chapter four
The second time I saw The Watcher was the day I took the shoes to the bum. He was sitting there in “his” spot like an unsightly fixture, mumbling and fluttering his hands. It looked like he was trying to wave his arms around, but just didn’t have the energy for it.
I don’t know if there was any sense to what he was saying, but it’s not likely. If you’ve been around many street people you know what I mean. They tend to talk continuously and it doesn’t take long until you get to the point that you don’t bother trying to follow what they’re saying. Or trying to say.
Fact is, a lot of their talk is angry — kind of outraged and protesting. Most of them seem to be complaining about something. Only, no one is listening.
They don’t bother me, except for the arm grabbers. That’s one thing I just won’t put up with, someone grappling on to me. Last time a bag lady came up to me and took hold of my arm with her gnarled and dirty hand, I almost shoved her. It would have taken her off her feet and I wouldn’t have wanted that, but sometimes you react to things automatically.
As it was, I just stopped myself in time. I yanked away from her and walked off while she screeched that her niece had taken everything.
Maybe her niece had taken everything. Maybe she’d robbed her blind and turned her out into the street. Or, maybe she borrowed a punch bowl once and never brought it back. Or, maybe the old woman didn’t even have a niece. That’s the problem with stories from people on the street. You don’t know if they’re based on reality or if they’re tortured inventions creeping out of minds that have been twisted by some mental condition or too many binges.
The guy I took the shoes to that day was mumbling again, but this time it wasn’t about the war. I didn’t wait long to see whether or not he was connected to the real world at the moment. I just leaned down and told him I’d brought him shoes.
He kind of focused for a minute, looking at me like he was trying to puzzle out who I was and why I was talking to him. I held the shoes up where he could see them, said, “These are for you,” and put them in his lap.
He stared down at them uncomprehendingly at first and then, slowly, his face took on a look of understanding. His feeble hands trembled as they slid off his old shoes and pulled the new ones on. Suddenly, he began to smile and for a second he didn’t look quite so pathetic.
I found myself smiling, too, which made me feel foolish, so I walked away, down to the corner store for a bottle of Pepsi. Then I headed back home. That was when I saw The Watcher for the second time.
He was looking out the window of Suleiman’s, a restaurant on the corner where I turn onto my street. I thought at first that he was at a table, having a bite to eat or a cup of coffee or whatever. Only he wasn’t. He was just leaning down, peering out between the images of falafel and stuffed vine leaves that are painted on the window. He looked away quickly when he realized I’d spotted him.
I still might have dismissed it if nothing else had happened that day. I could have convinced myself that he’d been in there to order take-out or maybe to meet someone who hadn’t shown up yet. Any number of things could have made him look out the window. And if he just happened to look in my direction, well, so what?
Except that wasn’t the end of it. Later on, I was heading over to Tack’s place and there he was again! This time he was up ahead, pretending to be waiting for the streetcar. I saw him look at me and then act as if he was trying to see something behind me.
I picked up the pace a bit so I could get by and out of his sight, not because I was scared but because I didn’t like the idea of this guy up in my business. I shot him a penetrating look as I came up on him. That startled him and I almost stopped and said a few things to set him straight, but the streetcar was pulling up. He hesitated, but then he had no choice but to go ahead and get on it.
I saw him, plain as day, leaning over and looking straight at me as the streetcar pulled away. I stared right back at him, careful to keep my face blank. There was no way I wanted him to think he was getting to me.
Anyway, there’d be other opportunities to deal with him face-to-face. Whatever this guy’s game was, he wasn’t exactly the slickest player in town. It was possible that he’d been following me — watching me for longer than I knew. But since I’d caught him at it a couple of times in the past week alone, and now that I knew I was being watched, it would be almost impossible for him to do it without me seeing him.
I was thinking about this as I got close to Tack’s building. Then I heard someone behind me say my name.
“Yo! Porter!”
I spun around, startled. “Tack. I didn’t see you, man.”
“Maybe ’cause you look like you’re in a trance, dude. Like the hypnotist got you.”
I said nothing about The Watcher. I knew it was true, but I wasn’t sure I could convince Tack without more proof.
“I was just thinking about something,” I said vaguely. Then, to change subjects, I suggested we go to his place.
That brought a reaction I wasn’t quite expecting. He threw both hands up like he was surrendering and told me no way were we going there. Apparently, his mother was going to kill someone this time for sure, and he’d just ducked out before she could decide it should be him.
“Why?” I laughed, picturing his mother on one of her rampages. “What happened?”
“Oh, man … who knows?” he said. He looked away.
“Yeah, right.” I laughed. There was guilt written all over his face. “I’m betting you know. And I think whatever it is, you did it.”
Tack glanced behind him nervously, like someone might be listening.
“I don’t remember her sayin’ nothin’ about that last chunk of mudslide bein’ hers,” he muttered.
“You ate your mother’s piece of cake?” I took a step to the side. “Get away from me, man. I don’t want to get hit by the fallout.”
This wasn’t Tack’s first transgression in the food department. Not long ago he’d gotten into a pie his mother had made for some ladies’ meeting at her church. She’d hidden it, or so she thought, in a plastic container up in the back of the cupboard over the fridge. It was no match for Tack, who’d sniffed it out and helped himself to a generous slice. I’d had the misfortune of being there when she came home and discovered it had been plundered.
All things considered, I didn’t blame Tack for looking nervous now. His mother is a big woman (substantial, she says) and when she’s wound up — man, watch out! Seeing her stomp and wave her arms and listening to her rant is something I can’t quite describe. It’s comical and scary all at once, but I’ll tell you this much: you wouldn’t open your mouth to talk back when she’s in that kind of frenzy.
Tack told me once that when his mother gets going she puts him in mind of a southern preacher frothing and pacing onstage, shouting about vexation and damnation, except her messages are more for the here and now. According to Tack, the only reason she hasn’t yet threatened him with hellfire is because she doesn’t know where to get it.
I took pity on him and changed the subject.
By then we’d reached my place and were in the kitchen. Seemed that having his life endangered for eating forbidden food had given Tack an appetite. He asked right away if there was anything to snack on. I got some bread and peanut butter out, along with a couple of knives. We don’t bother with plates unless my mom is around to insist.
“Want jam?” I asked.
“Got any grape jelly?”
I looked. There was none. He settled for strawberry jam, and we put together a couple of sandwiches and flopped on the couch to eat them.
That was when my sister Lynn came storming through the door, bawling her eyes out.
chapter five
The sight of my sister sobbing alarmed me, but not because of any worry over what might be wrong with her. I’d seen her bawling enough times through the years that I’d become immune to it by then. My main concern was that she might waste a bunch of my
time with some stupid story about the latest fight between her and her boyfriend, Conor Sweeney.
The main thing to remember in that kind of situation is that you should act like you care without encouraging too much talk.
“It’ll be okay,” I said. You have to say something.
“N…n…no, it wo…wo…won’t,” she blubbered.
It takes experience to learn how to shut this kind of drama down as fast as possible. I had plenty of practice. The problem: Tack had none.
I saw him shift in his chair and turn to face her. I saw his mouth start to open — saw it like it was happening in slow motion. I knew he was going to say something and that whatever it was, it would be the wrong thing.
Sadly, I was powerless to stop him.
“What’s wrong, Lynn?”
A long, tortured NOOOOOOOOOO echoed in my head. Too late.
“I…I b…b…broke up with C...Con…or.” This brought on renewed hysterics.
(Every time they break up she claims she did the dumping, which is not even close to the truth.)
Tack blundered on.
“Aw, that’s too bad,” he told her. I silently willed him not to ask what happened, so of course the next words out of his mouth were “What went down?”
You’d almost wonder how a person could get to be Tack’s age without knowing better than that. Sure, he’s only got brothers, but he should have learned something from the girls he’s gone out with. From what I’ve seen, they all operate pretty much the same.
It took all of my willpower to keep from snorting or rolling my eyes or doing anything else to make what was coming worse.
“Conor,” Lynn said through her sobs and tears, “forgot the anniversary of our first kiss.”
Tack looked confused. Why wouldn’t he? He was probably thinking, That’s it? All this wailing and wet-eye is because the poor sap forgot a stupid date? Thankfully, he didn’t say anything like that out loud.
Lynn reached into her purse, brought out a package of Kleenex, tugged one out and blew her nose. Then she was ready to go on.
“I’m sure you can imagine how awful that made me feel, Tack. I was just devastated.”
Tack looked like a cornered animal. His eyes darted to the left and right, but there was no way out. He mumbled something that sounded like, “Rats tube hat.” I wasn’t sure if I’d misheard, or if he was too panicked to form a sentence.
“I knew that if Conor could forget something that important, our relationship was in serious trouble.” Lynn dabbed at her eyes with a fresh Kleenex. “To be honest, I should have seen this coming. I’ve felt us growing apart — women can sense these things. And we really hadn’t been working on our relationship the way we should have been.
“But the worst part is, it tells me Conor doesn’t really care. Not the way I do.”
“Aw, now, sure he does,” Tack said, because he didn’t know any better.
“He doesn’t” Lynn blubbered. “Don’t you see! If he cared, our anniversary would be just as important to him as it is to me. But it’s not, and he doesn’t and now I have to somehow find the strength to pick up the pieces and go on ... alone.”
Tack shot a pleading look my way. It was so forlorn that I nearly stepped in to help him, but then I realized I was kind of enjoying watching him squirm, so I let it go.
“You know what the worst part is?” Lynn asked. Apparently, she’d forgotten that she’d just covered that.
“Uh, what?” Tack said in a doomed voice.
Lynn turned her red, swollen eyes toward Tack like he was her only hope. “The worst part was that Conor didn’t even know what I was feeling!”
More sobs. More nose-honking into Kleenex. More wild-eyed looks from Tack.
“Didn’t you tell him?” Tack asked. Another rookie mistake.
Lynn looked incredulous. “Oh, that is so typical,” she said bitterly. “I shouldn’t have to tell my own boyfriend these things. I shouldn’t have to explain the difference between when I’m mad and when I’m sad. If our relationship was solid, he would know without being told.”
“Oh,” Tack said. I think he was catching on that the less he said, the better.
“I don’t know why I get so upset over these things,” she said, her shoulders convulsing. “I think it’s because I’m just too sensitive sometimes.”
“Nuthin’ wrong with that,” Tack assured her.
“Am I so terrible to want to have the kind of relationship where two people are so in sync with each other that they know each other’s thoughts and feelings without being told? Is that so wrong of me?”
“Course not,” Tack told her. His face told me he meant it. He didn’t think she was wrong — he thought she was nuts.
“But I’m to blame too,” Lynn said sorrowfully. “Maybe not as much as Conor — but in a way, what happened is my fault too.”
Tack stayed silent. I mentally gave him a gold star.
“Because I,” — sniff, sniff — “Well, I shouldn’t say the things I say. I say terrible things to Conor when I’m hurting, and I know that, even though he hurt me first, he didn’t mean to. I have to learn to let it go.”
“Well, you know, nobody can do right every minute,” Tack consoled. The error alarm in my head went off like mad. I mentally snatched the gold star back.
“So, you think I was wrong —” Lynn lifted her chin and looked right at Tack, looked at him like she was taking his measure, the way guys do to each other when they’re about to mess it up.
“No, no. Not like that, you know.”
“Come on, be honest. You think I messed up! You think it was wrong of me to get upset at Conor after he was just, like, totally insensitive to my feelings.”
Tack did what he should have done right from the beginning. He threw up his hands, shut his mouth, and backed off.
It didn’t take Lynn thirty seconds to see that she’d lost her opponent. As I knew she would, she whirled on me.
“What am I going to do?” she moaned, deflating from the bitter disappointment that the argument, that had seemed so promising, hadn’t materialized after all.
“It’ll be okay,” I said in a monotone. I was determined to shut her down as fast as I could. Maybe Tack would pick up a couple of pointers.
But Lynn had already moved on. She looked at me with her eyes all sad and pleading and said, “Do you think that maybe you could, you know, talk to him?”
It almost always came to this moment, and when it did, I’d refuse in such a way that Lynn knew there was no negotiating. I’d make it totally clear that nothing she could say or do would change my answer — I simply could not be swayed, pressured, or pestered into it. Except, I always was. No matter how determined I’d start out, she’d wear me down.
So, this time I thought, why not take a shortcut and just do it?
“No way,” I said. Because I still had to live with myself.
An hour or more later, after I’d given Conor a call and humiliated myself once again, after he’d sighed and told me to put her on the phone, after they’d talked and patched things up and she’d left, I turned to Tack.
“Man,” I said, embarrassed that he’d seen my sister make me do something against my will, “Look what you got me into!”
“Don’t be blamin’ me!” he said indignantly. “It ain’t my fault your sister’s crazy.”
And you know what — he was right. That wasn’t his fault.
chapter six
A few weeks later we were adjusting to school being out for the summer, and talking, as usual, about finding jobs. When we passed by The Singing Cane (the store where I’d bought the bong a few years back), Tack suggested we go in and see if Rodney might happen to be looking for someone to work. We’re always trying to make a few bucks, but in this case I think Tack really just wanted to check out what was new in there.
We went inside and looked around a bit while Rodney talked to a customer — a woman around my mother’s age. I heard her saying she wanted to buy something
unique for a friend’s housewarming.
“Something a bit daring,” she explained. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I was thinking Rastafarian.”
Rodney, complete with his “Jamaican” accent, humoured her as she giggled like she’d just said watcher something naughty. He led her to some overpriced stuff that was no more Rastafarian than I am. The display was made up of items they probably sell to tourists in Jamaica, the kind of things that look — but aren’t quite — representative of their actual culture.
The commercial stuff he stocks at The Singing Cane is cool but it’s missing the peaceful focus of the whole Rastafarian philosophy. You’d have to look hard at Rodney’s merchandise to find even so much as a hint of, you know, ‘One Love.’
Anyway, the lady bought a wooden carving — ebony with bright slashes of colour on it — the kind that hangs on the wall. She seemed happy with it and I figured that, along with a unique present for her friend, she’d probably have a pretty good story worked up about the store and the Jamaican guy who’d waited on her. I guess that gave her her money’s worth, one way or another.
“Hey, guys.” Rodney turned to us once she’d hit the sidewalk. “What’s goin’ on?”
“Just hangin,’ mon,” Tack said, hiding a smirk. We tried not to ride Rodney too hard about the act but it was impossible to resist a small jab once in a while.
We yakked for a bit and then I brought up the subject of jobs.
“I’m not making enough money to hire regular help yet,” he said, shaking his head. “Sales are okay, but there’s a lot going out, too. Operational costs, you know.”
We said sure, like we knew all about operational costs. Then Rodney mentioned that there was a place nearby where he thought they might be looking for help, and suggested we check it out.
Turned out he was talking about a bakery that was just a few doors down. It didn’t seem likely that they’d be all that interested in either of us, since we knew nothing about baking, but we went in anyway.
Behind the counter stood a girl who looked to be pretty close to our age, but I’d never noticed her around school. That was odd because she definitely wasn’t someone you’d miss. She was gorgeous, with dark hair and eyes and glowing skin. In my side vision, I saw Tack straighten up a bit — kind of push his shoulders back and tighten up his gut.
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