Chump Change (12 page)

It’s not what you know, though, as they say; it’s whom. One day, an old high school acquaintance, David Levin, joined our merry crew at the
Monocle
.

David Levin was one of those guys with SUCCESS stamped all over him from an early age. He graduated from our egghead high school with the highest grade-point average in the school’s history. He was president of The Debating Society, the Film Club, the Young Conservatives, the Pi Reciting Club (you had to recite Pi to 500 digits just to join this club), the Chess Club, the Drama Club, the Poetry Club — what wasn’t he president of, at one time or another? Eventually, of the school itself. After high school, he went on to Yale, then Harvard Law. Not that he wanted to become a lawyer, he was one of those who studied the law out of intellectual interest, also as a possible “fallback position,” in case some other career didn’t work out. Now, though he was only one year older than I, Levin was the managing editor
of
This Land of Ours
, Canada’s premier cultural/ political / literary magazine. That came as no real surprise. The only surprise was that he stooped to conquer the world of journalism, that he wasn’t a presidential or prime ministerial adviser, at this point, or high up in some East-Coast think tank.

My own high school career was considerably more chequered. I was in trouble almost from the moment I stepped into the place. Remember streaking? I’ll never forget the first time I caught wind of that incomparable phenomenon. I was twelve, watching a college football game on TV with the old man. Suddenly a guy wearing nothing but tennis shoes and a ski mask darts onto the field. He runs around in crazy circles, pumping a triumphant fist in the air. The footballers stand stock-still, staring. Despite the fact that all they’ve been doing all afternoon is chasing and tackling each other, they have no idea what to do when confronted with a situation where chasing and tackling someone might actually come in handy.

Finally walkie-talkie-toting security guards converged on him from the four corners of the field, grabbed him, threw a blanket around him, and frog-marched him off the field.

I was electrified. Wow, I remember thinking. That guy is my
hero
. I felt honoured to be born into an era that had concocted such an excellent
divertissement
. The ancient Greeks had art, culture, philosophy. But no one had ever thought of running through the coliseum in their birthday suit.

The next day, after gym class, I talked Max into giving it a try.

“Hey,” I said to Max. “Let’s streak.”

“What if we get caught?”

“No one will recognize us. We’ll use our underwear as masks. Like this.”

I demonstrated, putting my undies over my head, looking
out of the leghole. To his credit, Max’s “internal cop” wasn’t too well-developed in those days, and the next thing you knew we were out in the familiar hallway, whooping and jumping around like kangaroos, peering at our peers through the leg-holes of our jockey shorts, our hairless genitals bobbing in the breeze. (An odd sensation, if you’ve never had it.) Then it was into the cafeteria, where pandemonium erupted. Everyone went berserk — except the cafeteria ladies, who stared at us stunned, frozen like hairnetted statues, spoons full of mashed potatoes and peas poised in mid-air.

We were caught, of course. Not physically apprehended but ratted out. Word that it was us spread like a brush-fire through the school: it was Max and David Henry! Did you hear? It was Max and David Henry! And may I say our social stock went through the roof. We became like Godfathers, people from as high as grade ten came to pay us tributes: “I really, really respect you guys for what you did,” they would say. Thank you, you may go, my son. Word eventually got to this rat, this little stool pigeon, a weedy, spotty grade eight who was in love with the sexy French teacher, Mlle. Collier. He told her all about it after school one day, hoping, I suppose, she would take pity on his wretched masturbatorial existence and, I don’t know, bestow a kiss on his pimply brow — who knows what the fuck he was thinking? Anyway, she didn’t, but she did pass the information along to the principal.

He was livid. Red-faced, he told us he would be well within his rights to have us arrested. Only when our parents interceded — Mom and Dad dashed to school from home and office to make their pleas — did he agree to let us off with a two-week suspension.

After that, I was more or less always in trouble. I became the class clown, also a druggie. Once in English class I fell out
of my chair, I was so stoned and laughing so hard. I had to stand in the hall a lot, and held the school record for detentions, both overall and for a single day. I got up to all kinds of trouble in high school. The last straw came when I was in my senior year in art. All grades took art class together in one big room. A little grade seven vixen, a budding Lolita named Sandra Shalimar who heard I had a great vocabulary, came up to me and asked me the meaning of the word “pederasty.” As I was explaining the meaning of the word to her, the
zeig-heil
art teacher came over.

“Vot are you doink?”

“I was just explaining the meaning of the word pederasty to this young lady,” I told him.

Wrong answer. Go to the principal’s office: do not pass Go, do not collect $200. The principal basically tossed me out. Since graduation was so near, I could come in to hand in papers and take tests, but otherwise I was “no longer welcome in the halls of this school.”

That month I loafed around the house in my bathrobe, reading, listening to music, making myself elaborate breakfasts, then quickly dressing before the ’rents came home from work. It gave me a taste for leisure I’ve never been able to shake.

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

That’s what I was thinking now, looking at Levin. To look at us, you’d hardly know we were even part of the same generation. In his natty pinstripe suit, tortoiseshell specs, and snap-lock briefcase, he looked every inch the successful young burgermeister. While I, on the other hand, with my long hair, two-week stubble, earring, and thrift-store clothes, looked like what in fact I was, and shall be forevermore: a teenager.

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” Levin had sown the seeds of
leadership, studiousness, and dressing neatly, now he was managing editor of a major monthly, on his way up. Me, I’d sowed the seeds of streaking, skipping classes, doing drugs, having long hair, being the first to get my ear pierced — and look how I wound up: a young quasi-bum, no cash, no prospects, crashing at a friend-of-a-friend’s.

He seemed happy to see me, however.

“Dave! How are you doing?”

That was the final, most devastating and disgusting thing of all about Levin, that even with all his gifts and accomplishments, he was also a nice guy. I liked him.

“Not so great,” I told him honestly.

“Why? What’s the problem?”

“Levin, I’ve got problems you wouldn’t believe. I’ve got problems you wouldn’t even understand, even if I spent half an hour trying to explain them to you, all of them financial. Although I’m also living under the same roof with a woman I’m in love with, who hangs around in her underwear all day. It’s driving me crazy.”

Levin chuckled.

“Well, I don’t know if I can help you with that, but I might be able to help with your financial problems.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen some of your writing, and I really like it. ‘Letter From New York’ was great. How would you like to write for
This Land of Ours?”

“Are you kidding? I thought only retired judges and cabinet ministers ever wrote for you guys.”

“We’ve got a new editor, Ken Woodruff. He wants to appeal to a hipper audience. He wants fresh voices, younger writers.”

“I’m your man. Did I say man? I’m still practically a boy. What should I do? Write him a letter, or something?”

“No,” Levin said, matter-of-factly. “He gets about twenty queries a day, he’ll take months to answer it. What you have to do is come in early one morning, before everything piles up. Come in
before
9:00 and I’ll make sure you get in to see him.”

“I’ll be there tomorrow morning at 8:30.”

So it happens I’m sitting in The Great Editor’s office, 8:45 a.m. the next morning, sipping coffee and smoking a cigarette. I’ve got a jacket and tie on — which was a good call, as it turns out, since it’s more like IBM in here than a magazine office. Levin greeted me at the door in grey slacks and a serge jacket, and the Great Editor is wearing a pinstripe suit.

He’s standing in front of the picture window in his vast, leather-and-mahogany appointed office, staring at the wind-up businessmen in the financial district far, far below. He’s thinking. I’ve pitched a couple of ideas at him: 1) a bull in B.C. whose sperm was ounce for ounce the most expensive fluid on earth; 2) a Montreal-based, mail-order Satan-worshipping outfit named the Canadian Association for Satan’s Hope. They send you brochures on how to “Neutralize Your Enemies Using the Infernal Power of Satan,” all you have to do is send a cheque to their P.O. box, payable to C.A.S.H.

The Great Editor likes the way I’m thinking. However, my ideas don’t grab him. So now he’s trying to cook up a few of his own. Finally, he turns from the window and looks at me.

“I liked ‘Letter From New York,’” he says. “Why don’t you try writing something like that about Toronto?”

“O.K. When do you need it by?”

This was David Henry the seasoned, trench-coated journalist, veteran of two articles, talking. What’s my deadline, Chief?

“There’s no hurry. Walk around a bit, get to know the city first. Do some research, talk to a few people before you start writing.”

“O.K. How long do you want it to be?”

“Column length.”

“Thank you very much, sir. You won’t regret it. I appreciate the chance you’re giving me.”

Outside, I went over to Levin’s cubicle. It surprised me that even as managing editor, Levin only had a cubicle.

“I got the gig,” I told him.

“Excellent,” he said. “What are you writing about?”

“Toronto.”

“What about it?”

“Something along the lines of ‘Letter From New York.’”

“That sounds perfect for you.”

Yeah, I thought.

“How much are you getting?”

“I forgot to ask.”

“How long is it?”

“‘Column length.’”

“That’s 2,500 words. And our rate is a buck a word.”

“Seriously? A buck a word?”

Levin’s face split in a conspiratorial grin, and I caught a glimpse of the kid within. He was, after all (I reminded myself), about the same age as me.

“I could probably get you $3,000 if there’s a lot of research involved,” he said.

I thought this over a moment.

“Levin, I’d like to have a word with your cheque disbursement department. And that word is ‘advance.’”

“Well, you know, advances are one of my duties as a managing editor,” he said, adjusting his extra-starchy cuffs. “How much do you want?”

“Say, half?”

Then Levin did a wonderful thing — or, rather, a series of
wonderful things. He took me to the cheque disbursement department, used his clout to get them to write me a cheque for $1,500 on the spot, then we went together to the magazine’s bank on the first floor and cashed it.

“Levin, you’re a prince,” I said, outside the bank. “I won’t forget this, I won’t forget who gave me my start.”

I haven’t, either. It’s unlikely I’ll ever be in a position to do Levin a favour, or that he’ll ever need one from me, but if he does, if by some strange twist of fate I’m cruising along in my limo and spot Levin huddled shivering in a doorway, clutching his ragged overcoat close for warmth, I’d take him in and instruct my butler to show him every courtesy until he’s back on his feet.

A role-reversal that, let’s face it, could only happen in The Bizarro World…Shortly after he got me this gig, Levin was tapped for a job at the
Wall Street Journal
, and The Great Editor took over the handling of my article.

Fifteen hundred dollars! Money talks, they say. Certainly, as I sailed into the air and sunshine of Toronto Street, I could hear a muffled voice from the region of my back pocket:

“Hola, señor! You and I are but strangers in the night, destined to part ways after a few brief weeks together, but in that time, oy carramba, how we will live!”

Tonight I would take my goddess Les out to a fancy dinner. My way of saying both “thanks” and “please.” First things first, though: new threads. I hopped a cab to Kensington Market, poked through the musty racks of second-hand clothes for an hour and a half before hitting pay dirt. A rare find, a suit in my size, 46L,
circa
1940. Man, they don’t make them like they used to, I thought, checking myself out in the mirror. It was made of an odd shiny yellowy-green fabric, but I could pull it off, I felt. I also bought a newish white shirt and a purple floral tie.

“Can I wear all this stuff out?” I asked the clerk behind the counter.

“Sure. You want a bag for your old clothes?”

“Nah, just toss ’em in the garbage. Or, if you want, dry clean them and sell them. I don’t care, I never want to see those clothes again.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yep. This new suit has made my old wardrobe obsolete.”

That’s just the sort of whimsical and obviously wealthy youngish man that I am, I thought as I hit the street. I like to walk out of a store a new man, leaving my old clothes, my old self, behind forever. I felt like a million bucks in my new suit, crispy, snappy, energized.

With a pleasant sensation of moving from one triumph to another, I hit the liquor store on Spadina, in the middle of Chinatown, and picked up a large bottle of Lagavulin. $60. Outside the liquor store, I hailed a cab.

At Les’s, I poured a scotch, checked myself out in the mirror. Not bad, if I do say so myself. Was it my imagination, or had I lost a bit of weight? I had a bit of time to kill before Les got home. I poured myself another scotch, and sat down to the typewriter. The title of my article came to me immediately:

WELCOME TO TORONTO

I wondered if the title was part of the overall word-count. If it was, I’d just made three dollars in about ten seconds. I could get used to this “buck a word” business. A buck a word. In other words, if I wrote: “Toronto is an interesting city,” I could buy myself lunch. If I wrote: “Toronto is a very, very, very, very, very interesting city,” I could buy myself dinner.