SOMETIMES I pinch Cheap’s skin and fur at the back of his neck — pull on it a bit like I guess his mother must have done to carry him around when he was little before he was taken away from her and shoved in a pet store window and sold for ten cents as a joke because he only had one ear.
When I do this with Cheap he closes his eyes and turns toward me and looks up at me and goes all soft like he wants me to kiss him.
I’ve showed this to Gerty. We laughed about it. She asked me to try it with her.
Now I’m trying it with her on the park bench right next to the Gray Man’s park bench.
A couple of weeks ago, Grampa Rip wrote to “Mr. John Smith” and soon after, Igor Gouzenko showed up, got his papers, told us he’d been offered five thousand dollars for the complete package, promised he’d send us a ten percent bonus. That night we had a party — Gerty and I found Sandy and brought him — and Igor was happy and tried to teach us a Russian dance. Sandy was the funniest trying it.
Grampa Rip wanted to invite the Gray Man, but one peek out the round window and we knew he was off duty. Igor told us he wasn’t worried about the Gray Man.
“He is no danger to me now,” said Igor. “His heart is not in it any more. Soon he, too, will defect to Canada.”
Then Igor asked Grampa Rip what was locked in his big strongbox that was so heavy.
Everybody helped pull the box out into the living room and gathered round while he turned the key in the big padlock.
Full of pennies, nickels and dimes!
Just like the great-grandaddy of the bowl on the hall table.
“For a rainy day,” said Grampa Rip, and he cried a little bit. “Been saving it almost all my life! For a rainy day. And no rainy day yet!” We picked up handfuls of the coins and ran them through our fingers. Grampa Rip gave two fistfuls of them for Sandy’s pockets.
“Some of it will come in handy for Martin to go back to school,” says Grampa Rip, putting his arm around my shoulders.
It was, Gerty said, the best party she was ever at.
And I said I agree with you, my sweetheart.
It’s 4:00 P.M. in the afternoon on a lilac-and-tulip day in the slanting sun.
Billy Finbarr, the paper boy, is watching us while he’s folding up his biscuits to throw at the houses.
The Gray Man is sidespying us, too.
There are two squirrels in the maple tree above us, watching. A couple of pigeons, eyes like buttons, are watching.
There’s Sandy on his rounds, marching across the park. He sees, too.
There’s Grampa Rip coming up the street in his funeral wake clothes, now turning into the apartment, his back and shoulders looking happy. He waves and sees, too.
I pinch the nape of Gerty’s neck right where the hairline grows in downy wisps. Like a little kitty she laughs and purrs on purpose and turns toward me and looks up at me, imitating Cheap, and goes all soft, like she wants me to...kiss her...
But I can’t. Too many eyes looking. Even Smitty outside Smitty’s Smoke Shop is standing outside his shop, looking across at us in the park.
And everybody on the streetcar that is rumbling by, even the driver, is looking at us. And the priest standing on the porch of St. Elijah’s Antiochian Orthodox Church looking up from his book is looking at us.
Billy Finbarr, paperboy, comes across the street to our bench.
“Hey, Billy,” I say. “What’s on the front page today?”
“First day of summer!” says Billy Finbarr to me, but he’s looking at Gerty. “I’ve seen you before,” says Billy.
“This is Gerty McDowell, Billy,” I say, trying to get rid of him.
“Hubba! Hubba!” says Billy, moving his eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marx does in the movies.
“Cut it out, Billy!” I say. “You’re too young for that, ya little shrimp.”
“Not too young to know,” says Billy, stealing from Nat “King” Cole’s song.
Gerty laughs, her skin like white roses brushed in pink.
“If you ever need anything, Gerty, I live right over there — 337 Lyon Street, two doors from the church, second floor. See the balcony?” says Billy, making his eyebrows jump again.
“I see it, Billy Finbarr,” Gerty says, and then gives him a smile that makes me mad enough to go and shove Billy head first down the nearest storm sewer.
“Scram, Billy,” I say, but not mean, more friendly.
After a while Gerty puts her head on my shoulder.
“The Gray Man,” she says in my ear. “I wonder how long he’s going to sit there?”
“Probably forever,” I say, talking too loud on purpose. “I wonder if he is stupid like Igor said.”
I’m pinching Gerty’s nape, my eyes half closed, when I feel a shadow over us.
The Gray Man stands blocking the glancing sun from the west. He’s very tall, has large hands and a chest like a big wall. He has a low voice. He has hardly any Russian accent.
“Not stupid,” he says. “Not stupid at all. How’s your friend Igor doing? I saw him, you know. Don’t worry, I won’t report it. Soon I’ll join him. As a Canadian citizen, I mean. You young people think you know everything. You don’t know how lucky you are. You don’t realize that to be born in Canada at this present time in history is the greatest gift that can be thrust upon any person on this planet. I’d think very seriously about that, if I were you.”
He leaves, strides away down Somerset Street, doesn’t look back, disappears.
Time to walk. Gerty takes my hand. We walk across Dundonald Park and into the summer that’s starting. I’m getting to feel pretty big right now. Not disappearing like I was.
“Do you think we will be together always, Martin?” she asks.
“I don’t know, Gerty,” I say. “I don’t know about that. Guy like me, the way I am. All I know about is today.”
“I think we will,” says Gerty.
And our clasped hands clasp tighter.
“Will you come with me to visit my twin brother Phil where he’s at? We’ll take the bus?”
“Oh, yes, I will,” she says. “Yes, I will. I’ll go anywhere with you.”
This is all I can say. I’m afraid to say more. I’ll die if I say more.
The lilac trees, smelling like deep lilac, hang over us as we walk.
Die of happiness.