King Leary

by Paul Quarrington

  The bride’s side, I was alarmed to find out, was enormous. Not only that, it was largely women. Not only that, all the women were variations on Jane. Some were older, some were younger, some were bigger, some were slighter, but basically Janey was your basic Millson. These women buzzed around the front yard of the big Millson homestead while the men stood in the shade of an oak tree and drank lemonade. Mr. Millson, a fat man whose joy in life was the cultivation of a heroic handlebar mustache, would occasionally walk over to me, wrap his arm around my neck, squeeze it hard, and make a peculiar growling noise. This was meant as affection, or so I took it. Mrs. Millson—Jane with gray hair, a powdery face, and thirty extra pounds—would come over and press on me various foodstuffs. Aunts would walk over and inform me, giggling, that I was a professional hockey player, but mostly these aunts confronted Manfred with the same information. Manny stood there looking nervous, intrigued by something held high in the branches of the oak tree. Clay Clinton held court for the matrons, and was as charming a bastard as the sun ever shone upon.

  Chloe disappeared early on. She touched the back of my hand lightly and said, “Pookie, I’m going to lie down.” Pookie, that’s me. Don’t even ask.

  “Uh-yeah,” I grunted. It was about five-thirty in the afternoon. I’ve ever had a reputation as a man early to bed and early to rise, but this was pushing it. “I’ll be along.”

  Chloe did look nice in her bridal gown. Don’t think it never occurred to me that the girl deserved better than to marry yours truly.

  When I did go to bed, some hours later, Chloe’s face was creased by slumber, and a little line of spittle fell from her mouth. Her nightgown had ridden up, and her buttocks were naked to the world. The skin was very, very pale and seemed almost to shine in the gloom. I peeled off and got into the bed beside her. Her breath was heavy and regular. I mumbled a good night and closed my eyes. Chloe set upon me like a dog on a bone. Neither of us knew what we were doing, although Chloe seemed to have an intuitive grasp on things. Anyway, we worked it out pretty good. Afterwards, Chloe cried, but she insisted she was happy. We slept in each other’s arms.

  At the reception I had a talk with Jane. She came up to me, walking a little unsteadily. Janey was into the lemonade. The Millson menfolk were spiking the stuff, adding whatever liquor they’d brought with them. The lemonade kept changing color and consistency, and Janey had a glass of stuff that was bright orange and as thick as blood. “Brother-in-law!” she hailed me.

  I hadn’t thought of us in terms of this new relationship. “Sister-in-law,” I said, more to hear the sound of it, and I toasted her with my glass of well water.

  “I’m right corked,” Janey confided, pressing her lips into my ear. “I’m pissed, Little Brother. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Watch your tongue.”

  “Answer me this, Lucky Number Seven. How’s come when I get a snootful I start feeling all warm and happy, and when Manny ties one on he is as nasty a piece of business as you’d ever care to see. That’s a poser, isn’t it, Little Brother?”

  I shrugged. Janey’s bosom kept brushing against my arm. She took a tug on the lemonade. “Why don’t you drink, Little Brother?”

  “As the old mother would have it, I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.”

  “Brains,” Janey scowled. “Who gives a spit about brains?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Janey decided to sit down. Actually it was more like the gods decided that Jane should sit down, because she plopped onto her backside like a sack of oats. Janey patted the earth beside her. “Sit down, Little Brother, Lucky Number Seven. Sit down and hear my problems.”

  I crouched beside the girl. “What problems, Janey?”

  She hefted a finger and waved it at the general activity. “There they are yonder.”

  “What are we looking at, Little Sister?”

  “Now, the one of them,” said Janey—she crossed her arms on her knees and cradled her small head—“is standing there thinking about whether or not to have a drink of lemonade. That’s all he’s been thinking about, all day. My guess is he won’t. Tonight, though, he’ll go over to Hull and get so drunk he can speak French! Right now, though, everyone in the family thinks he’s a proper eejit because all he does is nod and grunt.” Jane did an imitation of Manfred’s attempts at politeness, which sounded like a Barbary ape long deprived of creature comforts. “Some of the men here—like my Uncle Donald—want to start a fight with him. Isn’t that queer? How’s come so many men want to fight him, just because he’s so big?”

  I shrugged again. “Cleghorn sure has it in for him.”

  “You be careful of that Cleghorn, Little Brother. He means you harm.”

  “I can handle Spray-goo, Sister.”

  Jane held my hand briefly. I wondered at this for a while. “Now,” she went on, “my other problem is standing there making my Aunt Sarah turn purple with laughter. The smooth son of a bitch.”

  I guess I looked a bit surprised. Janey thought I was gaffed at her language (which, frankly, could be quite unladylike). She burst out with a short laugh. “You know what he is, Little Brother.”

  “I didn’t know Clay was complicating things.”

  “Clay Clinton complicates everything. That’s what he’s best at is complicating things.”

  Clay glanced up from Aunt Sarah and saw us watching. He raised his glass and turned on that smile of his.

  Jane Millson sighed. “It’s hard, Little Brother. Jeezly hard. I think I’ll get so drunk that I sleep for four days.” Jane struggled to stand erect. I could see almost the whole length of her legs. Janey picked up her lemonade glass and drained it. Then she looked at me. Her eyes were a hard, dark blue. “Little Leary,” she asked. “What’s wrong with you, anyway? How’s come you didn’t fall in love with me?”

  “Couldn’t say,” I told her.

  “Well, now you’ve got Chloe.”

  “Yep.”

  “But I’ve got bigger bubbles than her.” Janey used to say things like that just to watch my face. I’m not sure what my face did, but it surely started the girl laughing.

  TWENTY-ONE

  BLUE HERMANN, HAVING INHALED a couple of whiskies, lights up one of his dead ends and leans back. “I used to come here with Clay Clinton,” Blue whispers. He’s not whispering for secrecy, he’s whispering because a coughing jag has deprived him of gas.

  “Clay liked it here.” The food’s arrived, although no one but for the Claire thing is happy about that. I’ve sucked on a few pale noodles, crunched on a baby corn, that should do me fine.

  “One time,” Blue remembers, “Clay sat right where you’re sitting now and cried like a baby.”

  “Uh-yeah? I imagine he’d just seen some motion picture. Those motion pictures could surely make him blubber.”

  “No.” Blue Hermann shakes his head. “We’d been drinking all day.” It might be my imagination, but I swear that when Hermann just shook his head, all of the liver spots and various mottles shifted position.

  “Right. Clay would get drunk and then start crying over some silliness. He’d sing songs and say poetry. The man was mostly hambone, Hermann.”

  Blue Hermann spears a piece of meat and tosses it into his maw, satisfying his daily requirement of seven calories. He talks while he’s chewing, as disgusting a sight as you’d ever want to see. “Not this time, O your royal highness, King of the Ice. This time Clinton was crying about specifics.”

  “Never happened, Blue-boy. This is liquor- and drug-induced fabrication. Hey, Iain! Hermann is commencing to hallucinate.”

  “Specifics,” Blue Hermann hisses.

  “Like what?”

  “Something you and he did.”

  “Clay himself done a lot of things, and sometimes I was around. But we were never in cahoots.”

  Blue lifts his trembling hand and manages to snap his fingers. Before long there’s more drinks on the table. I guess Hermann’s finger-popping has a kind of alcoholic au
thority. “It happened in 1933.”

  “In one-nine three-three I was coaching the Ottawa Patriots. Clay was general manager. We won the divisional championship that year.”

  “True. And you lost to the Americans in the first round of the play-offs.”

  “If you say so, Hermann.”

  “I was there.”

  “So was I.”

  “The Paddies sure could have used Manny Oz.”

  “Uh-yeah.” I spear an onion, ain’t onions supposed to be good for the blood, but to hell with it, I toss her back on the serving dish. “The world don’t always shake fair, Blue-boy. Look at me, for an example. The year previous, ’thirty-two, I’m playing as good as ever I was. I think I had twenty-some goals already that year. I was so full of ginger I could make a horse sneeze at thirty paces. And what happens? I break my kneecap all to bits, and that’s the end of the song. I’m hung out like Wednesday’s wash.”

  “And you didn’t even break your leg playing hockey,” says the withered scribe. “Ironic.”

  “Yeah. Things get ironic every now and then.”

  Blue sticks out his warted chin and scratches at it. He’s affecting a poor memory, but I know the booze sops everything up like a sponge. “Now, if I recall, it was your son Rance—”

  “His name was Clarence. And it don’t matter. All that matters is, I busted the ’cap, Jubal St. Amour turned me loose, and I likely would have starved to death if Clay hadn’t said to me, King, old buddy, old pal, come back to Bytown and coach the Pats.”

  “He had a job he wanted you to do.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Yep,” says Blue, “Clinton sat right where you’re sitting and cried.”

  “Could be his bunions were acting up. The man’s feet were in sorry shape. You know what else he had? Gout. A disease no one’s had since King Arthur and his Round Table stopped drinking the hard stuff.”

  “And he called you a little Irish bastard.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Yeah.” Blue Hermann polishes off his drink. His hands have stopped shaking so much. Now they just modulate back and forth. Blue’s eyes are rheumy and his wet lips press outwards. “He called you a little Irish bastard and said, ‘Why didn’t he stop me?’ ”

  “Why didn’t I stop him?”

  “He said, ‘All the little Irish git had to do was say no.’ ”

  Iain asks, “What’s the matter, Kinger?”

  Clay asked, “What’s the matter, Percy, my pet?”

  I says, “Are you sure it’s a good idea? You know, the Amerks are a wild crew. There’s always booze around. Jubal even puts it right in the dressing room!”

  “If you don’t think we should do it, just say no.”

  “King?”

  “King?”

  “It’s rather interesting, about Leary’s nickname. The King.” That’s Blue Hermann speaking. Don’t listen to him. They’ve been giving him some very nasty drugs at the home. “Now, some people have pointed out that there is an allusion to the Bard, but such subtleties are lost on Percival himself. It was, coincidentally, myself who popularized his nickname, but I cannot be given credit for having originated it.” Yeah, don’t listen to him. He’s got the heebie-jeebies, he don’t know what he’s saying. “That dubious distinction goes to a young hockey player named Richie Reagan.” Voiceless Richie Reagan was a winger with the Amerks, I remember him. Nice enough fellow. “This was in New York City. Percy Leary was the star of the New York American hockey franchise, owned by one Jubal St. Amour.” Sure, Jubal St. Amour and his moll, Hallie. Hallie would come into the dressing room after games, and the whole entire team would hush up like we’d gone to church. Hallie used to dress in silver and gold. When she passed by a light, you could see the shadow of her nakedness. “They were holding scrimmages at the end of a practice. I was there, from the Star.” That’s right, always standing off to one side, trench coated and fedoraed, scribbling into a little notebook. You were a good-looking young charlie, Blue, you always had that bubbly-bosomed blonde on your arm when you hit the streets at nighttime. “Leary was on the blue team.” Blue versus red. Red, white, and blue for the Americans. I was always blue. “And they take the puck down the ice. Leary applies the St. Louis Whirlygig to his cover and poof, he’s in the clear.” One of the great wonders of the world, the St. Louis Whirlygig! It’s a spit in the eye of gravity and sundry physical laws! “And Leary starts pounding his stick on the ice, you see, so that his teammates will pass the puck.” Boys, I’m by my lonesome over here! Give us the rubber, lads, I’ll tally one sure as shit. “But they ignore him. They pass the puck back and forth a bit and then shoot it at the net. The goalie stops it.” Of course he does. The shot’s got no mustard on it, a weak drive from a piss-poor angle. “Leary throws down his stick in digust and marches off the ice.” Damn right I do.

  “And Richie Reagan says, ‘Well, who the hell does he think he is—the King of the Ice?’ ”

  TWENTY-TWO

  CHLOE AND I LIVED WITH MY MOTHER AND MY SISTER, Bernice, in the Leary household until Chloe pointed out that I earned a fair salary and said as how the two of us should probably find a place of our own. It’s not that there was any friction in the domicile, mind. On the contrary, the mother was very partial to Chloe—as was Bernice—and often the joint was nothing but those three giggling and conducting womanly business. But Chloe had a certain idea in her mind of what married life should be, and heading the list was that we two should live in our own place. Anyway, they’d just finished building some luxury apartments over on St. Nicholas Street, the Sherwood the building was called, and I took out a lease on one of them.

  So one day Manfred came over with the largest of the Ozikean family farm carts, and we loaded all our belongings into it. Now this is slightly humorous, because all our belongings amounted to diddley-squat. After everything was loaded, it was apparent that Manfred could have borrowed the family wheelbarrow. Myself in particular owned nothing. I scoured the household in pursuit of items I might lay claim to, but about all I came up with was my skates and some hockey sticks, my hat and dragon-head cane, a few of Lloyd’s storybooks. Chloe had more stuff—mysterious boxes on which she’d written room names—and my mother pressed on us a set of dishes and some silverware. But that was it. Rather than being depressed by this state of affairs, as I was close to being, Chloe was delighted. It suited her mental picture of young newlyweds that they should be impoverished, I suppose. She turned right romantic on me during the move, throwing her arms around my neck for no good reason and covering my cheeks with lipstick. Manfred was his usual self, pointing out that the more things one owned, the greater the risk of loss through theft, fire, and acts of God. At any rate, we threw this meager assemblage into the Ozikean cart and hauled it through the streets of Bytown. Kids ran alongside, chattering to me and Manny. We told them to eat their veggies. When the tykes called Chloe “Mrs. Leary” she beamed, telling them to eat their veggies and always brush their teeth. The children wondered how brushing their teeth would make them better hockey players, and I thought they made a point. But Chloe told them to brush their teeth and clean their fingernails, for Jesus’ sake, and in like manner the mule hauled us across town and down St. Nicholas.

  The doorman, Johannsen, eyed our cartful and raised a single brow. “Delivery for the Leary household?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked him. “We are the Leary household!”

  “Oh?” Johannsen looked confused. “But—”

  “Come on, Percival,” said Manfred, jumping off the driver’s bench. “Let’s take this stuff up.”

  “Right.” Manny and I grabbed some stuff (Manfred toting most of the cart’s contents) and we went up in the elevator. Chloe thought the elevator was rather stylish, but it made quite a few noises, odd groans and such, and I never did feel at ease in the contraption all the years we lived in the Sherwood. We went up to the fourth floor, which is all the floors available, and went to the door marked 4A. The
letters were done in burnished brass. Manny and I set the stuff down, and I opened up the door.

  Well, sir, it was as big a surprise as I’ve had in my lifetime, and you’re talking to a man who once found some baby mice in his underwear drawer. The place was done up like in a magazine. There was a sofa, a love seat, a little table, and that was just what I could see from the hallway! “What gives?” I wondered aloud. Manfred started to laugh, he pushed me into the apartment so that I could see a big oaken table set up in a dining area. The far wall was almost completely taken over by a spectacularly large mirror. The kitchen was through a little doorway, but I could see pots hanging on the wall, a block of knives sitting on the counter. “This must be the wrong place,” I whispered to Chloe, who was holding on to my arm, her eyes bugged open and her jaw slack as an ape’s.

  “Wrong place,” chuckled Manfred, steering us down a hallway toward a bedroom.

  Lying on top of a huge four-poster, rumpled and a little drunken, was Clay Bors Clinton.

  “You don’t mind if I break it in, do you?” he asked. A glass of bubbly sat on a bedside table. “There’s nothing worse than a virgin bed, except—never mind.” Clay swung his legs around and sat up. “Welcome home, Mr. and Mrs. Leary.”

  The toilet flushed down the hallway and a moment later Jane rushed into the room. She gave out with a short “Oh!” Janey’s flowery dress was cockled up and creased.

  Chloe burst into tears right then, and she and her sister embraced each other. The happier Chloe got, the more she cried. Chloe was perverse in that regard.

  “And now,” Manfred announced, “I’m going to cook.”

  “Allow me to assist,” said Clay. He got off the bed and smoothed his trousers. He winked at me. “A bit nonplussed are we, Percy, my prince?”