Pure Spring

by Brian Doyle

  Randy’s rolling.

  “Did you know that in Communist Russia today, this very minute, while we’re having this educational discussion...”

  Educational discussion?

  “...this educational discussion, if you are caught praying to God in Russia they stick a tube in your head and suck out your brains and feed them to the pigs?”

  That’s it. I’m going down to the truck.

  “Where ya goin’?”

  “I need some air.”

  “Having trouble with a little bit of reality there, sissy? Boy O’Boy with the fancy Latin words. There’s lots you don’t know.”

  “Where’s your wife?” I say, surprising myself.

  There’s a long pause. He’s looking out the window. I’m heading out the door.

  “She’s gone shopping,” he says.

  Up the street in Heney Park there are couples strolling, hand in hand, stopping from time to time to kiss. In the spring.

  The redwing blackbirds are sounding like referee’s whistles.

  Oh, Gerty!

  I have to tell you everything but I’m afraid.

  And Grampa Rip, too. Tell him. What will he think of me?

  10

  Gerty and the Pork Hock

  THE TREES are exploding. If you look at a tree and look away and look back, it’s already bigger!

  Gerty and I are on the streetcar. People are dressed up. It’s Sunday. The sun is shining, the birds are chasing each other and chirping through the bushes, the church bells are ringing, people are sweeping and cleaning and the clothes on the clotheslines are dancing.

  I rode my bicycle over to her place. We’re taking the streetcar back to my place. Then we’ll take the streetcar back to her place and then I’ll ride my bicycle back to my place. Busy, busy, busy!

  Even the streetcar conductor is whistling and humming a tune. Gerty and I know what it is. It’s “Because of You” by Tony Bennett. The streetcar conductor isn’t Tony Bennett. But that’s all right. I do a little imitation of Tony Bennett (you sing high is how you do it): “Because of you the sun will shine...Forever...”

  But my voice is too low and it cracks. Gerty laughs. I love the way she laughs.

  She’s wearing the little straw hat with the robin’s-egg-blue ribbon and the rosebud-shaped bow.

  Blue is her favorite color. A lot of her clothes are blue.

  Outside my apartment there are two chickadees fighting over the hairs I stuck in the screen of our round bathroom window.

  “That’s a good idea. I’m going to try that. My hair is quite long so when I brush it there are good strong long hairs for nest building stuck in the brush,” says Gerty.

  I know, Gerty. I could build a nest out of your hair and live in it the rest of my life, I almost say but I don’t.

  The apartment is warm because the oil furnace is still on. I hang up my jacket. Gerty has on a pullover sweater.

  “I think I’ll take this off,” she says. “Hold down my blouse at the back.”

  I hold the bottom of her blue silk blouse at the back so it won’t come up with the sweater while she pulls it over her head. Then she shakes her hair out, smooths down the front of her blouse and straightens out her blue ribbon.

  “There,” she says and looks at me as much as to say, How do I look, and I fall into her eyes and drown myself there.

  I bring her into the living room and we see Grampa Rip from the back in his huge rocking chair.

  Gerty is looking around like she just walked into a giant’s museum. She’s looking up at Grampa Rip’s very large painting of the Virgin Mary and her son. The Virgin Mary is dressed in blue.

  The chair moves and Cheap jumps off and then Grampa gets out. He’s all dressed and ready to go to another funeral wake at McEvoy’s. We’re going to go, too. But lunch, first.

  “How do you do, miss,” he says to Gerty and takes her hand in his big fingers. “I’m pleased to report that we’re having pork hocks and fried potatoes for lunch on this lovely spring day!”

  I’m a little embarrassed because I think that maybe somebody as beautiful and delicate and feminine as Gerty would be horrified at the big fat ankle of a pig covered with thick bristly tough skin squatting on a plate in front of her like a swollen toad.

  “I like pork hock,” says Gerty. “My grampa makes the best pork hock in Sandy Hill. And he used to pickle them but since Gramma died...”

  I can tell Grampa Rip likes her already.

  “Well, young miss, you’ll have to be very frank with me during lunch and compare your grandfather’s hock with mine!”

  While Gerty helps me set the table Grampa talks at the stove over the boiling hocks and frying potatoes with onions.

  “You know, you have the same name as a famous figure in literature. Gerty McDowell. In James Joyce’s great novel Ulysses, a very large whack of an important chapter is dedicated to her. And I must say your appearance is remarkably similar!”

  “I’ll try to read that book one day, Mr. Sawyer. There’s so much to read and so little time.”

  “HA! HA! HA!” shouts Grampa Rip, letting the laughter rip. “You’ve got plenty of time...plenty of time before it’s over. But I’ll tell you one thing for sure. You may look like Gerty McDowell but you very certainly aren’t like her in any way. No. In the book, our Gerty would never eat a pork hock. She’s a little too prissy for that. Not like you!”

  I’m starting to get jealous, Grampa Rip and Gerty are getting along so well.

  But it’s okay. Because now we’re kicking each other under the table, Gerty and me.

  Peel the floppy skin off the pork hock and place it politely on the side of your plate. Strip some of the delicious lean meat with your fork, dip it in the hot mustard. Eat it. Wash it down with a mouthful of fried potatoes and onions. Don’t be afraid to swallow some fat with it.

  Gerty knows exactly how.

  We step out of the apartment building. People up and down Somerset Street are washing their cars and changing their storm windows and sweeping their walks and oiling their bicycles.

  The Gray Man sits on the bench under the exploding maple tree. There are baby carriages and kids playing ball and marbles in the mud and old men sucking on pipes in the spring sun.

  On our way to the funeral wake I tell Gerty a little bit about the Gray Man and the Russians and the Communists and Igor Gouzenko and how he lived in our apartment and how famous he was and how my boss Randy lived across the hall from him when the Russian agents tried to capture and kill Igor, and I tell a bit about Randy. But not all. Too embarrassing.

  I tell about some of the names of some of the stores we sell drinks to. I mention Persephone’s Grocery. She says shyly, “That’s Greek mythology. I love Greek mythology. Persephone — she’s the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of corn, of food, really — she was taken, kidnapped by Hades and forced to go to the underworld to be his queen but then she was allowed to come back once each year for a while. She’s the radiant maiden of the spring!...”

  And Grampa Rip, who is walking in front of us, turns around and says big and loud so that everybody around on Kent Street looks over and with his arms out he shouts, “And her light step makes the brown hillside fresh and blooming and sets the tiny lambs on wobbly legs!”

  And then Gerty claps her hands, applauding.

  We’re in front of McEvoy’s funeral home.

  “Maybe we won’t go in with you this time, Grampa Rip. Maybe next time. We’ll take a walk and then I’ll go home on the streetcar with Gerty...”

  Grampa Rip with his face says he understands.

  “Have a nice time, Mr. Sawyer!” Gerty shouts as he goes up the stairs. “Oh my God,” she says, covering her mouth. “What did I say? What did I say? He’s going into a funeral home and I say have a nice time...oh, why did I say that?”

  “You said it just right,” I say. “He always has a good time at funerals. That’s why he goes. You said it just right.”

  We stroll along in the warm,
luscious, springtime sunshine.

  A man in a laneway is washing his kid’s little wagon with a hose. He’s got his radio plugged in on the veranda.

  The radio is playing the Hit Parade.

  Gerty puts her hand inside my hand.

  “I think you’re so lucky to have a grampa like Grampa Rip. He’s so smart and funny and kind.”

  The radio plays the first note of “Too Young” by Nat “King” Cole. It’s kind of a BOINNG! kind of sound. It’s an all-of-a-sudden sort of sound. A springtime sound. A Gerty McDowell sound.

  That’s what happens to my whole body when Gerty puts her hand inside my hand.

  It’s an all-of-a-sudden kind of BOINNG! kind of feeling.

  Today after lunch, while we were cleaning up the dishes, Gerty told Grampa Rip that his pork hocks were just as good as her grampa’s used to be but her grampa’s aren’t as good any more because he’s so sick and sad all the time...

  There was a long silent piece of time. Only the dishes making noise.

  Then a conversation took place that was surprising to Gerty but not to me. Not if you know Grampa Rip like I do.

  Grampa Rip: Your Grampa McDowell. What’s his first name?

  Gerty: Mutt. His real name’s Matthew but his friends call him Mutt.

  Grampa Rip: I think I know him. Is he from up the Gatineau? Low? Kazabazua?

  Gerty: Kazabazua.

  Grampa Rip: Mutt McDowell. I know him. I met him workin’ on the Parliament Buildings after the Centre Block burnt in 1915. It was 1916 and he was back from the Big War. One of the lucky ones. Got gassed by the Germans at Ypres in Belgium. Many, many Canadians were slaughtered. But they held the line. Mutt was a hero.

  Gerty: Yes, that’s him. He was a hero. Now he’s very sick.

  Grampa Rip: Gassed by chlorine gas in a muddy ditch and for what?

  Gerty: Poor Grampa! The floorboards used to creak in his kitchen when he walked on them. Now they don’t creak, he’s so small, so light.

  Grampa Rip: A fine man in his day. A witty man. A good man. Raising the Union Jack because they thought the enemy had surrendered. But it was a trick. “Gas! Gas!” the soldiers yelled and scrambled for their gas masks.

  Gerty: He never told us about it.

  Grampa Rip: They don’t like to talk about it. Sometimes they wish they’d died alongside their comrades. Wasted away after being ruined in a ditch in some foreign country just to satisfy some egotistical, evil old bastards calling themselves generals, who died peacefully in bed of old age while Mutt goes around for years only half able to breathe...

  Gerty: Oh, Grampa Rip (crying), it’s so sad!

  Grampa Rip: The old lie. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Lovely and honorable it is to die for one’s country. Wilfred Owen, poet.

  Grampa Rip stopped and gripped the sink, his back turned so we wouldn’t see his tears.

  Grampa Rip (turning to us): But youth will save us. Save us old sad ones. You, Gerty, I’m sure, are a great comfort to Mutt. And I’ll tell you something. I, too, was sad for quite a while but I’m not any more. The reason for that is my young friend here, Martin O’Boy. He has brought back my happiness by his presence here.

  Our Bank streetcar turns up Queen Street and then down past the Union Station. Couples are hugging and crying and laughing in front of the station as usual. Leaving and coming home. Coming home and leaving.

  I see across the street the doorman at the Chateau Laurier in his spring uniform admiring how white his white gloves are. Look at my gloves. Look at me! It’s spring!

  I look at Gerty. She sees him, too.

  11

  Not the Time

  TONIGHT WE ’RE going to the show. The Capitol Theatre. A Streetcar Named Desire is what’s playing. There’s a big line-up right around the block. People in the line-up are talking about how some parts of the movie were censored. There were parts that were too sexy and so people weren’t allowed to see them.

  Gerty has a much larger blue ribbon tying her hair.

  People in the line-up are saying you have to be eighteen to get in. Guy behind us says he’s only seventeen but he’s seen the movie three times.

  “This is the fourth time I’ll see it,” he says.

  Gerty gives me a look. The look says it all. Does he really have to tell us that? We can add. Three times plus one time is four times. Some people.

  “This bigger ribbon makes me look older, don’t you think?” Gerty says to me.

  I want to kiss the ribbon.

  Maybe I’ll tell her tonight during the movie. Tell her all about stealing from her store. Tell her in the dark. Easier, maybe, that way. Won’t see my eyes. My shame.

  I’m wearing a white shirt and one of Grampa Rip’s ties.

  “Do you think this tie makes me look older?” “I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.” Then she says, “Exciting, isn’t it?”

  When we’re about fourth from the front of the line I can tell by the look on the face of the lady in the box office that she’s too tired to be bothered asking about how old we are.

  When it’s our turn I speak right into the round hole in the window in a low, very serious voice, “Two adults, if you please,” and slap my dollar bill on the marble surface with what Grampa Rip would call Authority.

  She slides the two tickets over and the change — thirty cents — comes jingling out of the cash register down a slide and into the silver container.

  “We’re all adults tonight, sonny,” she says. She sounds like she’s just about ready to drop dead from boredom.

  Gerty is imitating me as we float through the huge lobby leading to the stairs. “If you please...” she’s saying, trying to do a low voice.

  The lobby is decorated with carved frames and columns that look like marble and the ceiling is made of panels of gold and cream and rose red and the walls are decorated with flowers in plaster and brightly painted vases and cornices of fruits and foliage and animals and dancing figures in patterns and swirls and flowing lines and strange scenes like in a dream.

  Then the two royal curving staircases and the sweeping banisters with hundreds of little pillars fat at the bottom and the huge high domed ceiling. You look up, up, and don’t forget to breathe!

  Along the walls are arches and hiding places and pillars and caves over the doorways and tapestries and carvings heavy with grapes and buds and hanging apples and palm trees.

  There are naked fairies dancing in the woods, monsters peeking, creatures — half man half tree, half woman half fish — and bare-ass children playing horns and fiddles and throwing flowers and seashells at each other.

  And then the heavy drapes and stuffed sofas of rich cloth, velvet and velour and your feet sinking into the old, thick, soft, rose-red carpet.

  Then, in the theater where the seats are, the magnificent chandelier hanging down from the sunburst dome begins to dim and the hundreds of hidden lights glittering from everywhere begin to fade and now only the spotlights on the heavy curtain are left and now the curtain swooping open and all lights are out now and the music starts and the crowd of a thousand people hushes and the previews for the upcoming movies begin.

  A perfect magic palace. A perfect place to tell the beautiful, magical girl you are with that you are a liar and a thief.

  In A Streetcar Named Desire Marlon Brando plays Stanley. Stanley slaps his wife Stella and she runs away crying to the neighbor’s house but then they make up and Stella loves him more than ever. Everybody’s poor and Stanley usually goes around in a torn, filthy T-shirt.

  Then Stella’s sister Blanche comes to stay and she insults Stanley, calling him a common pig which is what he is. But Stanley gets back at Blanche when he finds out that she has lied about her so-called fancy life in the past as a schoolteacher when all she really was was a sort of prostitute.

  Blanche goes crazy because Stanley is so cruel to her and in the end everybody hates everybody and they cart old Blanche off to the loony bin.

  Everybody in th
e Capitol Theatre is bawling like babies and Gerty is looking pretty sad, too, although she’s not crying.

  I hate this movie. It reminds me too much of my house — people throwing dishes and slapping wives across the face.

  It’s impossible to try and tell Gerty now.

  12

  This Time

  THE RAT HOLE theater on Bank Street is really the Rialto but everybody calls it the Rat Hole because they say that when you sit there in the dark you can feel the rats jumping around your ankles fighting for the popcorn and candy on the floor down there.

  It’s not like the Capitol at all. There are maybe two steps up from the lobby, there are no rugs, no thick curtains. There are maybe two angels playing harps on the walls. The place smells of stinky feet, BO, perfume and popcorn.

  Grampa Rip’s friend Kelly O’Kelly is taking the tickets. Like Grampa Rip told me to do, I tell Kelly O’Kelly that Grampa Rip says hello and right away O’Kelly gives us back our tickets.

  “Go right in,” he says. “Save your tickets for next time you come.”

  Gerty likes going to the show with me even though that’s two nights in a row now.

  This is the Marx Brothers night. There are three Marx Brothers movies on: A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races and Horse Feathers.

  A Night at the Opera is very funny.

  Groucho, Chico and Harpo and about fifteen other people are all crammed into a small bedroom on board a ship. Groucho has a date with the fat lady he’s always insulting named Mrs. Claypool.

  When she knocks on the door, Groucho, who is playing a crooked businessman named Otis B. Driftwood, says, “Come in!”

  She opens the door and everybody falls out of the room on top of her.

  I decide, because everybody’s in such a good mood, to tell her.

  At the end of the movie a whole lot of cops are chasing Groucho, Chico and Harpo during the performance of an opera. Of course, the opera is ruined and all the people at the Rat Hole are laughing their heads off while the opera singers are trying to sing and the sets come crashing down around them.