The Amazing Absorbing Boy

by Rabindranath Maharaj

  “Which lizard?”

  “Trudeau.” He wiggled his fingers and laughed, which I had never seen him do before. “Bloody riotous revenge instigated by Dr. Tulip, no less.” He told me that soon after he had arrived in Canada and was preparing for his family’s arrival he had rented a small basement apartment from an old woman in Etobicoke. “Pleasant chatty-chatty woman but Dr. Tulip soon realized that these hammering tête-à-têtes about India were a good Canadian smoke screen and maple syrup.” The first clue, according to Dr. Tulip was when the woman renamed her goldfish Krishna, and a new turtle Tagore. Both died shortly afterwards. “A bloody game. Killing out our heroes in deep-rooted instalments. Murder most foul.” The last straw was when the old woman revealed she was going to buy a pair of kittens that she would name Gandhi and Nehru. Immediately Dr. Bat went to a pet store and brought the cheapest animal there, which was a little lizard. He named the lizard Trudeau. And each night he would pretend his lizard had escaped and would wail, “Where are you, Trudeau? Why have you deserted me, Trudeau? Don’t leave me alone, Trudeau. Dr. Tulip is nothing without you.” And Dr. Bat clapped his hand and laughed and laughed and laughed. He laughed so hard that a packet slipped out of his coat pocket. He bent down to get the package from between the brake and accelerator pedals. “Goat pills. Keeps the madam moist, so to say.” And he broke into a fresh round of laughter, driving off and doubling over the steering wheel.

  From then on, the minute he spotted me he would clap his hands and say, “Oh Trudeau. Why have you deserted me? Please, please come back, Trudeau.” I never told this to Paul because I knew he would come up with a bigger story, but I was happy that I had at least brought a little fun and laughter into Dr. Bat’s unhappy life.

  One rainy night as I was walking home it occurred to me that he and Paul had done the same for me. I felt that all their strange stories had pushed away my worries about my father’s mean behaviour. For a few hours every day I was immune. The rain gave the traffic lights at the intersection of Regent Street and Saskville Avenue a washed-out look, as if the city was about to melt so slowly no one would notice. While I waited for the lights to change I remembered my mother, too, making up stories of my father’s trips and the gifts he would return with. I was about seven or eight then and I believed every word. During that time, the entire house had been covered with photographs. They hung over doors and windows and vases. Soon after I discovered comics I tried to read the photographs in that manner, panel by panel but I couldn’t. They were happy and sad and happy and sad. Then one by one the happy ones were removed.

  Chapter Six

  THE HEALING ECHO

  The following day I was in a quiet mood and when Paul came up with one of his stories, instead of adding to it or displaying any interest I just continued eating the sandwich I had packed earlier in the day. He fished out a crumpled cigarette from his shirt pocket and cupped a hand to light it. After a couple minutes he flicked the cigarette to the back of the garage and took out his gloves from his back pocket. He put them on carefully, opening and closing his fingers slowly, and I felt he was looking at me. During that entire week we were like that: me chewing quietly and Paul smoking in deep puffs.

  I was glad he had not asked what was eating me up because I couldn’t really explain how miserable I felt whenever I thought of my mother, and I would be too embarrassed to mention anything of my father. For instance, his comment the first time he had spotted me in my uniform: “A gas station boy now. Nice. Plenty ambition. Your uncle will be real proud. Oompa loompa.” I was not really immune, after all.

  On Thursday night as I was preparing to leave, Paul began to talk about some girl he had broken up with. He said she was a “terrible kisser but a great fiddler.” He had accompanied her to rallies across Toronto where she would play the fiddle “like a goddess.” One night she had told him that she no longer loved him and moved out. It was beginning to feel like a sad story but he said that a couple weeks later he moved in with her friend, a clarinet player. “Your own orchestra soon,” I told him and he nodded as if he had taken my joke seriously. It was only when I was walking home that I realized Paul must have misunderstood my quietness. Yet one thing from that conversation stood out: these rallies all across Toronto. In Mayaro the only rallies were during election time when motorcades rolled though the roads with loudspeakers blaring insults at opposing candidates. Once two motorcades met at the main junction before the police station and bottles began to fly. The police locked up the station, turned off the lights and didn’t come out until the next day.

  I was sure these Toronto rallies were different. I couldn’t picture these people—who walked with their gaze straight ahead, not bothering to smile or anything—cursing and pelting bottles all over the place. On Friday I asked Paul about the rallies. I waited until he was finished boasting about his clarinet player who was “a terrible player but a great kisser” before I inquired about the locations. He mentioned Queen’s Park and Nathan Phillips Square and a couple other places.

  The next morning I took one look at my father on the balcony and decided to head out but the minute I stepped out of the building I realized I had no idea where Paul’s places were. Just outside the lobby a fat boy was tying his shoelaces. He looked a little like a panda and when I asked him about Nathan Square he pointed to the east and then to the west before he resumed his lacing. I stood there for a while until I noticed a stocky man in spectacles staring at us. He was standing next to a skinny old-timer wearing a brimless cap and some kind of white robe with white pants underneath. The old man also had on curling-tip shoes, which made me think of a grandfather genie. As I walked over, the glasses man held his gaze, seeming stricter with each step I made. I almost changed my mind but it was too late so I asked him the direction to Nathan Square. He fixed me with a strict glare and his lips twisted down as if he was about to bouff me up like an old schoolmaster.

  “Are you going to the protest?” He pronounced his words carefully. Maybe he was a schoolmaster with his jacket and tie and thick glasses.

  I wasn’t sure what he was talking about so I told him, “Maybe.”

  “If we don’t show unity then we shouldn’t complain about being neglected.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. “True.”

  “Take the Dundas streetcar then subway to Queen.” He pointed the direction and I noticed the genie mimicking his gestures.

  The streetcar was surprisingly packed with old, very well-dressed people. Perhaps the vehicle passed through some area of the city with fancy houses, and as we moved away from the park and into a street congested with buildings as old as those in Port of Spain but with foreign signs I remembered the coffee-shop bunch and I wondered how these streetcar people saw this part of the city. It took less than fifteen minutes to get to the Dundas subway station but the next trip went on and on. I had plenty time to kill but as the train passed beyond College and Rosedale and Summerhill and arrived at stations with unfamiliar names like Lawrence and York Mills and Finch I realized I should have gotten off much earlier. I wondered where exactly I would land up. Then the conductor or whoever made the announcements said we were now southbound and I decided to just enjoy the view. Whenever we pulled into a station I would feel these tunnels were the perfect place for the Lizard or the Morlocks. I could just imagine them leaping and clamping onto the windows with their slimy faces pressed against the glass and people bawling and fainting. But occasionally we emerged from underground into bright bushy valleys.

  This time I got off at Queen, and while I was walking to the square I stared at the skyscrapers and tall office towers and noticed how different this part of the city was from Regent Park and the places near the Pape and Coxwell stations. I guess this was how I had pictured Canada when Uncle Boysie had first told me of my move. The people seemed different, too, moving in such a hurry I was surprised they didn’t crash into each other. Some of them were staring down at their phones even as they crossed the streets. A pretty girl on a yellow s
cooter sped by and no one stared or whistled even though a good slice of her leg was exposed. At the entrance to the square some Chinese people were snapping an ugly statue that resembled a plucked, headless chicken. I strolled around for a while until I got to a small group holding up banners with Somalia and Sri Lanka and Palestine written on them. Above them was a statue of Winston Churchill and the sculptor was maybe in a bad mood because Churchill was frowning as if he was going to tell the crowd, “Get the fuck outta here.” Maybe in a British accent.

  In any case the crowd wasn’t interested in the statue. A man with a round whiskery face like Santa Claus was shouting into a microphone about genocide and assassination and racism but the crowd seemed to be in a good mood. Every now and again they would raise their fists at something the Santa Claus man said. I thought of these shows with famous singers I had seen on television because there were so many lively, chanting people my age. I walked around and tried to understand what the meeting or protest was about. Another speaker took the stage and continued the talk about torture. The crowd grew a little quiet. This speaker, a slim man with buttoned-down cuffs was talking about his own experiences. His family had been murdered. He had been jailed for ten years. If he was returned, it would be straight back to prison for him. He mentioned the names of people who had disappeared. His voice got real low and the crowd moved closer to the stage. I wondered if his children were living with him here in Canada or had been killed.

  There were many little groups and everyone seemed to know each other. Maybe they attended all of these meetings. I felt a little out of place, like somebody showing up for the wrong fête. Perhaps there were all these clubs and secret groups in Toronto new people had to join just to fit in. Then I spotted a woman who looked to be maybe twenty-seven or so, standing by herself. She had a notebook in her hand and she, too, seemed out of place. She was tall and slim and dressed all in black and seemed real quiet and observant. I wondered what she was writing but when I moved closer and peeped at her notebook, I saw only a single sentence: Pain is an opinion on which we are free to differ. Beneath was a squiggle of a sun or moon shining down on a few plants and plenty rocks. The eyebrows of the sun or moon were raised as if it was surprised.

  I was a little disappointed by her stupid drawing; she had seemed so serious all the time. And that was the look she gave me when she noticed me staring at her notebook. “Are you a refugee?” she asked me.

  “Of course.” Don’t ask me why this lie popped out, because the only explanation I can come up with was the unexpectedness of her question.

  “I thought so. Afghanistan?”

  At that moment I wished it really was Afghanistan. Then I could mention things I had heard on the television about the Taliban and warlords. A story formed in my mind about a young man running through poppy fields and chased by howling one-legged fanatics on camels and horses but when Dr. Bat popped into the picture I told her instead, “No. From Trinidad.”

  “Trinidad?”

  I tried to make it dangerous. “Near to Jamaica.”

  “I know where it is.” She sounded disappointed.

  “I am an orphan.”

  “I know what you mean.” I suspected she knew I was lying but I really felt like an orphan most times. “There’s another rally here next weekend.” She patted my shoulder lightly and walked away with her long black coat trailing after her like these people from the Matrix movies. I left soon after a wild drumming group with colourful clothes began their performance.

  On my way to Regent Park I felt a little guilty about lying to the woman. Her question about Afghanistan reminded me of Norbert and the other old-timers who had tried to guess where I was from. In Trinidad my hair and colour marked me as an Indian, different from the black and the white people and the coco-panyols, but here I could be so many people. Nearly anyone I chose. Like Metamorpho who used to hang out with the Outsiders. This was exciting. I tried to think of strange comic book names in case anyone showed any curiosity: Sam Grapula. Ramahoody Moofins. Sookdeo Iggyports. Roti Ramirez. But off course no one asked. In Mayaro they would have stared at me and ask, “Who son you is, boy?”

  Maybe it was a good thing no one asked.

  On Monday Paul began his talk about his clarinet player. During their lovemaking she always closed her eyes and recited hymns, her voice getting louder and louder until she finally bawled out “Amen.” This was a little embarrassing so I told him I had been to a rally. He went on about the clarinet lady and I wondered if she would be mad if she knew Paul was revealing all these secrets about their nights together. The next day he continued with this topic and maybe as a way of shutting him up I said I had met a woman at the rally. He got a little quiet and asked me to describe her. I said she had high cheekbones that matched her broad mouth and that she wore winter clothes even in this normal weather. He said, “Fascinating,” just like Mr. Spock and I wondered whether she was his clarinet player. The next day he asked if I planned to meet her again and I nodded. To tell the truth the question got me a little excited and I thought of comic book words like rendezvous and clandestine.

  The crowd was smaller than at the previous rally, and better dressed too. The man on the stage had a tartan hat and he was talking slowly and pausing and smiling at everything that came out of his mouth. He looked like an absent-minded professor reciting from his lecture notes. He said things like, “This world is divided into two groups—those who invoke some cause to varnish their self-delusions and those who sit on the sidelines consumed with doubt and loathing and cowardice.” But then he went on to mention many other groups. It seemed as if he wanted to include everyone. The crowd didn’t seem bothered by this and I noticed many of them nodding when he said, “We must unshackle ourselves from our delusions. We must act before the window closes on our fingers.” He stood before the microphone as if he was trying to remember some other bit of his lecture, then he backed off, placed his hands in his coat pocket and reversed off the stage. The audience applauded.

  “Brilliant.” It was the woman in the trailing black coat. She had her notebook in her hand and throughout the next boring speech about how all businesses were hooked up in a secret deal, she stood real upright with a sort of secretive smile. At its conclusion, she drew another picture of flowers with big blocky drops of rain. There were faces on the drops. “I am so afraid.”

  “About what?”

  She gave me a surprised look. “You, of all people, should understand.” Maybe she was referring to my orphan lie but when I tried to look downcast, she added, “The strong must comfort the weak.” She patted my shoulder. “Nearly everyone in this world is walking around with a broken heart.”

  That entire week I thought of her statement. In Trinidad, mad people usually said things like that but when I repeated the statement to Paul he reacted as if he had expected her to say this all along.

  On Saturday, on my way to the Square, I saw the strict man and his grandfather genie on a bench. “We must take a stand,” he told me as I walked over. “This is a new world. If we sit on the sidelines then we should not complain about being swept under the carpet.”

  The genie looked from him to me as if he was expecting a reply. His lips beneath his short beard were very thin. “The strong must comfort the weak,” I told them half-heartedly.

  “Rubbish! Everyone is equal. We concoct our own weaknesses and parade them as assets. That is the problem.”

  The genie fixed his gaze on me. I felt he could not understand English. “I’m going to a parade,” I told them. “At the Square.”

  The genie cackled and said something like, “Gobble-gooky.”

  I decided to avoid both of them.

  The rally was about global warming. This, at least, was interesting and many of the speakers talked about penguins and polar bears and nasty floods. One of them came with placard drawings of these animals. He smashed the placards one by one and gazed at the junk before him. “This is what will be left.” He seemed quite tired with his smashing a
nd collapsed as he was walking off the stage. Everyone applauded. After he was dragged away, a band of musicians came on stage, jumped up and down with their guitars and screamed out some lines. I saw the woman with her notebook, not drawing flowers but swaying with her eyes closed. She seemed to be in a good mood so I walked over. When she opened her eyes she said immediately—as if she had expected I would be there—“The healing echo of music.” She closed her eyes once more while a rapper warned that the world was coming to an end. “It’s going to burn and shizzle.” He crouched and gazed up at the sky like these actors from Chariots of Fire.

  “The healing echo of extinction.” She opened her eyes slowly, flutter by flutter.

  From the lights on the stage, I saw a little shower developing. I tried a little joke. “It’s going to drizzle and shizzle,” but she looked at me like if I was the crazy one. I considered mentioning something about the healing echo of drizzles but said instead, “We concoct our own weaknesses.”

  “Concoct?” She seemed surprised I had used such a big word. She patted my shoulder and left her hand there. I felt a little shy at this, and as the drizzle grew stronger, also trapped. Finally she told me, “There’s a reading at the Art Bar next weekend. I would like you to come.”

  Although her gesture had made me uncomfortable, during the week I imagined it had led to other invitations, and I tried to imagine what her apartment might look like. I felt there might be pictures of flowers on all the walls and smiley faces on her fridge and fat cats jumping from a plump beige couch to a mysterious chest with strange engravings on its lid.

  I had to walk a good little distance from the Christie subway to get to her Art Bar but I didn’t mind because there were many interesting old houses on the way. Some resembled Enid Blyton gingerbread cottages with pretty bushes hiding their old-fashioned porches. It was completely different from the ruction of all the red brick boxes in Regent Park. When I got there, I saw a sprinkle of oldish people dressed casually like me, in sneakers and jeans and rumpled T-shirts, seated around long tables. A thin man with a thick, shivering moustache that made his neck seem longer was on the stage. He was telling some sort of story. “And so in this dream, I came upon this village where, with every step, I encountered another sign. The roads in this village curved and crisscrossed into fields of ice and burning sand and huge sprawling forests. What did this dream signify? What was the true nature of the village?” He stroked his bony neck and gazed at the small audience. I noticed the woman in black hunched forward over a corner table. She seemed to be thinking deeply. The man on stage said, “Each sign was written in a different language.”