The Video Watcher

by Shawn Curtis Stibbards

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Her son goes to Handsworth. Maybe you knew him—what was his name again?”

  “Andrew Bjornson,” said the woman. “But he’s quite a bit younger than you. He’s in Grade 9.”

  I shook my head.

  “Did you just get up?” Kris asked.

  I lied, saying that I did.

  “What were we talking about?” she said to the woman.

  “Maui. The US/Canadian exchange—”

  “Oh that’s right,” Kris said, becoming animated again. “I have a friend, Michael Daniels—you may have heard of him. He’s big in real estate in Vancouver. Anyway, he says there are luxuries and there are needs, and Maui is definitely a need.”

  The woman laughed.

  “He won’t stop going to Maui no matter how expensive, and he said—”

  When Kris turned to the side I looked at her right cheek behind the sunglasses. It was difficult to see because of the shading from the glasses, but neither the cheek nor the part around the eye appeared bruised. Nor did her forehead.

  “Do you realize that I could’ve bought that same condominium in ’73 for fifty thousand. And now it’s a million.”

  “Incredible,” the woman said.

  “Anyway, I’m getting a bit hot. Trace, do you mind getting my towel. It’s on that rock.”

  As I walked over to grab the towel I wondered if the previous night had happened.

  7

  3:17 A.M.

  “This is the antichrist”

  “This is the ANTIchrist?”

  “Yes.”

  “THE antichrist?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay…. Well, do you have a name—or does it say Mr. Antichrist on your mailbox?”

  “You have no idea—No Idea—what you are trifling with.”

  Silence.

  More silence.

  “Okay. Tell me—when did you realize you were the Antichrist?”

  “In grade four.”

  “You first realized you were the Antichrist in grade four?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did the realization come to you all at one moment? Or—”

  “It began with a series of thoughts.”

  “What were these ‘antichrist’ thoughts like?”

  “Let’s just say that I knew when things were going to happen. I had prescience.”

  It wasn’t till the third week of classes that I saw Sadie. She was sitting alone at a table in the SUB. Her hair, lighter than it had been in the summer, was almost a platinum blonde. She brushed it back, looked up, and waved me over.

  “Trace. You haven’t called me.”

  “I called.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. Sometime in August. Your mom said you were on Vancouver Island.”

  Sadie giggled and said, “You don’t know?”

  ‘What?”

  She laughed. “Here. Sit down.” She took the bag off the chair beside her. “Okay, I met this English guy, actually he’s Italian—I told you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Anyway, his name is Antonio. He moved back to England this summer and I wanted to visit him—“

  “In England?”

  “Yeah,” she said laughing. “But I told my parents I was going to visit a friend on Vancouver Island. And they actually believed me. They actually believed me!”

  She took an envelope of photographs from her handbag and went through them, telling me about her trip. When she came to the ones of her and Antonio together, she said, “These ones, they’re just for me,” and lay them face down on the table.

  I flipped through the remaining photos, the uncensored ones. Most showed Sadie with a young man together and were close-ups. A few had London landmarks in the background. Antonio was thin-boned and had sharp features, quite different from the beefcakes Sadie normally dated.

  I was about three quarters through the pile when Hugh and Anna appeared at our table.

  Sadie reintroduced me to them and invited them to join us.

  Hugh had on the same clothes he always had on, blue jeans, scarf and sports jacket, and Anna wore a blue and white French sailor’s top.

  Sadie showed Anna the pictures of her trip, and both women giggled when they came to the pictures that Sadie hadn’t allowed me to see.

  As they did this, I took furtive glances at Hugh and wondered if it really had been him in the Railway Club.

  Now, looking at him up close, I wasn’t sure.

  When they started talking about the oceanography course they were taking, I excused myself and went to the washroom.

  At the urinal, there were two posters at eye level.

  BE READY FOR TONIGHT

  NO MEANS NO

  The left one, a condom advertisement, showed a bob-haired girl in a silver cocktail dress dancing in a night club.

  Maybe means NO—said the other one—I don’t know means NO. Not now means NO. Later means NO. I have to use the washroom means NO. Not tonight means NO. I have a headache means NO. I’m not sure means NO. Wait means NO. I’m sorry means NO. Stop means NO. I’m sick means NO. Do you have condom means NO. It’s not a good time means NO. I’m tired means NO. I don’t feel like it means NO. Do we have to means NO… NO… NO… NO…

  The call came on the last day of September. For the week before the weather had been clear and warm, but that morning I’d awoken to find that the rain had returned. I remember I was lying on the futon in my apartment, listening to Radiohead’s The Bends when the phone rang. Since moving to the apartment I hadn’t got many phone calls, so it kind of startled me.

  When I answered I almost said, from force of habit, “Patterson Realty,” but stopped myself. “Hello.”

  “I’m looking for Trace Patterson. Does he live here?” said a male voice with an English accent.

  “Yeah. That’s me,” I said, suddenly tense.

  “Hello, Trace,” the man said, the tone of his voice familiar but solemn. “I don’t know if you remember me. This is Paul Burgess, Damien’s father.”

  “Oh. Hi, Mr. Burgess.” I said, unsure of why he was calling me, thinking he wanted to ask about Damien’s moods or the things he had said.

  But after a long pause, followed by a deep breath, Mr. Burgess said, “Well, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but there’s been an accident. Damien—he’s no longer with us.”

  For no more than a second I thought “not with us” meant “not here but somewhere,” that he had gone missing or had escaped from the hospital. But then I knew.

  There was even a longer silence before Mr. Burgess spoke again. “His mother and I aren’t sure what happened yet, but apparently there was an accident at the hospital—you knew he was there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Apparently he was in a fight with another patient. They’re still investigating the matter and, well, in any case, Damien’s funeral is next Tuesday in North Van and his mother and I would like you to attend.”

  He gave the time and the address and I told him that I would be there.

  After I got off the phone I just sat on the sofa for a long time. I don’t think I was crying. I was just sitting there.

  The phone call, I remember, came in late afternoon and I just remember the room becoming darker and darker.

  The days leading up to the funeral something strange occurred. Now that the worst had happened, my fears answered, the jittery feeling that had plagued me for the previous six months died. I would go to bed at eleven and sleep dreamlessly till eight. This contentment sometimes bothered me, but even my guilt or innocence no longer seemed to matter.

  The day of Damien’s funeral I awoke with a sense of purpose. The funeral was being held at a Catholic church and the night before I’d watched Scorsese’s Mean Streets, imagin
ing myself as Charlie and Damien as Johnny Boy. I even went so far as to wear one of my father’s suits from the late ’70s, with flared pant legs and wide lapels. You look like a pimp, I told myself, looking at my reflection in the hall mirror.

  The weather was clear, and as I drove through the downtown core, it was strange to look at the young women in bright skirts, the men in dark suits striding through the streets, the blue sky between the glass towers and trees still with their leaves—leaves that had been buds when I’d seen Damien in the hospital in the spring—and know that he was no longer a part of it.

  In North Van I took the highway to Lonsdale and went up Lonsdale to 24th street. I’d assumed that I could follow the street until I came to the address Damien’s father had given me. But after three blocks, East 24th stopped at a dead end in front of a ravine.

  I pulled the car to the curb, turned off the engine, and got out. This fat man, I remember, was mowing his lawn, and he stared at me as if he was going to say something, but then went back to mowing.

  “No Dumping. Violators will be prosecuted,” said the sign in front of the ravine.

  I walked up and leaned against the post. Beyond the trees the street began again—I could even see a red Ford parked on it.

  I pulled up phlegm from my throat and spat into the ravine. The mower behind me stalled; there was this eerie deadness in the air. I remember feeling then, stronger than I had ever felt before, an intense feeling of futility, that the city was against me. The rain, the canyons, the ocean, the trees, the mountains—all seemed there just to stop me. And I remember getting back into my car with the intention of giving up, going back to my apartment and phoning Mr. Burgess and leaving a message saying that I didn’t feel well.

  But just before I reached the highway Cocker’s version of “With a Little Help from My Friends” started on the radio. Jabbing the off button, I turned east, and took the Lynn Valley off ramp.

  After a few more minutes of searching, I found the church. It looked very different from how I’d imagined it. It was one story high and had a flat tar and gravel roof and looked more how I expected a Protestant church to look than a Catholic one. The parking lot was full, so I parked on the street. When I got to the top of the steps, I paused before the large wooden doors, afraid that everyone was going to stare at me when I entered. From inside came the muffled sound of singing. I pulled open the right door.

  Four people were standing at the end of the foyer by the entrance to the main part of the church and one of them, an older man with a neat grey moustache, glanced back at me. I’d had doubts about my intentions in coming to the funeral, but the nod he gave reassured me that I was supposed to be there.

  Over their heads I could see the altar and the priest. I walked toward the people in the foyer, but then stopped.

  The large grey thing—the casket—it was in the middle of the aisle. I moved so that the people standing in front of me blocked my view.

  “This past Sunday I celebrated another funeral,” the priest said. “It was the funeral of one of our parishioners, Ernie Edwards, Ernie Edwards was eighty-nine. That was a very different funeral.”

  The words continued and I focused on them. I imagined that this was an evangelist on the TV and that was all it was. I glanced down and quickly looked up—my feet had lined up with the edge of the tile. Paper slippers. That fag probably wants me dead.

  “—there, there was a feeling of completion, of accomplishment. But here?”

  I stared out over the people, wondering if I’d see Cam. I’d left a message on his answering machine, telling him to call me. When he hadn’t, I had left a subsequent message telling him that Damien was dead and giving him the time and the location of the funeral.

  Near the back was a young woman roughly my age. She wore a black dress and a grey cardigan. She had a large chin but was good-looking, and I wondered who she was and how she was connected with Damien.

  “—truly this is a case where it is hard to see God’s will.”

  Was she a cousin? A daughter of his parents’ friend? What did these people think about what had happened?

  The sermon part over, the service moved to the rituals. I remembered most of the words to the penitential rite.

  …sinned through my own fault… what I have done, and what I have failed to do…

  I followed the actions of the people around me, kneeling on the hard tile floor and making the sign of the cross, actions I remembered from my two years in Catholic school—they were almost instinctual. Then it was time for prayer.

  With my eyes closed, imagining someone was there, I spoke silently inside myself, up toward the darkness inside, and actually felt better.

  Afraid, I did it again… and again relief came. A pot had been boiling on the stove and someone had come and taken the lid off, the things ricocheting around in my head found somewhere to go.

  I was afraid to wear out this feeling, so after saying “Amen,” stopped.

  Following the service there was a reception in the gym across the courtyard. I made sure I left the church before they brought out the casket. No one was in the gym when I got there, and afraid that people would come in and see me standing alone, I disappeared into the washroom.

  I caught sight of myself in the mirror.

  My face contorted, went red, my throat tightened. I seemed to be choking—I watched the face in the mirror and saw that it was doing what it was supposed to be doing, and feeling how it was supposed to be feeling, and I felt something like a painful joy.

  I hit the lever of the towel dispenser beside the sink. I cranked down a length of brown paper towel and tore it off. I wiped the tears from my face, but another tear came. It jerked down my check and when it reached my lip, I stuck out my tongue and tasted the hot saltiness.

  I was still there, staring at my reflection, when the door swung open behind me.

  I ducked into the one toilet stall, and closed and locked the door. I stayed standing. It sounded as if two men had come in. I leaned my head against the wood and pressed my face against the cold, painted surface.

  “Very sad, very sad,” one said.

  The other man grunted. “I can’t believe they’re not cremating.”

  “Uh? Oh—I get your meaning.”

  “Apparently when they stopped her…”

  “Terrible,” the other man said, and coughed.

  That autumn, I saw Sadie only once more. It was the week before Halloween and I was in her area and I couldn’t resist the temptation to drop in.

  For most of the visit, I just sat on her bed while she took curlers out of her hair and watched Wheel of Fortune. At one point I asked her if she still prayed the prayer taped to the side of her night table. She said that she did. I began to explain that I’d begun to pray myself, but before I could explain why she asked me if I thought Vanna White’s breasts were real.

  Also during that visit, I told Sadie about Cam. I told her everything, except for the part where I accompanied him to the student’s homestay house.

  “Wow! Is he some kind of stalker?” she asked. She had her back to me and was cutting split ends out of her hair. “You’re friends with this guy? He sounds really psycho.”

  “No. I just know him. He’s just an acquaintance.”

  “My friend, Caroline—you know Caroline, right?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “Anyway, there was like this guy—look at this?” She showed me a split end.

  Wheel of Fortune had ended before she said, “What was I telling you?”

  “Caroline. A guy liked her—”

  “Oh yeah. This guy at work. He was obsessed with her. He was so crazy.”

  “What did he do?”

  “I don’t know. He just, you know, tried to talk to her and stuff. Anyway, finally she had to get this restraining order. And then the guy, he killed himself!”r />
  Just an acquaintance.

  The phrase still haunts me.

  The last time I saw him was in the Starbucks on Esplanade. It was sometime in November, about a month after Damien’s funeral—the whole summer before seemed like an hallucination.

  He didn’t say much at first. We sat by one of the windows and he stared out at the rain. Then he asked if I had ever considered visiting a prostitute.

  “Not really,” I answered.

  He nodded, then gazing back outside told me a story about this guy he had met in the police station. The guy visited women who advertized themselves in the back of The Georgia Straight. So far this man had visited two. Both were Asian and lived in apartments in East Van. When the guy had visited the first one, she’d stood behind the door until he was completely inside, then closed the door to reveal herself. She was a lot older than she had said on the phone, and her frilly nightgown was see-through, and both he and the woman were embarrassed. She’d tried to suck him hard enough to get the condom on, but finally gave up, saying she was sorry and gave him his money back. The second one—apparently—was better. She had a very lithe body (that was how the guy had described her) and he screwed her for forty minutes.

  Cam fell silent.

  I was suddenly again conscious of our surroundings.

  “…think I’m normally a patient person,” laughed the woman across from us. She was holding a baby on her lap. “But this was unreal. I finally had to…”

  “Oh yeah!” Cam said. “This guy, he said that the second one could barely speak English, but she pronounced the word ‘Fuck’ perfectly.”

  “I guess it’s an important word for her job,” I said, meaning the statement as kind of a joke, but Cam didn’t seem to catch it.

  “Also,” he said, “she ended up giving this guy most of his money back!”

  Looking down, I rotated the sleeve on my coffee cup.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I finally said.

  At first Cam did not seem to hear me. He peered out the window and tapped his fingers on the table. But when he looked back, a conspiratorial grin creased his lips.