The Video Watcher (2 page)

Alex stopped, rolled over on her bed, knocked Grumpy Bear to the floor and howled with laughter. The laughter continued for a least a minute—I smiled while trying to think of a more appropriate response. Alex, sitting up and wiping tears from her eyes, said, “Let's see if anyone heard us.”

 

I left shortly after that. On the way home I was frightened that I would start thinking things again. But when I got home
Taxi Driver
was on Bravo. I watched it and drifted off.

That night I slept soundly.

 

I hadn't planned to return to North Van that summer. My intentions had been to keep my apartment at UBC, work somewhere near the university during the day, and take a course at night. But the plan fell through when I discovered that the section I wanted was full. My aunt had offered to let me stay at the house in North Van, assuring me that she would be away most of the time. It would mean being on Kris's leash—financially that is—but I thought the chance to save four months' rent seemed worth whatever arguments we would have when she was around. Also, I was getting these strange thoughts in my apartment and didn't want to be there alone.

The morning following Alex's party I had an appointment with the doctor, but it wasn't till eleven. When I woke up I thought of Diane's small stomach bulge and the shape of her breasts in the T-shirt. I imagined my hand on her stomach and my fingers inched into the elastic waist band of her panties, my hand down inside them.

I was thinking of this when the phone rang.

The phone was still ringing when I finished. I got out of bed and hobbled down the hall awkwardly, my pyjama bottoms wrapped around my ankles. I crashed through the den door, got to the desk, and raised the phone with my left hand.

“Yeah. Hello.”

There was a pause. “I called the business line, didn't I?” Kris's voice crackled with static.

“Sorry, I just got up,” I said, still searching for Kleenex.

“You know I want you to—”

“I know I know,” I said. “I forgot. I just got up.”

Pause. If the connection were better I would've heard a sharp expulsion of air. I found a sheet of paper that didn't look important, and cradling the phone, wiped off my right hand.

“Anyway, how's the trip?” I asked. “Where are you?”

There was a long pause before Kris, speaking in a restrained tone, said that she was in San Francisco, actually San Jose—there had been some emergency and the plane had been rerouted. It had been unbelievably cold on the flight. They had run out of blankets and they had run out of white wine. The plane was an hour behind schedule—there had been a problem loading the luggage in Seattle—and they would probably lose more time before they reached L.A.

“Besides that,” she said, “everything is just great!”

She asked if I had been keeping track of the messages, writing them down and erasing them from the answering machine so there would be room for more messages.

“I've written down a page,” I said, lying.

“How many numbers?”

“I don't know. I don't have it.”

“Where are you?”

“I'm on the portable. In the washroom.”

“Oooookay…” she said. “Well, make sure you get them all. It's important.”

“What day did you say you'll be home?”

She gave me the date and asked if I had made reservations for Harrison.

I tried to think what the safest answer would be.

“Trace!—I'll be furious if this is the first year we don't go to Harrison for the long weekend, and all because you can't—”

“Yeah, I know! I know!”

“Okay,” she said. “I just want to make sure those reservations are made. How's UBC?”

“I finished.”

“When?”

“Like, two weeks ago.”

“How about money? Do you need me to put more into your account?”

“I'm okay.”

“You sure? After L.A. I'm not sure when I'll be near a bank machine again.

“I'm fine.”

“Just checking. I should go. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

After I hung up the phone, I called the hotel in Harrison and made the reservations for the Labour Day long weekend. Fortunately, there was still a vacancy. Each year we meet my other aunt and my cousin Emily at Harrison to spend some “family time.” It's the only way, Kris says, she can tolerate them.

The messages on the machine were mostly from my friends. One from Alex inviting me to the party I'd just attended; two from Cam reminding me that he was returning on the 5th; a two-day-old one from Fahid (this guy who I hadn't spoken to in a year) telling me, “Quick, turn to 39. There's this documentary on Radiohead.” And one more from Cam reminding me he was coming back. After I'd erased these, I replayed the ones for the company. The first message was from a man called Sun Young Lee—at least I think that's what his name was—and he said that he was interested in property in North Van, but only in the Handsworth catchment area. The second one was from Michael Daniels, this “associate” of Kris's. I recorded these in the notebook, then pressed erase.

When I went to the doctor's appointment that afternoon he said that things were fine. My blood work had come back and everything appeared to be normal.

 

When Damien had called near the end of May, he'd wanted me to guess where he was, and I'd thought of where he could be, then realized that it was a joke, a reference, an allusion to what he said the first time he called me from the psychiatric unit.

I hadn't heard from him again, and had assumed that he was out of the hospital. But a week after Alex's party, he called.

“Guess where I am?”

“Still?”

“I'm going to be out soon. Maybe another week or so. What are you doing tomorrow night?”

“Nothing. Do you want me to drop by?”

“Can you bring a six pack?”

“Are you allowed?”

“Get me whatever's on sale… Molson Canadian… TNT… whatever.”

The next night, after stopping at the Cold Beer and Wine Store, I went to visit him. The evening was clear and warm, and it reminded me of the time I had previously visited him there, one year before. It had been the night he and I were supposed to be attending our grad.

I remembered the walk down the glassed-in corridor, the evening light grainy and soft filtering through the long bank of unwashed windows. I remembered being surprised that the nurse on duty that night—a
psychiatric
ward nurse—knew who my friend was. I remembered waiting in the lounge area, hearing glass breaking, joking to myself someone had gone crazy—not actually thinking anyone had gone crazy, just thinking someone had dropped something. I remembered Damien's mother running down the hallway, remembered her shouting, “He's broken the window! He's broken the window! Help—please!” And I remember the excitement I felt, and the guilt I felt later for feeling that excitement.

 

Damien was sitting on the edge of the bed, his headphones on. The music was loud and I could tell the song was Sabbath's “Paranoid.” He banged his head in time with the music and slapped the drumbeat on his thighs. Around him on the bed were Slayer and Nirvana CDs, and on the bedside table,
An American Nightmare
, Jeffrey Dahmer's biography.

I was standing just inside the room when he noticed me. “Hey,” he said. He turned off his Discman and pulled out the ear buds.

“Should you be reading this?” I said. I'd gone over and picked up Dahmer's biography.

“What?” He smiled sheepishly. “It's interesting.”

I replaced the book.

“Are we going somewhere? I got the beer.”

Damien got up, and took a bag of Drum tobacco and a Zippo lighter from his green jacket on the chair.

As I waited for him to stretch on the paper slippers they gave him in place of his shoes, I noticed his roommate standing by the window, a lanky guy about our age. He wore a purple tracksuit with its hood up and its sleeves pulled over his hands, and he appeared to be wearing black woollen mittens.

I nodded in greeting, but I don't think he saw me.

I was suspicious when Damien said he was allowed out of the hospital, but I didn't argue with him. When we got to the car, the beer was still cold. He cracked the first one open, and turned the radio to a station playing Young's “Cinnamon Girl.”

When I glanced at him, I got the feeling he didn't want to talk.

The fresh leaves on the alders, the sun setting over the city, the amber skies greying—the evening was identical to that evening a year ago, and the idea that time never began and never ended came into my head.

“Have I showed you this?”

Take it easy, don't think about it.

“Trace?”

He held the Zippo with the Playboy insignia. “My dad got it in the duty-free, coming home from San Diego.”

“Is he home now?”

“He's in Hawaii. Or maybe Maui, I can't remember.”

The sun was shining in my face. I sighed, lowering the visor.

“Kris isn't home either.”

“Where is—Are you okay?”

“What?” He was staring at me.

“Yeah—I don't know,”
I said, looking back at the sunset.
Take it easy
, I told myself. “Somewhere in the States, she's flying around looking at…” I shrugged. “Condos?”

“Are you going to have a party?”

I shook my head, then asked, “Who would I invite anyway?”

Damien didn't respond.

“Maybe we should invite your roommate.”

“Vincent?”

“Is that his name?”

“Uh huh,” he said and finished his beer. He set the empty can on the floor and pulled off another one.

“I bet he gets a lot of action.”

Damien belched. “How about that girl you knew, the one that's really hot.”

“Sadie? And do what?
Hey, Sadie
—” I made my voice sound dumb, “
Do you want to come by and hang out with me and my friend and listen to some old Nirvana CDs
.”

Damien burst out laughing—I felt better. The Zippo was lying by the gear shift and I picked it up. I ran my finger over the insignia, then flipped the lighter open and lit it.

“Here—don't waste the fluid.”

I handed it back to him. “You talked to Cameron?”

He shook his head.

“He called me last week,” I said. “He's coming back next month.”

“So?”

Not sure why I'd mentioned it, I went back to looking out at the evening, watching the light fade on the city's glass towers.

Before we returned to the hospital, Damien drank another three cans. As I helped him stagger down the hall to his room, I was frightened that a nurse or someone would notice us. When we came into the room, ‘Vincent' was still at the window—I got the feeling he hadn't moved once.

I helped Damien into bed and covered him with the blanket. As I started to leave he mumbled something.

“What did you say?” I said, leaning down.

“…I get out of the hospital, we'll go out.”

“Sure,” I said.

 

As I stepped back out into the twilight, I did whatever it took not to think. I gathered all the empty cans out of the car. A bus stop was nearby, and I jammed them in the trash receptacle attached to the pole. When I got back to the car, I lowered all the windows—even the ones in the back—and drove.

A few minutes later, I was racing along 15th Street to Grand Boulevard, then up the east side of Grand Boulevard, toward Lynn Valley. Damien's comments had got me thinking about Sadie. I'd met her the past fall at UBC, and there was a period around Christmas when I guess I was kind of obsessed with her. I would go over to her house two or three times a week and write essays for her women's studies classes, while she got ready to go clubbing with some guys who invariably were called Mike or Steve or Brad. In the spring, we kind of fell out of touch, and I hadn't seen her since the end of term. But her house was close by, and when I reached the intersection with Mountain Highway I turned left on impulse, and started up the steep road.

I didn't expect her to be home, but the black Volkswagen her parents had bought her was in the driveway. I passed the house and turned left on Kilmer, and parked.

It was almost night. Vancouver twinkled over the dark treetops.

Her mother answered the door almost the moment I rang the bell. She was wearing the blue terry-towel track suit she always wore. “Tray,” she said, mispronouncing my name. “Come in. How are you?” Her Slovakian accent made her hard to understand.