The Vanishing Track

by Stephen Legault

  “Yeah.” Cole took a deep breath, then began to tell the whole story. Half an hour later Cole was exhausted. He leaned forward with his face in his hands. “I guess this is pretty much hopeless,” he said, looking up and rubbing his face with his hands.

  Brady smiled. “On the contrary,” he said. “What we’re going to do, Cole, is take away the anxiety that you feel when you think about that event.” Brady shifted in his chair. “PTSD often means that things that you associate with that event now bring you great discomfort. When you are in a situation that reminds you of the event, you become anxious. You startle easily. You can’t sleep. You have flashbacks. Maybe you feel depressed, or even suicidal. You avoid contact with places or people that you associate with that event. Maybe you’re moody . . .”

  Cole grinned.

  “Sound familiar?”

  “It’s just that I’ve been moody all my life.”

  Brady smiled again. “Well, we can work on personality issues some other time. Tonight, we’re going to do something that will help your brain process the stress it is feeling about the traumatic event that has occurred in your life, and make it so that you don’t keep reliving it over and over again. We’re going to do something that will mean you don’t associate people or places with that event.”

  Cole nodded. “Wiggly eye.”

  “Right. You’ve heard of EMDR.”

  “Wikipedia.”

  “Hmm, not sure if that’s the best source. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing was first developed by a Doctor Shapiro in the late 1980s. She happened to notice some troubling thoughts were resolved when her eyes followed the waving leaves during a walk in a neighborhood park. She developed a clinical model for this.”

  Cole interrupted. “Doc, I’ve been walking in parks all my life. Big parks. Jasper, Banff, Pukaskwa. Looking at lots of leaves blowing in the wind. Still feel like shit.”

  Brady laughed. “Cole, the idea is really very simple. Our brains process thousands of thoughts and emotions every second. Sometimes when something really traumatic occurs to us, our brains can’t process it, so it keeps spinning around and around. Sometimes seemingly unrelated events can become associated with this trauma. What EMDR does is help your brain reprocess the information around the traumatic event, so that you don’t feel anxiety or depression when you think of it. Does that make sense?”

  Cole nodded.

  “So the first thing we’re going to do is get you to focus on the traumatic image. Cole, it’s really important for you to be honest with yourself during this. If it helps you to close your eyes to recall this traumatic image, then do so. It’s not necessary, but if you like, you can say out loud what the image is.”

  Cole closed his eyes.

  The barn door swung open and he walked into the darkened space.

  “Looking for me, son?” The shotgun in his father’s hand.

  Cole’s blood boiling. The years of abuse in the ring, the same ring where his father stood now, holding the gun loosely in his hand. The confusion. “Wait!” A son trying to rescue his father. The barrel raised, and then the startling blast, the dark spray of blood across the canvas; the explosion of thousands of tiny pellets, each one like a knife. The explosion of pigeons over head.

  Cole kept his eyes squeezed shut.

  The dock at Port Lostcoast. Nancy. Nancy, dragging the information out of him. Unearthing the emotions Cole had buried for four years.

  “Cole, tell me what you feel about yourself seeing this image in your head.”

  Cole took a breath. His voice came weakly from his throat. “I can’t . . .”

  “Cole?”

  “I couldn’t save him: he was my father. I can’t save anything.”

  “Go on.”

  “Helpless. Inadequate. Not worthy. Not good enough.”

  “What else?”

  Cole sat a moment. “Anger. Hatred.”

  “Cole, tell me where you feel this.”

  His eyes were still shut tightly and he pressed his fingers into his stomach.

  “Okay, Cole. Now, tell me on a scale of one to eleven, with one being mild, and eleven being severe, how you would rate your anxiety related to this feeling?”

  Cole grinned. “Why not one to ten? Is this a Spinal Tap spoof?”

  “Good question, Cole. I don’t know. It’s just the scale we came up with. One to eleven, Cole.”

  “Ten.”

  “Okay, now. I want you to think about the emotions that you’d like to experience when you recall the traumatic event. Positive emotions. They don’t need to be happy sunshine thoughts, Cole. But they need to be positive.”

  Cole sat with his eyes closed. “I want to feel like I can save something. I don’t want to feel powerless.”

  “So, empowered?”

  “Yes.”

  “What else?”

  “I want to feel self-worth.”

  “You want to feel as though you are adequate.”

  “More than that. Not just adequate. I want to feel worthy.”

  “Good. How would you rather feel than angry?” Cole breathed deeply. He could feel the knot of rage in his belly. “I want to feel calm. I want to feel at peace.”

  “Cole, can you give me a statement about yourself that explains how you feel now that you’ve replaced these negative emotions with positive ones?”

  Cole grimaced. “I don’t know that . . .” He stopped. “I feel free. I feel free from the anger and rage that has held me in its grip since my father . . .” He stopped again.

  “Do you want to finish that statement, Cole?”

  “Since my father killed himself in front of me.”

  “Cole, on a scale of one to seven, how much do you believe that statement, one being not at all, and seven—”

  “One,” Cole interrupted.

  “Okay, one,” said Brady calmly. “Now, what we’re going to do next is what you refer to as the wiggly eye part. I’m going to ask you first to visualize the memory that has been troubling you, Cole. At the same time, I want you to rehearse, in your head, the negative feelings you have about yourself when you recall the trauma. I want you to feel the physical sensations associated with it. Right here.” Brady pointed to his own flat stomach to mirror Cole’s indication. “And while you’re doing this, I want you to watch my finger very carefully.” Brady held up his right index finger. Cole’s eyes roved around the room a moment and then settled on the man’s finger. “Okay?”

  Cole nodded.

  “Let’s start with recalling that event, and rehearsing the things you feel about yourself when you do. Feel them in your gut. Okay now, I want you to follow my finger.” Brady began to move his finger laterally back and forth, back and forth, Cole’s eyes locked on it. Brady moved his finger back and forth twenty-four times, then stopped.

  “Okay, Cole. I want you to take a deep breath and blank the memory of the trauma from your mind.”

  Cole pushed the blackness from his mind and exhaled. He focused on the man’s finger. After a moment, Brady said, “Now, I want you to recall the trauma. One a scale of one to eleven, how would you rate your distress?”

  Cole closed his eyes. A long moment passed: “Seven.”

  “Good,” said Brady. “Very good. Now, again.”

  IT HAD BEEN a long day for Juliet and it was only Monday. It was growing dark when she stepped off the bus and made her way toward her quiet home. She felt a moment of anxiety when she remembered that Sean was still there. He had been for a week. She tried to count the days in her head but lost track. She had to admit he was a courteous and thoughtful guest. Even her roommate, who had seldom warmed to any of Juliet’s overnight projects, thought that having Sean around was delightful.

  “He cooks and does the dishes,” Becky had said the day before. “He can stay a few more days.”

  Juliet walked up her steps and unlocked the door. The house was dark. She remembered that her roommate was traveling for work this week. Lucky. Montreal, New York, Philadelphi
a. Juliet’s work took her to Hastings and Main. She took a deep breath as she walked in the door. The house was quiet. “Sean?” she called.

  Nothing. She flipped on some lights, dumped her backpack by the stairs and made her way to the kitchen to put a kettle on the stove. She opened the fridge and looked for the leftovers from last night’s meal. Her fridge had never been so clean and well organized. She smiled. If Sean wasn’t careful, she might hire him.

  She pulled out a casserole dish with one hand and a head of lettuce with the other. When the fridge door closed, Sean stood a few feet from her in the open back door. Her heart jumped and she screamed, dropping the casserole dish. It exploded, shards of glass and ceramic scattering across the floor. He stepped into the light. He was covered in blood.

  “Sean, holy shit . . .” She started toward him, then stopped. He walked into the kitchen, his feet crunching the broken pieces on the floor. He looked vacantly at her. “Sean, what happened?”

  His nose appeared to have been broken. Blood still leaked down from it over his mouth. He had a gash under his left eye that was also bleeding. His eye was partially closed. His hands were covered in blood, almost up to his elbows, yet he seemed completely calm.

  “Got in a fight.” He stepped over the pasta on the floor and sat down.

  Juliet watched him as he took a seat at the small kitchen table and put one hand there, his blood stained palm pressed lightly on the Arborite surface. He was in shock, she knew, and would need medical attention.

  “Stay here,” she said, and went to the front entrance to retrieve her pack. When she returned to the kitchen, he was smiling at her through the smear of blood on his face.

  She pulled on gloves from her first-aid kit and said, “I’m going to examine your face, Sean. Is that okay?” He kept smiling and nodded. She put her hand on his jaw and moved his head around gently. She touched the bridge of his nose with her fingers.

  “Your nose is broken pretty badly, Sean,” she said. She found a large gauze pad and used it to mop up some of the blood. “I need you to hold this right here.” He put a bloody hand on the pad. “Okay, now let’s look at that laceration.” She pressed another gauze dressing on the cut under his eye, and then gently pulled it away. “You’re going to need stitches.” She checked the rest of his head and neck for injuries.

  “You mean in the hospital?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t you do them here?”

  “Sean, you’ve got some serious injuries. I think you might also have a concussion. I can’t treat you here.”

  She looked at his hands. His right hand was still on the table. “Can you move your fingers?”

  He wiggled them and winced.

  “You’re going to need an X-ray. You may have broken some bones. I’m going to call a cab. We’ll get you over to Vancouver General.”

  Sean said, “I need my backpack.”

  “Where is it?”

  He thought about it. He had been wearing it when he had gone into the bomb shelter.

  HE HAD DESCENDED the stairs to his own personal shelter, thinking how well his arrangements were working out.

  Then The Indian had tackled him.

  “What the fuck—!” Sean managed to exclaim before his head hit the concrete floor with a loud whack. The Indian came down on top of him, his bound hands before him, scrambling for the door. Sean brought his knee up and connected with the man’s groin and watched as his expression changed from rage to agony. The Indian drove his head down into Sean’s face and mashed his nose. He did it again, cutting Sean’s cheek below his left eye. Sean drove his hand up into The Indian’s belly and then into his ribs again and again as they rolled on the floor. When The Indian was on top again, he drove his head down for a third time and Sean’s world went dark.

  GEORGE OLIVER PULLED himself up, his breathing coming hard, his lungs unable to take in enough air after Sean’s repeated blows. He dragged himself across the floor toward the open door. He felt his way across the dirt-covered concrete to the outer door of the root cellar. He felt numb. His forehead was cut where he had smashed Sean’s nose and cheek, and he could taste the salty brine of blood. George saw the slanting gray light of day on the stairs, dust motes dancing on the breeze, and sensed the open space beyond. He felt the cool rush of autumn air on his bleeding face.

  Now. Up the stairs. Last step. The small, quiet yard beckoned. That’s when he heard the low, guttural sound behind him, and he turned to see the come-along swung hard, connecting with his legs, breaking bone, knocking him to the grass. George instinctively rolled into a ball to protect his stomach, but with his hands bound, he was unable to protect his head. Sean’s next blow made a low crack as it connected with his skull. A small spot of blood spilled onto the lawn as George’s semi-conscious body was dragged down the steps and back into the darkness.

  HE HAD LEFT his bag in the bomb shelter. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Sean, I think you’ve got a concussion. We should go.”

  The taxi appeared on the street. Juliet took Sean buy the arm and gently guided him down the steps and out to the waiting car.

  “Thank you,” he said, as she helped him into the cab.

  They sped off for Vancouver General.

  NANCY WEBBER LEFT her office and took a cab to the Downtown Eastside Community Advocacy Society.

  When she had left Portside Park at six-thirty that evening, two VPD dive teams were still scouring the sprawling park and adjacent pier. Nothing had turned up yet, but Lane had told Nancy, on the record, that the search was only beginning. When asked what led her to believe that bodies might be discovered there, Lane had just shrugged and said that policing was mostly guesswork.

  Nancy didn’t find that reassuring.

  She had cabbed it back to the Sun building and made another round of phone calls, hoping to elicit a comment from one of the Manifesto signatories despite the late hour.

  “Beatta Nowak, please.”

  “Who’s calling?” the voice on the phone was rough and unpracticed.

  “Nancy Webber, Vancouver Sun.”

  A moment passed. Nancy could hear voices in the background. Though she’d never been to the offices of the Downtown Eastside Community Advocacy Society, she imagined they were staffed with a mixture of professional activists and volunteers recruited from the street population that the Society served.

  Beatta Nowak’s voice was a combination of exhaustion and anger. “What makes you think I want to talk with you about your baseless allegations, Ms. Webber?”

  Nancy took a breath. “Ms. Nowak, are you telling me that you’re not familiar with a document called the Lucky Strike Manifesto?”

  The line was silent a moment, then, “No. I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It’s a document penned by a group of people calling themselves The Lucky Strike Supper Club . . .”

  Nowak cut her off. “I’ve read your story online. You know I’m trying to save people’s lives?”

  Nancy continued, “They meet at an old office building on Pender. The document has some very noble intentions: clean up the Downtown Eastside, get the homeless into housing. It’s also a developer’s dream—replace SROs with hotels, condos, shopping malls, etcetera. But I believe a lot of Vancouverites will find the content of the document troubling. The signatories to the document state that extreme measures must be taken to get people off the street. Their solution is a homeless ghetto in West Strathcona and another in Burnaby.” She paused.

  “Ms. Nowak, I now have a copy of the names associated with the document.” Nancy could hear the woman breathing over the phone line. “Ms. Nowak, your name is among them. Councilor Ben Chow. VPD Divisional Commander John Andrews. Frank Ainsworth and his attorney Charles Livingstone. Trish Perry, the deputy planning commissioner, and you. Care to comment?”

  “Can you come to my office? I don’t want to do this over the phone.”

  “Of course,” said Nancy. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” She hu
ng up and yelled down the hall, “Frank, I’ve got a live one!”

  TEN MINUTES LATER she walked through the doors of the Community Advocacy’s building. The slate gray sky hung low over the city, and Nancy guessed that by midnight it would be raining again. Beatta met her at the door and ushered her into her office and closed the door behind them.

  “You must have a good source,” she said to Nancy when they were seated.

  “I do. High up in the VPD. It’s solid. As you know, we’ve posted a teaser on the internet. We’re going to run the full story tomorrow.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t. You have to understand, we’re trying to do something no one has tried before.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about it?” Nancy took out a small digital recorder and put it on the desk. Nowak looked at it. “I need to tape this interview so that you and I don’t face each other in court someday.” Nowak nodded.

  “Listen, you can either be one line in the story as a conspirator to this so-called Manifesto, or you can tell your side of the story and set the record straight. It’s up to you.”

  Nowak let out a deep breath. “You have to understand the history of this place to understand why I’ve done this. This used to be the heart of the city. Things went sour for the east end over time. Someone made a decision to limit street car access, and so shoppers began to migrate toward Granville Street. That was a long time ago. It’s little things like that that made a big difference.” She looked out the window.

  “With fewer people walking the sidewalks and window shopping, stores began to close,” Nowak continued. “That had a domino effect. City Hall moved. Rent in the east side of the city was lower than elsewhere in the city, so we had a real mix of people. Lots of immigrants found homes in Strathcona. The low rents and the conversion of tourist hotels into SROs also attracted more and more people who lived below the poverty line. People started calling the area Skid Row. The name stuck. Woodwards, the department store, closed in the early 1980s. That was the nail in our coffin. A bunch of us decided that if we were going to salvage this area, we had better shake off the Skid Row moniker, so we called the area the Downtown Eastside. It’s funny how that name is now synonymous with poverty, too.” She turned back to Nancy.