Milosz

by Cordelia Strube

  ‘She brought him here,’ Christopher says.

  ‘She did?’ Milo expects joy or relief to lighten Christopher’s expression but he only looks haggard.

  ‘I know for a fact he goes to titty bars,’ Travis says.

  ‘That’s degenerate,’ Sybil says.

  ‘Lots of fellas go to titty bars,’ Earl points out.

  ‘Yes, but do you want to bowl with them?’ Sybil demands.

  ‘Why not? He’s good. We win.’

  Milo hovers by Christopher’s bed rail. ‘How was it? Seeing her?’

  ‘It’s like I haven’t been seeing her. All this time I haven’t been seeing her. It’s the old see-what-you-want-to-see syndrome. She’s old, she looked old. I’m surprised you fucked her.’

  Sybil jerks the curtain. ‘Oh, don’t start that again.’

  ‘Sorry, Syb. I’m surprised you fornicated with her, Milo.’

  ‘Those two do nothing but talk smut,’ Sybil advises Earl.

  ‘Well,’ Earl says, ‘I guess he’s not up to much, strung up like he is.’

  ‘Anyhoodle,’ Christopher says. ‘It’s all good.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The plan. Tanis has one.’

  ‘I thought you were tired of her plans.’

  ‘I’m tired of life, Milo. I have lost my joie de vivre.’

  ‘So what are her plans?’

  ‘I can’t remember. I play a small part in them. She’s going to call me. Oh, and she’s selling the house.’

  ‘What? She can’t sell the house.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s Robertson’s house.’

  ‘Well, she wants to get him a new house in a new neighbourhood with a new school.’

  ‘It’ll be the same. It’ll just start all over again. Is she moving because of me?’

  ‘Because of you?’

  ‘What happened between us.’

  ‘What happened between you? Oh, you mean is she moving because you fornicated with her?’

  Sybil sighs heavily. ‘Two supposedly mature males. Unnn-believable.’

  ‘I never said I was mature, Syb,’ Christopher says. ‘No, Milo, she didn’t ­mention you.’

  ‘She probably didn’t want to upset you.’

  ‘On the contrary, she loves upsetting me. Perhaps she forgot that you put your penis into her vagina. Penis and vagina aren’t dirty words, are they, Syb?’

  ‘You’re pathetic,’ she says.

  ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

  ‘You can’t let this happen, Christopher. It will damage Robertson.’

  ‘Fascinating how everyone seems to know what will damage Robertson, a boy who forms emotional attachments to nothing and no one, who lives entirely in his head. Do you know what he was doing while he was here? Measuring my piss and asking how I shit. Not “How are you, Dad?” or “Are you feeling any better, Dad?”’

  ‘Is that important? I mean, just the fact that he’s here and curious about you, isn’t that enough?’

  ‘You’re fortunate in that you don’t have a child, Milo. Having a child is like having one of your vital organs outside your body. You spend every conscious moment trying to protect this vital organ from harm, but it keeps growing and doing things beyond your control, exposing itself to all manner of danger. And as it suffers, so do you, until, I guess, you die.’

  ‘That is so maudlin,’ Sybil says.

  ‘Not at all, it just is. As Robertson just is. The truth is I don’t really matter to my son. The question then becomes does it matter that I don’t really matter? Why do I need to matter? I haven’t come up with an answer to that one.’ Christopher covers his face with his hands. ‘I’m very tired now. You don’t need to come here anymore, Milo. In fact, I’d prefer you didn’t.’

  Milo lingers, hoping for some indication that Christopher doesn’t really mean this. The thought of never again sitting in the chair facing the sky causes waves of wretchedness. Milo understood his role here, he thought. He would bring Christopher back to the living, wheel him into the sunshine, take him to the AGO and show him the model ships made by nineteenth-century prisoners of war. Incarcerated in hulks offshore, the prisoners constructed the ships out of scavenged bits of wood, and bone from food scraps. ‘They built them with only needles and knives,’ he would explain, implying that if a half-starved prisoner of war, stranded at sea, could produce astonishingly intricate model ships, Christopher could learn to walk again.

  ‘Can’t you take a hint?’ Sybil says. ‘He wants you to buzz off.’

  Tears spill around Christopher’s fingers. The Canadian Tire Man puts the photo of Robertson building with Lego on the dresser.

  •••

  Tanis doesn’t answer the door. He finds her on the deck watching Gus and Robertson lay patio stones. ‘Christopher says you’re planning to sell the house.’

  ‘Don’t you find it odd that you’re so invested in our lives?’ she asks. ‘It’s as though you don’t have one of your own.’

  ‘Please don’t sell.’ He can’t imagine strangers in the house, a normal family with noisy children throwing food at each other. ‘I won’t bother you anymore. I won’t even come over, just please, don’t do this to Robertson.’

  ‘Or to you. Don’t you mean to you?’

  ‘To me or Robertson. Have you told him?’

  ‘No. I have to talk to some agents first.’

  ‘I’m sorry about the other night.’

  ‘I instigated it. Please don’t apologize.’ She sits on the steps, keeping her eye on Robertson and Gus. ‘Your father has the exact same focus. They’ve been at it for hours. Robertson even let him dig up stones that weren’t set right. If I did that, he’d go ballistic. He never lets me disturb his order of things.’

  ‘So you’re allowing him to stay in the yard with my brain-damaged father but not with me?’

  ‘I’ve been watching the whole time. He seems nice, your dad. Pablo really likes him.’

  It feels as though he is being shoved into a small box. ‘That’s not my dad. Or anyway, not the dad I knew.’

  ‘Maybe you didn’t know him. I’m finding out I don’t know people I thought I knew. You, for example.’

  ‘He was a shitty father.’

  ‘What is he now?’

  ‘A stranger.’

  ‘So, maybe you should get to know him.’

  ‘I don’t want to get to know him.’

  Pablo bounds towards them. ‘Sammy’s bringing over all kinds of food, like, Polish stuff. I told him Gussy don’t want to cook because we couldn’t find no pickled herring and he don’t like the store mushrooms. Sammy said “no worries.” He’s even bringing vodka.’

  ‘What’s the occasion?’ Tanis asks.

  ‘Gus’s rebirth,’ Milo says.

  •••

  Val has transformed Milo’s room into makeup and wardrobe and Dina, a wild boar of a woman, is ‘staging’ the house, adding ruffled curtains and God knows what. Milo forgoes the preparations for The Reunion of a Lifetime in the basement, imbibing vodka and telling himself he is in charge of his own happiness, and that once he scores the remaining ten Gs he’ll skip town and leave all this behind. He hears hahaha yoga laughs from above. Sammy has invited the barbarians to take part in The Reunion of a Lifetime, it will be bootiful. Their ugly mugs are being refurbished by Val, who is accessorizing their attire, adding jackets, ties and scarves and whatever other accoutrements will lend an air of sophistication. She’s ‘gussying’ them up. Hahaha. Vera enthused about a pale pink scarf Val draped around her neck. ‘How grand,’ Vera said, swishing the scarf to and fro. How easily these chumps can be bought. Not Milo. They’re all avoiding him anyway; even Pablo is giving him a wide birth and has stopped offering tutelage in the school of life. ‘Fuck you very much,’ Milo mutters. He paces like he did before stage performances. Less accomplished actors, prior to the show, talk about who got laid or who auditioned for what, but not Milo. Before he forgot how to act he would pace backstage, immersi
ng himself in the emotional reality of his character. The hack American sitcom star who slowly killed Marlene Temple in The Death of a Salesman called him Marlon. ‘Hey, Marlon, you inside your character yet? What’s your motivation, big guy?’

  But what is he to play tonight? Devoted son? Lost son? Found son? It’s all too vague; even bad acting requires lines and direction.

  ‘Milo?’ Sammy calls. ‘Are you down there, my friend?’

  Milo retreats to a dark corner, stumbling over a box. ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Are you okay, my friend? Val is ready for you.’ Down the maniac clambers. ‘How are you? You seem subdued this evening. Did you see the food we brought? Very authentic. Dina is making everything look bootiful. You won’t recognize your house.’

  ‘It’s not my house.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Sammy points to the box that Milo has inadvertently overturned. On the floor are Milo’s lost Polaroids.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you there are always photos, my friend?’

  ‘I’m not your friend.’

  Sammy squats and begins to sort through the pictures.

  ‘Don’t touch those.’

  ‘Why not? They might help him remember.’ He holds up the shot of Gus in Niagara Falls with the grasping widow. ‘Is this your mother?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about this one?’ Many of the photos are of Gus with women who tried to snare him. Gus forced Milo to take these shots. Having his son take a Polaroid proved that he was middle-class. Regardless of whether or not he had any intention of marrying the clinging women, he wanted to impress them with his house and his business and his son. ‘Gus looks so very different,’ Sammy observes. ‘I wonder if he will recognize himself.’

  ‘Don’t show them to him.’

  ‘Why not? It might be the key to his memory, my friend. Don’t you want him to remember?’

  Milo isn’t sure anymore. As each sordid memory surfaces, he wants to sink it.

  ‘Oh, is this you?’ Sammy holds up a shot of Milo at his high school graduation. ‘Nice hair. Very eighties.’

  Gus was late to the grad ceremony because he’d been arranging expensive rocks for a Rosedale matriarch with more money than brains. He arrived dirty, and ashamed of his son who didn’t make the honour roll. Gus took him to an Italian restaurant anyway, decorated with wickered wine bottles. While bullying Milo about his future plans, he griped about the meat being dry. Who wants to remember this?

  ‘I don’t want you showing these to him,’ he says.

  ‘Please, Milo, it will be great for the show.’

  ‘There’s nothing in the contract about photos. You can’t have the photos.’ He quickly collects the pictures and drops them back in the box.

  ‘My friend, do you know how happy I would be if I found lost photos of my father?’

  ‘You don’t live here. Fuck off.’

  Birgit shouts from the top of the stairs. ‘Get Milo’s ass up here. Val’s waiting for him.’

  ‘You first,’ Milo says. ‘Go, my friend, or you won’t have a show at all.’ He snatches the grad shot from Sammy. Once the psycho is up the stairs, Milo swigs the last of his vodka and shoves the box under the workbench, covering it with oily rags.

  ‘You look a treat,’ Val says. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘How’s the rash, do you need a pill?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘We’re doing it straight, are we?’

  ‘Is that unusual? Do you normally drug your participants?’

  ‘Only the neurotics. Okay, so we’re going with earth tones today, to complement the food.’ She thrusts barf-coloured garments at him and points to the folding screen.

  ‘Did you dress my father as my identical twin again?’

  ‘He’s put on weight. I had to find larger pants.’

  ‘That’s because he’s a happy person.’

  ‘You’re fat and you’re not happy. Have you been sleeping? You’ve got craters under your eyes.’ Milo doesn’t bother to respond. ‘Pablo’s cute,’ Val says. ‘He’ll look hot on camera.’

  ‘Did you manage to get a shirt on him?’

  ‘T-shirt.’

  ‘Really? Normally he eats naked.’

  ‘Invite me for dinner sometime.’

  As she sponges foundation on his face, Milo tries to formulate a plan, adopt a role, find the path of least resistance. ‘Cheese,’ he says, smiling at his reflection.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do Poles eat cheese?’ he asks, still grinning. ‘Will there be cheese at this banquet?’

  ‘Fuck if I know. Count yourself lucky the food is real. Sometimes Dina puts fake stuff out, turkeys and hams to make it look fancy.’

  ‘Couldn’t they find any fake pig’s knuckles?’

  ‘They really eat every part of the critter, don’t they? We had Poles down the street. They were always eating cow’s tongues and sausages stuffed with blood.’

  ‘Why aren’t you smoking?’

  ‘I don’t smoke in private homes.’

  ‘Don’t hesitate to burn this one down on my account.’

  The momentous evening begins with a toast. Gus, rosy-cheeked from vodka, seated at the head of the table as per Sammy’s instructions, holds up his glass. ‘Na zdrowie.’

  ‘Say that again, Gussy?’

  ‘Na zdrowie.’

  Pablo holds up his glass. ‘Nah zdroh-vyeh.’

  ‘Nice driveway,’ Milo says, also holding up his glass.

  ‘Qué?’

  ‘Isn’t that what you just said, nice driveway?’

  ‘Nah zdroh-vyeh,’ Pablo repeats.

  ‘Right. That’s what I said, ni-ce dri-ve-way.’ Sammy prods him from behind. ‘It is a fascinating language,’ Milo adds. ‘And fascinating food. I sure hope there’s blood in those sausages. Do we have any pig’s knuckles? Gosh, to think I spent all those years gnawing on Mrs. Cauldershot’s Salisbury steaks when I could have been eating cow’s tongues.’

  ‘Have some dill pickle soup,’ Vera urges.

  ‘Did you say dill pickle soup?’ Wallace asks, looking worried in a blazer that fits for once.

  ‘It will be delicious with a dollop of sour cream.’ Vera dollops cream into her dill pickle soup.

  ‘Zupa ogórkowa,’ Gus says, pointing cheerily at the soup.

  ‘Zoo-pah ogoor-koh-vah,’ Pablo says.

  ‘Is there an echo in here?’ Milo asks.

  Pablo points his spoon at him. ‘You don’t even try to speak Polish, Milo, what kind of son are you?’

  ‘That’s an excellent question. What kind of son am I? Gustaw, what kind of son am I? Our home viewers would like to know.’

  ‘Cut,’ Birgit says, then stands so close to Milo that he could easily nuzzle her breasts. ‘What do think you’re doing?’

  ‘Having a reunion of a lifetime. Isn’t it fabulous?’

  ‘We never refer to home viewers. Don’t be a wiseass.’

  ‘Sor-reee.’ He looks at Pablo, Vera and Wallace, who all stare back with anxious eyes. Of course they’re on edge; this is, after all, their big moment on network television. They only get one shot at dazzling viewers, whereas Milo, a seasoned professional, has dazzled many with his acting skills. To him, being in front of a camera feels quite natural, quite mundane, in fact. He is, after all, the Canadian Tire Man. He drinks more vodka.

  ‘You’ve had enough of that.’ Birgit snatches the glass from him. ‘Dina? We need water here.’

  ‘I’m not drinking water.’

  ‘Oh yes you are, asshole, now eat up and behave.’

  ‘Okay, fine, so what am I supposed to say? He doesn’t speak English.’

  Birgit snaps her fingers. ‘Sammy?’

  Sammy crouches beside Milo’s chair and whispers. ‘Remember your childhood, my friend, those lazy days of summer. Talk about the good times. Baseball, did you ever play baseball with your dad? Catch in the backyard on a summer’s evening?’ Sammy pats Milo’s shoulder and steps back. ‘L
eave him for a moment,’ he murmurs to Birgit. ‘Give him a chance to remember.’

  ‘Are you remembering yet?’ Birgit demands. ‘Let’s move on.’

  With the cameras rolling, Milo dons his fond-remembrances face. ‘Remem­ber, Dad, when you insisted on coming with me to Dads on the Diamond Day? I said, “Dad, you don’t know how to play baseball, you don’t need to come.” I think I even said, “Please don’t come, Dad.” But you were determined, probably because you thought you could network with some potential clients and sell some patios. Anyhoodle, off we went, me in my Miami Vice T-shirt and jeans, and you in your stonemason clothes because you didn’t dig cowboy shirts and denim in those days. And guess what? Do you remember?’ Gus, still permitted vodka, stares hazily at him. ‘You threw like a girl,’ Milo says. ‘The other dads thought you were faking it and figured you were hamming it up because your pitches totally sucked. They were laughing and slapping their thighs, oh, it was hilarious. But you kept throwing girly pitches until, finally, silence fell on the diamond as all the boys and their dads realized that you weren’t faking it, that you were, in fact, throwing like a girl. Dean Blinky nudged me and said, “Who the fuck is that?” And you know what I said? I said, “I have no fucking clue.” Then I took off, and when you came home you tore into me. It didn’t occur to you that you’d embarrassed me, that I was mortally ashamed of you, because, as usual, you had your head so far up your own asshole you had no idea what I was feeling. In fact, as usual, you didn’t want to know what I was feeling. You sucked at baseball, old man.’

  ‘I think it’s time we tried the pork,’ Vera says.

  ‘That’s cot-let s-habo-vyh pah-nyeh-roh-vah-nyh,’ Pablo explains.

  ‘Kotlet schabowy panierowany,’ Gus agrees, looking warily at Milo.

  ‘And zhiem-nyah-kamee,’ Pablo adds.

  ‘Ziemnikami,’ Gus says, nodding.

  ‘It looks delicious,’ Vera says.

  ‘Can we stop this?’ Milo asks, turning and staring into a camera lens. ‘Can we cut this bullshit? I mean, seriously, it’s not funny anymore.’