Steve Toltz - Quicksand

Stan said, ‘I’m living by myself now, we should get a drink sometime.’

It seemed Stan’s post-grief self was something he was just now unveiling to the public, and he was giving us a sneak preview. Aldo, who had never instigated violence in all his life, tightened his fist.

‘We could do that.’

‘How’s that musician wife of yours?’

‘We split up.’

‘Yeah, me and Vicki did too. Losing a kid, a couple can’t survive that. And the ones who can, they must be psychopaths.’

Aldo looked like he was having trouble breathing.

‘How’s Lola?’

‘Leila. She’s good. She moved to a … she’s in a home, settling in well. She’s … not far. Edgecliff. I get out there as often as I can. I try to.’

Maybe the chill in the conversation had lasted long enough for Stan to begin to see himself from our vantage point; that might account for the sudden drop in civility on his face. His look turned steel-cold and if eyes could gnash their teeth, then that is what his were doing. I said, ‘Nice to see you, Stan,’ and shepherded Aldo outside.

We sat on a bench and watched people through the window; women’s heads that clashed with their bodies; men who had been styled by their uncles. Aldo said, ‘You know how people neurotically fear their imperfections are the most visible thing about them?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Well, in the case of this room, they’re one hundred percent right.’

He examined the group carefully. ‘Bipolar,’ he said. ‘OCD. Intimacy issues. Super-depressed. Compulsive liar. Mythomaniac, really. Morbid dependency on his two-year-old. Abandonment issues. Cold turkey from something. Passive-aggressive crisis of masculinity. Battered other woman syndrome. Narcissistic personality disorder. Grandiosity, hypervigilance. He’s coked up. Stuck in a grim cycle of abuse that’s just warming up. Serial adulterer. Sex addict. Cannabis-induced psychosis.’

‘Oh come on, how could you possibly know that?’

Aldo shrugged.

‘You’re a judgemental son of a bitch.’

‘You don’t call a doctor judgemental for diagnosing a cancer.’

‘You bet I do.’

We watched a little longer the unhappy parade of old friends and foes, this lengthy queue for the grave. Aldo was transfixed.

I asked, ‘Hey, did you speak to Brad?’

‘Yeah. He’s got cardiac neurosis. It’s iatrogenic.’

‘What? It’s what? What is that?’

‘Illness resulting from or influenced by medical examination or treatment.’ I looked at him a moment. ‘That’s what happened to Henry,’ he said, in a quiet voice. ‘Poor Henry. Poor Daddy.’

I was startled to see Aldo had tears in his eyes. He didn’t wipe them, but rather tried to cram them back into his eyes with the heels of his palms.

‘What about me?’

‘On the cusp of major depressive episode brought on by intense dread of high school reunion.’

‘What about you then?’ I asked. ‘What’s your problem?’

‘Jinxed, Liam. I’m fucking jinxed.’

It seemed strange and pitiful to be so coldly clinical about the afflicted around him while saving the balm of magical thinking for himself.

It was then Aldo asked me if I wanted to see the photograph of his baby girl. Oh, heaven knows, now I’m a police officer and I’ve seen my share of dead babies, but I wasn’t then, and anyway, I sure didn’t want to see his. But I was also his friend and I had the feeling that he really needed to show it to me.

He held the picture out, for me to take. My best friend’s tragedy and it wasn’t more than five centimetres from my face. I tried to stop my eyes from working. I couldn’t. The baby girl’s cheeks were unexpectedly rosy and puffed. She looked like a healthy dead baby. I remarked as much.

The photo slipped out of his fingers and fell through the sewer grating.

‘Shit!’ We bent down, pressed our faces to the grate, but it was out of reach. ‘I’ll have to ask Stella for a copy. That’ll be a fun moment.’

Aldo sighed deeply; I had nothing to add except a sigh of my own. ‘I think I’ll slip away,’ he said, but he didn’t move. Instead he declared that only a lesion on the brain of God could explain why He so consistently overestimates the resilience of His creation. I said, ‘I don’t believe in a tumorous Yahweh.’ He said, ‘If only I had an explanation.’ I quoted Byron: ‘Who then will explain the explanation?’ His head wobbled on his neck as if the tendons were spring-loaded. He asked, ‘Can an unintended victim of a drive-by shooting be complicit in attracting ricocheted bullets?’ I thought: These are the sorts of impossible questions Aldo’s bad luck and narrow escapes pose to the lifelong observer of his misfortunes. He then launched on a talking jag, about the grinding suckiness of a capricious universe and the tactical error of being born and feeling like an unexploded ordnance. He talked about how Stella looked at him as if she thought she was going to be raptured at any minute and the rest of us would just be standing there gazing up at her ascension with an idiotic look on our damned faces. He admitted that sometimes, late at night, he googled the name Veronica Benjamin, in the desperate hope that she might have an online presence in the afterlife. He said his heart felt the craziness of animals before a major meteorological event. He talked about how Leila had three personalities, two of which kept the third on as a common enemy. He said, ‘Last time I checked, there are fifty-one languages on earth spoken by only one person — imagine those poor suckers, that’s a lot of pressure.’ I felt lanced to the point of mutilation by his voice and glanced at the half-open door leading back into the reunion. He asked, ‘Hey, am I boring you?’ There it was again! His most common, most unforgivable crime — when in the process of boring me, he became self-aware and apologised for being boring. ‘No, no,’ I said, feigning shock at the suggestion, ‘you’re not boring me, please go on.’ It was crazy. Even now, after all these years, I still had to plead for Aldo to continue to bore me.

‘Go fuck yourself,’ he says, flinging the manuscript in my lap. His expression, however, is neutral. It is as if we are both waiting for his smile to download.

Wind blows sand in Aldo’s eyes and I remember he also has a face that attracts campfire smoke. The airy space between us widens and the silence grows unwieldy. Had I actually managed to offend him?

A voice shouts, ‘Hey! Aldo!’

We turn to see that two young men with weak chins, wearing blue T-shirts and khaki shorts, surfboards and black sports bags under their arms, have emerged from the path. Aldo waves them over.

‘I didn’t think you guys were going to turn up!’

‘Bit of trouble finding the place,’ the tall one says. I note he’s recently undergone tattoo-removal surgery on his right forearm. ‘What is this, a secret beach?’

‘Magic Beach, actually,’ I say.

Their faces light up. ‘Magic Beach! Awesome!’

‘Mr Benjamin, feast your eyes on this. Voilà!’

They place one of the boards on the sand. It is like none I have ever seen; it has soft polyurethane handles at the front and an indentation scooped out for his belly, and straps to hold both legs.

‘This is perfect.’

‘We made it just for you.’

‘No charge, Aldo Benjamin. No charge.’

‘We were happy to do it.’

This is madness.

‘Wait,’ I say. ‘What if you roll?’

‘If he rolls,’ the tall one says, ‘the straps will snap with the force of it.’

Aldo holds himself erect while they help him squeeze into an oversized wetsuit. He is so weirdly proportioned, with his bulky arms and withered legs, his Tarzan upper torso and round, hard gut, it’s an uncomfortable, awkward procedure. I think: How will he keep his head above water? How will he not drown? How will he manage on his own? The tall one says, ‘So I understand you’re going in too?’