The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

by Mordecai Richler

  But Eddy had already poured it. For, at this point in the transfer story, Max always ordered coffee.

  “Imagine him, MacDonald. It’s morning. Dawn, I mean, like at the end of a film. The city is awakening. Little tots in their little beds are dreaming pretty little dreams. Men are getting out of bed and catching shit from their wives. The exercise boys are taking the horses out. Somewhere, in the Jewish General Hospital let’s say, a baby is born, and in the Catholic Hospital — no offense, MacDonald — some poor misguided nun has just died of an abortion. Morning, MacDonald, another day. And the Boy Wonder, his eyes ringed with black circles, steps out into God’s sunlight — that was before his personal troubles, you know — and in his pocket, MacDonald, is almost one thousand de-is-ollers — and I should drop down dead if a word of this isn’t true.

  “But wait. That’s not all. This is only the beginning. Because the Boy Wonder does not go home to sleep. No, sir. That morning he takes the train to Baltimore, see, and that’s a tough horse town, you know, and they never heard of the Boy Wonder yet. He’s only a St. Urbain Street boy, you know. I mean he wasn’t born very far from where Ilive. Anyway, for six weeks there is no word. Rien. a postcard even. Imagine, MacDonald, try to visualize it. Has some dirty nigger killed him for his roll, God forbid? (There are lots of them in Baltimore, you know, and at night with those dim street lamps, you think you can even see those black bastards coming?) Is he a broken man, penniless again, wasting away in a hospital maybe? The public ward. weeks and not a word. Nothing. Expect the worst, I said to myself. Good-by, old friend. Au revoir. night, sweet prince, as they say, something something something. Then one day, MacDonald, one fine day, back into town he comes, only not by foot and not by train and not by plane. He’s driving a car a block long and sitting beside him is the greatest little piece you ever saw. Knockers? You’ve never seen such a pair. I mean just to look at that girl — And do you know what, MacDonald? He parks that bus right outside here and steps inside to have a smoked meat with the boys. By this time he owns his own stable already. So help me, MacDonald, in Baltimore he has eight horses running. O.K.; today it would be peanuts for an operator his size, but at the time, MacDonald, at the time. And from what? Streetcar transfers at three cents apiece. Streetcar transfers, that’s all. I mean can you beat that?”

  Whenever he told that story Max’s face was suffused with such enthusiasm that the men, though they had heard it time and again, sure as they were that it would come out right in the end, unfailingly moved in closer, their fears and hopes riding with the Boy Wonder in Baltimore, who, as Max said, was only a St. Urbain Street boy.

  But they were extremely fond of Max, anyway. He didn’t push, he was always good for a fin, and though he never complained, it had been hard for him since his wife died.

  Minnie had died eleven years ago and that, Max figured, was why Duddy was such a puzzle. A headache, even. All he ever wanted to do was play snooker. Max, of course, was anxious for Duddy to get started in life. About Lennie he had no worries, not one.

  “Awright, Duddy, since you’re here already, what’ll you have?”

  “A Scotch and soda.”

  Max shook with laughter. “Some B.T.O., my kid.”

  “Getting much?” MacDonald asked, winking at Duddy.

  Drapeau guffawed and Debrofsky gave Josette a meaningful poke. But Max frowned. “You shouldn’t talk like that, MacDonald. He’s only a kid.”

  Small, sallow MacDonald smiled thinly. “Well, if he can drink Scotch…”

  “Okey-doke, Eddy, give my boy a Grepsi and a lean on rye. I’ll have the same.” Max sat down beside Duddy at the counter. “Keep away from MacDonald,” he said in a low voice. “He’s new here and I don’t like him.”

  Duddy told his father about Mr. MacPherson. “He said you weren’t fit to bring me up, the bastard.”

  “If your teacher said that he had a good reason. What did you say first?”

  “Do I always have to be in the wrong? Jeez. Why can’t you stick up for me? Just once why can’t you —”

  “You’re a real troublemaker, Duddy, that’s why. Lennie never once got the strap in four years at Fletcher’s.”

  Duddy repeated to his father the rumor about the missionary who was going to distribute pamphlets outside F.F.H.S. “Something oughta be done,” he said. “The P.T.A. oughta complain.”

  “That’s true,” Max said. “It’s not like we were Chinks or something.”

  But Duddy sensed that his father wasn’t listening to him. He seemed edgy, and from time to time he glanced anxiously at Josette.

  Josette was a handsome whore with splendid black hair and enormous breasts. “She wears a sign under her bra,” Duddy had once overheard Max say, “and you know what it says? It says look out for the four-foot drop.” She often came in to drink coffee with the drivers and occasionally, when there was no game going on in the back room, she went there with one or the other of them. In exchange, the men tried to be helpful. Josette was obviously drunk and seemed to be in a black mood.

  “You finish your sandwich,” Max said to Duddy, “and I’ll drive you home. It’s time to pack in, anyway.”

  “Hey, c’mere kid,” MacDonald said. “Got something to show you.”

  “You put those cards right back in your pocket, MacDonald.”

  “You were glad enough to look through them, so why can’t the kid… ?”

  “Because he’s a kid.”

  “Aw, come on, Daddy, lemme look at the cards.”

  “Your old man figures you still think it’s got no other use but to piss with.”

  The phone rang and Debrofsky went to answer it.

  “Don’t needle me, MacDonald.”

  MacDonald flipped his deck of cards.

  “When I lose my temper,” Max said, “I lose my temper.”

  MacDonald looked closely at Max and retreated. Josette tittered. Max grabbed his boy firmly by the arm. “Let’s go,” he said. But Debrofsky blocked his way. “It’s for you, Max.”

  Duddy, left alone, looked longingly at MacDonald. MacDonald smiled his thin, humorless smile, and walked towards the back of the store. Just as Duddy started after him Eddy called out, “You sit right down here and finish your sandwich. Come on, Duddy.”

  “I’m not a kid any more.”

  “You’re a kid,” Eddy said.

  MacDonald began to lay out his cards face up on the pinball machine and the other drivers moved away from him.

  “How’re you doing at school?” Debrofsky asked.

  “Aw.”

  Max stepped out of the phone booth and took Josette aside. They whispered together.

  “I can’t drive you home,” Max said to Duddy.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve got to take Josette somewhere.”

  Josette began putting on more makeup.

  “Where?”

  “I can’t take you home. You’ll have to walk, that’s all.”

  “I’ll drive him home,” MacDonald said.

  “He’ll walk.”

  “Why can’t Debrofsky take Josette?”

  “It’s gotta be me. No more questions. O.K.?”

  Duddy kicked an empty cigarette box with his toe.

  “I can’t explain,” Max said. “Now will you go home, please.”

  Duddy hesitated.

  “He gets it off the top,” MacDonald said.

  Max flushed. He took a deep breath, and the only sound was the click of Josette’s compact. MacDonald slipped behind a chair, ready to pick it up, and Max started for him. He was stopped by the expression in Duddy’s face.

  Duddy smiled; he laughed.

  “Jeez,” he said proudly. “That’s something. Jeez.”

  Max slapped his face so hard that Duddy lost his balance and fell against the counter.

  “Get out of here. Go home.”

  Finger marks had been burned red into the boy’s cheeks. Max buried his hands in his pockets.

  “You’re a pimp.”


  “Get out, Duddy.”

  Duddy got up and ran.

  “I didn’t mean to hit him so hard,” Max said to the other drivers.

  “He had it coming to him.”

  “Easy, Max. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Max took Josette by the arm. “Awright,” he said. “I haven’t got all night. Let’s go.”

  “You’re hurting me,” Josette said.

  4

  In the masters’ room of F.F.H.S. the next morning Mr. MacPherson was interrupted when Mr. Coldwell burst angrily into the room. “If I ever find out which one of them phoned me last night,” he said, “I’ll fix it so that he can’t get into any school in the city.”

  “So they’ve been calling you too,” Mr. Jackson said.

  “Are you sure it’s the students?” Mr. MacPherson asked sleepily.

  “Did you call me at one A.M., John? Shout obscenities into my ear and hang up?”

  “I believe,” Mr. Jackson began, applying his years of intimacy with the scientific method to the present banality, “I believe — now we must allow some margin for doubt — but I do I recognized Kravitz’s voice last night.”

  Mr. MacPherson began to read his history test papers.

  “Damn it, John,” Mr. Coldwell said, “strap the little bastard and put an end to this nonsense.”

  “Strapping,” Mr. MacPherson began in a small voice, “has never been a solution to…”

  “Sure, sure,” Mr. Coldwell said, “but until your socialist messiah comes along I’d like my sleep undisturbed by obscene phone calls. Strap him, John.”

  “I refuse to strap Kravitz.”

  Mr. Cox lowered his newspaper. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “Kravitz and the rest of the Dead End Kids were at our place last night. I played some records for them.”

  “Young man, you’ll hear more about this. I think we’ve had quite enough of your musical evenings.”

  “Why don’t you try strapping me, Coldwell? You can make the same deal with me as you made with Kravitz. If I say nothing about my wrists bleeding you’ll promise not to mark it in your book.”

  Even Mr. MacPherson joined in the ensuing laughter.

  “Really, Cox,” Mr. Feeney said, “you don’t believe that story, do you?”

  Mr. Cox’s face turned white.

  “What would you say,” Mr. Coldwell said, his anger gone, “if Kravitz told you I beat him with chains?”

  Luckily for Mr. Cox the first bell rang just then. He caught up with Mr. MacPherson just outside Room 41. “I want you to know,” he said, “that I’m with you all the way in this. Strapping is the worst kind of reactionary measure. I’m a socialist too,” he added warmly.

  Mr. MacPherson saw Coldwell walking towards them. “Socialism is strictly for young men,” he said loudly. “I hope you too will grow out of it in time.”

  A typed note was waiting for Mr. MacPherson on his desk in Room 41.

  KRAVITZ MAY BE A BRAT AND AN

  EXHIBITIONIST AND A COWARD,

  BUT THE GUY AFRAID TO STRAP

  HIM MUST BE A REAL CHICKEN.

  Mr. MacPherson crumpled the note into a ball and tossed it into the wastebasket. “I’m warning you I won’t stand for any nonsense today. If anyone so much as talks without raising his hand, he’s as good as asking for a suspension.”

  When Mr. MacPherson got home that afternoon there was yet another note waiting for him.

  DEAR JOHN,

  Dr. Hanson wants you to call him as soon as you get in. He gave me an injection and something to make me sleep.

  JENNY

  Mr. MacPherson phoned. Dr. Hanson was out on a call, Miss Floyd said, but Mr. MacPherson was to come to his office at nine A.M. tomorrow morning, without fail. Yes, he would have to miss school. This was urgent.

  No sooner had he hung up than the telephone rang again. “Yes,” he said tightly.

  “Guess who?”

  “Look here, Kravitz, I’m warning you —”

  “Oh dear, do I sound Jewish, John?”

  “I shall have you suspended for this. That’s a promise.”

  “John, pet, it’s me.”

  “Who’s speaking, please?”

  “Clara Shieldberg. Und vat’s new vit you, Abie?”

  “Oh, it’s you, Clara. I’m sorry. You see, sometimes my students —”

  “Never mind your students, pet. You get right into a taxi this minute and come over here and have a drink with us. We’re in Room 341.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that. Jenny isn’t well and besides I —”

  “If you don’t come over here this minute Herbert says he’ll report you to the police for having stolen his car.”

  The party, centered in Room 341, actually embraced the two adjoining rooms as well. Even the surrounding halls swarmed with merrymarkers. A lot of the men wore badges with their names and addresses typed on them and, underneath, the one word DELEGATE. All the women were smartly dressed. Embarrassed, Mr. MacPherson edged into a free corner and hastily lit a cigarette.

  “It’s great to see you again,” Herbert said. “What brand of poison do you prefer, Mr. Chips?”

  Clara kissed Mr. MacPherson on the cheek and it was a long time and lots of whiskies later when he next looked at his watch and discovered that it was three A.M. He had only meant to stay for an hour. Horrified, Mr. MacPherson rushed for his coat, ran outside, and hailed a taxi.

  Once in the taxi, he recalled how Herbert had introduced him to a group of strangers. “I want you to shake the hand of the most brilliant student of our class at McGill. He could have been a success at anything he wanted. Instead he’s devoted his life to teaching.” It was clear that they still took him for the freshly scrubbed idealist who had left McGill twenty years ago. They had no idea that he was exhausted, bitter, and drained, and that given the chance to choose again he would never become a teacher.

  Perhaps, he thought, there’s still time. He hadn’t strapped a boy yet, had he? Cox admired him. Next year, he remembered, two more young veterans would be joining the staff. Together, maybe, they could help the boys. A club could be formed, perhaps, as was usually done in movies about delinquents. There might still be nostalgic reunions in his parlor. MacPherson began to feel much better. Cheerful, even. There’s still hope, he thought.

  Mr. MacPherson tiptoed into the bedroom, but Jenny wasn’t there. He found her crumpled up on the hall floor. The receiver dangled idiotically from the hook above her. Mr. MacPherson, who was still only vaguely conscious of what had happened, snatched it up immediately, but the party at the other end had hung up. So he stared accusingly at his wife on the floor, not knowing whether to rip his clothes into shreds or hold her dry hand in his or go out for another drink. After he had hovered over her dumbly for a time he knelt down and discovered that she was still alive. Quickly he telephoned for an ambulance.

  5

  Weidman and Samuels were playing O-X-O on the board.

  “Hey, Duddy,” Abrams shouted. “Guess who’s coming back today?”

  “Not my favorite Scotchman?”

  “It’s not so funny,” Hersh said. “His wife died.”

  “Too bad it wasn’t Mac,” Abrams said.

  “You know what,” Cohen said. “My brother met Mac in the Pines Wednesday aft. And man oh man, was he ever shot! So anyways, my brother pats him on the shoulder. ‘How’s about a beer on me,’ he says. So you know what? So Mac slaps him across the face.”

  Weidman and Samuels stopped their game on the board.

  “So what did your brother do, jerkovitch?”

  “What do you mean what did my brother do? He let him have it smack on the jaw. Bango!”

  “Smack on the jaw. Yeah, I’ll bet.”

  “O.K., ask Mac when he comes in, smart guy.”

  In the uproar that followed nobody noticed that Mr. MacPherson had, indeed, entered the room, until he smacked his briefcase down on the class master’s desk.

  “Well, well, welcome back, sir.”

&
nbsp; Mr. MacPherson silenced Duddy with a scowl. The other boys scrambled for their seats.

  “Glad to have you back, sir,” Hersh offered timidly.

  Clutching the class register tightly, Mr. MacPherson began to call out the boys’ names in alphabetical order. “Abrams,” he began.

  “Present, sir.”

  He belched when he got to Weidman.

  “He’s drunk,” Duddy howled. “Drunk as a lord.”

  The boys watched predatorily as Mr. MacPherson fiddled with the straps of his briefcase.

  “Hey, sir. How’s about a few pints after classes, eh?”

  No reply.

  “Is it true that Cohen’s brother let you have it, sir?”

  Hersh squeezed his hands together. “Cut it out,” he said. “Leave him alone, please.”

  Duddy Kravitz shook a fist at Hersh. “We know how to deal with tuchusleckers he said. Then, turning to Mr. MacPherson, he asked, “How’s about a free period, sir?”

  “All right.”

  Two minutes later Duddy shot up in his seat. “Sir, there’s something I’d like to ask you. I’ve been looking at my hist’ry book and I see there’s only one paragraph on the Spanish inquisition. You don’t even mention it in class, so seeing we got lots of time now I thought you might like to tell us something about it.”

  “The trouble with you Jews,” Mr. MacPherson said, “is that you’re always walking around with a chip on your shoulder.”

  “Hey! Hey, there!”

  “What exactly do you mean, you Jews?”

  “This isn’t Germany, you know.”

  “He’s a nazi fascist!”

  6

  The man to avoid, as far as strappings went, was Mr. Coldwell. Mr. Coldwell strapped from an angle, so that the tongue curled around your hand and rebounded hard on the wrist. Usually he strapped a boy until he cried; then he’d say, “I’d hoped you’d take it like a man.” Next came Mr. Feeney. Mr. Feeney took three steps backward with the strap resting lightly on his shoulder, charged, and struck. Mr. MacPherson, however, did not even know how to hold the strap properly. So when he led Duddy Kravitz into the Medical Room that afternoon, breaking with a practice of twenty years, the actual blows were feeble, and it was Duddy who emerged triumphant, racing outside to greet his classmates.