Lost in Cabbagetown, page 21
I didn’t often think about our time back home in Ireland, but as I walked to work that morning, memories of Hogan Place flooded my mind. My pals Al Kennedy and Tony Murphy would have both turned sixteen by now. I could almost picture the three of us standing at the bar in Doolan’s, drinking a pint and trying not to grimace from the bitter taste. After all, this wasn’t just another birthday. This was the day your father took you to the pub for your first pint of Guinness. Today you were finished with school, and your childhood was at an end. Now it was time to go out and find your place in the working world. This was the day you became a man.
Maybe my family forgot it was my birthday, but my workmates didn’t. That evening after work, the guys insisted on taking me out for my first beer. When I looked in a mirror and saw the baby face staring back at me, I was sure I could never pass for a twenty-one-year-old. Jack was too young as well, but at least he had a little stubble on his cheeks to make him look older. When we got to the barroom door I hesitated, but they just pushed me inside.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room. With the lights so low, all I had to do was stay close behind the guys and hope no one would notice me. We took the table in the corner, where I could remain partially hidden in the shadows. I was a little embarrassed when everyone threw a dollar into the centre of the table. I only had two dollars in my pocket, and I needed that to get me through the next few days.
“Don’t worry about it, kid. Consider this your birthday present,” Jack said as he stuck the dollar bill back into my shirt pocket.
Someone at the table waved his hand toward the bar, and in less than a minute the waiter was right there, placing glass after glass of draft beer on our little table. All the while he was there, I kept my hand up, pretending to scratch my face. I need not have worried. He barely looked in my direction. Once he’d picked up the money and put down eight glasses of draft, he was quickly off to the next table.
I had stolen a few sips of beer before. Back then, like most twelve-year-olds, I had just been trying to show off. I didn’t actually enjoy the taste, but it was important to keep a straight face and act like it was something I did all the time.
Now, every eye at the table was on me as I took my first big sip of beer. The taste was as bitter as I remembered, but with them all watching, I forced a smile and smacked my lips like people do when they have finally quenched their thirst. After a few sips, I was starting to get used to the taste. Then one of the guys put a couple of shakes of salt in my glass. After that, the rest went down easy and I was ready for my second. I was just starting my fifth draft when I got a sudden urge to pee. The moment I stood up, I began to feel a little light-headed. Maybe I should have sat back down, but the need to pee far outweighed my fear of being seen. The washroom was all the way over on the far side of the room, but thankfully, no one paid any attention to me.
When I walked back to our table, a little unsteadily, I almost bumped into the waiter. He turned around and looked at me, and I knew the game was up.
He was polite at first. When one of the guys tried to convince him I was twenty-one, he just laughed and told us to leave. But when Jack called him a prick, his attitude changed. There was a little pushing and shoving, and then the bouncer came over and we were all dumped out on the street.
“Ignorant bunch of bastards!” one of my workmates shouted at them, but they were already back inside.
It was very late by now, and most of the guys were ready to head home. Jack and I and one other guy went to the fish and chip shop down near the corner of Dundas and Jarvis. After I’d finished my plate of chips, Jack pulled a mickey of rum from his inside pocket and insisted I take a good swig. I had never tasted anything quite like it before. The smell was bad enough, but then my throat began to burn as I tried to swallow down that first big gulp. They were both laughing at the sight of me, bent over and trying my best not to throw up. One of them tried to egg me into taking another, but that one drink was more than enough for me. As soon as the owner saw the bottle in Jack’s hand, he threatened to call the cops if we didn’t leave immediately.
I didn’t think I was all that drunk, but I was certainly a little wobbly. It was getting close to midnight when I waved goodbye to my friends and started for home. I don’t know if it was the beer, the rum, or all the greasy chips I’d eaten, but by the time I reached Parliament Street, I had thrown up everything in my stomach. I pitied the store owner who would have to clean up the mess I made in front of his door. Looking at my reflection in the store window, I tried to wipe away the mess and make myself more presentable. I managed to clean the stain off my shirt and pants, but the bits of vomit on my shoes would have to wait until the dizziness went away.
The cool night air helped clear my head, but my stomach was still churning when I reached the back door of our house. I could see light from an upstairs window, but the kitchen was dark and empty. If I was really quiet, I could sneak up to bed without anyone seeing me. I no longer cared if anyone remembered my birthday. All I wanted to do was bury my head in a pillow and maybe then the room would stop spinning.
Even in the dark I knew that kitchen like the back of my hand, yet somehow I managed to bump into a chair as I felt my way across the floor. That’s when the lights snapped on and I saw Da standing in the doorway. I could see the disgust on his face as he looked me up and down. “Just look at the state of ya. You should be bloody well ashamed of yourself.”
I don’t know why I smiled, but it just seemed funny. He had hurt me with his words and fists so many times, but not anymore. I had been brought up to believe that you must never speak back to your father. A smile was not an act of defiance, but somehow I had to show him that he couldn’t intimidate me any longer. It had taken me sixteen years to realize that, regardless of what I said or did, he was never going to like me.
When he walked toward me, I didn’t try to move. He could hit me as hard as he liked and I wouldn’t even raise a hand to defend myself. Maybe it was false courage brought on by the alcohol, but in the moment, I had to show him that I wasn’t afraid of him anymore.
Standing in the middle of the kitchen, I waited for the blow to land. But he just stared at me. Whenever Da was angry, he came at me with a fury, ready to let fly with both fists. This time, his demeanour was altogether different. His voice sounded calm as he spoke. “You’re sixteen now and it’s time for you to go. You can sleep here tonight, but you will pack up your things and be out of this house by the time I get home in the morning.”
Maybe I should have spoken up right then, but I was dumbfounded. All I could do was watch him put on his coat and head for the front door. He paused in the hall, and I thought perhaps it had all been some sort of a joke, meant to scare me.
“Don’t be here when I get home” were the final words he said before closing the door and heading off to work.
When Rosaleen came into the kitchen, I was bent over the sink, trying not to puke. I didn’t have to explain what was going on. She had heard the whole thing from the top of the stairs. I could see she was in a terrible state. Whispering so as not to wake the rest of the family upstairs, she kept telling me that it would be all right, but we both knew that wasn’t true. I felt sick to my stomach and my head was splitting, but still the anger welled up inside me. I was angry at Da for his cruelty, angry at myself for my own stupidity, and God help me, I was even angry with Mamie for not being there when I needed her most. The moment the words came out of my mouth, I cursed myself. I could only pray that Mamie would forgive me for thinking such terrible things.
When the sun came up, Rosaleen and I were still sitting at the kitchen table. I was so tired, but I didn’t want to lie down, for fear I wouldn’t wake up before Da came in the door from work. Rosaleen and I had talked through the night, but in the end, we both knew there was nothing to be done. The atmosphere in our house was like a poison vapour, seeping into every crack and crevice and enveloping everyone it touched. Rosaleen was the only one who could stop it. She couldn’t help me, but without her there, the entire family would surely fall to pieces.
I was thankful to have a job to go to that morning. At least I had the next eight hours to think about what to do in the coming days. Rosaleen had given me her last five dollars and stuffed some sandwiches and an apple in a grocery bag, along with my socks and underwear. It is sad to think that everything I had in the world could fit inside one large brown paper bag. When one of the guys saw me coming into the break room with a bag under my arm, he made some joke about me having a lunch big enough for three people.
Fortunately, it was one of our busier mornings and no one had the time to slow down and talk. At lunchtime, I managed to get Wayne on the phone and arrange to stay at his house until I got paid on Friday. I was a little surprised that Wayne and his mother didn’t ask more questions. Considering all the times I had shown up at their door unannounced, I guess they already knew how bad things were between me and my da.
It was kind of Mrs. Boland to let me stay even though their flat was barely big enough for the two of them. I had to sleep on the floor, but she gave me an old piece of carpet to put underneath me to keep the dampness away. I only stayed there for three nights, but I will always be thankful to Wayne and his mother for giving me the time I needed to figure out what to do next.
I wasn’t planning to tell anyone at work about my plight, but after watching me mope around for days, Jack asked me what was going on. I had this idea that perhaps we could get a place together and split the rent, but he was already living with relatives. When I came into the lunchroom the next morning, he was already there, with the newspaper spread across the table. Together we scanned the classifieds section, looking for rooms for rent. There were quite a few, but we only circled the ones close to the downtown core. I tried to pretend I knew what I was doing, but in reality I didn’t have a clue. I was so relieved when Jack said he would help me check a few places after work.
All the rooms look basically the same to me. There was a bed, a dresser, a table, a lamp, and one or two chairs. Thank God Jack was there to ask all the right questions. By the time we were finished, I knew all about mattresses, blankets, sheets, pots and pans, and all the other things I would need on a daily basis. Jack told me that the most important thing to look for was cleanliness. The room might look clean, but he pulled back the blankets to check for any stains on the mattress. How many people shared the washroom in the hall, and how often was it cleaned? Were any meals included in the rent, and what were the rules about cooking in the room?
It was late in the evening by the time we’d looked at most of the boarding houses in the neighbourhood. Thankfully, we finally found a room that seemed to be a good fit, a boarding house near the bottom of Sherbourne Street. The landlady was quite leery of me at first. All of her tenants were older men, and she wasn’t convinced that someone so young could pay the rent. After a lengthy negotiation, she finally agreed to let me stay under two conditions: each week’s rent would have to be paid in advance, and if the rent was even one day late, I would be evicted immediately.
I moved in on Saturday afternoon, after work. The room was quite small, but at least I could walk to work and save the streetcar fare. The rent had started out at thirty dollars a week for full room and board, but Jack had talked the landlady down to twenty for the room only. I wouldn’t be getting any meals, but I could cook in my room if I had my own hot plate.
With my remaining money, I was able to pick up a few cans of vegetable soup, a pound of bologna, a loaf of bread, and some sugar and milk to put in my tea. The tea bags I bought didn’t taste as good as loose leaf, but at least there were no leftover bits to skim from the top of the cup. On Saturday night, I might treat myself to an order of fish and chips, but for the rest of the week I had to get by with toast in the morning, a bologna sandwich to take to work, and a saucepan of soup and some crushed-up crackers for dinner. I managed to pick up a two-burner hot plate and an old metal bread box from a second-hand store. After a couple of weeks, I learned a few tricks for finding bargains. Soup was ten cents a can, but if I could find some dented cans, the store owner would sell them to me for half-price. If I couldn’t find any that were damaged, I would wait until the clerk was otherwise occupied. A couple of hard taps on the edge of the shelf was usually enough to save me from paying full price.
When I turned out the lights on my first night in my new room, I heard the familiar sound of tapping coming from the linoleum floor. I wasn’t sure if it was mice or rats, but I put anything edible inside the bread box, just to be on the safe side.
The landlady gave me clean sheets once a month, but as far as cleaning and washing were concerned, I was on my own. All together, there were four of us sharing a washroom on the second floor. There was only a sink and one of those old-fashioned toilets with a tank suspended high on the wall. When the chain was pulled, the pipes would rattle and the sound of flushing could be heard all over the house. The first time I flushed the toilet in the middle of the night, I was sure I’d woken the whole house. After that, I picked an old coffee can out of the garbage and used it during the night. It was the same thing we had done when I was younger, only now I had to make sure it was empty and hidden behind the dresser before I left for work in the morning.
Our landlady was not the most pleasant woman to deal with. Her abrupt manner reminded me of Sister Agnes, back at St. Martin’s. She didn’t wear a black habit or carry a cane, but I never doubted that she was the one in charge. Either we followed her rules or we were out on our ear.
She certainly knew all the ways to squeeze every last penny from her tenants. I could use the shower in the basement once a week. Anymore than that would cost me a dollar each time. The front parlour was locked during the day, but for fifty cents I could watch television from seven to ten at night. The telephone in the hall had a lock on the dial, but for ten cents she would remove it — and then stand there to make sure I didn’t make a long-distance call.
Even though it had been days since Da threw me out of the house, it didn’t really sink in until that first night in the boarding house. When I closed the door, it dawned on me that for the first time in my life, I was truly alone. Sleep had never come easy for me, but that night seemed endless. I finally dozed off after midnight, only to jump awake at the slightest sound. Like every old house, this one had its own unique set of creaks and groans. I wouldn’t notice them during the day, but late in the evening, when the air was cool, I could hear the pipes rattle and the wooden floors groan. It was like the house was contracting its limbs as it slowly settled down for the night.
Almost a week passed before I met any of the other tenants in the house. During the work week, I might catch a glimpse of one of them in the hall. Sometimes I regretted not having the money to pay for meals. In the morning I would make some toast on the hot plate. But it wasn’t so much the food I missed in the morning. After another long night alone, I just wanted to talk to someone — even a simple good morning from a stranger to break the silence. The kitchen and dining room were at the back of the house, but when I came down the stairs for work, I could smell the coffee and hear the other tenants talking over breakfast. On the weekends, when most of the tenants didn’t have to work, the dining room was the noisiest place in the house. I overheard them complaining about the food, but if they wanted to eat, they had to get there before the landlady closed the dining room at eight o’clock sharp. Missing breakfast would mean waiting until dinner was served at six o’clock in the evening.
Early one Saturday morning, my next-door neighbour knocked on my door. We had nodded at each other in the hallway, but we had never spoken. When he asked me downstairs for coffee, I didn’t want to seem unfriendly, but I knew the landlady would not be pleased to see one of her non-paying tenants sitting in her dining room. As soon as we walked in, I could feel her watching my every move. It was just after seven o’clock, and already the table was crowded with men. Some of them nodded hallo as we sat down, but most were too busy eating. The landlady placed a stack of toast in the middle of the table, only to see every slice disappear in a matter of seconds. The smell of hot coffee and buttered toast was enough to make my mouth water.
I was surprised when the landlady put a cup of coffee down in front of me. She gave me a half-hearted smile when I said thank you. When someone offered me a piece of toast, the look on her face told me to say no. I was hungry enough to eat a loaf of bread, but I would have to settle for a cigarette to go along with my coffee.
Once all the tenants had their fill, there was time to talk. It seemed that everyone smoked in those days, and soon a thick haze hung over the table. Someone made a crack about me only having a coffee and cigarette. He called it a “whore’s breakfast,” and almost everyone laughed. His remark only upset the landlady, who made it quite clear that she wouldn’t tolerate any bad language in her house.
I didn’t go down to the dining room very often, but now that I’d had a chance to meet everyone, I didn’t feel quite so alone. The landlady would not allow alcohol in the house, but that didn’t prevent some of the guys from sneaking it into their rooms. Everyone was busy working during the week, but on Saturday nights we all got together for a beer and some talk in one of the rooms. I was too young to even go into the beer store, but the guys didn’t mind giving me a beer, as long as I brought along an extra pack of cigarettes for all to share. I am sure the landlady had some idea of what was going on, but as long as we kept our voices down and the windows wide open to release the smoke, she never said a word.
Now it made me laugh to think how frightened I had been during my first few days in the house. As it turned out, most of these men were not much different from me. Some were married, but most were single. All of them were from somewhere else. None of them really wanted to be in Toronto, but this was where you came to find work. I hadn’t been alone long enough to give a lot of thought to the future, but listening to them talk, I knew there had to be something better than this. Whether single or married, they all seemed to think that their current situation was only temporary. It was something they had to endure until they could go back to whatever life they had left behind. Some of the men had spent years in that boarding house, yet they still hung on to the dream of going home someday. I would laugh right along with them as they talked of their homes and families. At least for a little while, I didn’t have to think about all the things I had left behind.
