Rabelais High (cont'd 2)
by King David of the Psalms
In
my years I have seen things you, James, would not believe! We were driving
through Harlem once, my wife and I, and that was our first visit to New York.
My goodness, the expectations that one carries with one into that place! I
admit, I anticipated some encounter with hoodlums, someone wielding a
switchblade, or at least one assault with a deadly weapon. Nothing of the sort.
People at street corners seemed regular enough. Young men and women stood around
smoking and talking, the streets seemed to me emptier than Portage Avenue in
the middle of the day, and the storefronts indicated the possibility of
violence because of the steel bars over all of their windows and doors. Pubs
and small cafés sprinkled the street side. Music, distinctly American, drifted
from alleys and the open windows of apartments. It was a remarkably warm day
for mid November. Nothing out of the ordinary befell me.
We did have one memorable accident. Busy
simply being apprehensive, and then finding that the streets pattern themselves
differently than I was used to, we soon found ourselves unsure of the exit onto
the Manhattan freeway. We did eventually park the station wagon on a street
whose name I cannot for the life of me recall, and I asked a group of loiterers
the way. They nodded and smiled, some of them, but I could understand not a
word. They pointed to a sign above the sidewalk half a block away. Although I
was concerned about leaving Alviera alone there she shushed me and I went. It
happened to be a hole-in-the-wall pub. The
Little Lorian. I smelled the cigarette smoke and the beer immediately, but
I am a man of the Lord and so knew that I was safe. I have always trusted God
to lead me through difficulties such as this. I entered, approached the bar,
and asked the bartender there if he knew the way that I wished to go. He was
about to reply when I noticed him glance behind me to where a group of young
men and two women ringed a pool table.
"Jude, watch the cues there!"
he said. He must have been referring to the clattering of a pool cue that fell
behind me. This same fellow, this Jude, dressed in black and wearing more
jewelry than I am accustomed to in a man, looked at him and then at me and
began to walk over to us carrying the said item in his big hand. I shrunk back,
expecting the worst, but the bartender introduced him to me.
"This is a Canadian, Mr. Jingles, a
preacher, and he wishes to know the way out of Harlem onto the freeway."
Jude shook my hand, with accompanying music from his bracelets and rings,
welcomed me to his community and pointed to one of the two young women there.
"Ask her," he said. "She's
the smart one here." I turned to go to her for this advice when Jude asked
me if I was a betting man. I answered no, of course. Being a preacher kept me,
thankfully, from vices of that sort. He nodded his approval but suggested that
I place a small bet on Moonbeam Rider with him. He was, it seems, a broker of
horse racing bets. A bookie. I felt constraint more than inclination and
without much further remonstrance handed him a Canadian ten dollar bill that he
pocketed and said he would send back to me along with anything it made when the
race was done. The Preakness, he informed me, was to be run next Tuesday. I
left my address on the counter with the keeper and made my way to the side of
the black-haired woman sitting at a table with a glass and watching the pool
game's progress.
I was reminded of the red room that
Catharine Barkley first disliked and then enjoyed. Winnie drew up a table when
she came from changing and asked if I wanted my fortune read. No, I said,
slightly red-faced. She reached over and rubbed my hair. I was cute, she said,
and cuddly.
"Oh, really! Your
palm tells me that you're a dingo. You're one of the old-fashioned, crazy,
do-dare sort of guys who in another age would have been responsible for the
apprehension and ever the demise of criminals such as Billy the Kid." I do
have a wild streak in me and I admitted as much to her
"Show me now," she said.
"There's a Nomad's hangout right across the ally from this hotel. You
can't miss it. It's got a green door. Go knock and ask them if they have any
spare beer." I looked at her as if she were crazy.
"Good Lord, lady!" I said. The
Budweiser tasted fine when I got back from the club, though I must admit that I
am not an expert on the fine points of alcoholic beverages. We had two,
possible three, apiece, toasting each other for the success of the mission,
laughing a little, I admit. I recalled my waiting wife and hurried from there.
"My God," I said to Winnie.
I've got to go. Alvera!" She implored me not to.
"The USA is a fine place to raise a
little hell, " she said. "Or raise a family." This with a
slyness about the corners of her mouth that made my knees weak, my legs wobbly
and my biceps bulge.
God loves even the lowly Holstein tired
of her hay and sick of her swinging teats.
When we arrived back in Winnipeg late the
next evening I found that I had to shovel the snow from the front sidewalk. The
neighbors across the back lane had much more work about it that I. The houses
are larger on Cambridge Street. That can be attractive when one is buying or
selling, but not at the onset of winter when the first snows hit as if the sky
were falling in and nothing, no nothing, feels like it's going right. Give me a
smaller rear entry and driveway any day.
