The Man Who Killed (6 page)

An itch played in the palm of my hand. Money coming my way. I scratched a lucifer on the rough stone of the station to light a smoke. Ninety-seven dollars and change. Now what to do? Might ride a trolley across the island and back. Instead I remembered what I'd read in the 'paper yesterday and hied uptown to mooch in the little park beside the new Forum.

WHEN THE HOUR came 'round I dropped fifty cents for a seat in the stands at Atwater Park to see the ball game with Ruth and his ringers playing for both sides of two local all-star teams, a sort of Vaudeville turn. Assembling to watch, we were a good-sized crowd, it being the last time to enjoy outdoor sport before the weather turned completely. Before us was Ruth at home plate, warming up by blasting baseballs out of the park, one after another. Scampering children beyond the right field fence fought over each ball like dogs for a crust.

I was wedged in between on my left a thin man like Jack Sprat with a wife who ate no lean and on the right a file of French factory workers. Light rain fell, then quit. The band came out and we stood for the anthems: “God Save the King,” the American number, and our other tune. Through a loudhailer a lady soprano sang: “In days of yore, from Britain's shore, Wolfe, the dauntless hero came, and planted firm Britannia's flag, on Canada's fair domain. Here may it wave, our boast, our pride, and joined in love together, the thistle, shamrock, rose entwined, the Maple Leaf forever.”

Half the crowd was mum, thinking on Montcalm and the fleur-de-lis or perhaps plumb not knowing the words and merely humming along, holding their hats. I piped up for the hard part: “Our Fair Dominion now extends from Cape Rock to Nootka Sound. May peace forever be our lot and plenteous store abound. And may those ties of love be ours which discord cannot sever, and flourish green o'er freedom's home the Maple Leaf forever.”

Applause. All hats back on. The audience sat for the ceremonial toss of the horsehide by the mayor. With that the game began and a cold wind blew down from the north. The first pitch. Urban Shocker from the Yankees was tossing for Beaurivage and Ruth played for Guybourg. Two strikeouts and a fly ball to deep left and the sides changed before we'd even settled in our seats.

Ruth came on the field and took his position at first base. He doffed his cap and the crowd cheered. First a strikeout, then an easy infield fly, and third a sharp rap to shortstop that was winged back to first. Ruth almost bobbled it but managed the out and we went into the next inning straightaway. Ruth led off, fouled twice, and then hit one deep into centre that was snagged by the fielder at the track. The next batter made it onto first but then got caught in a double play.

I rose and went for a Frankfurter covered in mustard and onions, followed by a Coca-Cola. I wiped my mouth and drained the green glass bottle. As I stood and watched the next inning a short Jew in a raccoonskin coat sidled over. Unbidden he offered me a small cigar. He waggled his eyebrows and smiled.

“Did you see the Babe hitting them out of the park?” he asked.

“Sure did.”

“Too bad he couldn't do that in the series.”

“I thought he had three homers in one game,” I said.

“One game. Then he loses the whole damn thing trying to steal second. The Cards nailed New York to the cross, you'll forgive the expression.”

I laughed and looked at him, blowing smoke.

“Well, someone's always the scapegoat.”

He hiccoughed. I asked him his line of work.

“Brassieres. A very uplifting profession.”

I laughed again and he winked back. The Beaurivagers had a rally at the bottom of the second and were up three runs by the end of the inning. Ruth moved to shortstop and barehanded a fast zinger to beat a steal at second to end the run. He struck out his next at-bat and someone shouted:
“Va chier,
Babe!”

There was a tremor of nervous laughter. The Jew pulled out a flask and offered me a slug. I croaked it down and asked its pedigree.

“A special mixture.”

Playing an American I asked him if I could get it in the States. He told me that I could, in the Middle West. Some countrymen of his ran it down from Regina.

“Where's that?” I pretended.

“Saskatchewan.”

“Man alive. How'd they do it?”

“It's classed as a patent medicine, for doctors to carry a bottle in their black bags. If you're interested maybe I can facilitate an introduction.”

“Swell. Can they get into Vermont or New York?”

“That I don't know.”

“I know some folks'd be happy for help, if you know what I mean.”

“Tell you what,” he said, “I'll give you my card. You can come by to talk.”

“I'm not here too long.”

The strange import of that phrase suddenly struck me.

“Well, neither are they. Come by and talk and I'll call Solly. You can speak to him.”

“Solly?”

“He's the smartest of the brothers.”

“Brothers?”

“Three of them.”

“Oke.”

I took the card. This was a mere coincidence in a crowd. There was no hint of a provocation. It was that phenomenon where you'd never heard an arcane phrase before, then upon learning it you overhear it in conversation at the next table in a café. Bootleggers. Maybe I looked the part. The weight of the gun now at the small of my back, changing my carriage, lending me an air. If I met some other exporters it could throw a little light on Jack and the organization he was involved with.

Over the years I'd taken it as a given with Jack. He'd vanish, cook up a scheme, materialize with money, a 'car, a girl, the latest joke, a yarn. It was in stark opposition to myself, his hustle and drive. I'd brood, my mouth shut. He was outgoing, gregarious, a good time. Well, it wasn't too late. The circumstances demanded an effort on my part. I was mixed up in trouble and I cursed myself for not pumping Jack when I'd had the chance at the Derby or in Griffintown before we rode off into the woods. Now I might never find out what had led me to this stand.

There rose mingled cries and loud cheering and I saw a player running hell-bent for leather, sliding safe home to a roar and a tiger. Guybourg had scored two runs. I shook the Jew's hand, pocketed his card, and resumed my seat.

Next time Guybourg came up Shocker tried to lay down his teammate. Ruth fanned on the first pitch, fouled the next, and with a crack banged the next ball over the left field fence into a tree, startling a flock of pigeons. For a heavy man he skipped nimbly around the bases, to the crowd's delight. This was what they'd paid for.

Back in the dugout Ruth was handed a beer and emptied it in a swallow. He started signing programs and photographs, laughing and chatting with children, drinking some more. The game stayed tied through the end of the sixth.

The Guybourg pitcher blew out his arm the next inning so Ruth stepped in and retired the side. Later, a nasty foul tip clipped the ump and knocked him out; for sport Ruth put on the official's pads and called the game while his own team batted. It didn't help Guybourg one whit. At the change during the stretch there spread a ripple of merriment through the crowd at some jape Ruth was up to. He couldn't get out of the umpire's pads and was struggling on the ground, cracking wise to the nearby fans.

“What's he saying?” asked Jack Sprat next to me.

His wife sat nibbling Turkish delight.

“He ask Houdini to help him escape,” said a dark ferret on my other side.

The eighth was a washout for both sides. Calcium spotlights were lit against the creeping dark and a sharp wind scraped across the diamond. The
mobile vulgus
contracted at this grim taste of winter, steam and smoke rising from the pinched crowd as it tensed against the chill. At last came the ninth, the score still knotted.

Ruth got up. The Beaurivage pitcher was an amateur from town with his family loudly rooting for him to fan the big-leaguer. It didn't work out. The local boy threw three pitches wide and then Ruth fouled twice for the full count. The next ball floated over the plate and Ruth pounded it out of the park. The diamond exploded and the Babe grinned like a happy hound as he rounded the bases for home where his team waited to clap and pound him on the back. The recovered umpire went over and talked to both sides' managers and then they beckoned the announcer, who joined their consultation for a minute, then went to the loudspeaker.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we wish to inform you that the game has been called at the top of the ninth by agreement, the Guybourg All-Stars winning four runs to three thanks to a solo run by Babe Ruth.”

A general huzzah.

“Mr. Ruth has, through the pre-game demonstration and this contest, now hit thirty-six balls out of the park and exhausted both clubs' supply. We wish to thank you for your attendance today and please join us in three cheers for our visitors to Montreal!”

The crowd did better than that, breaking into “For He's a Jolly Good Fellow” and then for good measure “God Save the King” again. Ruth and his compatriots doffed their caps and a friendly mob swarmed the field. He signed a dozen autographs and was finally helped out of the throng and into a taxi that had been let onto the field to take him back to his hotel. I ran into the Jew again in the crush leaving the park.

“Another Exodus,” I said.

He clapped my shoulder, red-faced and daffy with hooch.

“The old Babe'll be swinging his bat on Bullion Street tonight,” he yowled, making an obscene gesture.

The gate separated us and I was let back out on the mercy of the city. I started to feel like going on a tear of my own. The noise, movement, and temporary camaraderie had jazzed me. I could walk to Laura's house and say goodbye. Get it over with. The way things stood my last friend in the world was gone, dead. Laura had probably been affianced off to a moneyed heir. Perhaps I could bury myself in some small Ontario town, play with a crystal set in the evenings trying to pick up signals from Texas. Crunch through blue snow at night to romance a cross-eyed librarian, become a clerk at a hardware store and sing in the Methodist choir, march in the Orangemen's parade every July. I could do any number of things, but paramount I would find a saloon open on a Sunday on St. Catherine Street. After that I just might end up in a whorehouse on Bullion like Mr. Babe Ruth.

IN THE TAVERN my Frankfurter indigested so I ordered a Vichy water. A dwarf sang in Italian to a fat man beside him. The record was turned and the machine let out jazz, Roxy and His Gang, hometown boys like the Guybourg All-Stars. I started to think about Jack, and Laura.

He'd introduced me to her back in '24. Jack was being political on campus and she was bucking patrimony, seemingly. Laura Dunphy, the devoted only daughter of Sir Lionel Dunphy, Q.C., Privy Council, past president of the Liberal Party, a real tyee. Jack had played Pied Piper and led a group of us to a Bolshevist meeting soon after Lenin's death. An incomprehensible Glaswegian gave a report on factory conditions in the Ukraine and glorious future prospects for same. In attendance were myself, Jack, Laura, her inevitable plain friend Margery, Smiler, that prick Jerome Martel, and some clinging dishrag girls. Jack and Laura, a pair of redheads, strange portent. After the lecture a firebrand gave a stemwinder of revolutionary oration, and at its end we were all communists, marching out onto the street dead earnest, singing “The Internationale.” In a café the collective solved the world's problems over egg creams and french fries. As we broke up for the night Laura put her arm through mine, announcing that I would be the one to escort her home. The look on Jack's face was difficult to read, that secret amusement. Jerome Martel's feelings were plain as day, and I gloated as I carried Laura off. I was done, easy as that. She had me by the time I walked her up the steps of her father's mansion on the hill, still humming “The Internationale,” what the dwarf was trilling to the fat man at the end of the bar right now.

I gave them a mock salute with my seltzer and said: “Viva d'Annunzio.” It shut the little man up. He turned to his comrade and they looked daggers at me. I could just as easily have toasted Mussolini. That would've been splendid, fighting a midget. A long way from sparring with Jack when we were young. He'd fought in the army, taking an inter-regimental belt at Valcartier before being shipped to Europe. We'd even picked it up again as recently as last year before once more drifting apart. Jack an irregular comet. Where'd he been since then? Where was he now? Sizing myself up in the mirror, dark and different, my reflection hydrocephalic and clouded in the glass, I had to ask: Where was I?

From the bar I bought a pack of Consuls and wanted whiskey but the law allowed only beer and wine unless you knew where to look. At least this province was better than the rest of the country, dry for most of a decade. I'd hunt up a government licence tomorrow for something stronger. The record stopped playing, the beer arrived flat, and I began to fill with regret. My mind turned to bygone failures, weakness, a misspent past, the decay of my medical studies, Laura lost forever, Jack maybe dead. The Pater, polishing his barometer and returning to his desk to read Scripture. The dwarf and his partner left. A new record played an Irish lament, “Turn Ye to Me,” sung by John McCormack. Tired-looking whores sat at a table for a warm up, on a break from working the Sabbath. Near nine I made my sortie, dumping silver and ashes on the bartop.