The Video Watcher (10 page)

“Oh, I can't believe that,” Kris said her eyes glued on Cam. “You are a very handsome young man. Women
must
adore you.”

“Your shot,” I said.

“I guess,” Cam said to Kris.

“Cam, your shot.”

We played one more game. Then I said I wasn't feeling well. I thought I was going to throw up. Cam started to leave, but Kris was angry; I was being rude, she said. She stood up to stop Cam from leaving, then stumbled and fell.

When Cameron and I helped her to her feet, she looked as if she were about to cry.

 

Cam had gone home, and I was taking off my boxers when Kris burst into the room.

“What—”

She wasn't wearing anything except blue panties. The outline of her maxi pad visible between her thighs.

“How do you turn this stupid thing off?” She twisted one dial of my stereo, then another.

“Here. Don't touch it,” I said, reaching for the volume.

“Don't shout.”

“I'm not.”

“Turn if
of
f
!”

“I am.”

“Don't shout at me—Is it of
f
?”

“What does it sound like?”

She slapped me.

 

“What the hell?” I said finally.

“Don't ever talk to me like that.”

“Why'd you hit me?”

She shoved a note pad in my face. The pad she was holding was one of the ones I'd doodled on: her face marred by two Frankenstein-like scars, a unicorn horn protruding from her forehead.

“Explain.”

My cheek still smarted from the slap.

“Yeah. Not very smart. I'm meeting a client tomorrow morning. Do you have any idea what
shit
would have happened if I hadn't looked at this before I put it in my case? If I got there and handed him one?”

I shrugged.

“I suppose you and your retard friend did this when you were drinking.”

“Cam?”

“No.”

“Damien? He's not retarded.”

“You're the retarded one. He's just nuts—And
thi
s
!
” She was holding up a crunched ball of paper. “This is the property assessment, and it looks like you blew your nose in it.”

I remembered that piece of paper.

“Real mature, Trace. Real fucking mature.”

 

2:04 A.M.

“So you've worked at Section 4?”

“I was a technician there.”

“What did you see when you were at Section 4? We've had other callers who worked at Section 4 and they reported that the government was holding aliens there.”

There was a burst of noise, like the caller had dropped the phone.

“Hello?” Alan Jacob said. “Are you still with us?”

“I can't talk any longer,” the caller said, panicking. “They'll triangulate my position any moment now.”

“Hold on. Hold on. Our listeners need to know this. Other people who worked at Section 4 said that these—these aliens—are not aliens.”

“They are not aliens as we think of as aliens,” gasped the caller. “They—oh my god!—they are not from outer space. They are from another dimension. They are spiritual entities.”

“And is it true they have now taken control of some high ranking members of the C.I.A. and—”

“Oh god! God! No.” A click.

“Hello. Caller, you still there?”

Pause.

“Okay—”

Pause.

“We've lost him
.
”

 

I didn't hear from Cam for another week. By the time he called that Friday night I'd already made plans to go drinking with Damien, though I hesitated telling Cam because he got weird when I hung out with Damien. Things had gotten worse with the Brazilian and he really wanted to do something. After he repeated this a fifth time, I told him what I was doing. When he didn't say anything, I suggested he join us, and to my surprise, he accepted.

 

A pale green sky spread high above the bridge's towers. My bangs flapped in the ocean breeze. “Tell me a story, Mr. Patterson,” Cam said as we dropped back down into the causeway. We were in his dad's new convertible and the top was down. “What's been going on?”

I'd had another run-in with Kris as I was leaving that night, and it disturbed me more than I'd realized.

“Come on! Tell me something.”

Headlights of the cars coming at us smeared into lines with the taillights ahead. I pictured a pair crossing the median. Imagined the sensations of the crash.

“
Tell
me something,” Cam shouted.

“Did you know about Trent Peaks?” I said, suddenly remembering gossip from one of Alex's party.

Cam shook his head.

“You didn't hear about him?”

“No.”

“He got that scholarship to SFU to play basketball,” I said, “you know that, right?”

Cam nodded.

“Well, he didn't go right away. His parents said that he could take the year off, relax a bit. So he went up to Whistler—the family I think owns some kind of chalet up there. And Trent goes up and, you know, just hangs around, snowboarding and stuff. And after about a month or so his parents get a call from this girl he's living with up there. And she says, he's doing
way
too many drugs and—”

But I had to stop. Cam was laughing too much; and I started to laugh, too.

When I thought I could continue I tried to finish the story, but had to wait another minute or so before the laughter subsided enough that I could speak: “And when his parents—
His Parents—
they
went to get him, he. He's—
totally
gone. They brought him home and. And he lay on the floor in his room all day, curled up. In a little ball and crying.”

After we stopped laughing, Cam and I were pretty much silent. I wondered how he and Damien were going to react to each other. In high school they were better friends with each other than either one had been with me. But near the end of Grade 12, there was a falling out. At first I thought this was because of the car accident; but later I suspected that the accident was an excuse, that the real reason Cam broke off his friendship with Damien was that he saw too much of himself in Damien and that, for him, Damien's time in the hospital was a premonition.

 

Damien sat alone in one of the booths at the bar, smoking a cigarette. A half-empty pitcher of brown ale stood in the centre of the table, next to an empty schooner, a pack of Dunhill, and the Zippo lighter.

Cam nodded in greeting and slid into the booth beside him.

The bar's house band was a CCR cover band, and we listened to the first two verses of “Bad Moon Rising” before Cam mentioned Mike Tyson “chomping” on Evander Holyfield's ear—he and Damien exploded in conversation. They cut each other off in mid-sentence and their eyes flashed with the same intensity they'd had in high school, a dark, relentless intensity that had frightened others. But side by side across the table, their faces becoming more animated and their voices rising in volume, it was obvious how much they'd changed. They were no longer the two guys who had slightly long hair, who wore black Metallica and G N' R t-shirts, who wore jean jackets with torn-off sleeves and Led Zeppelin written on the back in Jiffy markers. Damien had gained weight and sported a shaggy beard and his long hair was greasy. Cam, in contrast, was clean-shaven and neat and the new leather jacket he wore made him look like one of the guys he and Damien used to mock in high school for trying too hard to get women.

A waitress asked if anyone would like to order. She was in her early twenties, and had dyed black hair and a ring in her top lip. Cam said that he was fine. Damien and I agreed to share a pitcher of Okanagan Lager.

Damien and Cam resumed talking about Mike Tyson, how the guy was an animal and how he raped that woman; then talked about Guns N' Roses, Cam saying that they had cleaned up now and were back in the studio to record a new album, and Damien saying that he'd heard that Slash was still using.

And as they said these things I didn't try to join the conversation. I was content that they were finally talking.

I worked my way through the pitcher and glanced every now and then around the bar. In the corner there was a girl who looked a bit like Alex. Then I thought of Maria. Since the night in the car I hadn't spoken to her once. I'd called her house a number of times, but got either Fernando, who always said that she was out, or the family's answering machine:
“
The Janzens are in Europe. Call back in Septembe
r
.
”

The band took a break. To my ears numb from the ten-minute rendition of “Suzie Q,” the clanking of glasses and the loud, slurred voices seemed almost quiet.

But then “Livin La Vida Loca” exploded from the jukebox.

Cam, excited, told Damien that this was “the most fucking brilliant song ever written.”

Damien's response: “Fuckin' piece of shit.”

After that, Cam's mood changed. Morose, he slouched in the seat, stared at the table, almost glaring.

Damien ordered another pitcher.

Damien laughed.

After two or three minutes of tense silence, Cam stood up. He was going to leave, he announced. He suspected that the Brazilian was at the Avalon and asked if I was coming.

I looked at him. I picked up the coaster and tapped it on the table. I didn't want him to feel deserted. But I thought of my last time at the Avalon, and I didn't want to go back there.

“I'll stay,” I said.

He stalked off. By the door he almost ran over the waitress who cowered against the wall to avoid him.

“Wooo,” said Damien. He took a deep drag of his cigarette and exhaled, “That guy's
way
too intense.”

“Why?”

“You saw him.”

Damien set down his cigarette. He leaned on both hands and stared intensely at the table, like he was going to kill it.

I laughed.

Damien raised his cigarette and added, “You'd think he was going through a mid-life crisis or something. He's only, like, what? Twenty?”

When I stopped laughing I felt I should say something in Cam's defence. “I think he's having some problems with his girlfriend, or something.”

“No. Fucking. Shit. No woman's going to like that. Women want someone to make them relax, not freak them out.”

The girl who resembled Alex reached over the table. As she sat down, she pulled up the back of her jeans and slid the strap of her tank top up on her shoulder. Both gestures reminded me of Alex's, and the girl's short blond hair was identical.

“Is your aunt back yet?”

“From where?”

“From that trip she was on?”

“To the States?”

Damien nodded.

“She's back, but left again.”

“Where?”

“I don't know. Somewhere. Vancouver Island.”

The girl got out of her chair and was walking to­ward me.

“Why's she over there?”

“I don't know.” I said, looking back at Damien. “I guess some real estate deal, something. She—”

“Trace!”

It
was
Alex.

“Hi.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Um, not much. Just drinking.”

“Didn't you see me sitting over there?”

“Um. Yeah.”

She turned to Damien. “Hi. I'm Alex. I'm Trace's friend.” She held her hand out, but Damien only gave a shrug and filled his schooner with beer.

She turned back to me. “Why didn't you come over and say ‘Hi?'”

“I don't know. I wasn't sure it was you.”

“Are you serious?”

“You were with that guy.”

“Leroy? He's just a friend. He's got this band. They're really cool.”

I nodded, still feeling strange that she'd called me her friend. “How did you get in here?”

“With this—” She held out a laminated card. It was a driver's license that belonged to a blonde girl named Kirsten McCloy who looked nothing like Alex. “Diane got it for me. She got it from this woman at work. She said it was better to have my own I.D. than to trust, like, older guys who would get me drunk. Take advantage of me.”

“Like me?” Damien said, and tried to laugh.

Alex gave him a sarcastic grin. “Your friend's so negative,” she said, slapping me on the shoulder while still looking at Damien.