Before I Wake

by Robert J. Wiersema

  He waved the bartender over for me. “I’ll have a—” I tried to think of a they were likely to have. “—A Canadian. A bottle.”

  The bartender shook his axe-shaped head. “No bottles.”

  “You don’t have Canadian in bottles?”

  “No bottles at all. No glasses.” He gestured down the bar, and John lifted his plastic cup to me in a mock toast. “Safer. None of this.” The bartender pointed at his own face, where it looked like someone had tried to dig his eye out with a broken bottle, leaving a twisted, livid scar and a white orb in the socket.

  “All right. Just a pint of Canadian.”

  He pulled the beer and slid it to me. When I opened my wallet he glanced at John and shook his head at me, waving away my five-dollar bill.

  “So are you a regular?” I asked after the bartender turned away.

  John shrugged.

  I took a swallow of the weak beer. “So what’s up, John? Karen told me you came by the house.”

  “Yeah. I wanted to…” His gravelly voice was low, and I leaned toward him to hear. “I’m sorry I had to do that.”

  I shrugged. “I figured we’d hear from the police, after the story in the paper.”

  His voice dropped further. “I owe you a lot, Simon.” He stared down at the bar.

  “Don’t sweat it, John. I just did what anybody would have done.”

  He glanced up at me sharply, locking eyes. I wondered how long he’d been sitting at the bar. “Don’t say that. It’s not true. Because of you I’ve still got a job, I’ve got a pension, I’ve got my family.”

  I nodded, uncomfortable with his vehemence. “Sure. Okay.”

  “That’s why I wanted to be the one to go to your house. I thought maybe I could…I dunno. I thought I might be able to help. Take a bit of the heat.” He shook his head.

  “What’s going on, John?” I asked, steeling myself for his answer.

  “Charlie…you know Charlie, right?”

  I nodded. Charlie Hopkins was John’s partner.

  “Charlie’s got this girlfriend, works over at Monty’s sometimes. Dances on the circuit. He sees her when she’s in town. Sends her flowers. Nice girl. Clean. No drugs. She makes Charlie happy. Not the sort of girl you want your wife finding out about, though.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yeah. You know.”

  I did.

  “Anyway, so Charlie’s got this girl. And yesterday he comes in all twitchy. I ask him what’s up but he doesn’t say anything. Not at first. But Charlie, he knows a little something about what you did for me, so he pulls me aside and he tells me about this telephone call.”

  I could see where this was going. “Shit.”

  “Yeah. He got this phone call at home Sunday afternoon. His wife is sitting right there and this guy starts talking about Clarice, and how if Charlie didn’t want his wife to find out…Your name came up. Your little girl.”

  “Right.”

  John nodded, drained his glass and waved for another. “Thing is, I’m walkin’ around the station today after Charlie tells me this and nobody’s making eye contact. Everybody’s twitchy. And I start to think that maybe there were a lot of phone calls on Sunday afternoon. And then the story in the paper came up at the morning briefing. You’ve never seen a squadroom so quiet.”

  “What are you telling me, John?”

  “I’m telling you to be careful. I don’t know who you pissed off, but somebody’s got it in for you.”

  I had a fairly good idea. “Are we in danger?”

  “I dunno. I can’t get a read on it. All Charlie said was that the person who called him told him to be on the lookout for you and your family. And not in the serve and protect kind of way.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to take another drink. It was all I could do to hold down my dinner.

  Victoria New Sentinel

  Friday, December 13, 1996

  Waiting for a Miracle

  Religious seekers disturb neighborhood

  ~City Desk~

  More than a week after the New Sentinel first broke the story of miracles attributed to four-year-old Sherilyn Barrett—and despite conflicting reports concerning her ability to heal the sick—pilgrims continue to arrive daily at the comatose girl’s Fernwood home. The increased traffic is creating problems for the normally quiet neighborhood.

  “It’s like a circus over there,” says Cecil White, who lives next door to the Barretts. “The people waiting to see Sherry are fine,” says White, who calls himself a friend of the family. “It’s the ones on the sidewalk who are the problem.”

  The house has been besieged by demonstrators since early this week, protesting what they feel is a deception on the part of the Barretts.

  “I’ve called the police on them a couple of times,” says White. “They’re out there all night, singing and shouting. They call themselves good Christians, but good Christians would let an old man get a good night’s sleep.”

  SIMON

  I was guardedly optimistic as I walked toward the house and saw that the crowd of protestors was no longer blocking the gate. They were partway down the sidewalk—I didn’t have to fight my way through them. I didn’t even notice the graffiti until I was in the front yard.

  WHORE CHILD

  Scrawled on the front wall in black spray paint, bordered by a pair of crosses, the words screamed at me.

  SATAN

  A crowd of the pilgrims were gathered at the painted wall, talking in whispers, pointing up to where the vandal had sprayed the words across Sherry’s window and wall.

  I burst through the door and into the silence of the house.

  “Simon, what—” Karen came out of the kitchen as I slammed the door behind me and headed for Sherry’s bed.

  “Are you all right? Simon, what is it?”

  Nothing was changed from the day before. The light glowed beside the bed where Sherry lay, covers folded on her chest.

  I released a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding. “Sherry’s all right.”

  “Of course she is. I just checked on her,” Karen said. “Simon, what’s wrong?”

  I stepped around the bed and opened the blinds. Karen gasped as the morning light struggled vainly past the words WHORE CHILD and SATAN, the writing backward through the glass. Trails of paint trickled from the letters like black blood.

  “Oh my God.” One hand rose to her throat as she stepped toward the window. She knocked one of Sherry’s stones to the floor and bent to pick it up.

  “It must be Father Peter.” She set the stone back on the sill.

  “Or his crowd.” I looked out, expecting to see the skeletal priest looking back at me from the sidewalk. Instead, I met the eyes of several pilgrims. I tugged on the cord, lowering the blind.

  “I’m going to call the police,” Karen said, turning away from the window. “They can’t ignore vandalism, can they?”

  “Let me,” I offered. “I’ll talk to John.”

  I made the call from the kitchen, sitting at one end of the table.

  “Sergeant Richards,” I told the switchboard. He picked up after three rings.

  “Richards.”

  “It’s Simon Barrett.”

  The phone was silent in my hand.

  “Hello, Mr. Barrett.”

  “You’re there early.”

  There was another long silence. “I’m just coming in. Is there something I can help you with?” His voice was flat.

  “Is something wrong, John?” I knew, even before I asked.

  “Just busy, Mr. Barrett. Is there something I can help you with?” Mr. Barrett. As if he didn’t know me.

  “I’m sorry for disturbing you, sergeant. There’s been some vandalism at the house.”

  “I’ll transfer you to the reports desk.”

  “John—”

  “It’s Sergeant Richards, Mr. Barrett.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m transferring you now, Mr. Barrett.” He paused.

  “Some
body called you, didn’t they?”

  He answered in a whisper. “They know, Simon. They know everything.”

  “Who are ‘they’?”

  He ignored the question. “You and your family aren’t…I can’t help you. I can’t talk to you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Karen was staring at me, trying to make sense of my side of the conversation. “I think so.”

  “If a police cruiser stops in front of your house, Simon, they’re not there because you called them. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Do you want me to transfer you, Mr. Barrett?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The phone died in my hand.

  “That didn’t go well,” Karen said.

  “No, it didn’t.” I recounted John’s side of the conversation. “It’s the same thing that happened with Jamie at the newspaper, with my job and Stephen at the hospital. It’s Father Peter.”

  Karen was pale.

  “This is what he was talking about when we let him into the house that day. The ‘repercussions’ of our decision.” I shook my head; I still couldn’t believe I had let him in. “What else could it be?”

  “Right.”

  I started to rummage through the cupboard under the sink.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Looking for a bucket and some gloves.” I set a bottle of cleaner on the counter. “I thought I’d try to get some of the paint off.”

  She looked at me as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  The stranger was silent and still in the center of the crowd. The black letters on the white wall, covering the window, almost made him smile.

  It was crass and crude, but he couldn’t always control the details—and it served its purpose. Most times, all he had to do was put the spark to the tinder, fan the flames to life and let the wind take the fire where it would.

  Would it be enough? He thought it might be.

  Over time, the stranger had learned what worked: a steady escalation of pressure until spirits broke.

  In these days of little faith, a vague threat and a promise of money was usually enough, and the pretenders were never heard from again. Sometimes, where traces of belief still lingered, he had to go further. Without livelihood, and with their positions in the community under attack, most people found it easier to walk away, to abandon their delusions and fade into obscurity.

  It had been a very long time since he had been forced to call his soldiers to direct action. This pressure would be enough. This family had no faith, nothing to guide them. They were barely a family: why should they persevere?

  He allowed himself to smile as the front door opened and the husband emerged, his face a grim mask. The husband stared at the stranger as he closed the door behind him, rattling the handle to ensure it was locked.

  The stranger’s face broke into a smile as the husband began to scrub at the wall. Such fools, to think they could so easily clean the stain on their house, on their souls.

  RUTH

  Simon was hunched over the sink with the water running when I came into the kitchen. “Am I in your way?” he asked.

  “I can wait.”

  “It could be a while. I can’t get this paint off.” He squirted dish detergent into his palm, then scrubbed with a small brush.

  “It was still wet?”

  He shook his head, attacking his nails. “No, it’s these little flecks. They stick—” He threw the brush into the sink and rinsed his hands under the water. “Forget it. I’ll take care of it later.”

  “Did you get most of it off? Of the house, I mean.”

  He nodded. “I can’t believe people,” he said.

  “They’re just confused.”

  “They’re sheep. And that priest. Just standing there, staring.”

  I spoke softly, trying to calm him. “They’re doing what they’re told because they think it’s the right thing to do.”

  “I think I’ve heard that excuse a time or two. It always starts with a little paint.”

  “Sometimes it’s the truth.”

  He looked at me strangely. “What made you so forgiving?”

  “It’s not for me to judge.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head and leaning forward. “I mean,” his voice dropped. “When did it happen?”

  I tried to pretend that I didn’t know exactly what he was talking about. “What do you mean?”

  “You never used to cross yourself. And you’re wearing—” He gestured toward me. “I never noticed you wearing a crucifix before.”

  My hand rose to my throat.

  “You try to keep it covered, but I’ve seen it. When did this—”

  I cut him off. “When do you suppose?”

  “Right. But I didn’t know you were Catholic.”

  “I’m not. I mean, I wasn’t. I was baptized in the United Church. But there’s a bit more room for the miraculous—”

  “Not if you listen to our friend out there.” He gestured toward the front of the house.

  “That’s why I didn’t say anything. I know how Karen feels about the Church, and she’s told me about her mother, and with Father Peter…I don’t think that he and I pray to the same God.”

  Simon nodded as if he understood.

  “When I was a girl, growing up in Henderson, the church was the center of everything. It wasn’t a matter of belief, it was just there. Bake sales and swap meets. Weddings, wakes and funerals. Christenings. It was the community.”

  “When I came to Victoria, I didn’t feel connected to the church anymore. I had never really believed, so it wasn’t a matter of losing my faith. I just didn’t need that sort of enforced community. I was too busy building my own. But then…” I hadn’t spoken to anyone about the way things had changed for me since Sherry had healed me. “What happened with Sherry opened my eyes. When she healed my sister, it made me see that there’s more to the world than just all this. Things we don’t always understand.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a little girl in the other room who can heal the sick, who stays well herself, but can’t wake herself up. Why is that, do you think?”

  He shook his head.

  I smiled. “I don’t know either. I’m looking for the answers.”

  “I understand.” His voice was almost a whisper.

  “In the meantime, though, we should probably help some of those people find what they’ve come looking for.”

  KAREN

  By six o’clock I was alone. I ate, straightened the kitchen and washed the dishes. My bones ached. I was exhausted, but I knew that if I tried to go to bed early, I would just lie awake for hours.

  I mixed up a supplement and fed Sherry. Her lips were dry and I moistened them with water from the bottle by the bed, then gently dabbed them with balm. On my way back through the house I turned on any lights that weren’t already burning. No matter how bright the rooms were, it felt dark. I hit power on the stereo in the family room. I needed the sound, but I couldn’t decide who I wanted to listen to, so I left the radio playing. My clothes pinched and pulled, as if they—or my skin—suddenly weren’t my own.

  There was only one thing to do: I sat beside Sherry’s bed, took out my notebook and began to write.

  In the last week, I had almost filled a notebook.

  I would never show anyone most of what I wrote: rhythmic, rhyming poems almost like nursery rhymes, but threaded with a darker story; fairy tales, but set in the modern world; fables in which the morals were predominantly fatalistic, not uplifting.

  I was writing letters to myself, trying to make sense of everything that had happened since the accident. I had fought so long against the idea of miracles, of the divine, but now I wondered. I held my confusion up to the light, trying to allow myself to see in a different way.

  My writing seemed marked by the metronomic
regularity of my daughter’s breathing. In the distance, I could hear the faint conversation of the protestors on the sidewalk, but they were a world away. Between thoughts or paragraphs, or verses, I looked up at my girl, her lips parted in sleep.

  “How are you, baby?” I asked in a whisper, as if she might wake. “Do you want to hear what Mommy’s been working on?”

  I began to read. “When the spring came and the air filled with the scent of flowers, Mr. Squirrel took off his winter coat and ventured from his house, little knowing that today his life would change forever…”

  Hours later I awoke, slumped in the chair, pages clutched to my chest. Turning her carefully on her side, I slid under the covers with her, and slept until the morning light against the blinds woke me.

  Victoria New Sentinel

  Thursday, December 19, 1996

  Miracle Casualty

  Tempers flare at Fernwood home

  ~City Desk~

  Police and an ambulance were called to the home of four-year-old Sherry Barrett yesterday afternoon when a forty-five-year-old man, suffering from multiple sclerosis, was injured by protestors while attempting to see the little girl.

  Witnesses reported a struggle occurred when protestors tried to restrict the man’s entry to the Barrett property and the man was pushed to the sidewalk, suffering injuries to his head and back. His name was not released to the media, and the Barrett family could not be reached for comment.

  HENRY

  Even into the night there were people in front of the Barretts’ house, marching, holding their signs proudly, even though there was no one to see them.

  I stayed in the shadows, not knowing anymore who might be able to see me, not wanting to risk meeting Peter again. From the dark of the hedge I could watch both the house and people on the sidewalk.

  I caught sight of Mrs. Barrett every now and then, the outline of her against the blinds in the front room as she cared for Sherry. It felt a little strange, almost like I was a peeping Tom or something, but it wasn’t like that. Not at all.

  After midnight all the lights went out inside the house. The protestors set down their signs and sat in a circle on the concrete with candles in front of them, holding hands. Some of them slept in sleeping bags or under blankets, while others kept watch.