The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

by Mordecai Richler

  “I can’t help it. That’s the way I was born.”

  Duddy sat up and rubbed his eyes. “You mean you’re really an epileptic?”

  Virgil nodded. He grinned.

  “Jeez.” Ver gerharget he thought. All the world’s ranking crap artists, how do they find me? “You got a cigarette? Thanks. What happens… em… well, if you have a fit like?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about a thing, Mr. Kravitz. I don’t make much noise.”

  “You don’t?”

  Virgil grinned.

  “Well, there’s always a silver lining.”

  “It’s not easy to be an epileptic. You’d be surprised how many people are prejudiced against us.”

  “Listen, if you have a fit — I mean just in case. No offense, eh? Am I supposed to put a spoon down your mouth or… em…”

  “Naw. Don’t worry about a thing. Sometimes I have fits in my sleep and I don’t even know about it until I wake up in the morning.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, then I can tell by looking in the mirror. My tongue gets cut.”

  “Do you… em… have these fits in your sleep very often?”

  “A couple of times a week. They’re not very severe.”

  “Is that so?”

  “You know, Mr. Kravitz, life is no bowl of cherries for a guy like me.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “Who would take a chance on me as a waiter?”

  How would you like to kiss my ass, Duddy thought.

  “Or a driver?”

  Jeez, Duddy thought, I’d better not let him drive the Dodge back to Montreal. A crack-up, that’s all I need.

  “We’re a persecuted minority. Like the Jews and the Negroes.”

  “Yes, I guess that is way of looking at it.” Duddy lit another cigarette off his butt. Who can sleep anyway, he thought, with this one in the room. God help us.

  “Only you have B’nai B’rith to fight for you and the Negroes have the NAACP. We have nobody. We’re all alone.”

  “It’s a shame, Virgil. A real shame.”

  “Even the queers are getting organized now. No offense —”

  “What do you mean no offense?”

  “Well, I don’t know you very well, Mr. Kravitz, and you did ask for a double room —”

  “Just don’t get any stupid ideas,” Duddy said, pulling his blankets tighter around him.

  “Anyway, like I was saying, even the queers now have organizations to fight for them.”

  “Is that so?”

  “You know, Mr. Kravitz, you’re a Jew and wherever you go other Jews will help you. I’m not speaking against that. I think it’s swell. Why, you could turn up tomorrow in Kansas City or Rome or — well maybe not Tokyo. But my point is other Jews there will lend a helping hand. You’re sort of international. With the fags it’s like that too. You know, they have their special little faggoty night clubs in every city. But epileptics? No. Nothing. A lot of them, plenty, own up to it, that’s why. You think there’s shame attached to being an epileptic?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Some of the greatest men in the world were epileptics.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Julius Caesar.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Jesus Christ, even. Dostoevski. Charlie Chaplin.”

  “Charlie Chaplin is a Jew,” Duddy said snidely.

  “A guy can be both, you know.”

  “Jeez.”

  “That’s why I started out in the pinball machine business in the Bronx, you know. Nobody would hire me so I had to go into business for myself.”

  “Necessity is the mother of all invention,” Duddy said.

  “Those are true words, but look where it got me. Even with the thousand dollars I’m getting from you I will have lost almost all my savings.”

  “That’s show biz,” Duddy said. Cuckoo, he thought warmly. I’ll call him tomorrow. “Shouldn’t we try to get some sleep?” he asked.

  “My life ambition, Mr. Kravitz, is to organize the epileptics of the world. I’d like to be their Sister Kenny.”

  “That would be something, Virgil.”

  Virgil’s voice took on the dimensions of a platform speaker. “Why aren’t we covered by the Fair Employment Act?” he demanded.

  “Why don’t we get some sleep?”

  “I like you, Mr. Kravitz. Do you like me?”

  “Yeah, sure thing, Virgil.”

  “Why?”

  “Couldn’t I tell you in the morning?”

  “You’re not just saying it, are you? You do like me.”

  “I think you’re a prince of a fella.”

  “Thanks. So many people are prejudiced against us, you know.”

  “Good night, Virgie.”

  “We’re going to be buddies. Real buddies. I can tell.”

  Sure, Duddy thought. You bet. He got up and turned out the light.

  “What does Yvette think of me? Be frank.”

  “Jeez, Virgie. She didn’t say.”

  “I like her. She’s got qualities.”

  Duddy pretended to be snoring.

  “I’ve got a theory about women, you know. Mr. Kravitz?”

  “Mn?”

  “I’ve got a theory about women. It always works too. There are three types of women. The Berthe type, the Mathilde type, and the —”

  “Virgil?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I like to sleep now. Iam very tired. Imust be up in four hours. Iam saying good night. Good night.”

  Virgil leaped out of bed. “It’s almost light,” he said. “It’s snowing. I love snow.”

  Duddy woke with a hacking cough at nine-thirty. The room was freezing. He stumbled over to the sink, splashed cold water on his face, and took another benzedrine pill.

  “Good morning,” Virgil shouted. “A happy day in store, I hope.”

  Duddy moaned.

  “I want to see all the sights.”

  Virgil leaned close to the mirror and stuck out his tongue. Duddy stared at him and remembered and suddenly froze.

  “Are you O.K.?”

  “Not a scratch,” Virgil said. “Look, everything’s covered with snow outside.” He began to dress hastily. “I want to be the first person to walk in it. The first in the world.”

  “Go ahead and good luck. I’m going to get some coffee downstairs.”

  It took three days of lies, threats, pandering, cajoling, insult and the ultimate appeal to avarice to sell the pinball machines, but sell them he did. All but one of them. He went to Rubin’s first and told him that the Hilltop Lodge had already bought one. “Why,” he said to Rubin, “pay rent to some jerk in Montreal — why split the take — on this junky old model when for two hundred and fifty bucks I can supply you with the latest machine?”

  “You know how long I can get for receiving stolen goods?”

  Duddy assured him that he owned the machines. He had a receipt. “Look,” he said, “six months from now you do a switch with the Hilltop Lodge and the Hilltop Lodge changes with the ChâI’ve got ten machines. You keep rotating them.”

  “I’d like to think about it.”

  “All right. I’ll tell you what. I’ll guarantee to buy the machine back from you one year from today for a hundred dollars. Right off you start with a profit. Don’t you see?” Duddy put his arm around Virgil. “I brought Mr. Roseboro all the way in from New York special to install and service the machines. He’s an expert.”

  “That’s a falsehood,” Virgil said.

  “Ah-ha-ha,” Duddy said. “Would you mind waiting outside in the car, please?”

  After he had sold the first four machines Duddy dumped the rest with comparative ease. They went for an average of two hundred and twenty-five dollars and he was paid in cash for all but three of them.

  “Well,” Duddy said to Yvette, “I’ve got the money for the notary now.”

  “What about the bills in Montreal? And you have to give Virgil his thousand dollars.”

&n
bsp; “Sure. Don’t worry.”

  Yvette took to Virgil and showed him all the sights in and around Ste. Agathe. Once or twice Duddy came out of a hotel after making a sale and found Yvette and Virgil laughing together in the car. “Hey,” he asked, “what gives between you two?”

  “Virgil wanted to know if you had a wife and children. He thought you were thirty-five at least.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Ithought it was funny.”

  “You’d make a very good parent, Mr. Kravitz. I observe people and I can tell.”

  “Let’s get moving, please.”

  Duddy was almost always bad-tempered in Ste. Agathe. Yvette put it down to the benzedrine pills, but she didn’t like it. Their second night there she moved out of her house and into a single room in the St. Vincent Hotel.

  “Virgil and I are going to the movies tonight. Want to come?”

  “No.”

  “Do you mind if I go?”

  “Listen,” Duddy said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll take over your single room and you can move in with Virgil.”

  “I don’t have to go to the movies. I can stay here with you.”

  “Go ahead. Enjoy yourself.”

  Once they had gone Duddy got into the car and drove as near as he could to Lac St. Pierre. He had to walk the last three quarters of a mile through deep snow. The drifts were soft and often, between rocks, he sank in up to his knees. But it gave him quite a lift to see his land in winter. A thin scalp of ice protected the lake and all his fields glittered white and purple and gold under the setting sun. All except the pine trees were bare. It must be pretty in autumn, he thought, when all the leaves are changing colors. Duddy saw where he would put up the hotel and decided that he would not have to clear the wood all in one shot. It’s lovely, he thought, and lots of those pine trees I can peddle at Christmastime.

  Duddy trudged up and down through the snow with an owner’s sharp eye for fire hazards and signs of mischief. He tried the ice on the lake with his foot. It cracked. He urinated into a snowbank, writing his name. It’s my land, he thought. But the wind began to cut quicker across the fields, suddenly the sun went out like a light, it was dark, and Duddy began to shiver. Jeez, he thought, why didn’t I leave the car lights on? He buttoned up his collar and began to strike matches. Duddy was able to trace his footsteps until the snow began to fall again, and then he was in bad trouble. He circled round and round, his teeth chattered, and twice he began to run. He ran and ran to no purpose until he collapsed panting in the snow. His feet burned from the cold, his eyes felt as if they were stuffed with sand, and he began to think what in the hell am I doing lost in a blizzard, a Jewish boy? Moses, he recalled from Bible Comics, without ever reaching the Promised Land, but I’ve my future to think of. He tripped, he fell time and again, his nostrils stuck together. If God pulls me through, he thought, I’ll give up screwing for two weeks. Smoked meats too. When he finally stumbled on the car, shortly after two, he’d run out of cigarettes and matches. The car wouldn’t start. Duddy sat in the back seat and wept, blowing on his hands. Eventually, because it was too cold to sit there any more, he started back into Ste. Agathe. It was nearly four o’clock when he reached the hotel. Yvette and Virgil were waiting up for him in the double room.

  “Duddy!” She embraced him. She felt his forehead. “It’s a furnace,” she said. “I’ll call the doctor right away.”

  “No doctors please. Get me a basin of hot water for my feet. There’s a bottle of Scotch in the top drawer. Get me that too.”

  “I’m calling the doctor.”

  “Sure. Go ahead. He puts me in bed for a week and I don’t sell the rest of the machines.” Duddy drank the Scotch neat. He also took three aspirins. “I’ll sweat it out tonight,” he said. “Tomorrow I’ll be good as new.”

  “You’re remarkable, Mr. Kravitz. You have a great fighting spirit.”

  “Will you shut your face, please? Good night.”

  Each morning at nine o’clock Duddy phoned Mr. Friar. “Well, how goes the battle?”

  “I’m working on it, Kravitz. I’m not giving up.”

  Wherever he went Duddy took the movie catalogues he had picked up in Toronto. He made deals with four hotels to supply them with movies one night a week. Six, he figured, was his break-even point, and anything over a profit. With a run of the resorts between Shawbridge and Ste. Agathe, he hoped to work up to two showings a night, fourteen rentals a week, by summertime. The children’s camps could be worked during the afternoons, and that would bring in even more. Duddy didn’t forget his soap and toilet supply order book either. He earned enough on this to pay his hotel bill and get his car out of the garage.

  When they started back for Montreal on Thursday afternoon Yvette got into the Dodge with Virgil. “Hey,” Duddy said. “You come with me.”

  “I thought I’d keep Virgil company. You’re in such a bad mood anyway.”

  Virgil rubbed the back of his neck. He blushed. “I’d like to assure you, Mr. Kravitz, that I have no carnal designs on Yvette.”

  “Come on,” Duddy said, grabbing Yvette’s arm. “Get in the car.”

  They found Max at Eddy’s, and he was furious. “Who do you think you are,” he said, “that you can run off with my car for three days? Just like that.”

  “I phoned you,” Duddy said. “I told you it was important.”

  “I’ve got a living to earn. Smart guy! Operator!”

  “I’ll pay you for the use of the car, Daddy.”

  But Max walked away from Duddy and the proffered fifty dollars. He stood by the window and saw Yvette talking to Virgil outside. “Some kid,” he said, turning to Debrofsky, “he’s got his own apartment now and a shiksa go with. You dirty pig!”

  “Yvette is my Girl Friday.”

  “I hope you get the clap. That would teach you a lesson,” Max shouted.

  “He’s a healthy kid,” Debrofsky said. “A girl’s good for him.”

  “It’s all glandular,” Eddy said. “At his age —”

  “I’m worried about his future,” Max said.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not getting hitched.”

  Duddy ordered six smoked meats and some pickles to take out. Max sat down at the bar and sucked a sugar cube. “You don’t look so hot, Duddy,” he said.

  “I’m all right, Daddy,” he replied, smiling shyly.

  “I haven’t even seen your apartment yet. I wasn’t invited.”

  “Come tomorrow night with Lennie. We’ll all go to dinner.”

  “Don’t try to get around me,” Max said. “If there’s anything wrong with the Dodge I’m holding you responsible. When you took it there wasn’t the smallest rattle.”

  “He should live so long,” Debrofsky said.

  “Oh, I want to speak to you.” Duddy took Debrofsky aside and they whispered together for a minute.

  “What’s going on?” Max asked.

  “You take it into the garage, Daddy. Send me the bill.”

  Duddy and Virgil and Yvette went back to the apartment and ate there. Virgil helped Duddy carry the one pinball machine that was left upstairs and they set it up in the living room.

  “High score for a dollar,” Duddy said.

  Mr. Friar came over and Duddy opened a bottle of gin.

  “What an intriguing machine,” Mr. Friar said.

  Duddy, a practiced hand at shaking, coaxing, and pushing, won twelve dollars on high score.

  After Mr. Friar had gone back to work, Virgil asked, “Can I sleep here tonight, Mr. Kravitz? I’ve got a sleeping bag.”

  “Let me refresh your drink, Virgie,” Duddy said. “I’ve got business to talk with you.”

  “I’m staying,” Yvette said.

  “Sure.”

  Virgil grinned. He waited.

  “How would you like to stay here and go to work for me, Virgie?”

  “Duddy,” Yvette said, “that would be wonderful!”

  “Well, Virgie?”

  “You mean you’d gi
ve a guy like me a job. I mean knowing —” He noticed Yvette watching him and averted his eyes. “Well, you know…”

  “I could trust you. That’s the most important thing with me.”

  “What do you want him to do?” Yvette asked.

  Duddy explained that he was expanding into the distribution side of the movie business. Yvette could book the rentals.

  But he needed a man on the road to show the movies, somebody trustworthy and presentable: Virgil. In summer, probably, he would have an assistant.

  “But I don’t know how to work a projector,” Virgil said.

  “That’s something a four-year-old kid could learn in a week. Don’t worry.”

  Yvette kissed Duddy on the cheek. “I’m sorry if I was sharp with you in Ste. Agathe,” she said.

  “You’ll never regret this, Mr. Kravitz. I’ll work so hard.”

  “There’s only one thing. I need a man with a truck.”

  “Oh.”

  “You know. A small panel job.”

  “I see.”

  “What’s the matter with you two? That’s no problem. Look, Virgie, I owe you a thousand bucks. Right? Right.”

  “Duddy,” Yvette began apprehensively. But he looked at her sharply and she sat down again.

  “What would you say if for that thousand bucks I could put my hands on just the truck for you?”

  “Could you, Mr. Kravitz?”

  “I spoke to Debrofsky at Eddy’s. His brother-in-law has a used-car lot and there he’s got a ‘42 Chevvie. A half-ton job. It’s in beautiful shape and he wants twelve-fifty for it. But if you were interested, Virgie, and willing to pay cash, I think I could swing it for a thousand.”

  Virgil’s eyes filled with excitement. “When could you know definitely?” he asked, his fists clenched.

  Yvette started for the door.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Go to hell,” she said, and she slammed the door after her.

  “Maybe you ought to sleep on it, Virgie. I don’t want to push you.”

  “Imagine. You’d give a guy like me a job. You’d trust me.”

  “I’ll give you sixty bucks a week to start, Virgie, and of course I’ll handle all the gas bills and stuff. You’d have to put the company name on the truck, though.”

  “Dial MOVIES?”

  “Yeah.”