Idea in Stone

by Hamish Macdonald

  ~

  “These gloves kinda smell,” said Stefan, putting the bulbous fingers near his nose.

  “Yeah, Theo was a bit superstitious about them,” said the floor manager.

  “Washing them was bad luck?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Stefan, “you can tell Wardrobe that I’m not superstitious.” He walked behind the black velvet drape and pushed the oversized hands through openings on either side. “Hey, cool,” said Stefan, leaning his face into the back of the mirror, “I can see through this. I never knew the guy could see through it.”

  “Yeah, it’s a sheet of Mylar. We spray it down so it doesn’t reflect the cameras.”

  “Hey there, kids,” said Stefan, waving his hands around the thick gold mirror frame, which matched the look of the green-screen window on the opposite side of the puffy couch. He pressed his nose to the ‘glass’ and called to the floor manager. “Hey, Roger, I can see what you’re doing over there with the wardrobe lady.” He made lewd gestures with the oversized hands.

  “Har har,” called Roger over his shoulder. He could see the long shape of Stefan’s nose against the mirror. “Just be careful there,” he said, turning back to the costume mistress. He heard a sound and turned back to Stefan.

  Stefan’s head hung through the torn sheet of plastic. His eyebrows were making for his hairline. “Um,” he said, “sorry?”

  ~

  Stefan stood outside the travel bureau, smiling. He held a ticket in his gloved hand. He opened the long cardboard envelope and looked at the sheets with their red carbon backing. August third. He stuffed the ticket into his jacket’s inside pocket, then took out his wallet. His narrow face smiled awkwardly from his driver’s licence, the long dimples on either side of his smile and his big open eyes making him look a bit simple. He didn’t like the picture, but it was the one he was accustomed to, the one that was supposed to be there.

  Well Dad, he thought, I’ll take this as a good sign.

  This was his secret Christmas present to himself. He’d yet to tell anyone other than Helen that he was leaving. He felt guilty about all the people he’d be leaving behind, so he kept quiet. He supposed his friends would understand—they’d all talked about leaving sometime or another, and were hardly going to stay there for each other. His mother would take it personally. And why shouldn’t she? he thought. It seemed cruel, put like that.

  He turned and walked down the blinking canyon of Yonge Street toward the mall, on a mission.

  ~

  Xmas was always a big affair in Delonia’s house. She made a point of calling it “Xmas” whenever she mentioned it, and only the uninitiated would refer to the occasion by its religious name. Things were cooking in the oven, on the stove, in the toaster oven, and thawing on counters. Decorations hung everywhere, and lights trailed around ceilings, up the stairs, and around every window. People would soon arrive for a party lasting well into the next day. But it was still early. Delonia wafted about in her dressing-robe, a giant wrapped in a drape. Cerise plodded heavily downstairs holding her head, not yet Delonia’s equal when it came to holiday excess. Stefan joined them in the living room—where Delonia said they must meet at this time—holding a large gift-wrapped bundle.

  “What’s this?” asked Delonia.

  “It’s for you, Mom,” said Stefan, smiling, “and for you, Other Mom.” Cerise was surprised, her open mouth turned up in a smile.

  “Go on,” said Stefan. The two women tore the paper from the gift, exposing a very large and very thick duvet. He saw his mother’s eyes reflexively flash to the label, worried.

  “Yes, it’s made with real feathers,” said Stefan, “but they were taken from the hatchery of a wildlife reserve. Nobody died.”

  Delonia smiled at his knowledge of her, and held her arms open. Stefan reached across to hug her. “Merry Xmas,” he said. She replied in kind. Then he turned to Cerise and gave her a warm, if careful, hug. “Merry Xmas,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. She smelled of cigarette smoke. He wondered how Delonia handled that.

  ~

  Stefan had seen Rick’s pictures already, the ones his girlfriend sent from Malaysia, but Rick was happy and drunk, so Stefan feigned ignorance and let Rick talk him through them again. Jennifer was pretty, and she looked very happy there, sun-browned and set against a paradise backdrop. She’d sent Rick pictures. Despite all their worries to the contrary, this meant he was still in, that he wasn’t deluding himself about their still being an item. Something about him was more relaxed, too. Stefan never considered that Rick had doubts, too. But tonight everything was fine.

  Rick straightened the pictures and slid them carefully back into the envelope they’d arrived in, with his name printed on it in Jennifer’s handwriting. It was time for him to go back up for the next set on the makeshift stage at Allen’s house. Few of the friends Allen had invited over for New Year’s seemed to be enjoying Rick’s band—it was a bit heavy for them—but there was a lighter tone than usual in Rick’s delivery.

  Allen’s partner had family (or friends, or business, or something) in New York, and couldn’t be at the party. No one was surprised, since he didn’t like any of Allen’s friends and made no effort to hide it. Allen had just secured a large deal at work, and threw even more money into this year’s party than usual, and was having a fine time playing host on his own.

  Paulo plopped himself down on the couch next to Stefan, grinning, handing Stefan a second cup of the strongly-spiked punch. Paulo clearly couldn’t wait for midnight, because this year he had someone. His Adam was across the room, talking to some other journalist person, both of them excavating the quarry of spinach-dip rye bread wheels.

  Stefan wondered what chemistry was at work in his friends’ relationships. He didn’t feel jealous for a change, but happy for them, curious, watching and wondering who these exchanges would turn them into. And he had something this New Year’s, too: a secret. He sipped his punch, smiling at Paulo, though his throat tightened at the thought that this was his last New Year’s with these friends.

  Someone started the countdown to midnight, and everyone joined in. Stefan wondered how long it would take to count to August.

  Six

  Something to Show

  The subway car moved through the dark guts of the city, a length of stainless steel cud delivering human nutrients to its vitals—the businesses and shops. The lights flickered and the car shuddered to a halt. The passengers groaned. The momentary complaint unified the riders, then they returned to ignoring each other. Their eyes drifted to the advertisements above the facing passengers, to their shoes, to their books, newspapers, and magazines. The light was dim here in the tunnel, so any kind of sight-related activity was a pretence, but the passengers shared a tacit agreement to leave each other alone in their bubbles of privacy. That imaginary solitude was the only concession available to those who had to get to work this way.

  Stefan looked at his hands, examined his fingernails, coughed, then looked up at an ad for basketball shoes. Annoyed at the commercial invasion of his thoughts, he studied the subway car’s door, self-consciously adopting an expression that said, I’m just looking to see what’s happening. He checked his watch with the same forced deliberation. A voice came over the loudspeaker, but he had no idea what it said. This was not because of the second voice he always heard, but the quality of the sound: none of the other riders had any idea what the mumbled yet blaring announcement said, either. God love the Toronto Transit Commission, thought Stefan. For some reason, every transit worker he encountered seemed angry about something. He wondered what that was.

  A little girl sat across from him, playing with a plastic horse in the seat beside her mother, who read one of the daily tabloids. The girl caught Stefan looking at her. She smiled. A feeling filled Stefan’s chest, welling up to a geyser of a grin. The girl hadn’t learned the grown-up subway game yet. He hoped she never would.

  He wondered where the mother
and daughter were headed this late at night. He looked left and right. The subway was unusually busy given the hour. He poked fingers at his throat, trying to relieve the tightness there. This had been a long day, with two ads to voice over, a movie trailer, and an adult film—in French. When he was young, Delonia and he sometimes spoke French to each other, their secret code when they were up to something and didn’t want his father to know about it. But that was a long time ago, and he found himself that day trying to make the proper names of body parts sound deliberate and sexy, since he didn’t know any of the street words for them. Luckily, he didn’t need to construct full sentences after the cursory set-up of the movie’s premise (patient meets nurse, nurse undresses patient to bathe him, patient and nurse quickly decide to have sex, doctor checks up on patient, also has sex with nurse, three other nurses join them, and so on). Once the sex began, the filmmakers didn’t care if the sound matched the on-screen figures’ mouth movements, so Stefan developed a stock set of moans and phrases, and could now do his part while drinking coffee or reading the paper.

  These other jobs all took place after a full day recording Green Brigade. His producer Jean and he had reached a détente that allowed Stefan creative expression in his voice-work as long as he kept quiet about the show’s writing and political intent. He didn’t feel bothered by this. He didn’t feel much of anything. It was February.

  His life was being bent out of shape by Cerise’s ability to drive: Delonia reneged on her gift and Stefan had to take the subway or a streetcar to his various jobs. Just as well, he decided, he was saving a lot of money this way. He could barely remember what he was saving his money for, though. All he knew was that he was making lots of it.

  He took off his gloves; the subway car’s vents blew great quantities of hot air into the small space. The little girl tugged at her mother’s sleeve. “Mom,” she said. Her mother patted the girl’s leg and continued reading. “Mo-om,” she pleaded with increasing intensity. Her mother told her to sit still. She responded by throwing up in her mother’s lap. The sharp blue cheese smell soon filled the car. People politely made gestures to cover their noses, then grew less polite. Eyes met, and people nodded to say, Yeah, that’s awful. A few people broke into laughter. “I hate the TTC!” someone finally yelled. Usually outbursts were reserved for the crazy and were studiously ignored. This one, though, got a round of applause and a few “Amens”.

  In her own disgusting way, Stefan thought, the girl had broken the subway spell.

  ~

  Stefan emerged from the tiled cavern of the subway into an afternoon overhung with low grey clouds, as if someone had stapled old bedding to the sky. He walked the four blocks to his agent’s office, passing victory homes with tiny square front yards penned in with low chain link fences. As he got closer to the office, the buildings changed to commercial properties, but most of these were derelict. He passed an old family hardware store with faded 1970s signage here, then a ‘jobbers’ with a sign offering daily work to secretaries, cleaners, and factory workers, then reached his agent’s office, with its smoky-tinted windows. He opened the stiff glass door and entered an interior of chocolate-coloured furniture, brass clocks and lamps, two old electric typewriters, and filing cabinets overflowing with papers.

  Stefan had never been here until recently, when he’d taken on all his extra jobs. The Green Brigade work took care of itself, but now he needed his agent’s help to keep all his appointments from conflicting and to collect the cheques from various production companies.

  “Hello, Stefan,” said the receptionist, who also happened to be the agent’s wife. The agency was modest by Toronto standards, but it was all he’d ever needed.

  “Hiya, Hester. I’m supposed to see David.”

  “Yep, he’s expecting you. Go right in.”

  Stefan nodded and opened the door behind her desk. David sat there, looking out the window at a small backyard shared with a neighbouring house. A bookshelf and filing cabinet stood against one wall of his office. Every other surface was covered with black-and-white headshots. Most of these photographs were old. Stefan wondered about the pictures of children with precocious smiles. What had become of them? He recognised one of them from a television program about a family with an adopted alien son. Child stars had a short shelf-life, particularly in Canada. Stefan once saw the alien boy at a party looking weathered and distinctly stoned.

  “Stefan, sit down,” said David, not rising, but sitting back in his creaking office chair, his stomach bulging like a hill covered with a starched white sheet.

  “Hi, David,” said Stefan, sitting in one of the two chairs in front of the desk.

  “I gotta say, son, I don’t know what’s got into you lately, but I like it.” He’d lowered his large glasses to look at a spreadsheet of some kind, then raised them again to look at Stefan. “You’re bringing in more residuals than all my other clients combined, did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t know that. I’m happy to be useful.”

  “You’re being more than useful.”

  “Well, like I said, I’m glad I’m helping out. You’ve always been good to me, even when I wasn’t doing much.” He shifted in his seat. “I just came by to pick up my cheques and find out where I’m supposed to go next week.”

  “Right. Okay, we’ll get all that straightened out, and then I have a proposition for you.”

  “Oh. O-kay,” said Stefan, unsure.

  “Here’s your usual cheques for The Green Show—” (He rarely got the projects’ titles right.) “Here’s from the movie house. These are from that documentary about the bears—” Otters, thought Stefan. “And, um, here’s the other ones.” These were in a sealed envelope. David pushed it across to Stefan as if it were something old and dead. Ah, the porn.

  “Now,” said David, lacing his hands together and leaning forward as Stefan put the various papers into his jacket pocket. David pushed his glasses up his squashed tomato of a nose. “You seem to be on an ambitious streak lately. I know for the past several years you’ve told me you only wanted to do The Green Show, and I respected that. But since you’ve been taking on all these other jobs lately, I thought you might be interested in something bigger.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I really don’t think I could do any more than I’m doing now.”

  “I didn’t say ‘more’, Stefan, I said ‘bigger.” David cleared his throat. “I put your demo in for a new Saturday morning cartoon. This is a sure thing, this show. It’s one of those computer cartoons, a tie-in with a product that’s been a top-seller for two years now. You’re up for the voice of a new lead character, and you’ve got a really good shot at it. He’s—I dunno, some kind of a robot or something. It’s called—” he checked a piece of paper in Stefan’s file “—Machine Marines. What do you think?”

  “When would I have time to do this?”

  “Stefan, you’re not hearing me. This job would pay, and pay good. You wouldn’t have to do anything else.”

  “Oh.” Stefan looked out the window at the backyard. Snow was starting to fall from the newsprint sky, covering the hydro wires, the beige lawn, and the rusted swing-set. “Well.”

  “Of course, you’d need to move to LA.”

  “Oh.” Stefan’s eyebrows took flight.

  David smiled. “Great, isn’t it?”

  “Uh, yeah. That is great. Thanks for setting that up, David. I don’t know, though. I had some other plans. There was this project—“ He trailed off, looking at the lifeless faces on the wall.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry about that—I’ve got a whole bunch of messages for you here from a woman named Helen.” He dug through a drawer and pulled out a stack of little yellow memo sheets. “She really wants to talk to you.” He read the notes. “Sets, casting, dates, venues, and something about funding. She was getting pretty pushy with Hester, but we know you don’t take phone calls.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Right,” said David, with no idea what Stefan meant. “Anyway,
you should get in touch with her.”

  “Yeah, I will. Look, David, I should get going. I’ve got to go meet some friends. Do you mind if I think about that offer for a few days?”

  “Sure, that’s fine,” said David in a tone suggesting it was not fine. “Whatever you want.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate all you’re doing for me.” He shook his agent’s hand and said goodbye to Hester on the way out. Large flakes of snow hit his face as he walked. Some melted in his hair and ran down his neck. He stopped walking: he forgot where he was supposed to go next.

  ~

  Stefan closed his eyes on the dance floor and covered his ears. Coloured lights penetrated his eyelids and the beat pounded through his hands. He stood there, deliriously happy. His friends surrounded him, bumping into him from time to time as they danced.

  He hadn’t seen them in weeks, he was so busy or so tired. He knew he couldn’t drink this much every night, and lots of times his gang’s attempts at big nights out turned into duds. Still, he wondered if there was some way to stay in this moment forever.

  Somebody stumbled into him, then clapped him on the shoulder. He opened his eyes, and found his friends laughing, dancing in a circle around him.

  ~

  Stefan ran a hand through his drooping hair and smacked his lips. His mouth tasted horrible. Allen offered him breakfast, but he declined, anxious to get home, clean himself properly, and change his clothes. He’d decided the night before that he was in no shape to walk home, and he’d been having such a good time that he accepted Allen’s offer of his fold-out couch.

  Stefan stopped at a little bakery. Its name scrawled in black script across its teal-tiled exterior, Harbord Bakery. His favourite baked sweets from the shop were Jewish, but many of the staff inside looked Mediterranean. Toronto’s neighbourhoods were becoming hybrids: Italian/Korean, Greek/East Indian, Chinese/Nouveau Hippie. Perhaps, he thought, something was being lost. But then again, this opened up the communities like never before, and introduced people his age to foods and cultural activities his parents’ generation would never have considered sampling. Well, he reconsidered, perhaps not his mother, the most culturally sensitive person on earth.