Thalo Blue (45 page)

And then there was that time back at Caeli’s attic. It was warm in her room under the roof, but the tick-tick-tick of those branches had awoken him. Beside, still soundly content and closed to the world of the awake, Caels breathed gently, her bare arm a warm bar across Sebastion’s chest. The ticking would have driven him mad in that moment, had he not gotten up and gone down the hall to the bathroom. He reached in and switched on the light. The swoosh-rush of the opening door caused the blinds to tap on the sash. The window had been left open and the tile floor was cold on his bare soles. He squinted against the white walls and white tub and white mouldings as he relieved himself and then leaned on the deep sink basin, staring uncontrollably into the water-speckled mirror.

It was a clear moment, his eyes no longer stinging from the sudden light. It was concise and quiet. The edges of that face where crisp and defined. But he wanted to ask that person in the mirror, wanted to reach through the panel and grab him by the scruff of his throat and say, “How are you going to spend your life?”

When the realization came that he was about to start talking to himself, he had snapped off the light, headed back to Caels, and nestled in beside her. The ticking had not ended but he slept through it that night.

<> <> <>

Morning came to the hotel, came to Zeb. And after spitting long sticky streaks of copper-colored phlegm—his lungs’ residuals from an afternoon spent in the gnawing tank of motorcycle exhaust—into the toilet, he made two phone calls. One was to a realtor whose name he remembered from a calendar that hung in dad’s study. The other was to Felix Wagener, the general custodian who lived in Edan, near the lake house. Wagener, for a small stipend from their owners, looked after many of the older cottages on the north shore during the winter to ensure that no roofs or power lines had collapsed in a storm.

Felix, surprised to hear from young Redfield, particularly at that time of year, ensured Zeb that the power was up and that the gravel lane out to his parents’ cabin was cleared of snow.

And so, with the distress of the previous day’s events still in his head, but draining away steadily, he peeled himself away from the hold of the city again. This time with supremacy in his hands and over the steering wheel.

<> <> <>

On the stereo now was a mix disc:
Skyscraper
by Sigur Ros,
Mofo
by U2,
Everlong
by Foo Fighters,
The Cedar Room
by the Doves,
Out of This World
and
Where the Birds Always Sing
by The Cure. Among others. Mostly bands his father had likely never even heard of.

Splayed across the windshield, precision was a sharp and branded image. For the first moment in a long while, Zeb had a sense of purpose again. He blasted beyond the limits of the metropolis and, as the speedometer climbed and waggled, his vision, behind a pair of dark lenses—a set of shades he found in the glove box—was unhindered.

It was perhaps that lucidity which called to mind things grave and unfortunate from long before. And not so long before.

His father’s gaping eyes were there, piercing and denied behind the mask of his own hands. The sound of the front door in Vaughan banged on its outline. Merridew’s fingers were splayed on a sheet of paper. And that firecracker whip exploding twice in his face came again.

The unthinkable had been done. He had stepped past an ordeal that would have killed him. What his mother called his Gift from God had spared him a certain end after he thought the gift had turned its back on him. He had been at that precipice, the opening of a sheer drop into what Caeli believed to be that final, great abyss. And he had stumbled away from it, intact.

By the time Zeb was almost through Pink Floyd’s
the Wall
album, his speed had dipped and the sheer-sightedness had brought about a deep and much-needed cleansing. He had to pull all the way over to the shoulder and climb from the car. Into the marginal dip of snow and straggled weeds he threw up.

Oliver and Sadie were both gone.

And for the first time, he grieved for that.

For them only. Not for himself.

<> <> <>

Oliver had died on a Monday. The twenty-second morning of September, the wee small hours of it.

The hands that had pressed the life out of him came for a million reasons and they came for none. It wasn’t that Oliver’s anger caused his only son to be burned at the age of five. It wasn’t that he had hit him across the face later with an open hand in a similar rage, or that he had quietly ridiculed Zeb for things that may have been his own fault. But it was. It really was. It was all of those things and it was none of them.

<> <> <>

A little longer than three years after Zeb had read his poem, “Tick-Tock,” to a classroom of snickering fifth graders, a classroom where the intern Miss Rimbauer and Mrs. Woods had an exchange about Zeb’s
situation
, he drew a picture which got him into trouble. The drawing, done with charcoal during his Practical Understanding of Visual Art class, showed his aunt Sicily, whom he had never met, and she looked strikingly like his mother, Sadie. The realism of the drawing was probably the most affecting part of it; it certainly disturbed the teacher of that class. And it was far superior to the talent displayed by most thirteen year olds. Lifelike, as if held in the stillness of a snapshot, Sicily’s face of scorching eyes and burgeoning mouth, bloomed with shapely welts and shaded bruises. Her stare was haunting and her condition looked harsh and serious in the black and white of the smudgy charcoal. So haunting and so serious that Zeb was sent to have a chat with the St. Vincent’s guidance counselor so she could make an
assessment
.

Following that, a childcare worker was sent to the house in Vaughan. A chat with Oliver came next. Oliver, astonished and outraged at the subverting accusations, assured the worker that he had never laid a hand on his son or his wife. The childcare professional went away, but insisted that Zeb get the care of a licensed therapist, or other measures would be taken. For the safety of Sebastion, she assured, for the safety of Sebastion.

<> <> <>

Zeb got home from school at six-fifteen. After watching basketball practice and working on the mural for two hours or so, a bunch of the guys on the team, Zeb and Jackson included, went to Harlequin’s, a smoky pizza parlour with a pub on its other side.

By the time he got home, he wasn’t hungry any more and wondered if Oliver would be getting home at his usual time—well past eight—or if he would be there reading the paper at the supper table, pissed that the boy was so late and had missed the rare meal he had cooked.

No matter, Zeb thought. He wanted to just disappear into his room until it was time for bed anyway. He had saved up birthday and holiday money and a few other dollars for an acoustic guitar when Jackson, Mikie Lanahan and Jarred Marquist had talked about starting a band.
The girls at St. Cath’s’ll come if we put on a show at one of our places this summer
, Jack had said. Girls were more interesting that year than they had been before and impressing them seemed important. So the idea of playing in a band was about the most appealing idea Zeb could think of that year.

He got the acoustic rather than a cheap electric because Oliver wouldn’t let him.
If I want to hear a good guitar player that loud I’ll put on a Zeppelin record
, Oliver had said. So a pale honey-colored Yamaha acoustic would suffice while Zeb learned chords and some strumming. He thought it would be cool to have a rock band with the acoustic sound anyway. More texture, he decided. And he could switch off with Jackson’s Strat—the one The King and Queen of Cheese had bought for their son—when he wanted to rock. That, he knew, would be a long way off. He was a far sight from Richards’ or Clapton’s league, still plucking away at
Blackbird
, the opening of Floyd’s
Wish You Were Here
, and learning the chord progressions for some Supertramp songs that he heard his dad play on the basement turntable.

But the idea of sitting on the edge of his bed and looking up at his colored walls while he strummed a tune, no matter how bad it sounded, was better than sitting across from dad at the supper table. Moments like these, easing open the front door, listening to its creak, and then gazing up to find either dad at home or the house empty, were among his least favourite. Both scenarios held a sour note. But the latter, particularly today when Zeb was this late in getting home, would be easier than the former.

This time Oliver stood nearly motionless at the doorway to the kitchen directly facing the front foyer. He was leaning against the kitchen doorway’s edge, his face as dim as the kitchen behind him. It was in shadow, his face, but Zeb could still see that he wore a scowl. From his hand a sheet of paper dangled. In the gloomy light, it looked grey.

“Hey,” Zeb said, kicking off his shoes and tossing his knapsack beside the door where it would likely sit, unopened, untouched, until tomorrow when he would leave for school again.

“Sebastion.” Oliver said it as a statement, not a greeting.

“...Sorry I’m late. The mural. It’s nearly done but—”

“I had a visit today from a Mrs.
Dereks
.”

“Mrs.
Who
?”

“Dereks. She was sent by the school...
what have you been telling them
?” Oliver’s look was harsh and edgy. His head was held low and his eyes were hidden in dim after-dinner spring shadows which lazily fell through the front window across his face. The light was nearly gone now, limp, and the living room, foyer and that space where the hallway dumped into the kitchen and the front room held lengthening shadows up the walls. They were growing nearly perceptibly.

Confused, Zeb’s brow wavered. He said, “What have I been telling who? What are you talking about?”

“
People at school
, Zeb. Teachers. The counsellor. Don’t play dumb. What is this?” He held up the sheet of paper. It was a poor photocopy of a portrait Zeb had sketched with charcoal in his art class and it held a yellow tint in Zeb’s eyes. Comprehension came to him and his face turned red with worry. But in the lacking light, he doubted his father could see the shade of his cheeks change.
Where was this conversation headed?

“She wants you to go to a therapist.” Oliver’s voice was thick and weighted down.

“I’m not going to a therapist—”

“
You’ll go
—”

“—
Dad
—”

Oliver stopped short of snapping back. It wasn’t that he saw no use it in, but that he had something more
reasonable
in mind. “Get in the car,” he said.

This was unexpected. “What?” Zeb said. His tone was condescending and his father moved forward into the room, making his son flinch. Oliver was wearing a crinkled white dress shirt with sleeves and collar unbuttoned. The tie was missing—shed somewhere between the parking garage on King street and the liquor cabinet over the sink most likely. He looked haggard.

“Get in the car. Do what you’re told.”

Zeb’s stance shifted. He wasn’t willing to argue, but he had been prepared and warming up. He was not ready for this.

“
Where are we going
?” His whine was younger than his thirteen years. It came out with a higher pitch.

“We’re going for a ride. Now
get
.
In
.
The
.
Car
.” Oliver took a step forward, coming a little further into the only shaft of twilight-hour light. His breath held a hint of booze. “Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

<> <> <>

Zeb did get in the car, after Oliver started it and then backed it out of the garage and onto the driveway. They left the double doors wide open. They wouldn’t be long, Oliver said, his breath still tart with wine.

They headed north, sticking largely to the main roads, boulevards with two lanes going both ways. It was full-on dark by then and the streetlamps were little dots of bleary light.

As they rounded a corner a little too fast, the back tires squealing marginally, Zeb shifted his weight and put his fingertips on the glovebox to steady himself against the movement of the Beemer. It was clear that there was no destination, that they were, for certain, just “going for a ride.” The radio was silent, and so was Oliver. After he had told Zeb to leave the garage open he said nothing for a long time. They drove without words but then, still staring straight ahead out the window, he spoke. His words came out selfless, cold and composed.

“There are two things,” he said, “that make this world spin, Sebastion.” His foot fell like a stone on the accelerator and the Beemer launched out into the left lane, around a slower-moving car, a white Chevy. “Human capital and aesthetic beauty,” he said as they tucked back into the driving lane, in front of the Chevy. “How you’re seen is nearly as important—no,
more
important—than how you play it. Presentation is everything.”

“
Dad, I
—”

“How do you want to spend life?” He looked over at Zeb in the passenger seat who was gripping the door handle. A bar of light from the rearview mirror was across the man’s eyes.

Zeb didn’t answer for a moment, and Oliver didn’t prod him.

Then he said, “An artist. I want to be an artist.”

“Why?”

“It’s important. Important to make things. To say things. I guess.”

“Mm.” Oliver nodded his head, like he was considering his son’s answer. Like he was honestly considering it. “You have to be careful with that one, Sebastion. You can’t always hold on to your ideals as tight as you would want. Your family might starve.

“You have to be careful, son. You have to watch your back because no one else is going to do it for you. You have to be careful what you step in and you always have to keep clean. Or at least
looking
clean. You can’t ever talk about something if you don’t want fingers pointing back at you for the exact same thing—
I learned that the hard way
. If you yak out of turn, if you speak up about something, it makes you look all the more guilty of
being
that something.
And it makes you look stupid. Hear me
?”