United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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Pattern for Henry Don Rodgers A BOY kicked the soccer ball up the field and ■someone else raced him for it. The knot of boys by the fence gradually peeled away in loud pursuit and Henry was left lying in the dirt. A thin hand wiped tears from frightened dark eyes, smearing them across a sallow face which looked older than its twelve years. Slowly he got to his feet, slowly pushed through the gate and slowly headed for home. Henry didn’t mind being beaten up. He was used to it. Nearly every boy in the class had had a poke at Henry. Not because he was offensive but because he was not offensive at all. He was “Poky” and “Dreamer,” and easy to beat up. A block from the schoolyard he had forgotten his defeat entirely and stopped to watch a gang of men patching the asphalt. From them he dawdled up the avenue, gazing in¬ tently into store windows he had gazed into the night before, and the night before that, and every night of the school week. The dark eyes seemed to expand as they fell on guitars and statuettes, on cabbages and oranges, on watches and rings and on platters of fish. At intersec¬ tions his little figure halted, hands behind back and feet apart, to watch with nervous excite¬ ment the streams of square black cars and throbbing trucks. Along a chalk-mosaiced side¬ walk he kicked a wad of newspaper. He kicked a piece of board. He kicked a tin can. He went home, alone. Nobody asked Henry why he was so late com¬ ing home. Nobody asked him anything. His mother, large and flushed, was jiggling steam¬ ing pots about the gas stove. His father, stretch¬ ed out on the worn couch, shirtless and shoe¬ less, was engrossed in a newspaper. Betty, with smiles and grimaces, was combing her long hair before the living room mirror. George was tickling and pinching Henry’s young brother John. George was fifteen and had a steady job. George was a man and Henry was a boy. He walked into the other room and looked out the window by Betty. Nobody asked him anything. He was lonely and he didn’t know why. i’fi sjs One of the young men swung down from his stool and walked towards the door. “I’m going up to the Arcade,” he said at the door. “Any¬ body coming?” The knot of bell - bottomed, shiny - haired young fellows at the counter gradually filed noisily out into the night and Henry was left sitting there. He deliberated following after them but decided against it. He felt out of place in the midst of their noisy boisterousness and preferred his own company. He was “Dreamy”, and he was used to it. Be¬ sides, he had things to think about. He had lost another job today. He rubbed the palms of his thin hands against the cold marble of the counter and wondered why he didn’t find a job that interested him. He always got along fine the first few weeks and then when the novelty wore off he either quit or began to daydream and was fired. It would be different if he was one of those guys who made friends easily. If he could talk freely with the people he worked with and not have to dream to make the time fly. Henry gazed at the cream pies and biscuits lined up against the big mirror. He gazed at his own thin, sallow face and large, dark eyes. He was twenty-Two and looked older. He lit a cigarette and his

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go. One fellow had nearly a million dollars and it frightened him. Another told me he was glad to give me the stuff. Sort of a last way of cheat¬ ing the income tax. Charitable donations. Guess he kept his book too long.” “What the hell are you talking about? Go on, beat it. Leave me alone.” “You want to be alone, eh? Getting real dramatic, like a movie. O.K., sonny boy, I’ll leave you alone. But how about leaving your stuff behind you?” “What the hell is the matter with you? Are you crazy or something?” “Crazy? Maybe. I should maybe stay at home where it’s warmer. But I like guys like you. So long, sonny boy. Be seeing you, w, maybe fifty years.” The man must be a loony. Stumping off across the bridge like a cheated dog watching a bone being taken away from him. The whole damn world was crazy. He tossed a pebble that was lying on the walk. It arched out and away from the bridge, caught in some mysterious gust of wind. It splashed and the loony turned around sharply. He broke into a weird cackle that drifted on the air like a kid’s paper plane, skimming and dipping and then disappearing. He went out of sight on the far side of a street light and became a part of the shadows. Where to now? Back home to nothing. A scene and explanations that would never ex¬ plain anything. They had married with the idea they would be together forever. But when did forever end? Today? Yesterday? When was it? Or was there more of it yet? He should do something, go somewhere. He felt foolish standing here. Go where? Home. Forever had 1 gone from home. He wanted to leave too. Another girl? For what? That same thing all over again. No, he would start moving and never stop. Now he was in the middle of nowhere, stopped in the middle of a bridge. Another bridge to cross. What was that ex¬ pression his mother used? Don’t cross your bridges until you come to them. And he was right in the middle of one. Why bother cross¬ ing? A cool breeze sprang up from nowhere. This was what the loony had meant by being warmer at home. He felt it along his hand, cool and a little damp. There was no human hand could ever equal the sensation. Just the wind and the water would ever have that effect. Only the wind was something that you had to wait for. The water was always waiting for you. Wonder how many people had gone in off this bridge? Making the fatal step. They hadn’t bothered to cross their bridges. He hadn’t heard of any from this bridge. Funny, such a good spot too. And the loony wanting a match. Maybe he had wanted to leap. Too bad he had come along and stopped him. He would have read about it in the papers next day and could have kidded Joan about it. Only she would have got mad at him. “Don’t you dare joke about such things.” That’s what she always said. Life was too serious to kid about death in that way. He lit a cigarette and tossed the match over the rail. It burned all the way down and he imagined he could hear psst as it hit the water. He dragged deeply and followed the smoke up with his eyes as it disappeared into the stars, then he followed the stars down into the water again. He was sure he had heard the match drop. He flicked the cigarette out and over and followed the red spark as it arched into the water. This time he heard a noise. The water seemed closer at night. The stars bobbing silently on the waves, bibbing, bobbing. Black water, rising and falling with his breath. Ris¬ ing and falling. Falling, falling, falling . . . “Got a match, bub? You seem to take a long time ...” “What? Who the hell? You . . . Here, take them all. I’m going home.” “Yes, it’s warmer there. I think I will go too. Now.” Page Nine

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thoughts drifted as its smoke. He saw himself effortlessly making conversation with a beau¬ tiful young lady who smiled and nodded and listened. He saw himself laughing and talking with a group of the fellows, and being asked things. “Anything for ya?” The Greek, polishing a glass, broke in on his reverie. “A cup of coffee, please,” said Henry, and wished he could ask how business was or what the Greek thought about this Darrow fellow, and the teaching of evolution in schools. He wished people would speak to him about anything. He wished he could get a job he really liked. He wished he wasn’t so alone, and he wondered why he was. ❖ One of the men at the head of the line stepped out and sauntered across the sidewalk. “No more listings up today?” he shouted back to the men lined along the wall. “May as well go home!” Movement away from the door con¬ firmed him and gradually the little knots of men straggled off, leaving Henry sitting against the wall. His sallow cheeks sucked a last draw from his cigarette and he spun it into the gutter. He didn’t want to go back to his stuffy box of a room and he was tired of walking around. What was a depression anyway, he wondered, that it could knock the world around? It had sure knocked him around. He was thirty-two and felt sixty. He was unmarried, and flat broke. I probably never will get married, mused Henry. Somehow that struck him as funny and he grinned. Never will. .. never been in danger of it, is more to the point . . . except for Helen . . . but that was long over with. If he could have held a job . . . and then this damned de¬ pression. He comforted himself with the know¬ ledge that he was used to being unemployed. He was used, also, to stuffy little box-like rooms and being alone. Especially of being alone. He rose stiffly and strolled up the avenue, pausing occasionally to gaze intently into store win¬ dows. He was alone but he didn’t particularly care. The evening bus from Windsor looped into the depot and squeezed itself into its stall. The knot of people waiting mingled noisily with the passengers arriving. There were gasped greet¬ ings and clumsy, luggage-hindered embraces. Henry stepped down through the door, and eased alongside to the luggage compartment. There were fewer people about when the driver pulled forth his lusty pack. A trio of young girls stared at him with curiosity as he deftly slung its bulk to his shoulders. He didn’t notice. Henry was forty-six but he looked younger. His dark eyes misted dreamily as he strode up Yonge Street. It felt good to get back to “T.O.” The fruit season was profitable and the peninsula beautiful but he missed the asphalt and the streetcars. Should be lots of work around now. Lots of construction going on. Brown and Hartsford would take him on if they needed anybody. He was a good worker. Henry loved the city. He delighted in white expanses of pavement and the flowing curves of driveways. His pulses stirred to the provoca¬ tive twinkle of neons, winking against the dark tresses of night. The throaty night-voice of the streets with inflexions of traffic and the under¬ tone of passers-by sang softly in his heart. The windows of the Young street bric-brac shops reached golden arms across the sidewalk. Henry unslung his pack in the glow of a window and gazed intently at guitars and statuettes. McCURDY SUPPLY CO. LTD. BUILDERS ' SUPPLIES AND COAL READY MIXED CONCRETE Phone 37 251 SARGENT AND ERIN WINNIPEG, MAN. Page Eleven