Wide World In Celebration and Sorrow

by Leon Rooke

  Formatting note:

  In the electronic versions of this book blank pages that appear in the paperback have been removed.

  WIDE WORLD IN CELEBRATION AND SORROW

  ACTS OF KAMIKAZE FICTION

  Leon Rooke

  Fiction, Poetry, Non-fiction, Translation, Drama and Graphic Books

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Rooke, Leon

  Wide world in celebration and sorrow : acts of kamikaze fiction / Leon Rooke.

  Short stories.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-55096-303-8 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-55096-338-0 (EPUB).--

  ISBN 978-1-55096-339-7 (Kindle).--ISBN 978-1-55096-337-3 (PDF)

  I. Title.

  PS8585.O64W43 2012 C813'.54 C2012-905879-3

  Copyright © Leon Rooke, 2012

  All characters and events are fictional.

  eBook publication copyright © Exile Editions Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

  Text pages and cover designed by Michael Callaghan.

  ePUB, Kindle and PDF versions by Melissa Campos Mendivil.

  Published by Exile Editions

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  Holstein, Ontario, N0G 2A0, Canada

  www.ExileEditions.com

  We gratefully acknowledge the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation for their support toward our publishing activities.

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  Contents

  ADDRESSING THE ASSASSINS

  BALDUCHI'S WHO'S WHO

  THE WINDS OF CHANGE, THE WINDS OF HOPE, THE WINDS OF DISASTER

  THE UNHAPPINESS OF OTHERS

  HEIDEGGER, FLOSS, ELFRIDE, AND THE CAT

  BAD MEN WHO LOVE JESUS

  OH, NO, I HAVE NOT SEEN MOLLY

  GO FISH

  LAP, A DOG

  SIDEBAR TO THE JUDICIARY PROCEEDINGS, THE NÜRNBERG WAR TRIALS, NOVEMBER 1945

  AARON & MAE

  FAMILY QUARRELS

  DON'T COOK A PIG

  FURTHER ADVENTURES OF A CROSS COUNTRY MAN

  HERE COMES HENRIETTA ARMANI

  A ROUGH CUSTOMER

  AT HEIDEGGER'S GRAVE

  WHY SO OFTEN YOU ARE AT A LOSS FOR WORDS

  THE YALE CHAIR

  WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

  ADDRESSING THE ASSASSINS

  Look at your watch. What time is it? Well, it’s too late, much too late. I can’t be bothered to go into the matter now. Come back later. Forget it. Go on with what you were doing.

  All right, I have six minutes, no more, this will have to be fast. I’ll stick to the subject, tell you all I know, all anyone knows. But keep this in mind: I’m getting this off your chest, not mine, it serves your interests, I’m not concerned one way or another, the affair has nothing to do with me. It happened I was in the vicinity, that’s all.

  Fine, you say, okay, good, why are we talking about it?

  Look, I’ve got my worries too. I’m coming up in the world, I’m going down, no one can keep pace with me. Up, down, up, down, try it sometime. This is what I’ve learned, this: even if I get nothing, so long as I’ve got it I’m happy, try it sometime. You don’t think I mean it? Try looking at me in the eye, you’ll see! I’m alert, there are people who have looked and never been the same. It doesn’t matter to me that I lose, I always lose, I’ve become accustomed to that, listen, I like losing, I recommend it.

  So what is my information worth, how much would you give?

  To put it another way, how much money do you have?

  Good, I’ll take it all, I’m tired of being poor boy off the farm, I’m fed up with holding up this zoo, I’m after blood now.

  How’s the family, you ask. Wait, stop the trolley, I’m getting off here. Don’t pry. Are we here to talk turkey or are we just killing the breeze?

  My family is fine, how’s yours?

  So it’s only conversation you want, well, naturally, I expected as much. Try looking at it from my point of view, have a heart, I’m not the same person I was then.

  Yes, yes. I’m familiar with your situation, I know it as well as my own. You hesitate, so do I, you’re at sea, so am I, when was this not ever so? Did you think word wouldn’t get around? Don’t try kidding me, there are no balloons tied to this nose.

  Look, the kid wanted a dog and finally got one, that’s all there is to it, the dog died, run over by a car while the kid was in a shop buying bread to go with dinner, end of story.

  The kid stood out in the street, ruined, the dog in his arms, stopping traffic, stopping pedestrians who were properly horrified: “Little boy, don’t you know?… Little boy, you… Little boy, you’ll get run over yourself, blood all over your clothes, oh little boy” but why go on, you know the type.

  In the meantime, well, it’s always in the meantime, every minute you breathe – in the meantime the dog’s guts have spilled over the boy’s arms, blood flows down his jeans, and the boy – stricken! – what could he do except cry NO NO NO NO NO you can’t take him, this dog is mine! Sure. Finally someone shows some sense, we are not total morons after all, someone says, “This boy is in a state, can’t you see he is, this boys needs looking after!” Others have roughly the same idea, they say, “Little boy, what’s your name, where do you live, we must get in touch with your parents!” and so on but of course the boy is dim with grief, he’s perplexed, though he still intends to fulfill his purpose here, he’s holding the loaf of bread tight, it’s mixing with dog to the extent that who can say which is which, musn’t disappoint Mom. Well, I was there, I know. Although the dog is dead it takes three people to pry the animal from his arms and three more to hold the boy as he fights to get the dead burden back, so what can be done, that’s the question going around and ours is not a total idiocy, we have feelings, finally it occurs to someone to let him have the dead beast back.

  You should have heard the kid screaming MY DOG MY DOG MY DOG MY DOG MY DOG MY DOG!

  Jesus!

  All right, don’t get sore, no need to beat your head against the wall, this was a long time ago. Finally the boy’s mother is telephoned, she comes running, finds no one, nothing going on, everything quiet, only this puddle of blood on the stones, she goes running back to her own house. She comes running through the door, sees a bunch of people she’s never seen before, and hears one of them saying, “Dead, he’s dead.” He’s dead, and naturally she believes it’s her own son they are talking about and promptly loses whatever part of her mind she had not lost long before. Rushes forward screaming, beating her breast, shoving everyone aside – and calms down in an instant when she catches sight of the boy in a wing chair with the dead dog dripping in his arms.

  Okay, stop the clock, one two three, count to twenty-five, when you’re ready I’ll go on. I’m not in this business to tug your heartstrings. I’ve told you frankly and will again: this has nothing to do with me.

  She rushes to the boy, shakes him, slaps him, all the time yelling, “I told you I told you I told you didn’t I tell you didn’t I mark my words you will never
have another dog again I knew this would happen knew it!” She tears the dog free, she kicks it over the carpet, shoves the boy into the bathroom, rips off his clothes, slaps wet towels all over him.

  Okay, to hell with it, you get the idea.

  Afterwards, the next day, that very night perhaps, the boy is out in the backyard burying his dog, out there with a flashlight and refusing all help, swinging his shovel at anyone who comes near, going at the earth with grunts, throwing up the dark soil, deep, going down deep, throwing it up hard. “MY DOG! MY DOG! MY DOG! MY DOG! MY DOG!”

  Et cetera.

  Listen, I’m not concerned, I’m only telling you. Meanwhile, she’s at the back door screaming, “I told you what would happen, told you not to get a dog, warned you, no you had to have a dog, don’t blame me!”

  All right, sure thing, that’s all there is to it, I’m almost finished, you’re not paying me enough to keep me around here, keep your shirt on.

  He buries the dog, let another kid try to walk over the grave and he’ll get a stick across his head.

  So, look, he’s a grown man now, you’ve seen him around. You won’t find him owning a dog or any other animal. Hasn’t married either. Hates kids. Sure, he loves his mother, no grudges held, what else is new, did I say he didn’t? That changes nothing, I look at it this way: he’s still guarding holy ground, fending off enemies, rebuilding from that single old violation. Does it make sense, does he know what he’s doing? Don’t ask me.

  Listen, hold my hand, show a little warmth, life goes on.

  Listen to me. An attempt has been made on my life. You can dance around it any way you like, but that’s the fact of the matter: an attempt has been made on my life. More than once.

  Who would want to kill me, you ask. Who indeed. You, them, everyone. I can’t be any more specific than that. Proof, I have proof, I have all the proof I need, I was there, it happened to me. What would you have me do, stay at home, lock myself in the cellar, never come out again? Sounds easy, but I’m not so simple-minded as that, I’m like you, I have needs. I take my chances. I don’t expect much.

  Oh I have suspects, quite a few, I have names, I’m checking the matter out. It’s an emergency, the situation is grave, but it isn’t irreconcilable, it isn’t irreversible, not by a long shot. I can still negotiate. I know where I stand.

  And I might get them first, there’s always that.

  Anyway why worry about it, where’s the bad news, I can’t say I’m much concerned.

  Even so, I’m watching you. Don’t think you can put anything over on me. One false move and I’ll be at your throat before you can blink, this is My life My life My life My life!

  BALDUCHI’S WHO’S WHO

  1

  BEGINNINGS

  Pick a spot.

  Take the case of Frannie Balduchi, who is forever saying to herself, “Where shall I begin? How do I go on? How might I start over?”

  Or consider her father, old Egi Balduchi. Consider Thamn-al-batn, Balduchi’s stomach price.

  Two dark Arabic-type fellows in a café washroom over in the Greek area of the city, on the Danforth, told him one day that that’s what they called in their country Balduchi’s particular stomach ailment. In Algeria, that was. But then the Arabic-type fellow holding the other’s hand explained. “Thamn-al-batn is stomach price, yes. Yes, but it mean if someone from another tribe come upon your people and pass the friendly salutation, then that tribe must has to feed the visitor four days. Four days, yes. We can no slice the visitor’s throat while he sleep, without is invite the wrath of full tribe. So Thamn-al-batn, stomach price, is price you pay for being friendly host.”

  Balduchi liked the expression, and if his daughter, these days, ever troubled herself to ask how he was, he would say he was A-Okay, except for having to pay the stomach price. “I’ve got a touch of Thamn-al-batn in the gut,” he would say. “Otherwise your old papa is fine.” Not that Frannie was likely to ask, being too wrapped up in her own troubles to consider another’s. A bit loose in the caboose, unstable, unreliable, bookish, sacrilegious, a nutcase, a dreamer, could be. But a good kid all the same.

  He wouldn’t tell Frannie there seemed to be no cure, any more than he would confess that his brand of Thamn-al-batn could take him at any time.

  This morning, for instance, waking had been like pushing through a steel door. All those women. All those brooms.

  2

  SKAZ

  Frannie Balduchi, backpack riding high, was jogging west on Queen Street away from the springtime hordes on lower Yonge Street, one sweaty hand clutching a spray of yellow tulips intended for home, when Josephias of Arimathea barred her path. She’d been to the bank. The bank had said no. A sermon was the last thing she wanted. Josephias was as pimply-faced as a boy and sold candles sometimes. He sold straw dolls his mother made, and Frannie had known him all her life. He was sorry and no good but had a good heart, and Frannie liked him. He wore a winter coat grey as spit, which would stand up by itself if ever he took it off. He was swishing that bum’s newspaper, The Outrider, under her nose. “Ah, de debil wid-yu,” Frannie told him. “Ya worthless critter! Ya no-good wastrel! Ya old whisky-breath!”

  Josephias came back with, “Save an orphan! Rescue beasts from the storm!”

  “Good idea,” Frannie said, extracting fifteen cents leper money from a tight jeans pocket.

  “Love ya,” he said. “The people, yes!”

  Frannie went on, sometimes running, her nose sometimes crushing the flowers, eventually turning north into Kensington Market’s grungy digs. The whole world had a stake in Kensington Market; goods arrived from the globe’s every corner. Frannie had scored her first kiss in Kensington Market. After the long winter the stacked fruits and veggies made her mind fizz. Today she was late for a rendezvous with destiny. She was always late for such meetings. No one liked her. Outside Monsieur’s Empire of Cheese she paced up and down, working up the courage to go in and beg samples. She stepped on a tomato. Juices spewed up her leg as though from a lizard’s tongue. A wide-shouldered man parking a crumpled van tried to run her over. He looked deeply disappointed at the failure. Ula, dear mama, had worked the counter at Monsieur’s. The help had leapfrogged over Baby Frannie, climbed each other’s backs, to serve the next customer. Monsieur’s had prided itself on quality, quantity, and service. It had run Ula ragged. “Here,” someone called. “Use this as a book marker.” A wedge of cheese flew through the open door, flopping dead at Frannie’s feet. “Midnight at the Purloin,” another said. “Wear net stockings.” Everyone in Monsieur’s had a hearty laugh. Frannie blushed. They knew she was easy and didn’t care a tinker’s goddamn.

  Frannie stepped aside for a Chinese man pushing a cart. In the cart, cushioned by a ratty blanket, a church bell rolled like a bronzed baby. “Where are you going with that?” Frannie asked. She had always been nosy.

  “To heaven,” the Chinaman said. His name was Ling. Frannie had an arrangement with his son, poor Ling Two, the cripple.

  A five-year-old boy riding a painted stick, his face bright as a tray of oranges, took a whack at Frannie’s backpack.

  “Mother, mother!” the boy cried.

  “Quelcazar cazam, kiddo,” Frannie said back. Which meant, “Scram, kid, or I shall have to swat you.”

  A blue-eyed pony-tailed man wearing zigzag cargo pants, good shoes, and a decent shirt, looked on. He slapped a tambourine rhythmically against one leg. He had mean eyes and beautiful lips. Beside him, a heavy woman with braided hair and a red nose softly cried.

  “Charlie eats no crow,” the man said. “The fuck you lookin’ at?”

  3

  SETTINGS

  The Purloined Letter, oasis on a side street in the Market area.

  “Hello, everyone. Jump up and live. Win a free seven days, and six great nights, at the Manitoba pig farm of your choice!”

  Frannie sang this out upon entering. No one responded. It was afternoon. In the afternoon Purloin regulars were quiet as snakes asl
eep in a pile. The darkness was shocking. A raven perched on a swing under a sloped ceiling fluttered its wings. Shrieking. Earlier, in the bank, Frannie had done her share of shrieking. She had told the balding, suited man who refused her loan to go stuff himself.

  “My books, please.”

  Because the authors Frannie Balduchi at the moment most adores in the world are Isaac Babel and the French master Giui de Mopassan, Guy and Isaac, Bobel at birth … it is these authors’ work now ringing the table where she sits. But it is because she was made uneasy when she did not at all moments comprehend a character’s precise geographic location within a tale that Frannie Balduchi, 39, teeth sharp and white, lips black as Black Tuesday, took also the InkSpeak pen from her backpack and wrote on a bar napkin, foregoing in the last second logic to which she was a servant, “Once again I am found in the poverty of my creative labour here in this city of my birth, which shall be nameless that I might protect myself from my creditors, yea, even to the extent that I shall refrain even from identifying my very-most home and native land of true patriots strong and free.”

  This note she passed about for approval to all ofthe Purloin regulars who would look at it. Those who did so declared that Frannie’s hand was appallingly illegible, and, moreover, they had affairs of remarkable import pinging in their brains.

  “Quit mooching our smokes,” she was told. “Buy your own.”

  Whereupon, moping – no one loved her – Frannie composed on the napkin’s other side, the two inks bleeding together, this news about herself: “It came to Frannie Balduchi, once upon a time, that Frannie Balduchi was not the person she had been, once upon a time.”

  “How’s my sweet dovecote today?” Gregor the insect bartender said, delivering her poison.

  “Go away,” she said. She poured the oil of her loathing over his head and away he went.

  The sun was shining.

  No more muck.

  Thank God winter was over.

  4

  FLASHBACK

  “What a ridiculously sunny day,” Frannie earlier had observed.