The Video Watcher

by Shawn Curtis Stibbards

  “The one I met earlier this summer.”

  “Damien?”

  “Not him,” she said grimacing. “Good-looking, tall.”

  “Cam?”

  “Was that his name?”

  When I said “Yes,” she nodded, as if in agreement with her own thoughts.

  I switched on the radio and tuned through the stations until I found one playing Blind Melon’s “Galaxie.” The station had static, and I got it as clear as possible before settling back in the seat.

  “Do we need that on?” Kris said after about a minute.

  I waited until the end of the chorus, then turned it off. I took my knapsack from the backseat and dug out my Discman. As I was putting the headphones on, I heard Kris say something about me having a lot of repressed anger that I needed to deal with. Spacehog’s first album was in the Discman and I turned the volume up loud and tried to focus on the chiming sound of the guitars, then the bass line.

  As had happened in previous years, Kris’s war with the hotel began almost as soon as we arrived. It was lunch time and the desk clerk informed Kris that our rooms would not be ready until four.

  “Four! What type of hotel has a four o’clock check in time?”

  The clerk, a short young woman with her hair tied tight in a bun and a hawk-like nose, responded by aggressively typing something on her computer. “Let me. Check one thing.”

  “I knew that couldn’t be right,” Kris said in a softened tone.

  “I’m sorry. We are busy this weekend and the room won’t be ready for at least another hour. But the concierge can store your luggage for you. And you are welcome to use any of our facilities.”

  “How can I use your facilities,” Kris said, “when I can’t even change into my bathing suit?”

  “There are change rooms at the pool.”

  “Great! I pay three hundred dollars, and then have to use public washrooms to change!” She turned to me. “I can see this is the last year we’ll be coming here,” she hissed loud enough for the desk clerk to hear. She turned back to the clerk and said, “I think I’m going to need to speak to the manager.”

  Twenty minutes later Kris and I followed a bellhop to rooms on the fifth floor of the West Tower, Kris again in a good mood.

  “These hotels,” Kris joked, “the stress they put you through just to check into your room, you need a vacation afterwards.”

  The bellhop let out a nervous laugh.

  Our rooms were next to each other on the poolside of the tower. I carried my knapsack into my room, and Kris disappeared into her room with the bellhop and her luggage. When the door swung shut, I was startled by the silence. I pulled open the drapes and the sliding door, and stepped out on the balcony. Down below, middle-aged bathers were already filling the adult hot pool. On the other side of the footbridge, children were frolicking in the Family Pool. Emily didn’t appear to be anywhere.

  When Kris knocked on the door I was lying on the bed. I blinked a couple of times and sat up.

  “Are you in there?” I heard her shout.

  I walked over to the door. “Coming,” I shouted.

  Kris had already changed from the slacks. She wore a purple long dress with black geometric patterns on it.

  “That was a nice bellhop,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “He’s going to UBC too.” She stared past me into the room. “Can I come in?”

  I stepped aside. She went into the washroom, flipped on the lights, studied the room, then flipped off the lights and went out into the main room.

  “Isn’t it the same as yours?”

  “Roughly,” she said still looking around.

  I waited for her to suggest that we switch rooms.

  “I guess it’s the same.” She looked back at me, then away. “Um,” she said as if trying to remember what she wanted to say. “Are you coming down to the lobby?”

  “Is Aunt Rebecca and Emily here yet?”

  “I don’t know. I expect they’ll wait for us in the lobby when they come. Are you coming down?”

  “In a bit. I just want to have a rest now.”

  I lay down on the bed again and thought about what I wanted to do. After fifteen minutes I couldn’t think of anything.

  Kris was sitting in the armchair beside the large flagstone fireplace, with Aunt Becky on the adjacent sofa. They leaned over the end table, talking. I sat on the hearth in front of them but neither one noticed me. An elderly woman was doing a crossword at the other end of the sofa, and next to her a girl in her early teens dressed like a Goth stared glumly at the carpet. Far down the lobby, a couple in bathrobes stopped to read something on the wall and the woman slid her hand into his back pocket.

  “Trace,” Aunt Becky said. “There you are!”

  “He has changed,” she said to Kris as she stood up to hug me. “How’s my nephew?”

  “Fine,” I said, feeling her small breasts push into me.

  “Jack would be proud,” she said and stepped back to look me over. “Em, aren’t you going to say hello to your cousin?”

  I glanced around. Becky was glaring at the girl in Goth wear. “You’ll have to excuse her, Trace. She’s in the too-cool-for-school phase.”

  The girl’s expression soured.

  “Come on. Get up. Give your cousin a hug.”

  The girl, after another second of resistance, threw herself to her feet, almost violently, and staggered forward. She reached with her right hand, her arms still pressed to her sides, her fingers limp. The hand in my hand felt like a dead person’s.

  The gray light over the top of the curtains made spike-shapes on the ceiling. I got up and went out on the balcony. The air out there was cold. Over the hill the sky was a pale blue and three bathers were out down below.

  Though I wanted to go straight into the hot water, I made myself swim first. A white towel was spread out on one of the lounge chairs, but no one was around. The water wasn’t as cold as I expected, and by the time I reached the shallow end only my face felt chilled. I pushed off the wall and did a crawl back toward the deep end, halfway down flipping on my back and gazing up at the morning sky, listening to the eerie muffled sound my kicks made, and when I stopped, what sounded like bubbles rising. The image of Paul Ramsey’s bloated corpse floating came into my head. I pushed it out with Jason Voorhees’. Kill her, Mommy! Kill her. Don’t let her get away. And laughed. I neared the wall and stuck out my hand and grabbed the edge. Beyond the fence a steep slope rose, covered in trees. The leaves had already begun to change. Fleetingly, the feeling of being here as a child returned—the enjoyable feeling of being frightened by the thought that the Sasquatch could come out of those trees in the night, come lurching across the lawn to the ground floor room my parents always had.

  I lingered on the edge long enough to catch my breath, then did a front crawl to the shallow end.

  It wasn’t until I had got out and was relaxing in the hot pool, my head rested on the stones as my legs floated on the surface, watching the swaths of steam rise and disappear in the morning air, that I realized I was actually enjoying the vacation. I hadn’t wanted to come here this year. But the change of scenes had been good. The trip with Cam in the car was a long ways away.

  I was still sitting there when I heard the approaching sound of female voices.

  “Okay—Emily, but what do you want me to do about it?”

  She and Aunt Becky appeared on the foot bridge.

  “Put the towel over there,” Becky said. She was wearing a yellow one piece, and I thought about the sensation of her breasts pressing against me.

  Emily tiptoed to a large rock by the edge of the pool. She set the towel down on it, and undid the belt of her bathrobe.

  “Aww,” Aunt Becky gasped, stretching and stepping down the stairs into the hot pool.

  “Good morning. Y
ou’re up bright and early.”

  I nodded.

  “I guess Kris isn’t up yet?”

  “No.”

  “Em, Trace is here.”

  Emily had gotten into the pool behind Becky. She was crouching low in the water.

  “You disappeared early last night,” Becky said to me.

  “I was tired from the drive.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t have Em here for a bed partner. She was up till one watching—What was that movie called?”

  Emily said something. She was standing behind Becky.

  “What was it—for heaven sakes, stop mumbling.”

  “Anyway,” Becky said turning back to me. “This movie was weird.”

  I nodded, trying not to look like I agreed or disagreed.

  Becky glided over to the far side of the pool and lay back in the water.

  Emily crouched in the middle of the pool, holding her arms tightly in front of her. She looked more normal than when I’d seen her the previous night. She didn’t have any make-up on, and she wore a navy two-piece bathing suit.

  “So was the movie good?” I said.

  She didn’t seem to hear me, and I said a bit louder, “Was the movie good?”

  Not looking at me, she frowned. “Not really,” she said. She went to the side and sat on the ledge. She kept both her arms crossed in front of her.

  “Just something to do?”

  She reached with her right hand and pulled up the cup of her bathing top and re-crossed her arms. She shrugged. “I guess.”

  At lunch Emily had put make-up on again, but it wasn’t as severe as it had been the day before; she looked less like Marilyn Manson and more like the Emily I remembered. For most of the meal Kris told Becky that the food prices were ridiculous. After we finished, I asked Emily if she wanted to see if they still had the pinball machine.

  I wasn’t sure if the shrug she gave me was a “yes” or a “no.” I stood up and put my napkin on the table. But as I pushed out my chair, Emily rose too.

  We remained silent as we went downstairs. I had to stop at the front desk to change a five dollar bill into quarters. As we waited for the concierge, Emily stared at the floor and stepped on the lace of her right shoe with her left shoe, and tried to pull it loose.

  Nothing had changed in the games room—the same ping-pong table in the middle of the room; the same shuffleboard markings on the floor by the far wall; even the fluorescent lighting tubes seemed burned out in the same places.

  The pinball machine was still to the right of the door, and I could tell immediately by the checker marking that it was still Williams’ “Diner.”

  My right pocket was lumpy with quarters, and I took one out.

  “Do you want to go first?”

  Emily looked glumly at the machine. “You go. I’ll just watch.”

  I dropped in a quarter and the machine came to life, the streamlined American-style diner illuminated on the back box, “Credit 1” flashing in digital writing near the bottom. I poked the button on the front and a steel ball popped into the ball lane.

  I rested my hands on the side of the machine and fluttered my fingers. “Sure you don’t want to go first?”

  She shook her head.

  I pulled back the plunger and let go. The ball shot up the lane and disappeared under some ramps at the top of the field, then reappeared, and rolled through a gate and hit the top bumper.

  “Order up!”

  “Do you remember how to play this?”

  The ball ricocheted between the three top bumpers, rolled out and sped down the field.

  “Could you please give to me a Hot Dog and a Root Beer.”

  “Don’t you remember anything?”

  She only shrugged.

  One of the five customers pictured in the centre of the playing field lit up: a man, wearing a turban, called Haji.

  I let the flipper down, then fired. The ball hit the drop targets for both the chilli and the hamburger.

  “I think I’m supposed to knock all these down.”

  “What’s the point?” she asked, as I dropped the target for the hot dog.

  “Of this game?”

  “Anything—what’s the point?”

  I tried for the iced tea, but missed.

  I lost that game. I played another. I played two more without either one of us speaking.

  “I know whatever I tell you, you’re going to tell her.”

  “Who?” The ball rolled between my flippers.

  No response.

  “Your mother?”

  A nod.

  The ball shot into a ball lane.

  “I barely know her,” I said. I slapped the plunger. As the ball bounced back and forth at the top of the field I remembered that I was supposed to light all three entrance gates. The ball settled in the left one and I used the flipper buttons to take the light off that gate.

  “Okay,” she said, making it sound like a threat.

  The ball rolled into the first bumper.

  “Then don’t tell her what my friend and I are planning to do.”

  “What—what’s that?” I tried to sound calm.

  She laughed.

  The ball hit the flipper and rolled down it, half up the inner lane. I had the flipper raised and the ball came back down and went over to the left side.

  “I’ll have the Texas Chilli and Fries!”

  My finger crushed the button, holding the ball still.

  “Do you mean like—” Her manner was freaking me out. It reminded me of Cam’s at the beach.

  “Hurry up, partner!”

  “Nevermind.”

  “Have you, have you talked to someone?”

  “You sound like her!”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  Order up!

  I’d like an Iced Tea and a Frankfurter.

  “Like some pervert sucking on me is going to help me?!”

  My finger slipped. The ball dropped off the flipper and disappeared into the dead ball slot.

  Andale! Andale!

  Emily had turned and walked out.

  I stood standing at the machine. “Game Over,” flashed on the back box.

  I walked into the hallway. I looked back and forth. It was silent except for the churning of the ice maker.

  Only the top of the hill now had sunlight, the rest of it in shade. High voices of children and the murmur of people came up from below. I picked up the hotel glass at the side of the chair and finished the watery dregs of a gin and tonic. The 375ml of Gordon’s, which I’d bought after finishing pinball, was now almost empty.

  Give it time.

  Someone knocked. I hesitated, not knowing if it was someone else’s door or my own. Kris shouted.

  “Coming,” I shouted back.

  Standing, suddenly realizing how wasted I was, I giggled.

  “Ba, ba, ba, Can’t You Hear Me Knocking…” I staggered inside and through the room. At the door I turned the handle and pulled—the chain was on. “Wait a second.” I reclosed the door and slid the chain off, amused that I couldn’t remember putting it in place.

  Kris came in the room. “They’re gone.”

  “What?”

  “They’re gone.” She started to pace.

  I closed the door and locked it.

  “Where?”

  “Home. I don’t know. Back to Kelowna.”

  The room wobbled. I lowered myself into the chair at the desk and slid down in it. Any good feeling had now gone.

  “Did Emily… Did something happen?”

  Kris threw up her hands.

  “They just said they were going home?”

  “They didn’t say anything.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I jus
t talked to the front desk. They checked out—have you been drinking?”

  “Uh…” I tried to remember where I put the Gordon’s bottle.

  “I guess we had some kind of fight.” Kris said still walking from one side of the room to the other.

  “Becky and you?”

  “She told me she’d found Emily taking some of her pills out of her cabinet. I said the girl looks a bit messed up—not exactly like that. I said something like… like she looks troubled. That’s the word I used, ‘troubled.’”

  “And?”

  “Aaand—then she suddenly started going on about all this stuff from our childhood. How I thought I was better than other people. How Janet and I thought we were so special. How our parents favoured us. How she never got anything. How Janet and I wrecked everything. How she never had three divorces—”

  Kris continued to speak. I was glad that I wasn’t sober.

  When she finally stopped, she laughed and said, “Also—they think you’re gay.”

  I pretended to laugh.

  “Anyway,” she said standing, wiping her eyes. She let out a loud sigh.

  “Did she go to a psychiatrist?”

  Aunt Kris stared at me. “What?”

  “Did she go to a doctor?”

  “She told you, huh?” Kris said. “I guess the guy did something… inappropriate. They’re going somewhere else now.”

  “Anyway, nothing to do now I guess but enjoy our vacation,” she said. She smiled as if trying to keep tears out of her eyes. “I made reservations at The Copper Room for seven.

  “Okay,” I said.

  She blew her nose in the washroom and left.

  The next day I slept as long as possible. When I woke it was late morning. I put on my trunks and went to the pools. There weren’t many people in the large one. But it wasn’t the same as the previous morning. I didn’t have the clean empty feeling after I swam. After two laps, bumping into someone on one of the laps, I stayed in the deep end and watched the other guests.

  The sun was bright and the glare from the water made me squint. A boy of about nine or ten chased an older girl with a Super Soaker water pistol on the pool deck. She was eleven or twelve, and taller than the boy, and something about how she ran screaming reminded me of how Emily had been two years before.