Easy Avenue

by Brian Doyle

  Her name was Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell.

  Later that day I was lined up at the toilet with some of the other people in our building—Mr. Blank, his strange little dog Nerves, Mr. Yasso, Mrs. Quirk and her boy with no brain and, behind me, my new neighbor.

  “Is this the only toilet?” she said. “For six families?”

  “Eight,” I said. “There are eight families. Two for each part of the H. You are the eighth family to move in,” I said. She looked at me.

  “You went to York Street School,” she said. “Can you still stand on your hands?” She was looking right at me from out of her brown-black eyes.

  I did a perfect handstand while the little dog, Nerves, came around and stared in my face so that I started to laugh and had to come down.

  “Your name is Hulbert O’Driscoll,” she said.

  “Hubbo,” I said.

  “How did you know I could stand on my hands?” I said.

  “We used to watch you after school in the gym. Some of the girls really liked you.”

  “Me?” I was so embarrassed that I did another hand-stand and hand-walked away down the hall so she wouldn’t see my face. Nerves clicked down the hall with me, trying to do a paw-stand probably. When I got back and stood up again I said that I knew her too.

  “Your name is Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell. Everybody knew you.” As soon as I said that I knew I shouldn’t have. All of a sudden I felt awful.

  The toilet was free now and I was next.

  “Would you like to go first?” I said, being a big gentleman.

  “No.” Not polite, not shy, not proud. Just no.

  I went in and shut the door.

  I didn’t want her to hear me going so I turned on the tap.

  When I came out Fleurette and Nerves were staring at each other. A staring match.

  “Is this a real dog or what is it?” said Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell. Then she went in the toilet and shut the door.

  She didn’t turn on the tap. I went down the hall to my unit with Nerves, who walked along beside me taking little glances at me as we moved along. Nerves was a little dog that looked a lot like a rat. His tail was like a little black whip and his body was fat and pulpy-looking and his snout was pointed just like a rat’s snout. And when he walked his claws made little clicking noises on the floor. And his little whiskers stuck out like a rat’s whiskers. And his eyes were shiny and always darting around and he’d move along a few quick steps going click click and then stop and his ears would stiffen up and his nose would start to move around like a little eraser rubbing out something invisible in the air in front of him. Then he’d click click on a little more.

  Whenever Mr. Blank came in the door, Nerves would wait to see what mood he was in and then get in the same mood right away. If Mr. Blank was grumpy or frowning, Nerves would kind of frown and show his pointy little rat’s teeth. If Mr. Blank was happy, smiling and feeling good, Nerves would jump up and down and wag his ratty little tail and squeak like a rat laughing.

  And if Mr. Blank was thinking about something hard or trying to figure out a crossword puzzle, Nerves would stand there beside him and look down at the floor and sort of study it as if he were studying a speck of dirt or trying to read something that was written there.

  Mr. Blank hated Nerves. He hated to come home from work after a tiring day and as soon as he walked in the door have Nerves there, imitating him.

  “Why can’t we have a normal dog?” Mr. Blank would say to Mrs. Blank. “I hate this dog. Look at him. He’s making fun of me. Nerves! Be yourself! Develop a personality of your own! Leave me out of it!”

  And Nerves would glare right back at him, doing a perfect imitation of him.

  Then Mr. Blank would sit down with the paper in his chair and let out a big sigh and Nerves would get on the other chair and sigh too. A rat’s sigh.

  And after a while Mr. Blank would look up over his paper and say, “I hate you, Nerves.”

  And Nerves would show him his little teeth.

  And sometimes when Mr. Blank would try to kiss Mrs. Blank or cuddle up to her while she was making the supper, Nerves would be right there beside them with his front paws around Mr. Blank’s leg, kissing Mr. Blank’s pants with his ratty little tongue.

  And then maybe Mr. Blank, just so that he could relax and eat his supper in peace, would put Nerves outside. Then he’d sit down and start to eat and he’d lift up his fork with the spaghetti hanging from it and the fork would stop right about at his open mouth because he’d suddenly see Nerves, outside, staring at him through the window, licking his rodenty little chops and nodding his head as if he were saying, “Good, eh? Is it good? Is it? Is it good? Go ahead. Eat it. It’s good! Is it good?”

  “I hate that dog,” Mr. Blank would say, “I want to take it to the Humane Society and have it executed.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly dear,” Mrs. Blank would say. “It’s only a little dog.”

  Nerves was almost like a mirror.

  Before I went into my unit, Nerves and I looked at each other for a minute. I tried out a silly sentence on him. I said this: “I think I like you, Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell,” I said.

  Nerves tucked in his chin and looked down at his foot, being very cute and shy.

  What a dog.

  4 Picnic

  THE NEXT MORNING across the parade square in Uplands Emergency Shelter, at the rec hall where the store was, I met her again. She was buying bologna, macaroni and stale bread.

  So was I. Except I had to get some eggs and peanut butter too.

  Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell said she never tasted peanut butter. I told her it was best if you toasted the stale bread and then spread the peanut butter on the toasted bread and then if you had some honey...

  Then I realized I was making her feel rotten because she was so poor. But I also felt kind of good and big because I was so rich. Compared to her. Then I hated myself for being so mean. Feeling rich because of peanut butter.

  “Did you used to live on Friel Street in Lowertown?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m glad we moved. I hated it there.”

  We were walking back across the parade square towards Unit Number Eight. Our building. Our home.

  “Killer Bodnoff used to call it Feel Street,” I said laughing a bit. Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell didn’t say anything. She just looked straight ahead.

  Beside Building Number Eight was Building Number Nine. Somebody else’s home. Then Number Ten. Eight more families in there maybe lined up at their toilet. There were many many buildings all the same. All shaped like an H lying flat. In the bar of the H were the tubs and the toilet. In each arm and each leg of the H were two families. Each family had four rooms with walls separating them that didn’t reach the ceiling. The four rooms were called units. In the right leg of the lying down H were units A and B. In the right arm of the H were units C and D. Units E and F were in the left leg. G and H in the left arm.

  Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell’s address was Building Number Eight, Unit H, around the back.

  I looked and saw that her eyes were full of tears.

  Our square building was bouncing closer to us as we walked across the parade square. The whole peanut butter business was stuck in my mind. Feeling rich over peanut butter. How stupid. And Feel Street.

  “I hate that stuff about Feel Street,” said Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell. “I knew they were going around saying that. I’m glad I moved. Nobody will talk about me here. Because hardly anybody knows me here.” She looked right at me while we were walking. She looked at me so long that I had to look away. The word “hardly” stayed there in the air like it was printed in a comic book. I almost did a handstand to get away from her eyes but I couldn’t because of the eggs and peanut butter and stuff that I was carrying.

  You could tell it was going to be a hot day the way the sun was heating up the pavement of the square and the way the air was starting to shimmer, making Building Eight and the o
ther buildings bend like rubber a little bit as they bounced toward us. It was a very big parade square and we walked together with our groceries for a long time without saying anything. Then I said a very smart, a very intelligent thing for a person whose mind was clogged up with peanut butter and rubber buildings.

  “Would you like to go on a picnic?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell. “But only if you promise never, ever, to tell anybody about Feel Street. Never, ever.”

  I promised.

  I left Mrs. O’Driscoll a note saying I was going to the sandpits for a picnic with my new neighbor. While I was writing the note I laughed to myself a bit imagining her reading it when she got home. She would say “Picnic!” out of the side of her mouth. “Picnic!” Then she would say “Sandpits!” out of an even tighter corner of her mouth.

  I packed half a loaf of bread, a knife, a bottle opener, the peanut butter, a small jar of honey, some matches and a blanket.

  I knocked on Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell’s door and she opened it right away and came out and closed it right away. She didn’t want me to look inside.

  We walked out the gate and down the road along the edge of the airport and ran a few times to try and get right under the big planes as they came in for a landing flying low across the road so that you could almost reach up and touch them.

  Then we went past the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club parking lot with all the new cars shining in the sun and the golfers chunking their car doors shut and opening and shutting their trunks and walking with their clubs clinking in their squeaky leather bags and the men and women laughing and diamonds flashing.

  Further down the road we turned left at Kelly’s Inn, a crooked old shack of a store on the edge of the sandpits, and I bought two bottles of cream soda from the old man in there with the cigarette dangling and his torn undershirt.

  And behind Kelly’s Inn a way, we ducked through some trees lining the old road and suddenly, stretched before us, all the way down to the river, the sandpits. The first pit was huge and I ran down the steep sliding slope, part sideways, part sliding, part stumbling, part flying with huge steps, the sand giving and pouring around my ankles like brown sugar.

  At the bottom I looked up at Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell, standing, watching me, her hands on her hips, at the top of the hot sand cliff. I put up my hand to shade my eyes from the sun. She looked about as tall as my thumb away up there.

  She untied the white rag from her black curly long hair and started striding, leaping, jumping down the long steep sand toward me, her hair floating and flying and falling around her as she got bigger and bigger.

  We climbed up the steep other side, sliding back half a step for every step we took. At the top we sat down in the hot sand to rest. There was a sand gulley that wove around the next two pits down to the Rideau River. It would be cool down there by the water under the trees.

  “I want to learn to walk on my hands,” she said, after we got our breath.

  “Your fingers are like toes,” I said. “You press them and lift them just like standing on your own feet to keep your balance. I’ll show you when we get down to the river where the ground is harder.”

  On the shore by the river I collected some dead twigs and sticks and set up the fire ready for a match.

  Then I showed her how to get up on her hands against a tree so she wouldn’t fall over like all beginners do. You put your hands on the ground near the tree and put one foot in back of the other. You kick your back foot up and lean your shoulders forward and your legs float up over top of you. You keep your legs straight and your toes pointed. Your toenails rest against the tree and you’re in your first handstand. Most people can’t get up the first few times because they don’t remember to lean their shoulders forward.

  Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell got it the first time.

  Her dress fell down over her and her hair hung down to the ground. All I could see of her was her legs. Her legs were straight and her toes were pointed. The top of her toes pressed against the tree. A perfect first try. She looked like a strange creature, feet-like hands, no head, and long straight white antennae with toes.

  Her pants were frayed and raggedy.

  “That was the best I’ve ever seen a beginner do,” I said.

  While she tried a few more times I put out the blanket, put the match to the fire and sliced two slices of stale bread. Then I got a couple of green sticks and held her slice over the fire until it was brown. Then the other side. While the bread was hot I spread it thick with peanut butter and then poured honey on the top. When I looked back at her she was sitting, leaning against the tree, watching me.

  I gave her her first ever peanut-butter-and-honey-roasted-open-sandwich and went back and started to make my own. I peeked up and watched her. She started slowly, tasting. Then her bites got a little bigger and she started to eat around the outside, saving the best part, the middle, for the last. I was enjoying watching her so much I didn’t realize that my toast was on fire.

  After we ate two more and the fire went out I washed the knife off in the river and cleaned up the honey jar and threw the small hard crust of bread that was left to the fish.

  “I’m sweltering,” Fleurette Featherstone Fitchell said, “I’m going for a swim.”

  She reached behind under her hair and unbuttoned the back of her dress and pulled it over her head. Her undershirt had a big hole in the back and the bottom of it was in strings.

  When she stood up out of the water with her wet hair she looked like a drowned rat. She didn’t really but everybody always says that.

  “Do I look like a drowned rat?” she said.

  “No,” I said. “You don’t. You look like a girl who just came out of the water.”

  “Aren’t you coming in?” she said. I was sitting on a log cooling off my feet.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not that hot.”

  Actually that was a lie.

  I didn’t want her to see my underwear.

  It had holes in it.

  On the way home I asked her if she liked the peanut butter and honey thing. I knew she did like it but I asked her anyway. A question I knew the answer to.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Just yes.

  Further up the road I asked her what happened to her mother’s wrist.

  “It was an accident,” she said.

  At home, in Building Eight, Fleurette went into her unit and I went into the toilet. When I came out I heard her door slam and a man with black hair and dark eyes came down the hall and left the building.

  5 Help Wanted

  ONE MORNING in September, a few days before school started, I was going into Ottawa to spend the day looking for a part-time job so we could have some extra money for stuff I might need for school. Mrs. O’Driscoll was heading out to her new cleaning job at Glebe Collegiate Institute and we were on the Uplands bus together.

  She was talking again about the prime minister’s house on Laurier Avenue. It used to be Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s house. Prime Minister King was living there now. She’d been there earlier in the summer applying for a cleaning job but she didn’t get the job. But she couldn’t stop talking about it.

  “If only O’Driscoll could see that house,” said Mrs. O’Driscoll about her drowned husband. “He’d just love that house. O’Driscoll always wanted to be rich you know. Rich was what he wanted. But how he’d ever be rich is beyond me. He never had two cents to rub together. That house is just full of mahogany and oak and rugs and gold and silver and paintings and fancy lights and...”

  The bus was passing Mooney’s Bay and we were starting to pick up some of the rich people on the way.

  We, the poor people from Uplands, were already on the bus, taking up half of all the seats, when the rich people started to get on. They had to come down the aisle, past us, to find places to sit. Some of them tried to stay standing by the driver but he told them to move along and sit down. They had to come and sit beside one o
f us. They were putting half of their rear ends onto the seat and trying to balance the other halves on their legs in the aisle. Then they got tired and had to shift over a bit closer to us. But they still tried not to touch us and kept their heads in the aisle as much as possible and their noses pointed upwards so they wouldn’t be breathing our air.

  “...and lovely plush sofas,” Mrs. O’Driscoll was saying, “and silk cushions and dark stained chairs and rugs all up and down the stairs and carved knobs on the railings and ceiling-high drapes on the leaded windows...”

  The bus was rocking on down the road and causing the rich people a lot of trouble. They were squeezing their eyes shut and hanging tight to the seat bars.

  At Hog’s Back some more rich ones got on and tried to stay near the front but the driver told them to move down the aisle too. The bus was getting pretty crowded.

  Hog’s Back. Not a very nice name for a place for rich people to live. Some of the Uplands people were saying that the next stop should be called “Hog’s Arse.” They were saying it loud just to annoy the rich ones.

  Mrs. O’Driscoll was still talking about the Prime Minister’s house.

  “...and three bathrooms and huge big cupboards full of fancy clothes and a big screened-in veranda all around the house with striped awnings all around and a beautiful garden and inside, oh, if O’Driscoll could only see it, inside there’s beautiful woven tapestries on the walls and in the bedroom a huge white rug made from a bear with the head still on it and a carved four-poster bed with draw curtains all around...”

  When we finally got to the Uplands Bus Terminal in Ottawa South the rich people were pretty well trapped. They couldn’t get off first because there were piles of people, poor people, falling down the aisle and tumbling out the door and shoving and swearing and clawing their way out.

  And they couldn’t wait and get off last because the poor people from Uplands who had taken all the window seats wanted to get out and were crawling over the rich people or shoving them into the aisle. Once they were in the aisle it was too late. Everybody was touching the rich people now, putting their sticky hands on their nice coats, tromping all over their nice shiny shoes, breathing bad teeth right into their nice faces, bodies rubbing against their nice bodies, shoulders hitting shoulders, bony knees touching the backs of their nice fat legs.