Pure Spring by Brian Doyle Page B

on,” your father was saying. “Hurry up and get in! The next time we take you anywhere we’ll leave you at home!”
    Your father couldn’t wait to get driving Horrors’ new car.
    Cheap was in the living-room window, saying goodbye.
    Mrs. Laflamme would feed him. Not to worry.
    You drove off. It had started to snow. Big flakes. Mild weather.
    â€œSnowstorm coming. Doesn’t matter to us, though. Not in this machine! We’re going to find Highway 15. Then it’s straight down 15 to Smiths Falls! It’s a long drive. So just sit back and relax!”
    You drove through the thickening storm.
    Phil was happy squeezing his rubber toy, making it squeak and giggling and bubbling.
    Your father, taking a sip from his small rye bottle, was singing.
    Your mother sat staring straight ahead. Your fathersinging. Happy. Another sip of his rye: “There’s no tomorrow...when love is true...”
    Another sip.
    â€œWhat a beautiful machine is this car!”
    Your father, the singer. They loved it in the tavern when he sang. If they only knew what he was like at home!
    â€œThere’s no tomorrow / There’s just tonight!...”

9
Nine Pages
    W E ‘RE ON Cobourg Street near where I used to live on Papineau. We go into Prevost’s Lunch Room and Grocery where I used to go all the time when I was a kid with my friend Billy Batson. The ancient man is still sitting in the corner there in his highchair killing flies. I remember him. Hard to believe he’s still alive. It’s easy in the spring. These flies are very slow. They’re not awake yet.
    I’m a little surprised that Randy’s not stealing from here but I don’t say anything. Then we go down to the corner to St. Patrick Street Confectioners. Same thing.
    Same thing happens in the other little store, Lachaine’s. I used to go there on my way to school. It’s right near Heney Park where an awful thing happened to me one time. A man named Mr. George hurt me there once. But that’s over now.
    â€œI’ve decided,” says Randy, “since we’re pals and everything now, I’m going to take you home to my place for lunch.”
    â€œYour place.”
    â€œYep, I live right down there. Number 60 Cobourg Street, Apartment 403.”
    I look across at number three Papineau, the house where I used to live. And number five, where my hero Buz lived with his mother. And number seven where my friend Billy Batson used to live. And number one. Horseball Laflamme and his big family.
    While Randy’s talking to Mr. Lachaine I stroll down Cobourg Street to Papineau and try to look in the window of my old house, number three. I see a strange couch and a sad-looking table. A small airplane is droning in the sky over Lowertown. The sound of the droning plane makes me think of when I was a little kid, home from school, sick, lying in my mother’s bed under the special comforter, sick with fever, wishing I was in that little plane going somewhere, anywhere, droning away, trailing my life behind me...
    Randy’s back.
    â€œBring your lunch up. We’ll have lunch together.”
    The truck is parked at the back of 60 Cobourg Street, under the fire escape. It’s a big brown apartment building with dirty windows.
    We go in. A little elevator shakes while it takes us to the fourth floor. We go down the dark dirty hallway to his door beside the garbage chute.
    There’s a rusty nail in the door — probably to hang something on — a wreath at Christmas, maybe.
    We go in and we’re in the kitchen. There are dirty dishesall over the place and there’s spilled food on the oilcloth floor.
    â€œI want to show you something,” Randy says. We go in the living room and Randy goes over to a book shelf that’s filled mostly with magazines and old newspapers.
    There’s a folder on the top shelf beside a clock that is stopped and covered with dust. He takes it down and