Read Online Son of a Smaller Hero by Mordecai Richler - Free Book Online Page A

last two weeks of August, when the polio scare was at its worst. But thechildren paid no attention. They shrieked with delight whenever one of their huge mothers descended into the water briefly to duck herself – once, twice – warn the children against swimming out too far and then return – refreshed – to her poker game. The French Canadians were too shocked to complain, but the priests sometimes preached sermons against the indecency of the Jews. (But as Mort Shub said: “Liss’n, it’s their job. A priest’s gotta make a living too.”) At night most of the Jews crowded into the dance-halls at Zimmerman’s and Blatt’s. The kids, like Noah and Gas and Hoppie, climbed up the windows, and, peashooters in their mouths, took careful aim at the dancers’ legs before firing. Fridays, the wives worked extremely hard cleaning and cooking for the sabbath. Everybody got dressed up in the afternoon in anticipation of the arrival of the fathers, who were met in Shawbridge, most of them having arrived on the 6:15 weekend excursion train. Then the procession through Shawbridge, down the hill and across the bridge, began. That event always horrified the residents of that village. Who were those strange, cigar-smoking men, burdened down with watermelons and Kik bottles, yelling to their children, laughing, slapping their wives’ behinds and – worst of all – waving to the sombre Scots who sat petrified on their balconies?
    Noah showed up last.
    “Pinky’s Squealer wants to come with us,” Gas said.
    “Did you tell him where we’re going?”
    “Ixnay,” Gas said. “You think I’m crazy?”
    “He’s got a quarter,” Hoppie said.
    Pinky’s Squealer showed Noah the quarter.
    “All right,” Noah said.
    Old Annie, shaking her head sadly, watched the four boys start off across the fields. Noah led. Hoppie, who came next, was Rabbi Drazen’s son. He was a skinny boy with big brown eyes. His father had a small but devoted following. Hoppie hung around the synagogue every evening and stopped old men on their way to prayers.“Gimme a nickel and I’ll give you a blessink.” He didn’t do too badly. “I’m holy as hell,” he told Noah one evening.
    “What’s the difference between a mailbox and an elephant’s ass?” Gas asked.
    “I dunno,” Pinky’s Squealer replied quickly.
    “I wouldn’t send
you
to mail my letters.”
    Gas was plump, fair-haired, and covered with freckles.
    They turned up the dirt road that led to the Nine Cottages, the sun beating down ruthlessly on their brown bodies. They passed Kravitz’s cottage, Becky Goldberg’s place, and the shapeless shack that housed ten shapeless Cohens.
    There was still lots of blue in the sky but where there were clouds the clouds got very dark. The tall grass at the foot of the mountain was stiff and yellow and made you itch. There were also mushy patches where bulrushes grew, but they avoided those. The mountain was cool, but the boys had a long climb and descent ahead of them. The soft plump ground they tramped on was padded with pine cones, needles, and dead leaves. Sunlight moved deviously among the birch and maple and fir trees and the mountain had a dark, damp smell to it. There was the occasional cawing of crows: they saw two woodpeckers: and, once, a humming-bird. They reached the top of the mountain around one o’clock and sat down on an open patch of ground to eat their lunch. Gas chased around after grasshoppers, storing them in an old mayonnaise jar that had two holes punched in the top. After they had finished their sandwiches they started out again, this time down the other side of the mountain. The foliage thickened, and in their eagerness to get along quickly they scratched their legs and arms in the bush, stumbling into the occasional ditch concealed by leaves and bruising their ankles against stones. They heard voices in the distance. Noah, who had been given the BB gun, pulled back the catch. Gas picked up a rock, Hoppie