Smoke (24 page)

“I find you.”

The old man looks at his feet. “Right.” He takes another drag and extinguishes the cigarette on the brick wall, tosses it onto the grass. “You're standing here with me when you could be in there with your friends.”

“I don't need them.”

“I see.” The doctor taps the toe of his shoe. “You think a friend is someone you come by easy, is that it? Or a cobweb you brush aside when he gets irritating? Let me tell you something; it's not easy being them either, standing on the sidelines watching you destroy your life. I should know.”

Buster turns sharply. “I didn't destroy my life. The fire did.” “No son, the fire destroyed your face. The rest you've been doing by yourself. Well, not entirely; you've had help from an old man who meddles too much.”

“What are you talking about? Without you I'd be nowhere.”

“You'd be in there,” the doctor points. “You'd be inside getting along with the others.”

“Inside. Big deal.”

“Judy Johnson's in there.”

Buster runs his fingertips along the black ribbon of his fedora. “So what.” He folds his arms across his chest.

“All right, all right. There's nothing to do but tell you another story, because you won't listen to reason. Because you're starting to sound like Solly Levine and look where he wound up.”

“Where?”

“Hold on, first there was a trial. Here, help me down.” The doctor rests his weight on Buster's arm while moving to sit on the stairs. The dark green lawn spreads out before them like a stage and the late April moon, through a navy veil of sky, lights his features. “See, the Collingwood Manor Massacre trial was the beginning of the end for the Purples. That's when Solly was interrogated by police. He became the state's star witness, with near a dozen detectives guarding him. When he was hauled into court he was sure he'd be killed right there on the witness stand. He slumped down, as pale as chicken liver if you ask me.”

“The massacre arrests made front page news. I saw the paper in your office.”

“You did?” Doc John wags his finger in Buster's face. “Shouldn't snoop, son. It might get you into trouble.”

“I wasn't. I was just curious.”

“Well, the Purples never could shake that story. Solly claimed that Bernstein and the others executed the killings and let him go. His testimony paved the way for others to come clean and before they knew what happened, Irving Milberg, Harry Keywell and Ray Bernstein himself were convicted of murder. All three sentenced to life without parole.”

“It's hard to believe Ray finally got caught.”

“It was 1932 and the first time he faced a jury on a murder charge. When the verdicts were read the courtroom erupted like a volcano. Wives and sisters screaming and crying. One girl fainted. Colleagues thumped their fists on tables. It was the usual brouhaha where the Purple Gang was concerned. Court officers restored order by waving their batons in the air and threatening the observers with arrest. The judge banged his gavel. Only the jury was silent. They'd said everything they had to say. Solly was escorted out of the room, and on the twentieth of July, he went into hiding.”

“He got off easy.”

“Nobody deserves a break, is that it? Not Solly, not Donny or Hank.” The doctor gestures inside the hall. “Not your father. Listen, you're all caught up in make-believe and it's interfering with your getting on with things—look at you.” He points to the fedora. “I gave you that hat for fun, not so you'd start inventing excuses to avoid everyone. And by the way, the problem for Solly wasn't that he was a rat like Mo Axler, it was that his stories were inconsistent. Too many discrepancies. Oh sure the police helped him along, lighting cigars behind his ears for encouragement—that made him squeal pretty fast. But after the trial, Solly recanted. He claimed he'd named the wrong names.”

“The Purples must've got to him. He was afraid.”

“Could be.” Doc John nods. “We'll never know for sure. But in the end he told reporters that he wanted to return home and clear his conscience.”

“So he was a good guy after all.”

“Good. Bad.” Doc John puckers his lips, makes his head sway from side to side. “I'll say this much for Solly Levine: honest Detroiters thought he showed courage standing up against the rest and they were right. Courage isn't gleaned from guns or might, Buster—it's having the stomach to go against the grain. That's all. When that case reopened Solly was nowhere to be found. To this day not another soul can say whether he escaped successfully.”

“I bet he did. I bet he's doing all right.”

“That's downright positive-minded. Better watch it or you might start enjoying yourself again.” Doc John tries to stand with the boy's help. “You think you've got it all figured out. You'll be like them, like a Purple, and your worries will be whipped.” He brushes off his pants. “Now I'm sorry if I sound like I'm coming down hard. I don't mean to. But what makes the Purple Gang so special compared with, say, the Boiler Gang in Philly or Chicago's Northside crew—or even this local fellow we've got holding up folks around here? Nothing. A man's just a man, whether his name's Al Capone or Pete Licavoli or even Raymond Bernstein. He's still got to fashion a life for himself and face the consequences.”

“Sure but—”

“No, hear; if you want something worthwhile to mull over think about Solly Levine testifying against the Purples. Think about what it's like living every day with a gun in your mouth. How any minute could be your last, and how you can't trust your closest friends or family. Don't forget those Purples were convicted, son. They were cold-blooded killers who ended up with life in the slammer. Not a fact to let escape.” Doc John turns, places his hand on the door handle. “One more thing.”

“Yeah?” Buster follows inside.

“Even a louse like Ray Bernstein was good to his mother.”

I
N ZENDA TOWNSHIP,
the widow Bozek is about to get the shock of her life as the bandit admits himself into her bedroom by climbing onto the roof of her porch and lifting the window. She is napping in bed and hears nothing of the intrusion at first. The man moves like a shadow across her carpet, his shoes leaving dark wet indents. The room smells of eucalyptus vapo rub and infection. He holds his breath and rummages deftly through a jewellery box on the old woman's dresser. He finds an emerald-and-diamond pendant necklace, a large antique cameo set in onyx and an 18-karat gold diamond engagement ring. The diamond is tear-shaped. He smiles; with this catch he can coast comfortably for a few months. As he slips out of the window and down to the ground once more, Mrs. Bozek stirs. Moments later the chilly wind wakes her; she rises, notices her ransacked dresser, and calls her son, Percy, to report the invasion.

In May the farm is ripe with sour manure and sweat, the smell of ambition. Barn cats parade around with their tails held high and flower beds, circling the house, are just as determined—bulbs poking up through the earth like bald babies pushing their way through a dark and grainy canal. Pussy willows flaunt their height along the side of the road. The land heaves and sighs, moist, damp and dewy. Life is on its way.

Last month Tom took advantage of the first warm sunny days to prepare the greenhouse—added a rich, decayed vegetation collected from local swamp lands, muck, and then steamed the whole greenhouse clean of bacteria which might've still been lurking in the soil. Now he watches the calendar with anxious, greedy eyes. His last crop sold well under the new tobacco marketing board management though he knows better than to feel secure. For a grower, any sense of security is a false one.

The farm will soon become a bustling place again, bustling with local men—Hungarian, Belgian, Dutch and German—and those rough boys from away who hang around the unemployment office in Tillsonburg like pack animals. Unlike Len Rombout, Tom hires them until they drink and flirt with the girls and then he lets them go. They aren't from around Smoke so don't carry the same loyalty to the land. This year there will also be the regular crew—and Simon Vandemaele who will tie. If only Buster would pull himself up by his bootstraps. If only he'd start participating again, they could be fast.

The rectangular glass enclosure is one hundred and fifty feet long and twenty-four feet wide, providing enough plants for thirty-five acres of tobacco. A walkway down the centre divides two twelve foot-wide beds. Tom crawls through them on his hands and knees when checking the soil—all that expectant earth. Steam is supplied by his boilers, a few of them older than he is, older than his father was when he died, and it's delivered by hose to inverted steel pans. In order to kill disease, Tom raises the temperature up to one hundred and eighty degrees and has it penetrating six inches deep into the soil. After he steamed this year, he worked the muck and levelled it by raking. Most recently, he seeded. These are jobs he prefers to do alone. Preparing a greenhouse is the first task in establishing a new growing season, starting the cycle of work all over again, and it always sends a charge throughout his body, the same sensation he felt on his honeymoon with everything before him stretching out new and promising.

“Here, I've made these fresh.” Isabel enters the greenhouse with a late-afternoon snack.

Tom sets the hose down and moves to accept a brownie. Water sloshes out onto the bed. “Hank's gone to grab me a rake,” he says. “Where's Buster?”

“Reading.”

“Again? Jesus! If he can read comics he can rake muck.”

“Go easy. It's not his fault he's lost heart, Thomas.”

Tom's face pinches into a grimace. “Whose fault is it, mine?” The more Isabel coddles the boy the more defensive he becomes. He can't imagine life without tobacco, or understand how one of his own has turned away from it, from him, showing no signs of returning. A day without dirt streaming through his thick fingers is incomprehensible. He is happiest when in command of a rogue army of workers, turning over the land, making money, and he wants this for his children. He bites into the spongy chocolate treat and tastes buttery icing. “Buster's got to get back to the land,” he says with a full mouth. “Before the land won't let him back.” Then he shoves the rest of the brownie into his mouth.

Isabel cocks her head to one side—chin up as if to proffer a challenge. “Let's give it a little more time.”

“How much time? I need help now.” Tom bends to retrieve the hose, walks with it a few feet down the centre of the greenhouse and speaks over his shoulder. “You wanted him back at school before he was ready and I went along with it.” Tom licks his fingers of chocolate crumbs. “If it was up to you Buster wouldn't lift another finger around here. He's been living high off the hog for too long. I'm keeping him out of school this week and maybe the rest of the season. He can help with pulling and planting. It's time for him to earn his keep.”

“All right.” Isabel knows that the surest way to get what she wants is to look trouble squarely in the face and flirt with it, disarm it. In this way she has spun the muddiest of situations into rosy and pink as well as her husband turns dust to dollars. She meets his eyes with a softer gaze. “There's something I should tell you though. Doc John says there's a new procedure. An operation to cover Buster's scars. It's called plastic surgery. Now don't look as though you've just been introduced to a Russian spy. I've given it a good hard think. I told him we'd consider it.”

“Without talking to me first?” Tom feels anger boiling inside his chest. First Buster hangs on the doctor's every word and now his wife too. He throws up his hands. “What about what
I
want?”

“If Buster can be fixed why wouldn't we help him?”

“He can't be fixed, Isabel. He is what he is. And this plastic surgery sounds iffy.”

“I thought you'd like the idea; you're always talking progress.” Tom is speechless. He does plan for all their futures, assuming there will be a future. He wakes each day confident that whatever happens there will be a way to deal with it, and he'll be ready to charge in. But he wasn't when Buster needed him most, not soon enough. He was in the stripping barn looking over equipment when he happened to glance up and discover flames through Buster's window. Everything slowed to a grinding clarity. The wood counter needed a new coat of paint, bits of twine were scattered on the floor. A dried-out tobacco leaf was crumpled in one corner. The barn smelled stale and fresh at once, and there was a nice breeze passing through the open doors. All of this registered while he ran, his muscled legs propelling him forward with the strength of ten men, head down as though dodging grenades, and yet in some profoundly deep and unspoken place inside of himself he expected that Isabel would have beat him to the scene. Isabel had always arrived first with Band-Aids and kisses for their children, with praise and encouragement. But he arrived first, and even so, even after his best effort, it was the doctor whom Buster credits with saving his life.