THE FIRST TIME IT HAPPENED it made me spit orange juice all over Chloe and Clifford.
We were sitting at the table eating breakfast. Chloe was nursing Cliffy. He was a big, gormless child, and he pulled on my wife’s teat until she was pretty near robbed of all substance. Chloe did her best to look and sound happy, but her skin was white and her hands trembled. She had a frightened little bird of a heart. Chloe was experiencing twinges in her lower back, and in a few months she would have full-blown arthritis. She’d given up calling me Pookie. She had started calling me Perce or Percy, and in time she’d be calling me Percival like she was a Sunday-school teacher. So anyway, Chloe had Clifford sucking away at her—him making horrid mulching noises—and I was reading the Ottawa Gazetteer. I took a sip of orange juice and flipped into the sports pages. The name Clay Clinton leaped off the page, and that’s when I spat orange juice at my spouse and offspring.
The rest of the sentence read: “Appointed general manager of Pats.”
“What is it?” asked Chloe.
“Clay’s the new G.M.,” I answered.
“Good,” she responded. “You can get more money.”
I ignored that. Chloe was always after me to make more money. I was never a millionaire, but I made fairly good jack for all the ages I lived in. Say now, wasn’t the Great Depression right around the corner, and didn’t I keep Chloe and the boys in food and clothes? There was plenty of mooks back then who didn’t have two nickels to rub together.
“Clay says,” I told Chloe, “that he’s working on a blockbuster of a trade.”
“Good,” said Chloe. “Maybe he’ll get some quality backenders.”
I just let her rant and rave. “Trouble is,” I said—more to myself than to her, seeing as she largely didn’t know what the Jesus she was on about—“he’s got nothing to trade.”
That statement brought along a frosty stillness. In point of fact, Clinton had a couple of good cards in his otherwise plain hand.
Chloe pulled the gormless baby off her tit and pressed him up against her. She gave his back a few little taps and he covered her shoulder with milky blue puke.
The telephone started ringing. I let it go seven or eight times, and back then a single ring was a lot longer than it is nowadays!
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” asked Chloe.
“Nobody’s got any business calling at this time in the morning.”
“Answer it, Percy.”
It wasn’t even Clay, which stung. It was Frankie O’Connor, Clay’s former boss, now one of his underlings. I nodded and said quite a few “uh-yeahs.” Clifford started to wail. The way Frank told it, there was so much money involved that Clinton had no real choice.
“By the by,” I asked, even though my throat was knotted and speech was painful, “you didn’t say where I was going.”
“Oh, right.” O’Connor came up with a lighthearted laugh, as phony as they come. “You’re going to be an American!”
“What?! An Amerk? You can’t do that to me! They are the sorriest collection of trash ever assembled!”
“That’s why they need you.”
“Where the hell is Clay? Is Clinton in the same office as you are now? I got a hunch he is.”
“What? No. No, Clay is somewhere else.”
“I’ll tell you why you lost your job, Frank. You’re one lousy liar.”
And then there was Clay’s sweet voice filling my ear. “Congratulations, Percival, my prince!”
“What the Christ are you doing, Clay? You sold me down the river.”
“At twenty-five thousand per annum, laddy-buck. Hardly slave wages.”
“Yeah, but … Jesus, Clay. I’m the captain. Ask Pat Boyle, he’ll tell you. I’m the heart and soul of the Patriot lineup.”
“Go to New York, my pet, and be the heart and soul of the American lineup.”
“They’re bums! Most of them are too drunk to play. I fit in with the Paddies, Clay-boy. But—”
“Little Leary, I have something to tell you. Papers have been signed. Money has changed hands. This discussion is not going to lead us anywhere. How’s the babe, Clifford?”
“He’s throwing up right now, Clay. I feel like joining him.”
“You’re going to thank me for this, Percival.”
“Uh-yeah.” I cradled the earpiece and went back to the dining room table. “New York,” I told Chloe wearily. “Twenty-five thousand per.”
She was impressed by the figure.
“Money’s not everything,” I muttered.
“I’ll miss you,” said Chloe. She couldn’t have held on to Frank O’Connor’s old job either.
I went into the bedroom and started to pack.
By the time the airplane landed in the Big Apple, I’d resigned myself to the trade. At the airport I met Blue Hermann for the first time, granted him a short interview. Then Blue hailed a taxicab, and he had it drive me to the Forrest Hotel, where I would be living. Many of the Amerks lived in this place, mostly because Jubal St. Amour owned it, and rooms were therefore dirt cheap.
One thing you got to understand is that back then hockey players were young Canucks from small towns, if they happened to be from towns at all. Many of the lads came from farmhouses so isolated that the cows had to ask directions home. Howie Morenz, for instance, was from Swastika, Ontario. Pleasant-sounding place, eh? Bullet Joey Broun was from East Braintree, Manitoba. Jacques La Rivière was from St. Louis-de-Ha!-Ha!, which gets my vote for the all-time strangest place name, even if it is in Quebec. Anyway, the point is that the Amerks were young boys from small Canadian towns and outposts, plunked down amidst the bright lights of New York City. This is why they went how they went. Which is hog-wild.
They all lived on the seventh floor.
When the elevator doors opened, the first thing I saw was Voiceless Richie Reagan chasing a naked bimbo down the hallway. This bimbo had a certain heft to her, and the sight of her running naked down the hallway transfixed me for a moment or two. I stepped out of the elevator (there was a sound—maybe a champagne cork popping, more likely a gunshot) and moved down the hallway checking room numbers. I wanted number seven-oh-three. The first one I come to is seven-three-something. White Wings O’Brien was standing there in his gotchies, pissed as a newt. White Wings grabbed me, pulled me into his room, insisted that I have a drink with him. I escaped and resumed my search for 703. Farther down was an open doorway. I looked in and saw seven men crowded around a small table. Bollicky Bill Stubbs was dealing cards. The room was so thick with cigar smoke even Blue Hermann would have gagged. I recognized several of the boys from hockey games and gave them all a little nod. There was a ton of moola on the table. I moved away. At 712 a tall man wearing little round glasses came out. He held a leash attached to one of those tiny white yap poodles. The poodle took a nip at my ankles as I walked by. I peered through the doorway. There was a buxomy lady reclining on a sofa, and while she wasn’t naked, she was undressed enough that I wondered if there wasn’t some sort of female nudity code enforced by the hotel. The bespectacled man caught me looking and chuckled. By the by, that was Damon Runyon, the writer. He never did like hockey, you know, which I think was due to the razzing he received for having to walk the silly little poodle. Runyon tried to tiptoe past the room containing Bollicky Billy and the stud-poker players, but the poodle cut loose a yap. They sent up a howl. Anyway, finally the numbers on the doors descended to 703. I slipped the key into the lock and went in. My roomie, Little All Bright Peterson, was on his bed with a lady who wasn’t breaking with hotel policy. She was setting on top of him, and he was smoking a stogie and having a quaff. Little All Bright gave me a wave. “Five minutes, huh, pally?”
I shut the door and stood in the hallway for a very long time.