WE ‘RE ON Cobourg Street near where I used to live on Papineau. We go into Prevost’s Lunch Room and Grocery where I used to go all the time when I was a kid with my friend Billy Batson. The ancient man is still sitting in the corner there in his highchair killing flies. I remember him. Hard to believe he’s still alive. It’s easy in the spring. These flies are very slow. They’re not awake yet.
I’m a little surprised that Randy’s not stealing from here but I don’t say anything. Then we go down to the corner to St. Patrick Street Confectioners. Same thing.
Same thing happens in the other little store, Lachaine’s. I used to go there on my way to school. It’s right near Heney Park where an awful thing happened to me one time. A man named Mr. George hurt me there once. But that’s over now.
“I’ve decided,” says Randy, “since we’re pals and everything now, I’m going to take you home to my place for lunch.”
“Yep, I live right down there. Number 60 Cobourg Street, Apartment 403.”
I look across at number three Papineau, the house where I used to live. And number five, where my hero Buz lived with his mother. And number seven where my friend Billy Batson used to live. And number one. Horseball Laflamme and his big family.
While Randy’s talking to Mr. Lachaine I stroll down Cobourg Street to Papineau and try to look in the window of my old house, number three. I see a strange couch and a sad-looking table. A small airplane is droning in the sky over Lowertown. The sound of the droning plane makes me think of when I was a little kid, home from school, sick, lying in my mother’s bed under the special comforter, sick with fever, wishing I was in that little plane going somewhere, anywhere, droning away, trailing my life behind me...
Randy’s back.
“Bring your lunch up. We’ll have lunch together.”
The truck is parked at the back of 60 Cobourg Street, under the fire escape. It’s a big brown apartment building with dirty windows.
We go in. A little elevator shakes while it takes us to the fourth floor. We go down the dark dirty hallway to his door beside the garbage chute.
There’s a rusty nail in the door — probably to hang something on — a wreath at Christmas, maybe.
We go in and we’re in the kitchen. There are dirty dishes all over the place and there’s spilled food on the oilcloth floor.
“I want to show you something,” Randy says. We go in the living room and Randy goes over to a book shelf that’s filled mostly with magazines and old newspapers.
There’s a folder on the top shelf beside a clock that is stopped and covered with dust. He takes it down and opens it. There are some pages, a bit yellow, with funny-looking typing on them.
“‘Member I told you ’bout the Commie spy smasher, Igor? The Russians were gonna kill him because he squealed? Igor, who lived in yer apartment? Well, that night when he escaped, I stole these papers from a bag he had, a cloth bag with wooden handles. There’s nine pages. All in funny letters. Probably Russian. Looks like lists or something. And some Ottawa places. And some Canadian names. I thought the papers would be worth something but Igor, he disappeared so...you know. You never know...might be worth something some day. Quite a coincidence, eh?”
He puts the folder back up beside the dusty clock.
Randy puts me back in the kitchen now. It’s a mess. Dirty dishes. Leftover breakfast in the frying pan. Stained tablecloth. Sour milk in a milk bottle. Moldy cheese on the windowsill. Torn, dirty curtain.
Grampa Rip would be disgusted. “Are there bears livin’ here?” he might say.
I sit at the table and set my brown lunch bag in front of me. I’ve got pork sandwiches today. Pork and sweet mustard. But nothing to drink. I’ve had my one free drink for the day.
“Go down to the truck and get a Lemon ’N Lime for me and a Honee Orange for you.”
“But I already had my drink for the day.”
“Never mind that. Go! And when you come back sit by the window so you can look down and see the truck. Make sure no kids are around tryin’ to steal drinks!”
Funny how crooks don’t trust anybody.
I get back with the drinks and sit at the window and start eating my lunch while I’m watching the truck down there through the black iron fire escape.
The Honee Orange and the pork are good. And the sweet mustard.
Suddenly I see down there some kids around the truck. They are looking all around.
“I’m going down to the truck!” I shout. “There’s kids going to steal!”
“Okay!” Randy shouts from the other room.
I go down and chase the kids. I tell them the driver is crazy and he has a gun. They run off.
I go back up the slow, shaky elevator.
I sit at the kitchen table with Randy.
“What do you think of Jews?” says Randy. This is going to be our lunch conversation.
“Jews? What do you mean, Jews?” I don’t think anything about Jews.
“Do you know who Karl Marx is?”
“Does he work at Pure Spring?” I like to play dumb with Randy. Playing dumb makes me sort of invisible.
“No, dummy. Karl Marx is dead. A hundred years ago he dreamed up Communism. Karl Marx was a Jew. Jews with their crazy ideas. Why do you think Hitler tried to kill them all? He almost made it. You know why he hated them, tried to exterminate them?”
“Because he was crazy?”
“No, because he was a Christian.”
I nearly choke on my Honee Orange at this last bit of wisdom.
“Yes, a Christian. A Christian who loved Jesus Christ. And who do you think killed Jesus Christ? The Jews killed Jesus Christ. Killed our Lord. And now the Commies are making religion illegal!”
I’m going to forget about trying to eat the rest of my lunch. I think I’d rather be having a lunch date with Adolf Hitler than Randy.
Randy’s rolling.
“Did you know that in Communist Russia today, this very minute, while we’re having this educational discussion...”
Educational discussion?
“...this educational discussion, if you are caught praying to God in Russia they stick a tube in your head and suck out your brains and feed them to the pigs?”
That’s it. I’m going down to the truck.
“Where ya goin’?”
“Having trouble with a little bit of reality there, sissy? Boy O’Boy with the fancy Latin words. There’s lots you don’t know.”
“Where’s your wife?” I say, surprising myself.
There’s a long pause. He’s looking out the window. I’m heading out the door.
“She’s gone shopping,” he says.
Up the street in Heney Park there are couples strolling, hand in hand, stopping from time to time to kiss. In the spring.
The redwing blackbirds are sounding like referee’s whistles.
Oh, Gerty!
I have to tell you everything but I’m afraid.
And Grampa Rip, too. Tell him. What will he think of me?