Lost in Cabbagetown, page 15
It would take two decades and a government inquiry before all the horror stories finally came to light and Pine Ridge was shut down for good. For so many boys like Jimmy, it was twenty years too late.
The fall of 1960 and winter of 1961 were among the wettest on record. All I remember about that time were the long miserable walks to and from school every day. When the winds picked up, I could feel the dampness seeping right through me. Those of us who arrived at school early would find a spot close to the stove before Mr. Burns arrived and ordered us to take our seats. If the janitor was late turning on the stove, Mr. Burns would allow us to keep our coats on during the morning. Still, it was hard to concentrate on school work when all I could think about was trying to stay warm.
The moment the lunch bell rang, Mr. Burns was out the door and off to the teacher’s lounge, leaving us to fend for ourselves. Only the kids with boots and heavy coats could go outside, while the rest of us stood close to the stove, trying to keep warm as we ate our sandwiches. Harold and I always tried to bring a little extra food to school so we could share with our pal Donny.
Donny was still coming to school with bruises, but none of the teachers seem to notice. He never talked about it, but Harold and I knew what was going on. Donny’s father had been laid off work over a month before. Donny would stay away from the house as long as possible, hoping his father would be passed out on the couch when he got home so he could make something to eat and get upstairs before his father woke up.
It is strange how your perspective on things can change over a short period of time. Only a couple of months earlier, when St. Martin’s burned down, we were all relishing the freedom we thought we would have. Now here we were standing around a pot-bellied stove, wishing we could be back in a warm classroom at St. Martin’s.
When the bell rang at three o’clock, I was off and running down Sherbourne, all the way to the drug store on Parliament. I always tried to save a little something from my lunch. On a good day, I could make it to the store in half an hour, leaving me a few minutes to eat whatever leftovers I had before starting my deliveries at four o’clock.
That first hour was usually the most hectic. Once I’d gathered up and sorted all the orders that had accumulated through the afternoon, I had to arrange them so that each package could be delivered in the most efficient way possible. If the bike didn’t breakdown and the weather co-operated, I could normally deliver up to ten orders and be back in time to help close up the store at six o’clock. With the store open late on Friday night and all day on Saturday, I could easily double that number of deliveries and still have a little time to catch up on my homework.
By October, I was working an average of sixteen hours a week. I didn’t want to bring up the subject of money, but finally, in the middle of the month, the old man gave me the raise I had been hoping for. From now on, I would be making fifty cents an hour. He and I were getting along much better, but now that I was making more money, he didn’t like to see me sitting around doing nothing. If I had no deliveries, there was always some cleaning to be done. Once the store was clean, I could head downstairs to the storeroom to rearrange the boxes. Mr. Cohen didn’t like climbing the stairs because of his leg problems, and if he didn’t call me upstairs, I could do most of my homework by closing time.
Those early weeks were relatively easy. The roads were wet, but at least the daylight lasted well into the evening. When the temperature dropped in the late fall, the job became more difficult with every passing day. Some days it took all my concentration just to keep the wheels straight on the slick road surface. No matter how cautious I was, the bike did go out from under me a few times, causing the delivery bags to spill onto the ground. Other than the odd cut or bruise, I was able to keep going, but every day there seemed to be some new problem with the bike. I could only patch the tires so many times before I finally had to buy new inner tubes. Every day I had to tighten the chain, but hitting any big bump would knock it off the sprocket. It only took a few minutes to fix, but then I had to clean the oil and grease from my hands before appearing at a customer’s door. I always hid the problems from Mr. Cohen. He was fair and understanding about many things, but we both knew that without the bike, I could no longer do the job.
The traffic along Parliament and Dundas was bad enough, but nothing could compare to the sheer chaos on Queen Street at five o’clock on a weekday afternoon. Peddling the bike along any of the major arteries was a challenge, but negotiating my way along Queen Street at rush hour could be downright dangerous. The old man didn’t like it when I took too long on a delivery, but nothing he said could make me go any faster.
On an average day, I could put roughly ten miles on the bike, travelling from the slightly more affluent neighbourhood west of Parliament all the way east to River Street and, of course, all the apartment buildings that made up Regent Park. Thankfully, I didn’t have to make many deliveries to the older part of Regent Park, up near Gerrard Street. Still, I felt uneasy whenever I had to go into those red brick apartment buildings. I never found out who had turned me in to the police, but now I had to assume that the kid I punched must know where I lived. I hadn’t seen him since the fight, but I always assumed he and his friends were out there looking for me. When I had a delivery anywhere near Regent Park, I made sure my shirt was untucked. That way, at least, the change pouch I wore around my waist was less visible.
By December, darkness came just after five o’clock, which was right around the time when rush hour traffic reached its peak. Even with a light on my bike, it was difficult to see and be seen as I tried to weave my way through the steady flow of traffic. I had an old pair of woollen mitts, but some afternoons were so cold that I would have to pry my numb fingers from the handlebars. At first I tried thawing my hands under the warm water tap in the basement storeroom, but that only made the pain worse. I thought about quitting many times, but then I would remember Mamie saying she was proud of me, and I knew I couldn’t let her down.
Saturday was the busiest day of the week. From noon until closing time, there was rarely a let-up in the deliveries. Because it was the Jewish Sabbath, there were fewer customers in the store, but that only increased the number of orders I had to deliver.
Somehow, through the bad weather and bumpy roads, I managed to keep the bicycle together. But one Friday evening in late December, my luck finally ran out.
My last delivery was complete. All I had to do now was pedal my way back to the store. Maybe I could actually get home a little early for a change.
Normally, I paid attention when crossing the streetcar tracks, but that evening my mind was somewhere else. As the front wheel dropped into the gap between the tracks, I tried to hit the brakes and turn the handlebars, but the sudden jolt sent me and the bike crashing to the ground. My face hit the steel track and my nose began to bleed. Someone helped me over to the sidewalk and sat me down on the curb. When my head began to clear and I thought everything was going to be all right, I looked at my bike, still lying in the middle of the street. The front wheel was bent and twisted. The tire was off the rim and most of the spokes were bent and broken.
I must have looked a proper sight as I made my way down the street, dragging the wreckage with both arms. Every few steps, I had to stop and check my nose, until it finally stopped bleeding. People stared, but I really didn’t care. All I could think about was losing my job the moment the old man saw the mess I had made of his bike.
But it was Mr. Cohen who came up with a plan to save my job. He would make the Saturday deliveries in his car, giving me the whole day to get a new wheel and tire and fix the bike, ready for Monday. I was grateful and relieved to still have a job, but deep down inside, I was more than a little annoyed. Not only would I not get paid for Saturday, but now I would have to use what little money I had to buy a new wheel and tire.
I was making eight dollars a week, and half of that went to Mamie. I was allowed to keep a dollar, and the rest went into a savings account. I certainly didn’t like the idea of putting my money in some bank, but I was given no choice. Mamie talked about saving for a rainy day, while all I wanted to do was spend my money on comics and candy, or perhaps even that shiny new BB rifle I’d seen in the Eaton’s catalogue.
No thirteen-year-old boy ever wants to admit he was wrong. But now I could see what Mamie had been talking about all along. The rainy day was already here. My meagre savings were about to be wiped out, but at least I had the money to fix the bike and keep my job.
By early spring, we had given up any thoughts of returning to St. Martin’s for what remained of the school year. In March, a continuous string of new student teachers began to appear in our class. Mr. Burns was still there, but for most of the day he would sit in the back of the room while the trainee took over the class. Unfortunately for us, many of them were so new and so nervous that they made a complete mess of whatever subject they were supposed to teach.
If someone had a question before or after class, Mr. Burns was never there to answer. When we could manage to ask him, trying to get a straight answer could be very frustrating. But when it was time to take tests, his laziness worked in our favour. Rather than mark them himself, he would have us pass our paper to the person next to us. If the paper you were marking had too many wrong answers, it was easy to change a failure into a passing grade. Still, we had to be careful to change just enough to ensure we didn’t raise his suspicions.
Not surprisingly, everyone in the class passed that year. I even managed to achieve an overall grade of above average. Oddly enough, when Harold, Donny, and I compared report cards, we all had different grades, but every word in the remarks column was absolutely identical. I was a little annoyed at first, but then we all laughed. Even if he couldn’t be bothered to remember our names, at least we were all moving on to grade eight.
I was nervous that evening when I handed Da my report card. Fred had received his report a few days earlier, and it was as brilliant, as always. No one was prouder than my da when he saw all those perfect scores. At long last, someone in our family was going to make it into high school. After listening to Da’s gushing, I knew that there was nothing I could do to top Fred. But I hoped my report was good enough to avoid most of his usual sarcasm.
I could tell by the look on his face that he was not at all impressed by my efforts, but I was long past caring. All I needed was his signature, and then we could go on ignoring each other for the next six months.
I usually arrived home from work just past nine o’clock on Friday nights. The house was always peaceful and quiet at that time in the evening. Michael, the oldest of my brothers still living at home, and his girlfriend, Nora, had just become engaged, so we rarely saw much of him around the house anymore. Johno and his band were playing at the Brass Rail on Yonge Street, so he wouldn’t get home until the early morning hours.
Even though school was done for the summer, Fred was busy studying upstairs. Now that he was done with grade eight, he had to take an entrance exam if he wanted to get into Neil McNeil Catholic High School in the fall.
When I got home, Marie and David were usually in their pyjamas and sprawled out on the floor, watching television. Five-year-old Philip would sometimes convince Mamie to let him stay up with the others, but usually by nine thirty he would be fast asleep on the rug and Mamie would have to carry him up the stairs to bed.
Da usually worked the afternoon shift and wouldn’t be home until after midnight. When I did manage to catch a glimpse of him, he always looked so tired and worn down. Da was a strong man, but the years of hard work and recurring illness were taking a toll on his health. He was just fifty-five years old, but the deep furrows on his face and his thinning grey hair made him look much older than his years.
Every day when I left for work, Mamie made me promise to be careful riding the bike. She always looked relieved when I came through the door at night. I never told her about the times I fell off the bike or got clipped by a car. That would only add to her worries. As long as I came home safe at night, she didn’t need to hear about all my near misses.
With everyone else busy, I had Mamie all to myself on Friday nights. I would sit at the kitchen table while she heated my dinner up on the stove. On cold winter nights she would make me a big mug of tea, and we would sit at the table talking about our day.
Long after I went to bed, I could still hear her puttering around in the kitchen, waiting for Da. When the streetcars stopped running at midnight, he was left with no choice but to walk home from work. No matter what time he came home, Mamie would be there waiting for him with something to eat and a mug of hot tea.
Chapter 11
It is such a glorious feeling to wake up in the morning and realize that school was over. No need to hop around on the cold floor, trying to get dressed and scribble down some last-minute homework I should have done the night before. Even in the summertime, Mamie would not let us lay about for too long, but just having that extra fifteen or twenty minutes under the covers seemed like luxury. Even a bowl of porridge tasted better when I didn’t have to gulp it down before running off to school.
I was a little disappointed when Mr. Cohen told me I couldn’t work more hours over the summer. I had hoped I could come in at noon and make all the early deliveries. After all the hours I had spent on that bike, driving through snow and ice and rain, I knew the job would be so much easier in the summer. At first I thought the old man was just being cheap, but then I remembered what he had done last Christmas Eve. Instead of my usual eight dollars, he had handed me an envelope with a Christmas card and fifteen dollars inside. And even though they didn’t celebrate Christmas, his wife had made an apple pie for me to take home for the family.
So it wasn’t about having to pay me a few extra dollars. The real problem was much worse than that. Ever since the new Rexall drug store had opened up in early May, our deliveries had been in a steady decline. We still had a fair amount of walk-in traffic, but the old man couldn’t match Rexall’s prices or the sheer variety of items they carried. He believed that his drug store was there to serve the medical needs of his customers. The new store was selling everything from cigarettes to soda pop and candy bars. If Mr. Cohen wanted to survive, he would have to do the same thing.
By July, I was happy just to have a job. Sometimes I could hear the old man mumbling to himself as he filled a delivery order. From what I could tell, he was particularly disgusted with anyone who asked for cigarettes or candy bars to be included in their order. He kept bouncing between English and Polish, but he clearly didn’t like what he was doing. “I am a pharmacist, not some damn variety store salesman!”
When he looked my way, I was quick to nod in agreement with whatever he was saying. In reality, I really didn’t care what someone ordered. As long as there was something to deliver, my job was safe.
At the start of summer, I was working sixteen hours a week, but as time went on, my hours diminished. When I heard the old man and his wife talking in the back, they weren’t the happy conversations I had heard before. Now the talk was serious. She wanted him to give up the store and move before they went broke. He was convinced that things would get better, if only they could hang on for a few more months.
Now that I had all this extra time on my hands, I thought I could see more of my friends. They had dropped by the house from time to time, but I had always been going to or just getting home from work. It would be nice to hang out with Donny and Harold once in a while, I thought. But now I was having a hard time just finding my friends.
I would sometimes see them in line at the movie theatre. I was still barred from the place, so all I could do was wave and keep on going. If I happened to spot Harold’s sister waiting in line, I didn’t care about the usher. I would find some excuse to stop, hoping she would talk to me. Jeanette still ignored me at school, but perhaps if she saw me working at a real job, she might look at me in a different light. Try as I might, I couldn’t even get her to smile in my direction. Soon the line would begin to move, and all I could do was watch that pretty blond head disappear inside the theatre.
It was another of those hot August days where you could almost see the heat shimmering above the asphalt. Carlton Street was the only place to get some relief from the summer sun. The tall trees on either side of the street spread their branches over the middle of the roadway and created an area of perpetual shade. Walking below the thick canopy of leaves always made me feel like I was moving through a tunnel. In the distance, I could see the edge of Riverdale Park, where the tree line ended and the sunlight returned.
I thought about calling on Donny, but that was never a good idea when his father was around. Kenny Bell wasn’t home either, but at least his mother was there to answer the door. Mrs. Bell was a kind and friendly woman, but I was thankful she didn’t invite me inside. When last we spoke, Kenny had told me that things had gotten worse for his family. They never had very much in the way of furniture, but now the few good pieces they owned had been sold just to pay the rent.
I must have knocked on Wayne’s front door three or four times before he finally answered. I hadn’t talked to him since the day we heard about Jimmy’s death. I remember how angry I’d felt seeing him shrugging his shoulders and acting like he didn’t really care that Jimmy was gone. I’d felt like punching him in the mouth, but that wouldn’t have changed anything. After that, I thought it was best if I didn’t see him for a while.
Now, as soon as he opened the door, I could tell something was wrong. I had heard his father had lost his job, but it seemed there was more than that going on. We had been talking for about five minutes when his mother called him from the top of the stairs.
