the walls there are pictures of ice cream sundaes. The pictures are delicious. They make you want to stand up in the booth on top of the table where you’re sitting, stand up and lick the picture of the ice cream dripping over the side of the dish or take a bite out of the picture of the chocolate-covered banana or nibble on the nuts and strawberries covering the Imbro’s special butterscotch and caramel sundae.

They have banana splits with chocolate, pineapple or strawberry, hot fudge sundaes with whipped cream. They have butterscotch, Crispy Crunch, mini marshmallows, melon, blueberry, orange, peach, mango, coffee…

Some of the sundaes in the pictures are in long curved dishes that are flat. Some are in tall vases narrow at the bottom and wide at the top. You get a spoon with a long handle if you pick a tall one.

“I think I want the double banana split with chocolate
and
pineapple,” says Mr. George.

I can’t make up my mind. Mr. George is sitting on the same side of the booth as I am. I’m pushed up close to the wall so it’s hard to look up to see all the pictures up there. He’s pressed against me.

There’s one I see that is different than all the others. It’s called a David Harum. I don’t know what that is, a David Harum. But the picture looks good. The ice cream is not dribbling over the side and the dish is a different kind, not tall, not long and flat.

“Why don’t you try the David Harum?” Mr. George says.

“David Harum,” I say.

“Good choice,” says Mr. George.

Now right away I want to change my mind but it’s too late. The lady is writing down what we want on her little pad.

She sticks her pencil behind her ear in her hair.

“Another young choir singer, Mr. George?” she says.

“Yes, he’s a beautiful singer,” Mr. George tells her.

“Aren’t they all,” she says. “Aren’t they all!”

Then she says, “Interesting shoes you’ve got, son. Waiting to grow into them, are ya?” Then she laughs.

Mr. George says he’s been meaning to ask me about the shoes, about how long they are.

I tell him about the shoes and the drunk man at Lefebvre’s Shoe Market. Mr. George looks really interested in my story about the shoes. He shakes his head and smiles. He likes me very much. His face shows it.

The lady with the pencil in her hair is back. She puts the sundaes down. Mr. George’s banana split is half the size of the table. It has four scoops of ice cream drowned in chocolate and pineapple and sprinkled with nuts and a red cherry on each scoop and two bananas, split long ways, surrounding the ice cream.

Mr. George digs in.

My granny always said that when she slammed down the porridge bowl in front of me: “Dig in!”

My sundae is different than Mr. George’s. It’s a lot smaller — about the size of a saucer. It’s only one scoop. And no dribbling over the side. And there’s not much sauce in it. And there’s no cherry. And there’s one nut cut in half sitting on the top.

And there’s greenish brown liquid under the scoop of ice cream.

“You got the most expensive one,” says Mr. George. “It must be really good!”

I take my first taste with the short small spoon. I’ve never tasted anything like this. It’s a bit like peppermint but not really. And there’s a bit of a burning feeling but the ice cream makes it go away. And there’s a sniff or a taste, a little bit sour, like I sniff sometimes from my father in the bathroom — the Aqua Velva.

I bite the nut in half and mix it with the ice cream and the greenish brown sauce. The taste goes up my nose and makes my eyes water.

Mr. George is digging in. He looks like some of the men in Bowie’s Lunch shoveling in a whole pile of meat and potatoes. I’m eating bites so small I must look like a chipmunk nibbling away on sunflower seeds.

We’re done. Mr. George gives money at the pay counter to the lady with the pencil stuck through her head.

“How’re ya feelin, sonny? Hope you don’t have too big of a hangover tomorrow.” Then she laughs. “There’s crème de menthe and brandy in that little David Harum. Just a couple tablespoons each. Never hurtcha! HA! HA!”

Her mouth is opening huge and I can see right down her throat because she’s leaning over the counter and down to me.

The pencil looks as big as a log.

“Straight home!” she roars and Mr. George takes me by the hand.

I
T’S NOT far to Heney Park. The park looks beautiful ahead in the moonlight. The shape of the trees and then the hill in the middle and the gazebo on the top with the six stone legs and the pretty pointed roof.

We always go up there in the winter, us kids, when it’s icy, with our sleighs made of cardboard boxes, and slide. I’m imagining it’s winter and the trees are coated with clear crystal ice. But it’s not winter and it’s not ice, it’s moonlight.

Mr. George is telling me about the war and the woman he saved from drowning in France. He carried her to her house and brought her back to life and she cooked him up a big meal of truffles which are like mushrooms only better.

And then they made a fire in her fireplace.

When we were in Imbro’s waiting for our ice cream sundaes Mr. George showed me his war medals. Both medals had six points like a star. They had King George’s crown on and in a circle in the middle of the star, the words, “The France and Germany Star” and on the other one, “The Italy Star.” One had a ribbon with blue and white and red stripes. The other one had white and red and green stripes.

After they lit the fire, she took all her clothes off, I think, and hung them up to dry by the fire. Mr. George says lets go up the hill to the gazebo, see what the moonlight looks like from up there.

There’s no bench there. I want to sit down. Mr. George wants me to stay standing up. He’s fiddling with his pants. I can see him in the dark.

In the war, while the clothes were drying, Mr. George said the woman he saved had lots of nice hair between her legs.

“Do you have any hair between your legs?” says Mr. George.

“I’m dizzy,” I say. “I want to sit down.”

He says I’m such a good singer in the choir. The best singer in the choir. He wants to give me a hug because I’m such a good singer. I can’t see his face.

Then he doesn’t give me a hug. He pulls me behind one of the stone pillars of the gazebo.

“Shh!” he says. “There’s somebody coming. Some boys. We don’t want them to hear us. I don’t like those boys.”

We hide behind the pillar. The moon is shining along the side of the hill. The boys are wrestling up and down the hill and laughing. In the moonlight each boy has a shadow wrestling the shadow of another boy. They wrestle and push down the hill and into the dark under the big trees. Its quiet again.

“Let’s go down under the big trees and sit on one of the benches down there. It’s a beautiful moonlit night and you don’t have to go home just yet,” says Mr. George.

We go down the hill and he takes my hand. His hand is big. Bigger than my father’s. Bigger than Ketchy Balls’.

“You are a beautiful boy,” he says. “Maybe you’ll sing for me.”

We sit on the bench under the big trees. The moonlight is on the hill and over the leaves of the big trees above us. The boards of the bench feel rough on my legs. If I move back it’s better. When I move back I have to push my toes into the small stones on the walk in front of us. Some of the moon shows between the leaves of the big trees above us and shines on the small stones like jewels.

“If you sing for me,” says Mr. George, “I’ll give you one of my war medals. Sing that Bing Crosby song…”

“Moonlight becomes you,” I sing softly. “It goes with your hair.. .You certainly know the right things to wear…”

He puts his left arm around my back and his hand into the left pocket of my shorts and pushes his fingers between my legs.