Watcher

by Valerie Sherrard

  “Alzheimer’s, I guess.”

  “Think she knows what just went down?” Tack looked worried.

  “Nah, they don’t remember stuff like that. I don’t think they remember much of anything by the time they get to that point.”

  “So, her whole life is gone? Everything she ever done, erased outta her brain?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t know the answer. And I could see by the look on his face that he wasn’t really asking me. His eyes had drifted somewhere else.

  I turned back toward the subway. Sometimes your own street is the best place to be.

  We never got off the subway at Rosedale again. Didn’t have to talk about it — we just didn’t go back.

  I’m not sure how I got into that whole story. I started telling you about the first time I saw The Watcher.

  It was on the Saturday in May that I mentioned earlier and we’d ended up walking the paths in High Park once the rain had stopped. The park was one of Tack’s favourite places. He liked to lie back on the grass on the side of a low hill and just stare at the sky. We’d talk about a lot of things — the Big Questions — there, with all that space around us. Tack used to say that the open fields and sky gave his thoughts room to float free.

  On this day, we’d been out for the afternoon and we were both getting pretty hungry. We were heading for my place because my mom had made a macaroni casserole the day before. My sister and her boyfriend were supposed to come over but they hadn’t shown up, so there was a lot left.

  We’d reached the corner of our street and had walked right by an old guy — a street person — without even seeing him. But we stopped and turned toward him when he yelled out what sounded like, “Tack!”

  It was an odd thing, to hear a heap of rags with legs splayed out at the bottom saying Tack’s name.

  “You talkin’ to me?” Tack asked after a few seconds.

  “Ah, Tack!” shouted the derelict.

  “Yeah?” Tack said. He looked puzzled but he took a step toward the bum.

  “Curse this mud!” cried the old fellow. “Can’t walk, can’t dig. We’ll all die out here.”

  “I don’t think he’s talking to you,” I observed.

  “Ah! Tack!” The feeble yell came again.

  “So, why’s he sayin’ my name?” Tack asked.

  “I think he’s saying attack, having some kind of flashback to the war,” I told him. “I remember an old guy in my building talking about the mud the same way.”

  Tack looked a bit relieved. He also leaned down and told the poor man it was okay, that the mud was gone and the war was over.

  It was impossible to tell if the old fellow even heard him. If he did, it made no difference. He kept on thrashing about and yelling.

  But it was because of this encounter that I first noticed The Watcher. I think I’d seen him before that, without registering anything in particular about him. But stopping to talk to the old guy, I became aware of this man. He’d been coming along behind us but he’d faded into a store doorway when we stopped.

  I still wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but when we started walking again, he reappeared, back a ways but hanging steady behind us.

  “Wonder where he come from,” Tack said when we’d gone a short ways down the street.

  “You see him too?” I asked, surprised.

  “See him? Man, what’s with you? Weren’t we just talkin’ to the man?”

  “Oh, him. Yeah.” I was about to explain about the guy who was following us, but just then he turned off the sidewalk toward an apartment building.

  So, I figured it was a coincidence and put him out of my head.

  Until the next time, that is.

  chapter two

  I didn’t see The Watcher again for nearly a week. The derelict, on the other hand, was in the same place on the corner most of the time. The homeless tend to do that — claim certain spots.

  The second time I saw the bum he wasn’t raving about wars and fighting. He just sat there, staring ahead in an alcoholic stupor.

  I stood for a minute or so, watching him. Watching to see if he was breathing, actually. That kind of state can be scary and if you’ve ever seen it you know what I mean. You’d almost swear they were dead, the way they sit with their eyes open but unfocused.

  He was almost entirely still and his breathing was so shallow there was no chest movement that I could see, but I noticed that the small finger on his left hand was twitching slightly, as if it was conducting a musical no one else could hear. Like most street people, he was wearing layers of clothing in various stages of filth and decay, which was what made it seem as though he was dressed in rags. The soles of his shoes were worn right through in a few places and grey work socks that were in equally bad condition peeked out.

  I shrugged and moved along. He wasn’t my problem.

  I really couldn’t have cared less about the old guy. Even so, part of me got thinking about a pair of shoes Mom had picked up for a couple of bucks at one of those used clothing places. They were black with a thick rubber sole, and she’d tried to make me wear them to her friend Nabida’s funeral. Said it was a sign of respect. Said I’d wear them or I wouldn’t be going.

  I didn’t wear them. And I didn’t go. I’d liked Nabida, too. She always talked to me normal, asked me what I thought about different things, and listened when I answered.

  Nabida was one of the good ones. And I would have gone to her funeral — not that it mattered to her — but it turned out I didn’t, because of those stupid shoes. They’d been sitting in the back of my closet ever since.

  I found myself wondering if they’d fit the old guy. Then, thinking about giving him shoes started to embarrass me. After all, he was nobody and nothing to me. Just a bum who’d ruined whatever he used to have for a watcher life. Why should I care if he had holes in his shoes? His misery wasn’t my concern.

  And anyway, I had homework — three pages of math — to do and I figured I’d better take a look at my biology book, too. There was a test coming up in a couple of days and I hadn’t exactly aced the last one.

  Thinking about the test and the mark I was getting in biology put me in a pretty bad mood. Even though it had no relation to the old guy whatsoever, I made my mind up that I was going to throw those stupid shoes out.

  I yanked my closet door open, leaned down, and started looking for them. Things kind of got shoved around in there and sure enough the bottom was stuffed full. I pulled out objects one at a time — a broken Playstation, old school binders, a stuffed giraffe I used to sleep with when I was a kid (I’ve been meaning to throw that out), some old gym shoes, a skateboard with one wheel loose, a baseball and bat (my glove got lifted last year), and something wrapped in an old towel.

  I pulled that out and it wasn’t until I had the towel almost off that I remembered what was in it — a bong, shaped like a skull. It gave me a kind of weird feeling, holding it again. It had been a couple of years, and I wasn’t even sure why I’d kept it. Maybe because of what it cost me.

  It had been getting close to Christmas, back in grade eight, and Mom had given me some money to do a bit of shopping. She used to do that every year, so I could get something for her and my sister, Lynn, who was still living at home then.

  I thought I might as well get it over with, and the sooner the better. It really didn’t matter what I bought, the reactions were the same year after year.

  Mom would go on way too much about how she loved whatever I’d given her. Lynn, on the other hand, would look like she couldn’t quite believe anyone could possibly be a big enough moron to have picked out the present I’d gotten for her. Until Mom gave her the old prompt, that is.

  “What do you say to your brother, Lynn?”

  This would get me a phoney smile followed by a sing-song, “Thank you, Porter.”

  The pathetic thing was that every year I honestly tried to pick out something she’d like. She always got me something cool, something just right. It’d be expe
nsive too and Mom would go on about how it must have taken months of babysitting money. (I never knew — or wanted to — exactly how Lynn got my gifts, but I was dead sure she wasn’t buying them retail.)

  By grade eight, I’d accepted the fact that no matter what I got for her, it wasn’t going to be good enough. watcher I figured I’d take a quick look, grab the first thing that seemed halfway suitable, and be finished with the whole racket for another year.

  But then I passed the old dry cleaning shop. It had closed down a couple of months before and I saw that there was a new business inside. Some kind of store. There was no sign or anything, but there were already a few things displayed in the window. The bong was one of them, but it was a statue, carved and partly painted, that first caught my eye. I couldn’t tell if the mouth was laughing or howling and I stood there for a moment trying to decide.

  “Come on in, mon,” a soft voice said from the doorway. “We got what you want.”

  How would he know what I wanted? I wondered. But there was something hypnotic about the way he’d spoken and I found myself going in. I was halfway through the doorway when I noticed the bong, perched on a small round platform that was covered with a dark purple scarf.

  It was a work of art. Skulls generally look pretty much the same but this one was unusual. It took me a few minutes to figure out why, and when I did, I knew I had to have it. There was something about it that made it look wise, as though it had the answer to every question ever asked, if only a person could get it to speak.

  It wasn’t like I thought it ever would talk. But there are strange things that happen in the world, things you can’t explain. For all I knew, a person might pick something up from it by osmosis.

  Looking at it in my room a couple of years later, I had no idea what I could possibly have thought was so special and magical about this thing. But back then, it seized me so hard it seemed as if I had no choice.

  I asked how much it was. The guy gave me a price that was about three times what I had on me. I must have looked pretty disappointed, because he asked what I could afford. I told him the amount, to the last dime, that I had in my pocket.

  “Maybe,” he said with a slow, lazy smile, “we can work something out for the rest, mon.”

  chapter three

  I’m no idiot. I knew right away that whatever he had in mind, it wasn’t going to be something I’d want to hurry home and brag about to my mother. I thought it might be smart to clear out of there, but the guy was talking.

  “Easy, mon,” he was saying. “You don’t hafta kill nobody — this time.”

  A big laugh followed that, and it pretty much went with the dreads and the way he was dressed, a deep laugh rising up from inside, an almost Santa style, “Oh, ho, ho, ho.”

  Only it was just a shade off.

  I looked at him closer, really seeing him for the first time.

  “Rodney?” I asked. He looked alarmed for a few seconds, and I think he was going to deny it, but then he changed his mind.

  “Hey, Porter. I didn’t recognize you.” His shoulders rose and fell in a “what can you do?” shrug.

  “What is wrong with you,” I asked. “Did you forget where you were from or what?”

  “It’s just part of the, you know, ambiance, man,” he said, waving his arm around the room. He looked embarrassed. “You got to look and sound the part.”

  I nodded toward the skull. “And what were you going to ask me to do for this?”

  “Just help clean out the back room.” He laughed, normally this time. “It’s taking forever to get this place organized. You shoulda seen your face, though.”

  I hadn’t seen Rodney for a couple of years, since before he finished school. He used to rule the skate park a couple of blocks away. He could make that board do anything. Showed me a few tricks, too, though not if anyone else was around.

  “Clean out the room? That’s it?”

  “What did you think I wanted you to do? Sell crack to kindergarteners?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Just so you know, this business is one hundred percent legit,” he said. He looked offended.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t know it was you,” I said. “I thought I was talking to Bob Marley’s second cousin.”

  He laughed good-naturedly, then asked, “So, do we watcher have a deal, or what?”

  I said yeah, and he led me to the back room. It needed cleaning all right, but mostly it needed to be organized. There were stacks of papers and boxes — some opened and some still taped up — in haphazard piles everywhere. One look around told me I’d earn the rest of the price of the bong all right.

  I spent a couple of hours that day, and went back a few more times before the room was done. I worked hard. Not only that, but I still had to find a way get those stupid Christmas gifts.

  Like I said before, I’m no criminal. This was just one of those situations where I really didn’t seem to have a choice. You know how it is.

  So I stole them.

  It was the first time I ever jacked something and I might as well admit I was pretty scared going in. I’d thought about asking Tack to come with me, but in the end it seemed like something I might want to keep to myself. I went alone to the nearest department store — the kind that they have big chains of — so it wasn’t like I was putting some little old lady out of business.

  The big problem, I realized right away, was that I felt out of place in the aisles with ladies’ clothing, jewellery, candles, and things like that. Those sections aren’t exactly overrun with teenage boys and I felt like I stuck out. My uneasiness made the chance of someone noticing me (okay, catching me) far more likely.

  Two different salesladies asked if they could help me. I had a mental picture of them later on, discovering that something had been taken and calling the police, with a full description of this suspicious-looking kid they’d seen earlier.

  If I’d been able to come up with some kind of story to cover for the missing money, I’d have turned around and walked right back out of the store then and there. But I couldn’t. So, I fought back my fear and wandered around the place trying to look normal.

  I’ve seen people shoplifting since then and I can tell you that the biggest giveaway is the way they’re working at looking casual, just as I was doing that day. It’s a hard act to pull off.

  Luckily for me, no one seemed to be paying much attention to the skinny kid with the sweaty palms and the too-innocent face. I ended up with a sports watch for Lynn and a package of fancy stick-on fingernails for Mom. She was always saying how she’d love to have long nails.

  Once I’d stuffed these two things inside my jacket, I had to fight to keep from bolting out the entrance and running. Walking toward the door was unbelievably hard, and when the alarm sounded I nearly passed out.

  It was pure luck that a woman carrying a couple of shopping bags was going through the security machine at the same time. She stopped and looked expectantly at the cashier, who said, “The machine must not have scanned something right.”

  Amazingly, no one seemed to have even noticed me, although my legs had gone liquid and barely held me up as I shoved open the door and hit the pavement. I realized I was holding my breath.

  I pushed my shaking hands into my jeans’ pockets and swallowed a lungful of air. I moved along the sidewalk, unable to resist quickening my pace. Halfway along the length of what seemed the longest building in the world, I broke into a trot and then sped up, feeling the air rush cold against the sweat on my face.

  I nearly puked when I got home. Even there, I didn’t feel safe. It was hours before I stopped waiting for a knock on the door. I was dead sure I’d never steal anything again.

  Through it all, the single thing that really seemed to matter was that I got that bong.

  I stared at it, remembering how important it had seemed at that time, and now there it was, wrapped in a towel and tucked out of sight, totally useless to me.

  Sure, I’d made lots of use of
it back when I got it, and probably wouldn’t have retired it at all if it wasn’t for the scrape Tack and I had gotten into, and what had happened afterward.

  I remembered how I’d used the bong a few times the weekend before court. It got rid of the worry and uneasiness — mellowed me out and turned my anxiety into a mix of indifference and amusement. I saw it as a problem solver, and I managed to believe it was nothing to worry about. It wasn’t like I was cranking or anything.

  Funny, looking at the bong that day, I could almost bring back that feeling of floating calm. The uneasy thought popped into my head that maybe I’d kept it “just in case.”

  I decided I’d spent enough time thinking about that, rewrapped it in the towel and shoved it into the back corner of the closet. I actually had to stop and think for a few seconds before I remembered what I was doing in there.

  The shoes. Where were they anyway? I didn’t remember throwing them out but then it had been a while. Maybe Mom had given them to someone — but she wouldn’t have gone into my closet and I couldn’t remember her asking for them.

  I looked again and discovered that I’d missed an old gym bag, tucked off to the side and blending into the dark of the corner. When I pulled it out and managed to force the zipper open, I found the shoes in there, along with a few other things — none of which looked too attractive. The shoes had been keeping company with some crumpled old socks (apparently, they were ready for the washer when they were abandoned), a dried out stick of deodorant, a couple of empty Pepsi cans and a fuzzy green lump that disintegrated into a scary-looking cloud when I prodded it with the heel of one shoe.

  I took the shoes to the bathroom and wiped them off with one of the rags Mom kept under the sink there. They seemed to have survived their time in exile without suffering any permanent damage. If they fit him, they’d sure be a help to the old guy.

  That was when it hit me that my original intention when I’d started hunting for them was to throw them out. Only, I couldn’t remember why.