Pure Spring (3 page)

I'm thinking about this morning. Mr. Mirsky's honest eyes. The lie I dumped in. And then Anita. All the lipstick and the perfume. And what she said. Randy, she said. Truck 15. Seven A.M. in the morning. Right choo are!

And then, “God help ya!”

God help ya? What did she mean by that?

Anyway. We'll soon find out.

Here I come, Cheap. Look out! I'm very happy!

I've got a job!

3

“S
EVEN
A.M.
in
the morning,” Grampa Rip is saying. “It's redundant to say
in the morning
if you say A.M. A.M.
means
morning! It's Latin. Ante meridiem. Ante,
before
. Meri,
middle
. Diem,
day
. Same as P.M. Latin! P for post meaning
after
. Meridiem, midday, noon. After noon! See? Easy, eh? A.M. P.M. Before noon. After noon. Twelve hours before noon. Half a day. Twelve hours after noon. Another half a day. Twenty-four hours in a day. And I'll tell you this! If the sun came up at noon and went down at midnight then those geniuses over at Pure Spring wouldn't be nearly so confused, now would they! Now, you better get a move on. You don't want to be late — get there at five minutes
after
7:00 A.M. in the morning, now would you? And don't forget yer lunch!”

Grampa Rip's smart. But sometimes he tells you too much. He loves words. He loves language. He loves books. He loves life.

I take the Somerset streetcar and transfer at Preston
Street. It's raining misty rain. Where I get off the streetcar at the corner of Aberdeen and Preston there's an old Italian lady all dressed in black leaning way over on her little lawn squinting at a purple crocus flower peeking up out of the grass between some patches of snow.

In the big yard at the Pure Spring Company, 22 Aberdeen Street, there are about twenty trucks waiting with their engines running. There are men in maroon jackets and pants moving around the trucks, standing talking to each other, adjusting the cases of drinks on their huge trucks. Their caps are maroon, too. Their shirts are khaki colored. The black tie looks nice with the shirt.

The trucks are white and strong looking. The backs are open. I count the cases. Four rows ten cases long, five cases high. I'm good at math. The trucks hold two hundred cases each.

A black-and-white stripe along the side of the truck under the load says
Honee Orange
. On the door is the Pure Spring shield. The shield is black and gold. There's a gold crown on the top. Under the crown are four panels. In one is a drawing of a fountain. Then three goofy-looking lions. In the third, three fleurs de lys. In the fourth, a beautiful brown woman carrying a box on her shoulder.

She has no clothes on. Her breasts are in full bloom.

Under that, a crest, black and red.
Pure Spring Ginger Ale
. And under that it reads

Think Pure

I look back up at the shield, at the breasts. Look closer. Nipples.

“Think pure!” a voice behind me says. “Think pure!” Then laughs.

“You're O'Boy, right? My new helper? Truck 15's over here. We're almost ready to go. Here, put this on. I'm Randy.”

Randy hands me a khaki shirt. It is just like his. It's got the Pure Spring shield on the pocket.

“That's the Pure Spring shield. See? There's fleurs de lys — we sell drinks to Frenchies. Lions — that's for the English. The fountain — well, that's the pure water of the spring. And the brown-skinned girl — she's carrying ginger in that box, ginger for the ginger ale, get it? But you weren't looking at the ginger box, were ya? That's only a picture, ya know. The real thing's lots better...”

I'm embarrassed. I get in the truck and put on the shirt.

It's time to go. There's a big roar, all the trucks' engines getting revved up. Out of the yard we go. Our truck, truck 15, leaves the gate. I see, at the gate, Mr. Mirsky standing, his arms folded, watching us all leave. He's proud of his fleet. His chin is up. His bald head almost glistens in the spring soft morning light. His face looks good on him. Proud. Like my shirt with the Pure Spring shield on the breast pocket. Looks good on me, I know it does.

“What we do — what's your first name, oh yeah, Martin, well, we'll have to do something about that — what we do is put our valuables in the glove box and lock it. Your wallet and stuff. There's lots of dishonest people
out there, Martin — oh, we'll have to do something about that name — there's thieves and cheats and pickpockets and you'll be concentrating on your work in cellars and cramped places and you never know...”

I obey and take out my wallet and put it into the glove box and he locks it. I notice he doesn't put his own wallet in there. Maybe it's already there.

But doing it doesn't feel right.

Grampa Rip got me the birth certificate not too long after I went to live with him. Also the wallet to keep it in. He told me to swear to him I'd never lose it. He got very excited the way he gets sometimes. He said it's the most valuable document I'll ever own. Don't let it out of your sight. Don't let anybody ever touch it. It proves you're a Canadian, you were born here, best country in the world, everybody in the universe wishes they were a Canadian, you'll always be a somebody when you have that plasticized proof right in your wallet...always remember that...the envy of the world...a wallet-sized plasticized birth certificate...

Our first stop is McDowell's Grocery and Lunch on Sweetland Avenue in Sandy Hill.

Randy squeezes big number 15 into the little laneway.

“As soon as we go in, you'll go down the cellar and open the cellar window and throw out six cases of Pure Spring — six
full
cases of whatever he's got that's full down there. Then come right up.”

I go down the steep, steep rickety wooden steps almost like a ladder into the dark, damp, musty, low-ceiling cellar.
At first I can hardly see anything. Soon I see the light of the cellar window. I feel my way over and unlatch the window.

There are cases and crates and bottles full and empty and supplies piled up everywhere. I find four cases of ginger ale and two Honee Orange, full, and lift them out the little cellar window.

It feels good. I'm working! Getting paid!

I go back up. Climb back up.

Randy is talking to Mr. McDowell. He's a little old man leaning on a cane. He's thin. His cheekbones stick out. He's got brown spots on his hands. He's talking business with Randy. The price of this and that.

Mr. McDowell spits a gob of phlegm out of his throat into a pail in the corner. You can hear the green yellow gob clicking in his chest as he breathes and coughs.

“Did you get those
empties
out of there, Martin?” says Randy. “Good. Wait for me at the truck. How many empties, Martin? Six. Good. Okay. I'll go down and see what Mr. McDowell needs...”

I go outside. My head is spinning. Empties? Did I make a mistake? Didn't he say full ones?

Outside, Randy's throwing out from the cellar eight cases of empties and telling me to put them on the truck. Now I'm confused. But I do as I'm told.

When I'm finished, Randy comes to the door and says really loud, “Mr. McDowell needs eight full. Four Honee Orange and four ginger ale!”

Then he rushes past me and grabs two cases of Honee
Orange off the truck and puts them with the six cases that are already there. The ones I put out.

We've just sold Mr. McDowell six cases of his own full ones!

Then Randy bangs around for a while and tells me to go down the cellar again, tidy up the cases a bit, make some noise and then come up. I do that, what I'm told. Now it's time to go back up into the store.

Before I put my foot on the first steep step I look up. From the darkness I'm in into the light up there I see a swinging blue skirt, black small shoes with flashing silver buckles, curving graceful legs in silk stockings with wide blue garter tops, pale-blue panties with rose-pink-colored ribbon trim — a flashing sight, now gone.

I come slowly up the ladder.

My body is half into the store now.

I always dreamt, especially in the spring, that the girl of those dreams would appear up from down below — rise up, the floor or the earth
opening
up in my dream and she'd come up to where I was standing.

But now it's the opposite.

It's me rising.

I hear a happy little laugh. She's chatting with a customer. She's behind me at the counter. I shut the trap door to the cellar. Quiet.

I turn and look. She looks down at her shoes. Shy. She glances up. Then she pouts pretty lips. Her face is soft ivory, her hands are fine with delicate veins, her eyes are Irish blue, her brows are dark, her hair is dark brown,
wavy, she blushes faint roses. She has on a little straw hat with blue ribbon the color of a robin's egg, a bow like a butterfly at the side...

I go outside and see Mr. McDowell and Randy counting the eight cases — four Honee Orange and four ginger ale that Mr. McDowell has just bought.

Mr. McDowell gives Randy the money.

Nine dollars and sixty cents.

“Okay,” says Randy. “Go back down the cellar there, Martin — we gotta do somethin' about that name, right, Mr. McDowell? — and catch these cases while Mr. McDowell and I make sure he gets what he's paid for!”

Then Randy, behind Mr. McDowell's back, winks at me when our eyes meet, and the wink gives me a chill.

Mr. McDowell just paid for six cases of his own drinks from his own cellar. We're thieves. I'm a thief!

When I'm finished in the cellar and close the trap door I go over to where she is standing near some shelves and whisper to her, “What's your name?”

“Gerty,” she says and looks down at the silver buckles on her shoes. “Gerty McDowell.”

Her electric blue blouse has a V-opening down to where her division is. She has a hankie in the pocket, fluffed up. There's perfume all around.

I swallow so hard that I think my Adam's apple is going to come up into my mouth. I see my eyes in hers. Is that possible?

Can a person say a million things in the blink of an eye and not say one word? Is it magic to talk just with your
eyes? Can everybody do that? Can everybody understand eye talk?

Like I can?

I go out and get in the truck.

Randy's got my wallet. He's zipping it back up.

“I've decided to give you a nickname, Martin. And it's a good one. You're going to like it. It's perfect for you. Boy. Boy O'Boy! Get it? Boy, oh boy! Isn't that great? Isn't that funny? Get it?”

I can't say anything.

Randy again.

“And, oh yeah, I see by yer birth certificate yer not sixteen years of age. You lied to Mr. Mirsky. He'll fire you if he finds out, you know.

“Boy, it doesn't matter how big the lie is or how small the lie is. You are a liar. Simple as that. A liar is a liar. And your lovely, kind Jew Mirsky wouldn't be too happy with you, would he, if he found out you were a liar, now, would he?

“And another thing. You get fired for lying, everybody will know. This is Ottawa and the Ottawa Valley. Everybody knows about everybody up and down the rivers of the Ottawa Valley.”

It's quiet this morning on Sweetland Avenue except for the roar of truck number 15.

Fifteen. My age.

“You know, Boy,” says Randy. “The sign of a good helper is not if he's strong or a good worker or fast or anything like that. No, no. The sign of a good helper is if he does what he's told and keeps his mouth shut about it.”

I'm staring straight ahead.

Randy's looking at me, not the road.

We're not moving very fast. Ahead at a stop light is an empty flatbed truck. The back edge of it is like a knife. Randy's still looking over at me.

“...what he's told and keeps his mouth shut about it...”

My legs are jammed into the floor. My hands shoot out onto the dashboard.

“Stop!” I'm screaming. “Watch out! STOP!”

Randy glides to an easy stop nowhere near the truck ahead.

Everything is quiet except my breathing.

“What's the matter with you, Boy? Are you crazy?”

4

E
VERY DAY
after work I go to the punch clock. Above the clock there is a big board with enough slots in it to hold a card for each person who works at Pure Spring. I lift my card from my slot and dip it into the clock. The clock chungs and a bell rings. I pull out my card and read it. It gives the date and the time. I've worked an hour overtime today. That's probably why I'm so tired. I reach up and drop the card back into its slot. Sore arms.

There's a note sticking up. It's from Anita. She wants me to go to her office.

Anita's at her desk. Frilly blue blouse this time. Lots of lipstick and perfume. Eyelashes waving like fans.

“Right choo are!” she says and shows me with her hand the chair across from her. Her arm jingles with many colored bracelets.

“How's it going with Randy?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. It's okay. Everything's okay.”

“Well, that's good to hear. Sometimes Randy is...Well, you see, Mr. Mirsky is always doing things, favors for people, and he hired Randy because he's the son of an old friend of Mr. Mirsky's. You see, when Randy was around fifteen or so, he fell out of the Ferris wheel at the Ottawa Exhibition — fell right on his head — and he's never been quite right since.”

“He is kind of strange,” I say softly.

“He's had it rough. As if falling out of a Ferris wheel on your noggin wasn't bad enough, his mother a little later ran off with some crazy Communist to start a colony somewhere where nobody would own anything but at the same time everybody would own everything.

“And on top of that, just last year, last December, Randy's younger brother was killed in an accident while the Canadian soldiers were arriving in Pusan, Korea, getting ready to fight the Commies there.”