Toby

by Todd Babiak

  Fourteen

  Some years before Toby was born, in the sunrise of Edward and Karen Mushinsky’s marriage, they moved to the razed forest, the counterfeit prairie, that was Dollard-des-Ormeaux. Bulldozers still sat in the mud when they took possession of a new bungalow on rue Collingwood, with a wrapped willow sapling in the front yard. They had not purchased any of the available extras, like a sunroom in the back or half a second floor. The house across the as-yet-unpaved street came with these extras and more—a trellis and a brick facade. A single man lived there, tall with a blond beard and curiously bright brown eyes.

  In 1967, Steve Bancroft was a retired road manager for failed rock bands. He had just come out of an awkward period in upstate New York, where he had fallen in with a former folk singer who had started a charismatic sect of Quakerism that encouraged group sex and strict vegetarianism. Karen and Edward had met and married in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, in what was then the outer limits of Montreal, and had decided to move out even farther for the cheap land, the quiet, the Englishness, and a single-car garage. Steve Bancroft and Edward Mushinsky helped each other level and sod their yards. Steve’s friends in Dollard became their friends. A few nights every week, they would gather at one of their houses after work to drink beer, smoke the marijuana Steve Bancroft always had stashed in a teddy bear cookie jar, listen to the Rolling Stones, and talk about Trudeau.

  From the beginning, it was clear that Steve was gifted. Edward admitted, when he related all of this to Toby one night in the late eighties, that he had always wanted to be around his neighbour. There was a warmth and confidence, an honesty about him that matched the feeling in the air at the time. Steve never failed to comment on a new haircut. He golfed, and offered to initiate Edward into golfing. If anyone needed help moving or with home repairs or even with a loan of a hundred bucks from time to time, he was their man. Like Edward and Karen and all of their new friends in Dollard, he was in the transitional period between student poverty and the southern border of lower middle class; the only reason Steve or Edward and Karen or anyone else they knew could afford a house at all was the West Island’s lack of a self-sustaining economy and its distance from downtown Montreal. In the summer that Edward and Karen moved to Dollard, Steve Bancroft had secured a bank loan to purchase a bankrupt trucking company in Côte Saint-Luc. He didn’t talk about it much, and when he did, Steve mocked himself for making such a boneheaded move. Businesses go bankrupt for good reasons, and Steve Bancroft claimed that he suddenly and painfully understood them.

  Edward and Karen knew the truth, that their new friend had transformed the failed trucking company into a profitable venture. The economy was improving, and it would continue to improve until October, when Expo 67 was due to close. If he was smart enough to capitalize on the energy and optimism in Montreal, and it appeared he was, Steve Bancroft’s membership in the club of entry-level bureaucrats and opticians and nurses and bookkeepers—a collection of perpetual almost-theres—would have to be revoked.

  Willow saplings were the extent of vegetation in western Dollard-des-Ormeaux, though city council had voted to create Centennial Park to commemorate Canada’s last great year—with artificial hills and a phony lake. In the evenings, when they sat on a plank in the mud or on the precious new sod of someone’s backyard, all they could hear were children playing and the sound of an occasional jet. They had left city sounds behind. They said hello to strangers on the sidewalks, walking to or from the IGA. Automatically, it had seemed, everyone in Dollard had something in common. They had come to this place for the same reasons, and they recognized it in one another’s facial expressions. Yes, we were city people. Now we see the sunset.

  There were few secrets among them.

  One snowy night in February 1972, when Edward Mushinsky was away at a franchising conference in Toronto, the gang met at Gino’s, the deli and tavern that had become their local. The CBC was broadcasting a hockey game, the Canadiens versus the Red Wings. The Mushinsky car, a Pontiac Strato Chief station wagon, had not started at the end of the workday, so Karen had abandoned it. She had walked, in the muscle-twisting wind, from Le Chien Chaud to Gino’s, hoping to catch a ride from one of her invariably drunk friends at the end of the night. Toby, still a baby, was with the babysitter, Aunty June, who would shortly reveal herself to be a dominatrix and move to West Berlin. When Karen arrived at Gino’s, the only empty chair was next to Steve Bancroft. That day had proceeded remarkably well for him, despite the blizzard. A shipping company out of Hamilton had offered to buy his little trucking business, and he had accepted. The difference between the bank’s initial investment and the price he received was more money than he or anyone they knew had ever seen or expected to see. So the drinks were on Steve.

  When Toby first heard this story, he had wondered about his mother’s role. In Edward’s eyes, she had been a passive participant, a victim of liquor and charisma, a mother whose hormones had barely settled from the shocks and rigours of childbirth.

  Karen and Steve Bancroft were in their late twenties. She was thrilled to be childless for an evening. They were drinking like marines, buoyed by financial news that seemed impossible. In his self-published autobiography, on sale at every business in the Bancroft Group of Companies for $19.99, including tax, Steve Bancroft mentions the day of the buyout, and even refers to a wild night of celebration. While he doesn’t name names in the book, he does name the price. Once he paid off the bank loan, Steve was $495,000 richer than he had been a day earlier.

  Edward Mushinsky, who had carefully read the autobiography for incorrect and therefore actionable details, first related the story of betrayal to his son shortly before Toby’s high school graduation. They were in the Laurentians, “hunting pheasant,” one final attempt to forestall Toby’s descent into the depths of sissydom. He was already involved in drama and debating instead of sports, and wearing Polo by Ralph Lauren—shirts and scent. Tae kwon do never took. Edward had lit upon the ancient ritual of hunting as a way to steel Toby against fruitiness before he entered university, where fruitiness was socially accepted, if not encouraged. The sight and smell of spilled blood would transform the boy into a man, just as it had done for countless teenage savages for centuries. They arrived at the rented cabin with their rifles and binoculars, and father and son sat near the fireplace and drank three bottles of rye whisky over three days and two nights. In one of several heart-to-hearts, Toby assured his father that he was not, and never would be, a homosexual. Edward admitted that Steve Bancroft, who Toby already knew as a scoundrel and a purveyor of the worst sorts of treachery, had fucked his mother one February night in 1972.

  On Christmas morning, Toby made blueberry pancakes. Then he took Hugo tobogganing at Bois-de-Liesse. The house smelled of turkey when they returned. Toby was knocking the snow off Hugo’s boots when Karen stomped into the room.

  “You set up a date for me?”

  “For us. For us.”

  “Why, why, why?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  Karen looked at her small wristwatch. There was a faint quiver about her arm. “When were you going to spring this on me? It’s in two days.”

  “It was supposed to be a nice surprise.”

  “A surprise.”

  “Surprise!” said Hugo.

  “He just phoned. Just now.” Karen stuttered, which was not her custom. “Asking if a high chair would be better than a booster seat for Hugo. Who calls about that, on Christmas? It had just occurred to him to ask, he said, to avoid any, whatever, any scramble in the restaurant on Sunday. I mean, there I was, pretending I knew all about our luncheon, humming and grunting like a mute.”

  Hugo was unaccustomed to seeing Karen like this, and Toby had to talk him out of crying. Incapacitated by grief was one thing. Flustered by a lunch was another. She shouted instructions for taking the turkey out of the oven, strode into the bathroom, and slammed the door. On her bed, several outfits had been laid flat in a continuum from blue jeans to winter dress.
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  Toby knocked on the bathroom door. “You do know we’re going to Abie’s for smoked meat.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Hugo had turned his attention to the German watercolours, and was in the midst of painting the Chrysler Building, which Toby had been telling him about. It didn’t look at all like the Chrysler Building. The English pronunciation of the saviour’s name was new to him. “Jesus Christ.”

  “It’s his birthday.”

  “Happy birthday.”

  “And your birthday, Hugo.”

  “Happy birthday to you. And happy birthday, Jesus Christ!”

  They ate too much on Christmas. Then they ate too much on Boxing Day for Hugo’s replacement party, which featured turkey sandwiches, warmed-up stuffing, and chocolate cake. Toby stopped keeping track of the number of times his mother cried.

  On Sunday, Toby and Hugo wore their matching suits to Abie’s Smoked Meat & Steak. Karen wore jeans and a cashmere sweater, with the most expensive scarf he had ever bought for her. She placed her hand on the entrance door and then released it, backed away, as though the handle had burned her.

  “This is crazy.”

  It was a revelation, her anxiety about seeing Steve Bancroft. Toby was well aware of his father’s feelings, but did not know Karen’s; he had assumed their affair, nearly as old as he was, had passed into the winds of forgetfulness that blew through the acid-pocked baby boomer mind. He did not know what to say to console or encourage her, so he picked up Hugo and stood silently with his mother as she looked out upon the slushy parking lot.

  “You are hungry.”

  “Shh, Hugo. Just a minute. I am hungry.”

  The boy whined, “You’re cold, too, Poney.”

  “I am cold.”

  He squirmed in Toby’s arms. “You want to go home.”

  “Shh. Grandma’s thinking.”

  “Grandma.” Karen turned back to the door. “That puts things into perspective.”

  Steve Bancroft had secured a table at the back of the steamy deli, a riot of argument and laughter. Most of Dollard, it seemed, had been keen to escape their families. He was on a call when he spotted them, and ended it immediately to stand and greet Karen. They shook hands and awkwardly kissed on each cheek.

  “I am so sorry about Ed.”

  “Thank you.”

  Steve Bancroft made inescapable eye contact, cupped her hand in both of his. “No, really. Really. I was devastated to hear. My heart goes out, Karen.”

  “Thank you.”

  Another potential show topic occurred to Toby. How to express condolences gracefully, how to accept them, and how to transition from death to other concerns—such as smoked meat. Steve Bancroft was rather skilled. He turned from Karen at the precise moment that Toby began to feel the sweat of discomfort gathering on his lower back, and introduced himself to Hugo. “I take it you’re the littlest Mushinsky?”

  Hugo turned to Toby, bewildered.

  “It’s a real pleasure, Hugo.”

  “Hi,” the boy said, in the spirit of clarification. “It’s your birthday.”

  “My birthday’s in June, little fellow.”

  Toby explained about the pronoun challenges, and Steve led a rendition of “Happy Birthday.” The whole restaurant joined in. Weather led the discussions. They looked at the menu. The bored server, in jeans and a black shirt mottled with flour and grease, came by to take their drink orders—sparkling water for the adults and milk for the child. Jewishness abounded in the restaurant, in the pickles and the coleslaw and the mustard; as Steve Bancroft talked about the challenges in the auto industry, Toby vowed to stop being a little bit Jewish. In New York, even in Dollard, one-sixteenth equalled zero; the word “brisket” really meant nothing to him.

  It was not a sophisticated menu. They ordered smoked meat, variously, and as they waited for the food to arrive, Toby pulled out the business plan for Bullé Pour Moi. He had recreated the title page on the computer, to replace Catherine’s details with his own name and coordinates. He laid it on the table, before Steve Bancroft, and cribbed from the introduction. The wonders of bubble tea. The lightness of Asian cuisine. The new capital of cultural export was China, and here was an opportunity to get in early.

  “Isn’t bubble tea from Taiwan?” said Steve Bancroft.

  “China, Taiwan.”

  Steve Bancroft listened, quietly and politely, and turned to Karen. “What do you think of this?”

  “I don’t know what to think.” She glanced at Toby, kicked him under the table, and turned back to Steve Bancroft. “It’s a time of change.”

  “My plan, as you’ve known for some time, was to buy you out. There’s a franchise opportunity in the area of toasted hoagies that interests me, and your locations—even some of your equipment—would work quite smartly.” He picked up the business plan and flipped through it. “This shows real initiative, and I appreciate that. But I don’t know. Bubble tea sounds faddish. Where do you see it in ten years?”

  Karen picked at her lip.

  Maybe bubble tea was faddish, or plain stupid. Toby had not actually read all the way through the business plan because he did not understand business plans. All he wanted to do was protect his mother somehow, to ensure a source of income for her. At the same time, he could “get that fucker” by having Steve put up all the money and all the risk. If it succeeded, Karen would be set. If it failed, a villain with a perplexingly healthy head of hair would be out a few hundred thousand dollars.

  “I’m a car guy. But I wouldn’t try to design, manufacture, and brand my own car. That’s lunacy. The only way to make any money these days is to play somewhere in the middle, to take something that’s made for you and hand it off to someone else for a premium. To keep them coming back. If you want to be a frustrated genius, that’s one thing. I prefer to play it safe.”

  The food arrived, and Steve Bancroft stuffed the Bullé Pour Moi business plan into his briefcase. For the next hour, Karen and his father’s enemy talked about the years between 1967 and 1972, when they were young and pretty. They spoke of beards and pants and cars and restaurants. They avoided discussing Edward. Toby helped Hugo eat smoked meat.

  That night, Toby and Karen sang “Happy Birthday” to Hugo twenty times, during and after dinner. Hugo lay in bed for half an hour, singing “Happy Birthday” to his stuffed animals, to his bed, to the ceiling, to his night light, to Toby and Karen and Edward, and to several pairs of his pants.

  The first sanctioned meeting of the Benjamin Disraeli Society was at La Moufette. Garrett had attempted to invite some young attorneys, but they had all been suspicious of his motives. Randall brought a drowsy man named Mike, who ran a rival tow truck outfit; he and Mike were on friendly terms because, together, they looked like a company big enough to get dealership and Canadian Automobile Association contracts.

  For the first half of the evening, Randall and Mike talked about the “fuckheads” they had towed that week. At nine o’clock, the society came to order. Toby officially welcomed their guest, Mike, and told him a bit about the society and its inspiration.

  “Yeah, but why him?” Mike had been drinking Irish whiskey along with his beer.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if you’re gonna have a club, why not make it about Kennedy or someone that folks remember? Trudeau, even? I’m not a big fan of his, but at least I’ve heard of him.”

  Toby explained, again, about Benjamin Disraeli, his sense of style in the early years of his career, his courage, the way he reimagined British conservatism. The revolutionary aspect. All that had been lost from North America that could be regained if the spirit of Disraeli were as alive and as forceful today as the spirit of, say, John F. Kennedy. Mike simply stared at Toby and blinked a few times.

  “I should add, if you are interested in attending further meetings, that a business suit is the dress code.”

  Mike looked down. He wore a pair of corduroy pants and an unironed blue dress shirt
. “Randall, he said to dress nice.”

  “It’s nice what you’re wearing, it is. But niceness, as you know, is subjective. The advantage of a business suit is it’s something we can all agree on—as a club and, really, as a people. That’s the point, Mike.”

  “Aren’t you moving to the States?”

  Randall spoke in a chastened manner. “He is, Mike, he is. But he’s still the boss. He thought up the society.”

  “I just got to tell you guys, this is retarded.”

  A moment or two of silence passed as Mike finished his glass of Irish whiskey, lifted it, and snapped his fingers at the waitress, who was watching a show about the best police chases on one of the television sets attached to the ceiling. She did not seem to remember Toby from last time.

  “So I had this stomach ache last night,” Randall said. “I didn’t think I’d make it this evening. But I did.”

  Everyone agreed this was fortunate news.

  Toby lifted a satchel onto the table and distributed handkerchiefs to the three men. “Tonight, I thought the theme could be handkerchiefs.”

  Mike held his handkerchief as though it were a gelatin dessert. “See, this is what I’m talking about. The retardedness keeps getting more retarded.”

  “Do you know how to fold a handkerchief?”

  “No.”

  “Would you like to know?”

  “I don’t think I’ve even seen one of these before.”

  Toby pointed to his breast pocket, where he had folded and moulded a pochette gavroche by Hermès, a third anniversary gift from Alicia. “How about beauty? Harmony? Courage? Creativity? Our commitment to perfection, however remote—”

  “Courage. How do you figure that?”

  “Allowing the colour of your tie to clash with the colour of your handkerchief. It takes a daring touch.”