I stayed too long; Max Ygoe came in, looked around, and saw us. He stomped his work boots over to the bar, took an upside-down glass from the sink, and slapped it on the table. He shook out of his raccoon coat and emptied the pitcher into his glass. Before setting it down, he craned around to the bar and waved it at the waitress. “Cheers, fellows,” he said, and drained his glass.
“That’s one you owe me,” I said. I didn’t like Max. He was a sculptor, chisels and stone, always covered in dust. A big guy, older, maybe sixty-five, strong, still a lot of muscle under slackening skin. He talked too much about whores in Rome after the war, and working with Irving Stone on that book about Michelangelo. Always a story about the cat houses, the black hair, and big tits. You could be introducing your grandmother to him, and she’d remind him of a hooker.
“You see that waitress?” She was coming over with the beer, and as she bent to put it on the table between us, Max pointed, almost grabbing her. “Look at those cans. Nice.”
I handed her a twenty. “For the first two,” I said, indicating the empty pitcher. She grabbed the empties and left. I filled my glass. I didn’t want more beer, I just wanted back what Max took. I filled Ryan’s and Billy’s too.
“You shouldn’t be buying beer for rummies,” said Max, laughing.
Billy sipped. “Hey, fuck you.”
Ryan lifted his glass and tried to smile. “Fellow artist.”
“Working late?” I said.
He put his glass down, smacked his lips. “I sent off a commission today. For Portuguese Park on Rue Rachel. Got a new block of stone coming in tomorrow. A big one, need to make some room, get set up for the new project. I got thirsty.” As if he’d reminded himself, he filled his glass again.
We walked back up the slope the way we’d came. I lived up near Mount Royal; Max’s studio was right beside the bookstore. Billy and Ryan had nowhere to go, so they followed behind us, staggering, bumming smokes from people on the street.
With the beer in him, Max was convinced I was interested in listening to him talk about himself. He was going on about his new project and the big stone that was coming tomorrow.
Truthfully, no one cared about Max’s work. He didn’t have a dealer, no pieces in public galleries, and no one writing about him in the papers or art magazines. He made his living through public commissions, like the fountain for the park he’d just finished.
Max had been trying to change that all his life; he was about to start out on his latest attempt, “a big fucking piece,” he was saying, trying to pierce me with his gaze. “A major piece. The only theme that matters — man. Ecce homo. Adam. He’s going to be seven feet tall, emerging from the rock itself, dragging his cock into the world. Commanding. Frightening. Overpowering. Women and fags will cower before him. He will make my name.”
“Nice,” I said, but that’s not what I was thinking.
“I’ll get a fucking medal,” Max went on. He noticed I wasn’t looking at him. “Listen to me. There’ll be a reception, dinner, and tuxedos. When the visual arts officer’s standing at the podium introducing me, his wife will be under the table sucking me off.”
Max and I stopped in front of the chain-link fence that enclosed the yard in front of his studio. It was above Berson’s Monuments, a headstone maker that had been there since the twenties. One side the yard was stacked with marble and granite slabs waiting to be cut and engraved but most of the space was arranged with earth and grass and various models of headstone set up so customers could get an idea of the effect. Under the yard’s spotlight and the orange glow from the streetlights, the shadows were cast at odd angles and the headstones were all too close together. It was the perfect place for a sculptor — stone was always being delivered and Berson let him use the crane to load and unload his materials.
Across the top of the building, the original Hebrew sign was still visible. The language police tried once to get Berson to take it down, but they backed off quick when Mordecai Richler made fun of them in the New York Times for it.
Ryan and Billy had caught up to us, and now they noticed Cane Man was still across the street, trying his luck with the last few customers leaving Schwartz’s.
Billy said, “C’mon, let’s get him, there’s four of us now.” He pulled Ryan into the street with him. Ryan needed some convincing, but when the traffic that stopped for them became impatient and honked them out of the way, he went. Billy was already yelling at the guy with the cane.
“Shitheads,” said Max.
“C’mon, let’s go,” I said.
“I’m not beating up a bum, for Christ’s sake.”
“We’re not going to join the fight, Max. We’re going to stop it.” Eventually he followed me. When I made it across, Billy’d already got the guy’s cane away from him and was whacking him. The guy had his hands up and his head bent away, but he was advancing on Billy. Ryan was doing nothing but yelling.
The guy saw me approach and stopped short, wondering. Max came up behind me. Cane Man, still fending off blows from Billy, looked him up and down, back to me, and said, “Eat shit, all of you.”
Then he turned, ran up to the corner, and was gone.
“You forgot your cane!” Billy yelled. “Never seen a cripple run so good.” He lifted the cane and cracked it in two across his knee.
Ryan was leaning back against a parked car. A waiter came out of Schwartz’s and looked around. “No fighting here or we call the cops. Understand?”
“Yes sir,” said Ryan. “No problem, sir.” He started crying. The waiter went back inside.
“Ryan, what’s wrong, buddy?” asked Billy.
“Nothing. Nothing more than usual. Fuckin’ freezing, no money, no place to sleep. What are we gonna do, Billy?”
Billy had no answer.
Max said, “You guys come help me finish up. There’s not much to do. You sweep my floor, you can sleep on it tonight.”
“Really?” said Ryan. I was surprised too.
“But you leave tomorrow. It only locks from the outside. I’m coming back at ten thirty, I’ll let you out then.” He turned and crossed the street.
Billy yanked Ryan to his feet and they followed. I watched Max open the padlocked gate and secure it again after they entered. He led them between stacks of headstones, and then, for a moment, they disappeared. They came back into view climbing the outside wooden staircase to the balcony along the second floor, just under the Hebrew lettering. Max opened another padlock, an iron latch, pushed open the heavy wooden door, and went in. The door closed after them, and a dim light came on behind the murky windows.
I walked north up the hill. It was just after two in the morning and the snow had stopped, but it was white along the edges of the sidewalk.
The next day I watched a tractor trailer snake its way into Berson’s narrow entrance, blocking the entire street. The winch pulled an enormous granite slab off the truck bed and it slowly slid across to the delivery door on the second floor. Max guided it by hand onto a pump truck. When the winch set it down, the balcony groaned and gave an inch. Max, Ryan, and Billy pushed the pump truck together. Max and Billy had their backs into it, but Ryan flitted around like a moth.
Thereafter, Ryan slept nights in the studio. He’d come and go through the lane in the back, hopping a fence, up the fire escape, and in through a window hidden in a crook between the buildings that Max left unlocked for him.
I wondered how long that would last.
It happened again, of course. I was locking up early a few weeks later. It was a Friday, in December now, and the first winter blizzard, although just beginning, had already dumped about two feet of snow in the past couple of hours. Many shops had closed before dinner, the plows were out, and traffic was a mess; no one had been in the bookstore since sundown.