Hollywood North: A Novel in Six Reels

by Michael Libling

  Fourteen

  The cowboy who loved leather

  Annie once asked me for my idea of life’s most peaceful moment. “‘When serenity surrounds you and you feel so good inside,’” she said, reading the guidelines for the Sunday School project.

  I didn’t hesitate. “Right after a building falls down. You know, when the dust has settled, before anybody who’s alive has started to dig themselves out or cry for help.”

  She blinked her slow blink, inhaled a lungful of patience. “For Heaven’s sake, Gus, be serious, if only for half a second.” She provided examples gathered from more obliging sources. Babbling brooks. Fishing. Walks in the woods. Sunset from an Adirondack chair. Singing hymns in church. Crickets on a summer night. Grace before dinner, hand in hand with Mom and Dad. “Clearer now? Something you’ve actually experienced.”

  I delved deep, I swear. “Remember the day I punched out Pecker and the two of us were sent to the principal’s office?”

  “You mean Charles,” she said, her annoyance dialled to wary. “Yes?”

  “Sitting there, you know, waiting for Mr. Malbasic, looking at Charles and what I’d done to him. . . . The cotton up his nose, in his ear, the blood seeping. Anyhow, this peacefulness came over me. It made no sense, I know. I was in trouble. I knew it. Big trouble. I’d never been in the principal’s office before. Even so, I wasn’t afraid or worried or anything. Just happy. Really, really happy. Happier and calmer than I’d been in my whole life.”

  Mr. Malbasic was bowling-pin squat, hairless up top and bulging in the middle. Girdles of neck flab divvied up his chins, the bottommost a baby Blob that grazed on the knot of his maroon tie.

  His desk was a Sherman tank under paste wax. You had the feeling it might roll over you at any moment. He rocked behind, his oak swivel stressed to dicey. “Well, now.” He tented his hands, a gold wedding band on his left, a Stone Age school ring on his right. His notorious black strap rested inert upon the unspoiled blue blotter. Armageddon in waiting. The strap was eighteen inches long, two inches wide, and a quarter-inch thick, the black worn to tan at either end.

  “Your mother, if I’m not mistaken, is that lovely, auburn-haired young widow, is she not?” he said to me, and did his lizard thing, his lips the welcome mat for his tongue.

  What? My mother?

  “Reminiscent of Gene Tierney, wouldn’t you say? Leave Her to Heaven. Fine, fine motion picture.” He sighed, tracked the daydream passing by outside his window.

  “Gene?” I said. “Autry?”

  “You’ll say ‘hello’ to her for me, won’t you? Her blue eyes and winsome smile have been sorely missed around here of late.” He winked. “Perhaps we should arrange more frequent parent-teacher interviews, what do you think?”

  I did not think anything. I’d yet to get past lovely, young, and winsome.

  “Well, now, Mr. Dahl-Packer.” Mr. Malbasic leaned toward the injured toady. “It would appear you emerged the worse for wear. I am most interested to hear your account of the melee.”

  “I was minding my own business. That Gus kid, he started hitting me for no reason.” Pecker sniffled and a bloody wad of cotton shot onto the blotter. The principal waited while Pecker coaxed it back into his nostril.

  Mr. Malbasic turned to me. “Is this true, Mr. Berry? Did you strike Dahl-Packer without cause?”

  “Dahl-Packer was asking for it,” I said.

  “Dahl-Packer was not.” Pecker winced for effect. “My wrist hurts, too, sir. And my leg where he tripped me. And my glasses, look, they’re all scratched up. And bent.”

  “Alas, gentlemen, numerous witnesses have come forward. Based on evidence procured, it is abundantly clear one of you is a liar. Rather than prolong our hearing unnecessarily, I would ask the guilty party to do the honourable thing. Stand. Proceed before me. And face the music.”

  I slouched, legs straight out in front, attention riveted to the scuffed tips of my brown Batas.

  “The guilty party would be well advised, it will not go well should I be required to ask a second time.”

  The pasty-faced twerp sat stock still in smug anticipation of his imminent retribution. I’d never realized how small and soft and blond he was. A ray gun set to low, a single blast, and Pecker would be three dabs of Elmer’s glue.

  The final driblet of peace drained from the aforementioned most peaceful moment of my life. Best I could hope for was an earthquake and the school to crash down on top of me. “Ah, heck. Whatever.” I huffed out of the armchair and rounded the desk, dead man walking. How would I explain this to Gene Autry? My lovely, young, and winsome mother?

  I assumed the assumed position, hands out, palms up, elbows fixed to hips.

  “No, no,” Mr. Malbasic corrected. “Like this. One hand at a time. That’s right. Your free hand beneath the forearm. Like this. Excellent. You don’t want me slipping up and breaking your fingers now, do you?”

  I needed to get a grip, steel myself against potential tears. I’d never live it down. Not with Pecker invited to the deathwatch, his big mouth champing at the bit. I should have killed the rat and run.

  Mr. Malbasic lifted the strap from the blotter and the oak swivel launched him to his feet. The strap came down so hard and fast I had no chance to brace. But it was the snotty grin on Pecker’s face that hurt the most.

  “Other hand,” Mr. Malbasic said. The second blow glanced off my wrist, the sting gone before I felt it. “You may return to your seat.”

  “What? That’s all he gets?” Pecker protested, and I could surely see his point. If my eyes were teary with anything, it was relief. Malbasic and his strap had been overhyped.

  Next up, Pecker. Heck, I should have been whistling Bridge on the River Kwai for the show that faker gave us. Limping and groaning, like he’d come off shift from building the damn bridge itself. He soldiered up to Mr. Malbasic, his chest out front of his chin, ready for his Purple Heart and the glory to come with it.

  “We’ll start with your left hand,” Mr. Malbasic said.

  “Wha—?”

  “Or your right if you prefer. . . .”

  “But he—it was him.”

  “If Mr. Berry is guilty of anything, Mr. Dahl-Packer, it is martyrdom. Am I not correct, Mr. Berry?”

  “Uh. Yeah? Sure?”

  “But he beat me up. It was him. I didn’t do anything. On Grammy Dahl’s grave, honest to God, sir.”

  “Reputable witnesses have stated quite emphatically that you provoked Mr. Berry and he acted solely in self-defense.”

  “But I—”

  “Do you deny calling him teacher’s pet and doing so repeatedly?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t—”

  “And was he not walking away from you, minding his own business, when you initiated the altercation?”

  “No. What? Sir? What—”

  “And most egregious of all, Mr. Dahl-Packer, did you not resort to gutter language—utter the vilest of profanities?”

  “Like swearing?”

  “Exactly like swearing.”

  “No. Never.”

  “Not according to those who recall hearing it distinctly. A four-letter word that begins with the sixth letter of the alphabet and ends with the eleventh. Does this refresh your memory?”

  Both Pecker and I performed a quick count on our fingers. Pecker came up with “F-f-fork?” I kept my trap shut.

  “Left hand or right. Now, Mr. Dahl-Packer.”

  “Tell him I never said it. Please, Gus, you gotta tell him. Tell him. Please.”

  Mr. Malbasic was Whitey Ford, a lefty in full windup. He spared nothing, his tongue the pitcher’s tell, from overhead swish to cowhide smacking. Six whacks on each hand for warm-up. Nothing fancy. Fastballs up the middle. And then a pair of sweeping curves: “A seventh for your cowardice, Mr. Dahl-Packer. Neither I nor Dufferin Street Public School can tolerate cowards. An eighth for your abject dishonesty.”

  To this day, I do not know what to call the funeral that was Pecker’s face—th
e grief, the shock, the tears, the anguish—or the noise that gurgled from the poor sap’s throat. It was not crying. It was worse than crying. Closer to dying. Or bagpipes. The wrenching of the weenie’s all-abiding spirit.

  Mr. Malbasic’s patter didn’t help. “Quiet now. Quiet now. Take your medicine. Take it like a man. Quiet now. Quiet now. Calm down. Calm down. Be a man. Be a man. . . .”

  I sucked it up, blocked out the racket, adjusted the vertical hold that had me blinking blow by blow, my fingers white stripes on black armrests. I was terrified I’d cave, volunteered by guilt to ride shotgun on Pecker’s free fall, pouring out my soul in mournful duet.

  I sought distraction. The window, the treetops, the clouds. The open door to the storage room. The framed certificates on the walls. The photo by the coat rack—a proud Mr. Malbasic shaking hands with . . . holy freaking cow! It was holy freaking Perry Mason. I’d heard rumours they were cousins, but this was the first I’d seen with my own eyes. Raymond Burr of Tarzan and the She-Devil. Of of Gorilla at Large. Of of of Godzilla. Like could I meet him? Did he come for visits? What would I say to him? Would Mr. Malbasic let him know I was a bad kid who’d gotten the strap? And who was Raymond’s favourite, Lex Barker’s Tarzan or Gordon Scott’s Tarzan?

  Pecker’s eighth and last (sixteenth overall) was leather on chicken bone. Smack! Crack! Smack! Crack! The kid was trembling, gulping to corral his runaway breath. Mr. Malbasic laboured, too, deflated into his chair, his face as red as Pecker’s hands.

  And man, I am telling you, Pecker’s hands were a mess, contorted and swollen, a patient of Dr. Moreau, freshly discharged from the infirmary on the Island of Lost Souls. The kid didn’t know what the hell to make of the things attached to his wrists, only that the lobster who’d donated them must have fared far worse.

  “If you are as fortunate as I, Mr. Dahl-Packer, some years hence, you will have the privilege of testing your mettle in combat. You may be pinned down by mortar or in a gunner’s turret over Occupied France. Whichever, you will think of this day and be thankful for your Malbasic training.” The principal chuckled quietly to himself. “Now, Mr. Dahl-Packer, there is something you owe Mr. Berry.”

  Lobster Boy raised his head, his claws pinned to his chest. On his fourth try, he croaked, “I’m sorry,” though it sounded to me he’d finally solved the puzzle of the four-letter word that began with the sixth letter of the alphabet.

  “It’s okay,” I mumbled to the floor.

  “Do not let me see you in here again,” Mr. Malbasic said, and with a pocket-pack of Kleenex as souvenir of the occasion, he directed Lobster Boy to the door, and signalled me to stay put.

  “Do you understand the difference between the strapping I gave you and the strapping I gave him?” he said.

  I shook my head.

  “The strapping I gave Mr. Dahl-Packer was to punish. The strapping I gave you was to elucidate.”

  I nodded as if I got it. I couldn’t stop nodding.

  “Martyrdom is admirable, Mr. Berry, but not when the beneficiary of your action is he who is guilty. Stepping forward as you did, accepting blame, is noble, but only when you are, indeed, blameworthy. In future, may I suggest you reserve your selflessness for the deserving.”

  He smoothed a sheet of stationery onto the desktop, dipped pen into inkwell. Slowest writer on Earth, that guy. What was he working on, a book? And what was with all his pausing and staring? At this rate, my record for boredom would be broken—set when Mrs. Beckwith had compelled us to watch a National Film Board epic on herring fishing.

  Knickknacks cluttered the perimeter of his desk. A clock and barometer combination. A photo of Mrs. Malbasic wearing a furry dead thing suspiciously similar to the otters in the display case by the boys’ second-floor bathrooms. A photo of Mr. Malbasic’s daughter in graduation gown and Buddy Holly glasses, eyes as lizardy as her dad’s, a glimpse of tongue at her teeth. A paperweight. An owl, Jesus! A small brass owl on a black marble base.

  At last, he folded the stationery into an envelope, stretched his lips to the frontiers of his gold molars. “It is imperative you give this note to your mother.” He flicked his wrist, snagged my hand, and shook. Same hand Raymond Burr had shaken.

  “So then, what do you say?” he said.

  The guy was a pop quiz that wouldn’t die. “Thank you?”

  “Don’t forget.” He tapped the envelope. “Your mother.”

  I moved to haul my butt out of there real fast, you bet. And I would’ve, too, had the eight-by-ten sepia by the door not stopped me cold. A young cowboy in a white ten-gallon hat. Fringed vest. Chaps. Hands suspended above pearl-handled six-guns. And at his side, a dance hall dame. Painted face and rose in hair. Ruffled dress and slender waist. Her fingers dainty upon the cowboy’s shoulder. Stencilled to the window behind: DRY GULCH SALOON.

  The giveaway was the cowboy’s grin. A gunslinger grin. The photographer had captured his tongue mid-dart.

  “Quite something, wasn’t I?” Mr. Malbasic said.

  Fifteen

  The boy who was condemned

  to an unexamined and undistinguished life

  “Did you hurt yourself?” Mom asked.

  “Huh?”

  “The blood.”

  “What blood?”

  “Here.” I followed her finger to the dot on my shirt. I squinted to see it.

  “Some kid at school had a bloody nose. . . .”

  “And what’s this? Is this for me?”

  I had slipped the envelope into my spelling book, undecided whether to trash it or hand it over. Either way, I intended to read it first. Never failed. The more I had to hide, the more she saw.

  She opened the envelope. “What’s going on? Did you do something? Please tell me you’re not in trouble.” I was cornered.

  I hung my head, hands at my back, lest they tell the tale. There was no damage to speak of, but I’d read enough Edgar Cayce and others to be watchful for spontaneous stigmata. If Malbasic didn’t do me in, The Unexplained would.

  7:30 11 LEAVE IT TO LEO—Comedy

  Clued in to her son’s crimes by the appearance of spontaneous stigmata, Mom marches Leo to Pecker’s house to apologize for beating him up, despite Leo’s protestations of innocence and claims of noble motives. Later, at Mom’s insistence, the bitter rivals give friendship a trial run. Hi-jinks ensue.

  Mom read the note and read it again.

  Mom was young, it now occurred to me, compared to other moms. And, I had to admit, sort of lovely, as Mr. Malbasic had said. I couldn’t see the winsome, until after I’d looked it up in Dad’s old Webster’s. I’d never really looked at Mom before and promised myself never to really look at her again.

  She surfaced briefly, frowned or smiled from behind the stationery, and read the note a third time.

  “Sit down,” she said, composed herself, and read it aloud to me.

  Dear Mrs. Berry,

  I trust this brief missive finds you well. I am writing you today about a serious matter concerning your son, Leo Berry, a student in Mrs. Crawford’s fourth-grade class.

  As you know, I take a personal interest and pride in every child who passes through our institution’s doors. Indeed, I regard myself a superb judge of character. Alas, it is with deep regret I must tell you, I believe I have gravely underestimated your Leo.

  In my previous, albeit limited, observations, I had considered the boy to be an average, unremarkable sort and, though not unworthy, condemned by Fate to an unexamined and undistinguished life. The deficits associated with fatherless children go without saying. Today, however, Leo exhibited behaviour I deem exemplary.

  It is evident your effort in raising him alone has been of the highest parental standard. Bravo, Mrs. Berry! Bravo!

  Please contact me at your earliest convenience so we may discuss how we might best work together to ensure Leo attains his fullest academic and societal potential.

  I remain,

  Most sincerely yours,

  Mr. Harvey L. Malbas
ic, B.A., M.A.

  Principal

  “What did you do that was so wonderful?” Mom crushed the letter against my left ear and my head in the adoring vice of her hands. She pelted me with kisses. “What did my wonderful boy do?”

  I was at a loss, groping to couch my act of violence in terms to enthuse. “I dunno,” I said. With any luck, she’d break my neck before I said too much.

  Ever have the feeling the life you were living was only partly yours, that some of you wasn’t you, and some of what you did or said wasn’t what you did or said?

  I have.

  All my life I have.

  Annie had her own take on what I’d done to Pecker. “I never thought you were like that, Gus. You just stood there and let Mr. Malbasic strap him? How could you be so cruel? How could you not say anything?”

  “I got the strap, too.”

  “You deserved it.”

  “He started it.”

  “That’s not true, you know darn well.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Still,” she said, “don’t think I don’t know why you did it.”

  “You do?” How could she know if I didn’t? The dweeb had bugged me. I jumped him. Period. Okay, the kid was a pushover. That helped. Anybody else and I’d have thought twice. You won’t find a more commonsensical bully than the previously bullied.

  “Now don’t go telling the world or anything, but I am a little proud of you, too. For what you did.”

  “You are? What?”

  “Jack Levin, he’s lucky to have you for a friend. That was quick thinking, Gus, getting those bullies to leave him alone the way you did, creating the distraction.”

  “It was?”

  “And Charles, you didn’t hurt him too badly, did you? Not really.”

  “Nah. Not really.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head, Gus,” she said, “but I’m lucky to have you as a friend, too.” She kissed me on the cheek and I wiped that kiss off with twice the speed she’d landed it.