The Book of Stanley

by Todd Babiak

  “God,” said Kal.

  “Director,” said Tanya.

  “The Stan,” said Alok.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The lounge in the basement of the Chalet Du Bois was full of television executives, so Alok led the engineers of The Stan across a busy street to the Rose & Crown. Even in the two-storey pub, there was a thirty-minute wait for a table. A Celtic band presided over the raucous dance floor and teenage men clomped around like zombies drunk on brain, leering and shouting at mountain women in Lycra shirts–shirts that allowed no mystery about the size and shape of the nipple. Stanley waited in the lineup, witnessing this romantic carnage.

  “We should continue along. There must be somewhere less sad than this.”

  Alok shook his head. “No, no, we’ve been led here. Remember, Stan, free will isn’t possible in a deterministic universe. And you’re the determiner.”

  “And I think this is the wrong place.”

  To Stanley’s chagrin, Alok seemed to ignore this last bit. He had his giant arm around a young server in a black rugby shirt. She nodded at Stanley and said, “Whoa, really? Damn.”

  Five minutes later, they were sitting at the back of the Rose & Crown, near an underutilized piano. Kal asked what Alok had said to get them in so quickly.

  “I told her Stan was Sir Anthony Hopkins.”

  While Tanya and Alok fell into a deep discussion of how they ought to proceed, organizationally, Stanley concerned himself with Frieda. He felt his transformation had not altered the Stanley Moss-ness of Stanley Moss. But if his wife did not recognize him as the man he had been, maybe there was something altogether more sinister at work here than he had previously thought. Maybe he had been inhabited. Possessed. Maybe none of this was happening at all.

  “I can’t stop thinking about Maha,” said Kal.

  Stanley smiled, grateful for a diversion. “Would you prefer to forget her?”

  Kal bit his bottom lip as Tanya raised her voice at Alok and placed her hands on the wooden table. “Only the crazies buy religion, the real thing. But we want the crazies and the skeptics. Our market watches reality television, shops at Wal-Mart, eats fast food, drives minivans, plays video games, uploads videos to the Internet, dreams of plasma screens. We’re attacking the great, numb bulge in the middle of America.”

  “I disagree completely.” Alok reached for Stanley and pulled him close. The big man had not showered after his hike up Tunnel Mountain, and a ham-like scent attended him. “The Stan ought to address the essential meaning lessness of contemporary existence. Globalization, and modern religion, have made us into nothing more than clients.”

  The server arrived to take their drink orders, and stared at Stanley. “Can I get your autograph later?”

  “I’m afraid my friend was dishonest with you. I’m not Sir Anthony Hopkins.”

  “Actually, he’s better than some puffy actor,” said Alok. “He’s God.”

  “I’m not God, either.”

  “He can read your mind. Think of something.”

  The server frowned. “I don’t get it.”

  Alok took her arm. “Picture your warmest memory.”

  It was easy. Stanley concentrated and saw the girl winning a bicycle race, hugging her parents, tears in her eyes. He described, in two sentences, her warmest memory.

  “How did you do that?”

  “Isn’t he so much better than Sir Anthony Hopkins?” said Alok.

  “That’s freaky.”

  Alok whispered, “He floats, too. And he could pick up this piano, if he wanted.”

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  The server stared at Stanley for some time, and then took their drink orders. Stanley saw that she was not curious. She did not sense wonder at their table. The woman was alarmed, even wounded. It was as if they had asked her to meet them in back for a round of blow jobs–the sort of thing that no doubt happened to people in her position on a regular basis. Orders taken, the woman did not linger.

  “Did you learn anything from that exchange?” Stanley said.

  Neither Alok nor Tanya answered. Kal raised his hand. “She was spooked.”

  Stanley had never excelled in the gardening and floral business, as others around him had, because he always ordered what he thought people should have, like native plants and perennials that didn’t need much tending. Of course, what his customers wanted were exotics and the fad flowers they saw in glossy magazines. He wondered if there was a way to appeal to both types of customers, to sell native plants as though they were exotics.

  “I think we have to take a couple of steps back here. The word religion could get us into trouble. In the gardening business–”

  “We’re not selling flowers here, Stan.” Alok’s face began to turn red with frustration. “We’re not thinking micro. We’re not over-thinking this, or making it into a dose of good medicine. What we’re selling is a new world.”

  “But you said you’re against selling stuff,” said Kal.

  Tanya slapped her forehead. “You can’t sell a new world, you big fat jackass. You can only sell dreams and the sign-posts of dreams.”

  “Jackass? Jackass?”

  “Kal, what are your dreams?” Tanya tilted her head, like a television interviewer.

  The Celtic bandleader announced, in the next room, that they were going on a break. There was some applause and, then, near silence. Kal said, finally, “I want Maha. I want to play the accordion. I want my daughter. I want to change my life.”

  Stanley was pleased to see that neither Tanya nor Alok had an easy answer for this. The fulfillment of dreams, or even the promise of it, was more complex than they imagined. Even for someone they saw as simple. Kal excused himself and wandered over to the old piano. He opened the cover and slid his fingers along the keys. Instead of listening to Alok describe how deeply Tanya had wounded him by calling him a fat jackass, Stanley followed Kal to the piano and stood behind him.

  “Play.”

  Kal slid his fingers along the keys. “If you can’t play the accordion, you can’t play the piano.”

  “Let’s start with the piano and go from there.”

  “I can’t.”

  Stanley focused on Kal’s fingers. He concentrated on telling Kal he could play the piano. It wasn’t a transfer, exactly, but to Stanley it was like filling a cup to the brim. When the cup was full, he placed his hand on Kal’s shoulder. “Please, try.”

  The canned rock music coming out of the sound system was not nearly as loud as the band had been. Kal made sure no one was paying attention to him. He looked up at Stanley in a pleading manner, then shrugged and said, “What the hell.” He straightened his back and lifted his fingers to the keyboard. Confused, he started to ask a question, directed not at Stanley but at himself. When Kal touched the keys, he started with a low note and followed with a high one. He continued along, in a slow rhythm.

  Kal played the nocturne Stanley had heard in the rotunda of the Royal Alexandra Hospital. It rose slowly and gained prominence in the room. The song, its gentle power, hushed the drinkers. By the time Kal reached the flourish, four minutes into the song, someone had turned off the rock music. A small crowd had gathered around him. Alok and Tanya were not arguing any more. The “Nocturne in C Minor” ended quietly, as it had begun. Kal lifted his hands from the keys. He turned around, his breath quivering, his smile beatific, as the crowd broke into warm applause. Someone hooted. Someone else called out, “Attafuckinboy!”

  The audience began to disperse. Kal grasped Stanley’s hand. “I’ll do anything. Whatever you want.”

  Stanley placed his index finger to his lips.

  The server brought two glasses of wine, for Alok and Tanya, a beer for Kal, and a small bottle of fizzy water for Stanley. He wasn’t sure he could drink it. In the last few days, his appetite–even for water–had diminished to just about nothing. Kal sat with his head in his hands.

  “That was so beautiful,” said the server. “Thank you.”

 
Kal looked up and smiled at her. “You’re welcome.”

  “Now that we can sell,” said Tanya.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  On his way out of the Rose & Crown, a number of the drunks thanked Kal for his piano playing. A woman his age, with glassy eyes and sticky-looking blond dreadlocks, grasped his hands and whispered, her face so close he could feel the heat and moisture of her vodka-cooler breath on his cheek, “I’m staying at Two Jack Lake, in a red tent. I got a bottle of white wine and a whole box of soda crackers. Meet me there in twenty minutes. That ‘Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini’ was hot.”

  Tanya pulled him away from the woman and down the sidewalk. At this elevation, the warm air departed with the sunlight. Kal wished he had brought a jacket. Tanya shook her head and scrunched her eyebrows, as though she were in the middle of an argument. “This isn’t a democratic religion, Kal,” Tanya said suddenly. “All we need is a strong spiritual leader, with one or two trusted advisors and a heavy. You can be the heavy.”

  “I don’t want to be the heavy.”

  She ignored him. “We’ll book a venue at the Banff Centre, introduce Stanley to the media, write ourselves a gospel.”

  “Alok can be the heavy, how about. I mean, look at him.”

  “Stop it, Kal.” At the intersection, they waited for the light to change. Tanya stuck her index finger into his ribs. “This thing’s bigger than you and your petty desires. You’re either with us or you’re against us.”

  Coaches always found pleasure in being loud and miserable. They were most themselves when, like Tanya, they were on the verge of losing their voices. When someone in particular messed up, got a penalty at the worst possible time or didn’t get back on defence, Kal always noticed a flash of joy in the eyes of his coaches before they turned monstrous and started cussing. If Tanya weren’t a television executive, he figured she would make a perfect hockey coach.

  Stanley and Alok walked ahead. They crossed the street and entered the Chalet Du Bois. Just as they did, Tanya pushed Kal up against a storefront. She spoke softly, and so close that he could feel her breath on his neck. “Listen to me. I need an ally here.”

  “Right.”

  “This isn’t playtime. This is the real thing. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Kal didn’t have the faintest clue what Tanya was saying, and she was making him very nervous. “Yes.”

  “So if it comes down to it?”

  He nodded.

  “Are you still mooning about Maha? Come on, man. Focus.”

  Kal was focused, primarily, on the fact that he knew how to play the piano and, surely, the accordion. His instincts had been exactly right about music, about its ability to change him. Though he worried about losing Maha to her fiancé, the world seemed less chaotic now that Kal could play the “Nocturne in C Minor.” “I’m gonna do whatever’s best for Stanley.”

  “Good.” Tanya released him. “Good. My point is, sometimes a person doesn’t know what’s best for him. Sometimes he needs an advisor, and a heavy, to show him.”

  Also like coaches, Tanya lacked certain listening talents.

  Upstairs, Kal passed Maha’s room slowly. There were murmurings inside, and he wanted to stop and listen, but Tanya shoved him along. Alok met them at his door, where they had agreed to meet for a nightcap and brainstorming session.

  Inside the room, Tanya hunted around. “Where’s Stanley?”

  “He’s with Frieda.”

  Kal put his ear up to the wall, so he might hear Maha and Gamal.

  “She’s a problem, Alok. A big problem.”

  The big man opened the mini-bar, which at this point didn’t offer much more than cans of pop and tiny bottles of hard liquor. “An unsolvable problem.”

  Tanya sat on one bed and Alok sat on the other. Kal pretended to be engaged in their conversation about possible names for the religion, but he remained open to sounds from the adjacent room.

  “Mossery,” said Alok.

  “The Improvement,” said Tanya. “No, too vague and brainy. Awesomism!”

  “Church of the Last Chance.”

  “That sounds scary. I don’t like it.”

  “Goodology?”

  “I think that’s taken. In university I dated a philosophy major.” Tanya sipped from a tiny bottle of gin. “You don’t like Awesomism?”

  “It’ll sound stupid when we’re sober.” Alok sloshed the Grand Marnier around in his glass.

  “I’m not drunk.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Are you saying I’m a drunk?”

  Kal gave up on listening through the wall. “I think The Stan is still the best.”

  It was noticeably quiet for a moment, as Tanya and Alok drank and thought. Both seemed ready to speak up when there was a slam in the hallway, and shouting. Maha said, “Go! Just go!”

  In his haste, Kal forgot the hotel room door opened to the inside. He grasped the handle and slammed into the heavy door. It took a moment to compose himself and exit the room. Gamal and Maha stood together in the hallway like witnesses to a gas station explosion. There were tears in her eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Kal said.

  She nodded.

  “You’re pretty satisfied, I guess.” Gamal’s face was red. “Drafting her into your sex cult.”

  “It’s not a sex cult, Gamal,” said Maha.

  “No one’s having sex at all,” Kal said, hopefully.

  Alok and Tanya walked out into the hallway, their drinks in hand. “Everything all right, sweetie?” said Alok.

  “There you go.” Gamal looked as if he might spit on the floor. “Sweetie.”

  Maha hurried inside her room and slammed the door, leaving the others to stand and marinate in discomfort. Kal couldn’t hide his satisfaction at seeing them angry at one another. “We’re gonna take real good care of Maha.”

  “Don’t talk to me, meathead.”

  Maha came out of her room with Gamal’s small black bag and shoes. Satisfaction turned to overwhelming joy. Kal wanted to sing but he remained calm. For some time, Gamal stared at Maha. Then he turned to the others, and his gaze lingered on Kal.

  “There’s all kinds of fish in the sea!” Kal said.

  In hockey, you always know when a fight’s coming. It commences with yapping and shoving, some stick work, and by the time the gloves hit the ice there’s a feeling of inevitability about the whole thing. That’s why Kal was so shocked when Gamal slapped Maha across the ear and said, “Sharmouta.”

  Maha crumpled against the thin wall with both hands up, looking more in shock than in pain.

  “It’s on, fucko,” Kal said, and took a swing at Gamal.

  “No!” Maha said.

  Gamal ducked the punch and backed away with a bounce. Kal stepped over the bag and shoes, and prepared to pound the smaller man.

  No one in the AHL fought like Gamal. Before Kal had a chance to grab him, Gamal had punched him in the face several times, elbowed him about the cheek and neck, kicked him in the groin, and kneed his right eye in a jumping manoeuvre. All to a series of hisses and high-pitched whoops.

  “Stop hurting him.” Maha sobbed.

  Kal knew he should retreat, but he hoped Gamal had only scored a few lucky blows. He was woozy and nauseous, but he didn’t want Maha to think he was feeble. Again, Kal moved in to attack. He wasn’t sure how it happened, but after receiving several more blows, he bear-hugged Gamal. Since his options were limited, he was reduced to biting the man’s shoulder. Gamal put his fingers in Kal’s eyes.

  “Let me go,” said Gamal.

  Kal had no choice. He did, and slowly lowered himself to the floor. First, he sat down. Then, nearly overcome by sleepiness, he lay on the rough carpet. Through his sore, watery eyes he watched Gamal gather his things and walk away without another word.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone take a beating like that,” said Alok. “Even in the movies.”

  Maha crouched over Kal. “Are you okay?”

&n
bsp; “It’s mostly my pride.”

  “It’s mostly your face,” said Tanya.

  Kal was on his feet no more than thirty seconds before he excused himself to throw up in Maha’s garbage can. Then, with her, and the smell of her, in a state of something like bliss, he began his second bloody journey to the Mineral Springs Hospital.

  THIRTY-NINE

  The young doctor allowed Maha to sit in the examination room while she stitched Kal’s many wounds. His face had already swollen to almost twice its natural size. The fork stab had reopened and there were two cuts on his opposite cheek, below his eye. His lips were puffy and cracked and his cauterized nose was bulbous and purple. His shirt was splattered with so much blood it looked as though he had eaten a live goat for dinner.

  As she worked, the doctor refused to speak with Kal. Male hormones, she contended, were a scourge upon the planet. Proof that God was, at best, a buffoon. “You know how many faces I sew up every night?”

  Maha did not want to encourage the doctor, who wore a ring in her left eyebrow.

  “How many?” said Kal, the left side of his mouth frozen with anaesthetic.

  The doctor ignored him. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  Kal slouched.

  “I told my fiancé I didn’t see a future for us, and he mistreated me. Kal intervened.”

  “Oh, big hero.”

  Throughout the treatment, the doctor condemned the male of the species. As she did, Maha found herself thinking more fondly of Kal. There was a word that suited him, one she had never actually said aloud: guileless. The doctor was wrong about Kal, who seemed stripped of excessive self-regard and a capacity for cruelty. Not that Maha was in a mood to argue with the woman.

  Maha led a newly stitched Kal out of the hospital. On the way back to the hotel, they kept to the dark and tranquil residential streets off Banff Avenue. The spruce trees in front of large homes and small, cedar hotels were decorated with pale-yellow Christmas lights. Locals in out-of-season ski jackets walked big dogs that hurried over to every stranger they saw, panting happily, wagging their tails.