Pink Dreams (2023)
Phil had a personality as big as the outdoors, whereas I could barely fill a small closet, but I was still cute—as my mother kept reassuring me.
BY HOWARD KURLANDSKI
IMAGE BY EBRU KUR
Growing up, the most interesting person I knew was my big brother, Phil. I concede that I didn’t know many people in my youth, but, to me, Phil appeared to be larger than life. It didn’t start off that way. Once upon a time we were equals, just two happy kids cavorting through a lawn sprinkler on a hot summer’s day. So, naturally, Phil didn’t start off as Mr. Big, but the rudiments of his future self and that glorious title were there, just waiting to be released.
Phil had a personality as big as the outdoors, whereas I could barely fill a small closet, but I was still cute—as my mother kept reassuring me. My brother, on the other hand, had a presence that exceeded his stature, and he had the uncanny knack of getting away with murder. Societal norms were for other people. Phil, however, was a rebel with a cause, a cause for making trouble, as much as one could, living in a suburban Jewish home in Toronto.
Phil was incredibly strong. His preferred method of showcasing his manifold brawniness was to inflict pain on me, his little brother. All I had to do was look at him the wrong way, or stupidly take his spot in front of the television and my fate was sealed.
I didn’t take being a punching bag lying down. When I foolishly sought revenge, I would put weights in a Kleenex box, balance it on the top of his bedroom door and wait for him to walk through where it would hit him on the head. I took my notion of slapstick comedy from The Three Stooges, whom I idolized. Inevitably, Phil would see right through my little ruse. He’d give a kamikaze yell, kick the door open in a very exaggerated fashion like an apoplectic ninja and leave his foot outstretched in the air for a few seconds, just for effect. The box would then fall harmlessly on the floor, which is more than what I could say about me when he cornered me afterwards.
While he should have been attending his grade eight class, Phil would normally be found at the local pool hall. The regular crowd of worn-out deadbeats hanging out and smoking their funny cigarettes would laugh at this skinny little kid and underestimate his innate ability to calculate angles for complex shots. They didn’t realize that he was a natural.
That was the start of Phil’s hustling career. It wasn’t long before he became known in every musty sweat-infused pool joint in North York, forcing him to venture outside of the burbs to take advantage of his boyish stature and find fresh meat to pluck. Making money like this was much more satisfying than learning useless facts at school. I think Phil then, and even now, had to show everyone that he was the best at everything he tried, and make his way down easy street in what he called the real world.
Phil also fancied himself a musician of sorts, and on his recorder played the same ten notes incessantly. I tried covering my ears with my pillow, but when Phil realized how much this drove me crazy, he would sadistically play even louder outside of my bedroom door.
Mom became a widow at a young age, leaving her rudderless—emotionally and financially. It left Phil and me without a father figure to guide us through the tough years when we needed him most. Phil begged mom to buy him a saxophone, even though a musical instrument was no substitute for a dad. It was something we couldn’t afford, but mom felt it would be good for Phil, and somehow managed to squeeze out the extra cash. Phil wasn’t too accomplished at playing the sax, but he was eager to perform outside on our front stoop where people could see and revere him for his manifest coolness.
Miraculously, Phil made it to grade nine. It was then we got a call from the school wondering where he was, and we didn’t know either. At the time, I didn’t much care so long as I wasn’t at the end of his fist, but I felt sorry for mom who was doing her best to hold the family together. I went into his room to look for a clue of his whereabouts and noticed that his clothes and the saxophone were gone. Mom called the police. Apparently, Phil hocked his saxophone and bought a plane ticket to Puerto Rico on a whim. Our errant miscreant was caught as an underage minor in a casino and deported back to Toronto. Phil’s only comment was, “I had a great time in Rico!”
Phil spoke his own language. What I mean to say is that he had his own idioms that only he could understand. Whenever anything was going well, he would yell out, “Sweeet” stretching out the syllables in a long, loud, high-pitched sonorous note. Whenever he agreed with you, Phil would say, “Hitch ‘em now” or “Oh yeah!” like Russell Oliver, the pitch man of Oliver’s Jewellery. One of his favourite sayings was “Tell it to Sweeny.” I never really found out who Sweeny was, but if Phil didn’t want to hear anything disagreeable, apparently Sweeny would be interested. The catchphrase that he was best known for was “Big Business.” Every activity was some kind of big business deal, and eventually this expression was shortened to “Big.” And that was how Phil came to be known, as least in my eyes, as Mr. Big.
After Phil dropped out of high school, he purchased a used car. I’ll never forget the day when he pulled up to our bungalow in a dirty white Ambassador SST, a cruise ship of a car with high-back tailfins. In his eyes, it was a real chick magnet. The only problem was that this chariot only ran in reverse, though this misfortune only added to the mystique Phil had cultivated for himself.
Phil graduated to bigger things, practically living at the track. With an already seasoned eye, he appraised the racing form and could glean which horses were most likely to win. This field of expertise was foreign to me, but when I was asked on a very rare occasion who would be the eventual winner, I would pick out the horse whose name I liked the best, which only made Phil laugh.
My high-flying brother became so adept at the trots, he eventually bought a racehorse. It didn’t help much that the horse turned out to be lame, and there is nothing worse than a lame racehorse who ate like a–what else–a horse! So, besides costing him a bundle for this noble steed, my genius brother didn’t factor in the stable fees. Eventually Phil got rid of the car and the horse, in that order, and ventured into his new vocation–that of an aluminum siding salesman.
On one of his forays, a farmer in northern Ontario was up on a ladder painting his house. Phil would take hold of one end of the ladder, shake it a bit, and yell out, “Better be careful up there, boss.” As the farmer descended Phil went right into his pitch. “How often you have to go up on your ladder risking life and limb only to do it all over again in a few years?” This was more of a pronouncement than a question.
The farmer replied, “That’s a fact. I had to paint this here house only a few years ago.”
At that, Phil knew he had a live one. “Why if you had aluminum siding on your house you would never have to repaint and risk falling from that rickety old ladder ever again. Aluminum siding never wears out, and I’m prepared to offer you a lifetime guarantee. Why your neighbours, the Turtles—Phil’s tag name for any fictitious neighbour—just purchased our finest Japanese product, the shmegegi.”
Phil went in for the close. “And since the installation team is already in the area, I can confidentially offer you an additional 20% discount. There’s only one thing I would like you to do for me.”
“What’s that?” asked the trusting farmer.
“Just don’t tell the Turtles.”
Another time, this super salesman was determined to show me the ropes and the art of the deal and took me out on one of his expeditions. I was completely unsuited to this type of work being the bookworm I was, which Phil knew of course.
“What do I say if a customer asks about colour?” I innocently asked.
“You just tell them that white is right. I get an extra 15% commission if I can get rid of the white siding that nobody wants to buy because it gets dirty so quickly. So just push the white.”
I just couldn’t do it. Phil would say anything to make a sale even if it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t. I just wasn’t a grifter. My elder, but wiser, brother told me the reason he brought me out on the road was to teach me a life lesson, but I suspected the real reason was for his own personal amusement.
Not surprisingly, another thing you could say about this elder statesman of mine was that he was a charmer, especially with those of the female persuasion. He had a constant string of girlfriends who fell like dominoes for his good looks and his smooth talk. They loved his bad boy image and kept coming back for more—even after Phil had dumped them.
I once asked Phil to share the secret of his wooing successes. With a knowing conspiratorial grin, he said, “Just let ‘em know who’s boss.”
That wasn’t my style, not that I had a style to begin with. But I intrinsically knew what worked for Phil would be a total disaster for me, so I just plodded my way through social oblivion while Phil speeded happily along in the fast lane.
Eventually Phil married a rollicking tough-minded woman who swore like a sea captain, but with all the physical charms of a siren who could lure sailors to ground on the rocky shoals. At first, they seemed to be very happy yelling at one another. It was a match made in heaven, until of course the inevitable happened.
I’ll never forget the night when she who cannot be named discovered that Phil was not in bed beside her at 2:00 a.m. She got up and called the card club where Phil was known to frequent. The club manager told her in no uncertain terms that Phil was absolutely, without question, not there. So, naturally she knew where to find him. She tossed an overcoat over her nightgown and proceeded to drive over there. It played out like a movie. She threw open the door to the club and stood there like a female colossus surveying its dingy confines filled with rats of the human variety. There, in the corner, sat Phil: oblivious to her entrance, he casually smoked one of his unfiltered Export A’s—completely unaware of his impending doom.
With fire in her eyes, her jacket opened, revealing her ample accoutrements. She who cannot be named walked over to Phil, and in a steely voice, said, “Get up.”
Phil looked up, tapped his cigarette into an already overflowing ashtray and drawled out, “I’m in the middle of a hand.”
“I’ll show you what you’re in the middle of. You’re in deep shit.” And with that, she hauled him to the foot of the stairs and catapulted him down the twenty steps, where he landed in a heap. Stepping spritely over him, she said, “You better be home in ten minutes.” She then promptly whisked herself home and into an awaiting bed. Phil arrived exactly ten minutes later where they proceeded to make passionate love the rest of the night.
The marriage only lasted a few more years. Even when they were first married, this mismatch was foreshadowed. One evening, she had cornered Phil into washing her fine china. Phil dropped a plate, smashing it into a hundred pieces. Two minutes later, it happened again. Phil was immediately ordered out of the kitchen. Phil remarked afterwards, “It only cost me two dishes, but now I’ll never have to wash another dish again.” He sat back and turned on the T.V. only to watch his beloved ‘Frisco’ 49ers lose the spread by three points costing Phil ‘five large.’ From that time on the gulf between husband and wife grew so large that the two eventually divorced.
Phil began playing the field once again. Fortunately for him he was a very good field player with a new bevy of willing companions. Phil often regaled me with stories of his conquests, but by this time, I was settled, married, had a child, and worked a steady nine to five job, which was perfectly suited to my unadventurous nature.
Phil, however, set his sights on a new profession, that of a red-hot gambler. His life goal was to make a lot of money by working as little as possible, or as Phil would say in his own words, “Playing it smart and easy.”
Phil was looking forward to the next big score, so he and I went to Las Vegas for his birthday. In appreciation for the trip and in an inexplicable haze of nostalgia, I bought him a recorder in remembrance of the old days. He asked me, “What was that tune I always used to play?”
Of course, how could I ever forget those tortuous notes, but I told him I couldn’t remember. Unluckily for me, he did recall and proceeded once again to play that terrible tune in a continuous loop. Somewhere inside myself, I wondered if I really was a masochist.
In Vegas, from early morning until late at night, Phil would plant himself at the tables. It didn’t matter if it was blackjack, craps, or Omaha. It was all the same and all for the thrill of winning. At the end of one of those long days, we were standing in front of the casino elevators to get up to our room. Phil was considered a high roller, so food and hotel costs were completely covered. When the elevator doors binged and opened, I yelled out, “A winner!”
Phil laughed with one of his big hearty laughs and put his arm around my shoulders. “Good one, bro.” And I was happy that we could come together on some level.
The next day Phil was on a roll, and the crowd was cheering him on. Apparently, Phil had won $87,000 at the poker table. Phil looked up at me with that carefree grin of his and winked. As Phil gathered his winnings, we stood there for a moment together, different, but bonded by a shared past—two brothers—me and Mr. Big.
Recently retired as Executive Director of a not-for-profit agency, Howard Kurlandski is an aficionado of puns and is now concentrating on his writings of poetry, short stories, plays, children’s stories, and his newest venture, a Victorian murder mystery. According to Howard, the best is yet to come.
Image: Pink Dreams (Ebru Kur, 2023)
Edited for publication by Andrew Drager, as part of the Professional Writing and Communications Program.
HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by Humber’s Office of Research & Innovation.