The Kid from Simcoe Street by James Clarke

Author:James Clarke [Clarke, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Exile Editions

BUT DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU

The CNR parked empty boxcars on the siding beside the York Trading building on Bethune Street and often the doors were left open. My chums and I would clamber into those cavernous echo chambers, strip off all our clothes and run around naked, dancing and whooping like the drunken Apaches we’d seen in the movies. The heady rush of doing something risky and forbidden, perhaps even sinful, was irresistible.

One evening, when four or five of us were cavorting naked, a new face popped up in the opening.

“Can I play too?” The stranger, a lanky boy with thick black curly hair and curious small brown eyes, was staring at us.

“What are you doing here?”

“It looks like fun,” said the stranger, glancing around the boxcar at our bare asses.

“Who are you anyway?” I said.

“I’m Josh.”

“Josh who?”

“Josh Finkleman. I live across the road from the Fire Hall.”

“Okay, come on in,” I said. Josh immediately shed his clothes and joined in.

Josh was the son of the new rabbi, Abraham Finkleman, at Beth Israel Synagogue on Aylmer Street. They’d just moved from Toronto.

After that evening, he showed up regularly in the York Trading yard. He was bold and fearless, and we became fast friends. We also became avid and skilled boxcar watchers, stationing ourselves at the side of the tracks, trying to outdo each other in identifying the markings on the sides of the boxcars as they rumbled by. Because it was fraught with danger, one of our favourite pastimes was hitching a ride on the side ladders of the cars and hanging on for two or three blocks before jumping off. We placed pebbles on the rails and watched as they got ground to powder by the giant wheels. If a conductor spotted us near the tracks, he would shoot out a cloud of cindery, acrid steam in our direction to scare us. When I brought home a flattened penny and showed it to Gabby, she rapped me on the head with her sharp knuckles. “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from the tracks?” she shrieked, her mouth twitching. “You could get killed!”

Several weeks later, when I asked if I could invite Josh to the house to play Parcheesi, she seemed peeved.

“Is there somethin’ wrong, Gabby?”

“Why are hanging out with that Jew boy, Jeem?”

“What’s a Jew boy?”

“Don’t play games with me,” she said. “I’m talking about Josh.”

“What’s wrong with Josh?”

“You’ve read your Catechism. The Jews killed Jesus.”

“But Jesus was a Jew,” I said.

“Yes, but not like them. He was a good Jew.”

“Why did they kill Jesus anyway?” I asked.

“They hated him because he was Christian, okay?”

“But I like Josh. We get along.”

“Okay,” Gabby said, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Mom told me not to pay attention to Gabby. Mom bought from the Jewish shops in town and Mrs. Pinkus frequently asked her to serve at their home when they were having a private party or religious celebration. “The Jews pay good and always treat me with

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