Toby Read online

  Karen had asked him to pick up a frozen pizza for dinner. Toby worried that a week or two of heavily salted prepared food would do further psychological harm to everyone in the house, so he bought the ingredients for his specialty: blackened cod with spinach and mushroom risotto. Steve Bancroft was in the checkout line, flipping through a celebrity gossip magazine, so Toby lingered in the aromatic bulk section until the villain was gone.

  In the mid-1990s, his mother had endured a cancer scare. A checkup had led to a chest X-ray and what appeared to be shadows in her lungs. She quit smoking her long miniature cigars for three weeks, until she learned it had been a mechanical error.

  The scent of Old Port through the heavy front door, upon his return, extracted and diffused a fraction of the world’s hope and beauty and reminded him that soon, very soon, they would all be dead. As he opened the door, however, his mother’s tobacco took on a depth and texture he did not recognize. American cigarettes. Gasoline.

  Two men sat on the chesterfield. Both of them smoked. Toby recalled seeing a bright red Cadillac sedan and a tow truck parked across from the house, both of them outside the norm of rue Collingwood. He peeked out before he shut the door. PILE TOWING: THE TRUSTED NAME IN TOWING. And here was Randall Pile, all six foot seven of him, in a suit that was at least two sizes too small. Toby recalled, as he approached Randall, that his old friend would have been taller if the doctor had not used hormone therapy to slow his growth. He had matured so quickly in grades six and seven that the muscles, tendons, and bones in his ankles had never fused properly, so he walked with a limp. In high school it had been faint. Now he was in his late thirties, hard living etched around his eyes and the limp more fully—yet lyrically—pronounced.

  Randall extended his hand for a shake. “Let me get this right. Remember that show you did on handshakes? Eye contact.” Randall took Toby’s hand and stared down. “Forward thrust, to avoid having your fingers squeezed. Firm, firm.”

  “Not too firm,” said Garrett Newman, Randall’s best friend since grade three, who remained seated.

  “No, no, not too firm. Then what? Oh yeah, stand not too close but not too far. I know we’ve already been doing it way too long. No more than three seconds, right?”

  “Ideally.”

  “He has a library of your tapes.” Now Garrett rose and stepped in for a shake, more natural in his suit. Like both of his parents, Garrett had become a lawyer. He was completely bald and fat in an old-fashioned, hereditary manner. There was an attractive, ancestral essence about his cheeks and neck, the way his eyes were set in his face; it was impossible to imagine Garrett any other way. In high school, at the worst possible time in his emotional development, a girl on the volleyball team had come by his house on a Saturday morning, raising funds for a trip to Hartford. The entrance was on the side of the house, so visitors passed the basement window. The girl peeked in and made eye contact with Garrett, on his knees, naked, masturbating in front of a mirror. By ten o’clock on Monday morning, everyone in school had heard the story of Garrett’s shame. Before that Saturday, his bons mots in social studies class had been widely appreciated by preps and punks, headbangers, jocks and debaters. No one could tear apart Bill 101, the failures and contradictions of the Pepsis, like Garrett. Yet he never recovered. Even though every teenage boy on the island of Montreal abused himself merrily, an air of lonely perversion attended Garrett for the rest of his formal education.

  In the forty-five minutes since Toby had left for groceries, the adults in the bungalow had apparently taken two or three stiff drinks each. Their eyes were covered in a cozy film. Classic rock played on the kitchen radio. His high school friends and his parents dished glances at one another.

  Toby sat on the footstool. “What?”

  “Nothing,” said Karen.

  “My birthday’s not for a while.”

  “It’s nothing!”

  Randall walked to the picture window and looked out. An inch of his right pant leg was tucked ever so precariously into his sock. “Your mom and dad called us, Toby.”

  “I didn’t. I did not call you.” Edward poked Garrett. “Did I?”

  “No. You’re right about that. It was Mrs. Mushinsky.”

  Randall cleared his throat. He continued to look out in a tsarist fashion. “She called us, Toby, because she’s nimbly worried.”

  “Nimbly? Mom, you’re nimbly worried?”

  “Actually, no,” said Karen. “But it’s close.”

  “I’m not sure that’s what you meant to say, Rand,” said Garrett.

  “It’s precisely what I wanted to say.”

  “‘Nimbly’ doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

  “What?”

  Edward opened his palms to the ceiling. “We’re all worried. Toby’s worried, Karen’s worried, I’m worried. Some nights, when it’s quiet, I can hear the earth murmuring. Listen. Just listen for a moment, all of you, in the silence. Listen for the message.”

  They listened for the message. The clock ticked. From the kitchen, “Takin’ Care of Business.”

  “Am I right? I mean, come on.”

  Karen cleared her throat, demonstrably, and Edward followed her into the kitchen. He said, enunciating every syllable, “We are going to put the groceries away.”

  This allowed Toby another opportunity to listen for the message. He struggled for an acknowledgment or an explanation of Edward’s words. Silence did its subtle work, and soon the conversation in the kitchen, which sounded sane enough, inspired Randall to turn from the window and fuss with his Asterix and Obelix tie, which he had mangled into a four-in-hand knot with no crease.

  “Your mother said you lost your job and your lady in the same day. Believe you me, I understand.”

  “We saw the video,” said Garrett. “My secretary is a big computer girl.”

  “Intervention.” Randall lifted a handful of jelly beans from the decorative bowl on the bookshelf, and before Toby could tell him they had been there for over a decade, he popped a couple into his mouth. “A laying on of hands. That was my first thought when Karen gave us a shout this afternoon. We grew up together. This suit? This tie? It’s all you.”

  “An Asterix tie? I don’t think—”

  “I haven’t spit outside—except on grass when nobody’s looking, and that’s only on hot days—in probably five years. That’s all on you. We care about you, buddy. We love you. We’ve got your back.”

  “I do appreciate that, Randall, but my back is just marvellous.”

  “That’s what I told him,” said Garrett.

  Randall pointed to his mouth. “Is there a garbage somewhere? These jelly beans don’t taste right at all.”

  “Kitchen or bathroom.”

  He rushed off and Toby was left with Garrett. “I am sorry about this. Your mom and him got each other excited about the idea of an intervention. She said you’d gone off a bit. They both watch that show, I think, about interventions. I’m more interested in Edward and his car. What happened there?”

  “It’s under investigation.”

  “Damn.”

  “I wish I knew how it happened.”

  “Damn.” Garrett swirled his highball like cognac. “You know, Randall bought that suit at Sears, on the way here. The woman clipped his pants, in lieu of hemming.”

  “It’s the wrong size for him.”

  “She wasn’t very good at her job, per se.”

  Randall returned to the room, talking. “This love, Toby. It’s unconditional. All right? It surrounds you, from every corner.”

  “That’s incredibly thoughtful.”

  “I do not. I do not want to see you go down that road. I just don’t.”

  “What road?”

  “Don’t burn too brightly, Toby, because falling stars always…no, no, no, wait, hold on. If a star falls, and is bright, and then it burns. Something.”

  “We thought maybe the three of us could go out,” said Garrett. “Get some hot wings.”

  “I’m
making fish and risotto. Really, you guys, there’s nothing wrong with me. To answer your question more fully, Garrett, I’m here to take care of them.” Toby nodded in the direction of the kitchen. “I don’t know what’s happening with my dad, with the fire. And the hot dog shops are dying. It’s true I’ve had a pretty terrible week, but—”

  “That is a falsehood.”

  “Just talk normally, Rand. He knows you drive a tow truck.”

  “Oh. Oh, now I’m being attacked!”

  “And I really have to get to work on my C.V. I’d like to send out some packages tomorrow, to Toronto and Vancouver.”

  “It’s one night,” said Garrett.

  “An hour. I’ll go for an hour.”

  Randall high-fived him.

  “An hour. And only if I can have assurances, from you both, that sharing hot wings isn’t a laying on of hands in any way.”

  Randall and Garrett looked at each other and nodded, somewhat grudgingly, it seemed.

  Half an hour later, Randall, Garrett, and Toby were at a corner table in La Moufette, near the deserted dance floor and the women’s washroom. A fresh pitcher of beer sweated on the table, next to a salt shaker. Lights flashed in time to “Good Vibrations” by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, and a server leaned against the empty DJ booth with her eyes closed. Three ageless men in jeans and T-shirts sat at the bar, looking up at a television on mute, tuned to sports highlights.

  It occurred to Toby, as Randall talked and talked, that all of his adult companions had been couple friends, shared with Alicia. He spent time with almost no one, singly. In the wake of his misfortune, he could not imagine phoning any of his couple friends. Staying in Dollard would have financial benefits if he were forced to sell the condo, but it would also allow him to avoid humiliating chance encounters in Square Saint-Louis.

  The conversation had focused on Randall and his children, Dakota and Savannah, six and four, “life’s chiefest pleasures.” Their sleeping patterns, their favourite toys, the boy’s first year of hockey. “He doesn’t take any lip. There’ve been a few incidents, let’s just say, when some other kid makes the mistake of fucking with him.”

  Garrett leaned over the table. “Hear how proud he is, raising a bully?”

  The ashen men at the bar did not speak to one another or move except to lift beer bottles to their mouths, to cough, to retreat to the washroom or to the sidewalk for a cigarette. There were five other single men scattered about La Moufette, eating fries or dry ribs, drinking beer, looking up at one of the mute televisions. Men without couple friends.

  Randall pulled out a cigarette and drew it under his nose. “I love it when they’re like this, all clean. You coming?”

  “Next round,” said Garrett.

  The beer had begun to warm its way through Toby, and it reached his brain like a flower unfolding its petals. Their waitress walked past and held eye contact.

  “He was so nervous about seeing you,” said Garrett. “That tie. He really agonized over it.”

  Toby wanted to go outside and phone Alicia; the notion had struck him, here in La Moufette, that he had not been the most attentive lover. Their sexual relationship had fallen into a comfortable pattern. Perhaps there were moves she had wanted to try, cues he had not picked up on. It had never occurred to him, until now, that she might actually enjoy anal sex. He wasn’t against it! Who knows? It could be quite bracing. There were instructional videos one could order.

  For several minutes they sat quietly, looking about La Moufette. It surprised Toby that he did not feel uncomfortable in the silence. He did not feel the need, with his old friend, to bring up hockey or the weather or leaving. Then he did. “I should get going, Garrett. I have a phone call to make.”

  “We just got here.” Garrett waved the waitress over and ordered three shots of tequila. Four, if she wanted to join them, he said, winking in Toby’s direction. She nodded and sashayed to the bar. “I think she likes you.”

  “I really appreciate that, Garrett.”

  “Things haven’t gone well for our Randall as of late, either. Romantically speaking.”

  “With his wife?”

  Garrett looked over his shoulder, as Randall was on his way back to the table. “She kicked him out.”

  “But the kids.”

  “It’s killing him.”

  There was a commotion at the bar. One man had accidentally knocked over another’s drink, and threats were being flung about. Toby was pleased to have something to watch while he finished his final glass of salty beer.

  Randall retook his seat, a breeze of cigarettes about him. “So what have you decided? Are we gonna join the space program or what?”

  “I was just saying I really should go.”

  They announced toasts to Edward, to Toby the hero, and to Randall’s children before suffering through their cheap tequila shots. Randall ordered six more. The new tequilas arrived, and with each of the two shots they toasted Edward, his goodness, his resilience, a new spook about him that Randall and Garrett had both noticed. Toby told the version of events he had come to accept. He had run to the driver’s-side door.

  “Weren’t you worried it would explode?” said Randall.

  “Of course I was worried.”

  Garrett leaned back in his chair and squinted both drunkenly and suspiciously.

  “Now what about Alicia?” said Randall.

  She was probably the most famous woman in anglophone Montreal—an anchor and an omnipresent spokeswoman for charities related to cancer, children, and children with cancer. “The station manager, he cuckolded me.”

  “No!” said Randall.

  “He’s married. With kids.”

  “No,” said Garrett.

  “His name is Dwayne.”

  “You know, I hate that name, and not only because of the cuckolding.” Randall filled their glasses, emptying the second pitcher.

  “Dwayne means ‘poem’ in Gaelic,” said Garrett.

  “For me, it’s not the name so much as the cuckolding I object to. We were friends of a sort.”

  “It goes against everything you’ve tried to do, Tobe, to improve our lot.”

  “Thank you, Randall.” He checked his watch. “I really should—”

  “And Garrett, old boy, since when do you speak Gaelic?”

  “I knew someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Does it matter, Randall?”

  “Someone Gaelic?”

  Apparently it did matter, for an ugly instant, as Randall stared at his much smaller friend. Then he turned away from Garrett, unfolded his arms, and slammed his fist on the table. The empty pitcher fell off and bounced, hollowly, on the concrete floor. “Where does this cuckolding bitch live?”

  “Dwayne?”

  “Yes.”

  “The south shore.”

  “I say we go, right now, and teach him a lesson in gentlemanly behaviour. I say we go to his house, pull him out of bed, strip him naked, and packing-tape his cuckolding ass to a tree on Saint-Catherine. Let’s go. Right now. It’ll be an adventure! We deserve this.”

  “Well…”

  “Come on, Toby. I’m wearing a suit, for fuck sakes! We can be gentleman vigilantes, righting wrongs. Like thieves in the night! Only not thieves.”

  “I’m really tired, guys.”

  Randall stood up and marched out of La Moufette. “Let’s move!”

  Something had malfunctioned in the PA system, and a sad violin song played, with Sarah Brightman singing along in an insistent vibrato. The ashen men of La Moufette looked around, searching for the source of this perversion. Garrett insisted on paying the bill.

  “He started drinking pretty early. I’ll get him home and put him to bed.”

  “Where is he living?”

  “He has this house in Westpark, with Tracy, but he’s staying with me for the moment. It’s only been a couple of weeks since she asked him to leave.”

  “Why?”

  “She doesn’t love him anymore
is the foremost reason.”

  Outside, Randall paced in the strip mall parking lot, shadowboxing with a limp that seemed to have worsened over the course of the evening.

  “Hang back here a second,” Garrett said to Toby. He approached his friend like a crocodile wrangler. He bent his knees, even though Randall was nearly a foot taller. “Let’s just talk through this.”

  “I’m sick of talking. That’s the trouble with us—talk, talk, talk. We get cuckolded and fired and kicked out of our own houses, where we pay the mortgage. The Frenchies make us call skunks moufettes. Where does it end?”

  Garrett placed a hand on Randall, and Randall pulled away. He opened the door of the tow truck and started the diesel engine.

  “You’re drunk!” Garrett knocked on the window, and Randall unrolled it to listen. “Let’s call a cab.”

  “I’m coming for you, Dwayne. Gaelic!” Randall closed the window and put the truck in gear.

  Garrett opened the door of the red Cadillac. “You coming?”

  “Not really comfortable with this, Garrett.”

  “We’ll get him and I’ll drive you right home.”

  Moments later, they were on boulevard des Sources, going north. Up ahead, the tow truck did not swerve. The smell of leather remained about the black cabin of the muscular sedan.

  “I had a BMW until a couple of days ago.”

  The road thinned as they neared the riverfront park. Garrett breathed furiously through his nose and did not speak. Up ahead, the tow truck careened to the right and into a ditch. Then, with a jerk, it went left, crossed the road, and entered an open field. It bounced over a deep hole and puttered, slowly, into a glade. The trees stopped the truck. Randall opened the door, stepped out, limped about in a wide horseshoe, and collapsed, bawling.