Joshua Then and Now (11 page)

Cole (or Kugelman) acknowledged Joshua’s sly grin of recognition with an awkward offering of pleasantries. But Joshua wasn’t listening. He was trying to remember if Yossel had been the one to turn up at Bea Rosen’s sweet-sixteen wearing a fedora, when he was suddenly startled by a direct question. “Has she any reason to resent you?” Yossel inquired in a soothing voice.

Affronted, Joshua snapped back. “I leave a rim round the bathtub. No matter how hard I wipe, there are stains on my underwear.”

Yossel, obviously unshockable, continued, “Now tell me, what was your sex life like before –”

“None of your fucking business, Kugelman.”

Yossel flung his pen on the desk. “You’re not taking this seriously. I’m trying to help.”

“You’re full of shit, you always were. You turned up at Bea Rosen’s sweet-sixteen wearing a fedora. Ha, ha. Prick.”

Yossel sighed wearily, slicked back his hair with a plump hand, and asked Joshua what his feelings were about electric shock treatment.

Lunging, Joshua grabbed him by his tie, yanking hard. “You just come near her with those electrodes, you even think of it, and I’ll kill you.”

Breaking free, his face stinging red, Yossel demanded, “Are you crazy?”

“What’s crazy these days? You tell me, Dr.
Cole.”

“It wasn’t me who changed the name. It was my mother. My son has reverted to Kugelman.”

“He has?”

“He’s studying piano. He’s at Juilliard. And while we’re at it, it wasn’t me with the fedora at Bea’s sweet-sixteen. It was Izzy.”

Izzy Singer, who was then already into the stock market, using his war savings certificates as collateral.

“And please,” Yossel continued, “if we are going to get anywhere here, you must stop being so hostile.”

Joshua thought he could explain. “I saw you once at the airport,” he said. “Waiting by the carousel. When your suitcase came, it had little wheels underneath and a handle. You pulled it like a wagon.”

“So what?” Yossel asked, baffled.

“So you’re a twit.”

“I’ve got a bad back,” he protested. “I mustn’t carry.”

“Look here, Yossel, I want my wife back. I want her well. I don’t want any electrodes or primal scream therapy or any other shit you fakers are into. And you can take her off those drugs starting right now.”

“I tell you what. We’ll put her on yogurt every morning. You think that will do the trick?”

“You sure it was Izzy with the fedora?”

“Yes, I’m sure. And did you know that Bea Rosen’s dead?”

No, he didn’t.

“Cancer of the uterus. Last May. She left three children. The youngest’s autistic.”

“Hey, Yossel, you’re a real barrel of fun, aren’t you? How old are you now?”

“Forty-seven. Same as you.”

“What’s wrong with your back?”

“Nothing. A disc.”

“I’ve got stretch marks on my ass now. I thought that only happened to women.”

“Oy vey, Joshua, what a wreck you are. Do you always drink like this?”

“We’ve got to start taking care, Yossel. These are dangerous times for our old bunch. Forty-seven. Shit. I don’t care for what’s happening to us.”

A perplexed Yossel suddenly regarded Joshua with something like real alarm. “
What did he tell you, that blabbermouth?”

“Who?”

“Moish.”

Moish had to be Morty Zipper, who had sat two rows away from him in Room 42 and was now his physician. “I didn’t even know you were one of his patients.”

Yossel rubbed his tired eyes.

“I thought you said it was only a disc.”

Sighing, he allowed, “Recently I also suffer from shortness of breath after I have enjoyed intercourse.”

Joshua couldn’t help himself. He giggled.

“Laugh,” Yossel said. “Feel free.”

“With everybody, or only with your wife?”

“Oh, clever! Witty! Noel Coward must be spinning with envy in his grave. I’ll have you know that Bessie and I,” he said tightly, “have always had a one-on-one relationship.”

Now Joshua was laughing out loud. Without restraint. “Oh, my God,” he said, “don’t tell me that you married Bessie Orbach?”

“I am happy to be able to answer that in the affirmative.”

Quaking again, scooping tears out of the corners of his eyes, Joshua said, “I took her out once. Outremont. Her father was a dentist. A poor loser. Her mother used to cover the sofas with plastic. You necked with her, it stuck to your back.”

“Big talker, you never touched her.”

“Aw, come on, Yossel, everybody in the Maccabees had their innings with Bessie.”

“The hell they did, and anyway you struck out at the plate. Looking.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You think you’re really something, don’t you, Joshua, and that the rest of us are fools? You, and the others in that idiotic Mackenzie King Memorial Society. Well, let me enlighten you. Your spurious articles may have won you some kind of reputation outside of the country, but we know who you are. I remember your father’s picture on the front page of the
Herald
– wearing handcuffs. I was at your bar-mitzvah, and I still remember what happened there. We know you and what you come from. And I’ve got news for you. Bessie told me about her
one
date with the great Mr. Shapiro. Pretending to be a McGill student. Calling yourself Robert Jordan. She thought you were pathetic, that’s what.”

Remembering, Joshua blushed.

“She dines out on that one to this day,” Yossel continued.

“I remember,” Joshua said in a faltering voice, “that her mother also left cellophane on the lampshades. As a matter of interest, does Bessie –”

“My Bessie is an exemplary homemaker.”

“But a wanton, eh, Yossel? I mean, she leaves you breathless,” he said, erupting in laughter again. Forced laughter this time.

“My marriage works wonderfully well. But your wife is in the hospital, isn’t she?”

Joshua didn’t say a word.

“I’m sorry,” Yossel said, retreating.

Joshua took out a pack of cigarettes and broke the cellophane. Then he fished into one pocket after another for a match, refusing the lighter Yossel held out to him. Finally he lighted up, dropping the spent match on the carpet. Then he shot Yossel his most pitying look. “I didn’t want to say anything, but Moish is worried about your heart.”

“You’re lying through your teeth.”

“I wish I were.”

“Sit here and I’ll phone him.”

“But you don’t understand. He won’t say a word to you.”

“Liar, liar, liar.”

“Overexcitement’s bad for you. He won’t say anything because he doesn’t want you popping right in the middle of a one-on-one with Bessie. See you around, Yossel.”

That was in February, only a week after Pauline had entered the hospital.

Disgruntled, agitated, but absolutely unable to contend with his bunch at The King’s Arms, Joshua wandered all the way down to St. Denis Street after quitting Yossel’s office. The first bar he came to was called Chez O’Neil. Chrome everywhere. Plastic plants, the leaves dusty. Above crossed Québécois flags, a poster of René Lévesque.
Un vrai chef
. The imitation-brick walls were plastered with posters of local
vedettes
. Pauline Julien, Gilles Vigneault, Yvan Deschamps. The new Trinity. Joshua found some solace in a double Scotch, he ordered another, and then he phoned Morty Zipper’s office. “Shame on you. I hear you talk about your patients outside of office hours.”

“Sure. But only the juicier cases. I tell everybody I’m treating you for syph.”

“Did you know that Yossel Kugelman was at the Royal Vic?”

“Yes. Certainly. He’s called me twice in the last hour.”

“Of course he has. You’re worried about his heart.”

“I am?”

“Yes indeed. Now tell me how good he is at his suspect trade.”

“There are patients who swear by him.”

“He wears elevator heels. There’s a fucking golf trophy in his office. And he’s married to Bessie Orbach. Remember Bessie?”

“Hubba hubba.”

“Would you trust him to take care of your wife?”

“Yes. No. Maybe.”

“I want you to tell me if there’s anything wrong with me that I don’t know about.”

“The way you carry on, your liver should be bloated to twice its normal size. But so far, so good. Now, if you don’t mind –”

“Wait. Hold it. Remember Bea Rosen’s sweet-sixteen party? We were all there. Pratt Avenue.”

“Her father kept zipping down to the basement to make sure we hadn’t dimmed the lights.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“O.K. I was there.”

“Now I want you to think carefully. This is important. Didn’t Yossel turn up wearing a fedora?”

“I’ve got a patient waiting, Josh.”

“There was a sort of brush nipped into the band. Multicolored. Like a fishing fly.”

“Call me at home tonight. Goodbye, Josh.”

“W
ELL, YEAH. RIGHT. YOU KNOW WHAT THESE DAYS ARE?
”

“Cold.”

“No, no. Anybody knows that. If you’re Jewish, but.”

“Colder.”

“Oh, very funny. Ha ha.”

“What then, Daddy?”

“These are the Days of Awe. Tomorrow is Rosh Hashonna, our new year, and like a week later it’s Yom Kippur, when if you shit on anybody during the year you got a legal right to repent. And God forgives you. We’re going to the synagogue in the morning, you know.”

“Aw, Daddy.”

“Aw, Daddy, nothing. We’re going for once. It’s only proper, Josh. We’re Hebes, you and me, and don’t you forget it.”

Joshua and his father were sitting together in the backyard. On a clammy October morning in 1946, the sky a shimmering blue, the swirling leaves already slick with frost. His father had asked him to help put up the double windows. But once Joshua had followed him into the rotting gray shed to help sort them out, he produced a quart of Labatt’s ale and two glasses and invited him to continue out into the yard. They settled down together on a squishy old sofa, long abandoned, bleeding stuffing where it had once been slashed with razors or where the rats had gnawed into it.

“How old are you now?”

“Fifteen.”

“Already? Well, yeah. Right. It’s certainly time we talked.”

“About what?” Joshua asked.

Reuben shot him his most solemn look. “About fucking, and the Jewish tradition.”

“In that order?”

“Don’t get smart with me or I’ll land you a good one.”

“Aw, Daddy, you never hit me once.”

“Well, I shoulda, maybe. You shouldn’t be talking about quitting school, it’s a shame.”

His father was fidgety, embarrassed, and in his hand, Joshua saw, he now held a Bible. The real thing. The King James Version. His copy had markers sticking out here, there, and everywhere.

“Hey, Daddy, don’t tell me you’ve been reading
that.”

“Why not?” he replied, indignant.

Joshua slapped his cheek and whistled.

“Listen here,” his father said, “let’s not get excited. There’s no need for you to lose your temper. Tell me, you really want to be a newspaperman, or is it just that, you know, like you once thought you’d be a ball player?”

“Well, yeah. I dunno. A sportswriter, maybe.”

“Sportswriters are drunks. They’re bums, every one of them,” Reuben said, remembering old grievances.

“I could be different, but.”

“Let me tell you something,” his father said, brandishing his Bible with enthusiasm, “this thing here is just filled with book titles and savvy sayings. I mean, I used to think, you were a writer you had to make things up out of your own head, but you’d be surprised how many of their titles and sayings were swiped out of this one here, and there’s plenty left, so you could do a lot worse than –”

“Why don’t we talk about fucking first?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Me? Nothing. You’re the one who brought it up.”

“Yeah, well. Right. You know how it’s done?”

“Yeah.”

“You do?”

“You’re goddamn right I do.”

“Have you done it with anybody yet?”

“No.”

“O.K., that’s it.”

“What do you mean,
that’s it?”

“If you know how, eventually you’ll get some. It figures. What more do you want me to say?”

“Don’t I get any useful instructions?”

“We’re not going to talk dirty out here, you understand?”

“Don’t shout at me. I didn’t bring up the subject.”

“You don’t do it the night before a fight, it drains you, that’s what Al Weill always used to say.”

“I’m not going to be a fighter.”

“Look, there are more important things in the world than fucking.” His father cracked his knuckles. “I shoulda seen that you had a stricter upbringing.”

“How do I get some?”

“I’m not a pimp, for Christsake.” His father topped up their glasses with more Labatt’s. “You see all those pimples you got on your face?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Don’t worry. They’re going to clear up. You’ll be left with little holes in your cheeks here and there, but what the hell.”

“You mean fucking drains you, but it’s good for pimples?”

“Goddamn it, Josh, I don’t know how we got into this!”

“You started it.”

Lowering his voice to a whisper, his father said, “You are invited into a lady’s boudoir, well, if you’re a gentleman the first thing you do is take off your hat.”

“Is that how you get it going?”

“You fold your trousers neat, see, and you’re wearing clean socks, that’s important, and if you got your wallet with you, you keep it under your pillow. You got that?”

Joshua nodded.

“And I want you to be wearing fresh underwear. No skid marks. But even so you wash up good first, if only as an example to her, because sometimes they can be real smelly down there.”

“Down where?”

“We’re not going to talk dirty.”

“You
said ‘down there,’ not me.”

“I want to teach you about the etiquette of the matter, not the actual doing of it.”

“Some help.”

“All right. O.K. You know what this is?” he asked, blushing a little as he thrust a three-pack of Sheiks at him.

“Yeah,” Joshua said, smirking.

“As soon as your dick gets stiff, you roll one on. Don’t forget that.”