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 As the weeks passed and he could no longer ignore the fact that money was not being withdrawn from Gus’s account, and no credit card transactions were being reported, Milo continued to walk the city.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.’

‘What codswallop. Let’s have a cuppa.’ She turns and climbs down the stairs with surprising speed. ‘Will you join us, Milo?’

Wallace looks imploringly at Milo and mouths, ‘Please!’

‘Not tonight, thank you, Vera,’ Milo says. ‘There are some digestives in a tin beside the tea things.’

‘Oh, how lovely,’ Vera exudes. ‘Just what the doctor ordered.’

Wallace pushes Milo into the bedroom. ‘I’m not going to make it through this.’

‘Sure you will.’

Wallace hasn’t seen his mother since she returned to her native English burb years ago. He comes up with annual excuses not to visit her. She lives with her sisters who, according to Wallace, are all a hundred and never shut up.

‘She wants to meet my girlfriend,’ Wallace moans.

‘You don’t have one.’

‘Like I don’t know that.’

‘Just be honest with her.’

‘Are you fucking nuts? Can you set me up with somebody?’

‘What?’

‘You know people, like, actresses and stuff. I’ll pay her. She just has to act nice and be polite.’

‘Oh, come on, Wallace.’

‘Waal-leee … ? Your tea’s getting cold. Shall I make us a sanny?’

Wallace presses his hands together in a pleading gesture. ‘I’ll pay you a bonus.’

‘Waal-leee … ?’

The bullish Wallace morphs into a small boy with downcast eyes and a timorous gait. ‘Coming, Ma,’ he calls back in a singsong voice Milo has never heard before.

In the morning, Milo, ducking behind parked cars, follows Tanis and Robert­son to school. A year ago Robertson allowed Tanis to put two fingers on his shoulder as they crossed the street. Now, almost her height, he maintains a distance between them. He says he doesn’t need her to walk him to school, but she insists because it is his last year at the neighbourhood school. Next year he will have to take a bus. She has admitted to Milo that she can’t imagine putting Robertson on a bus, watching the doors close behind him, trying to see through the windows as he searches for a seat. ‘It’ll be rush hour,’ she said. ‘He’s bound to freak.’ They have even considered buying a used car, having sold the Subaru last year to pay off debts.

Mother and son part half a block from the school so the kids in the yard won’t see her. Tanis keeps waving but Robertson doesn’t look back. Milo hides behind some recycling bins as Tanis retraces her steps. She stares hard at the pavement as she walks. Once she has turned the corner, Milo ambles towards the school, pulling his baseball cap low over his forehead. Posses of children part as Robertson makes his way through the yard. Once his back is turned they make faces or pinch their noses. Robertson stops beside the basketball net. Boys ignore him, jumping up and around him. Robertson says something Milo can’t hear above the racket in the yard. A boy in a hoodie shoves him and flips him the finger before resuming dribbling the ball. A stout man with wiry hair, presumably a teacher, approaches Robertson and leads him into the school. The bell rings and the kids begin to line up outside the doors. The boy in the hoodie continues to shoot hoops until the stout man returns. ‘Billy,’ he says sharply, ‘now.’ Billy misses one more shot before slouching towards the entrance. The man pulls off the boy’s hood, revealing a shock of red hair.

Now Milo knows who Billy is.

•••

He puts on his suit, the one he wears for corporate-type auditions, hoping to blend in at reception. He carries a busted cell he used as a prop in Waiting for Godot. He received good notices for that performance, although he didn’t really understand the play. The director told him he was an ‘instinctive actor’ and that he shouldn’t get ‘hung up on the words.’ This made sense to Milo because, in university, he played George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – another play he didn’t really understand – and didn’t get hung up on the words but channelled the rage he felt towards Gus into George and let it spew all over Martha. After the show he felt free, cleansed, ready to party. In the morning seething resentments returned, and he couldn’t wait to get back on stage to spew all over Martha again.

He invited Gus to the opening night of Waiting for Godot, even though he knew his father would be bored out of his mind. The next day, when Milo showed the old man the good reviews, Gus shrugged and ate another sausage.

While waiting for the receptionist to notice him, Milo pretends to text on the busted cell. She takes five hundred more calls before looking at him. ‘Are you waiting for someone?’ she inquires. She must be in her forties but has a mouth full of braces.

‘Christopher Wedderspoon, please.’

‘Is he expecting you?’

‘Actually, no, I’m just passing through. My plane was delayed and I thought I’d take the opportunity to go over a portfolio with him.’ Milo holds up the briefcase he uses for corporate-type auditions.

‘Your name, please?’

‘Milo Krupi.’

She presses buttons and speaks into her headset. ‘Milo Crappy’s here to go over a portfolio. He doesn’t have an appointment.’ She pauses, squinting at Milo, then repeats, ‘Milo Crappy.’

‘Krupi,’ Milo interjects. ‘We used to be neighbours.’

‘He says you used to be neighbours.’ Because she’s staring at him while speaking into the headset Milo assumes she’s addressing him.

‘That’s right,’ he says, ‘we were neighbours. Actually, I still live beside his wife.’

‘Mr. Wedderspoon will be with you shortly. Have a seat.’

‘Thank you.’ Does this mean he will he be forced to ‘have it out’ with Christopher right here, amidst the teal furnishings of the waiting room? Sitting on a stuffed chair, he can’t help but notice the receptionist looking at his shoes. They’re Gus’s shoes, a little small and in need of polish. Gus took great pride in polishing his shoes. They are the wrong colour for the suit. He pretends to text again while rehearsing in his head the heart-rending speech that will convince Christopher to return home.