Toby

by Todd Babiak

  “Everyone’s staring at me.”

  “No they aren’t, Dad. But you really shouldn’t leave the house in sweatpants.”

  “I’m a burn victim.”

  “There is really no excuse. None exists. Maybe exercising—maybe.”

  Toby had discovered a book called Birds of Southern Quebec as he had cleaned, a gift from the president of the Regroupement Québec Oiseaux, whom he had interviewed while filling in for Leonard, the Madman in the Morning. He presented it to his father while they waited for the server.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “It’s better than praying and taking drugs combined, they say.”

  “Who says? Birdwatchers? They’re hardly neutral.” Edward flipped through the book, looking at the colour photographs and illustrations. “I understand birdwatching. I just don’t understand it.”

  The server arrived with a basket of sliced baguette, a pitcher of water, and a booming “Bonjour.” Edward ordered a litre of house red wine before Toby could warn him against it. If he were capable of destroying his beloved Day of the Dead dioramas while quoting from religious texts, who knows what he might do after two or three glasses of Caballero de Chile.

  Edward closed the book. “I’ll take a whack at watching birds.”

  The bistro was half-full of sleepy graduate students and various quasi-professionals in blazers and jeans. None of the men wore ties, yet all but one of the women had scarves, which briefly meant something to Toby. The conversations around them were exactly the way Toby would have liked his relationship with his parents to be: light, effortless, uncomplicated, occasionally ironic. Edward sat like an apprentice spy whose cover has been blown.

  “Nothing came of all those resumés I sent out.”

  “Idiots.”

  “I picked sort of a terrible time to destroy my life. Economically speaking.”

  “Problems can be opportunities, they say.”

  “The real estate agent thinks I’ll get four-fifty for the condo.”

  “How much did you pay?”

  “Three-ninety. But I put about fifty thousand into it.”

  “You could lose money.”

  “I could.”

  “Only a Mushinsky.”

  The wine arrived in a carafe that was once a milk bottle. Toby raised his glass but struggled to find an appropriate toast. He proposed one to a general improvement of conditions. They drank to “anything will do.”

  “Great wine,” said Edward.

  It was not great wine.

  “Are you ready to order lunch?” Toby asked.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “But we’re out for lunch. Historically, at lunch, people—”

  “I wanted to see you, without your mom.”

  Toby worried that his father wanted to speak to him about moving into the house in Dollard as a sort of long-term caregiver, so he looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching. No one was, so he took a long drink of his inferior wine. “All right.”

  “Something’s wrong with me,” Edward said with the uncommon calm in his voice that Toby remembered from the neighbour’s lawn on the night of the fire. “Something’s wrong with me, inside.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you.”

  The server returned and, with his put-on Parisian accent, asked for their orders. Toby chose a goat cheese salad for himself and a bowl of soup for Edward, who either didn’t notice or didn’t understand. When they were alone again, Edward said, “Don’t pretend. You know.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “You were there.”

  “I was where?”

  “You’re playing stupid.”

  “Evidence clearly shows that I am stupid.”

  “We’re going bankrupt.”

  “No, you aren’t, Dad.”

  “But I won’t be here to see it through.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll need you to take care of your mom.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Listen to me.” Edward placed his bandaged hand on Toby’s. “Look at me and listen to me very carefully. I want you to take care of your mom.”

  “Dad.”

  “I want you to fall in love properly, and get married. You need a child to understand life. I know you think you understand everything, but you don’t. You don’t understand anything yet.”

  “What is this?”

  “And make your name Mushinsky again, one of these days. That hurt me very much, as you know, and I worry that it hurts you. Deep inside. Woody Allen’s real name is Konigsberg, and I think the reason his movies aren’t for shit anymore is that it rotted him, inside, to be untruthful.”

  Edward’s voice was clear and calm, but too loud and rising. Toby looked around to see if anyone had noticed.

  “You can’t be untruthful. Are you listening?”

  “No.”

  “You owe it to me to listen.”

  “I’ll listen to anything about birdwatching or the Chien Chaud, your treatment today, retirement plans. Normal things. But this…”

  “I’ll ask you to look for God.”

  “Come on.”

  “If you don’t find Him, that’s fine. It’s the process, I’ve learned, that’s good for you. Rabbi Orlovsky will help. I’ve already spoken to him about your struggle.”

  “What struggle?”

  “There is no out. There is only the in.”

  “I’m not Jewish, Dad.”

  “Just like Woody Allen.”

  Toby grabbed Birds of Southern Quebec with his free hand, as though it were a root that might save him from sliding down an escarpment. Edward pulled it back.

  “I’ve been memorizing things before bed. ‘Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet—Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.’”

  “You’re a little loud.”

  “‘Nearer than hands and feet.’”

  Toby’s heart beat hotly and crookedly in his chest, as it had in the hospital on the night of the accident. The wine was not working.

  “One more thing.”

  “No more things. Please.”

  The server returned to the table to fill their glasses. He looked down at their hands, Edward’s on Toby’s, and spent a moment regarding Edward’s attire. Toby had worn the Prada again, because only Catherine had seen him in it. He looked up at the lingering server. “Un problème?”

  “Pas du tout, Monsieur.” The server backed away.

  Toby took another long drink of his wine and spoke quietly. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Dad. Absolutely nothing that birdwatching can’t fix. Birdwatching or golf. And you aren’t going anywhere.”

  Edward leaned over the table. “Get Steve Bancroft.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Get?”

  “Get him. He’s been coming into the shops the last while. It can only mean one thing.” The server propped open the bistro door to let in some air. The air helped. “Let me tell you about the fire.”

  “You know what, Dad? I don’t want to hear about the fire.”

  “I don’t care what you want. We’re miles past that now.” Edward had barked “want” and had shouted the rest. Everyone in the bistro, including the server and the woman behind the bar, looked at them. “There’s a crust around us, all around us. And I broke through. Everything else, all of this, all these people, these burns, this restaurant, it’s nothing. It’s an illusion. I’m after the truth now, before I go. The core of things.” Edward looked about. “Drink up, you people. Drink your fucking wine. I’m talking to my son.”

  It was as though a wave had crashed in the restaurant and they were all waiting for the water to leave. Carrying an empty champagne bottle, the server looked around, perhaps for physical support, as he approached the table, new sweat on his forehead.

  “Let’s go, Dad,” said Toby.

  “I’m not going anywher
e. We’ve got wine still.”

  “We’ll get some more on the way home.”

  “No!”

  “You’re scaring these people.”

  Edward looked around, and his eyes filled with tears. He opened his mouth slowly, in what seemed at first a yawn. It was a silent cry. His tongue was stained purple by the Caballero. Toby walked around the table and helped his father up. He apologized to the server and to the diners. “Mon père est malade,” he said. “He’s really sick, all right?” Toby pulled out his wallet to pay for the wine and the food they had ordered, but the server, emboldened by their retreat, shooed them away.

  “Allez-y,” he said, raising his bottle.

  Edward apologized all the way to the car, and in the car, and with each apology Toby assured him that he need not worry. It was nothing, really. Soon enough, it really was nothing. Edward flipped through Birds of Southern Quebec and decided he would focus on ducks, for starters.

  Toby’s plan had been to drive immediately back to the condominium, but Karen drew him into the basement.

  “What happened today?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Your dad’s face is a mess. From crying?”

  “He was a bit off in the restaurant.”

  Karen crossed her arms and sat in front of the television. It was cold in the basement, and it smelled as though the carpet had not been vacuumed in three or four years. “This is the rest of my life. Twenty years, or more, of looking after a…I don’t even know what to call it.”

  “This is just a phase, Mom.”

  “You know that isn’t true.”

  “I’m not a psychiatrist.”

  “You’d prefer not to discuss your father.”

  “No, no. Let’s talk. Please.”

  Karen expelled a sigh and a sarcastic chuckle at once. “You’re heading back to Montreal tonight?”

  “I am.”

  “Well, here’s the thing. Nahla’s pregnant, so—”

  It no longer bothered Toby that his mother expected him to know everyone in her life by first name, even though he had not lived in Dollard in over ten years. “And Nahla is?”

  “Nahla. Nahla! From the Dollard location. She just told me, but I knew. I could tell. She’s got appointments tomorrow afternoon, the first ultrasound. I was hoping you could cover.”

  “You want me to work at the Chien Chaud?”

  “I know it’s beneath you. It’s an insult, really. But I have to be at the bank.”

  “Dad can’t do it?”

  Karen pulled her hair out of its bun.

  “Just tomorrow, Mom?”

  “I promise.”

  Toby did not want his parents to see him doing it, so he flopped in the basement to watch Century—Century News, two simulcast American forensic cop dramas, infomercials, and all-night movies about cops. Alicia and his former coworkers remained special in the only way we can be special, as images replicated exponentially through a marketplace, while he had become normal. The deathly fact of his normalness echoed in his parents’ basement. His girl showed up at least twice an hour, promoting herself and her show in a navy suit that worked brilliantly with her eyes, her hair, her skin and the light. He knew the suit. They had been together the summer afternoon she found it, at Max Mara. Later that same soft day, Toby made a Waldorf salad and Alicia swiped one of her dad’s serious bottles of wine, and they walked up to King George Park for a picnic dinner. They chatted about a move to Toronto and European vacations they might take, the possibility of children. Several passersby recognized them and complimented them on their work. It was sunny and hot, but not too hot, and the wind did not bother them. After dark, they went to a party for a gay cabinet minister in Old Montreal, and a sweaty, coked-up man with a startling birthmark on his forehead asked Toby if he might join the party one day and run. He was handsome and bilingual, he had “name rec,” he had certain attachments to money. On the way home in the cab that night, Toby felt as though he were bursting from himself, as though his skin and bones could not hold him.

  When he was sure his parents had fallen asleep, Toby taped one of Alicia’s promos and abused himself as he watched it forward and backward in slow motion. Then he went upstairs for some junk food, but all he could find were Fig Newtons.

  Shortly after two in the morning, a Toby a Gentleman segment rotated through a commercial break, and there he was. The man he knew. He cried a little and stopped eating the Fig Newtons and drifted in and out of sleep with the television on. He awoke to the echo of door-knocking and the theme music for the lunchtime news. His neck was sore. He waited for his parents’ footsteps, living room to front door, but there were none. The knocking continued, so he walked slowly up the stairs.

  Through the peephole, he saw Catherine Brassens and Hugo. She was in a red dress, with a white scarf. She wore eye makeup and carried a large bag: a diaper bag. The boy wore a tie-dyed sweatshirt with Ladykiller, backwards r, in giant white lettering.

  “I heard something,” she said to Hugo.

  Toby examined himself in the mirror near the door and fluffed up the hair at the top of his head to enhance the illusion of fullness. His suit was in exemplary condition, despite plenty of rolling about on the chesterfield. But Catherine and Hugo had just seen him in it. He rushed downstairs to change out of the Prada and into his Paul Smith, climbed back up the stairs, gathered his breath and his dignity, and opened the door.

  “Hello, Catherine. Hugo.”

  “It’s super-cool to see you again. Isn’t it, Hugo?” She chewed at a fingernail, and they both looked at the boy. “No one was home at your condominium. This was the only Mushinsky in the Dollard phone book, so I took a chance.”

  “And I’m so delighted you did. Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?”

  She asked Hugo. “What do you think?”

  The boy said nothing. Something in his little face suggested that he was embarrassed for them both. There was a tiny witch on a broom hanging from a nail near the house number—427—that Edward had not destroyed in his anti-Halloween fury. Hugo reached forward, touched the witch’s hat.

  Again the fridge was empty. Toby made coffee and determined, upon tasting it, that he would cart his espresso maker to Dollard from the condo that same evening.

  Since the moment he had granted her entrance, Catherine had not stopped talking. A crash on the autoroute, controversial claims about Georges Brassens’s sexuality in the latest biography, this hormone-twisting chemical they had discovered in baby bottles and cans of soda, Hugo’s bum rash, a Québécois hip hop artist she had actually dated in high school, the latest edition of Tout le monde en parle. This sort of behaviour was common in the television industry, especially at the end of the day, when staff gathered for drinks. It was usually induced by cocaine, but Toby suspected it also had something to do with profound loneliness. All the while his mother was talking, Hugo swished the milk around in his glass as though it were a rare Bordeaux.

  Cod was the last thing Toby wanted to eat for breakfast, but if he didn’t do something with the fish soon, it would pass the smell threshold and devour all of Dollard-des-Ormeaux. He cooked and, along with Hugo, ignored Catherine. Every time Toby turned away from the stove, he made eye contact with the handsome boy and wondered two things: How was it, really, to live with a woman like this? And how would he get rid of them?

  He served the food at a quarter to one, and she came to the point. “I was wondering if you could look after Hugo for a couple of hours this afternoon.”

  The boy had already started eating. There was a booster pillow on the chair, but even so, the table was level with his chin. Toby had given him the smallest salad fork in the drawer, but it was too big. At least a half of every forkful fell on Hugo’s Ladykiller sweatshirt or on the floor.

  “You know, I’d love that. I so would. But I’m helping my mom at her store this afternoon.”

  “Why not bring him?”

  “It’s a hot dog shop.”

  “Kids
love hot dogs.” Like every other francophone on the island, she called them hot dogs—ot dog-uh—not chiens chauds. “Don’t you love hot dogs, Hugo?”

  The boy was not deaf. He just preferred not to speak, or look up when addressed, or smile, or play, or anything else Toby accepted as normal behaviour. “Hugo doesn’t talk?”

  “He chooses not to.”

  “Can you say something for me, Hugo?”

  Hugo lifted a salad-fork full of fish to his mouth and sniffed it.

  “I like children. I like Hugo. But to be perfectly honest, Catherine, I have no experience as a babysitter. If I weren’t working at my parents’ shop, maybe.”

  “You’ll hardly notice him.”

  “Who usually looks after Hugo when you aren’t able?”

  “Friends. But they were all busy. It’s an opportunity to get to know him.”

  Toby had already determined never to see her again. “I’m honoured that you would think of me, Catherine. But I’m sorry. We’re strangers. It’s not at all appropriate.”

  “We were strangers a couple of nights ago, but that didn’t stop you from fucking me.”

  At the vulgarity, a crucial tendon in Toby’s left hand failed and he dropped his fork on the table. Hugo seemed not to have heard, or to have noticed, the word. The moment she and her son finished their lunch, Toby would ask them to leave. He would, very quietly, suggest to Catherine that she never come back here again. In his deeper regions, where he responded to his own secret emergencies, Toby wanted to plop the boy in front of a television station devoted to educational cartoons and fuck his mother again.

  Catherine began to cry. Her tears had a disastrous effect on her eye makeup, so Toby directed her to the bathroom and returned to the table. Hugo looked longingly in the direction his mother had gone.