Words

The Parkway Plaza cowboys have a code. “If you can’t fuck it, and you can’t drink it, break it.” And they have a very specific attitude towards women. “Good friends are hard to find. Women you can get anywhere.” It is this latter belief, that in later life, Daniel will often turn to his sexual advantage.

The cowboys come from post-war two-bedroom bungalows and rent-subsidized apartments. They come from two-year trade schools. From gas station and factory jobs. From jobs because they want a car, because they want some good clothes, because they can’t stand it at home anymore.

They walk the strip from bowling alley to liquor store. Liquor store to bowling alley. Bowling alley to liquor store. There is nothing else to do. The cowboys walk side-by-side, cigarettes at the corners of their mouths, jackets open to the waist in winter, shoulders hunched against the cold. In summer the uniform is Cowboy King jean jackets and tight black t-shirts. The metal cleats on their Cuban-heeled boots tap out a code mums and dads understand well enough to quickly move aside.

On the way into the downstairs bowling alley, they usually gob on the handrail and leave a wet gooey message for the unwary. Once inside the bowling alley, they plug up the sinks in the bathroom and turn on the taps. They blame this on Edwin who sets pins and cleans up whatever messes the bowlers make.

Edwin is slow. The bowling alley owner underpays him. His mother takes the rest and gives him a tiny allowance. Girls laugh at him and are frightened. He is not allowed to clean the women’s washroom. Edwin will do tricks for money, or for candy, or for fear. He will do a flat-footed tap dance if you ask him, or if you make him. Edwin has a cleft palate and can put his fingers in his mouth and bring them out his nose. The cowboys like this trick the best.

“Come on Edwin. Do your trick. Do your trick and we’ll give you a quarter. Do your trick and you can hang out with us. Do you dance and the same time. Come on Edwin, do your trick. Do your dance.” The voice inside Daniel’s head often asks him if he really wants to be a part of the ugliness of the plaza. He doesn’t have an answer for the voice. He has no idea what his options are.

Almost all the plaza cowboys, and some of the cowgirls, have tattoos. Tattoos come from Bill the Chink’s place. However, Bill is Japanese. Plaza cowboys get tattoos when they’re drunk. They stagger in, pick out their designs and joke around as Bill buzzes them into their arms.

The most popular tattoo is a little red devil called Hot Stuff. Why it is the most popular nobody knows. Some cowboys have elaborate daggers which look as if they pierce the skin. Underneath is often written “born to lose”. Sometimes it is “death before dishonour” or “born to raise hell”. “Born to lose” is the most popular inscription. No one has to ask why. Bill often asks them if they want their name written in Japanese characters under their tattoos. Bill has an odd smile on his face when he asks this. It is just as likely the characters he uses will say “I am a racist asshole.”

Pete’s real dumb. He’s often an embarrassment to his family and sometimes to his friends. Pete’s got more tattoos than half a dozen sailors. He has a scar from a hockey puck under his left eye. The scar reminds you of the dog in the Little Rascals. Except the dog is smarter. Pete’s so dumb he will believe anything if you tell him often enough.

“Man, I am always hungry no matter how much I eat,” Pete says to the group.

It’s because you have a tapeworm,” says one of the guys.

“I do not,” says Bill.

“For sure you do,” says someone else.

“What can I do about it?” asks Bill.

“Well, you have to go to the doctor. the doctor will put a little piece of meat on your tongue.

When the tapeworm smells the meat, it will try to come out to eat it,” says a cowboy.

“He will?” asks Bill

“For sure he will. The doctor will grab the tapeworm with a large pair of tweezers and pull it

out.”

Really?” asks Bill.

“For sure. The tapeworm will take a long time to pull out. It’s at least six feet long and it’s all curled up inside you.”

“Wow!” says Bill. “I think that’s really cool. I’ve never had a pet. My parents won’t let me have one. So, I think I am going to keep the tapeworm. I’m going to call him Fred.”

Chunk has no front teeth. He has “Love” and “Hate” tattooed on his knuckles. Love is on the right hand. Hate is on the left. Chunk looks mean as hell. He looks as if he would kick your eyes out. And he would, if you happened to faint in front of him, and he didn’t like you.

Chunk is not as tough as he looks, and Daniel has figured that out. Daniel is low in the pecking order of the plaza. He gets pushed around. Guys steal his cigarettes. He is a nobody. The only way he can change that is to rise higher in the pecking order. He figures out that Chunk is all thunder and no lightening. He will wait for the next time Chunk tries push him around. When he does, Daniel responds with a left jab that so shocks Chunk he doesn’t respond.

As he stands there stunned, Daniel hits him with a right upside his head and Chunk goes down like a big sack of rice. Chunk does not get up and as he lies on the ground, he spits blood from his mouth and takes out the partial plate Daniel has driven into the roof of his mouth.

Chuck’s time as a supposed tough guy is over. He’s no longer seen as tough, just stupid. Chuck takes Daniel’s place and everyone will now use him for sport. Daniel takes Chuck’s place further up the pecking order and his life at Parkway Plaza gets immeasurably better. The voice inside Daniel’s head asks him if this is who he really wants to be. Does he actually want to do what it takes to be a part of the Parkway Plaza mob?

Daniel Lehmann is sitting in his living room listening to the never-ending travails of his sixteen-year-old daughter, Lina, who has come to spend the summer with him. Her current complaints are about the guy she was dating and who she broke up with just before she came to see him.

“I really checked him out. I wasn’t going to have anything to do with him if he was a jerk. But he turned out to be a jerk anyway.”

Daniel is somewhat hesitant to ask exactly what the nature of his jerkism was. He is not sure how much he wants to know. “Does the jerk have a name?” he asks. And what does the jerk do? Do you go to school with him?”

“Right now, he is driving a tow truck,” Lena responds. “He’s also the goalie for our hockey team.”

“How old is this guy?” asks Daniel who does his best to not make the question sound like part of parental interrogation.

“Don’t get all wired up,” Luna says. “He’s only nineteen. He went to my high school.”

“What exactly did you do to check him out?” Daniel asks.

Lana gives Daniel a look that says she thinks he is dense as a brick. “I asked other girls who know him what he was like. I talked to his friends about what kind of guy he was. Everyone said he was a real nice guy. Honest and solid.”

“I take it that didn’t hold true,” says Daniel.

“Well, no one told me he would cheat on me. He was supposed to be the one,” Luna says, again with the look that challenges his intelligence.

The one? Daniel doesn’t think his daughter is old enough to find the one. Saying so would no doubt lead to an argument between them. Instead, he decides to do something different. He will be the kind of parent he never had.

Once, when he was not much older than his daughter, he wrote to his mother about the challenges of finding himself. That letter was returned with a message written on it: “This sounds like a soap opera.” Remembering how much that stung, Daniel decides to take a different approach.

“I am sorry that it didn’t work out for you sweetie. But you know there are guarantees in life. It’s like buying a car. No matter what the reputation of the vehicle is, you can still find yourself stuck with a lemon.”

Lana gives him the look. “That’s the best you can do? Cars?” she says.

“No honey, I can do a whole lot better than that” Daniel says. “I think it’s important to recognize that some people are bridges between two points and some people are destinations. They both have value. The trick is not to get them mixed up.”

Again, Lina gives Daniel the look, and as she gets up to leave the room, says, “Spare me your personal philosophies.”

Later that day, when the two of them are eating supper, Lana starts to complain about not being able to turn off her brain. “I am always thinking,” she says. “My brain is always working. There’s never a moment when there’s nothing going on inside my head. I am always thinking about something.”

“Ah yes,” says Daniel. “You’re not alone in experiencing that. But more important are the long-term consequences and what they cause you to have.”

“Like what?” asks Lina.

“It causes you to have personal philosophies,” says Daniel.

Lina gives him a look that says, “I can see them lowering your coffin.”

By the time Daniel is seven, he knows all about rules, regulations, authority, punishment, and the place in the world that has been designated to him. He knows he must line up in silence when the school bell rings. As he discovered, failure to do so results in getting the strap. He knows boys must never go onto the girls’ side of the school. Violating that rule will also get you the strap.

He knows that even the slightest infraction in class will get him the strap. He knows that correct spelling is all-important. He discovered that after he was given the strap for spelling “of” as “uv.”

He knows adults can hit you as much as they like, if they are teachers.

He knows he must memorize all the questions and answers in the Baltimore Catechism or he will never make his first communion and will never get into heaven. He knows he should think of his soul as if it were a milk bottle. Venial sins put black dots on his soul; a mortal sin will turn it completely black, but confession turns it white again. However, after the Guardian Angel incident, he has begun to wonder about the truth of what he is being told.

Daniel knows it is perfectly normal for children to march around the school yard following a statue of the Blessed Virgin adorned with a crown of flowers while singing “Oh Mary, we crown you with blossoms today. Queen of the angels, queen of the May.” He knows it is a mortal sin to eat meat on Friday during Lent and that if he does so, and then is hit by a car and killed, he will go directly to hell.

He knows he is required to march to church every first Friday of the month. Doing so for a full year and then dying is a direct ticket to heaven. He knows if he is wearing a brown, cloth scapular medal when he dies, he will go straight to heaven and that the metal scapulars do not offer the same benefit. He wishes he had a cloth scapular instead of the metal one he wears.

He knows unbaptized babies are sent to Limbo when they die and never get out even at the end of the world. Apparently, limbo is filled with African babies. He knows if you are a bad actor, but not a really bad actor, you will go to purgatory. He knows if you say the prayer on indulgence cards, you can limit the amount of time someone will spend in purgatory. And if you say a plenary indulgence, you will get them out right away.

He knows he must bring aid to the poor and helpless whenever it is possible to do so. He also knows the best thing he can do for a dying pagan is to baptize them, turn them into a Catholic, and get them a free ride to heaven. That seems like a really good thing to do for a pagan.

Having a squirt gun is all Daniel can think about. Lots of kids have them at school. He wants to know why he is the only kid who doesn’t have one.  When he asks his father if he will buy him one, his father looks at him in shock. “How much is it?” he asks. “Ten cents,” Daniel says. “Wait here,” says his father pointing at the living room sofa. A short time later, his father returns with a package of two rolls of toilet paper and a can of tomato soup.

“Do you know how much these things cost?” he asks Daniel. Daniel has no idea of what either toilet paper or soup cost and says nothing. “Ten cents for the soup and ten cents for the toilet paper,” says his father shaking his head in disbelief. “So, what would you rather have, something warm to eat, something to wipe your bum with, or a squirt gun.” Daniel considers answering his father’s question, but changes his mind.

After his father’s lecture about how important it is to spend every cent carefully and not on anything unnecessary, Daniel begins to think about the place of his family in the world. For the first time, Daniel wonders if his family is poor. He had heard about poor people, but has never seen himself as one of them. But it occurs to him that he does not know anyone else who lives with eight other people in a very small post war bungalow. None of the kids he knows get only one present at Christmas and who feel lucky that their one present isn’t a pair of socks. None of the other kids he knows have parents who don’t own a car. None of the other seven-year-old kids he knows have a paper route. There is no doubt his family is poor. He decides he will pray to Saint Theresa for help in getting his squirt gun.

Saint Theresa’s Shrine of the Little Flower is Daniel’s family church. Every Sunday the family walks the mile from their home to attend mass. Even at seven, Daniel finds the church strange looking. It is small and mimics the architecture of Mexico and the shrines built in Southern California. Daniel likes the church; it feels cosey. In school, he was taught about the symbolism that can be found in any Catholic church. He knows when the red light that hangs near the altar is lit, it means there is a consecrated eucharist in the tabernacle. The bell ringing symbolizes upraised voices in worship. The smoke from the incense use during high mass symbolizes prayers going to heaven.

Daniel particularly likes Benediction on Sundays. He accompanies his mother and listens to her sing. Singing energizes his mother, her face shines when she is singing. Her clear, alto voice can be heard above all the others. When he was younger, would put his mouth on the pew handrail and taste the salt from previous parishioners until his mother told him it was a disgusting habit and he should stop immediately. He did as he was told, but was always tempted to taste the salt again.

At Benediction, shortly after his father turned down his request for a squirt gun, Daniel sees something in church he has never noticed before. For some reason, he and his mother would inevitably end up on the right side of the church. This time they are on the left side of the church beside a small side altar with a place to kneel in front of a plaster angel. He watches as a man enters the side altar, says a quick prayer, and then takes a coin and appears to feed it to the angel. The angel nods its head when the coin goes in. Daniel knows that whatever coins are inserted, they aren’t going directly to God. If money goes in, somehow the money has to come out. He decides Saint Theresa is sending him a message that she knows he is poor and wants him to have the squirt gun. She is showing him how to go about getting it. Daniel decides that he needs a plan. He knows getting money from the angel will have to be achieved when nobody else is in the church. Luckily for him, the church’s doors are never locked.

The church sits at the corner of Kingston Road and Midland Avenue and he has to pass by it every day on his way home. Usually, he will walk home with his older brother Micky. He has to wait until he finds himself walking home alone. When the day comes, he is ready for action.

Daniel steps into the church foyer, scans the interior of the church, and finds it empty. He moves inside and stands by the holy water font inhaling the familiar scent of the incense used in high masses and at Benediction. He stands there questioning whether or not he should actually do what he has planned on doing. The plan wins, and he moves toward the side altar. He stands in front of the angel that holds a bag with a slot in it for coins. The angel seems to be looking at him and questioning what he is doing. Daniel stops looking at the angel and checks the back of the statue. He sees there is a small drawer. When he opens it, he finds it chock-a-block with coins.

As tempted as he is to take all the coins, Daniel only takes the dime Saint Theresa wants him to have. The deed is quickly done and soon Daniel is outside the church. There is no question as to what to do next. He heads across the street to a small store in a grey, dilapidated building on Kingston Road that was once a stagecoach shop on the route from Toronto to Montreal. The history of the building doesn’t interest Daniel. It is what’s inside that draws him. He knows that in an ancient, wood and glass display case is the object of his desire. Once inside, he stands in front of the case looking at the miniature, shiny, black luger with the orange filler cap just above the grip handle.

“Can I help you” asks the store owner who closely watches each kid who comes into his shop.

“I want that squirt gun,” says Daniel pointing to the one in the case.

“A lot of kids want that one,” responds the store owner who is sure this exchange will come to nothing. “Have you got the money?”

“Yes,” says Daniel holding up his shiny dime from Saint Theresa.

The store owner sighs as he reaches into the case for the squirt gun and wonders where the you’ll-grow-into-them kid in front of him has ten cents to spend. Most of the similarly-dressed kids who come into his store are there to steal not to buy. He hands the squirt gun to Daniel who lovingly cradles it in both hands. It is even more beautiful than it has looked in the case every time he came to look at it. Daniel is ecstatic as he leaves the store.

Once outside, he looks across the street at The Shrine of Saint Theresa of the Little Flower, and ecstasy immediately turns to guilt. It is not the little kind of guilt Daniel normally admits to in confession. This is way big guilt. He has stolen from God! But he has learned in school that he can get rid of the guilt. What does he know about God and sin? A lot he realizes, he hears about it every day. It’s only the sixth commandment. It’s not like he murdered someone. Though, he did recently have to confess to threatening to kill his brother when they were fighting. Penance was five Hail Marys.

God will forgive him for stealing a dime. He knows that. What does he know about how to get forgiveness for stealing? He will have to do some sort of penance. It’s only a dime. So, two Our Fathers and five Hail Marys? There is another step. What is that complicated word they use for it? Means something like having to give back the thing you stole.

Daniel wonders just how he can give back the dime he doesn’t have. Leaving the squirt gun with the angel won’t do it. Maybe the store owner will take it back and give him his dime. He is not sure that can be done, but another glance at the scene of the crime convinces him he has to try. He re-enters the store and stands in front of the cash register.

“You back again kid?” asks the owner. “Did you forget something?”

 “No,” responds Daniel. “I want to give you back this squirt gun,” he says while holding out the gun for the store owner to see.

The store owner is perplexed. No kid has ever come in and asked for a refund. “Why should I do that?”

“Because I really need my dime back. It’s really important that I have it,” Daniel says in his best please-help-me voice.

“So let me see if I understand,” says the store owner. “Five minutes ago, you didn’t need the dime for anything more important than a squirt gun. And now there is something more important that you need the dime for.”

“Yes,” Daniel says.

“Tough luck,” the store keeper says.

“That’s not fair,” Daniel says.

“Welcome to the world,” says the store owner.

Daniel is left with the challenge of figuring out what he should do next. He has stolen from God and that is probably a mortal sin. If he dies, he will go to hell. Even if he goes to confession, he won’t be given absolution until he gives the dime back. Suddenly, he has an idea and he heads back across the road to the little church.

The Church is still empty. He slithers over to the holy water font, pulls the squirt gun’s red plug, and quickly fills the gun with holy water. In a few minutes he is back out on the street. He is feeling good. He has turned a bad situation into a good one. The squirt gun will enable him to do God’s work. If the comes across a pagan in danger of death, he can produce the four squirts necessary for salvation.

Squirt one: “I baptize thee.”

Squirt two: “In the name of the Father.”

Squirt three. “The son.”

Squirt four: “And the Holy Ghost.”

Sometime later, Daniel trades his squirt gun for a big bag of marbles. Daniel wants to tell the gun’s new owner what he is required to do with it. In the end, he decides God will let him know, and he never thinks about the squirt gun again.

“Lord Hades, what question does this story spark in you?” asks Lucas.

“My question is does this boy become a man with a firm moral centre that will guide him for the rest of his life?” Hades responds, and again Lucas asks the judges to record their answers.