The vicar vortex, p.13
The Vicar Vortex, page 13
Diligence? Ray frowned and looked at the floor for a few long moments. Vicar was talking silly. Ray hesitated, a little sick at heart. Finally, he spoke. “Tony, you know I have always been your friend …”
Vicar nodded yes.
“And we’ve done a lot of things t’gether, right?”
“Yup, lots of adventures!” Vicar was still hoping to spin the conversation into a happy one.
“So, I have to be honest. It’s not just me. It’s that the band is, is … ah, kinda useless. Nobody wants to hear that old shit anymore. It’s silly. An embarrassment.” He accentuated the word. “We never seem to get through a whole set of our ’riginals … We always end up covering ABBA or something cuz everyone is leaving. Remember when we wrote ‘Tails of Tropical Fish Tanks’? We spent weeks on it and never played it once. We ended up doing Hootie and the Blowfish because you said that there had to be ‘some reference to aquatic life’?” He used air quotes.
As Vicar sat there, feeling as if being pummelled, he still marvelled at Ray’s rare exhibition of a cohesive statement.
Ray swallowed audibly and continued, “I don’t know how else to say it, Tony. I don’t have to leave the band. It’s dead already.” To show respect for his old friend, he found the jam to cough up the truth; he had never been so concise. “We weren’t getting standing O’s for being awesome. Everybody thinks it’s comedy, brother.”
Vicar sat in shock, knowing in one lightning bolt that Ray and Farley had been bit-part players: the band had always been him, the entire idea was about him, from him, made up out of whole cloth by him. If it was outmoded, or laughable, or embarrassing, it meant that he was those things. He believed preciously that he was the music he played. If that was truly the case, then this was not good news at all.
Vicar turned red, his hands went numb, and a surge of shame washed over him. The truth stung like a Portuguese man o’ war. Ray is right. The whole thing is idiotic. How blind of him. How much of a fool had he been …? The chance of a big break — something he had always secretly hoped for — was less than getting hit by lightning while accepting a cheque for a giant lottery jackpot just before a meteorite from the Oort cloud missed you by an inch. He was nothing more than a laughingstock. All that footage and internet buzz were barely disguised ridicule, served with a sprinkling of sympathy. He had been in denial. Oh my God, I’m a singing juggler at Whoop-Up Days in striped pants.
Ray watched Vicar redden, saw his shaking hands. He hurriedly tried to reassure him. “Tony, don’t be mad. It’s just past its time.”
Vicar was far from “mad.” He’d been feeling it, too, but admitting it to himself was akin to falling on the knife-like shards of a smashed mirror, watching himself get speared from a multitude of fractured angles as the glass penetrated his flesh and then his soul. He saw the regret on Ray’s face, realized how hard it had been for him to just come out and say it — just tell the truth once and for all, and in complete sentences, to boot.
Vicar shrivelled in mortification and waved his hands at Ray as if to say please stop. He stumbled out of his office and headed to the parking lot, leaving Ray there by himself, wondering what to do.
Vicar fell into his Peugeot, started the tired old motor and drove home, limp, defeated, humiliated, and deep in dark thought.
* * *
Ronnie was deep in thought, too. For a while now, she had ridden Cosmic Ray like a rodeo clown rides a bronco and had begun to feel as if their fun was done.
She could not imagine introducing him to her parents — she knew that Mom would take one look at his shirt and call him a ragamuffin; she could never bring him to one of her many equestrian events — he’d be stumbling around in Birkenstocks, reading horses’ auras, fellow ranchers dismissing him with a derisive snort. She couldn’t imagine taking him on a trip to some fancy locale where he might need to dress for dinner and use the correct fork. Good Lord, he might not even own socks. She had certainly never seen them on his feet to date.
He was liking her a bit too much, and she didn’t want to lead him on and then unnecessarily break his heart. He was sweet and his out-to-lunch pseudo-paranormal prattle had been entertaining at first — it had added an air of mystery to the whole thing that actually felt very similar to romance, but the kind you read about in a cheap paperback, not the kind that involves cohabitation, life insurance, and taking the trash to the road at five in the morning during a pelting rain. She chuckled. Now, if his astral travelling and flying saucers were real, she might rejig her thinking. She cackled at the mental image of a shirtless Cosmic Ray riding Pegasus, the winged horse, into the cargo hatch of a spaceship while her tight-assed mother, looking on from the distance, secretly got the vapours from his rock-hard abs.
* * *
Con-Con found Mrs. Morrison standing next to the Cenotaph, looking at her watch impatiently, as if she had expected every local copper to rush in, guns hot, over her nineteen-millionth complaint, this time possibly about superfluous slang overused by our modern youth.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Morrison. What seems to be the trouble?” Con-Con attempted to be as respectful as possible but found it difficult to sound convincing.
“There was a woman right here, hiding, with field glasses, spying on the lass pushing the stroller.” She pointed at the park bench.
“You mean binoculars, Mrs. Morrison? Are you certain she was ‘spying’? Perhaps she was watching birds or just looking around? Could be a tourist, don’t you think?”
“No, Constable,” Mrs. Morrison said firmly. “I saw her when I headed there” — she pointed at the fabric store — “and then when I exited, she was still spying on the lass and her bairn, but from behind the Cenotaph.” She walked the few steps toward it and touched it with her hand. “Her object of interest was most definitely the mother and child.”
Mrs. Morrison always seemed to speak as if she were reciting Arthur Conan Doyle, and Con-Con was sure she was picturing her in a bobby’s helmet. Cue the pea-soup fog.
She listened for a few moments, jotting notes in her little book to look as if she were dutiful. She had already chalked this up to Mrs. Morrison’s new personal best in paranoia and conspiracy.
Intending to lead her toward a more believable conclusion, Con-Con said, “I am trying to imagine why someone would do that …” She left it hanging, hoping to hear how nutty Mrs. Morrison’s theory would be.
“Heaven only knows. It just seemed such peculiar behaviour.”
There it was, Mrs. Morrison basically admitting that she was calling the police on someone who dared be “peculiar” in her presence. Con-Con tried not to smile as she remembered once having seen Margaret’s son, Arthur, in full drag, replete with a three-foot-high feather headpiece, at the raging party where she and Nancy had first met. That certainly would have been chalked up as peculiar.
“I’ll write up a report. Can you describe her?” An official report would mollify Mrs. Morrison and give her something to gossip about.
She described the woman she had seen in the most general and unhelpful way. There wasn’t a single distinguishing descriptor she could offer. “Brownish hair, medium height, medium build, nondescript clothes.”
“And the mother and daughter you say she was surveilling? Can you give me a description of them?”
“Why, yes. Better than that. I believe it was the lass who runs the Knickers Pub. Miss O’Neil, and her waif.”
Con-Con recoiled slightly at her judgmental choice of words, but then looked up from her notebook, her eyes suddenly sharp as she entertained a scary thought.
Twenty/ The Heads-Up
Debbie and Dawna, the Extra-Large Mediums, walked down the hallway of the Hotel Valentine toward infamous room 222, where Larry Kaminski, formerly of Saskatoon, had died of food poisoning some fifty years before, and was said to reside in the hotel as a paranormal vestige.
With Valentine’s help, Vicar and the children had walked safely through a wall of flames. This was the hearsay, but even Vicar himself could not refute it. He had been asked about it a thousand times, and he usually stayed silent, unable to fully believe what had transpired while knowing that it had.
With Vicar along to give them an introductory tour, he mentioned Kaminski’s birthplace and then stood back and listened as Debbie and Dawna tried to pronounce Saskatchewan. “Sass-katch-EEE-wahn.” Hilarious. It would have made a brilliant password in the Second World War. Not a Canuck. Open fire!
“So, this is where you first saw ‘Valentine’?”
“Umm, yeah. I saw something out of the corner of my eye in the closet over there.” He pointed at the newly renovated, modern closet and remembered how much of a junky old room it had been back then.
“Can you describe the scene?”
Vicar gave the Coles Notes version, making sure to mention the falling valet pole and the rattling coat hangers.
“Oh yeah, after I fled — I was out of there like a shot — I heard something growl at me. Menacing, really frightening. I was scared to go up there for the longest time.”
A tech crew was setting up cameras and kooky devices to measure telekinetic energy, like that was a thing, and some kind of horseshit laser-beam gewgaw to detect entities. Vicar was pretty sure they were going to detect one of the five ka-trillion bugs around Tyee Lagoon, always in search of someone’s carelessly mislaid lunch.
He watched with great curiosity, hoping they’d get something on camera so that he could be more confident that what he’d seen was repeatable, not just in his own head; something that could be an unimpeachable witness to the weirdness. Camera footage, he could believe.
The sisters wandered around the hotel, from room to room, down the hall, into the lobby. It was night, of course. No lighting in the building save handheld flashlights. Vicar was not going to be responsible for one of them plummeting down the stairs to her death in the pitch dark. He had been clear about that and even called the insurance company, uncomfortably aware that he wouldn’t have given a shit about liability a few years ago. Call the insurance company? Jesus, he was like a member of the Book Club now.
Vicar had opened up to this pair of TV celebrities with questionable qualifications and regretted it. His doubts increased as he watched them in action for a few minutes. The psychics would call out randomly, “Valentine, are you here? Can you hear us? Where are you, Valentine? Why are you hiding, why did you disappear … or did you cross over?”
Really? Vicar snorted. Which question was this poor ghost supposed to answer?
He had a thought. “Hey, you guys,” he interrupted. “What happens if you come across a ghost that doesn’t speak English?”
They paused, clearly annoyed, and both said, simultaneously, “All ghosts speak English.”
With that ludicrous response, Vicar felt sure that the whole schmeer was going to be utter hogwash. His mistrust about this pair, damned flim-flam artists, coalesced. Drily, he replied, “Ah, but of course.”
* * *
The next morning, Con-Con dropped by unexpectedly.
“I have no solid facts, Jacquie. When Mrs. Morrison told me, I went up to yellow alert. I just think you … uh, we, should be extra cautious. I know she’s free and out there somewhere. She is not at the last address we had. Could be anywhere. Keep everything locked at all times and call us immediately, even if you’re just hearing weird sounds in the night.” Con-Con stood in the doorway of Vicar and Jacquie’s Tudor house and shuffled on the well-worn tile as she delivered her warning.
At the mere mention of Serena’s name, Jacquie felt a punch to her gut that turned into a tightness in her shoulders and neck. Sleepless nights went hand in hand with that.
Vicar entered the house briskly, having seen the police cruiser in the driveway and assuming the worst. When Jacquie saw his worried face, she blurted out in emergency shorthand, “Serena … Here.”
Vicar’s mouth tightened and he turned to Con-Con. “In town? She’s here for sure?”
“No, not for certain, Tony.” Con-Con was informal with him — she had known him since she was a girl. “The description was vague, but the witness said the person was using binoculars to watch Jacquie and Frankie. Probably nothing, but I don’t see why we all shouldn’t use an abundance of caution until I can poke around a bit more.”
“Who saw her?” Vicar wanted to know how reliable the sighting had been.
Con-Con looked at the floor, slightly uncomfortable. “It was Mrs. Morrison.”
“… Ewww … You realize she asked Jacquie to book an ‘audience’ with me to help select the gender of her grandchild, right?” He thought back when Jacquie had told him about it; he had thought she was shitting him. But nope, it was legit. Margaret Morrison was a full-on wing nut.
“Umm, yeah. I heard.” Con-Con glanced at Jacquie, then moved on. “All the same, you’d better keep everything locked all the time.”
Unnecessary advice, as Vicar had learned that harsh lesson with the hotel arson.
“Don’t answer the door without knowing who’s on the other side. She could have weapons, or maybe even confederates. Keep your phone ready and charged. And …” She paused for effect. “If anyone manages to get in, just whang ’em with one of your guitars. If you have any left.” She gave them a lopsided grin.
Vicar looked down at the floor in shame. A few years ago, he’d have been proud of his Townshend-esque performance.
Twenty-One / Camera Shy
It was day two of filming for The Extra-Large Mediums of Littleton. The place was dull; psychically dead, they claimed.
“Suddenly I feel nothing, absolutely nada.” Dawna had her head in her hands, feeling a stomach ache coming on.
Debbie nodded. “I know. So strangely inactive.”
“Well, we might have to get creative. Otherwise, this is an awfully expensive sightseeing trip.”
The costs were stratospheric for a travelling television production with staff, rentals, equipment.
A plan developed involving microfilament string and a plastic drinking cup. They would conduct an interview with “Valentine” the ghost, while one of their crew knelt nearby, controlling the responses of the apparently animated cup. They’d had to resort to that technique a couple of times in the past. It wasn’t spectacular but it sorta worked and would get them over the hump. Quite a disappointment, given how much they had hoped for.
“Okay, are we rolling?”
“Rolling. Go ahead.”
The jury-rigged cup — a production cost-saver if there ever was one — miraculously moved thanks to the production assistant tugging on the monofilament thread wrapped around its base. It jumped and jiggled as the sisters attempted to set up a yes/no answering system. Oblivious, they abandoned the system as they veered ridiculously into questions such as “Where are you from,” or “How many years have you inhabited this hotel?” Even a haunted red Solo cup couldn’t answer that with a one-wiggle answer.
They went at it for probably an hour, which would be boiled down to a segment forty-five seconds long that would, strangely, elicit no outraged criticism from fans. Because why would it? A ghost inhabiting a plastic cup — one that could communicate with humans as phantasms hiding in cups are often wont to do — did not elicit further in-depth investigation. It was just how these things were done.
Vicar, downstairs, alone in his office, glum and jumpy about the suspected Serena sighting, had gotten wind of the cup schtick and couldn’t believe it.
A goddamn talking cup! Had he experienced such a bizarre thing, he’d have asked some pretty bloody detailed questions, dammit. But instead, the “psychics” dropped the questioning and wandered darkened hotel hallways — never, never with the perfectly functional lights on, cheap-ass flashlights probing the gloom. Their audience was curious, but only to a point, it seemed. After a time of aimless, chatty wandering pitch-black hallways, inevitably one of the sisters blurted, “Hey, a spectral entity just brushed against me.” On to the next set-up.
The psychic sisters had tried to keep Vicar in the dark about what they had filmed — he was being quite a bitch about “keeping it real,” as he called it. But it was awfully hard to keep a secret in the Hotel Valentine.
* * *
Debbie and Dawna leaned against the wall, snacking on massive muffins that were nothing more than thickly iced breakfast cake, and listened to Vicar’s grievances.
Vicar complained, “I never said you could film magic-show illusions in here. I am trying to find out if there is truly something to this phenomenon or if I’m out of my damned mind.”
“We sympathize, Tony, but you know these shows cost us a lot of money and we simply can’t afford to go fishing in a dry hole. If there’s nothing real, we have to go to Plan B … Sorry.” Dawna, tired and suffering from a raging bout of indigestion, looked at him with some sympathy, but the sisters did not back down at all.
“I don’t want you to continue. Please stop this charade. It’s total garbage. It is so fake that no one could possibly believe it.” He punctuated his statements with the back of his hand slapping the other open palm.
“Believe it or not. It’s entertainment first, documentary second. Maybe third.” The sisters were matter of fact.
Vicar glared at them, frustrated, aware now that he had gotten himself into another situation that could have been easily avoided. “I can’t believe you’d descend to this level.”
Neither of them bit at his remonstration. “Tony … You signed a contract with us. You gave up all rights to determine the tone and direction of the story. And your non-disclosure agreement prohibits talking about any of this. It’s our tale now, and you can either honour our agreement or get lawyers involved.”
Vicar immediately thought of tan-pantsed, golf-shirted Steven Leigh-gal trying to out-Aikido the big American TV network lawyers these two could muster, and blanched.
