The Guardians

'No kidding?'

'Sorry to mention it. It's just—'

'It's getting hard not to notice, I know. How's your dad doing?'

'He died four years ago.'

I nod. We both do. Then I make my way down the hal to where Randy waits for me by the exit.

Once we're outside he says, 'That was Hairy Barry Tate, wasn't it?'

'Certainly was.'

'What were you two talking about in there?'

'Hockey. He played for the Guardians too. A Kitchener guy broke his wrist.'

Randy shakes his fist skyward, raging at heaven in his not bad Charlton Heston voice. 'Damn those Kitchener guys. Damn them to hell'

Randy walks me back to Ben's, offers to hang around as I 'alphabetize his Archie and Jugheads or whatever you're doing up there.' I tel him there's little point in both of us being bored senseless.

'Any plans for tonight?' he asks. 'Sounds like you're pretty close to wrapping up. Could be our last evening in town to check out the culinary offerings.'

'I'm grabbing something with Sarah, actualy.'

Randy bugs his eyes out. 'Are we talking date?'

'She mentioned we might go to the Guardians game.'

'That's as close to 'Come up and see my etchings' as you get around here.'

'She's just being nice.'

'I could go for some of that kind of nice.'

Up in Ben's room, I tape up some of the boxes I've been tossing stuff into, marking them 'Books + Mags' and 'Hockey' and 'Misc.' I'm not sure if there's much point to even this basic sorting—what is Betty going to do with it once I'm gone, other than let it rot in the basement or drop it off at the Salvation Army to be piled into their Pay What You Can bin?—but it gives me the idea that I'm helping, bringing some kind of expertise to the job. A job I'm nearly done now. The closet empty, the clothes bagged, the room emptied of knick-knacks and clutter. Randy was right: there's no reason we can't be on the train out of here tomorrow.

I pick Ben's diary off the bed. I've already decided this wil be the only keepsake I wil take with me. Not because I feel any special warmth from the thing—the Ben who authored it wasn't the Ben I knew—but because it can't be left behind.

I sit in his chair by the window and I've just opened it up when a Grimshaw Police cruiser rounds Church Street and eases to a stop. My first instinct is to hide. I slide off Ben's chair to kneel on the floor, nose pressed to the sil so that I'm able to peer down at the street.

Barry Tate and his roly-poly partner step out of the car and stand on the sidewalk. For a time they stare up at the Thurman house with their hands on their hips, speaking to each other in words I can't make out, though their tone seems doubtful, as if wondering aloud if they have come to the right address.

Barry makes his way to the front door first, tries the handle and, finding it locked, starts around toward the rear, his partner folowing. After five minutes, they have yet to reappear.

I slip down and let my back rest against the wal. Open Ben's diary again. For another dozen pages there is his continued notation of wasted hours and days. Over time, it becomes so repetitious I play the game of scanning for the flavours of soups he heats for his lunches. A prisoner's menu of split peas, minestrones and chicken noodles.

Among the banal details, there are occasional episodes of Ben making sure that none entered the house. Shouting down at kids making bets over who had the guts to open the front door and place both feet over the threshold. Threatening to phone their parents, pretending he knew their names. Another entry told of a 'half-drunk girl' being led by her boyfriend around the side of the house at night. Ben rushed downstairs, ran across the street to the back door in time to haul the girl out of the kitchen, teling her she didn't know how bad a place it was, how much danger she was in just being there. She ran away crying, whereupon the boyfriend suckerpunched Ben in the mouth.

Sometimes, when older high-schoolers had slipped inside, Ben caled the cops. The diary would note how many trespassers were hustled out by the officers, who seemed to arrive later and later with each report Ben caled in; the police would have let the Thurman house go unmonitored were it not for the McAuliffe head case who was conducting a permanent stakeout on it. Not that Ben cared what they thought. His duty was to keep the empty house empty.

Then there's a longer entry. June 22, 2002. The date underlined in red ink.

Something today.

Just after noon the door handle turned. I have seen it rattle before. But this time it turned: a slow circle, like the person doing the turning was figuring out how it worked. Or didn't want to be seen doing it.

Then the door swung open. It was Heather.

Blinded by the daylight, terrified. Filthy. No clothes.

Then the door slammed shut again. Slammed. If anyone had been listening—anyone other than me—they would have heard the wood cracking the frame.

The click of the lock . . .