by Dolly Dennis
“Who are all these?” Loddy asked, fingering the framed black and white glossies displayed on top of the piano.
“My dad, Bernie. This one is also hanging in Ben’s right next to Oscar Peterson.”
She studied the young man in the photo, his fingers flying, and head parallel to the keyboard as though the notes were speaking to him and he needed to listen carefully.
“In the fifties, my dad played all the popular clubs around town. The Esquire. The Black Bottom, The Copa, The Morocco, The Edgewater — you name it — and just about every other joint outside the city from the Laurentians to Chibougamau. My mother died when I was four and I’d go with him on his gigs and sleep in dressing rooms until I started school and then he handed me over to his sister who lived in St. Henri.”
“What happened to ...”
“My mother? Hit by a car crossing Dorchester and Guy. Drunk driver.”
Jacob was naturally gifted and as a teenager, he would jam with his dad and guest musicians in after-hour clubs in Old Montreal. Jacob told Loddy that Bernie no longer played. Arthritis had robbed him of his livelihood. Instead, he now owned a gym in Little Burgundy.
“If you ask him why a gym,” Jacob said, “he’d tell you what a crappy life a musician leads with bad hours, bad food, bad sex. So he had started to work out with barbells between shows. Bernie’s Gym, open twenty-four hours, for a healthier lifestyle.”
Jacob had shadowed his dad’s life — bad hours, bad food, bad sex — until he met Samuel and Marvel who, at the time, were choreographing several Télévision de Radio-Canada variety shows. They hired him as an opening act for their dancers.
“All right, Loddy. Enough reminiscing. Let’s get going.” Jacob ran notes on the piano. “So. Twinkle, twinkle, little star?”
“Like, I guess I’ll never live that one down.”
“We’ll always have Robbie Rabbit,” he said, chuckling.
Jacob plied her with vodka, and after a couple of rounds, Loddy loosened up and sang Janis’ Ball and Chain, vulnerable and timid first and then full speed ahead.
“Yeah, that’s what I want to hear from you, Loddy. Always. You got that?”
Without the vodka, Loddy felt that her throat muscles would constrict, shutting down her vocal cords. But Jacob tricked her and, by the end of the month, she was drinking only water with a slice of lemon — and still singing at full throttle.
xxx
Opening night at The Garage Coffee House felt like opening night at The Garage Theatre except that the rows of seats had been replaced by bistro-like tables and chairs which packed every nook and corner of the already compact room. Loddy peeked through the stage wings to check on the house. It was filled to capacity, a mixed audience of strangers, friends, and relatives. Votive candles dressed each table and, in the muted lighting, they exuded an ambience more conducive to a church setting than a coffee house. She had an urge to genuflect, but instead crossed herself in a discreet prayer of her own: “Jesus, Mary, please let me be okay tonight.”
Loddy had slimmed down considerably. Since her estrangement from Alma and Bettina, food no longer played a pivotal role in her life. Consumed now with everything that was Fury and their life together, she would forget to eat. The fashion industry would still consider her a plus size model and categorize her somewhere in the era of the hour-glass figure when icons like Rita Hayward, Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe were the standards for beauty. Fury insisted she not lose any more weight and would cook hearty Italian meals, and platters of sirloin steak with mashed potatoes and gravy, but even he had no control over her appetite.
“I just ate,” she would say as she scrambled out the door to Jacob’s house.
To no one’s surprise, Samuel had failed to book any established folk singers for the premiere. Performers like Eric Andersen and Penny Lang pleaded a busy schedule so once again Samuel had to improvise and rely on the loyalty, if not the talent, of his former theatrical troupe — at least for now. Through a contact in the music industry, Rita had finagled a late night radio show, Mèlange à Une, which aired every Saturday at midnight. For fifteen minutes she would pucker up her lips and recite erotic poetry from the depths of her diaphragm. Rita insisted on being the opening act, reading excerpts from Anaïs Nin’s Delta of Venus Erotica. Otherwise, she threatened to withdraw her partnership in The Garage Coffee House.
The line-up would showcase Aretha and Danny in a medley of upbeat Broadway show tunes with Jacob at the piano. Percy would deliver soliloquies from Hamlet and, midway into the program, Conrad, dressed as Nutmeg, the Clown, would entertain the diners. Loddy was relieved to be the closing act.
A trickle of people left in the middle of Percy’s, to be or not to be.
“Shouldn’t be,” someone hooted from the back of the house.
“I’m not doing this again,” Percy said as he brushed by Samuel en route to the dressing room.
Loddy was putting the final touches to her makeup, drinking what she thought were shots of vodka, feeling nauseous with anxiety.
“I hear Streisand throws up before she goes on stage,” she said to Rita who was busy changing into her street clothes. They could hear Samuel introduce Nutmeg the Clown to hilarious applause.
“They’re laughing at Nutmeg, so that’s a good sign,” Rita said, fiddling with her hair, building a bump on top of her head with all the teasing. Loddy swallowed another shot of vodka. “Darlink, you shouldn’t be drinking that stuff before you go on.”
“Janis Joplin drinks — even on stage.”
“You’re not Janis Joplin, darlink. Don’t understand why Samuel is even letting you go on. You can’t sing.”
Rita confiscated the bottle from Loddy and poured herself a glass, took a sip, sniffed it, then knocked back the entire drink. “Darlink, this is just water and lemon.”
“No, it’s not. Jacob said it’s a special Russian brand where you don’t even taste the alcohol. That’s how smooth it is.”
“You are so naïve, my darlink.”
Nutmeg, the clown, did not amuse anyone as he struggled to synchronize juggling four oranges with walking on stilts. Diners sputtered over their food as he kept bungling his act with Jacob retrieving the downed fruit as they rolled off the stage. Samuel signalled Nutmeg to exit with all possible speed, and hustled on stage to announce Loddy’s entrance.
“Give her a big hand, our own Loddy-Dah! Doesn’t she look great?”
Amid tepid applause, except for the rowdy table in front where Fury, Ulu and Dewey made noise, she stood stark scared. Loddy glanced over at Jacob who gave her a thumbs up, then looked at Fury who mouthed ‘I love you’. The audience seemed to have sucked up all the air out of the room. Jacob began the medley, repeated it twice. Loddy had a flashback. What were the words to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star again? She heard the front door slam, that familiar bang of exasperation from a discontented member of the audience. She gripped the microphone, a kiss away from her mouth.
“Su-sum,” she began — and stopped. “Sorry everyone. Just give me a moment. Sorry.” She tripped over wires and slipped on squashed oranges as she hurried to Jacob’s side and heard the first boo.
“What the heck you doing, Loddy?”
“Rita said that’s not real vodka.”
“Is that what’s bugging you? That old broad just wants to trip you up. Now go out there and sing like you know how.”
A series of more catcalls followed her as she again positioned herself centre stage and picked up the microphone.
“Show the lady some manners, people,” Fury bellowed, leaping out of his chair.
She struggled with the lyrics. “Summer ... summer time.” Then nothing. Out of the corner of her eye Loddy could see Rita lounging against the side wall, smirking, waving to her as though she were the Queen of England greeting her subjects.
Someone hollered: “Louder. Can’t hear you.
” She almost wept. Jacob disappeared backstage and returned with a flask of his concoction. He plunked it on top of the piano and motioned for Loddy to come get it.
“Like, ‘scuse me, everyone. I have this thirst.” She chugged from the container and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Ahhhhh. And what are you guys drinking?” she said. “Bet mine is better than yours.”
She cleared her throat several times with a loud burp and flung her long, silk scarf, a good luck gift from Fury, over her shoulder like she was Isadora Duncan ready for her last car ride. “You guys like Janis Joplin?”
Nods and whistles.
“Okay, Janis, for you. Summertime. You can applaud, now.”
Summer time ... She closed her eyes and seemed transported. She was Janis at Woodstock, living ... easy ... Her grainy voice sailed. Wrenched with pain, she caressed each note like a lost love, and then she was doubled over holding her stomach like Janis, hush ... don’t you cry ... And she was in St. Emile, swimming in the lake and falling in love with Fury. Summertime. The living was easy and hot and she wanted his love again and again and again.
When she finished the song, she shivered, and Fury rose from his seat with the audience and clapped and hooted the loudest. She turned to Jacob and invited the crowd to applaud him. He bowed from his waist as though he had just finished playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations at Place des Arts under Leonard Bernstein’s direction.
Samuel, now by her side, said: “I want you to do that again tomorrow, kiddo.” The applause swelled to a standing ovation.
“Wow!” Loddy heard someone yelp, and then: “More! More!”
“They want you,” Samuel said. “Get back out there.”
She swallowed the last of the drink and returned for her encore. “Do you guys like the Mamas and the Papas?” she said, voice bouncing to the back of the wall.
“Well, so do I. This one for Mama Cass, my all time favourite,” — and Jacob began the first notes to California Dreamin’.
Loddy got it right this time and the room once again exploded with such energy and adoration, she hid her face with her hands. When it was over, a trail of praise followed her to Fury’s table: “Wonderful! Marvellous! What a voice!” Some patted her on the shoulder. “Good show.”
Ulu and Dewey had excused themselves and now there was only Jacob tinkering solo at the piano as the audience trickled out the door.
She hardly had time to reach Fury’s table when he dropped to one knee and presented her with a tiny blue box from Birks.
“Will you marry me, Loddy?”
Speechless, she just nodded her head, caught up in the moment, and Jacob began to play the wedding march. Dewey and Ulu swung out from the vestibule and crowded around her for a look at the ring.
“She said yes,” Fury shouted.
“You were all in on this, weren’t you?” she said, slapping Fury on the arm affectionately.
Then it was all business as Samuel invited himself to their table. It was always business with Samuel.
“How come you never sang that way in Robbie Rabbit?”
“Like, I don’t know, Samuel. Guess I wasn’t ready.”
He crooked his index finger at Jacob to join them. “Now here’s the deal, kiddies,” he said, his eyes round, flitting back and forth from Jacob to Loddy. “I’m losing Rita, and the clown. I want you two to add a few more numbers. Think you can do that?”
“When?” Jacob said with obvious excitement.
“Now. For tomorrow night.”
“You okay with that, Loddy?” Jacob asked.
“Sure, just make sure to bring the flask along.”
Jacob locked eyes with Fury.”
They flew out of the new Garage Coffee House with arms joined in a quintet of friendship: Jacob, Loddy, Fury, Ulu, and Dewey. As they headed for Ben’s to celebrate over a strawberry cheesecake, a couple of vehicles exiting the nearby parking lot recognized Loddy, flagged her down and shouted: Bravo.
“Fury, I’ve never felt so happy in my entire life,” she exclaimed, a little delirious.
At the corner of Guy and de Maisonneuve, as the light turned red, Jacob pulled out a whistle and trilled like a traffic cop. Fury squeezed hard around her waist as she arched her back, and they kissed with the kind of passion not seen since V-Day. Jacob blew the whistle again. It pierced through the intersection and halted traffic. Pedestrians whooped it up and drivers honked their horns.
xxx
The next day, on their way to the Fortunatos to share their good news, Loddy decided on a detour to Alma’s first. She hadn’t spoken to her mother in six months and felt she needed to break the wall of silence. Earlier in the week Bettina had called. “Maw calls you a showgirl. Loddy is a loose girl, she says.”
“Is that why you called? To make me feel miserable?”
“I’m back at school.”
“Alma must be happy.” Loddy had nothing more to say. “Like, she still not talking to me, I guess?”
“She’s still lighting candles for you.”
“Tell her to just drop the candles and let me burn in hell.”
“Look, I think she’d take you back if you said you were sorry.”
“For what?”
“For lying. It would have been better if you had just told her that you and Fury were living together in mortal sin. Now she has more reason not to trust you.”
Loddy wanted to break the news in person, but some magnetic force pried her mouth open and she heard herself say: “I’m getting married.”
“Not to that Fury guy, I hope.”
xxx
So here they were dallying on the familiar balcony.
“You sure you want to do this now?” Fury said. “We can come back another time.”
“No, we’re here, so might as well get it over with,” Loddy said, as she rang the bell several times.
“Maybe they’re out?”
“Shit, she still didn’t get the damn thing fixed.” Loddy banged on the door and jiggled the knob. Just as they were about to give up, they heard slippers flopping down the interior stairwell.
Alma called to them in a singsong voice: “I come. I come. Yoohoo.”
“Oh no, she’s in her crazy mood,” Loddy said.
Alma, with no memory of a feud between daughter and mother, overwhelmed her with affectionate kisses.
“Loddy, why you no phone?”
“Busy Maw.”
“Come. Come. I have nothing to give eat. You no tell me you come.”
“It’s okay, Maw, we’re on our way to Fury’s family and then I have to get back to the The Garage.”
They were in the kitchen now. Bettina was sulking as usual in front of the television, surrounded by unopened text books.
“Fury’s family?” Alma said, obviously confused.
Loddy spilled out the news of her engagement. Alma, deaf to the announcement, babbled about pulling together a light snack for her guests. In no time, the table swelled under the scale of Alma’s staples: kielbasa, rye bread, mustard, mayonnaise, butter, herring, pickles, tomatoes and olives.
“You stay and eat.”
“Maw, did you hear me?”
Fury tried to convince Alma that he appreciated her efforts, but they really had to go; whereupon she threw a cup at him, which he caught and gently replaced on the table.
“No love,” Alma chanted. “No love.”
She chased them down the stairs, swearing every step of the way until she stood forlorn and lost on the sidewalk as Fury revved up the motorcycle. They rode off in a cough of exhaust, Alma’s voice fading behind them: “No love. No love.”
Loddy convulsed into tears and attached herself to Fury with a grip that hurt. He pulled into an alley.
“They’re no good for you, Loddy. It’s bordering on emotional abuse.�
��
“I know, but they’re my family.”
“Families are about love and forgiveness. Forget them. We’ll get married and have our own perfect family, okay?”
SCENE 29:
The October Crisis
Autumn 1970
October 4. The day had no colour. Montreal camouflaged herself in an autumn fabric of melancholy. Even the sun went into hiding. With the encroaching cold, Montrealers burrowed themselves in an underground city of shopping malls and promenades until spring’s arrival.
Loddy stayed above ground and huddled against the wind in the central plaza of Place Ville Marie. Two years before, the concrete and terrazzo square had been the scene of an election rally for Trudeau. Today, it was bereft of pedestrian traffic save for the occasional office worker or shopper who scampered like a rabbit across the windblown terrace. Fury was somewhere inside the cruciform building meeting a corporate-type from the Royal Bank of Canada, pitching his artwork as a valuable and viable investment for any boardroom or executive office.
Loddy was to join up with Fury on the plaza and both would head off to Eaton’s bridal registry. She still reeled against the notion of marriage. It was never on her agenda of things to do for a fulfilling life. In fact, she had conceived for herself a solitary existence, an unconventional life on the stage, singing and writing songs, perhaps adopting a cat or two for company, eventually retiring to the role of an eccentric old lady who grew potatoes to supplement her grocery bill. She had witnessed the dissolution of too many marriages from either broken spirits or bones. She felt the physical and mental welts of brutality and beatings from Alma’s loveless marriage and resolved never to be its victim. For Loddy, marriage, like anything else, had an expiry date.