Milosz (3 page)

‘Nope.' Robertson has difficulty interacting with people but not with animals. Dogs strain against their leashes to lick his palms. ‘My dad left.'

‘Did he say anything to you?'

‘About what?'

‘Why he was leaving?'

Robertson begins speaking in the rushed manner he adopts when he doesn't understand but wants to appear as though he does. ‘He's tired. I don't know, maybe he's just tired of me, he works too hard, maybe he just needs a rest. Mummy says it's all right. It's just for now. I'm not easy to be around. I get mad and I don't know why. I'm going to finish the patio.' Since April Robertson has been laying patio stones on gravel in symmetrical patterns. Tanis said she knew he was different when he was three and lining up his toys. He would become extremely distressed if she tried to tidy up, thereby disturbing his order.

‘It's looking good,' Milo says, offering Robertson some cashews. The boy takes a handful and scatters them around the garden for the squirrels. Sal, ball in mouth, pants at his feet. Robertson takes the ball and tosses it. Milo lies back in the grass, not wanting to crowd Robertson with conversation. It's hard to imagine the house without Christopher. Tanis will drink alone. Robertson will seek refuge in World of Warcraft without Christopher to stop him.

Scratching at flea bites, Milo sees Tanis preparing dinner. How strange to set places for only two. What can Christopher be doing? Watching
TV
in a Days Inn? Does he despise himself for hitting his son? It's not the first time he has had to be rough with him. When Robertson has episodes in stores, and onlookers stare disapprovingly – believing him to be a spoiled child in need of discipline – Christopher throws him over his shoulder and carries him out. He has no choice but to force him into the car and wait for the tantrum to pass. The car functions as a therapeutic quiet room, a term they learned after sending Robertson to the Child and Parent Resource Centre. Overall, it seems to Milo, Christopher has shown tremendous restraint. As much as he loves Robertson, there are times when Milo feels an urge to slap some sense into him.

Sal lies on her back with her paws in the air, waiting for Robertson to rub her belly.

‘Robertson,' Milo says. ‘Sal wants tummy rubbing.'

Robertson rubs her tummy but doesn't talk to her as he usually does.

‘Have you ever tried pretending you're an alien?' Milo asks.

Robertson doesn't respond. Unlike normal people, he doesn't feel compelled to reply to mindless chatter.

‘Because,' Milo continues, ‘I've found that pretending to be an alien with the capacity to vaporize at any second helps me through difficult situations.'

‘You mean like being beamed up on a transporter?' Robertson is a Trekkie, his favourite characters being the androids who, though emotionless, have great curiosity – and wistfulness – about being human.

‘I prefer having the capacity to vaporize at any second,' Milo says. ‘Who wants to wait around for a transporter?'

‘So where do you vaporize to?'

‘My planet, where everybody thinks like I do. We get along great, no wars. So I don't mind visiting Earth occasionally. I find it quite fascinating, actually. Studying humans.'

‘As long as you can vaporize at any second.'

‘That's right.'

Robertson faces Milo, which is a bit disconcerting. Generally he avoids eye contact and glances at people sideways. Under such scrutiny, Milo realizes the absurdity of his alien ploy. It works for him because he has never experienced the kind of suffering and isolation Robertson endures daily.

‘Are you saying I should pretend I'm an alien at school?' Robertson asks.

‘Anytime you feel like it. Generally I become an alien when people act like assholes. I also picture them naked and make mental notes for my report.'

‘Who do you report to?'

‘Other aliens. My comrades back home.'

Robertson considers this, blinking repeatedly as he does when he's working things out. ‘
You
can do that because you're an actor,' he says. ‘
I
can't do that.'

Tanis has told Milo that children with Autism Spectrum Disorders are very literal. They miss nuances, which is why socializing proves challenging for them. Social conventions and codes are beyond the comprehension of the autistic – they don't understand that people rarely say what they mean.

‘I don't see why you can't vaporize,' Milo says. ‘It's all in your head. How you look at things. If you can vaporize at any second, there's no point sweating over anything, just vanish.'

‘You
can't
vaporize at any second. That's stupid.' He leaves abruptly, as he often does without so much as a ‘see you later.' Social niceties never seemed important to Milo until he met Robertson. Sal glances briefly at Milo, who offers to toss the ball for her. She too turns away, trailing Robertson. Once in the kitchen, Robertson shuts the blinds.

tanding or sitting naked in front of strangers in cold rooms pays thirty bucks an hour. Despite the space heater, Milo feels a chill, which adds to the thrill of being nude in front of strangers. They
must
look at him, have paid to look at him, he exists – even with the spreading gut and thinning hair – and can't be ignored. There is power in this, and in his ability to hold a pose for twenty minutes. A concentration is required that he is unable to muster outside the studio. Outside, his thoughts run on, split up, turn back, scrambling over one another. In the studio they sit quietly with their hands folded in their laps.

It is while he's standing with one arm overhead and the other resting on his uplifted forehead that his mission becomes clear. He must find Chris­topher. Without Christopher, Tanis and Robertson cannot mend. Tanis doesn't realize this; she will soldier on, clipping back her hair. Robertson will absorb the blame for the loss of his father just as Milo internalized the blame for the loss of Gus, despite searching for him long after the police called off the sniffer dogs. Clambering in the ravines, acting a grief he could not feel, he spoke to the homeless about the old man in the beige windbreaker, following their leads, imagining his father a King Lear under exploding skies. During his quest, Milo lost twenty-four pounds and developed a swarthy complexion. Wallace called him the Marlboro Man. Women looked at him differently but Milo did not return their glances, so intent was he on his task. When asked about Gus, he simulated anguish, hoping that by acting it he would feel it. As the weeks passed and he could no longer ignore the fact that money was not being withdrawn from Gus's account, and no credit card transactions were being reported, Milo continued to walk the city. If he stopped searching, it meant Gustaw Krupanski of Krupi and Son Ltd. was dead. The only interruptions Milo allowed were auditions during which he tried not to think; but thinking about not thinking destroyed his spontaneity, and he stood empty, unable to give or take. His agent told him the same thing happened to Olivier. ‘Sir Larry couldn't look anybody in the eye,' Stu said, ‘asked the other actors not to look at him because it would throw him. For a while he couldn't even be alone onstage. Seriously, chief, everybody goes through rough patches. Your dad died, give yourself time to grieve.' Milo waited to be struck and pitched into the throes of grief he'd acted when he still knew how to act. As though preparing for a part, he read about the stages of grief, assuming some common behaviours, all the while appalled at how badly he was acting.

‘Did you tell Robertson to pretend to be an alien?' Tanis has been pounding on Milo's back door for several minutes.

‘Yes.'

‘What were you thinking? He feels like an alien
all the time
. Not a second goes by when he doesn't feel like a total freak.'

‘Being an alien is quite different from being a total freak,' Milo says.

‘Oh, really? How so?'

‘Aliens belong on other planets. They aren't total freaks on their own planets.'

‘He tried to strangle a boy today. He said he was pretending to be an alien when a human threatened him. He had no choice but to respond with his superior alien strength.'

The image of Robertson, nurturer of snails and small creatures, grabbing the throat of another human being, forces Milo to seek support from the fridge. He leans against it, sobered by its rumble. ‘I'm sorry,' he says. ‘It was supposed to stay inside his head.'

‘What?'

‘A different perspective.'

‘What perspective?'

‘Of being special. He is special, just not everybody can see it. I was trying to help him feel special regardless of what people say.'

‘Well, it didn't work, Milo. The school's hysterical. They don't want him back.'

‘They can't stop him.'

‘Would you want to go where you're not wanted? Where you're
despised
?'

‘What if I go with him?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I could go with him and hang out in the yard, shoot some hoops.'

‘They're not going to let some strange man into the schoolyard.'

‘You could tell them I'm not strange.'

‘Oh, okay, so I say, “This is my neighbour, an unemployed actor who's got nothing better to do than hang around my son”. That would make him real popular.'

Robertson scrambles towards them holding two snails. ‘These were under the steps. Don't know what they're doing there. I'm going to put them on the hostas.'

Tanis rubs her face. Milo knows she despairs over her son's concerns for pests that destroy her foliage. Robertson charges to the hosta bed and sets the snails carefully onto the leaves.

‘Has he forgotten he tried to strangle somebody?' Milo whispers.

‘Who knows. Who knows what's going on in his head.' She starts down the steps.

‘Where is Christopher working these days?'

‘Why do you ask?'

‘I was just curious,' Milo says. ‘He was downsized, wasn't he? Didn't he get some other job?'

‘At Empire Financial, why?'

‘Oh, well, someone I know is looking for work in the financial industry. I thought I'd mention that Christopher just got hired.'

‘He was hired months ago. Get with the program, Milo, and please don't mess with my son's head. He's got enough problems.'

Robertson begins lining up patio stones. Afraid to mess with his head, Milo lies down on the grass on his side of the yard. Sal sniffs him briefly before wandering off. ‘The patio's coming along great,' he offers. Robertson keeps working. If only life could be as simple as creating some small order amidst the chaos.

‘He took the ball from
me
,' Robertson says after several minutes. ‘I was playing by myself and he took the ball.'

‘Whose ball was it?'

‘The school's.'

‘I guess you're probably supposed to share it then.'

‘They don't share it. They
never
share it. I had it first. He wasn't even playing.'

‘Who?'

‘Billy.'

‘Were there other kids around?'

‘Just Billy. He wasn't even playing. He said I couldn't play but he wasn't even playing.'

‘Billy the Bully,' Milo says. ‘What an asshole.' Tanis would want him to remain objective. She invariably tries to view the altercation from the other kid's perspective to help explain the situation to Robertson. Her experience in human resources has led her to believe that problems can be solved. In Milo's experience, problems cling like barnacles. ‘I would've kicked his ass,' he says.

‘Strangling's probably not the best choice,' Robertson admits.

‘Going for the throat usually scares people.'

‘He was scared all right.'

‘The hitch is you could kill a person by mistake, going for the throat.' Milo doesn't look at Robertson for fear of making him retreat. Instead he listens to the soft tapping of the bricks.

‘He was scared all right,' Robertson repeats. Is this how delinquency begins? Will he crave the adrenalin buzz he felt with Billy the Bully's neck in his grip? Did he throttle the boy because his father hit him? Milo certainly did. Nothing relieved the sense of injustice like kicking around another, preferably smaller, boy. Little provocation was required. Although Milo had the sense to only beat up strangers who couldn't trace him. In the schoolyard he was just Milo the nose-picker.

‘The principal says I can't go back unless I apologize.'

‘That's rough.'

‘Would
you
apologize?'

Milo has never been good at apologies. Generally he avoids confrontation, despite inner rumblings of rebellion. With his father he would feign obe­dience, until Gus, fed up with his diversion tactics, would fling whatever was on his plate – potatoes, beets, Brussels sprouts – at him.
How can my son be such an idiot?

‘Would
you
apologize?' Robertson repeats.

‘Probably. To avoid further trouble.'

‘Then they'll just hit me again and I won't be able to hit back.'

Tanis summons Robertson for dinner. ‘Right now, please,' she adds. Before the vaporizing alien incident, she would allow him to dawdle. Does she no longer consider Milo a good influence?

He lies with Zosia's scarf over his face, picturing her smoky, weary eyes. She expects the worst, and when it happens only shrugs, trudging onward. She views Canadians as overindulged children to be tolerated but not taken seriously. She called Milo a
coaster
. ‘You coast,' she said in her Latvian accent, heavy on the c's and slow on the s's. ‘One morning you'll wake up and you'll be old and you'll have nothing.' Zosia studied electrical engineering in Russia, worked hard among misogynists to earn her degrees. In Canada the only work available to her, despite retraining, was waitressing, which is how she met Milo. Zosia was attracted to him because he wasn't an alcoholic. She said all Russian men are alcoholics. With such low expectations, Milo could not disappoint, or anyway that's what he thought, until she dumped him. He wishes he'd bought her a honey-I-love-you ring.

Wallace told Milo that Zosia was after Canadian citizenship. ‘She wants your fucking wedding vows, butthead.'

This, of course, had not occurred to Milo. He'd thought she was after his body and his mind, not necessarily in that order. She certainly wasn't after his income. Should he have it out with her? Gus was a big believer in ‘having it out' with people. Maybe Milo should show up at the Copper Pipe where Zosia slings designer pizzas and simply ask, ‘What did I do?' He could even take a honey-I-love-you ring along as backup.

He lifts her scarf a few inches off his face then lets it drift back down as he hears Wallace returning from the airport. Milo agreed to board Wallace's mother for a sizeable cash sum. Normally Wallace's baritone carries upstairs easily but Milo hears only a chirpy British voice. He has never met Wallace's mother, even though they lived blocks away growing up, because she was always working two jobs. Someone knocks on his door.

‘Who is it?'

‘Can I talk to you for a sec?'

Behind the door stands a tremulous Wallace. ‘What's the problem?'

‘I fucking forgot to make up her bed. Do you have any, like, nice sheets and towels?'

‘Whatever's in the closet.'

‘They're fucking sad, man, they're, like,
totally
used.'

Milo hears clomping on the stairs. ‘Did I hear you use that word again, Wally?'

‘Sorry, Mum, I was just … '

She appears, tiny, sparkly, with electric currents for eyes. ‘Are you Milo?'

‘Yes. You must be Mrs. … ?'

‘Call me Vera. What's all this fuss about then, Wally?'

‘It's just,' Wallace murmurs, ‘we don't have nice towels and stuff.'

‘What's that got to do with the price of cheese?'

Wallace stares at his feet. ‘It's just, I wanted you to have something pretty.'