The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz Page 5

  Simcha’s stature increased immensely when it became known that he was respected even among the Gentiles in the district. That came about after Blondin the blacksmith had been kicked by a horse. Simcha, not the first man on the scene, forced Blondin to drink some brandy and set the broken bone in his leg before the doctor came. After that whenever there was an accident as far as the lead foundry eight blocks away on one side and the sawmill nine blocks away on the other, Simcha was sent for.

  The old grizzled man would not talk about his private life, but there was one thing that even he couldn’t hide. His firstborn son, Benjy, was a delight to him. The others would often see Simcha Kravitz coming out of the synagogue and walking down St. Dominique Street holding the boy’s hand, and that, if you knew the man, seemed such a proud and difficult display of intimacy that the others would turn away embarrassed. Those who liked him, the majority, and knew about his bad life with his wife hoped that Benjy would justify his love. But some of the others, men who had broken down in the shop and still more who owed him money they couldn’t repay, sensed that here at last Simcha was vulnerable and they wished bad luck on Benjy.

  “He’s got his mother’s dirty mouth.”

  “He’s fat and feminine. Poor Simcha. He doesn’t see.”

  But fat, caustic tongue, and other failures too, Benjy prospered. And more. He revered his father and did not once abuse the old man’s love. He was a shrewd boy, intelligent and quick and without fear of the new country, and he undoubtedly had, as Katansky put it, the golden touch. The fat teen-age boy who ventured into the country to sell the farmers reams of cloth and boots and cutlery was, at twenty-six, the owner of a basement blouse factory. From the beginning he paid the highest wages and like his father lent money and, though he was loquacious, he never repeated a confidence. On Saturday mornings father and son could be seen standing side by side in the synagogue, and when Benjy began to read Mencken and Dreiser and no longer came to pray his father said: “Benjy does what he believes. That’s his right.”

  Nobody, not even Katansky, could have accused Benjy of marrying for money. The bride was a pants presser’s daughter. A beauty. Ida was a slender girl with curly red hair and a long delicate neck and white skin. She went everywhere with Benjy and everywhere she went with him she could not stop looking at him. The old man adored her too. He often brought her vegetables from his garden and on Sunday afternoons the three of them had a habit of going for a drive, leaving Mrs. Kravitz and Max and Minnie and their children to wait at home. A year later, when Simcha’s wife died, he refused to go and live with Benjy and Ida; he said it would not be wise, and he continued to live alone. Then the trouble started.

  “I went to see Benjy in his office yesterday,” Adler said, “and I’d swear he was drunk.”

  Ida began to take trips alone and the round-shouldered men in the shoe repair shop began to ask questions.

  “When are they going to have children?”

  “These modern marriages. Oi.”

  Simcha never replied and the questions stopped for a time. Simcha was hurt because Benjy did not visit very often these days and when he did come to the house it was only after he had had a lot to drink. Then one day Adler came into the shop and patted Simcha tenderly on the back. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I hear your daughter-in-law’s off in Miami again,” Katansky said.

  At the synagogue the other old men became sad and gentle with him. Simcha never asked why. He took his regular seat every Saturday morning and acknowledged the others’ sympathetic looks with the stiffest of nods. But he began to look at the rest of his family with more curiosity and, without any preamble, he took Duddy into the back yard one Sunday morning to teach him how to plant and fertilize and pull out the killing weeds. Then, one day soon after Ida had left on another trip, he sent for Benjy. This was the first time he had ever actually asked his son to come to see him.

  “If there’s something the matter with her I’m your father and you can tell me.”

  Benjy turned to go.

  “Strangers know something I don’t know.”

  “It’s Max. He talks too much.”

  “Max is a fool.”

  When Benjy came again about six months later Duddy was working with his grandfather in the back yard. He watched his uncle follow his grandfather into the kitchen. Duddy couldn’t hear what was said, but only two minutes later Uncle Benjy came out of the house carrying what looked like a little jar of preserves. Seeing Duddy, he stopped and gave the boy a frightening look. “If you hurt him…”

  “Wha’?”

  But he didn’t finish or explain. He walked off, staggering a little, and Duddy went back to pulling weeds. Simcha joined him about a half hour later. “Your grandfather was a failure in this country,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Your Uncle Benjy with all his money is nothing too. Of your father I won’t even speak.”

  The old man squashed a mosquito against his cheek with a surprisingly quick hand.

  “A man without land is nobody. Remember that, Duddel.”

  Duddy was seven at the time, and a year earlier his mother had enrolled him in the Talmud Torah parochial school. Uncle Benjy was going through his Zionist phase at the time, and he paid the tuition. Uncle Benjy also knew that his father, whom he hardly ever saw these days, walked hand in hand with Duddy on St. Dominique Street. But the round-shouldered men did not wonder or turn away when they saw Simcha walking with his grandson. The old man had no more enemies — even Katansky pitied him. The round-shouldered old men looked at Duddy and decided he was mean, a crafty boy, and they hoped he would not hurt Simcha too hard.

  9

  At the parochial school until he was thirteen years old Duddy met many boys who came from families that were much better off than his own and on the least pretext he fought with them. Those who were too big to beat up he tried to become friendly with. He taught them how to steal at Kresge’s and split streetcar tickets so that one could be used twice, how to smoke with bubble pipes, and the way babies were made. After he had been at the school for three years mothers warned their children not to play with that Kravitz boy. But boys and girls alike were drawn to dark, skinny Duddy, and those who were excluded from his gang, the Warriors, felt the snub deeply.

  Such a boy was blond, curly-haired Milty Halpirin, the real estate agent’s son. Milty’s mother drove him to school every day. He was an only child and he was not allowed to ride a bicycle or eat crabapples. Duddy delighted in tormenting him, while Milty, on his side, yearned to join the Warriors. So one day Duddy said it would be O.K. if only Milty agreed to drink the secret initiation potion first. The potion, made up of water, red ink, baking soda, pepper, ketchup, a glob of chicken fat and, at the last minute, a squirt of Aqua Velva, went down with surprising ease. Afterwards, however, Duddy feigned hysteria.

  “Jeez. This is terrible. I made a terrible mistake.”

  “What is it?”

  “The wrong recipe. Jeez.”

  “But I drank it. You said if I drank it I could become a Warrior. You swore to God, Duddy.”

  “It’s terrible,” Duddy said, “but this means your beezer is a cinch to fall off and you’ll never grow a bush. And Milty, if a guy doesn’t grow a bush…” Milty ran off crying and that night he was violently ill.

  “What is it, pussy-lamb?”

  “I’m never going to grow a bush, Mummy.”

  “What?”

  “Duddy Kravitz says…”

  Max Kravitz was called in once more by the principal and Duddy became the first boy ever to be suspended from the parochial school: he was sent home for a week. Milty was terrified. He lived in an enormous house alongside the mountain, and it was he who answered the door when Duddy showed up with three other Warriors the following Saturday afternoon. “What do you want?” he asked in a small voice.

  “Why Milty, boy, we’ve come to play with you.”

  “Hiya, Milty old pal.”

  Milty hes
itated. The maid had gone out for a walk; he was all alone.

  “You never came to play with me before.”

  “Jeez. Aren’t you going to let us in, Milty?”

  “No.”

  “Wouldn’t you still like to become a Warrior like?”

  “You mustn’t touch anything,” Milty said, opening the door. “You promise?”

  Duddy crossed his heart. So did the others.

  “Some dump, eh, guys? Where does your old man keep his cigs?”

  “You can’t stay. You have to go.”

  “Gee whiz, Milty.”

  “You want to play monopoly?” Milty asked.

  “Monopoly! Jeez. Where do your mother and father sleep? Have they got the same bed like?”

  Milty bit his thumb.

  “He’s going to cwy, guys.”

  “I thought you wanted to play with me.”

  “Sure. Sure we do.”

  Milty watched, terrified, as Duddy wandered about the living room examining china figurines here and there. A rubber plant stood before the glass doors that led into the garden. It reached almost to the ceiling. Duddy stopped to stare at it.

  “Why don’t we sit in the garden, Milty?”

  “We mustn’t.”

  Mrs. Halpirin, an amateur horticulturist, was strict about the garden.

  “I thought we were pals, Milty.”

  Milty led the boys into the garden. The five of them sat down on the swing and Duddy told them a story about his brother Bradley. “The poor jerk. Jeez. I got a letter from him only yesterday aft and he’s going to try and escape. Otherwise he’d have to stay in the Foreign Legion for another two years, you know.”

  “No kidding?”

  “If he makes it he’s going to come back here for me. He’s going to take me to South America. We’re going to get a yacht. I mean all he has to do once he’s out is dig up that buried money and —”

  “How could he write you he’s going to try and escape?” Milty asked. “Don’t they read his mail? My father told me that in the army letters —”

  “You poor stupid jerkhead. Haven’t you ever heard of invisible ink? Hey,” Duddy said, jumping up, “what’s wrong with the tulips?”

  “What do you mean what’s wrong with the tulips?”

  “Why, they’re closed.” Duddy looked horrified.

  “So what?”

  “Tulips should be opened,” Duddy said.

  “Should they?”

  “Hey, what kind of a stupid jerk are you anyway? Ask Bobby.”

  “Sure they should be opened.”

  Duddy bent down to pluck a tulip.

  “Don’t touch anything.”

  “I just wanted to show you.”

  Milty hesitated. “All right,” he said. “But only one. Promise?”

  “On my word of honor.” Duddy picked up a tulip and opened it carefully. “There,” he said, “doesn’t that look better?”

  “Wow.”

  “How beautiful.”

  Even Milty had to admit that the tulip looked better opened and, as a nice surprise for his mother, he helped Duddy and the others open every tulip in the garden.

  “My mommy will be home soon,” Milty said. “She’ll give us milk and apple pie.”

  “Naw,” Duddy said. “I think we’d better go. See you.”

  Duddy Kravitz’s Warriors operated in wartime and many of their activities were colored by the conflagration in Europe. Take their tussle with the CPC, for instance.

  What with so many able-bodied young men already stationed overseas in 1943, Montreal, the world’s largest inland seaport, seemed to invite enemy attack. The Nips and even the hated Huns, it’s true, were some distance away, but remembering Pearl Harbor, the city played it safe. Older citizens, those who couldn’t fight in the regular army, joined the Canadian Provost Corps, a sort of civil defense organization. Members of the CPC were issued steel helmets and dark blue zipper suits of the type that Churchill had made popular. The officer in charge of Duddy’s neighborhood — tubby, middle-aged Benny Feinberg — was seldom without his helmet, his suit, or an enormous flashlight that he wore strapped to his belt. Feinberg’s zeal did not go down well on St. Urbain Street, and the first time he marched past Moe’s Cigar Store the dangling flashlight inspired some rather obvious jokes. To these Feinberg was too dignified to make a reply, but when Moe observed, “No wonder we haven’t opened a second front yet. With Montgomery tied down in Libya and Feinberg looking after things here, who have they got left to take command?” Feinberg felt that he had been pushed too far.

  “A bunch of slackers,” he said, “the whole lousy lot of you.”

  The Warriors, to begin with, were on the side of the CPC to the man. Feinberg had assured them that in the event of an air raid they would all be evacuated to the mountains. Some of them, he said, might even be orphaned before the war was done, and this they took to be a promise. Feinberg and a few other CPC enthusiasts aside, the Warriors probably longed for the devastation of Montreal more than anyone. A direct hit, Feinberg warned them, might kill and maim “untold” hundreds of people. They were left with only one worry. The bombers might miss their chosen targets. Long into the night they once debated whether or not it would be sabotage — could a boy be hanged, for instance — if he painted a bull’s-eye on the roof of the Talmud Torah.

  Then the tide, so to speak, turned. The Warriors discovered that behind their backs Feinberg had given instructions and issued a real first aid kit to a Y.M.H.A. club, and Duddy decided to fix him. His first chance came the night of the blackout. It was, to be sure, only a practice blackout, but real sirens were to sound the alert. The streets were to be cleared and all blinds were to be drawn. The CPC was to be out in force checking for offenders and, according to Feinberg, saboteurs and dirty spies.

  Five minutes after the sirens wailed, leaving the city in darkness, the Warriors, faces smeared with mud, commando style, crept two by two down St. Urbain Street, spilling kerosene on the street here and there; and then they dispersed to the balconies and rooftops. After Feinberg and his men had passed, searching windows for telltale strips of yellow, Duddy slipped two fingers into his mouth and whistled as loud as he could. All along the street clothespin guns came out and matches were slipped into place. Duddy counted to ten and whistled again. The guns were fired simultaneously. As the matches struck the pavement most of them ignited immediately and in an instant St. Urbain Street was ablaze with light. As it so happened an airplane, probably New York bound, was flying overhead at the time. Feinberg, they said, was the first to take cover, but there were those who insisted that Lance Corporal Lerner beat him to it. Others, like Shubin, did not dishonor the blue zipper suit. Shubin rushed quickly to the scene of the enemy action, and but for the fact that he had put on his gas mask in some haste — an impediment to movement and vision — he would have caught Duddy Kravitz anyway. As it was, all the Warriors escaped.

  When the all-clear sounded several theories were hotly disputed at Moe’s Cigar Store. During the blackout OPEN UP A SECOND FRONT NOW stickers had been pasted on many windows and it was Debrofsky’s theory that the communists were responsible for the street fires too. Lyman didn’t agree. He believed that Adrien Arcand’s boys, the local fascist group, were responsible for the fires. Moe muttered something about the newly arrived refugee who had moved in around the corner and was rumored to have a short-wave radio set. But when the incident was mentioned in the Gazette next morning it was clearly stated that a group of juvenile delinquents had been responsible for the outrage.

  “Of course. What else do you want them to say?” Feinberg demanded when cornered. “You expect them to admit we got spies in Montreal?”

  But a week later Feinberg stopped wearing his blue zipper suit and the St. Urbain Street section of the CPC could no longer be considered an effective fighting force.

  10

  Duddy Kravitz’s other parochial school activities were decidedly more commercial. He got his start in stamps,
like so many other boys, by answering an advertisement for salesmen in Tip Top Comics. The company, one of many, sent you stamps on approval sheets to be sold. In payment, you got some free stamps, catalogues, and sometimes even a commission. Unlike the other boys, however, Duddy soon established two fascinating facts about the companies in question. Once you had sold successfully two or three times, making a prompt return of money to the company, you were sent a truly expensive kit of approvals to handle. The other fact was that a minor couldn’t be sued — certainly not by an American company. So, dealing with seven companies under a variety of pseudonyms, he eventually worked each one of them up to the truly expensive approval kit point, and then he was never heard from again.

  Some of his stamp business profits Duddy invested in the comic book market when, during the war, American ones were hard to come by due to dollar restrictions. (Canadian comics, not even printed in color, were unreadable.) He bought, at twenty cents apiece, a considerable quantity of contraband American comics, and these he rented out for three cents a day until glue and Scotch tape would no longer hold them together. This led him into another and more questionable channel of distribution. One of Duddy’s comic book suppliers, a Park Avenue newsstand proprietor named Barney, showed him one day a sixteen-page comic-book-like production titled Dick Tracy’s Night Out. drawings, crude black and white copies of the original, were obviously the work of a local artist and printer. The books looked shoddy. In the very first frame, however, Dick Tracy, sporting an enormous erection with the words “drip, drip, drip” and an arrow pointing to it from underneath, looked ravenously at Tess Trueheart. Miss Trueheart was clad only in black panties. The adventure, begun there, continued for fifteen more action-packed pages, and the whole book sold for seventy-five cents retail. There were many other volumes available in the same series: Li’I Abner Gets Daisy Mae, Terry and the Dragon Lady, Blondie Plays Strip Poker, Gasoline Alley Gang Bang, more.