EXCERPT: THE BLAST

Although Myer and Maureen were separated, they still saw a fair amount of each other. Since the baseball bat incident, Myer had been renting a suite at the Sutton Place Hotel, downtown Toronto. On the morning of November 9th, just a few days prior to the beginning of the trial, Maureen experienced traumatic nervous disorders, and was admitted to the Women’s College Hospital, just a few blocks from the Sutton Place. Myer spent that entire day in the company of his disoriented wife. The wedding of a friend detained him that evening, and by the time Myer got back to his suite at about midnight, he was exhausted.

Myer had noticed upon renting the suite that the bed in the room was made by Spring Center, Inc., the bedding company started by his sister, Sarah, and brother-in-law, Morris. “You’ve got those beds in every nook and cranny,” Myer remarked to Sarah at the time. Just before going to sleep, Myer spotted a note on the dresser, signed by the night maid, stating that the television was now in working order. Myer hadn’t noticed that there was anything wrong with the television, but without thinking much about it he just went to sleep.

At precisely 3:42 A.M., November 10th, Myer was blown out of his bed by a time bomb.

The blast had been so jolting it broke windows across the street. He was dead. How could he not be? Early morning Canadian national radio and news services broke with the news:

BOMB IN BED KILLS LOCAL MINE STOCK PROMOTER
While eating breakfast, Myer’s sister Sarah switched on the radio to hear, “More details on the death of stock promoter, Myer Rush, as they become available.” She became hysterical. Immediately calling the radio station, she found that Myer had been pronounced dead at the hospital. She called Ma, she called Pa. This was the first they had heard of it.

“He can’t be dead; this is not true!” shouted a hysterical Ma. “The dirty bastards, I’ll kill the dirty bastards who have murdered my son,” shouted Pa over the telephone. By the time Ma, Pa, and Sarah had arrived at the hospital, the lobby was overflowing with friends, relatives, radio microphones, television cameras, and police.

It was 7:00 A.M., and a doctor had just reported to a gathering of news services that Mr. Rush had died twice on the way to the hospital, but both times an intern in the ambulance massaged his heart back to life. The man was alive, and was given about a ten percent chance of survival. The reporters were told that the man had gaping holes, exposing internal organs, from the neck to the stomach. The chest had been blown open, so an incision was not necessary for massaging the heart.

Reprinted by permission of the Canadian Press

First reports stated that Mr. Rush, on the verge of trial for a $100-million stock fraud, had died immediately. New reports confirmed that Mr. Rush died twice en route to the hospital, but was alive and was given a ten percent chance to survive. Police said the mattress of Rush’s bed softened the impact of the bomb and probably saved his life. If it hadn’t stemmed the flow of blood, he probably would have died immediately….

Hours became more hours, and with each passing moment there was another ray of hope that Myer would survive. It had become twenty-four hours, and his chances were now listed as twenty-five percent. No operations were being performed, because they wanted to leave the wounds open for the poisons to flow out of the system. In any case, he was much too weak. Two days became three, four became five, and suddenly, after a week, the doctors felt Myer had a good chance at survival. The family never doubted it for a second. When they were told that no, he was not dead, they never turned back!

Detectives had set up a drawing board and a marking pencil beside the bed of my uncle in the hope that he would regain enough strength to scribble something as to the identity of those who had done this to him.

Reprinted by permission of the Canadian Press

Myer would have been believed, but could never have known their identity. Two weeks had passed and Myer, still in intensive care, had survived. Other articles quoted Myer’s father, Abraham, as saying that “my son of a bitch son will make it; there are no doubts. How do I know? Because every time I see him he’s so much better. That guy’s made of granite. Sure tubes are stuck down his throat; sure his face is burned from gunpowder; sure he’s got a zipper from neck to bellybutton like the back of a dress, what does that matter—those are just decorations. This is the toughest man that ever lived. Try to blow him up with a bomb, did they? The sons of bitches will be running for their lives now….”

What Myer could not have known while he lay there, making such progress that doctors were preparing to take him out of intensive care, is that he was, now, a father to be. While in the hospital for her nervous condition, doctors had discovered that Maureen was about six weeks pregnant, and although she was separated from Myer, Maureen knew that her husband was the father, as there had been no relations with anyone else. Myer could not be told, yet, that he was going to be a father. Though, remarkably, his brain activity was excellent (there had been no damage to the brain), his mind had been very cloudy and disoriented. He was just now beginning to stay awake for hours at a time, to get a grasp of where he was and what had happened to him. By mid-December, almost two months after the bombing, he was moved from intensive care. He was now talking to relatives, and he now found out that he was going to be a father.

“Oh no, not another one like me,” he said to Maureen.

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