Watcher (10 page)

“Which one?”

I pointed to the back of the room. At the same time, I felt Tack nudge me in the back with his elbow. It was a
What are you, nuts? Go for it!
kind of nudge. I almost lost my balance. Terrific.

“So, I'll put up for a game with you at this table,” she said, plopping down a toonie. “You can play at whichever one is free first.”

But there was no question as to which one would be free first — not the way she shot — and she knew it as well as I did. She could wrap the table in a quarter of the time it normally took to play.

“Yeah, okay. Sure.” I tried to look enthusiastic while I prepared myself for the coming humiliation.

I made my way back to the corner and parked myself on the bench, wondering if there was any way to get out of playing her.

“
What
is your
prob
lem, dude?” Tack asked.

“What, you mean because I'm not dying to look like a fool?”

“C'mon, man, who cares? She's
hot
.”

“She just wants a fresh sacrifice,” I pointed out.

“Maybe,” he said. “Could be more to it.”

“Sure, because she's always going out with guys just like me,” I said.

He didn't have an answer for that. We both knew Loren wasn't about to start hanging out with anyone my age, and especially not someone who was always broke. Her taste ran to older guys with cars, guys who all had a certain look about them — like they were always on the verge of sneering. At everything.

Tack was, as usual, being the optimist, thinking she could have more on her mind than the desire to add another idiot to the long line of guys she'd embarrassed at the pool table. But it turned out he was right, just not for the reason he thought.

She beat the players who had already lined up at her table in no time and then signalled me that I was up. I walked over, wondering if my fake smile was fooling her.

“You still on probation?” she asked as I racked the balls and stepped back to let her break.

“Don't waste any time getting to the point,” I said. But I smiled, because it really didn't bother me. I like girls who are direct a lot more than the ones who put on a big coy act while they work their way up to whatever they really want to say.

“We probably don't
have
much time,” she said, smiling back. “I've
seen
you play.”

She chalked up and broke. She got low, and her eyes swept the table, assessing which shot she should take next. You can always tell the good players because they never go for the easy shots first.

“So, are you?” she said.

“Seeing as you paid good money to get this information,” I said, “the answer is no, I'm not.”

“But you were?”

“Until last year, yeah. Why?”

“I just wanted to know how things work. I had to hold, you know, for Jack.”

“What's the charge?” I guessed Jack was the current boyfriend. A real winner by the sounds of it. You just can't help admire a guy who expects his girlfriend to take a fall for him.

“I dunno. They didn't tell me that yet. But it was mostly just weed.”

“How much?”

“Half an ounce, maybe. And some E, but just five.”

“I don't know. It's probably going to be trafficking. Is this your first charge?”

She nodded before lifting her chin and asking, “So, what should I expect?”

“I honestly have no idea. Sorry.”

Loren shrugged like it didn't matter, then leaned forward and sank two more balls in quick succession. She stepped back after the second.

“I didn't call that one off the rail,” she said, nodding for me to go ahead.

“Oh, right.” I chalked my cue and looked the table over, hoping for an easy shot. The five was sitting in a nice line with a corner. I dropped it straight in no problem and then went for the one.

I glanced up from my second shot, which I'd miraculously made, and was startled to see Lavender Dean standing a few metres away, watching. She gave me a hesitant wave. I smiled at her, hoping she'd seen my two good shots. A sudden rise in my pulse made it unlikely I'd manage a third. I didn't.

“If you happen to get a P.O. named Andrew Daniels, let me know,” I told Loren. “I'd give him a call, put in a word for you or whatever.”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks.” Loren sank her last three balls and then shot hard at the eight, which was barely in front of a corner pocket. My single hope that she might scratch on it died when the cue ball stopped dead, just a hair from the pocket.

I told her good game and tried to look casual as I walked over to where Lavender stood.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.” She looked good, kind of glowing.

I tried to think of something cool to say. I came up with, “So, you just get here?”

“A few minutes ago. You?”

“Been here a little while.” How could she
resist
that kind of witty repartee?

“Mmm.” She smiled again and then looked down, kind of shy. Made me want to pull her over and hold her against me.

The thing about Lavender was that she was hard to read. She was always friendly to me, which might have meant something except she was basically that way toward everyone.

Sometimes it seemed as though she really liked me, but other times I wasn't so sure. I'd been kind of toying with the idea of asking her out for a few months but I couldn't seem to work up to it. It wasn't like I hadn't been shot down before, but with her, it mattered more. I knew if she said no, that'd be it.

I figured there was no sense rushing into anything.

chapter fourteen

I
woke up that Saturday morning to the sound of banging, followed by Lynn yelling my name from the living room.

Struggling to pull myself awake, I was halfway down the hall before I realized that what I was hearing was someone knocking at the door.

“Where are my shoes?” I mumbled, though why that particular question had fought its way to the surface of my brain, I have no idea.

“Yo, Porter. Open up, man!”

“Tack?” I said, yanking open the door. “
What
are you doing here so early?”

“Your brain fogged or what?” he shook his head. “We gotta get to the bakery.”

“I'm not even up,” I groaned.

“No kiddin'.”

“Would you guys
shut up
!” Lynn sounded a bit testy. I wondered what time she'd finally wandered in the night before. The couch she was sleeping on had been unoccupied when I'd gotten home, and that was around one o'clock.

“I gotta shower,” I said as the haze lifted. “Give me ten minutes.”

A hot shower finished waking me and I threw on some clothes and mechanically towelled my hair dry while I gulped down a bowl of Shreddies.

“You are
so
disgusting,” Lynn said. “How can you dry your hair like that while you're eating?”

I knew what she meant, but I said, “Why? I've got two hands.” She called me a pig and then turned to the back of the couch and flung the comforter up over her head.

“
What
is going on out here?”

None of us had heard Mom coming and her sudden appearance at the end of the hall brought instant silence. If there was one thing Mom didn't like, it was being woken up. That's why I hardly ever saw her in the mornings.

Of course, I didn't see her much in the daytime either, unless she decided to cook supper, which wasn't often. Otherwise, she'd wander in and flop in front of the TV or head straight to bed sometime late in the evening, after she'd exhausted the coffee rounds.

“Sorry,” I said. “We'll be quiet.”

For some reason, it hit me right then that quiet already filled most of the time we spent in the same room. I wondered how long it had been since she'd said more than a dozen words to me in a day. Seemed like a long time since I'd heard anything other than “Got your homework done?” or “You eat yet?” or other automatic questions.

“I'd better not hear another sound,” she said. Then she turned and shuffled back to her room. Her bare feet hardly lifted off the floor. I had a sudden, angry urge to yell at her, to say something that would start a big fight.

I said nothing, though. All that would get me would be some yelling and threats that she could send me to live in a detention centre, or worse, with my father, and then I could see what it was like to have it rough and that maybe after a few months of that I'd appreciate her and everything she'd sacrificed for me.

Once, when I was about twelve, I'd gotten so angry during an argument that I'd said, “So go ahead! Send me to live with my father then!” It hadn't been a particularly smart thing to say. She'd grabbed me by the shirt and screamed in my face, and the next thing I knew I was standing out in the hallway with the door locked behind me.

I was there for hours. At first I knocked and then I called out a few things like I was sorry and stuff, but after a while I just stayed quiet and waited because watcher people down the hall were opening their doors and looking out at me.

By the time she let me in I had to pee so bad that I almost couldn't hold it until I got to the bathroom. I guess I could have gone somewhere else, even though I just had socks on, but I was too afraid to leave. I was sure that if she opened the door and I wasn't there, she'd make me spend the night in the hall.

In the bathroom, relief made my knees shake as I stood in front of the toilet and peed. And cried. That's not the coolest thing to admit to, but I'm telling the truth here and I guess that means all of it.

That's not the only fight we'd had where she made me understand that
she had all the power
. I learned not to challenge her, not to argue, not to expect any kind of voice in decisions that affected me. By the time I was sixteen, our lives were so separate there really wasn't anything much to fight over.

I just kept her off my case as much as I could and didn't stir things up. Made life easier for me.

I thought about this as Tack and I walked toward the bakery. And I thought about The Watcher and wondered, if he
was
my father, what my mom would say or do if she found out he was around.

I wasn't about to mention anything about it to her, that's for sure.

The last time I'd seen him I'd been four years old. I hadn't thought about that in a long time. Back then we were living in a basement apartment; I don't know what part of the city it was in. Lynn was in school and I went to daycare somewhere within walking distance of our place.

I can't say whether Mom was dropping me off or picking me up the day he showed up there. Either way, I know I never went back to that daycare, and we moved not long afterward. Mom said it wasn't safe.

I still remember how she screamed that day, and how I turned automatically to see what had frightened her like that.

He was standing across the street, just looking at me. His hand floated out, reaching — like he was offering something. An urge to run to him rose and drained away in a flash.

Then I was scared. Terrified in fact. Fear choked me, like it had wrapped itself around my throat. Mom started yelling then, and cascades of anger and hatred spilled with her words, which ended with, “The kids
hate
you, do you hear me! They
hate
you.”

Then her instruction to me, to tell him. Do it. Tell him
right now
.

“I hate you,” I'd said when I could get my voice to work. My face was wet. Everything had turned into freeze frames.

His hand went up, lit on his mouth for a second and then tilted forward. He blew a kiss at me. His face contorted. He turned away.

“If he ever comes near you,” my mother told me as she pushed me along the sidewalk, “if you
ever
see him
anywhere
, you run. Run as fast as you can.”

That was the theme of my childhood.

I thought it odd that The Watcher's presence, if indeed he was my father, didn't seem to frighten me.

Maybe that was because my memories were as thin and hazy as a cold grey dawn. Mom had filled in a lot of the blanks for me. Eventually, the things she'd told me almost seemed like memories. I used to think they were, except they lacked something, like a movie that was missing the background noises.

I'd stopped trying to work my memories to the surface a long time before. It didn't matter. Or, it hadn't.

Now, if he was back, if he was coming around, he might as well know things had changed. For one thing, I was no longer a scared little kid and I wasn't going to run.

I found myself looking for him even though it was probably way too early in the morning for him to be out following me. It was really starting to get to me, wondering what he wanted — why he'd shown up after all these years.