Joshua Then and Now (23 page)

Talk about money naturally led to speculation about their old classmate Izzy Singer. Izzy, wheeling and dealing before he even reached puberty, had – to everybody’s chagrin, especially Seymour’s – become a millionaire at last. He had, Joshua was told, first struck it rich six years earlier, peddling appliances. Izzy had taken to following the ice-truck down Clark, St. Urbain, and Waverly. Wherever
the ice-truck stopped, Izzy bounded after, pounding on the door. “Why pay a dollar-eighty-five a week for ice, Missus, when I can let you have a fridge on installments for two dollars a week? Delivery this afternoon.”

Seymour, warming to his pet hate, contributed a Singer anecdote of his own: “You’ll never believe this, but when he was at McGill, that
grauber
, he actually took a couple of courses in architecture, not that he ever wanted to be one, that
paskudnyak
, but so that he’d know enough that they couldn’t cheat him when he became a developer. Anyway, so help me God, he wrote a paper on the construction of Notre Dame, estimating from sources available, the cost of the cathedral per cubic foot, and its present value as a Paris tourist attraction, arguing that it had, on balance, been a sound investment.”

Nobody believed Seymour, but what was beyond dispute was that from bartering in war savings stamps in
FFHS
, through appliances and real estate deals, Izzy had graduated to speculation in oil and natural gas and uranium.

Morty Zipper, who worked three nights a week in a free clinic in Point St. Charles, shook his head, dismayed. “I treat kids there who are still suffering from rickets.”

As they imbibed still more champagne, they turned to the serious business of the society. Joshua rose to read aloud the letter he had written to Clarence Campbell, President of the National Hockey League:

“Dear Sir, The undersigned represent a group of respectable businessmen, civil servants, professionals, and artists who convene once a year to celebrate the memory of that great political leader and statesman, William Lyon Mackenzie King –”

“Gentlemen,” Seymour bellowed, raising his glass, “I give you Mackenzie King.”

Everybody at the table stood up and raised his glass.

“– We are not a political group, but come from all parties –”

“Except the Communist Party, it goes without saying, Comrades.”

“Hear! Hear!”

“– and we have only one motive: patriotism.”

“Gut gezukt.”

“Each year, in order better to perpetuate the late great one’s memory, we try to come up with a suitable trophy or award. One year it was a dog show prize (see enclosed advertisement from
Dogs in Canada
) for the hound that best personified Pat II’s godliness and bore the most striking resemblance to Mr. King’s beloved mum, Isabel Grace Mackenzie. Another year, honoring yet another deeply felt interest of the late great one, it was the Mackenzie King Memorial Hooker Award, offered to two prostitutes – one English- and one French-speaking, each award worth $500 – for bringing the most intense religious fervor to their work. This year,” Joshua continued, “we intend to dig deeper into our collective pockets. We take great pleasure in offering the National Hockey League a trophy, sweetened, as it were, by a purse of $1,000: The William Lyon Mackenzie King Memorial Trophy.”

Everybody thumped the table, and yet another toast was proposed to the late great one.

“This trophy, to be presented at the end of each season, would go to the player who, in his efforts on ice, most exemplified the undying spirit of Mackenzie King.

“Obviously, the player we have in mind would not be a high scorer, a natural star, but rather a plodder who overcomes with effort and cunning a conspicuous lack of talent, intelligence, or grace. In the nature of things, he would have to be a player who has been in the league for at least ten years, unnoticed, unheralded, but persevering. The fellow we have in mind spears when the referee has his back turned, trips an opposing player if he can get away with it, but unfailingly backs down from a fight. Preferably, he would be a man who respects his mother even more than the coach, and has a firm faith in the world-to-come. If he is on the ice when a goal is scored for his side, he argues for an assist on the play. If he is on the ice when
a goal is scored by the opposition, he promptly disowns responsibility. Above all, he is a vengeful winner and a sore loser. He has no close relationships with any of his teammates. Loyalty is unknown to him. Forced into a quick decision on ice, in the heat of play, he neither opts for the possibly inspired but risky choice nor stands tall and resolute on the blue line. He avoids making any decision whatsoever, heading for the safety of the bench. All the same, when many a more talented player has retired, legs gone, or has been removed from the fray in his prime through injury, our Mackenzie King Memorial Trophy winner will still be out there skating. Skating away from trouble. Persevering.

“Your Canadianism undoubted, your patriotism proven in two world wars, we hope, Mr. Campbell, that you will give this award every serious consideration. Should more information be required, or a meeting be considered advisable, we are, sir, at your service. Respectfully, Joshua Shapiro, Secretary, The Mackenzie King Memorial Society.”

The letter was resoundingly applauded and approved, and Seymour Kaplan moved that it be mailed to Mr. Campbell at once.

Then a candidate was proposed for a Mackenzie King Memorial Award, one of the many statuettes of the late great one and Pat II which had been made for them by Henry Birks: Lester B. Pearson, the head of External Affairs.

Max Birenbaum made the case for Mr. Pearson. “In a recent interview,” he said, “Mr. Pearson was asked if after all his years as a diplomat, and head of external affairs, he had anything to be ashamed of. His reply was at once filled with candor and quintessentially Canadian. Yes, he said, I have certainly done some things I later regretted.
I cheated in geography class when I was in grade six or seven, I think, and I’ve never forgotten it.”

The award was approved without a dissenting vote.

Following dinner, chaos. Against a background of records by Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, and the rest, they began to
reminisce about the old days at
FFHS
. Strappings were reenacted, basketball games played again. Petting sessions with Bessie Orbach were savored once more. Mickey Stein won the yo-yo contest yet again, walking the dog, going round the world, and eating spaghetti without faltering, scooping up a well-deserved pot of $200. Then they split into two sides and, taking an empty bottle of Mumm’s for a puck, started to replay the Stanley Cup Final of 1947, which led to an expression of displeasure by the management of the Chateau. The house detective paid them a visit. “Now, come on,” he said, “you’re all grown-up men here.”

“Don’t judge us too harshly,” Joshua replied.

Saner voices mollified the house detective. They promised to be good and adjourn within the hour. And then somebody, fortunately, remembered the birthday cake, thirty candles for AI Roth, the third of their number to reach such a debilitating age.

Al blew out the candles. And then, tears welling in his eyes, proclaimed, “You’re the best fucking bunch of guys anybody could have ever been to school with, and if any of you come to Toronto on a visit, you’re staying at my place. No hotels. I won’t hear of it.”

Eli Seligson cornered Joshua again. “There’s something I want to tell you,” he said, swaying.

“Go ahead.”

“I never liked you.”

Finally, inevitably, Joshua called for silence and went to the record player and put on his cherished album of songs by the men of the International Brigades, ending with “Los Quatro Generales.” They raised their glasses one more time, drinking a solemn toast to the men who had died in Spain. Those who had clung like burrs to the long expresses that lurched through the unjust lands, through the night, through the alpine tunnel. They who had walked the passes, come to present their lives.

A
FTER WEEKS OF CAROUSING ON IBIZA, TAKING IN THE
cockfights with Juanito and his cronies, staggering out of Rosita’s at dawn, Joshua certainly couldn’t claim to be paddling his own canoe through the storms of temptation. There was simply no stroke, stroke, stroke. The truth was, he had to admit, he was not so much interested in writing as in being a writer. Somebody well known. But his twenty-first birthday had come and gone and he was not yet famous. He not only embraced unclean women, but gorged himself on forbidden foods:
gambas, calamares
, spider crab. Only eight years after his bar-mitzvah, whorehouse orgies.

Gehenna beckoned.

But to be fair to himself, his bar-mitzvah, he recalled, had not exactly got him off to an auspicious start if he was meant to mature into an observant Jew.

“Don’t worry, kiddo,” his mother had said. “You’re going to have a party. Oh boy, are you ever going to have a party!”

In the morning, she had actually roused herself to make him breakfast and, charged with enthusiasm, she said, “Make me a list.”

“Of what?”

“The boys you want for your party.”

“Forget it,” he said.

“I’m going to be a good mother from now on, Josh. No more fucking with Ryan.” And then, looking at him quizzically, she added, “Something tells me it upsets you.”

“I don’t want a party.”

“Why not?”

“What would we do?”

“Well, we won’t play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey or parcheesi. It’s going to be a surprise.”

When he came home from school he found his mother on her knees, scrubbing the floors. The beds had been made, the dishes washed. The garbage was ready to be carted out. “You have an appointment with Mandelcorn for six o’clock. He’s going to teach you all the mumbo-jumbo you need for the synagogue. If he asks if we eat kosher here, you say yes,” and once more she demanded a list of boys.

A week before his bar-mitzvah she decorated the hall with crepe paper and Chinese lanterns. Streamers ran from wall to wall in the living room. Balloons hung from every light fixture.

Gifts began to arrive. Uncle Harvey sent phylacteries, a silver wine goblet, and $25 in war savings certificates. Euclid delivered Ed Ryan’s peace offering – a sharkskin windbreaker,
THE CHAMP
embossed on the back, the pockets stuffed with silver dollars. Colucci sent books: a biography of Marconi, an illustrated history of the Jewish people, and a collection of Winston Churchill’s speeches. There was also a case of V.O. in a box tied with a ribbon.

Saturday morning, in the synagogue, Joshua stumbled through the blessings he was obliged to pronounce, older members of the congregation shaking their heads, amazed that anyone, even a gangster’s boy, could be so ignorant. And what about the mother? A Leventhal girl. Her eyelashes false, her cheeks rouged. Reeking of perfume.

No sooner did they get home than his mother wiggled out of her dress, buttoned on a housecoat, and, consulting her newly acquired cookbook, set to work in the kitchen. Louis Armstrong belted out
“The Saints Go Marching In” as her marble cake was mixed and then slapped into the oven. She poured what looked like a half-bottle of kirsch into her fruit salad. Onions flew in all directions as, bolstered with Dewar’s, she started in on the chopped liver. Meatballs, varying a good deal in size, were pitched into a pan and then stacked on a platter like cannonballs. Her sponge cake failed to rise, her cheese pie obstinately refused to set. Boiled chicken pieces, churning in fat, bounced back from her probing fork again and again. Burnt edges had to be scraped off her chocolate chip cookies.

Of the twenty boys Joshua had invited to his party the following afternoon, only twelve turned up – the others, he gathered, having been forbidden to attend. Seymour Kaplan was there, of course, so were Morty Zipper, Mickey Stein, Bernie Zucker, Bobby Gross, Max Birenbaum, Yossel Kugelman, his cousin Sheldon, and, to his surprise, Eli Seligson and Izzy Singer. They were all combed and shined, wearing their High Holiday suits, but Joshua could see at once that they were ill at ease. Most of them did not know what to expect. Neither did Joshua, decidedly apprehensive, as his mother had been into the Dewar’s again since shortly after breakfast, her mood menacingly cheerful.

The boys had been gathered in the living room for only half an hour, increasingly fidgety, when it became obvious to them that there was not going to be a movie or whatever. In fact, it seemed like there was going to be absolutely nothing to do.

“Who would like to play Information, Please?” his mother called out cheerily.

Groans and moans.

“What about sardines?”

“Hey, we’re not kids any more,” Mickey admonished her.

“Good. That’s what I thought. All right, Josh. Draw the blinds.”

Oh boy, a movie after all.

But Joshua knew different, because she was already screwing in the red light bulb that throbbed on and off.

“Maw, you can’t.”

“That’s what they said to the Wright Brothers.”

“They wouldn’t understand.”

“Shettup and put on the record.”

“Maw, please.”

“Do as I ask. Come on, Josh.”

So he put on “Snake Hips.”

“Now don’t anybody move,” his mother said, running off.

The baffled boys sat on the floor, as instructed. Even as they were becoming restless, there was a rap on the door and Joshua started playing “Snake Hips” again. Then the door opened enough to allow a long black-stockinged leg ending in a spike-heeled shoe to come slithering through. It was withdrawn just as swiftly, as if bitten, making the startled boys wonder if it had been an apparition. Then it came creeping through again. The leg, seemingly disembodied, was now being caressed by a feathery pink fan. Higher, higher. The spike-heeled shoe slipped off to reveal toenails painted green. The leg rubbed longingly against the doorknob. It slid away, rose again. With maddening slowness the door opened to throbbing drums, a pulsating red light, and in glided Joshua’s mother, her eyes saying peekaboo behind feathery fans. Silver stars had been pasted to her legs. She wore a see-through scarlet blouse and a black skirt slit to her thighs.