Saving Toby (29 page)

 
46. Toby

I put it off for as long as I could. Christmas came and
went. The Sunday before the New Year, I drove upstate to the Otisville
Correctional Facility.

The other visitors and I were given a number that
corresponded to a labeled, laminate table inside the cafeteria-styled visiting
room. The guards instructed us to wait at our assigned tables. The prisoners
would come to us.

Inside, there was no sign of the holidays. The room had
industrial stick tile and drab, off-white walls with high, barred windows. With
armed guards posted on each wall and an additional two cruising a metal catwalk
above the room, it was a not-so subtle reminder that we were among dangerous
individuals.

I sat and watched for my brother while other visitors
remained standing, eagerly awaiting the sight of a familiar face amongst the
convicts as they shuffled through the door into the visiting area. That damn
squirrel was back, once again shredding the lining of my stomach.

I saw the smiles, tears and heard briefs shouts of joy. I
wondered if Julia cried. I imagined she did. In spite of his meanness and all his
faults, Julia loved Al—just as she’d loved me in spite of my own.

And then, I saw him. Our eyes met, and, not knowing what
else to do, I stood up. I was amazed at how happy he looked as he came towards
me, but nothing prepared me for the shock of seeing him cry. Tears rolled
shamelessly down his face, and when he got close enough, he pulled me into a
rough embrace. His emotional display tore me up and had me bawling, too.

I pushed away from him. “Cut it out, you big fucking baby.”

We both laughed awkwardly as we wiped the wetness from our
faces and sat down across the table from one another.

People said I resembled him, but his face was fuller than
mine and his body was thick with the bunchy muscles of an extreme weight
lifter.

“Shit, you grew up. You’re a man,” he said in his deep
gravelly voice, and looked me over. He looked older, too.

“You read my letters?”

Without looking at him, I shook my head. “I destroyed them.”

“What the hell? I spent all that time writing to you,
fucking pouring my heart out, and you trashed them? What kind of gratitude is
that, man?”

“Gratitude? For what?” I gritted my teeth and arched
forward. “Come off it, Al. You hate me. Why would I read your damn letters or
come see you after the way you’ve always treated me? I didn’t really care if I
ever saw you again.”

Al stared at me with no expression. Disheartened, I realized
this ‘brothers' reunion’ was already a train wreck. I didn’t know what the
meeting was supposed to do for me. Though we’d grown up in the same house, we’d
never been much for talking. Now as I sat there, rigid in my seat, it was clear
to me Al and I had nothing to hold onto but our anger and resentment. This was
no surprise. It was part of the reason I’d never come.

“I shouldn’t be here.” Pushing away from the table, I stood
up, ready to leave.

Al grabbed my arm. “No.”

A few feet away, a correctional officer motioned for us to
break contact.

Al let me go, but leaned forward. “Don’t go. Sit down and
listen.”

I stilled for a moment to look at him. Something in his face,
a hint of anxiousness maybe, made me sit back down.

I held my breath and waited for him to talk.

“I had one screwed up relationship with our old man—and
because of it, I blamed him as well as Mom, and even you, for everything that
went wrong in my life.” He looked down at his thick sausage fingers, pressing
them together as if he were trying to still his shaking hands.

“But around here, I’ve got nothing but time to think. I’ve
been reading and going to group therapy. I think a lot about everything that
happened and all that I’ve done.”

Al flicked his gaze back to me. “For months, day after day,
I stare at the same damn four walls, and one day, like an epiphany, it came to
me—blaming others for the way your life turned out isn’t good.”

I could hardly believe he was serious. A tickle spun in my
throat, and with a snort, I said, “You’re a fucking genius, Al.”

He squinted at me, and, quite unexpectedly, he doubled over
and let out a loud cackle. Actually relieved that he’d found my comment funny,
I laughed along with him. For a few minutes, sitting there with him felt okay.

But then, all of a sudden, he covered his eyes with a large
hand. “God, Toby, I was so awful to you—such a shithead with an ax to grind. I
tried to explain it, in the letters.” His mood changed so swiftly that I was
startled when he choked back a sob and put his curled hand out on the table
between us.

The sight of my older brother falling apart wigged me out.
Embarrassed, I glanced out the barred window. He was stuck in here, alone,
constantly reminded of the mistakes he’d made. I was alone, too. Though I’d
made my own mistakes, I could walk out. I could still make something of my
life—put my past behind me and get a fresh start. Al would never have that
opportunity.

I looked at him, and became conscious that, even if it
weren’t perfect, we’d had a conversation. Even shared a laugh. Maybe our first.
We had to begin somewhere. I slid my fist across the table and nudged his.
“It’s okay, Al.”

“You’ll come see me again?” He looked up hopefully. “'Cause
I got no one now that Mom’s gone.”

That was exactly how I’d felt. “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Oh,
here.” I pulled out an envelope with two photos that security had allowed me to
bring. I laid them out in front of him. “Pictures of Dylan.”

He moved the photos closer. One of them was Dylan alone, but
in other, Julia was holding him. At the sight of it, I could see him getting
choked up again. I looked down at my feet. I had more than exceeded my
emotional quota.

“I’ll try to bring more next time.” I stood up and glanced
at him. “See you, Al.”

* * *

With the visit to Al finally checked off my list, the next
thing I focused on was finding work. I tried to return to my old job at AB’s,
but Abe Bernbaum just frowned at me.

“You’re too smart for this job,” he said. “Time for you to
move on and find something more suited to you.”

While he meant to encourage me, I felt anything but. I
didn’t have a good list of credentials. I’d quit most of my jobs within a few
months, and I hadn’t been working at all in the last two. I filled out a lot of
applications—wholesale, retail, stock, you name it—but I got nowhere. I found
myself with a lot of time on my hands.

Out of boredom, I decided to fix the charred kitchen. Armed
with my father’s trade tools, I gutted the room. It felt good to have a
project. With a fresh slate, I did a computer-aided sketch of the renovation:
the same four walls, but with a different floor plan. The process of designing
the layout and figuring out the details was interesting. When I started rebuilding
it, I surprised even myself with how much I already knew about the construction
aspect of it.

I stopped in at AB’s to visit with Abe, and when I told him
about the kitchen, he asked me to do some work around his house—odd jobs like
putting up moldings and tiling his bathroom. Though it was piecemeal, he paid
me pretty well, and I got turned onto the idea that I could make a living
working as a handyman or a finish carpenter. Bob suggested I take drafting
classes.

Reconstructing my life was harder than the kitchen. It was a
long, grueling project, seeming without end. Despite the occasional setback,
like the job issue, I felt a forward shift in momentum. Better days became
better weeks. The New Year marked a new start.

* * *

Even though I’d been in counseling for months, Bob still
didn’t want me to date. He said I wasn’t ready. That was okay with me because,
other than talking with a girl here and there, I didn’t want to hook up.
Mostly, unknown to Bob, I still had my sights set on Claudia.

I stayed out of the bars, preferring to spend my weekends
playing my guitar or hanging out with Dario and often with April, too. I
continued to have dinner with Joan once a week and planned to visit Al again.
During the week, I worked on the kitchen. Sometimes Dario came over and helped
me.

I spent a lot of time browsing the online classifieds. I
found everything, from brake pads for my Jeep to an affordable granite
countertop dealer. As I scrolled through pages on various sites' music
sections, I found a local rock group looking for a guitarist to join their band
and play gigs with them.

I met the lead singer, Dan, first. Not only were we close in
age, but he also had a sense of humor like my own. We gelled right away. After
he heard me play, he was pretty enthused. Later that week, I joined in on a
band rehearsal in Dan’s garage. The other guys were several years older, and
each of them worked a day job unrelated to the music industry. Two of them had
families. After we swapped some bullshit for a bit, we got to playing. There
was some cutting up while we jammed, but one thing was for sure, those guys
were serious about their sound. For me, it was musical ecstasy.

47
.
Claudia

Because of the cost and mostly the timeframe, I wasn’t
planning on going back to New York until the summer. There was plenty happening
on campus to keep me busy. Toby and I still talked regularly. He seemed to be
well, despite the heaviness of the therapy and digging into his scarred past.
He shared milestones with me, like seeing his brother. He also confided in me
at times when he was shaken, as he was when he’d found out his father had
committed suicide.

 “Thank you,” he said after the last time we talked. “You
have a way of twisting things around and helping me see something positive even
when it’s all crashing down on me. Sometimes it’s that alone that helps me hold
it together.”

Toby wanted to come for a visit, but I kept putting him off.
In February, he said he was coming out to stay with a friend in Palm Springs
and would stop by for a day or two to hang out with me.

He arrived on a Friday, late in the month. When he called to
tell me he was outside my housing unit, I went tearing out of the building to
greet him. We hugged, and I smiled until my face hurt. He seemed a little
reserved and nervous. We went for a bite to eat, and as I spoke about school
and visits with my mom, he seemed to relax. He told me more about his visit
with his brother in prison.

“We need to do LA tourist-style,” I said, whipping out my
list of places to see. I planned to keep us busy with activities for his visit.

I navigated; Toby drove. We visited Griffith Observatory and
did a walking tour of downtown. It was going really great, so much to see and
talk about, until a middle-aged businessman in a hurry slammed into me and sent
me stumbling. He didn’t even acknowledge the slight. I could see a dark mask
sliding over Toby’s features, that residual anger raising its ugly head. He
growled and lurched forward, but I stepped in front of him and physically held
him back with all my might.

“It was an accident. Let it go.”

Ignoring my objection, Toby yelled after the guy. “Learn
some manners, asshole!” Thankfully, the man was oblivious and kept walking.

I got the okay from my roommate for Toby to stay on the
couch in the living room of our apartment for the night, but when we got back
from our day out, she left a note saying she was going to stay at her friend’s
place. I hadn’t anticipated a night alone with him, but I was glad she at least
cleaned the place up.

I stood Toby in the middle of the plain white living room
and made him turn in one complete circle. My décor consisted of string lights
crisscrossing the ceiling and a large poster of Van Gogh’s
Starry Night
.

“That’s all of it,” I smiled proudly at the tiny space and
even smaller, galley kitchen. “’Cept the bedroom. It’s in there.” I pointed to
the doorway where two single, raised beds were against opposite walls, on
either side of a panoramic window. Two unimpressive, light-stained wooden desks
were at the foot of each of the beds, heavily adorned with memorabilia, task
lists and piles of textbooks.

Toby changed into sweatpants and a tee shirt, and, seated on
the room’s small, blue couch, he began to surf the web for funny, viral videos
to show me. Sitting next to him, in my bulkiest sleep clothes, I kept a pillow
stationed in front of me, a physical barrier preventing any accidental contact.

“Who are you visiting in Palm Springs?” I asked.

“Believe it or not, it’s Abe Bernbaum.”

“Why are you visiting your old boss?”

“I did some carpentry work at his house back in Sayville. He
has a vacation home out here, in the desert somewhere, and now he wants me to
do some work there.” Toby shrugged. “He paid for my flight, and I’ll stay with
him and his family for the week. He said before I leave, he wants to take me
golfing.”

“But you don’t play, do you?”

Toby laughed. “I once scaled the fence of the West Sayville
Country Club to get tanked with my friends.”

I shook my head and smiled. “Sounds like Abe has a soft spot
for you.”

“Maybe.” He studied his hands for a moment and looked up at
me. “He’s a tough ol’ fossil. Expects a lot. But after the court case and what
he did for me, I appreciate the stand-up guy he is. And what’s more surprising
is, I kind of like hanging out with him.”

He folded down my laptop, slipping it onto the nearby table,
and we continued to talk for a couple more hours. He listened patiently as I
told him about my classes and the professors I had—which ones I liked, which
ones I despised—until finally, somewhere around 2 a.m., I began having trouble
stringing coherent words together.

He rubbed my knuckles with his and said, “Good night,
Claude.” I yawned a sleepy goodnight back, and, as I headed for the bedroom, he
went into the bathroom. For a second, I thought about offering him my
roommate’s bed, but then nixed the idea. He’d find a way to get comfortable on
the couch. Exhausted, I dove into bed and fell right asleep.

When I opened my eyes, it was morning and sunlight was
filtering in through the blinds of the dorm window. I awoke to Toby's arm
draped over me. His face was in my hair, and his steady breaths warmed the back
of my neck.

In my sleep-muddled state, I wasn’t sure how or why he was
lying with me, but his nearness invoked vivid memories of us together and the
way he used to touch me. I imagined his hand now, sliding slowly over my bare
skin, teasing my hip and cupping my breast, his thumb stroking me to breathless
agitation. Like a movie playing in my head, I saw myself turning over to see
his face, the one I had once loved so much that I had given him all that I had.
His pale eyes would flutter open in the morning light. My attention would be
drawn to his mouth, the soft fullness of his bottom lip and the memory of
kisses he once relished on my neck as he tasted my skin. I remembered, too, the
weight of his body over me. A resounding hum pulsed through my core as I
remembered his hips pressed into me and of the astonishing and strangely
wonderful fullness I had felt while he was inside me. I could barely breathe for
wanting him so much.

Toby’s hand shifted, ever so slightly on my hip, and it
startled me out of my reverie. This was a minefield. My heart had accelerated,
and my skin had warmed almost to perspiration. I worried that if he woke now,
he would sense my state of arousal. I had to change the channel in my head. For
a moment I mourned the loss of what we’d had, felt the dry ache in the back of
my eyes where tears usually formed, but I shut it down. Tight. I wouldn’t put
myself in that soft, unbalanced place where I so easily lost footing. I
wouldn’t be weak, and I would never look back. Slipping out from our cuddle, I
made for the bathroom.

Other than our proximity, there was nothing to suggest
anything had happened, and I decided not to even mention it. To bring it up
would only be admitting that it disturbed me and give it undue importance.
After I showered and came back into the room fully dressed, Toby was awake.
With hands behind his head, he was staring at the ceiling.

“Hey, I forgot to ask you how the kitchen renovation is
going.” I opened the blinds and threw the room into bright daylight.

He rolled up on his elbow. “Really good.”

“How did you learn how to do that?” I asked, tossing him a
granola bar and opening one for myself.

“Carpentry? It’s genetic.” His longish bangs fell into his
eyes, and he grinned. “I figured the rest out with some online tutorials.”

I felt the temptation to reach over and brush the hair away.
With a shake of his head, though, the bangs shifted aside, alleviating my
inclination to do so.

He popped a chunk of granola into his mouth. “I still have a
lot to do.”

“Any news on the job front?”

“Nothing steady. But I joined a band,” he said, looking at
me as if waiting for my reaction.

“Playing guitar?”

“Yeah. We call ourselves ‘Young Cranky Old Guys.”

“Interesting name.”

“We’ve already played a few gigs just from word-of-mouth—a
sweet sixteen and two small parties. Probably do the bar circuit soon,” he
said. “Right now we do mostly cover stuff, but we’re working on our own music.”

“Nice,” I picked up a comb and ran it through my wet hair.
“I’ll bet you have lots of fans.”

He made a low snorting noise. “Yeah, if you count all the
sixteen-year-olds who follow us on our fan page, we’re quite the celebrities.”

“Why is it that I can totally picture a group of teeny
boppers vying for your attention?”

He laughed. “Just what every guy wants, his own personal,
underage harem.”

“Oh, I’m sure more appropriately aged women are showing you
attention, too. Being out there, in the public eye, you’re bound to meet
someone.” I put on an air of teasing, but I finally stopped when Toby’s lips
tightened into a frown.

Bowing his head, he hopped off the bed and went to the
window. His uneasy expression reflected in the glass as he looked outside.

“I think it’s great that we can talk like friends, but I
can’t discuss meeting new people with you, Claude. Not after what we’ve been
through.” Turning to face me, he ran his hand through his hair. “I understand
you want me to be happy. But I’m not in the same place as you. Even thinking
about it puts me on edge.”

“Okay,” I nodded. “We’ll talk about something else.”

In spite of the promise to divert our conversation to a
safer topic, I couldn’t think of anything else to say. For a long moment,
neither of us said anything. Thankfully, his cell beeped with an incoming text
and broke the silence.

Glancing at it, he grimaced. “It’s Bob reminding me about
our next appointment.” Toby said, but avoided looking at me. “He didn’t want me
to see you.”

“But I was the one who brought you to meet with him.”

He stole a quick glance at me. “It’s because he knows how I
feel.”

My face burned with indignation, and for a moment, I was too
livid to speak. Tight lipped, I asked, “You didn’t come all this way thinking
there was a chance of us getting back together, did you?”

“No.” His quick reply was defensive, but he looked
flustered. “But I was thinking over the summer, maybe we could talk.”

I twisted away from him, dragging the comb through my hair,
as I turned his hopeless proposition over in my mind.

Glancing back at him, casually, I said, “I’m not coming home
this summer.”

His eyes narrowed. “Not at all?”

“No. My mother got me a job in her office, and I need the
money.” It wasn’t the complete truth, but I would make it happen. He opened his
mouth to say something, but I forged ahead. “It’ll be better this way. I don’t
want to complicate things between us. And then I can also spend some extra time
with my mom.”

He avoided looking at me. “When will you be back?”

“I don’t know.”

Frowning, he shoved his hands in his pockets.

“When I come back doesn’t matter. We’ll keep in touch.” I
put my hand on the bedpost, as close as I dared get. “All that matters is that
you get the help you need.”

Toby groaned. “Jesus, I know you think I overreacted yesterday,
but that guy plowed into you,” he protested.

“You can’t go around fixing situations with your fists. And
believe it or not, I can defend myself.”

He stared at me for a tense moment and, remarkably, broke
into a grin. “With the way you held me back, I don’t doubt it. But Claude,” he
said, standing more erect. “I am getting better at controlling my anger.”

“That’s good.” I tried to sound enthusiastic, but I wondered
if his anger would be something he’d ever have control over.

“It’s the truth. You’ll see,” he said. He stepped closer,
his hand settling on top of mine on the bedpost. “Since you’re not coming home,
can you promise me something?”

I looked at his hand and then at him.

“Don’t be with anyone over the summer.”

Just like that, my temper flared again. “Just the summer?
What about the fall and the winter?” I jerked my hand from under his. “Do you
think I should never have another relationship and perhaps become celibate?”

He smiled sheepishly. “Too much to ask?”

I bristled. “Not only is it too much to ask, but you have no
right to ask!”

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” he sighed. “But the thought of
you being here with all these guys and now that you’re not, you know …”

“Are you afraid I’ll go on a sexual rampage now that I’m
freed of my virginal burden?”

He winced.

“You come here with your sad eyes, crawl into my bed while
I’m sleeping, and expect me to forget everything that happened?” I snapped. “We
are not together, and if I decide to screw around indiscriminately, I won’t be
discussing it with you!”

He leaned his head back and inhaled sharply. When he looked
back at me, I saw anger in his eyes, tinged with uncertainty.

“This is hard for me.”

I crossed my arms in front of me. “And what you did was hard
for me.”

“Claude, don’t,” he pleaded, lowering his eyes. After a
nerve-racking moment of silence between us, he said, “I should go.”

I felt a need to close the awkwardness that had opened
between us. “Look, as long as you understand we’re not getting back together,
we’ll be fine. What’s done is done. Please call me when you get to Abe’s so I
know you got there safely.”

“Sure,” he said, and he opened his arms to me. “Hug?”

Done in by our squabbling, I let him pull me into his arms.
I wanted it to feel different, but I fit right into him just as I had in the
past, my cheek finding the once familiar place between his neck and shoulder. I
always admired the unyielding firmness of his body, the toughness that was
synonymous with his strength. The warmth of our bodies intermingled through our
clothes, and the smell of him filled my senses. Nothing had changed for us
physically, but emotionally, though the pain had dulled, a throng of old hurt
left me feeling hallow inside.