Idea in Stone

by Hamish Macdonald

  To Stefan’s left was Paulo, with arresting dark eyes, wavy black hair, and skin that was dark enough to look like a golden tan, not quite dark enough to be considered ‘ethnic’—except by casting directors. His acting talent was considerable, but success in film or television eluded him, and he scraped by working for a repertory theatre company. Paulo was the handsomest person Stefan knew, yet he was so uncomfortable about his looks, his race, or something, that Stefan thought of him as an “ugly beautiful person”. No matter how much adulation Stefan and the others gave him, he seemed set on his unhappiness. The group figured that somehow people picked up on this, which explained his perpetual singledom. After the blind date where they met, Stefan reported, “He’s a beautiful prince you kiss who turns into a poisonous frog”. Their early mutual disinterest made it easy to slip immediately into friendship.

  “Where’s Rick?” asked Stefan. Rick rounded out Stefan’s triumvirate of friends.

  “He called Allen’s cell about ten minutes ago to say he’d be a bit late,” said Paulo. “He just finished up a contract on Bay Street.”

  “Holy crap,” said Stefan, “not one of those big bank buildings.”

  “Yeah,” replied Allen, “he got the contract for the tower I work in.”

  “Oh yeah. Did you have anything to do with that?” asked Stefan.

  “Well, I told him it was up for renewal. But he won the bid on his own.”

  “Can you imagine hanging up there on one of those little platforms?” asked Paulo. “And where do they get the water from?”

  The three of them sat in silence, trying to figure it out. Allen gave up first, and asked how the others’ days went. Paulo described a workshop he was participating in, then Stefan recapped his day at the studio. “I think they’re going to can me,” he said. Not knowing how to respond, Allen went on to describe his day with a group of estate inheritors bickering over their shares. Allen didn’t mind, he said, because he got paid out of the estate for every moment they spent arguing with each other.

  “Hey guys,” said Rick, coming up the stairs, “how’s it going?” They greeted him as he slumped down into a chair. “That was the hardest day I’ve spent since I started doing this,” he said, sipping on a paper coffee cup the size of a sandcastle bucket. “I don’t know if I can keep this contract. It’s just too much work.”

  “Why don’t you hire some other people to work for you?” Allen often harangued Rick on this point whenever Rick took on a tone of nobility about being overworked. “It’s your business, and as long as you do all the work it will never get any bigger than you.”

  “If I pay extra people, there won’t be enough of a profit left over.”

  Allen flipped up his Okay, nevermind hands.

  “Hey, Stef,” said Rick, “I wrote another song last night.”

  “That’s great.”

  “What’s it about?” asked Paulo.

  “Oh, well, it’s—it’s kind of hard to explain. I mean, it’s kind of reductive to take something as personal as a song and, you know, sum it up.”

  “Okay,” said Allen, “so what kind of song is it?”

  “It doesn’t really fall into a category, exactly. It’s—I dunno. I’ll play it for you guys sometime.” He turned to Stefan. “Do you think you could talk to one of your mom’s people for me?”

  Stefan squirmed. “You should really finish your demo first. They can’t do anything for you if you haven’t got a demo. And I don’t know if her agent is really the right person for you. I mean, she’s considered Folk, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” said Rick. “I’ve gotta get that demo finished. I swear I’m going to do it first thing in the new year.”

  “That’s great,” said Stefan. The others made sounds of approval. Stefan regretted the thought, but was satisfied that he’d never have to present anything to anyone if he waited for Rick to finish the demo of his songs. They were good, the ones he’d heard, though most of them were about his ex-girlfriend. She’d been around for about a year, and sometimes he’d take her out with them, clutching to her to assert his straightness like a love-doll personal flotation device. Then she left for Japan or Malaysia or wherever it was, leaving their relationship sufficiently open-ended for him to imagine it was still going on.

  “I hate my job,” said Rick.

  “Then stop doing it,” replied Allen.

  “Easy for you to say. You’ve got buckets of money in the bank.”

  “Yeah, but I made it. It’s not like somebody just gave it to me.”

  “I think,” said Stefan, “that by the time you reach thirty, you’re kind of set money-wise. Like, you’re poor-thirty or rich-thirty, and it’s probably not going to change.”

  “Oh God,” said Paulo. Rick moaned in agreement.

  “So which are you?” Allen asked Stefan.

  “I guess I’m poor-thirty.”

  “Ha!” laughed Rick. “That’s a good one.”

  “What? You mean because of my mother?” Stefan shifted in his chair. “She’s not that rich, you know. She still has to keep doing records and shows, or we’d be sunk. And besides, just because she has money doesn’t mean I do. It’s not mine, you know. All my money comes from the voice-over work. I might not even have that soon.”

  “I still don’t think you’re poor-thirty,” said Rick casually over his drink.

  “I don’t like this idea,” said Allen. “I think that people are always free to be as successful as they want to be. They just don’t bother trying.”

  “Listen to you,” said Rick, turning to face him. “You’re so self-righteous about your success.”

  “And you’re self-righteous about your lack of it.”

  The evening was supposed to be fun and festive, but at this rate Stefan imagined them going home hating each other, so he changed the subject. “Hey, we should get moving if we’re going to make our supper reservation. Let’s get a cab.”

  ~

  “Surprise!” yelled a large group of people at the back of the bar. Supper had gone into overtime, so even the fashionably late were there when they brought Allen in. He was genuinely surprised, his eyes wide open with joy as people from various parts of his life made their way forward to congratulate him. Allen was out in every possible way, so he had no qualms about them meeting in a gay bar. Stefan, on the other hand, hadn’t mentioned it at work. He didn’t ever mention it if it wasn’t necessary, and took a secret enjoyment from situations where people didn’t know or made mistakes about him. (When his mother was around, these misunderstandings tended to get cleared up immediately.)

  Stefan pulled back from the crowd, happy for his friend, trying not to think about himself in relation to Allen’s situation. He started for the bar, but changed direction and headed downstairs to the bathroom, dodging the urinals at the last moment when he saw someone else standing there (not wanting to be presumed to be cruising, even though he found the thought intriguing). The right-hand stall was free, and he darted in. He sat and sighed, looking at the graffiti on the stall’s floor-length chalkboard walls, telephone numbers he would never call, propositions that sounded interesting or frightening. Most of them were old and smeared, and though he was tempted to write something, he couldn’t see any chalk. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

  When he opened them, he gasped: the four walls around him were covered, from the acoustic tiles of ceiling to the wet tiles of the floor, with an intricate chalk sketch of a city. Spires rose, columns stood tall, and the black of the walls was incorporated into the ancient brickwork. Between the buildings wound little alleys and walkways. Even the streets were made of brick. In the distance were hills rendered with green chalk, shaded in with patches of purple.

  Stefan poked a finger to the wall and drew it back. His fingertip held a circle of white powder, and one of the buildings now had an extra window.

  Wherever this place was, for whatever reason he’d been shown it, Stefan was in love.

  ~

  He stagge
red home several hours later, his head and his belly sloshing with beer. He’d hoped the walk would settle him, but he made it from the downtown neon and billboards and pixelboards blazing their promises, through the Annex with its subtler, earthier urban alternative offerings, to the tree-lined street where he lived, and he was still drunk.

  He tiptoed through the house to his room and changed into soft old gym clothes to sleep in. He put down his head, but his bed felt unsteady. He sat up, breathing deeply to steady himself. He put a hand under his shirt to touch his stomach. It was cold. It gurgled. This will not be good, he thought. Looking down, he saw something in his belly-button. He pulled it out, a piece of feathery old paper. On it were the letters DIN. He placed it in the dish on his bedside table with the other. Dine? he wondered.

  He tried to lie down, but his stomach moved like a washing machine. He put on his coat and padded upstairs, past the main floor, to the second floor. He thanked a higher power that his mother’s bedroom door was closed, and continued through to the office. The room was already cluttered, but now it overflowed with Cerise’s boxes and music things. The more careful he tried to be, the more things he tripped over, but eventually he reached the window at the front of the house, opened it, and eased himself out.

  Stefan sat for a while on the prickly tar-shingled roof, looking over the tree-tops at the illuminated building blocks of the city and the humbler stars beyond. He thought of Allen’s life—the job, the partner, the well-decorated condominium. I don’t want that, he thought, but I do want something. He thought of the chalk city he saw. It had to be out in the world somewhere. Maybe. He thought of the voice he heard so often. It was just one voice. So it had to belong to somebody. Maybe.

  His silent laugh made a cloud in front of him. The answer to the maybes was so simple:

  I have to run away from home.

  Three

  Guardians

  “Jean?” asked Wendy, poking her head around the open Green Room door. She saw Stefan and looked for someone else in the room. “I thought I heard Jean in here.”

  Stefan smiled and put down the script he was studying. “Pretty good, eh?”

  “That was you? Yeah, that was very good.”

  “Thanks. It was hard to find the right blend of shrew, harpy, and eel, but I think I’ve finally got her down.”

  Wendy smiled weakly, skipping over the comment to preserve her neutrality. “Chuck’s ready for you to put down your dialogue in Number Five.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Stefan picked up his things and headed down the hall. In the sound booth, he set his gear up on the music stand, picked up his sides, and positioned himself carefully next to the microphone. He stretched his mouth wide open, made an exaggerated movement like a camel chewing, then gave the sound technician a thumbs-up sign. A red light illuminated on the microphone and Stefan took a deep breath to speak. The sound booth door opened and Jean the producer entered. Stefan exhaled.

  “Sorry,” she said, “I just had a meeting with lawyers and one of the writers, and we came up with a revised copy of today’s script. Here you go Stefan. Sorry for the short notice.”

  Stefan was about to launch into a complaint, but found himself empty. Why should he care? He was leaving. He had no idea where to, or how he was going to manage it, but the idea had clicked into place, and he was as good as gone. Jean held out the sheets of paper. Stefan smiled at her and took them. He riffled through them, his eyebrows raising reflexively, little “Hmms” vibrating from his mouth at intervals. He read bits of the revisions aloud: “With bioengineering it will be possible to feed the world... Nuclear energy continues to be the cleanest, most efficient way to produce electricity...” He turned to Jean and smiled again. “Great!”

  She cocked her head, looked at him for a moment, then said, “Oh. Well, okay then. I’ll be in my office.” At the door, she took another look back at Stefan, paused, then left.

  The work went easily for the rest of the day, and Jean didn’t interrupt again. Stefan wondered why he hadn’t thought of the ‘go limp’ approach before. Luckily, his conscience left him alone, perhaps because of his mind’s preoccupation with the recent change in plans.

  ~

  DINEGHRU. Stefan rubbed his eyes and looked at the little wisps of paper. Breathing carefully so he wouldn’t blow them off his side-table, he placed this morning’s down, the letter B. DINEGHRUB. Oh, he thought, that’s much clearer.

  He went upstairs, intending to have a shower, but his mother stopped him along the way. “Stefan,” she said, “you’re just in time to have breakfast with us!” He sat at the table, his hunger overriding his discomfort at the idea. His mother’s Saturday breakfasts were his favourite meal of the week. She scooped and sliced and arranged, then brought over a heaping plate of wheat-free, eggless, milkless pancakes, fat-free, meatless mock-bacon, and fried potatoes—actual potatoes. The ‘bacon’ made him gassy, but he did actually enjoy it. He liked all of his mother’s synthetic cooking. Being so familiar with it, he found the real-world inspirations for his mother’s food analogies odd, foreign. (Though he regularly ordered double-helpings of real bacon when he ate out with friends as a little stand for his independence, despite the queasy and guilty feelings that followed.)

  Cerise’s gown flowed as she approached the table, making her look like a husky piece of artwork that had escaped before being properly unveiled. “Good morning,” she said to them both, lingering with a knowing look to Delonia. She sat to Stefan’s right, in his father’s seat. The table in the kitchen was square, though, and not large, so he let the transgression pass. Had she taken the other seat she’d be sitting opposite him, and that would be a more pressing annoyance.

  “Good morning,” said Delonia, carrying plates over for herself and Cerise, leaning down to give Cerise a kiss on the cheek as she put her plate down. Stefan spurted orange juice back into his glass. He wiped his mouth and cleared his throat. “So are you almost ready for your Christmas show, Mom?” he asked.

  “Almost. We haven’t filled the third guest slot yet, and we’ve got a few more rehearsals to do. Oh, which reminds me: are you free to pick me up on Monday night at the studio?”

  “Oh,” he said, as if his plans would be horribly compromised, although he had none.

  “You know I wouldn’t ask you, but you know, since I can’t drive—”

  What a fiasco that was, he remembered, Canada’s first lady of song (okay, fourth, fifth, or maybe eighth) being arrested on ‘Driving Under the Influence’ charges. The memory of the press mania over the event made Stefan uncomfortable, embarrassed for her. She knew this, he was sure, and used it for leverage in such situations. She’d also happened to give him her car after the incident—not that it was of any use to her without a license, and she was committed to its lease, so the gift wasn’t the act of largesse she liked to suggest. Still, he couldn’t come up with a good excuse for not helping her.

  “All right,” he said, “what time is the rehearsal over?”

  “We should be finished by 10pm,” she said.

  “So will I get you at the bar?”

  “Oh, that would be nice. You can say hello to the crew.”

  Mmm, he thought, great: the union stage crew who’d known him since birth and took such pleasure in teasing him. They loved to drink with his mother, even though they knew better. Despite the facts, though, Stefan never played the “my mother’s an alcoholic” card, since it was so expected of famous people’s children. And other than the car accident, drinking was more of an occasional hobby for her than a problem, not even dramatic enough to warrant sympathy or special treatment. He had no excuses, he thought as he reached for a gluten-free biscuit, for not having made more of his life. In fact, he had a lot of advantages, so he should stop being such a…

  A foot rested on his. He looked to his mother, who chewed absently on fruit salad. With effort he resisted looking at Cerise, until the foot started wiggling. He gave her a look with flared eyes. She pulled her foot away, her hand fly
ing to her mouth as her face flushed.

  Stefan let his fork clatter to his plate and stormed from the table. Delonia, surprised, followed after him, down the stairs. She reached his bedroom door before he could slam it.

  “What,” she demanded, “is the matter with you?”

  “Your girlfriend made a pass at me that was intended for you.”

  “Oh,” said Delonia with a giggle.

  “You don’t love her,” declared Stefan.

  “What?”

  “Mom, you’re not a lesbian. She’s just the first person to get close to you since Dad died. I think you’re confused.”

  “Wh— I— You don’t know the first thing about it. How could you? Why don’t you move out and rent a nice little closet somewhere? Isn’t that what you’d like?”

  “Mom, just because you’re all liberal and stuff doesn’t mean you can be a lesbian at will. You’re not gay, you’re just lonely.”

  She turned and left his room without another word. He wondered if his point had struck home. It was just a guess. If it was true, though, he’d just injected a doubt into his mother’s relationship. So she’s fooled herself into being happy, so what? That’s still happiness, isn’t it? he thought. Why did I do that? He was defending his father. Or something. Or was he feeling jealous? Of my mother’s lover? Eew. I have to get out of here, he thought, and soon.

  ~

  On the way out of the house, he’d grabbed his mail from the front hallway shelf where his mother had stacked it. He tore the envelopes open one by one as he sipped on a soft drink in the giant food court of a downtown mall. Pixel-boards moved with images of happy shoppers carrying bags and laughing as they encountered each other. Ultra-cool kids skateboarded, sank basketballs in hoops, and kicked footballs in their spacey-looking sneakers, conveniently available for a hundred and some dollars at the store next to the sign. Background music and voices of real shoppers formed a blanket of sound around him. But he was used to it all; the flashing lights and the noise didn’t consciously register for him. He lifted a gravy-soaked French-fry and angled it into his mouth as he unfolded yet another bill.