Free The Night Watchman by Richard Zimler Page A

though it had become nearly impossible to see. I hope that was part of what she meant. I hope it every day of my life.
    Dad must have also sensed that Ernie wasn’t like everyone else. And he had to have noticed that Ernie – even as a little kid – looked a lot like Mom and almost nothing like him.
    I know I disappointed my mother. That’s the hardest thing of all for me to admit.
    Anyway, on that Friday afternoon when the Spectre first wrote to me, I led Ernie down to our stream. He started to kick up a fuss because I hadn’t remembered to bring along any food. I diverted his attention by asking him to name the wildflowers all around us. At that time of year, our meadow was like a botanical garden, and all of those yellow, purple and scarlet blossoms seemed as eager as we were to warm up in the sun after our long winter. And to be recognized for who they were.
    Indian Paintbrush was Ernie’s favourite flower because it had tufted scarlet blossoms that seemed to tickle your fingers when you touched them. Mom once showed us how to dry flowers in between the pages of a book, and so we sometimes used to pick Paintbrush blossoms and slip them into the American College Dictionary that she bought me for my eighth birthday. She said that Ernie and I needed to learn English perfectly if we were going to be a success in America.
    She always predicted that Ernie would become a scientist. He had that sort of unstoppable, wide-eyed curiosity about simple things. I thought so too.
    After an hour of leading Ernie around, I wanted to sit down and rest, but he started to bawl every time I left him alone. It was like he was battery-operated, programmed to erupt into hot tears if I didn’t hold his hand.
    After the sun eased down over the edge of a faraway mountain, we spotted a wild turkey – a hen – nesting beneath a big scrub oak. Her chicks were all around her, and we listened to them making those scratchy, high-pitched fiddle sounds they made when they wanted to let their mother know just where they were.
    When we finally got home, I was so pooped I could hardly stand. It was just after nine p.m. Dad was passed out on the couch in our living room. He reeked of tequila and cigars, and he’d taken off his shirt and trousers, but was still in his underwear and Milwaukee Braves baseball cap. Bessie Smith was singing on our record player in that big scratchy voice of hers. It was an old seventy-eight with a purple label.
    I went to our parents’ room and told Mom that Ernie was starving. She and I tiptoed into the kitchen. She opened up a can of Heinz baked beans and heated the mixture on the range with a little bit of tomato paste and water. I stood Ernie on a chair, and while he and I watched the thick liquid bubble and hiss, I whispered to Mom about the turkey family we’d seen.
    Ernie and I gorged ourselves in our closet. He dug into our bowl with a soupspoon that made it only halfway to his mouth before spilling a good part of its beans on the towel I’d wrapped around his neck.
    Before bed, Mom said it was good we’d gone away in the afternoon because Dad had come home real angry, and so drunk that hardly could he keep his stability to make pee. That was when I became certain that the Spectre had given me good advice.
    Dad went out with his workmates and drank too much on the last Friday of every month; it was payday. I didn’t realize that when I was little. But the Spectre knew it. That’s how he was able to warn me not to be home that afternoon. He was cleverer than I was. Maybe because he was an adult.
    From then on, the Spectre used to write on my hand once a week or so, mostly warnings about when Dad was sure to be so drunk that he’d get a really bad hangover. Almost right away, the Spectre started taking Dad’s tests for me, too. He became much better at finding Ernie than I was. He saved my brother from getting badly hurt on a few occasions when I’d never have located him in time.
    That was how I came to