‘Has he forgotten he tried to strangle somebody?’ Milo whispers.
‘Who knows. Who knows what’s going on in his head.’ She starts down the steps.
‘Where is Christopher working these days?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I was just curious,’ Milo says. ‘He was downsized, wasn’t he? Didn’t he get some other job?’
‘At Empire Financial, why?’
‘Oh, well, someone I know is looking for work in the financial industry. I thought I’d mention that Christopher just got hired.’
‘He was hired months ago. Get with the program, Milo, and please don’t mess with my son’s head. He’s got enough problems.’
Robertson begins lining up patio stones. Afraid to mess with his head, Milo lies down on the grass on his side of the yard. Sal sniffs him briefly before wandering off. ‘The patio’s coming along great,’ he offers. Robertson keeps working. If only life could be as simple as creating some small order amidst the chaos.
‘He took the ball from me,’ Robertson says after several minutes. ‘I was playing by myself and he took the ball.’
‘Whose ball was it?’
‘The school’s.’
‘I guess you’re probably supposed to share it then.’
‘They don’t share it. They never share it. I had it first. He wasn’t even playing.’
‘Who?’
‘Billy.’
‘Were there other kids around?’
‘Just Billy. He wasn’t even playing. He said I couldn’t play but he wasn’t even playing.’
‘Billy the Bully,’ Milo says. ‘What an asshole.’ Tanis would want him to remain objective. She invariably tries to view the altercation from the other kid’s perspective to help explain the situation to Robertson. Her experience in human resources has led her to believe that problems can be solved. In Milo’s experience, problems cling like barnacles. ‘I would’ve kicked his ass,’ he says.
‘Strangling’s probably not the best choice,’ Robertson admits.
‘Going for the throat usually scares people.’
‘He was scared all right.’
‘The hitch is you could kill a person by mistake, going for the throat.’ Milo doesn’t look at Robertson for fear of making him retreat. Instead he listens to the soft tapping of the bricks.
‘He was scared all right,’ Robertson repeats. Is this how delinquency begins? Will he crave the adrenalin buzz he felt with Billy the Bully’s neck in his grip? Did he throttle the boy because his father hit him? Milo certainly did. Nothing relieved the sense of injustice like kicking around another, preferably smaller, boy. Little provocation was required. Although Milo had the sense to only beat up strangers who couldn’t trace him. In the schoolyard he was just Milo the nose-picker.
‘The principal says I can’t go back unless I apologize.’
‘That’s rough.’
‘Would you apologize?’
Milo has never been good at apologies. Generally he avoids confrontation, despite inner rumblings of rebellion. With his father he would feign obedience, until Gus, fed up with his diversion tactics, would fling whatever was on his plate – potatoes, beets, Brussels sprouts – at him. How can my son be such an idiot?
‘Would you apologize?’ Robertson repeats.
‘Probably. To avoid further trouble.’
‘Then they’ll just hit me again and I won’t be able to hit back.’
Tanis summons Robertson for dinner. ‘Right now, please,’ she adds. Before the vaporizing alien incident, she would allow him to dawdle. Does she no longer consider Milo a good influence?
He lies with Zosia’s scarf over his face, picturing her smoky, weary eyes. She expects the worst, and when it happens only shrugs, trudging onward. She views Canadians as overindulged children to be tolerated but not taken seriously. She called Milo a coaster. ‘You coast,’ she said in her Latvian accent, heavy on the c’s and slow on the s’s. ‘One morning you’ll wake up and you’ll be old and you’ll have nothing.’ Zosia studied electrical engineering in Russia, worked hard among misogynists to earn her degrees. In Canada the only work available to her, despite retraining, was waitressing, which is how she met Milo. Zosia was attracted to him because he wasn’t an alcoholic. She said all Russian men are alcoholics. With such low expectations, Milo could not disappoint, or anyway that’s what he thought, until she dumped him. He wishes he’d bought her a honey-I-love-you ring.
Wallace told Milo that Zosia was after Canadian citizenship. ‘She wants your fucking wedding vows, butthead.’
This, of course, had not occurred to Milo. He’d thought she was after his body and his mind, not necessarily in that order. She certainly wasn’t after his income. Should he have it out with her? Gus was a big believer in ‘having it out’ with people. Maybe Milo should show up at the Copper Pipe where Zosia slings designer pizzas and simply ask, ‘What did I do?’ He could even take a honey-I-love-you ring along as backup.
He lifts her scarf a few inches off his face then lets it drift back down as he hears Wallace returning from the airport. Milo agreed to board Wallace’s mother for a sizeable cash sum. Normally Wallace’s baritone carries upstairs easily but Milo hears only a chirpy British voice. He has never met Wallace’s mother, even though they lived blocks away growing up, because she was always working two jobs. Someone knocks on his door.
‘Who is it?’
‘Can I talk to you for a sec?’
Behind the door stands a tremulous Wallace. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘I fucking forgot to make up her bed. Do you have any, like, nice sheets and towels?’
‘Whatever’s in the closet.’
‘They’re fucking sad, man, they’re, like, totally used.’
Milo hears clomping on the stairs. ‘Did I hear you use that word again, Wally?’
‘Sorry, Mum, I was just … ’
She appears, tiny, sparkly, with electric currents for eyes. ‘Are you Milo?’
‘Yes. You must be Mrs. … ?’
‘Call me Vera. What’s all this fuss about then, Wally?’
‘It’s just,’ Wallace murmurs, ‘we don’t have nice towels and stuff.’
‘What’s that got to do with the price of cheese?’
Wallace stares at his feet. ‘It’s just, I wanted you to have something pretty.’
‘What codswallop. Let’s have a cuppa.’ She turns and climbs down the stairs with surprising speed. ‘Will you join us, Milo?’
Wallace looks imploringly at Milo and mouths, ‘Please!’
‘Not tonight, thank you, Vera,’ Milo says. ‘There are some digestives in a tin beside the tea things.’
‘Oh, how lovely,’ Vera exudes. ‘Just what the doctor ordered.’
Wallace pushes Milo into the bedroom. ‘I’m not going to make it through this.’
‘Sure you will.’
Wallace hasn’t seen his mother since she returned to her native English burb years ago. He comes up with annual excuses not to visit her. She lives with her sisters who, according to Wallace, are all a hundred and never shut up.
‘She wants to meet my girlfriend,’ Wallace moans.
‘You don’t have one.’
‘Like I don’t know that.’
‘Just be honest with her.’
‘Are you fucking nuts? Can you set me up with somebody?’
‘What?’
‘You know people, like, actresses and stuff. I’ll pay her. She just has to act nice and be polite.’
‘Oh, come on, Wallace.’
‘Waal-leee … ? Your tea’s getting cold. Shall I make us a sanny?’
Wallace presses his hands together in a pleading gesture. ‘I’ll pay you a bonus.’
‘Waal-leee … ?’
The bullish Wallace morphs into a small boy with downcast eyes and a timorous gait. ‘Coming, Ma,’ he calls back in a singsong voice Milo has never heard before.
In the morning, Milo, ducking behind parked cars, follo
ws Tanis and Robertson to school. A year ago Robertson allowed Tanis to put two fingers on his shoulder as they crossed the street. Now, almost her height, he maintains a distance between them. He says he doesn’t need her to walk him to school, but she insists because it is his last year at the neighbourhood school. Next year he will have to take a bus. She has admitted to Milo that she can’t imagine putting Robertson on a bus, watching the doors close behind him, trying to see through the windows as he searches for a seat. ‘It’ll be rush hour,’ she said. ‘He’s bound to freak.’ They have even considered buying a used car, having sold the Subaru last year to pay off debts.
Mother and son part half a block from the school so the kids in the yard won’t see her. Tanis keeps waving but Robertson doesn’t look back. Milo hides behind some recycling bins as Tanis retraces her steps. She stares hard at the pavement as she walks. Once she has turned the corner, Milo ambles towards the school, pulling his baseball cap low over his forehead. Posses of children part as Robertson makes his way through the yard. Once his back is turned they make faces or pinch their noses. Robertson stops beside the basketball net. Boys ignore him, jumping up and around him. Robertson says something Milo can’t hear above the racket in the yard. A boy in a hoodie shoves him and flips him the finger before resuming dribbling the ball. A stout man with wiry hair, presumably a teacher, approaches Robertson and leads him into the school. The bell rings and the kids begin to line up outside the doors. The boy in the hoodie continues to shoot hoops until the stout man returns. ‘Billy,’ he says sharply, ‘now.’ Billy misses one more shot before slouching towards the entrance. The man pulls off the boy’s hood, revealing a shock of red hair.
Now Milo knows who Billy is.
•••
He puts on his suit, the one he wears for corporate-type auditions, hoping to blend in at reception. He carries a busted cell he used as a prop in Waiting for Godot. He received good notices for that performance, although he didn’t really understand the play. The director told him he was an ‘instinctive actor’ and that he shouldn’t get ‘hung up on the words.’ This made sense to Milo because, in university, he played George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – another play he didn’t really understand – and didn’t get hung up on the words but channelled the rage he felt towards Gus into George and let it spew all over Martha. After the show he felt free, cleansed, ready to party. In the morning seething resentments returned, and he couldn’t wait to get back on stage to spew all over Martha again.
He invited Gus to the opening night of Waiting for Godot, even though he knew his father would be bored out of his mind. The next day, when Milo showed the old man the good reviews, Gus shrugged and ate another sausage.
While waiting for the receptionist to notice him, Milo pretends to text on the busted cell. She takes five hundred more calls before looking at him. ‘Are you waiting for someone?’ she inquires. She must be in her forties but has a mouth full of braces.
‘Christopher Wedderspoon, please.’
‘Is he expecting you?’
‘Actually, no, I’m just passing through. My plane was delayed and I thought I’d take the opportunity to go over a portfolio with him.’ Milo holds up the briefcase he uses for corporate-type auditions.
‘Your name, please?’
‘Milo Krupi.’
She presses buttons and speaks into her headset. ‘Milo Crappy’s here to go over a portfolio. He doesn’t have an appointment.’ She pauses, squinting at Milo, then repeats, ‘Milo Crappy.’
‘Krupi,’ Milo interjects. ‘We used to be neighbours.’
‘He says you used to be neighbours.’ Because she’s staring at him while speaking into the headset Milo assumes she’s addressing him.
‘That’s right,’ he says, ‘we were neighbours. Actually, I still live beside his wife.’
‘Mr. Wedderspoon will be with you shortly. Have a seat.’
‘Thank you.’ Does this mean he will he be forced to ‘have it out’ with Christopher right here, amidst the teal furnishings of the waiting room? Sitting on a stuffed chair, he can’t help but notice the receptionist looking at his shoes. They’re Gus’s shoes, a little small and in need of polish. Gus took great pride in polishing his shoes. They are the wrong colour for the suit. He pretends to text again while rehearsing in his head the heart-rending speech that will convince Christopher to return home.
hristopher slumps on a stool at the Quick Fixins counter with his head in his hands. It would have been preferable to have this heart-to-heart in a private office with a window overlooking the city. Milo could have paced as he explained the gravity of his mission, gazing sorrowfully out the window as he searched for the right words. But Christopher appears to have come down in the world and has only a cubicle. Milo isn’t sure what his job is. Christopher used to manage other people’s money, or lose it, which may be why he is now in a cubicle.
‘I will always support them,’ he says.
‘No one doubts that.’
‘You swear she doesn’t know you’re here?’
‘Scout’s honour.’ Christopher was a scout leader so Milo feels this oath is appropriate. Scouts had been an escape for Christopher as a kid and he’d hoped it would be the same for Robertson. But Robertson never moved with the crowd, instead lingered over anything that caught his interest.
‘She thinks he can be normal,’ Christopher says. ‘I know he can’t.’
‘Don’t you think normal is overrated? I mean, who wants to be normal? Robertson has a concentration, an intensity of thought, a single-mindedness, a ... ’ The words Milo so carefully chose to describe the wonder of Robertson escape him. He is drying, as they say in the theatre, and there is no prompter to feed him his line. ‘What I mean is,’ he stammers, ‘he has a tenacity, a … a directness. He can’t lie. How many people do you know who can’t lie? He’s incapable of dissembling.’ Dissembling is a word he’d thought would impress, but Christopher remains inert. ‘Robertson is unique,’ Milo sums up. ‘No one thinks like he does. I think he’s quite noble.’
‘He can’t control himself. And he’s getting bigger. I’m scared he’s going to kill her.’
‘Shouldn’t you be there to prevent that from happening?’
‘She won’t let me. She thinks she can handle him. She thinks I put his back up.’
‘Maybe you do. I find it’s best to give him space when he fixates on something.’
‘So he grows up expecting people to get out of the way when it suits him? What kind of an adult will that make? Nobody will be able to stand him.’
Milo shifts a stir stick on the counter. ‘Maybe he’ll find a niche. There’s an autistic woman who designs machinery for slaughterhouses. She’s number one in her field.’
‘Yes, we’ve all heard about the ones who have “special gifts.” Robertson has no special gifts. It’s not like in the movies. Most of them aren’t math geniuses, most of them stay angry in institutions, banging their heads into padded walls.’ Christopher rubs his face in the same manner that Tanis does.
‘I think he has special gifts,’ Milo says.
‘Like what?’
‘His relationships with animals.’
‘Try looking at his report card, Milo. He’s a C average. This is no wonder kid here.’
‘All I’m saying is, don’t give up on him. You’ll lose him and you’ll lose yourself.’ This sounds like something Pablo would say. ‘Forgive him, Christopher. We all have to forgive.’
‘Forgive him for what?’
Milo isn’t sure. He is acting badly again. ‘A friend of mine believes that life’s challenges are lessons.’
‘Really. Well, I’m tired of learning the same lessons.’
‘My friend says that we learn the lessons more deeply the second time around.’
‘Is your friend graduating any time soon?’
‘Not in this life.’
‘Ah.’
Christopher stares at the Enjoy Our Comfort Food, You Know You Want To
!!! sign beside the coffee maker.
‘They both need you,’ Milo says, feeling the words clumsy on his tongue. ‘I know it’s easy for me to talk … ’
‘Yes, it is easy for you to talk. You don’t live with it every hour of every day.’ He bunches up his napkin and pushes it into his empty cup, then sits motionless. ‘I love those two more than my life. I would give my life for them, would gladly die for them. Unfortunately that wouldn’t help.’ He slides off the stool without looking at Milo. ‘Thanks for dropping by. I appreciate your concern.’ As he speeds past, he sniffles and wipes his eyes. Milo envies him for knowing how to cry.
‘Maria threw me out,’ Pablo says, beached on the couch.
‘Why?’
‘She wants me to be a Catholic.’
Vera mashes potatoes with verve. Milo hasn’t seen the masher in years. Mrs. Cauldershot used it to pulverize potatoes, squash, turnips and parsnips. Milo’s mouth would fill with the formless sludge and he would consider spitting it back at her but instead forced it down – it was easiest to just obey.
‘Don’t you look nice, Milo,’ Vera says. ‘All dressed up like a banker. What’s the occasion?’
‘Do you hear what I’m telling you?’ Pablo wails. ‘Maria wants me to believe in God Almighty.’
‘That’s just plain unreasonable,’ Vera says. ‘If she loves you, she must respect your beliefs.’
‘Where’s Wallace?’ Milo asks.
‘He just got in from the office and went to freshen up a bit.’
‘The office?’
‘She gave me back the ring,’ Pablo whimpers, rubbing his knuckles into his eyes. ‘Can you believe that? She gave me back the ring.’
‘She’ll come round,’ Vera says, mashing. ‘You wait and see. Fancy some bangers, Milo? We’ll fry you up a couple. Wally adores bangers and mash.’
‘What’s she want from me?’ Pablo cries. ‘I love her.’
‘Leave her alone for a bit,’ Vera advises. ‘Nothing makes a girl’s heart grow fonder than a bit of rejection.’
Sprawled on Milo’s bed, Wallace looks fearful.
‘What are you doing in here, Wallace?’
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