King Leary

by Paul Quarrington

  “Oh.” Cliffy is depressed by this, reminded of his own matrimonial hard luck. His wife, Janine, ran off with the Louses’ equipment manager, you know. I thought the story might cheer him up, after all, if a goddamn castle won’t do the trick, how the hell did Clifford think he could make a woman happy with a bungalow in South Grouse and a rinky-dink cottage up in the Muskokas?

  The inability to hold on to women is nothing particular to the gormless Cliffy, although he takes it harder than most fellows. He is staring at the rounded toes of his boots as if they might tell him what to do. Clifford is a no-account, but I love him pretty much. After all, he’s not as big a no-account as his brother, Clarence. Clarence never did nothing except write pornography and one episode for that teevee show The Twilight Zone. He wrote a book of poems that got his butt arrested, that’s how filthy it was! It was in the newspapers every day how my son was being tried for obscenity. So don’t be mean-mouthing the gormless boy Clifford. His mother disliked him, you know, for he is big and fat.

  Mind you, if Chloe were here to speak for herself (instead of in the ground, massacred by disease), she’d rebut that I disliked Clarence, that I was unable to forgive Clarence for an incident that happened when the boy was only five. This is not the case. It was the other things I was unable to forgive him for, the way he affected the name of Rance and did everything in an abnormal fashion. Take skating. He had me for a teacher, and I tried to show him the hardstep, but Rance wouldn’t have any of it. He moved around the rink with his hands held up for balance, pushing off from his back leg in short, sweet motions, in other words, skating like a girl! Sheer perversity on his part, and I swear to Jesus he enjoyed the way it grieved me. So don’t get me going about my son Clarence.

  What we got now is Iain coming into the room, armed with pills and fruit juices. “Cliffy,” says Iain, “make wit da smokes.”

  My boy giggles and reaches for his cigarettes.

  “So how’s it going?” asks Iain, settling into a chair beside my son.

  “I don’t feel so good,” admits Clifford. “I got corked again last night. I’m maybe going to quit drinking.”

  “Who gives a shit?” says I, but that’s a bad thing to say. The boy’s face is full of hurt and bafflement. “You just drink a couple of beer now and then, don’t you, Cliffy?”

  “Yeah.” Clifford nods. “No big deal, eh, Poppa? I just quaff a few brewskies now and again.”

  “You’re fine, son. Not like Manfred. He’d hit the bottle and you never seen the likes. Say good night, sister.”

  “Fuck yourself, Leary.” This from Blue Hermann, who is reading his damn sports sections. Something’s got his goat, but I pay no attention: his wrinkled brain is puffed up with pharmaceuticals and contraband whiskey.

  “Iain,” says I, “how’d you like to meet the puppy Killebrew?”

  “Duane-o!” shouts Iain. “My main man!”

  “I thought I was your main man!”

  “King, you are my main hockey legend. But Duane-o is my main active player.”

  “Who’s gonna meet Duane Killebrew?” asks Clifford.

  “He’s not so much,” I tell them. “He’s all flash, no grit.”

  Blue Hermann reports, “He got a hat trick last night.”

  “It likely wasn’t a real hat trick!” I tell them. “A real hat trick is when you score three goals in a row, all in the same period. And what’s more, if you scored a real hat trick, you got a goddamn hat!”

  “A cornucopia of sporting lore!” says Iain in that high-pitched nasal voice all the radio guys had back in the thirties and forties.

  “I had a number of real, true hat tricks,” I recall. “Probably still got the real hats somewhere. It was a top hat they gave you, a fancy number. I imagine I have fifteen or twenty of them. I remember, I had a real, true hat trick in my first game with the Amerks. Three goals in a row, all in the third period. I only played the third period, because for the first two I was unconscious, rendered such by that son of a bitch Sprague Cleghorn! Anyways, I wake up and hit the ice with blood caked on my noggin. Some people say it was the best hockey playing they ever saw. Potted three goals, won the game for the pitiful New York Americans. And Jubal St. Amour, he—” I shut up as I remember Hallie’s satin dress falling in the moonlight. “Anyways,” I grab Iain’s shirtsleeve, “you want to meet this Killebrew grub or what?”

  “Who’s gonna meet Duane Killebrew?” demands Clifford.

  “Here’s the scoop,” I tell Iain. “The Canada Dry people want me to come to Toronto and make a small advert. I’m getting ten thou. I got to go for overnight, though, so I thought I’d need a staff person with medical knowledge, should I decide to croak.”

  Iain says, “You ain’t about to croak.”

  “Yeah, but how about Blue?”

  “Blue’s going?”

  “Damn betchas.”

  Blue Hermann says, “I want to see this new Canadian fucking Sports Hall of Fame.”

  I jerk a thumb at the wrinkled newspaperman. “Give this mook some horse tranks, Iain. He ties his butt in a pretzel every time he thinks about this new Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. I’m in it, that’s all I know, one entire display case. I believe they got the actual one-nine one-nine lumber, the stick I used to score that overtime goal.”

  “So anyways,” asks Clifford, “when is this?”

  Iain butts the cigarette on the bottom of his shoe. From where he’s sitting he can see the toilet through a small crack made by the bathroom door. He cocks the butt between his thumb and middle finger and spends a few seconds lining up and aiming. Then Iain flicks it away. The butt bounces into the toilet off the upraised throne seat.

  “Rimmer,” I mutter.

  “Odd angle,” he says.

  “No excuses, boy.”

  “It was a tough shot.”

  “Tough shots the only ones worth making,” I explain.

  “Sounds like it could be a lot of fun,” says the gormless boy.

  “I don’t think I should go,” says Iain. “I, um …”

  “Come on,” I say. “You could have fun in Toronto. I’ll pay for everything, maybe even slip you a few bucks bonus.”

  “Yeah, but, Toronto—”

  “Maybe I could drive.”

  “We can stay in a fine hotel. We can eat good food.”

  “Hey, Mrs. Ames has a sister in Toronto,” Iain mentions, “I’m sure she’d like to go.”

  Now Blue Hermann speaks up. “No.” He’s more than adamant.

  “We could all fit in my car, no probs.”

  “What do you say, Iain?”

  He stands up, smoothes down his trouser legs. “I shall dwell on it, my liege.”

  “You wouldn’t have to spend all your time looking after me. Maybe you could meet some girls, go to a few bars or something.”

  “Bars,” mutters Iain. “Just what I need.”

  Clifford climbs to his feet, too fast though. He misjudges and his monumental belly almost makes him topple over onto my bed. He steadies himself and says, “I gotta go, Poppa. The Louses are playing tonight. I got this feeling they’re gonna win.”

  “All right, son. Thanks for dropping by.”

  NINE

  THE BOWMANVILLE (ANNEX) REFORMATORY hockey squad for boys sixteen years of age and under were the All-Ontario Champions in one-nine one-five, and to win that we had to go to a tourney in the city of Ottawa. The monks had to pull a lot of strings to get us there, because Bytown was none too keen on letting a bunch of juvies invade the burg. But news of me and Manfred had spread pretty good, the both of us born and bred in Bytown, so the city fathers decided to give us the green light.

  I still get goose-bumped thinking about how good that hockey team was. Sometimes nowadays I’ll wander down to the common room, and the ancients will be watching a hockey game on the color teevee. It might be, say, the Maple Leaves versus whatever the damn team from Los Angeles, California, is called. I’ll watch for a bit, and then I’ll start to hoot, and
I’ll say, “You boys is making one hundred thousand plus per annum, but you’d lose and lose bad to a team of pint-size hooligans, come-to-naughts, and arsonists that played back in one-nine one-five!” And I’m not just tooting my own trumpet, because I wasn’t the only great one on that team. There was Manfred Ozikean, or Manny Oz as he came to be known, the Wizard, the Witch Doctor. (It’s funny how they used to call him that. It started because before games Manny used to like to cross himself and mumble a few words to his Creator, but for some reason this started the fans calling him the Witch Doctor, as if he’d been strangling chickens and drinking their blood. Oh, I know that in the last years with the Americans Manny used to play along, spinning little circles, whooping Indian-style and suchlike, but Manfred was pretty far gone with the liquor by then.)

  And, of course, we were well coached. None of the other boys had the raw talent of me or Manfred, but they all learnt the Bulldog and the Inner-Eye Fling. Some of them could even execute a passable St. Louis Whirlygig, although none could do what I did, namely, cast some doubt in observers’ minds as to whether or not I was ever coming down! And, during the actual games, there was Brother Isaiah the Blind whispering in our ears. He’d often tell us to pretend to be certain animals. The games I liked least (although I can’t say I’ve ever really disliked a game of hockey) was when Isaiah would tell us to be as a colony of ants, which meant a game of hard work and drudgery, digging in the corners, checking every inch of the way. When he told us to be as a swarm of bees I got fairly excited, because this meant we would zip in their end to nag and worry them, make the other team lose the puck through general pestiness. But my favorite type of game was when Brother Isaiah would whisper, “Be as a pack of wolves.” That was when we played our very best.

  So we go to Ottawa, us Bowmanville Boys, and we play, and none can even touch us, and we were the champs. They held a big reception for us in my old neighborhood parish hall. My mother was there, and Francis and Lloyd, and my little sister Bernice, who later married a fellow with a withered hand. (The old man, by the way, died during my first year at reform school. He was walking along Hogarth Street when some biddy opened her third-floor apartment window and knocked over a flowerpot. The pot hit the old man on the bean and that was that. I felt bad for the father. It was such a silly way to go.) We go to the parish hall right after the final game (I’d scored the winning tally, and a pretty one it was) and we no sooner set foot inside when a horde of old ladies loaded down with cookies and refreshments surrounded us. I didn’t want a cookie, but I had quite a thirst to slake, so I grabbed a tall glass of something clear, golden, and sparkly. I poured that down my gullet and then went to say thanks to the blue-haired dowager who’d given it to me.

  “Burrap!” I let out a sound to wake the dead. It made the biddy stumble backwards, and a hand went to her heart. Everyone in the place turned and stared at me, except for Brother Isaiah, who didn’t know where to look and finally peered cautiously towards heaven. I burped again, even louder. I tried to strangle this one deep in my throat. It made some odd twists and turns before it got past my lips. “Eeeerrruppppaarrrhhh!!” My head was light as a feather; there was a tingling in my ears. Something inside of me wanted to start fights, but only the good fights, fights with thugs, monsters, and dragons. I grinned at the people in the parish hall and then stumbled off to find adventure.

  That was my first encounter with the good old Canada Dry ginger ale, and I hope they let me tell about it when I make the advert.

  “Hello, old bean!”

  I don’t have to tell you who said that. Who else would call me “old bean”? I wasn’t surprised to see that Clay Clinton was there, either, but what did give me the wet noodle to the puss was the way the boy looked. Sometime in the previous year Clay had shot up to his adult height of six foot even, and all of his baby fat had been used in the reconstruction, rendering Clinton lean and hard. His face was the handsomest I’ve ever seen on a man, handsomer even than Rance Plager, who you probably remember played on the Rangers back in the thirties and then went on and had a career in motion pictures. Or maybe you don’t remember, no large difference. Point being, Clay was handsome. Most people remember him as he was just before he died, which was fat again, red faced and bloated, his nose all exploded and bumpy even though he only drank the finest cognac and champagne. That’s a bit of shame, but I suppose it’s only natural, and that’s how most of us get remembered. Clay all fat and bloated. Manny scarred and black eyed. My wife, Chloe, consumed by disease. Jane pale as a sheet, both legs in metal harnesses. I hope people remember me as I was in the twenties, one hundred and forty-six pounds of shinny-playing Irishter, not pretty to look at, but a hell of a scrappy young donegan. I hope they don’t remember me as I am now, which is maybe fifty pounds of skin and bone. I am so scrawny I don’t even wrinkle the bedclothes.

  “Hiya, Clay!”

  “Does Manfred,” asked Clay, “ever mention his sister Winny?”

  “Manny doesn’t say much that isn’t about hockey or you. What’s the scoop, anyways? Is she croaked?”

  “Alas, yes,” nodded Clay. He could say “alas” and get away with it, that’s how good looking he was. “Cut down in the prime of her youth, Percival. Somebody should write a poem.”

  Clay was dressed in a suit, three pieces and all the accessories: collar stays, tiepins, a boutonniere, and a folded-up snotrag in the breast pocket. He had cufflinks that showed the two linked Cs that was his trademark.

  I was wearing shorts and knee socks, which is what the monks had decided us lads should wear when we weren’t in our hockey uniforms.

  Clay said, “I must find the big Man-Freddy and congratulate him.” Clay Clinton vanished.

  What about congratulating me? That championship game I’d gotten three goals (one of them proving to be the winner, and truly radiant it was), but Clay hadn’t said anything about that. One last ginger ale belch came up, and I spit it out with all my force. It silenced the room.

  “Big storm coming,” ventured Brother Isaiah the Blind.

  The old biddies had hired this magician to put on an Entertainment. Wallace the Wonderful, he was called, and he was all right, if you happen to like magic. Myself, I can take it or leave it. Anyway, Wallace ran through some prestidigitations and thimbleriggery, and he even had one of the dowagers squawking like a chicken, which was the best part of the show. Then he turns all spooky, wrapping a black cape around his shoulders and hollering, “Now I shall cause a Spirit to become incarnate!” This made me chuckle, because Wallace the Wonderful had the aspect of an overfed hamster, and it was plain that all he meant to do was haul some tiny animal out of his top hat. “The Spirits are in this very room!” he chanted. “And I shall cause one to become flesh and blood!”

  All of a sudden there was a crashing sound, and Manny Ozikean came flying through one of the parish hall’s stained-glass windows.

  Manfred landed in the glass, his hands and face all bleeding, and he moaned for a second or two. I can’t remember exactly what he moaned—it was of a religious nature. Then Manny started puking, more watery green bile than I’ve ever seen before or since.

  Brother Isaiah fastened his weird robin’s-egg eyes on Manfred Ozikean. “It looks,” said the monk, “as if he’s a bit intoxicated.”

  Naturally this scandalized the old biddies something fierce, and whatever good reputation us delinquents had managed to fabricate went straight down the flusher.

  Sometime later they found Clay Clinton asleep in one of the coat cupboards. He was curled up like a baby, smiling about Lord knows what. Clay’s nose made little whistling noises while he slept, and sometimes they could sound quite musical.

  We got them both to bed, at least, we got them stretched out and covered up on the floor of the hall where we boys were sleeping.

  Later that night I snuck downstairs to the coat cupboard and rummaged around. I found what I was looking for, namely, a little pewter flask. The flask was empty except for fumes, but the fumes were
enough to rot socks. The flask had this engraved on the side:

  TEN

  THROUGH THE WINDOW OF THE BUNK HALL we could see the moon sitting in a tree like some stupid tomcat. One night Manfred got up from his cot and spent a long time looking at it. “Percival,” he whispered, knowing somehow that I was awake, “I think I better go fight.”

  “Fight the Huns?”

  Manfred nodded.

  I’d been giving that some consideration myself. It seemed like a good idea. We were getting too old to be juvenile delinquents anyway.

  When I left, the four monks, the monks that were closest to me, each gave me a small gift.

  Theodore the Slender gave me a ring. I got it on now. It has a small stone in the middle. I don’t know what kind of stone it is, but it’s as bright as the sun. Andrew the Fireplug gave me a hat, a little coal miner’s cap that became my trademark. Simon the Ugly gave me a new pair of boots, fancy jobs for perambulating about town and taking corners on one heel. Isaiah the Blind gave me a walking stick with a dragon’s head carved on top. Brother Isaiah claimed to have made the thing himself, and while you don’t like to disbelieve a man of the cloth, the dragon is so nicely rendered that it’s hard to give the man’s claim credence. I got the walking stick now. I use it on the rare occasions I go out. I don’t need it because of any agèd and infirm hobble, mind you. I just need it.

  They gave Manfred some gifts, too, damn strange ones. Brother Theodore the Emaciated gave him a little leather pouch full of money. That is, if you want to call twenty-six cents and some glass beads money. Andrew the Hydrant gave Manny a hat, a huge ugly goat-herder. It covered most of Manny’s face and caused him to bump into things. Simon the Gruesome gave him a pocket watch. It was gold, and the back was engraved, but the face was busted all to Kingdom Come, and it was obvious that the timepiece was going to proclaim 3:26 forevermore. Brother Isaiah the Sightless gave Manfred a walking stick, a staff is more like it. It was bended and twisted, knotty and whorly, the length of it scarred by woodpecker and termite holes. Isaiah the Blind handed this ugly club to Manfred Ozikean and said proudly, “I carved it myself!”