Watcher (2 page)

I had it all figured out — my escape. And I'd learned something that was going to make a difference for me. I'd learned that knowing what you needed to do and actually
doing
it were two entirely different things. Sounds like something any idiot could figure out, doesn't it? That's what I thought, too.

The truth is, I didn't exactly get off to the best start. I spent a few years goofing off from school quite a lot. Started out maybe a couple of times a month, but it soon got to be two or three times a week. Not for whole days (usually) but a period here, an afternoon there. You know how it is.

I had better things to do than listen to a bunch of teachers drone on about stuff that was never going to matter to me. So, Tack and I had gotten into a bit of a habit you might call it, ditching classes and getting high out behind the dumpsters in back of our apartment buildings. We'd wait for our mothers to leave so we could sneak inside, kick back, and crank up some tunes.

Didn't seem like any kind of a problem. We managed to keep our mothers off our cases by staying a step or two ahead of them. Having an answer ready was the most important thing. If you were prepared, you were spared. That's how it worked for us, anyhow.

The main thing that saved us was that we could squeak by without failing or anything, and things might have just kept on that way if it hadn't been for a bit of a situation we got ourselves into.

It was one of those things that you do because you're not exactly thinking clearly. Not that I'm making excuses, but if we'd been straight, it might not have happened. We weren't straight, it did happen, and we got caught.

It was stupid, start to finish. We stuffed some CDs under our shirts in a little music shop near where we lived, and walked out. The owner was working that day. He saw us, knew who we were, and reported it. The cops stopped us before we even made it home.

Court was next. Not so bad for Tack because he was a first offender (though he got more than his share of trouble at home). He got community service and had to write an apology to the storeowner.

I got it worse because it wasn't my first offence. Or second. I'd had a couple of minor problems before that and the judge told me I'd run out of chances to prove I could straighten up on my own.

For the record, I really
wasn't
a criminal. The “previous convictions” that the Crown Prosecutor kept referring to when he was trying to persuade the judge I was some kind of big menace to society, were just a couple of pranks that caused a bit of damage. A broken bedroom window, a dent on someone's car fender, totally minor stuff. But, all of a sudden (with this CD thing) I found myself a three-time offender.

My mother was in court with me. She moved like someone fragmented — from fury to tears and back, finally settling on a state that managed to include both. Any second I failed to look sufficiently miserable and sorry for my deeds brought a glare, a hiss, and a wordless message that I was bringing shame and hurt to her.

It was way worse than the sentence.

“One year of supervised probation.” It was a relief to hear this at last, after more than three hours of my mother's performance, and a long, harsh lecture from the judge that came out like a recitation.

I half expected him to wrap up with, “And may God have mercy on your soul.”

That wasn't the turning point, but it shoved me toward it.

Anyway, I seem to have gotten a bit off track. I started out telling you about the guy who was watching me.

chapter one

S
pring had just swept in, pushing out the winter with steady winds and the swollen kind of rain you only get at that time of year. The snow sizzled and shrank into itself. Huge white hills turned into withered, dirty mounds that finally disappeared, melting and joining the streams of water that pulsed along the streets.

I've always liked the spring. It's like the whole city is in a better mood then. Winter layers get peeled back — it's a kind of freedom.

This particular day, and I think it was a Saturday late in May but I'm not a hundred percent on that, I'd gotten up late. When I saw that it was drizzling outside I put on one of my mom's CDs. Her taste in music doesn't exactly agree with mine, but some of the stuff she has is okay. At least it's not what Tack's mom likes, which is old tunes so mournful and drawn out they'd have to cheer themselves up before you could call them the blues.

I had The Hip on, playing “Blow at High Dough” loud enough to feel it. It's a song you can't sit down to and I was on my feet moving across the living room floor like it was a stage. The second it ended I hit the repeat button on the remote, waited impatiently for the opening riffs to finish, and felt the pulse of the song rise up through me again.

“Well, I ain't no movie star,” I howled, joining Gordon Downie on the second spin, “but I can get behind anything. Yeah, I can get behind anything.”

That song always made me feel like I could. Get behind anything.

I became aware of Tack standing in the doorway about halfway through the second verse, which cut off my performance before the fans could get a full taste of my talent. I hit stop on the remote (which I might as well tell you had been doubling as a “microphone”) and faced him.

“
What
?” I demanded. His face was just barely keeping a smirk under control.

“You need a drive somewhere?” he asked. “Like a Canadian Idol audition, maybe?”

“Why, did you bring your Saab?”

He shook his head sadly. “Trunk's too small.”

“For what?”

“Not for your
talent
, that's for sure. But you can't be sittin' next to me like some kind of babe repellent.”

At least he didn't call me repugnant, I thought. The previous weekend he'd watched
Jackie Brown
for about the fifth time, and since then everything had been repugnant to him. (Tack's a big Tarantino fan. He's seen all of his movies so many times he knows half the lines.)

“The ladies get a look at a skinny white dude like yourself,” Tack went on, “you just
know
they got to find it repugnant.”

There it was.

We spent the next few minutes deciding what to do, or, more accurately, where to go. There was never actually anything much to
do
most of the places we hung out, unless we happened to have some cash, which wasn't often. Mainly, we just kicked around and talked about things we were
going
to do someday.

Sometimes, if we had a few bucks we'd take the subway — get off at some random station, walk around a bit, and then head home, or somewhere else. We'd seen some pretty weird things, and not all of them in bad neighbourhoods.

Once, a couple of blocks from the stop at Yonge and Rosedale, we saw an old woman standing in the middle of the street singing in a high, squeaky voice.

The weird and, well, sad part was that she was wearing a housecoat and nothing else. That wouldn't even have been so bad if she'd had it done up, but she didn't. With every wave of her arm it fluttered open a little, revealing a body so thin she looked like a skeleton with some loose skin flapping. I swear I didn't want to look but I couldn't help myself. It was horrifying and fascinating all at once.

What it
wasn't
was one bit funny, so it really got me going a minute later when some kids — I'd say they were between nine and twelve — came along and started laughing and shouting things that aren't worth repeating.

I was torn then, because I'd have liked to smash them all — just one good pop each — but they
were
just kids. And, anyway, before I could react, Tack stepped out. I was pretty surprised, and curious to see what he might do.

The kids saw him coming, saw the look on his face, and suddenly decided they had somewhere else to be. They took off whooping and shrieking but he wasn't heading for them.

He reached the old gal just a minute or two before a tired-looking woman hurried out of a nearby house and headed toward her. Tack got there first and said something real quiet to the old woman. Then he tugged the housecoat together and did up a couple of buttons so fast I don't think she even knew it had happened.

She started to yell — a hollow, haunting sound that went on and on. By then the woman, probably either her daughter or daughter-in-law, had reached her. She said something to Tack, then took hold of the old gal's arm and talked gently to her as she led her away.

Tack shrugged but he looked sort of wounded. When he'd rejoined me on the sidewalk, I asked him what she'd said.

“She said I should be ashamed of myself.”

“For
what
?” I was instantly enraged.

“Who knows, man? She don't know what went down. She just sees the old woman howlin' like a banshee, and I'm right there so she figures I done something wrong.”

It seemed as if he'd brushed it off — like a bug of some sort — but you can't always tell with Tack. Lots of things have to set with him for a bit. I knew that had happened when we'd walked in silence for a while and all of a sudden he asked, “Think she woulda said the same thing to
you
?”

I knew what he was really asking, but I just said, “Yeah, probably.”

A few more silent moments and then Tack asked, “Whaddya think was wrong with her? The old one?”

“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.