Time to go.
“Phil,” you said. Phil looked up from the ice cream that they gave him. You waved. “Bye, Phil,” you said.
Phil looked.
Your twin looked at you.
Strange eyes not yours.
Did he wave?
Or was he just going back at the ice cream with his spoon?
Time to go.
Time to go.
Go.
Leave Phil there. Bye bye.
17
G
ERTY WANTS
to get him. Get Randy. There's a fire in her that scares me. She doesn't seem to be afraid of anything.
We'll go. We agree. Gerty says we'll go. Go to Randy's. We won't stay long. Just long enough to steal the papers for Igor and then out the door we go. What could be wrong with that? Just go in. Wait for a chance to steal the papers for Igor. Then out we go. Run. What can he do? We'll never see Randy again.
Gerty, I think, is more brave than I am. But I want to be the brave one.
“We'll do it. We'll go. We'll fix Randy twice this way,” I say bravely. Her fire makes me so excited.
This is the girl I love. She always surprises, there's always surprises in her! Spring surprises. Gerty surprises.
We walk over from Sandy Hill to Lowertown to number 60 Cobourg Street. We have umbrellas. It's a big springtime rain. A warm kissing rain. Dark day. Even
though it's noon, it's like evening. Everything is soft. Pussy-willow soft. The spring rain closes us in. It's like a private cave in the rain that is nobody else's but ours. The rain is a room. Our own room.
We look up at the red brick building with the dirty streaked-down windows like people have been crying on them.
Inside, we go up the shaky elevator.
We knock and Randy opens the door. The apartment has no lights on. Candles on the kitchen table.
“Welcome. Welcome to lunch. My wife can't make it. Have a seat at the kitchen table. Be careful of the candles. Don't set fire to yourselves.”
He leaves. He sounds happy as anything. Randy sounds happy but I know he's pretending. He's not happy, he's angry. I know him. I know his angry voice.
I take a peek into the darkened living room.
Nobody there.
I go in. Look up at the dirty book shelf filled with old newspapers and magazines. There's the dusty stopped clock. There's the folder. The folder with Igor's pages in Russian.
I grab it and slip back into the kitchen. I show it to Gerty. She's looking around to find a place to hide it. I take it and shove it under my shirt. It shows. He'll see. Gerty pulls the curtain of the kitchen window aside and lets the light into the gloom. The kitchen window is open about half way. There's a bit of breeze. She tries to open it more. It won't go. There's a big nail holding it there.
We hear Randy coming back. Gerty takes the folder. She lifts her dress away up and slides the folder down inside her blue panties with the pink ribbon trim. Then she drops her dress and with both hands smooths the front down.
We can hear Randy's footsteps coming.
I try the kitchen door. Locked. No key.
He comes into the gloomy kitchen and sits at the table. He's got a big knife. He rams it hard into the table. It stands quivering there.
“Now,” says Randy. “Last night, when I did my inventory, I noticed I'm missing six cases, full. Three ginger, three Honee. I figure you two crooks took these cases from Randy's truck yesterday while we were admiring the tulips...right? Randy doesn't like crooks. Nobody steals from Randy and gets away with it.”
While he's talking, he's looking at the knife sticking in the table. But I'm looking at him. And while I'm looking at him I have a strange feeling that I'm getting bigger. For the first time, I realize that I'm bigger than Randy.
Ever since what happened I've felt so small, like I was disappearing, but now Randy looks like such a pipsqueak compared to me.
Randy pulls the knife out of the wooden table and drives it back in. Making a frightening noise.
“So now, your punishment. Boy, tell your little patootie here to start taking off her clothes. Give old Randy a little payback for getting robbed! Know what I mean?”
Time to get out of here.
I stand up and lift the table up over on top of Randy and as he hits the floor, I pick up the chair I was sitting on and bring it smashing down on top of him. Then I turn and smash the window out with the chair.
“Out the window!” I yell at Gerty, and when she's half way out the window I go back and smash Randy down with the chair again.
I'm tearing at the curtain and shoving Gerty out through the opening over the broken glass onto the fire escape. The glass is cutting us and there's blood.
And I look back while I'm crawling out after her and there's Randy with the big knife stabbing at me and missing my legs and I tumble out on to the fire escape, the taste of black iron in my mouth.
I race after Gerty down the bouncing squeaking shaking metal stairs. Up above, out the window, Randy is screeching, “Come back here yez little snot-nosed crook criminals. Stole six cases from my truck. Police! Police! Randy's going to kill you, Boy! Wait and see! Nobody steals from Randy!”
It's almost like when Mr. George was screaming at Billy Batson and me when we ruined his organ concert back then at St. Alban's Church.
Gerty is wild-eyed and so am I.
We feel as in a dream.
We're running so beautiful. Striding together. I'm surprised how fast Gerty can run, as we run streaking through the warm rain, blood flying off our cuts from the broken window.
“The papers,” I say. “Igor's papers. Have you got them?”
“They're right here,” she says, running and panting. “Safe and sound right here,” she says, patting her belly.
And I'm safe and sound, too.
Bigger than I ever felt.
18
I
T âS
10:00 A.M. in the morning here at Pure Spring Bottling Company, 22 Aberdeen Street. It rained early in the morning and the streets are clean and fresh. There's a nice breeze, warm in the cool, and there's a smell of flowers and breakfast toast in the air. Birds are chirping and nesting.
Anita is in her office and I don't have to wait very long to get to see her.
“Right choo are, Martin O'Boy!” she says. “Glad to see you. What do ya think?”
“I think Randy is a thief,” I say. And then I say, “And so am I.”
Anita's eyelashes do a few nervous ups and downs.
“And I want to tell Mr. Mirsky,” I say. “My Grampa Rip says tell it all and it will all go away.”
“Hold on there, hold on there, my boy. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Start telling me first where you got all
the cuts on your hands and your arms. And those two on your face. Your forehead. And your cheek.”
“Randy invited my friend Gerty and me over to his place for lunch yesterday with him and his wife but his wife wasn't there and he took out a knife and he wanted me to tell my friend Gerty to take off her clothes so I hit him with a chair and then I broke the window and we escaped.”
“You hit Randy with a chair?”
“Yes. Twice.”
The air in the room isn't moving. Nothing is moving. Anita's eyelashes aren't moving. The frills on her blouse aren't moving. Her bracelets aren't moving. Even her perfume is still.
“First of all,” says Anita, “your Randy has no wife. Your Randy's wife ran away two years ago with another man. One of the other drivers. Can you blame her? Married to a nut like that? Guy named Freeman. Irish guy. Randy thought it was Freiman like the department store, A.J. Freiman. So Randy figured Freeman was Jewish. Told everybody all the time how he hated Jews.”
I take out my list of thievery and put it on the desk. “Before I show you this I have to tell you something. I lied to Mr. Mirsky about my age. I'm not sixteen. I won't be sixteen until August 6, the day they dropped the bomb. I'm only fifteen.”
“You could pass for eighteen. You would've gotten away with it.”
“I couldn't stop thinking about it.”
“Conscience.”
“And then I helped Randy steal from the customers. Here's every cent we stole and how we stole it on this list.”
Anita looks over the list.
Then her phone buzzes.
She answers.
“Right choo are, Mr. Mirsky,” she says and gets up. “You come back in one hour,” she says. “And take a seat outside Mr. Mirsky's office. Wait there. I'll get your pay ready. He'll probably want to talk to you. In fact, I know he will.”
* * *
“This is quite the document, Martin O'Boy. Quite the document indeed.”
Mr. Mirsky is not behind his desk. He's sitting beside me on the sofa that's there in his office for special visitors.
“All of these customers will have to be apologized to and reimbursed.”
“Not all.”
“Oh?”
“McDowell's Grocery and Lunch has already been apologized to. And reimbursed.”
“Oh?” (Reimbursed: a new word to show Grampa Rip.)
“Yes.”
“I see. Knowing you as I do, I believe there's an interesting story there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And this document, as I was saying. Very effective. And excellently written, I might add. The description of each crime. Very clear, graphic. You have a very fine style.”
“Thank you.”
“You know, of course, you'll have to resign.”
“Yes, I know.”
“We'll deal with Randy. He needs a lot of help. Psychological help.”
I'm looking at Mr. Mirsky and he's looking at me. There's understanding in his face.
“This has been a trying and dangerous time for you. But you came through it with flying colors, as they say.”
I look at him, frowning a bit.
“Flying colors? It's a military term. A fleet of ships returns to port victorious in battle, all their flags flying in celebration.”
I don't know what to say.
“When you turn sixteen you can come back and we'll hire you immediately. But I'd rather see you going to school. Bright boy like you. Get your education.”
Mr. Mirsky hands me a small brown envelope.
“Your pay. You'll find some extra in there. Let's call it an integrity bonus.”
“Thank you, sir.”.
“I'm going to visit each and every one of these customers personally and see to it that they are reimbursed.
And I want you to come with me as a reliable witness. Will you do that for me?”
“Yes, sir. I will.”
“Anita will notify you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You never did tell us everything that happened.”
“Maybe I will some day.”
“Good-bye, Martin O'Boy.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Mirsky.”
What Happened ⢠Six
Y
OU WERE
heading home. Your father had another bottle. Where did he get them all? Sipping from it, talking about the future of your family.
“Everything's going to be different. We're going to have a normal family from now on. And there'll be no more drinkin'. No more booze. Soon's I finish this bottle, get home, sleep it all off â be a new man, a new morning! What d'ya think of that?”
“I'll believe it when I see it,” your mother said, only whispering.
The snow seemed to make the car so quiet.
“And we'll have to get rid of that cat of yours,” he said over his shoulder to you in the backseat. “Have him put down. It doesn't hurt. You use chloroform. You know there was cat hair in my coffee the other day? And on my toothbrush one time? I must have been drunk or something that day. Buying an old scruffy cat like that...”
Did Cheap know he was alive? you thought. Did he
know he could die? Somebody could have him killed? Did he wonder if anybody loved him? Did he care? Cheap, he could be strangled, murdered tonight, now. Nobody would stand up and say this is wrong. Who protects Cheap except you? You're in charge of his life. If he lives or dies it's up to you.
And Phil? Who cares for Phil now?
THE TRIAL. You are accused of the heinous crime of not caring for your twin brother Phil...
You lay down on the backseat. Rest. Tired, maybe sleep. You would go later and see Phil sometime, you guessed. He looked at you. His eyes said he'd see you soon, you thought. Maybe he even waved.
The snow was driving straight into the windshield. You could get hypnotized. Watching the snowflakes come hurtling straight at you out of the dark, out of nowhere. You could start to imagine you were diving down, not speeding forward but down, down, a no-bottom hole right through the planet earth and out the underside and deep, deeper into outer space and the snowflakes glittering in the headlights of Horrors Leblanc's car and there were stars whizzing past in a galaxy like a long hallway as you dove, dove deeper into the nowhere faster than light goes...
And in your dream you were hurtling through space with Phil and Phil was laughing and singing and he knew all the words and how smart he was all of a sudden.
“Wheeee!” Phil screamed with delight!
Phil was singing just like Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz
singing, “Birds fly over the rainbow...”
Phil, smarter even than you, Martin, smarter than you!
Phil, happy, singing his little heart out, laughing at the whizzing stars, “Why then oh why can't I?”
And now there was a
Bang...Bang...Bang...
and a shaking and a screaming of metal and glass.
And there was silence. Then a hissing sound.
And you were buried alive in the dark there for a long time â maybe you were still asleep, you thought â and then sirens and car doors slamming and voices and then a light shining and then another and another.