The Night Shift

As I was going up the stair

 I met a man who wasn’t there

He wasn’t there again today

I wish, I wish he’d stay away

(Unknown)

         There’s something terribly unnatural about being awake all night. Man is not a nocturnal animal. All this nonsense of night shifts only started because of the arrival of the industrial age and its demands for more and more production time. Greedy mill owners forcing an unwilling third of their work force to adapt their normal body rhythms so they could function during those ungodly hours. Since the invention of artificial light a race of pasty-faced mortals has evolved who willingly function and sometimes thrive during these dark hours. I am not one of these people.

          I wasn’t really serious about becoming a policeman and I sure as hell didn’t look forward to traipsing around the city all night, half asleep.

          My ancestors were people of the land as my Dad used to say” They worked from can’t see to can’t see”. Surely those are sufficient hours spent awake and busy.

         As strongly as I was opposed to working the night shift I knew that if I chose to continue pretending to be a policeman I would eventually be asked to drag my old metal lunch box into the station around midnight and stagger around the darkened city streets till eight the following morning.

         When I first signed on as a cadet and was working at a station in the suburbs I only worked in the daytime but that coddling ceased after I received some formal training at the Police College and was assigned to 52 Division in the heart of the city.

         I wasn’t thrust immediately out of the sunlight and into the depths of darkness; the change was gradual, first they assigned me work during the afternoon hoping I would be tricked into looking forward to the graveyard shift. They knew the most interesting and exciting times for a city policeman are the couple of hours immediately before and after midnight and that I would be finishing my evenings on a high and looking for more action.

         For some reason the population has reserved this pocket of time to concentrate their bad behavior. The bars are closing and the drunks are hitting the streets, couples have finally had enough of casual bickering and settled into some real knock down drag out domestic violence, robbers, muggers, break and enter men, and sexual offenders have slithered out of their daytime hideouts and the whole city is abuzz and frantic.

         The Department’s plan worked, all that excitement seduced me into thinking that I might actually enjoy the night shift. What I didn’t realize was that as quickly as the city ramps up its midnight fervor it also winds it down and with the exception of a few tense moments, just after that witching hour, most nights are spent in interminable groggy boredom. 

         For me the worst hours were the last hours from about five o’clock in the morning until eight. I fought sleep all night but even with the gallons of free coffee I consumed at the all night restaurants, during those final hours my body was ready to give up the fight.

         Near the end of my first midnight shift I was standing in front of a store on Young St. watching the city come to life. It was about seven in the morning and the streetcars and buses were spewing out hordes of fresh-faced people heading for their sensible day jobs. I stood semi comatose propped up against a plate glass window and not even the site of the mini skirted secretaries descending the trolley stairs was sufficient to arouse me from my stupor.

         Suddenly all resistance failed me and I actually fell dead asleep on my feet. Eyes closed, chin resting my chest I fell back and slid slowly down the store window until my ass struck the cement sill and I was immediately jolted to full consciousness. 

         My collapse had not gone unnoticed; as I struggled back to my feet and dusted myself off I was confronted by several concerned looking citizens clustered around me. One older looking man in a neat business suit asked if I was all right then leaned in close to my face while I replied. I think he thought he would smell booze on my breath but when he didn’t just walked away shaking his head. I didn’t know what to say to the rest of the people so I just smiled- straightened my hat and wandered away chanting fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck to myself.

         I know its telling tales out of school but I feel compelled to confess that shortly after that incident I was taken aside by a couple of older officers, who shall remain anonymous, and given some essential tips on how to survive the rigors of the night and emerge semi well rested. 

         If you were paired up in scout car you and your partner could take turns napping. If you were alone in a car there were several locations in the division that the Patrol Sergeants were unaware of, where you could snooze with impunity. This meant that you must still be aware of and responsive to the police radio while you slept but after a while this became second nature.          There were washrooms in certain office buildings that were open all night where a cop could catch a couple of winks if he was careful. The trick was to nap sitting with your back propped up against the inside of the entrance door so anybody trying to enter would bump you awake and you could leap to your feet and greet him as if nothing had happened.

         There were also certain residences in the area where understanding young ladies would stand guard while a hard working officer had a well deserved rest. This option, however, was reserved for a privileged few and the demands made in return for the hospitality given often left the recipient more tired when he left than when he arrived.

         At first I thought I would be able to soldier up and be immune to the temptation of snatching forty winks on the city’s time but that soon changed.    One night as I made my way along a back alley behind Spadina Ave. with only some dog sized Norwegian sewer rats for company Morpheus swooped down out of a hazy city sky, wrapped his fuzzy wings around me and sapped my last ounce of resistance. I was so tired I couldn’t move. Opening one eye a slit I noticed large flattened out refrigerator box lying near the center of the alley. It beckoned to me.

         A brand new king sized Certa Perfect Sleeper complete with puffy duvet and satin pillows would not have been more inviting. I couldn’t help it I staggered forward and collapsed on the cardboard, then assuming a fetal position and holding my gun holster protectively with one hand and clutching my hat with its shiny badge like a teddy bear with the other I drifted off to sleep.

         “And in that sleep of death what dreams shall come”?

         I was dreaming that I was a child again and sleeping peacefully in the loft of our little house on the prairie. Then suddenly my dream turned into a familiar nightmare- that old bogeyman that had plagued me since early childhood had me pinned in a corner of the room and was blowing his cadaverous breath in my face.  I woke, screaming, to discover that the foul odor was real but originating from the toothless mouth of grisly revolting bum who was bending over me checking to see if I was alive or dead. I suspect he was hoping for the later since as I awoke he quickly withdrew his hand from the vicinity of the pocket I kept my wallet in.

         We never spoke but before we parted company with the sun rising into a smoggy sky I tucked a two-dollar bill in his breast pocket, sort of hush money.

         Sometimes we were paired up with other cops when we patrolled in scout cars but when we walked the beat we were almost always alone. For some reason I wasn’t afraid of the real dangers that I encountered in those dark city streets. Maybe it was because I had grown up in the midst of the danger and turmoil of the inner city and for the most part knew how to deal with it. There was also the effect the police uniform had on me; it was in a sense my magic cloak and when I had it on I felt taller and stronger. I had my tense moments and on several occasions drew my gun in anger but for the most part I was relaxed and confident when doing my job.

         No it wasn’t the real tangible dangers that made me uneasy during those long lonely nights it was an embarrassing fear of a phantom who had been stalking me since I was a kid back in Saskatchewan. He only appeared when I was asleep or on the edge of sleep but during the midnight shift he had ample opportunity to plague me.  

         My sister Janis had scared the hell out of me with tales of the Bogeyman when I was at a very young age and even given him a temporary identity, our old neighbor from the next farm Mr. Pollychuck.

         We had moved countless times over the ensuing years and I would always arrive at our new home hoping that I had given the bogeyman the slip but eventually I would dream about him again and wake up screaming to find his shadow slipping out of my bedroom.

         I could never tell anyone about him it was too embarrassing. I would cover up by just saying I was having a nightmare.

         He continued to pay me occasional visits in my dreams well into my adulthood and continued to seem very real. It always took me several wide-awake minutes to clear my head and realize how ridiculous I was being.

         Once, when I was in my early twenties I woke up in a bed I shouldn’t have been sharing screaming and in a cold sweat. My companion was understandably startled and when she asked me what the matter was I saved face and covered up by saying” I thought I saw your husband coming into the room.”

         So there it was, one minute I was the bold man in blue facing down incredible dangers and the next when on the edge of sleep jumping at shadows as the bogeyman followed me on my rounds.

         Till now the only person I ever shared this problem with was my psychiatrist friend Graham Gower and when I poured my heart out to him over a jug of draft he confessed that he didn’t know of a cure but could indeed commiserate with me. He went on to explain he himself had a constantly resurfacing demon. His was a nasty witch he had acquired while complying with a mandatory requirement for him to take LSD before prescribing it to his patients. No it was my problem but I was determined not to let it defeat me.

         I purposely ventured into the darkest lanes and alcoves in open defiance of my nemesis ignoring the cold shivers going up and down my spine.

         There was one spot on a beat that I was often assigned to that always put my resolve to the supreme test. The stores and office buildings on the southwest corner of Young and St.Clair streets conceal the sprawling old St. Michaels Cemetery and it was part of my job to make sure that the rear entrances to those businesses were safe and secure. This meant that I would have to venture into the dark back lane that separated the businesses with their second story apartments from the graveyard.

         On the best of nights this was one eerie place to be in but on the night in question there was a full moon reflecting its light off the shiny tombstones and mausoleums and making it look like a set from a Boris Karloff movie.

         As I walked between the stores on my way to the rear lane and this creepy scene started to unfold before me my first instinct was to turn around, leave and fudge my memo book to look like I had been there.

         That would not have been right or honorable but more importantly it would have been letting the bogie man win so I took a deep breath and pressed on. 

         I rounded the corner and started testing door handles trying not to spend too much time looking at the graveyard. By the time I reached the far end of the block my teeth had stopped chattering, my knees were a little less wobbly and my unease was starting to drain away.  I turned around to head back down the alley and the full panorama of the graveyard swung into view. Suddenly I was frozen with fear.  As I watched in disbelief a white gossamer clad apparition appeared in the moonlight dancing from headstone to headstone trailing a long white veil behind her.

         It’s true that in moments of terror your hair does really stand on end and with the amount anxious energy that was flowing up through my follicles I’m surprised that that my hat didn’t fly off.  At first I was unable to move but then I heard a voice in the back of my head say “ Legs don’t fail me now” and they didn’t as I ran like a scolded cat down the lane and into the bright lights of Young St.

         As I stood catching my breath and trying to make sense of what had just happened I realized that I had only two choices. I could go back into that lane and face what ever waited for me like the man I professed to be or I could go back to the station turn in my badge and gun and hop a streetcar down to 999 Queen St. W. Toronto’s renowned mental institution.

         Just when I thought I had more or less come to terms with my bogey man this damned ghost had to turn up.

         Somehow I gathered the courage and firmly convinced that my life as I knew it was over I started the return journey towards the graveyard. I was hoping that it all had been my imagination maybe I had dosed off for a moment and my ghost was just another of my weird dreams.

         As I approached the spiked wrought iron fence that enclosed the graveyard my theory seemed to be holding true there was no one or no thing to be seen.  

         I had bravely forced myself to come that far so what the hell why not walk a short way into the graveyard to bolster my recovering self-esteem even further. Stepping more confidently now I made my way through the tombstones toward a huge marble monument that towered over the other memorials. As I reached its far side I saw something that made me gasp so violently that I almost swallowed my tongue.  There reposed on the base of the monument was my ghost. My head said run but my legs would not obey and I stood anchored to the ground.  I tried to close my eyes and blink her away but she remained and so close I could have reached out and touched her. She levitated to her feet and floated towards me with an out stretched arm mouthing something inaudible. My feet refused to move so I closed my eyes and arched my head and body backwards to avoid her deathly touch.

          It wasn’t the cold and clammy claw I anticipated instead I felt a soft warm hand caressing my arm and as I came out of my terror-induced coma I realized that I was confronting a real live woman and she was asking me if I was all right and seemed really concerned.

         After escorting me back to a rear door that led to her apartment above one of the stores and reviving me with a coffee laced with brandy she explained that she was an interpretative dancer and that she often practiced in the graveyard at night working on her routines. After a second brandy I thanked my ghostly Isadora Duncan for her hospitality and took my leave.

          I was feeling that something really important had happened to me. I had truly become a man and would finally be free of the childish nonsense that had plagued me for so long. I had exorcised my demons and could move on.

         Just then the breeze chased a cloud in front of the moon and a familiar shadow skirted down the lane in front of me.  My blood ran cold and I thought I heard his mocking laughter.