Border City Blues 3-Book Bundle
Page 22
“I can’t,” said Vera Maude. “I know it sounds weak and stupid, but I just can’t. I’ll send him a long teary letter from the border.”
McCloskey understood. Without saying a word he turned up McKay, dodged the puddles left by the deluge last night, and parked a ways from the main building. The locomotive engine was going through some routine maintenance and people were assembling on the platform.
“Come on. I’ll walk you.” McCloskey carried her bag. “I know it’s gonna sound crazy,” he said, “but I miss you already.”
Vera Maude just smiled at him and that suited him just fine. He knew he couldn’t ask her for anything more.
“Do you need anything? I mean —”
He went to reach in his coat pocket for that roll of bills but Vera Maude stopped him, gently touching his arm.
“No — thanks.”
They looked into each other’s eyes. There was an understanding, but no words, no interpretation of the last few hours. They would leave it a mystery.
“So if I address something to the British-American, you’ll get it?” she asked.
“Yeah. It’s my home away from home.”
Another pause, then a powerful embrace.
“Bye, Jack. And thanks.”
McCloskey could feel himself crumbling, his knees giving way. He felt like a schoolboy. He stopped himself, not wanting to embarrass or disappoint Vera Maude.
“Bye.”
The porter helped Vera Maude board the car. McCloskey watched her stow her luggage and find her seat. This felt different than it did with Sophie two days ago. Two days ago it was “I’ll catch up with you after I’ve rescued my father and brother, redeemed myself, and carved out a world for us to live in.” Of course none of that happened. This time it was just “goodbye” and “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” Vera Maude waved through the window.
McCloskey waved back. He was tired, and a little drunk from the whisky and from Vera Maude. His mind wandered while he stood there on the platform and watched her through the glass. He imagined a life with Vera Maude.
He would catch up with her in New York, at the hotel-apartment in Greenwich Village she told him about. They had fertile common ground. They would plant the seeds of their future in it.
Eventually, Vera Maude got a job in a bookstore. She met up with some writers and showed them her work. They said it was good and they helped her get published by a small, local press. McCloskey worked in a gym, training young boxers. In the evenings he and Vera Maude hung out in the cafes. The poets liked McCloskey; they romanticized him way out of proportion. He got a kick out of it. Afterwards he and Vera Maude would walk hand in hand back to their apartment.
Life was good, but they were restless. Greenwich Village felt small after a while. Everyone told them to go to Paris. The next summer they did. McCloskey watched Vera Maude as she lived out her dreams, grew into the woman she imagined herself while she was boarding at Mrs. Richardson’s. McCloskey saw a side of Paris he hadn’t seen during the war. He opened himself up to the world. While other people were looking for answers he was still struggling to form the questions. But he wasn’t afraid. He and Vera Maude were a great pair. They taught each other so much and they were still madly in love.
When Paris got too small, they could head east, far east. He had met British soldiers during the war that told him about places like Egypt and India. Vera Maude was keen too. Their life would be an adventure together.
McCloskey missed her like crazy already. He had discovered a huge piece to his life’s puzzle, only to lose it again. He sat in the Light Six and watched the train pull out of the station. He had a clear view of the Elliott on the other side of the tracks. Yesterday morning seemed like a lifetime ago. He sat there, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, thinking about Vera Maude, thinking about New York, looking at his fuel gauge.
A car pulled up at the edge of the lot. A big fellow stepped out and stood outside the vehicle, eyeing McCloskey in a way that suggested he wanted to be sure that he had the right man. He started walking slowly towards the Light-Six. McCloskey glanced down the track. Vera Maude’s train was already out of sight, gone. He turned back to the fellow who was now stopped and standing about ten feet away from McCloskey.
“What’s up, soldier?”
The fellow looked like he had been up all night.
“You Jack McCloskey?”
“Who’s asking?”
The man came closer to the vehicle. He cast a cold shadow across the window and door.
“The name’s Charlie Baxter. Richard Davies was my boss. I’m here to tell you —”
Baxter reached in his jacket for his weapon and aimed it at McCloskey.
“ — what goes around comes around.”
POSTSCRIPT
HE KNOWS THIS FELLOW IN CHICAGO
3 December, 1921
Chicago
Dear Mr. Joyce
I am writing this note to make you acquainted with my friend Ernest Hemingway, who with Mrs. Hemingway is going to Paris to live, and will ask him to drop it in the mails when he arrives there.
Mr. Hemingway is an American writer instinctively in touch with everything worth while going on here, and I know you will find both Mr. and Mrs. Hemingway delightful people to know.
They will be at 74 Rue de Cardinal Lemoine.
Sincerely,
Sherwood Anderson
* * *
2 February, 1922
Paris
Dear Miss Beach
I cannot let today pass without thanking you for all the trouble and worry you have given yourself about my book during the last year. All I can hope is that the result of its publication may be some satisfaction to you.
Will you please telegraph to Darantiere (to whom I have already sent a message of thanks) telling him in my name also to get on with the covers otherwise we shall get only 20 copies?
Grazie di nuovo.
Sincerely yours,
James Joyce
* * *
7 February, 1922
Paris
Mr. B---
I was given your name by an acquaintance of yours. He suggested that you might be able to help me in my cause.
I have a book, or rather, I have published a book. My fear is that it will not be allowed to make its way to readers in your country. There are forces at work that are determined to keep it out of the United States. Authorities have unjustly labelled the book as obscene.
If I were to somehow get you copies of the book, would you be able to handle the distribution from your end? I must be honest: there will be risks involved. I will cover your expenses.
Please let me know at your earliest convenience if you are able to help. My author would be eternally grateful.
Sylvia Beach
* * *
9 March, 1922
Paris
Dear Sherwood
You sound like a man well beloved of Jesus. Lots of things happen here. Gertrude Stein and me are just like brothers and we see a lot of her. Read the preface you wrote for her knew book and like it very much. It made a big hit with Gertrude. Hash says to tell you, quotes, that things have come to a pretty pass between her and Lewy — close quotes. My operatives keep a pretty close eye on the pair of them.
Joyce has a most god-damn wonderful book. It’ll probably reach you in time. Meantime the report is that he and all his family are starving but you can find the whole celtic crew of them every night in Michaud’s, where Binney and I can only afford to go about once a week.
I’ve been teaching Pound to box wit little success. He habitually leads wit his chin and has the general grace of the crayfish or crawfish. He’s willing but short winded. Going over there this afternoon for another session but there ain’t much job in it as I have to shadow box between rounds to get up a sweat. Pound sweats well, though, I’ll say that for him. Besides it’s pretty sporting of him to risk his dignity and his critical reputation at something that he don’t kn
ow nothing about. He’s really a good guy, Pound, wit a fine bitter tongue into him. He’s written a good review of Ulysses for the April Dial.
Ernest
* * *
CANADIAN NATIONAL TELEGRAM
WINDSOR ON
1922 MAR 21 PM 12 13
1625 DOUGALL AVE
MISS BEACH
SHOOT BOOKS PREPAID YOUR RES-PONSIBILITY ADDRESSING SAME TO ME CARE OF DOMINION EXPRESS COMPANY
B
Copyright © Michael Januska, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Editor: Allister Thompson
Design: Courtney Horner
Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Januska, Michael
Riverside Drive [electronic resource] : border city blues / by Michael Januska.
Electronic monograph.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN 978-1-4597-0676-7
I. Title.
PS8619.A6784R59 2013 C813'.6 C2012-905803-3
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
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Here’s to Mercury Retrograde
and all the other celestial phenomena we use to try to explain ourselves.
“Look at him,” the gypsy said in the dark. “Thus should men move.”
“And in the day, blind in a tree with crows around him,” Robert Jordan said.
“Rarely,” said the gypsy.
“And then by hazard. Kill him,” he went on.
“Do not let it become difficult.”
“Now the moment is passed.”
“Provoke it,” the gypsy said. “Or take advantage of the quiet.”
— Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Table of Contents
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part 2
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Part 3
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Part 4
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Part 5
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Part 6
Chapter 41
Acknowledgements
— Chapter 1 —
LURKING BELOW THE SURFACE
Three stood back on the frozen shore, muttering obscenities at each other. Another was tinkering with the car parked on the ice. The other two were positioned further out, rolling their eyes back and forth across a stretch of scrub in the middle distance. In winter, in the colourless light and with the trees stripped bare and everything else covered in snow, it could be difficult to get one’s bearings. You had to find those few familiar lines and edges and hang on to them, sometimes for dear life.
“I see something,” said Thom, lifting his chin, “there, near the head.” His hands were tucked under his arms and he was bobbing from foot to foot.
Lapointe saw it too — a faint, flashing light. He turned and gave Mud his own signal: a woollen-gloved thumbs-up. It was on. Standing at the driver’s side, Mud reached across the steering wheel and double-checked that the coil switch was off. He then shifted the spark lever a few notches and opened the throttle. Stepping around to the front of the vehicle, he held his breath, gripped his shoulder, lowered his arm, and pulled the crank up once, twice, and then a third time, finally igniting the engine. He let the pistons warm up then returned to the controls, opened the throttle a couple more notches and listened. She was primed. His work done, he held his wrist and gently tucked his hand back into his coat pocket.
Gorski approached him. “Remember,” he said, “this one favours the right.”
“And that’s why I’m aiming soft left,” said Mud between his teeth.
“You sure you’re okay?”
Mud’s lungs were pumping out thick plumes of steam. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Gorski had got the T off his brother’s used car lot, and Mud procured the whisky from an export dock. The documentation said the liquor was destined for warmer climes, Cuba to be exact. The way he figured, it was just bootleggers stealing from bootleggers so it wasn’t really a crime.
He had no idea why he felt the need to reason that one, but he did. Once an altar boy, always an altar boy, he guessed.
“This thing have enough gas?” Shorty was the nervous one, and rightly so since this was his gamble. Mud thought they should have experimented first with a few cases of Cincinnati Cream or maybe even some tap water, but for some reason Shorty felt the need to jump in with both feet.
“I told you once already,” said Mud. “Now can I let her off her leash before she’s empty? Hey, Lapointe, move unless you want to get run over.”
Lapointe stepped aside.
The next part was going to be tricky. Mud double-checked the angle of the vehicle against its target and then gave it a slight hip-bump. With his good arm he lowered the cinder block onto the clutch and with the other he gripped the hand lever, eased it into gear, and then let drop the full weight of the block. The T sputtered forward. He trotted alongside for the first forty feet or so until he was confident the engine was dedicated to firing. He slapped her on the rear fender and said his goodbyes. Off she went. He rode his steel-toe Red Wings to a sliding stop, did a sloppy U-turn, and shuffled back across the ice to join the others on the shore.
A ten-dollar jalopy carrying cases of whisky worth over five hundred. Shorty couldn’t watch. He turned away to observe instead the dawn filter through the spindly poplars along Front Road. The gang was standing on a spit that curled into the river at the mouth of Turkey Creek. They were surrounded by the remnants of Petite Côte, sandy farmland first plowed a century and a half ago by settlers from Quebec and soldiers discharged from the Detroit garrison. Shorty was letting himself become distracted by idle thoughts. There was a wood stove burning somewhere nearby, its smoke softening the crisp air. He imagined a kitchen coming to life with him sitting at the big table, warming his hands around a mug of coffee, patiently waiting on a hearty breakfast, something to do with eggs and sausage. Anything but the leftover pastrami-on-rye he had discovered wrapped in a road map on the dashboard of his car. In moments like this, and more and more often these days, he would ask himself, What the hell am I doing?