The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

  “I’ll get you the rest of the scrap. But I want an advance against commission right now.”

  “Why don’t you come to work for me? Name the salary.”

  “I want three thousand dollars.”

  “What guarantee have I got that you can get me the contract? I’ll give you five hundred.”

  “You must have got up very late this morning. There —”

  “I know. There are other scrap dealers in town — and they’d trust you about as far as they can throw you. Duddy, I’m going to take a gamble. I’ll lend you a thousand dollars. You can give me a postdated check for eleven hundred, just in case. But if you don’t get me the rest of that scrap…”

  Duddy picked up a couple of smoked meat sandwiches, hurried back to the house on St. Urbain Street, and tried to locate Aunt Ida. Rosenblatt, the lawyer, thought she was at a hotel in Saratoga Springs. He phoned there, but she was gone. They said she and her son were at the Savoy Hotel in London. Duddy rang up London. Mrs. Kravitz and her nephew had left four days ago. They were staying at the Ruhl Hotel in Nice. He phoned the Ruhl, and Mr. and Mrs. Kravitz were registered there, but they were out. Duddy put in another call for midnight, French time.

  “Auntie Ida? Hullo. Hullo! Duddy.”

  “Duddy, what are you doing in Nice? Come on right up here and we’ll have a drink together. You must Gino. Gino, it’s my nephew.”

  “I’m not in Nice. I’m in Montreal.”

  “Montreal? Then this is long distance.”

  “Yeah. Listen, Auntie Ida —”

  “Isn’t that sweet! Gino. Gino. my nephew phoning me from Montreal. Isn’t that sweet? Duddy, can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” he said, sighing. “I can hear you.”

  “What’s the weather like there?”

  “Warmish. Listen, Auntie Ida I need —”

  “We’ve just come from the Casino. I lost two hundred thousand francs, Duddy, isn’t that just terrible? You must do me a favor. The minute you hang up I want you to call Mr. Rosenblatt to tell him I simply must have my next check right away. I haven’t a penny. Wha — Excuse me a minute, Duddy.” There was a pause. “Gino says he can cable it care of the American Express.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “You sound so clear. Just like you were around the corner.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “Are you sure you’re not in the lobby and playing a trick on me?”

  “No,” Duddy said, “it’s long

  “Isn’t that sweet! Gino, don’t you think he’s sweet? Duddy, you must —”

  “I think I’d better hang up, Auntie Ida. It’s —”

  “Quick. Give me a lucky number for tomorrow night.”

  “Ten. Good —”

  “You’ll call Rosenblatt?”

  “Right away. Good-by, Auntie Ida.”

  “Au revoir. again sometimes.”

  Lennie had come in. He was sitting in the bedroom. “It’s nice to have you back, Duddy,” he said. “Just like old times.”

  “Yeah.” Duddy slumped back on the bed and groaned.

  “Duddy?”

  “Mn?”

  “Riva and I are going to be engaged.”

  “Isn’t that sweet?”

  “What?”

  “It’s very nice. I’m happy for you.”

  “You’re the first person I’ve told. I owe you a lot, you know.”

  “Skip it.”

  “We’re going to go to Israel together.”

  No reply.

  “I wish you’d come. I think any Jew worth his salt ought to go. What is there for us here?”

  “Balls all squared.”

  “I’ve given a lot of thought to what happened to me, you know. To Sandra and Andy… I’ve come to realize that they’re all anti-Semites and out to use you. Every single one of them. They were never my friends. From the very first minute they were out to exploit my racial inferiority complex. They could have ruined me for life.”

  “It’s hard to be a gentleman — a Jew, I mean — it’s hard to be. Period.”

  “That’s O.K. You have every right to tease me. Don’t think I don’t remember all those foolish things I said in Toronto. You’re some brother, Duddy. Without you —”

  “Listen, Lennie, how much did Uncle Benjy leave you?”

  “It’s all in trust. I don’t get a penny until I graduate.”

  “I see.”

  “You need money?”

  “Something terrible. And quick, too.”

  “I’ve got eighty-five dollars in the bank. It’s yours.”

  “Come on,” Duddy said, “I’ll make us an omelet.”

  “Like old times.”

  Max arrived shortly after Duddy got to work in the kitchen. “Have you seen the paper?” he said. “Boy, the Wonder’s lined up the sharpest battery of legal-eagles in the country. He’s playing it smart too. He’s got Shubert — that’s the brains of the outfit, I figure — and two bigshot goys display. Aw, they’ll wipe the floor with Cote.”

  Duddy stared at his father. He won’t lend me any money, he thought, but if I got Lennie to ask him for a loan, pretending he needed it himself, then maybe, just maybe —“You know what they say about Cote closing down all the whorehouses in town? He’s a sadist. He hates dames.”

  “I hope they put Dingleman away for life,” Duddy said. “But they should burn his crutches first.”

  “I oughta wash your mouth out with soap. What’s the matter with you these days?” Max asked. “That’s what I’d like to know. You’re not happy.”

  “Jeez.”

  “No. Don’t turn your back on me like that. I can sense these things. Why, I haven’t seen a smile cross your face ever since you moved back in here. Right, Lennie?”

  Duddy forced himself to smile. It was hideous. “There,” he said.

  “Oi. Lennie, you’re a doctor. Almost, anyway. Diagnose. What’s ailing the kid here?”

  “He needs some money, Daddy. He —”

  “Lennie, for Christ’s sake —”

  “No, Duddy. Daddy ought to know. Maybe he can help.”

  That does it, Duddy thought. No chance of getting any money out of him any more.

  “Duddy would like to borrow some money, Daddy.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” Max reached into the kitchen drawer for his backscratcher. “Money,” he said, “is the root of all evil. In olden times they used the barter system. I favor it.”

  Duddy grinned in spite of himself. Standing behind his father, he reached out to touch him. Gently, however, almost surreptitiously, just in case he moved away.

  “For instance,” Max said, “I would drive a guy from Windsor Station to… let’s say the town of Mount Royal, and if he was, let’s say, a baker he would give me six loaves of bread, or maybe three loaves and a tasty cake. You think that’s so bad?”

  “Will you lend him the money, Daddy?”

  “How much?”

  Duddy gaped. “Are you kidding?”

  “Combien?”

  “Well, I’ve got to raise thirty-five hundred dollars,” he began, “but —”

  “Whew! Water, please. My heart.”

  “Listen, Daddy, it’s for something good. It’s for land. If it works —”

  “Your last brain wave ended in bankruptcy.”

  “This is land, Daddy. Valuable land. I already own plenty of it and in the eighteen months since I bought it its value has doubled. Daddy, it’s a lake. A whole lake. It’s gonna be ours — it’s gonna belong to all of us — and you’ll be able to retire. We’ll be rich.”

  “What’s under the lake? Oil.”

  “Jeez.”

  “Talk to him, Duddy. You mustn’t get impatient.”

  “Yeah,” Max said, “and you could smile. It wouldn’t hurt you.”

  “All right. Let me put it this —”

  “A smile, please. Just a little one.”

  “There.

  “So, did it hurt you? What did it cost you that smile???
?

  “Let me put it this way, Daddy. Dingleman is fighting me for the land. He’s dying to have it.”

  “You mean to say you’re competing with the B.W.?”

  “Right.”

  “I can smell the burning fingers. I’m sitting right here waiting for my omelet and —”

  “It’s coming,” Lennie said.

  “— and what do I smell? Burning fingers.”

  “His you smell. Not mine. Help me, Daddy. Please help me.”

  “You know,” Max said, “I’ve seen plenty in my time. I have eyes and I see. Every day they come into Eddy’s with sure winners, but —”

  “This is not a horse, Daddy. It’s land.”

  “— but do I ever bet? Ixnay. That’s how come I’ve got money in the bank.”

  “How much?” Duddy asked, grabbing him by the arm.

  “I’ve worked hard, you know. There’s my old age to think about. If you think I’d risk my whole roll —”

  “How much can you let me have?”

  “He’s never asked you for anything before,” Lennie said. “Come on, Daddy. Be a pal.”

  Duddy began to bite his fingernails.

  “You’re ganging up on me,” Max said.

  “Jeez.”

  “You’ve put me in a position where if I don’t lend you any money I’m suddenly an s.o.b. Who put you through school? Do you know that when you had the mumps I stayed up with you three nights running? (At a great personal risk, brother, because I never had them, and you know about what the mumps can do to a grown man, I suppose?) I missed Lux Theater and the last game of the Little World Series when you had the chickenpox. Some fathers, you know —”

  “I give up,” Duddy said.

  “He never told you the whole story, Daddy. He came to get me in Toronto. If not for Duddy I would have been expelled from medical school.”

  “Aw.”

  “One minute,” Max said, “I’m not paying Duddy a reward for helping you. He did that because you’re his brother. Not for money. We’re one family and we should stick together, just like the Rockefellers. In our own small way, I mean.”

  “All right. You said it. Help him then.”

  “He won’t help me. Not in a million years. He’s pulling my leg.”

  “Would you help a boy who talked to his old man like that?”

  “Wow!”

  “If I was John D. Rockefeller would he talk to me like that?”

  “He’s nervous, Daddy. He’s excited.”

  “I was just on the verge of offering him —”

  “I’m going out for a walk before I go nuts,” Duddy said.

  “Wait,” Lennie said. He took a deep breath. “Daddy, how much can you lend him?”

  “A thousand dollars.”

  Duddy stopped. “Are you kidding?” he asked.

  “I’m not kidding but, frankly speaking, I feel I’ve just kissed a grand good-by.”

  “You see, Duddy, I told you he’d help you.”

  “I can see it,” Max said, “right before my eyes. A bill with one thousand printed on it. It has wings this bill and it’s flying away from me. Flap, flap, flap go the wings. Wham! There she goes through the ceiling. Good-by grand.” Duddy began to scratch his head.

  “It’ll be interesting to see what happens,” Max said, “When I come to you for help in my declining years. Well, couldn’t you give us a smile? It’s cost me enough.”

  Duddy sent Yvette a certified check and told her not to worry, he’d raise the rest of the money in time. Meanwhile he urged her to quit her job and come into town with Virgil. But twenty-two hundred dollars, he thought, where am I going to get it? The bank, of course, was out of the question after he’d already gone bankrupt once. He went to see Rosenblatt, picked up the keys and the deed to the house on Mount Royal, and hurried over to see his own lawyer.

  “I’m sorry,” the lawyer said, “but it’s airtight. You can’t sell, you can’t take out a mortgage, and you can’t even rent.”

  “Some gentleman. Some son of a bitch. Listen, what about the stuff inside the house? The furniture, the books — He’s got a fortune in liquor stashed away in the basement.”

  “I don’t advise it. You’d never get even a third of what it was worth.”

  But when Yvette arrived with Virgil the following afternoon there was an enormous moving van parked outside and the men were busy inside.

  “What on earth’s going on here?” she asked.

  “Aw, I’m getting rid of some of the old furniture.”

  “Duddy, those are antiques. What are — They’re not taking the books too? You haven’t sold your uncle’s library?”

  “Quack-quack-quack. Can’t you keep your face shut once in a blue moon?”

  “Duddy, you can’t do this. You’ve got to stop them. Your uncle left you this house as a trust.”

  “My uncle’s dead. I’ve got to go on living. When I’ve got the money we’ll furnish the house according to our own tastes.”

  “Oh, Duddy, this is terrible.”

  “Terrible? It’s robbery. Seven hundred and fifty bucks I got for the works.”

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Listen, my little hatchka, not a British lord and this isn’t the old ancestral home. Lots of that furniture was stinky and uncomfortable anyway.”

  “If your uncle knew…”

  “Awright, he’s spinning in his grave. If he’d set it up so that I could take out a mortgage on this place everything would be fine. I wouldn’t have had to sell the furniture to a robber and I wouldn’t be in such a spot either. Under normal circumstances I could raise at least ten thousand on a first mortgage on this house.”

  “There’s not a decent sentiment in your body.”

  “I eat babies too, you know. Come around tomorrow morning at eight and you’ll see. Listen, do you mind sleeping on a mattress on the floor? It’s only for a couple of weeks.”

  “Couldn’t you sell the mattress?”

  “Where’s Virgie?”

  “In the taxi. Is there a bed for him at least?”

  “Oh, you’re smart. You’re so smart.”

  Duddy couldn’t sleep that night. Long after Yvette had scrubbed the floors and done her best to make a huge empty house seem hospitable, even as she slept exhausted on the mattress beside him, he scratched his head, bit his fingernails, and lit one cigarette after another. Fifteen hundred dollars, he thought, it might as well be fifteen thousand. Blood, he heard, sold for twenty-five dollars a quart. McGill paid something like ninety-eight cents for a man’s body. Was there anything valuable he could steal? His stamp collection, that ought to be worth fifty dollars. Jeez, he thought, if one thousand people would lent me two dollars each or two thousand people one dollar each … This is crazy, he thought. It’s not that much money, speaking objectively. I can raise it.

  When Yvette rose at seven Duddy was in the kitchen, preparing an enormous omelet. He was singing. “I’m going to call Hugh Thomas Calder,” he said.

  “Don’t count on anything.”

  “He likes me. He takes a fatherly interest.”

  “Just don’t count on anything.”

  “What’s fifteen hundred dollars to him? Beer money.”

  “Are you going to eat all those eggs?”

  “They’re for the three of us. Hey, we could rent rooms here. There’s nothing in the will that says I can’t have friends staying with me.”

  “What would your tenants do for furniture?”

  “Sometimes I wonder what I’d do without you. Really, you know. You’re wrong about Calder. I’m his pal. Maybe I ought to ask him for more than fifteen hundred. A round figure, you know. Not too little, either. Those guys are never impressed if all you need is pin money. You’ve got to use psychology.”

  Yvette went to wake Virgil.

  “Well there, Mr. Roseboro, how do you like your new abode?” Duddy asked.

  “He’s in a good mood,” Virgil said.

  “Yes,
” Yvette said. “Take care.”

  “I’ll ask him for five thousand,” Duddy said. “Excuse me.” And he went to phone.

  “Does Duddy need more money?” Virgil asked.

  “Don’t you say a word,” Yvette said.

  “But —”

  “You heard me, Virgil.”

  “That son of a bitch,” Duddy said, re-entering the room, “that king among anti-Semites, I’ll see him strung from a lamppost yet.”

  “What happened?”

  “Coffee, please,” Duddy shouted.

  “You were in such a good mood,” Virgil said, grinning.

  “You know, Virgil, sometimes you just give me one long pain in the —”

  “Duddy!”

  “Coffee, please.”

  “All right. Here you are. Now what did he say?”

  “If I have to make it my life’s work I’m going to see that Calder dreck Anti-Semitism’s gone out of style. He doesn’t know that yet but. I’m going to spread the word around about him. Hitler, that’s what he is. Worse, maybe.”

  “What did he say, Duddy?”

  “He won’t lend me the money. He had hoped we were friends. What in the hell’s a friend for if you can’t borrow money from him when you need it? He — he’s hurt. Can you imagine? I’ve hurt the bastard’s feelings. Oh, those white men. He ought to swallow a golf ball, that’s what. The core of the ball should be stuffed with cancers and it should take years melting in his stomach,” he said, getting up.

  “Aren’t you going to drink your coffee?”

  “Aw, stuff it. I’m going out for a walk.”

  Duddy walked down to Park Avenue with his head lowered and his hands stuffed belligerently into his pockets. Guys rob banks every day, he thought, they rake in fortunes on the ponies, and me? Aw. Maybe, he thought, I should try Dingleman again? But he decided there was no point. A rich wife, he thought, that’s what I need, but that kind of a deal takes time. You just can’t find and pursue and bleed one in a week. All that work, he thought, so much struggle, heartache, nights without sleep, scheming, lying, sweats, fevers, and for what? Bubkas. a failure. All I needed was to be born rich. All I needed was money in the crib and I would have grown up such a fine, lovable guy. A kidder. A regular prince among men. God damn it to hell, he thought, why was I born the son of a dope? Why couldn’t my old man have been Hugh Thomas Calder or Rubin, even? What’s fifteen hundred bucks anyway? A piss in the ocean, that’s what. But I haven’t got it. Duddy thought of forging Mr. Cohen’s signature on a check, depositing it to his own account, and writing another check against it, but dismissed the idea as unsound. There was a black market in babies, he’d read that in Time, it was just his luck not even to have one of those. Maybe, he thought, if I got a passport, mailed it to Hersh, and asked him to sell it for me in Paris… He’d never do it. (There’s not enough time, either.) The stock market, he thought, guys with no brains are shoveling it in like snow, but you’ve got to have a stake to start with. Suicide? Boy, would they ever be sorry to see me go. Virgil would — Virgil!