The Towers of Babylon

by Michelle Kaeser

“He hasn’t been around much. I just assumed. Hoped.”

  “He’s been busy. Working a lot.”

  “Oh yeah? Bagel shop really driving him hard?”

  “Yes actually. They’re slave drivers at that place. And he’s got all his volunteer stuff, church stuff. Do you know he’s delivering a sermon this week?”

  “So what, he’s a priest now? Any money in that?”

  “Maybe! Who knows. He’d be a kickass priest. Which is why I think you should come hear his sermon.”

  Ben bristles on the steps, but keeps quiet.

  “Are you kidding me?” croaks Yannick. “I’m not going to church.”

  “He’s an excellent speaker, you know. His voice is made for public speaking.”

  “I’m sure. But no.”

  “Oh come on. It’ll be fun. We’ll bring the whole fam!”

  “That sounds like a nightmare, Joly.”

  “I texted Lou about it last night—she said she and Elliot are in. We’ll have a whole contingent. A fan section.”

  “Wait, why’s Lou going?”

  “To be supportive, obviously. It’d be nice if you could be the same. Ben thinks you hate him, you know.”

  “I don’t hate him. I just wonder how long you’re gonna wait around for this deadbeat to get his shit together.”

  Ben flinches. The word—deadbeat—sounds out like a sharp knock. The mass of his body crumples against the wall until he’s right down on his ass. His father’s voice: You little deadbeat, you bum. The old man too was convinced from the start that Ben was worthless.

  “That’s not fair,” says Joly. “It’s not like I have my shit together either.”

  “I know that. And it baffles me. Maybe it’s his influence. You ever consider that? Maybe if you hang around a guy like that long enough it rubs off. The guy practically lives in a commune. He can’t take care of you. I mean, Jesus, he doesn’t even have a credit card.”

  A fire flickers to life in Ben’s gut. Who’s the real deadbeat here? It’s not Ben who is screwing around on his woman. Not Ben sneaking up to Don Mills for a secret rendezvous. Of course a soul-sick man like Yannick would balk at the idea of fidelity, of honour. But he hadn’t expected Lou to be his target. Well, doubtless there are others—how many other women does the wretch covet and claim? The man registers no sense of moral duty or sacred oaths. No—he sits imperiously in his pleasure palace, casting stones.

  And that’s to say nothing of the evils of his career! Here is a man raking in money off the backs of others. These private equity guys are vultures. They buy up companies, then start slashing costs, squeezing out huge rosters of employees, doing away with research and development, hollowing the companies right out, and then selling them off before anyone realizes that once stalwart companies have gone to the dogs.

  Ben has read that the whole industry is a bubble waiting to burst. There is so much money in private equity (trillions of dollars), and so many jobs, that when some of these businesses inevitably start to collapse under the debt that has been foisted upon them by the private equity sharks, when they default on their loans, it will set off a ripple effect that will decimate the entire western economy. And Ben is the deadbeat?

  The upstairs breakfast conversation has turned to matters of oatmeal. Regaining his composure, Ben stands up and dusts dandruff flakes from his shoulders and ascends the rest of the staircase, with a conspicuous footfall that he maintains on his way to the kitchen.

  “Oh, hi Benny,” says Joly from her island stool, where she is toying with a thick gruel.

  At the counter, Yannick is busy “making” coffee—that is, inserting a pod into the machine. “Coffee?” he asks.

  “No, no thank you,” says Ben, despite the fact that he would very much like a coffee. The oven clock reads 6:22, far too early to be up and functioning without coffee. He would also like breakfast. But he passes on this too, because he will not indebt himself to Yannick, eating his foods and revelling in his luxuries, like a deadbeat.

  Instead he helps himself to a glass of tap water and washes out the stale taste of morning. Beside the sink are the two beer bottles he brought over last night, the bomber bottles. He and Joly only made it through half a bottle, but now both stand empty on the counter.

  “Oh yeah, I finished those off last night,” says Yannick. “Whose was it?”

  “That’s Ben’s homebrew,” says Joly with a trace of pride.

  “Nice. It was fucking delicious. But strong.”

  “Yes, the honey brown’ll put you down,” says Ben.

  “Look at you, Ben. You’re turning into a bona fide bootlegger.”

  Ben studies Yannick, drinking his pod-coffee, in his pressed suit pants and his crisp shirt, and his cufflinks, actual cufflinks, and his gelled hair. At first glance, he looks put-together, but his skin is blotched and sallow, his face is bloated, the eyes foggy, almost veiled. He looks the way Ben’s parents used to look in the mornings. Tired, irritable, poisoned, but pushing through to functional. He looks hungover.

  “You could charge for beer like that,” Yannick says. “Open up one of those microbreweries, or whatever they’re calling them. Craft breweries. Karen’s got some artsy friends who’re always talking about their fucking craft beers. Their Trappist monk beers. Or artisan beers or whatever the fuck. Paying ten bucks a bottle. For one bottle! You could tap that market, Ben, buddy. Turn a buck on this racket.”

  “No, I’m afraid it’s just a hobby. A spiritual pursuit, really,” says Ben.

  “So you don’t want to make money off it?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Leaning against the countertop, arms tightly crossed, Yannick stares at him, confused. “So what do you wanna make money off of, Ben? Let’s hear. What’s your ambition?”

  “My ambition?” Ben stands behind Joly at the island, resting a hand on the backrest of her high stool. “I have no personal ambition.”

  Yannick’s left eye twitches. “I don’t know what to say to that. Joly? What am I supposed to say to that?”

  “I think he just means that he’s happy with very little.” Her eyes dart from one to the other, but her body stays rigid.

  Ben checks the clock on the oven: 6:28. “Well now, where does the time go? I have to get to work,” he says, though his shift doesn’t start until eleven.

  “Yeah, I’m on my way out too.” Yannick pounds back his cup of coffee. “You need a lift somewhere?”

  A lift in the Lexus? A deadbeat scrounging up a free ride? Another debt owed? Ben declines. He takes the streetcar instead.

  11

  BENEATH THE WOODEN beams of the nave, Ben kneels in prayer. Since he was first given his own set of keys to the church a couple of years ago, he has often sought private comfort here. Rarely, though, has he been alone in the sanctuary so early in the morning. Light cuts through the windows at an unfamiliar angle, lending the space an otherworldly glow.

  Awash in this uncertain light, Ben remains still. He prays for Joly, as he does whenever he takes a knee, and for their lost child, whose life he snuffed out; he prays for the Pharisee Yannick, whose corrupted soul is in dire need of intercession; and he prays, above all, for the grace to overcome his own anger.

  It is in these moments of solitary prayer that Ben has had his most visceral experiences of God. On rare days, he has felt divinity. As though, in the process of prayer, he is able to bring forth the divine aspect in himself—the whisper of divinity that exists in us all. Seeing this reflection of the infinite in his own finite form, he is able to understand a sublime humility. And it feels very much like relief.

  Today, however, is not one of those blessed days.

  IN THE NARTHEX, Ben finds the Reverend Roberta rearranging furniture for a reading group meeting later in the morning, at which participants will discuss a cobbled-together tome of new-age garbage called Radical Gratitude. The Reverend has brought in a half-dozen folding chairs, configured into a circle next to the short bookcase, on which sits the coffee maker
.

  “Oh, Ben,” she says, spinning gracelessly as she catches sight of him, here unexpectedly on a Friday morning. “What are you doing here?”

  “Doing penance.” He thrusts a thumb at the sanctuary.

  The folding chairs are not the only new items in the room this morning. As he was letting himself in earlier, Ben noticed a This is a designated Safe Space decal on the window by the front door. He nods at the decal. “Your workshop went well then?”

  “Yes. It was … instructive,” she says, swinging her heavy hips around as she moves another chair. “Better than I thought, actually.”

  “So the funding’s coming in? The roof will be fixed?”

  “We’re working on it. It’s a process, as I mentioned already.” And then with a wry smile that on anyone but a priest might be characterized as a little bit malicious: “How’s the sermon coming along?”

  “Oh, just dandy, Reverend.”

  Having prayed on the matter of the sermon, Ben has faith that the right words will coalesce soon enough.

  “Glad to hear it. I am ready to be roused.”

  Ben helps himself to a cup of what is clearly yesterday’s drip coffee from the machine, but he pauses at his first sip, espying something most displeasing to God. On the top shelf of the little bookcase, which houses Bibles in their various translations, a hodgepodge of theological scholarship (including, blasphemously, a collection of Pope Benedict’s encyclicals), and even a few pulp novels, is a new sign, printed out with the good Reverend’s label maker. It reads: “Warning: These materials contain content about violence, sexual assault, abuse, suicide, bullying, disease, famine, homophobia, racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and imperialism, which may be triggering to survivors.”

  “What,” Ben asks in a low drone of incredulity, “is this?”

  “Oh, it’s something that was suggested to us at the workshop,” the Reverend says, tinkering uselessly with the furniture configuration.

  “Is that a trigger warning?”

  “Yes.” She looks up from her chairs to behold her label-made signage. “Apparently it’s common for people who have suffered a trauma to be retriggered when they encounter certain subject matter. So these warnings are supposed to give them a heads-up.”

  “Yes, I know what they are supposed to do.”

  “They’ve started putting these trigger warnings on everything, all over the university. I had no idea! On certain books. Pretty much the entire English department. On course syllabi.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It can’t hurt, right?”

  “You put a trigger warning on the Bible?”

  “Not just the Bible. The whole bookshelf, yes.”

  “You put a trigger warning? On the Bible? In a church?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  At a rare loss for words, Ben gazes up at the heavens for guidance. His arms extend to their full majestic breadth as he roars, “Have we all just lost our goddamned minds?!”

  12

  BEN EMPLOYS A strict policy when he is on coffee. Any order that comes in with more than two amendments to the standard method of preparation earns itself an automatic decaf-ing. It must be done. Someone must impose a sense of decency in this place. In front of him is an order for a cappuccino: extra shot, extra hot, soy milk, easy on the foam … and a squirt of raspberry syrup. No. Absolutely not. A definite decaf situation.

  As expected, the bagel tower collapsed overnight, but the setback has done nothing to discourage Dickhead Debbie. She has greeted her failure with renewed vigour—and a new construction plan. And she has conscripted Megz to see the plan through.

  “Toothpicks!” she shrieks at Megz in the alcove, shaking a box of toothpicks in front of her head like a maraca. “We’ll use toothpicks to hold the bagels together.”

  Megz, today sporting a hot pink Grrrrrrl Power button, throws a pleading glance toward the counter, but Lyle is occupied on sandwiches, Lindsay is busy being berated by a Customer at cash, and Ben is no longer a suitable object of commiseration. Temperatures between them have remained chilly. Megz has been curt and contemptuous all day, answering his conversational attempts, if at all, in monosyllables. Unless there’s a major thaw, a collaborative email to the union is out of the question.

  Ben busies himself with the preparation of the raspberry-infused, soy-based abomination, and when he sets it on the counter and looks up to see which philistine has placed this order, he finds Dickhead Debbie scurrying his way.

  “Frank wants to see you,” she says.

  “Ah, very good. I thought he might. Right now?”

  “Yes, he’s in the office,” she says with a peculiar, indecipherable grin. And then, in a rare and highly suspicious move, she assumes command of the coffee station.

  Once again, Ben and Frank assume positions on opposite sides of the desk, and again, Ben awaits Frank’s opening salvo.

  “So another letter,” Frank says.

  With one elbow on the desk, the other on the back of the chair, Ben tosses up his palms. “Needs must, boss man.”

  “I thought we talked about this.”

  “I thought we did too. But did we get around to including Debbie in our conversation? Because she continues to prance around unchecked. Have you seen that bagel tower, may I ask? Did she show you her sketch? Have you any idea how many man hours she has allocated to its construction?”

  Frank rubs at his eyes beneath his thick lenses, then takes the glasses off, letting them fall onto the disordered papers on his desk. “Let me ask you something, Ben. Have you been trying to unionize this store?”

  Ah, so the devil switches tactics. “Who told you that?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes of course. It matters a great deal.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes then.”

  “That’s not what I said. And to be honest, I think it’s wildly inappropriate that you’re even asking me this.”

  “Okay, Ben,” he says, his hands propping up his forehead. He scrubs his fingers through his thinning hair. “I can see where this is headed with you. Headaches. It’s going to be one headache after another, isn’t it?”

  “No, no, I don’t see that as inevitable. Not if we each uphold our ends of the bargain.”

  Frank returns his glasses to his face, straightens up, and clasps his hands in front of him. “I’m gonna have to let you go.”

  “… What?”

  “You’re not giving me any choice, Ben. I can’t have you writing letters all the time, getting the staff worked up, agitating, causing trouble.”

  “Agitating?” Ben’s indignation propels him forward in his chair; he spreads both hands out on the desk, knocking over the emoji Chia pet. “You do know that it is illegal to fire someone for undertaking union activity?”

  “Well then I guess that’s not why I’m firing you.”

  “For what then? You have no cause. No cause!” His ass has lifted a few inches off the chair. “As such, you are required to give me notice or payment in lieu of. Two weeks. That is the law.”

  Frank flips opens a folder in front of him, studies its contents, and then looks back at Ben. “Our store policy clearly states that defective products are to be discarded.”

  “An absurd policy,” Ben says, sitting back down. “But I always follow it. To the letter.”

  “I’ve heard differently. I’ve heard that you routinely hold onto defects for your personal consumption.”

  “From whom did you hear such lies?” Ben scrolls through possible suspects. Paulie? Strong-armed into turning the snitch? Megz? Touchy enough about linguistic disputes to have him cast out? Or the dear leader herself? Did Dickhead Debbie notice the transgression and seize the opportunity to whip up drama and have him fired?

  “Who told me isn’t important. What’s important is that you’ve been violating the policy.”

  “Never happened,” says Ben. Because it is one thing to get sacked without cause. He will get his two weeks’ wages and hop on EI—c
ollect his pogey. But fired for cause? For theft? No pogey.

  “I have reports that it did.”

  “But I’m telling you it didn’t. So we find ourselves at an impasse, don’t we?”

  “I spoke to one of your coworkers myself.”

  “Gossip! Pure gossip and slander! I deny it.”

  “My god, Ben. Why do you have to make everything so difficult?”

  “Me? You’re firing me. I’m making it easy. I accept!” He smacks a palm on the desktop, causing Dickhead Debbie’s collectibles to wobble. “But I demand my two weeks’ of wages.”

  Frank, nearly swallowed in his chair, says, “Just get your things and go.”

  13

  THE SANCTUM WELCOMES Ben with its cracked and crooked stone steps leading up to the front door. In the kitchen he finds a half complement of roommates, whose boisterous chatter dissipates the moment he enters.

  “Brethren,” he says with a nod at the collective, but nary a one of them responds to his grim greeting. “Well don’t stand down on my account, I’m just passing through to the beer fridge. I have been canned. Given the boot. The ol’ heave-ho. So … I think I will get drunk.”

  In three brisk strides, he is clear across the kitchen and out the back door. But when he returns with a bottle of his pale ale a moment later, he finds the roommates still locked in their strange tableaux.

  “What?” he demands. “What is this?”

  From the huddle, Kata is pushed forward a step. “The landlord called again last night, Ben. He’s pressuring us for an answer about the payout.”

  Ben cracks open his beer bottle on the edge of the countertop. “We have an answer. Our answer is a resounding no.”

  “The thing is, Ben,” she says, glancing at the contingent behind her, “we were talking it over last night. And it seems like the consensus is to take it.”

  “Ah. Ah-ha.” Ben scans their faces, noticing now the shifty eyes and restive demeanour of a pack of plotters and schemers. But who among them has led this charge? He scrutinizes each in turn, his flaming eyes finally coming to rest on Runkle.