by Todd Babiak
“It wasn’t fifteen feet.”
“You haven’t returned any of Dr. Lam’s phone calls, and you’ve been secretive.”
“When I get news, I give it.”
“Bullshit.” Frieda stopped walking and yanked at Stanley’s hand so he would stop as well. They were on a cedar bridge, the creek tinkling underneath them. “I picked up the extension when the oncologist called. I know what he told you about the latest results.”
“That something is wrong with them.”
“What’s wrong with them is they show you’re healthy again. Now, that seems like something you should have shared with me. I’m going to ask you some questions, all right? And I want you to answer honestly. Can you do that?”
This was not how he had planned his confession. They were supposed to be in Frieda’s favourite restaurant. The sushi was supposed to be on its way. Warm sake. There were supposed to be tiny rocks about, and slivers of burning incense.
“When’s the last time you slept?”
“A week or so ago.”
“Are you short of breath any more?”
“No.”
“Headaches?”
“No.”
“Why don’t you remember anything?”
“I can’t answer that one.”
Tears welled up in Frieda’s eyes. “What’s happening to you?”
Stanley embraced his wife. “I really don’t know. To be honest, that’s why Alok is here. I asked him to help me figure this out.”
“Alok couldn’t figure out junior high math.” Frieda wiped her eyes and nose on Stanley’s sweater. “What else is going on?”
Stanley took a step off the trail and into the bush. Clouds moved off the moon again and the ravine glowed. Wildflowers were alert in the dew. As Stanley looked around for something, he could hear the crackling maturation of leaves and the flutter of bats. “I can sometimes hear thoughts. But never yours.”
“Whose?”
“Whomsoever’s.”
Stanley eased through the bush. It reminded him of years ago, hunting for lost golf balls in the aspen parkland. In between a diseased pine tree and a birch, not far from the pillars of the cedar walking bridge, he found a boulder. The boulder was lodged deep in the creek bank, and fallen trees lay on top of it. Frieda had followed Stanley’s progress, but she stayed on the trail. He called out to her. “Is anyone around?”
“The couple and the dogs are way ahead. Around here now, no. Only loonies are out in the ravine this late. What exactly are you doing in there?”
It was not difficult to slide the boulder up on to the soft, mossy ground. The trees crashed into the creek. Stanley lifted the boulder over his head and the dirt and wood chips, buried twenty or fifty or one hundred years ago, fell into his thin grey hair. He carried it out of the woods and on to the path.
Frieda saw him and took a couple of steps back. “No.”
“I can do this.”
“Is it real?”
Stanley braced himself and allowed the boulder to balance in his right hand–it had the weight of a softball–before he tossed it straight up, way up. The boulder crested, spun lazily, and landed with a powerful thud in a clearing next to the trail. The ground shook so hard that cars in front of the $700,000 houses looking out on to the ravine began to beep and honk and howl. Frieda had watched the progress of the boulder but now she turned to address Stanley. She lifted the index finger of her right hand to make a point, and her legs went wobbly. She stumbled, her eyelids fluttered. Stanley moved as fast as he could to catch his wife before she fell into the creek.
For a few minutes, he tried to rouse her with words and kisses. Had Stanley ever held Frieda like this? In the honeymoon, threshold-of-the-hotel-room position? She was breathing, so Stanley was not concerned.
Out of the ravine and in the neighbourhood again, Stanley passed a gentleman smoking on his front porch. “Hey!” the gentleman said. “Is she alive, or…?”
“Yes.”
The man took a drag of his cigarette and walked out on to the sidewalk. He wore a beige fleece jacket. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing. She’s my wife.”
“Did you hit her?”
“No. She was frightened and she fainted.”
“Does she do that a lot? My brother-in-law is a doctor, so…”
Stanley walked quickly to discourage the man from following. “Yes. She has a condition.”
“What condition?”
“Leave me alone.”
“Maybe I should call the cops. What’s your name?”
“Stanley Moss.”
“Stanley Moss, eh? How do I know you’re not lying?”
“Take the wallet out of my pocket.”
The man looked down at Stanley’s pocket while they walked, but didn’t reach for it. Instead, he sucked from his cigarette. “You didn’t hit her?”
“No.”
“You must be strong, carrying her like that. She ain’t skinny.”
Stanley continued along.
“There’s something weird about you. Where you from?”
“Please, leave us alone.”
“Maybe I should and maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe a good citizen should follow you, see where you live, call in the heat.”
Stanley stopped again. “I know things about you, Mr. Davis. I know you were in Whistler last winter. After some drinks with your friend Jason from Richmond I know you walked past a sporting goods store and tried the door, just for kicks. The door was open, wasn’t it, Mr. Davis? Did you enjoy your new skis and boots and jackets? Mittens?”
“Are you a security guard?” Mr. Davis dropped his cigarette.
“Pick that up.”
Mr. Davis picked up his cigarette. “How did you know that?”
“It’s an indictable offence, Mr. Davis.”
The gentleman turned and started back to his house along the ravine.
“And stop snorting cocaine or you’ll go bankrupt and die before you meet your grandchildren.”
Mr. Davis began to run.
A few doors from home, Frieda opened her eyes. She put her arms around Stanley’s neck. “My head hurts.”
“I’m sorry, darling.”
“Did you throw a big rock in the air?”
“I did.”
She lay back in his arms. “I thought I was waking out of a bad dream. I’m waking into one.”
“Shh.”
“What are we going to do, Stanley?”
That night, while Frieda rolled and coughed and sighed in their bed, he flipped through the Old Testament. Some of it, the war bits and bad temper, was just as he remembered. Other sections didn’t make any sense at all, with the same God wrestling the Hebrews and speaking from the clouds. When it grew frustrating, he crept downstairs and watched reruns of The Simpsons.
NINETEEN
The rhythm of their marriage: if one cried, the other could not. If one laughed excessively at a cinematic comedy or the misfortune of a televangelist, the other could not. Together, they composed a single creature easily embarrassed by its own emotions. When Stanley grew sick and despondent, Frieda became a cautious optimist with bouts of sarcasm. When Frieda was frightened or annoyed or frustrated, Stanley tried to be droll and light of spirit. Even though years of experience had taught him that he was grotesque when he tried to be droll and light of spirit, like a clown eating raw poultry, Stanley did it anyway.
While they waited at Tasty Tom’s for Alok to arrive, Stanley searched for ways to cheer his wife. That morning, after the boulder-tossing incident in the ravine, she’d woken up quiet and thoughtful. She’d spoken formally, without using contractions, as though she had been infected with a degree from Oxford.
“Now, think of this one.” Stanley waited for Frieda to take a sip of her coffee and look up, slowly, from her menu. “Shrub. Now that is a bizarre word, when you focus in on it. Absurd, really. Shrub.”
Frieda adjusted the collar of her shirt.
Stanley wan
ted her to be snappy Frieda, skeptical and sardonic Frieda. Since they had forgotten to take the newspaper to the restaurant, she couldn’t even make merry about local, national, and world events. In Tasty Tom’s, surrounded by Spanish guitar music and the smell of frying onion and egg, he understood her situation. Despite being the daughter of a Baptist preacher, Frieda was a confirmed atheist by her early teens. For a woman without any faith and belief muscles, recent changes in her husband would be, at the least, alarming.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’ve been insensitive.”
She folded the menu. “Can you fly?”
“No.” Stanley laughed. “Of course not.”
“Have you tried?”
“What are you going to have? Let me guess: some sort of omelette with spinach and cheese, tomato salsa on the side.”
“Can you walk through walls? Do you have X-ray vision? Can you produce webs from your wrists or stretch your arm from one end of the room to the other?”
“Frieda.”
“Stanley.”
“We’re not in a comic book. We’re in a restaurant.”
“I am having trouble understanding.”
“So am I.”
Alok appeared next to the table, his hands clasped together, wearing the orange muumuu and white runners again. Upon his head he displayed a thin layer of white hair instead of the turban. “Frieda Moss. The radiant, the intelligent, the sublime…stand up, my lovely, and give Alok a hug.”
A long silence passed. Finally, Frieda extended her hand for a shake. “How are you, Alok?”
“Violently fat, as is evident.” Alok sat down next to Frieda, put his arm around her briefly, removed his arm as though her shoulder were made of barbed wire, and clapped his hands. “Smells good in here. How’s the coffee? Of course, I already had some down the avenue. I’m a bit shaky from it, actually. But a little more couldn’t hurt. And isn’t that sun glorious? Warm and sharp. Why did I ever leave this place?”
“Because there were more kooks in Toronto.”
Stanley reached across the table and took Frieda’s hands.
“I am sorry, Alok.” She looked up at the ceiling fan. “That was rude.”
“No, I’m sorry. I wronged Kitty and I wronged you. But I’m better now. I’m enlightened. My friends, I have become a vessel of goodness.”
Frieda smiled at vessel of goodness. “Stanley told me you were here for a convention.” She turned to Stanley. “I assume that was a fib, Mr. Fantastic?”
“You’re stretchy?” said Alok.
“No. I am not stretchy.”
“Maybe I could be The Thing.” Alok squeezed his bottom lip, a gesture of mock-thoughtfulness. “I’m certainly huge enough, and orange. Of course, I’m very weak, physically. But maybe–”
“Please stop it, both of you.” Stanley was about to deliver an improvised lecture about not being a superhero, about not being anything special at all, really, when the waitress, chewing a wad of cinnamon gum, arrived to take their order. Coffees, omelettes, whole wheat toast.
When she left, Alok pulled a small notepad out of the canvas purse he carried over his shoulder. “I’ve consulted various sources, about what’s happened to you. And I think I have the answer.”
This was how Stanley had felt during the tests that led to his cancer diagnosis. He had been ready to fall on his knees before the specialists, even though some of his friends were doctors and he knew them to be deeply fallible. Save me, save me.
“The good news is, Stan, you’re not going crazy. The bad news is, I don’t think you’re a superhero.”
“Obviously not.”
“I think you’re God.”
Stanley and Frieda, rarely aligned, raised their eyebrows at Alok and uttered versions of “Ha!”
“Wasn’t finished.”
“I hope not.”
“Or, or,” he said, “some sort of messenger. A messenger from God. A prophet. What aspects of your former life have passed away?”
Stanley leaned over the table and spoke quietly. “Certain memories. Though I remember you quite clearly, for some reason.”
“What else?”
“I suppose I’m not as modest. I find myself more willing to, I don’t know, express myself.”
“Good, good. Right. Any specific things bothering you? About humanity, say?”
Stanley thought about it for a moment. Global warming, terrorism, the United States of America, super-viruses, noxious chemicals in household products. “The usual, I guess.”
“Splendid, here’s the thing. In history, when folks get powers like these, the ability to perform miracles–”
“I don’t know if we can call them miracles, Alok.”
Frieda opened her eyes widely. “What are they, then?”
“When people acquire the ability to perform miracles, certain feats are expected of them. You, Stanley Moss, have been called. You have a duty. And I am here to help you discover it.”
Stanley briefly entertained the notion that he had been called. Yet in the time it took to pull a napkin out of the dispenser and wipe his mouth unnecessarily, he decided Alok was wrong. Agnostics are not called. The weak of heart are not called. Florists are not called. “It’s the cancer, I think. The cancer has pressed some sort of button in my brain, next to the memory mound.”
Frieda and Alok looked at one another, briefly, and turned their attention back to Stanley. He looked away from them, at the whole of the small restaurant, open to all the thoughts and concerns of the patrons and staff at once. The smell of bacon and coffee and burned toast mingled with thoughts and feelings of hunger, lust, boredom, and financial crisis. A thin woman near the door, reading the paper, was so hungry she could hardly concentrate on the words. A young man in a group of five could not focus on the conversation around him, which concerned former American vice-president Al Gore, because he was so completely desirous of the thin woman near the door. The teenage daughter did not want to be out for breakfast with her parents, and wished for it to be over soon so she could meet her friends at the skateboard park. The young husband tried to smile as his wife said admiring things about the brie and fruit in her omelette, but he could not forget that they were dipping into their line of credit every month, that a restaurant breakfast was irresponsible. It was just brie and egg and blueberries with coffee. They could make all this at home for a quarter of the price.
His powers were dizzying but Stanley could hold them together, even direct and compartmentalize them now. On the bus and in the hospital, on the day of the blue tornado, he had been frightened. Now, as he attempted to reconnect with that fear, he could not find it.
“I don’t want this,” Stanley said, though he didn’t believe his own words.
TWENTY
They sat at a small table in a University of Alberta library, looking through religious texts. Frieda closed a scholarly interpretation of Zoroastrianism and chuckled. “You’d better learn how to write poetry, if you want to be a prophet.”
Stanley looked up from the book he was skimming, a short history of Florence during the reign of Savonarola.
“I’m sorry, Stan.” Frieda exhaled shakily. “I can’t seem to understand why this is happening.”
Stanley smiled fondly.
“It feels like we should call the police, or the prime minister. Someone who can protect us.”
“Did you find anything in there?”
“There is one God. He asks from us that we think good thoughts, say good words, practise good deeds. Quite decent, actually. You?”
He whispered, as several students had glared at Frieda for speaking at full volume. “Faith can be a dangerous thing.”
“Stop the presses.”
Alok waved as he returned from the room full of computers. He held a piece of paper high in the air and said, even louder than Frieda, “I’ve got it!”
A chorus of “Shh,” rose up from the library floor.
“Do you know anything about the old Grail myths?”
“They’re about finding some magical thing that will save the land, and the people, from dying. That’s what humans have always had in common, a fear that the world around them is fragile and may not sustain them. You should see, or rather smell, Toronto on a hot day in late July. Have you talked to a scientist lately? There are environmental manifestations but it’s social, too. We’re in exile from our own values.”
“What values?” said Frieda.
“Human civilization as we know it began crumbling and liquefying years ago. This explains the success of my store, of the whole New Age movement. We’re an intuitive species. There’s a worldwide, barely conscious desire to do something. Only we’re doing all the wrong things. Can’t you feel it?”
“It isn’t the land or our values, Alok.” Frieda leaned over the table, so he would listen. “We feel fragile because we’re senior citizens.”
Alok touched his temples, undeterred. “As a people, we need that magical thing, that atmosphere of sacredness, that one answer. This hunger explains all the giant churches, with the waterslides and rock music for Jesus, and martyrdom operations. We’re desperate, as a people. Even if we don’t know it, we know we’re doomed.”
“So?” said Frieda.
“So we have to go to Banff.”
“The whole species or just the three of us?”
“Why Banff?” Stanley reached for Alok’s sheet of paper.
“It’s nothing but an outdoor mall now,” said Frieda. “I prefer Jasper. Actually, I prefer Cuba. Can we go there while you go to Banff?”
Alok held the paper away from Stanley and cleared his throat, prepared to deliver a lecture. Then he looked around and paused. “Let’s go outside. It’s warm out there and I hate whispering.”
They gathered their notes and started out of the library, and a table full of young people dressed in faux-cowboy outfits quietly cheered.
“You little miserables,” said Alok. “Have fun paying for my retirement and health care.”
In front of the Arts building, they found a spot of warm grass. Several magpies hopped near a bluff, waiting for dropped food. Alok lay on his side. “Will I sound sufficiently authoritative like this, or should I stand and deliver? Stan, how’s my voice? Weak and strained?”