by Brian Doyle
We start choir practice.
Mr. George is playing the piano. Mr. Skippy is listening to us singing. Especially his summer boys. Dick Dork and Dumb Doug won’t look at me. They don’t know that Billy and I know they got caught by the ushers. They won’t say anything about it.
They’re too ashamed.
Mr. Skippy is paying attention, listening to me singing. He stops the choir. He’s bent over me.
“Rest, Mr. George,” he tells Mr. George. “Rest. We have a little tidying up here to do, don’t we?”
He’s looking at me. Mr. George winks at me. His thick glasses make the wink look like many winks.
“Now,” says Mr. Skippy, “do we have a new style of singing here by one of our summer boys? Holding the note longer than is written? O, God our help in aaaaages past?”
Mr. George plays it. Making fun. Winking.
“Are we being influenced by some popular trend, Mr. Martin O’Boy?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Well, let’s see now, Mr. O’Boy. Who is your favorite singer on the radio?”
“Bing Crosby,” I say. “I like ‘Moonlight Becomes You.’”
“Aha! Bing Crosby! That’s it! That’s exactly the way Bing Crosby would sing ‘Our help in aaaaages past,’ dragging the note. Bing Crosby is a crooner, Mr. Martin O’Boy. He’s not singing hymns in Mr. Skippy’s church choir now, is he? Now that’s enough Bing Crosby. No more Bing Crosby. Shall we continue, Mr. George?”
After choir Mr. Skippy says stay for a few minutes with Mr. George to help get rid of this Bing Crosby habit before it’s too late. A bad habit. This Bing Crosby.
Mr. George is at the piano. We practice a few verses while everybody’s piling out and going home.
Mr. George says my notes are pure. He says my voice is beautiful. I sound as clean as an icicle. As pure as a drop of spring water. Like a beautiful statue of an angel. A drop of quicksilver. A voice from heaven. Like an ice cream sundae.
Everybody’s gone now. Except Mr. George and me.
Mr. George gives me a hug in the empty choir room.
He’s becoming very fond of me.
“I’m becoming very fond of you, you know that, Martin O’Boy?” says Mr. George.
Mr. Skippy is peeking in the room. Now he comes in. He saw Mr. George give me the hug. He heard him say that he was becoming very fond of me.
“All right, Mr. George,” says Mr. Skippy. “That’s enough. Time for young summer boys to be going home to their mothers. Remember, Mr. George, we are responsible for these boys. No harm must come to them. We’ve spoken of this before, haven’t we? Now, run along, Martin O’Boy. Goodnight now.”
Before I go through the door I look back. They are both watching me go out.
I make step number nine squeak but I wait back on the landing and try to listen.
Mr. Skippy is talking. His voice is serious. It has a warning in it. He sounds like he’s scolding Mr. George. It’s not an argument though.
Mr. George isn’t saying anything.
I go up and out.
15
Buz
PHIL IS asleep.
Lots of Horseball Laflamme’s family are snoring through the wall. Mr. Laflamme is coughing.
It’s quiet next door at Mrs. Sawyer’s. You never hear anything from there. Before Buz went to fly planes in the war there used to be lots of noise from there. Mr. Sawyer always had lots of visitors over and there’d be singing and laughing. And Mr. Sawyer had an accordion and sometimes he’d play it and you’d hear people dancing.
But then he got sick and died in the hospital.
And Buz always had lots of friends coming over to visit him. Buz was friends with everybody. Even us kids. He’d make lemonade sometimes and we’d all play cards and he’d turn up the radio really loud when there was music on like Don Messer’s Islanders or Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye.
And once Buz took Billy and me and some other kids up to Lindsay’s record store on Sparks Street and we played on records in the little booths there where you could pretend you were going to buy one of the records until they kicked you out.
And once a friend of his from Sandy Hill came over in his convertible car with the top down and Buz got me and Billy and a bunch of other kids and some Laflammes to pile in and we went for a drive all the way out to Britannia and we all went swimming.
And once we got to go with him and his friends to the Auditorium to see the wrestling.
Yvon Robert vs The Mask.
Yvon Robert ripped off The Mask’s mask and tried to make him eat it and then The Mask threw Yvon Robert out of the ring and then jumped down and hit him over the head with a chair and the crowd was going wild and Yvon Robert chased The Mask up the aisle where there was a guy selling hot dogs and The Mask knocked down the hot dog guy and stole a big bowl of mustard off his tray and poured mustard all over Yvon Robert’s head and then they got back in the ring and Yvon picked up The Mask’s mask and choked The Mask with it until he fainted and Yvon Robert was still the champion.
Later that night, after the wrestling, we saw Yvon Robert and The Mask walking together down Argyle Avenue and laughing.
And once, Buz fixed a tough guy from New Edinburgh named Tomato. His real name wasn’t Tomato. His real name was Percy Kelso. Buz told us all about him. His nickname was Tomato because his face was so red.
And he had a lisp. Buz told us that when he and Tomato were kids everybody teased Tomato by calling him Perthy Keltho. “Hey, Perthy Keltho, you got a head like a tomato!”
But when he got older he got real tough for some reason and everybody was afraid of him. Afraid of what he would do to them.
Once, Buz told us, Tomato picked a guy he didn’t like off Angel Square and stuffed him in somebody’s garbage can and rolled him up Clarence Street and then dumped him in Mr. Lipshitz’s wagon as he was passing by.
But Buz was friends with Tomato because once he had a big wooden sliver in his hand and it was starting to swell up and Buz pulled it out with a pair of pliers.
Last winter Billy Batson did a very stupid thing. We were going over to Rogers’ Drug Store across the St. Patrick Street bridge to New Edinburgh and there was Percy Kelso on the bridge looking down at the ice floating there. On our way by Percy, Billy said really quiet under his breath, “Hello, Mithter Tomato,” but Percy heard what Billy said and turned around and reached out as quick as lightning and grabbed Billy and turned him upside down and was holding him by his ankles over the icy Rideau River when along came Buz — lucky for Billy.
Buz talked to Tomato and Tomato put Billy back safe on the bridge and then Buz made Billy and me apologize to Mister Kelso — made us say to Tomato (Mr. Kelso) good luck and good health and thank you for allowing us to come over to New Edinburgh and if you ever need any messages delivered or errands run we’d be glad to do it no charge for you, Mister Kelso…
Buz told us after that we were very lucky and that he was pretty sure Tomato would have dropped Billy into the Rideau River and he’d be a Popsicle by now. Right after that Buz went off to war.
Buz took care of us. When he comes home from the war he’ll take care of us again. I wish he’d hurry up. We miss Buz.
There’s the front door.
My father’s home.
It’s payday, so he’ll be drunk.
I hope he doesn’t come in our room and sit on the bed and turn on the light and wake Phil up like he sometimes does. When he does come in he tells me all kinds of stuff about what we’re going to do together — go fishing, go to the lumber yard and get some boards and how we’re going to build a teeter-totter for Phil and how he’s going to buy me things like boxing gloves and roller skates and a bicycle, all that stuff, and the next day he doesn’t even remember all the things he said…
Here he comes up the stairs…one step at a time.
Maybe Buz will come home soon and make us all some lemonade…
Now he’s in the bathroom. He’s so filled up with beer that it t
akes him forever…
Or Buz’s friend will come with the convertible.
Now he sits on their squeaky bed to take off his heavy shoes…
First one shoe hits the floor with a loud bang. Phil makes a grunting noise. Still asleep…
The drunker my father is the more time it takes to drop the other shoe…
I miss my granny. How brave she must have been when she turned around all of a sudden and stabbed that guy near Baron Strathcona’s fountain…
It will be a long time before the other shoe falls. I’ll get up and take a bath while I’m waiting. Cheap comes with me.
Cheap stands on his hind legs and leans on his elbow on the side of the tub and watches me. Now and then he reaches his right paw down and scoops the water to see how hot it is.
Cheap would like to get in the tub with me. He’d like to sit on my chest and help me wash myself maybe.
I think Cheap wants to be a human, a person, instead of being just a cat. I think he’d like to do the things that I do. I think he’d like to sit at the kitchen table and eat snap crackle and pop with me and maybe when he’s half finished, reach over and pull the sugar bowl to him and put some extra sugar in his bowl.
And sometimes when he looks at Phil I think he’d like to tell Phil to quit ruining everything all the time.
And when my father boots the enamel basin, Cheap runs and hides but he peeks out almost right away — even before the basin has stopped rolling — and glares at my father as if to say, “Why are you acting like a common animal?”
I think Cheap would like to come to the show with me. I could buy him a ticket and he could sit in the seat beside me. We could watch Alan Ladd pet his little cat before he goes out and murders people or we could watch Abbott and Costello being scared to death by moving candles and revolving rooms and pictures on the wall with moving eyes that follow them everywhere.
Cheap and I, eating popcorn together at the show.
Maybe we’d get some chocolate-covered peanuts. That would be good. But maybe Cheap wouldn’t like the chocolate on the peanuts. He doesn’t like chocolate. I remember now. He likes peanuts though. But they stick to his teeth and it takes him about a half an hour to get straightened out after.
And he likes cherry Coke. But I don’t think he’d be able to drink with a straw. You need lips to suck on a straw.
Cheap hasn’t got lips for some reason.
I go back to bed. Cheap lies next to me.
I’m thinking about Mr. George.
Wondering about him.
BANG! There goes the other shoe.
Tears for my granny now. Sleep now.
16
Ice Cream Sundae
MR. GEORGE says I have to stay after choir again today to work with him to cure the Bing Crosby problem.
“We have to root out this Bing Crosby business, don’t we, Mr. O’Boy, before it spreads like wildfire and infects all of our summer boys! Don’t you agree?”
Mr. George and I work for a while on staying on the note only as it is written and not dragging it like Bing does. Mr. George tells me I’m improving immensely and then we stop working on the problem and he starts telling me about the war and his adventures there.
Everybody’s gone but us.
He tells how he shot a German soldier. How bad he felt after. He still feels bad.
He feels bad because he shot the soldier while he was going to the toilet under a tree in a farmer’s field. Squatting there with his pants down. Mr. George feels bad.
Are there tears in his eyes behind the thick glasses?
Mr. George tells me that some of his friends are still over in the war but they’ll be home soon because the war’s almost over. Would I like to meet his friends? He’s going to the Union Station one of these days pretty soon to meet them when they arrive. He thinks they’ll be coming on a big ship called the Andrea Doria to Montreal and then the train to Ottawa. I could go with him to meet them at the Union Station.
We leave the church and walk together down the hill to Rideau Street. He’s telling more about the war. How he has seven pieces of steel in his leg. He was wounded in Germany by shrapnel. Shrapnel is little pieces of jagged, dirty metal that fly all over the place like bullets when a shell lands near you and explodes. The pieces of flying metal buzz like bees.
I see Billy coming out of the public library with some books. Billy doesn’t see us where we are across the street.
“Let’s cross over here,” Mr. George says. Then he sees Billy. “Isn’t that your friend Billy Batson coming out of the library?”
“Yes, it is,” I say. “Billy!” I call out but there’s two streetcars going by and Billy doesn’t hear me.
“Let’s not cross just yet. We don’t want to talk to Billy just now, do we?”
The two streetcars are gone and so is Billy.
“He’s gone anyway,” I say.
“Let’s cross then,” says Mr. George.
Now we’re in front of Imbro’s Restaurant.
“Martin O’Boy?” says Mr. George. “I have a splendid idea! Why don’t you and I go right into Imbro’s here and I shall buy two ice cream sundaes — one for you and one for me. Imbro’s is famous for its delicious ice cream sundaes!”
Every time I walk by Imbro’s I always look in and see people eating delicious ice cream sundaes but I’ve never had one.
In Imbro’s around the walls there are pictures of ice cream sundaes. The pictures are delicious. They make you want to stand up in the booth on top of the table where you’re sitting, stand up and lick the picture of the ice cream dripping over the side of the dish or take a bite out of the picture of the chocolate-covered banana or nibble on the nuts and strawberries covering the Imbro’s special butterscotch and caramel sundae.
They have banana splits with chocolate, pineapple or strawberry, hot fudge sundaes with whipped cream. They have butterscotch, Crispy Crunch, mini marshmallows, melon, blueberry, orange, peach, mango, coffee…
Some of the sundaes in the pictures are in long curved dishes that are flat. Some are in tall vases narrow at the bottom and wide at the top. You get a spoon with a long handle if you pick a tall one.
“I think I want the double banana split with chocolate and pineapple,” says Mr. George.
I can’t make up my mind. Mr. George is sitting on the same side of the booth as I am. I’m pushed up close to the wall so it’s hard to look up to see all the pictures up there. He’s pressed against me.
There’s one I see that is different than all the others. It’s called a David Harum. I don’t know what that is, a David Harum. But the picture looks good. The ice cream is not dribbling over the side and the dish is a different kind, not tall, not long and flat.
“Why don’t you try the David Harum?” Mr. George says.
“David Harum,” I say.
“Good choice,” says Mr. George.
Now right away I want to change my mind but it’s too late. The lady is writing down what we want on her little pad.
She sticks her pencil behind her ear in her hair.
“Another young choir singer, Mr. George?” she says.
“Yes, he’s a beautiful singer,” Mr. George tells her.
“Aren’t they all,” she says. “Aren’t they all!”
Then she says, “Interesting shoes you’ve got, son. Waiting to grow into them, are ya?” Then she laughs.
Mr. George says he’s been meaning to ask me about the shoes, about how long they are.
I tell him about the shoes and the drunk man at Lefebvre’s Shoe Market. Mr. George looks really interested in my story about the shoes. He shakes his head and smiles. He likes me very much. His face shows it.
The lady with the pencil in her hair is back. She puts the sundaes down. Mr. George’s banana split is half the size of the table. It has four scoops of ice cream drowned in chocolate and pineapple and sprinkled with nuts and a red cherry on each scoop and two bananas, split long ways, surrounding the ice cream.
; Mr. George digs in.
My granny always said that when she slammed down the porridge bowl in front of me: “Dig in!”
My sundae is different than Mr. George’s. It’s a lot smaller — about the size of a saucer. It’s only one scoop. And no dribbling over the side. And there’s not much sauce in it. And there’s no cherry. And there’s one nut cut in half sitting on the top.
And there’s greenish brown liquid under the scoop of ice cream.
“You got the most expensive one,” says Mr. George. “It must be really good!”
I take my first taste with the short small spoon. I’ve never tasted anything like this. It’s a bit like peppermint but not really. And there’s a bit of a burning feeling but the ice cream makes it go away. And there’s a sniff or a taste, a little bit sour, like I sniff sometimes from my father in the bathroom — the Aqua Velva.
I bite the nut in half and mix it with the ice cream and the greenish brown sauce. The taste goes up my nose and makes my eyes water.
Mr. George is digging in. He looks like some of the men in Bowie’s Lunch shoveling in a whole pile of meat and potatoes. I’m eating bites so small I must look like a chipmunk nibbling away on sunflower seeds.
We’re done. Mr. George gives money at the pay counter to the lady with the pencil stuck through her head.
“How’re ya feelin, sonny? Hope you don’t have too big of a hangover tomorrow.” Then she laughs. “There’s crème de menthe and brandy in that little David Harum. Just a couple tablespoons each. Never hurtcha! HA! HA!”
Her mouth is opening huge and I can see right down her throat because she’s leaning over the counter and down to me.
The pencil looks as big as a log.
“Straight home!” she roars and Mr. George takes me by the hand.
17
Heney Park
IT’S NOT far to Heney Park. The park looks beautiful ahead in the moonlight. The shape of the trees and then the hill in the middle and the gazebo on the top with the six stone legs and the pretty pointed roof.