Toby by Todd Babiak Read Free Book Online Page A

her for five seconds!
    Toby returned to his office, sought his mom’s advice, then his dad’s advice, and thundered and flailed briefly in the only bathroom that locked. Edward had suggested he “harness his negative energy,” and try something wild. Edward had never forgiven the station’s executives for the name change debacle. “Fuck ‘em,” Edward had said.
    For some time, Toby had been refining a rather wild idea. The station was overflowing with union technicians working three hours a day and being paid for seven and three-quarters, yet they didn’t produce anything beyond cheap news. Why not set up a corner of the unnecessarily vast studio to look like a cozy living room, and Toby could wear a crisp suit and interview the fascinating figures of Greater Montreal. It could be called One on One, with Toby Ménard. Or Toby’s People. He immediately wrote up a proposal and, with Dwayne’s blessing, submitted it to Mr. Demsky. If Mr. Demsky said no, he would immediately quit and waltz across town to the CTV affiliate, whose station manager had expressed interest in him as a sports guy.
    Toby’s meeting with the president, to whom he had never spoken, was scheduled for 3:30 that afternoon. Already he had summoned the wild fuckemtude to ask Alicia for dinner at Toqué!, and she had accepted. By the time he knocked on the heavy wooden door of the executive office, he was quite certain he could chew through it.
    There were five televisions in Mr. Demsky’s office, tuned soundlessly to stations he owned in Western Quebec, SouthernOntario, Vermont, Maine, and upstate New York. Pipe smoke hung low and tranquil in the room. There were framed Looney Tunes animation posters and collector cells on the wall, so Toby made a mental note to discuss his theory about Bugs Bunny being the culmination of Ralph Waldo Emerson. A plaque in a place of prominence behind Mr. Demsky’s chair recognized his ongoing financial and spiritual commitment to Israel, so Toby made a second mental note to mention and exaggerate his Jewishness.
    According to the skin around his eyes, the president and CEO had spent the majority of his youth on stallions and golf courses in Florida, baking creases and blotches into his face. His dry, white hair framed him like an Inuit hood.
    “Sir.”
    “No ‘sirs’ in television. You can sit.” Mr. Demsky waved the three-page proposal for One on One, with Toby Ménard over his desk. A snake of blue smoke broke and twirled in behind it. “I’m curious about the city and the world, unlike the majority of my peers and pretty much all yours. But I’m not going to watch you interview a pompous ass about sewer easements in front of a fake fireplace. That’s a half-hour of my life I just don’t want to give up.”
    “It wouldn’t be about sewer easements.”
    “Do you know how television works?”
    “I should hope so.”
    “You clearly don’t.”
    “All right.”
    “We buy prime time from Los Angeles, simulcast it with local news, and invest in some shitty movies-of-the-week set in Medicine Hat to please the communists. We put the profits in businesses that actually make money.”
    Toby had not prepared for this response. One on One, with Toby Ménard had seemed unassailable. The fuckemtude was upon him. “Fabulous.” He stood up and loosened his tie, demonstrably. “I’m finished with Century Media. I want to thank you for the opportunity, of course, and I do hope you fail, miserably. And second—second, mind you!—that you and your station manager die a most painful death.”
    “Sit.” Mr. Demsky fetched his pipe from its tray and fixed his tiny eyes on Toby. He pulled one remote control from the regiment before him, a black model, and pressed a button. The humidifier in the corner belched mist in their direction. “That was stirring.”
    “Can I go now?”
    “What sort of a person are you, if you were to sum yourself up?”
    “I’m a bit Jewish.”
    “Listen. I was on an airplane the