Kidnapping Mark Dailey

10PM, THURSDAY AUGUST 24, 2000. THE GRANGE, CHINATOWN.

The only light on the street is coming from the street lamps. Clouds cover everything in the sky. She drives slowly down the narrow side street, clenching the steering wheel. She yawns. It has been a long and draining day, emotionally and physically. She has spent the better part of the afternoon-turned-evening at the wheel of the LiveEye. Her usually diligent posture slumps as she pulls up to yet another stop sign at yet another one-way-traffic-diverting street.

Her elaborately curled hair that, throughout the course of the day has become limper and limper, now falls repeatedly onto her face. She sighs. This, her first week back at work after maternity leave, has been strange and hectic, but the week is almost over. She rolls the driver’s side window down and a gust of wind blows her plain blonde hair across her eyes.

“Harold, can you see if there’s a hat or something around?” She says softly to the meteorologist sitting shotgun. He looks in the glove box and finds a CityTV hat. He hands it to her. “Thank you,” she says.

He looks out the window and it starts to rain. The rain covers the window he is looking out of, but he doesn’t turn away. He too is tired, tired of being in this truck, with this lady, and tired of looking. He prefers now to look at the stream of water flowing down the window, because it is as close to nothing as he can get without closing his eyes.

“I don’t think we’re going to find him this way, Jennifer.” He zips up his leather coat. The air conditioning is on to keep the windows from fogging up; that would give the wrong impression. Combined with the rain he feels chilly; even though it is late August, he feels the need to be cozy in his coat.

They drive along slowly. They look into windows that are lit from the inside and turn them into television stations in their own rights, and they look down alleys, and they look into parked cars and restaurants and shops and he is not anywhere. He is not anywhere. The rain comes down harder and she turns the wipers up.

“Harold, you need to have some faith.” She turns to him and puts her hand on his knee. “Mark is out here somewhere and he needs help.” They drive around the same area again and again. She thinks he is somewhere close by. So they scour the area. They will look in every nook and cranny this three-block radius has to offer. And they will find him, damnit. They will find him. She will find him.

They drive down Baldwin Street for perhaps the fifth time and she pulls up curbside and stops the car. Turns it right off and points across Harold’s chest and says: “There’s his car!” And so it is. Mark Dailey’s car parked, illegally, on this street in front of house number 116. Jennifer scrambles to unfasten her seatbelt and get out of the truck quickly, but her legs are stiff from driving for so long and it takes her longer than she wants. Nevertheless.

Mark Dailey’s car is a 1983 Pony. It’s beige in parts and rust in others. It is the proud recipient of two parking tickets within the last twelve-hour period. Truly remarkable.

“This must be where they’re holding him.” She whispers in a way that makes Harold think she is not talking to him, but when she turns and looks at him, her face not in total shock yet, he understands that she is and he asks her to repeat herself. “I think this is where they’re keeping Mark.” Not an ounce of impatience in her voice. Not even a hint of annoyance at his reluctance to pay attention.

They continue to stand there, peeking out from behind the truck, into the uppermost window of 116 Baldwin Street. Even though it’s raining hard, raining with no sign of letting up; raining in a way Harold could never have predicted, strangely blowing from the east, they continue to stand there, watching the window. But not seeing through it. Watching as though it will tell them what to do next.

“Do you think they hurt him?”

“Huh?” She can barely hear Harold over the rain and the traffic in the distance.

He moves closer to her, and now their arms touch and he leans over and says directly in her ear: “Do you think he’s hurt?”

She looks at the topmost window. There is a large shadow in the window and she thinks it must be him. The shadow is standing up, but with bad posture. Bent over at the shoulders a little bit, in a way that says the body is accustomed to always being too tall. It has to be him, she thinks. “No, I don’t think so.”

There are no other lights on in the house, and they both privately assume it must be a house full of different apartments, but the top light remains on the entire time. They are not completely sure the shadow is Mark Dailey, but they watch the window hoping for a sign of some sort, a sign that will tell them it is Mark, it is who they have been looking for all this time.

Jennifer is tired of waiting in the rain and she moves towards the house. Walks slowly up from the street, as though the house was an anxious child ready to dart away at any moment, up over the curb and across the sidewalk. She walks with her head bent against the wind. At the edge of the sidewalk, right where the lawn starts and the concrete ends, she sees a small paper bag with a stream of red liquid pouring out of it. Jennifer hesitates a moment before kicking it. Her attempt to dislodge the contents of this bag is successful. Onto the street comes a pile of red strawberry marshmallow candies, in a semi-liquefied state. Mark’s favorite.

She feels her heart flutter for a moment before calling Harold over. She knows for certain it must be Mark, that shadow in the window.

***

11PM AUGUST 24, 2000. 116 BALDWIN ST.

“Yo, yo, yo! Check it out, guys! They brought the paddy wagon!” Lyndon was doubled over on the front lawn with laughter. It was pissing down rain.

“Lyndon! Those dudes with the paddy wagon are taking us to jail. Jail, man. Prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” I put a cigarette in my mouth. “Dude.” I slapped him on the arm. “Fire?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it was actually a thing.” I looked over at Lyndon who was standing directly to my left. He was still looking at the paddy wagon. “Like, I thought it was just something they had on tv, I didn’t think it was really a thing! Check it out. Damn, that’s cool.” He looked at me. I pointed to the cigarette dangling from my lower lip, getting soggy and not smokeable in the rain. “Can ya help me out here, pal?”

He held out a book of matches. I tried to light my smoke, to no avail. “Where’s that lighter you stole from me the other day?”

“What lighter?” He wasn’t paying attention to me. “Hey, do you think Wendy’s shirt’ll be see through if she stands in the rain long enough?”

“Lyndon!” I slapped him on the back of the head. “Just shut up, man! Shut the fuck up! These people are taking us to jail!” I massaged my forehead, and tried to think of a good excuse for having kidnapped Mark Dailey.

***

10:10PM THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 2000. 116 BALDWIN ST.

“Harold!” She whispers urgently over her shoulder. She gestures with her hand for him to hurry up.

“Yes, Jennifer? What is it?” Again, they are shoulder to shoulder, and Jennifer points up to the shadow on the third floor window and they both watch as it paces back and forth. “You see how it slouches? It has to be Mark. What are the chances of someone else having such bad posture?” And the way she says it, makes Harold believe that no one else could possibly have made such a discovery.

Harold nods his head. He isn’t certain this shadow is in fact Mark Dailey, but he hopes it is, for Jennifer’s sake. She stares at the window intently, as though her life depends on it. How strange and beautiful, Harold thinks, the way she looks for him, her expression, isn’t that of a concerned friend, but more like a daughter looking for her father.

“How are we going to get in there?” She asks aloud to no one in particular. Another shadow appears in the room. It waves its hands around madly at Mark’s shadow. She can’t hear anything over the din of the rain and the traffic but she thinks it can’t be good. The second shadow forces Mark Dailey’s shadow out of the room, and off to somewhere else, towards the back of the house. Jennifer can no longer see him. And then it hits her.

“Harold!” She swings around quickly and catches Harold off guard. She grabs him by the shoulders. He is startled. He was deep in thought. Wondering why Jennifer is so interested in getting Mark back, what kind of relationship do they have? He thinks about what kind of relationship he would need to have with someone in order for him to be this diligent about searching for them. Certainly he is concerned for Mark, concerned for his safety and well being, and he doesn’t mind being out in the rain looking for him, but if it was up to Harold, he would have given up long ago. The only reason he decided to come was that Jennifer had asked him. He had always admired her, and the way she looked at him when she had asked, he knew he was her last resort, and so he’d said yes. “Get in the truck. I know how to do it!”

They both dash back over to the truck and get inside. Jennifer is driving. She steers the truck up and over the curb and stops it a foot away from the house.

“Surely they’ll notice we’re here.” Harold says as he looks at her. He notices the look of determination she has on her face. He thinks, ‘even if they brought out the National Guard right now it wouldn’t stop her. She is on a mission’.

She rolls down her window and looks up at the antenna. Normally this is what transmits her signal back to CityTV Headquarters for her live segments on Breakfast Television, but today it will help her to scale the outside of a three-storey building.

She makes sure the antenna is as close to the window as she can get it, but even then it’s still a good five feet away. “I’m going to climb up there. If they come out or something… if you see Mark… forget about me, just chase him, okay?” She pauses for a moment and watches his expression. Harold is confused, does not understand why he would have to chase people, and what, exactly, Jennifer thinks she can accomplish by climbing up the antenna pole.

Regardless of what Harold thinks, she climbs up the pole. Shimmies, really, in the rain, and she’s not very good at it so it takes her longer than she anticipates. But Jennifer is a trooper. She keeps at it. She is soaked completely and her clothes stick to her like plastic wrap, making it difficult for her to move. But she does, moves an arm and then a leg and eventually she gets to the top of the antenna. She looks around quickly, at the room, which is her goal, and at the house, and her gaze comes to rest on the widow’s walk that is between her and the room. She knows that for her plan to work, this is where she needs to be, this is where she will go inside. Jennifer takes a deep breath in, a deep calming breath of cool nighttime air. She exhales and it comes to her: the way to get across this gap is to winch herself across. This is how she figures it: if she can wrap the cord from her LiveEye mic around the railing, and if she can somehow tighten it enough to hold her weight, then she’ll have it.

It sounds like the rescue scene from a Batman movie, but still she doesn’t think it’s too crazy to work. She calls down to Harold: “When I throw this over the railing,” she is shaking the cord at him and he can barely see it in the dark, “you catch it and tie it to something sturdy, okay?” From down below she thought the gap was only five feet, but now, up here, she reconsiders her estimate: it must be at least ten feet. But the truck can go no closer to the house. Harold nods his head yes, she throws the cord, and miraculously the mic wraps around the top of the railing and falls through the small space at the bottom of the iron slats.

The mic falls down and barely misses Harold’s head. He picks it up and pulls it so the top bit is taught and it will feel secure for Jennifer. Then he crouches down in the muddy grass and ties the mic around the front wheel of the truck. He looks up. He sees Jennifer watching him, gives her the thumbs-up sign and she gives the cord a gentle tug.

She pauses before climbing across this makeshift bridge. She looks down, and it’s a fair ways down, and she thinks for a moment about her little baby at home and about how it is probably hungry, but she thinks too about Mark because he is probably hungrier than the baby. He has been gone for five days and she imagines the kidnappers probably haven’t fed him much, if anything. She realizes that the longer she waits and thinks about what she is about to do the less likely it is that she will follow through with her plan.

Jennifer reaches out and grabs the wire with one hand while still keeping the rest of her body wrapped around the antenna. She tests it out by allowing some of her weight to rest on the cable. She catches her breath as it gives way a bit and tenses up her other arm, to make sure that she doesn’t fall. She bites her lip and tries again, this time going fast, something between a lurch and a lunge, and she makes it. Grabs the edge of the iron widow’s walk and hoists herself upwards, she swings one leg over and then the other and then, she can barely believe it, she’s there. She looks down and motions for Harold to come up. She watches his lips move but can’t make out what he’s saying, he isn’t yelling for fear of giving their location away, and because he’s speaking so quietly she can’t hear him, but she assumes he is hesitant about climbing the antenna. The antenna which is meant only to broadcast a signal, not to rescue someone. They gesture back and forth for a few seconds and then Harold gives in and shimmies slowly up the pole. He thinks, I’m a fireman in reverse. She thinks, If this works we can truly say that television saves lives.

***

11.14PM AUGUST 24, 2000. 116 BALDWIN ST.

I look over and Wendy is still talking to these three cops. They’re surrounding her. “Hey Lyndon, can you see Wendy from here?” We had been handcuffed to the rear view mirror of the paddy wagon, without our third Musketeer, Wendy. “Can you see what they’re doing? Why are they still talking to her? Why is nobody talking to us?”

Lyndon was leaning on the hood of the paddy wagon for support. He was squinting in their direction. “Cuz we’re not pretty girls in light colored shirts in the rain.”

“Fucking assholes.” Another cigarette into my mouth. “You fucking assholes!” I screamed across the front window of the paddy wagon. I rested my chin against the windshield and watched, helplessly, as the cops kept hassling Wendy.

“I told you, we didn’t…He wouldn’t…” She was crying.

“Leave her alone y’jackass! Can’t you see she’s had enough! Jesus.” I slammed my hand on the windshield. The cops looked in my direction. I slammed the windshield again.

“Calm down!” One shouted at me. “Or what? Hey cop man, you wanna go? Huh? You wanna go?” I was leaning as far towards him as I could. No way was I going to let them treat Wendy like that.

“James, man, give it up!” Lyndon grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me a bit. “You’re just making the piggly wiggly angry.” He has this way of making his voice sound like a six-year-old girl. The cops heard him and they grabbed Wendy and dragged her behind them as they came towards Lyndon and me. The one who had been yelling at us to shut up took his billy stick out of its holster. “Shit.” I cussed under my breath.

“Little boy, would you like the opportunity to retract that last statement?” Lyndon’s face all of a sudden was very white. The cop came over to us, and stood so close that we could smell his after-shave. He unlocked our handcuffs and growled, “Get into the van, you dumb little shits.” As he was pronouncing the last syllable we were climbing into the paddy wagon. They shoved poor sad wet Wendy in behind us. Then they closed the door and left us in the dark.

I put my arm around Wendy and as I leaned my head against hers I looked out the back window of the van, and through the bars I saw Mark Dailey walk by.

***

6PM AUGUST 24, 2000. CITYTV NEWSROOM.

Anne Mroczkowski and Gord Martineau sit at a desk in the middle of the newsroom. They drink coffee. Gord adds whisky to his. His hands shake. He has done the late evening news for five days now, since Mark was taken. Anne is here for support. Anne is here in case he can’t do it. Her hands are steady.

“Gordie,” she says as she puts her hand on his arm, “I’ve heard a rumor.” She speaks in her normal tone, but as with anything that is important, that you want to keep between friends, the minute she says it, the rest of the room falls silent, and for a moment she feels she is the only one speaking. She looks down and is quiet for a moment, in hopes that everyone else will go back to what they are doing. They are sitting in the middle of the room.

They feel as though they are in a fishbowl and this makes them uncomfortable. Even though, for years now, they have been a constant fixture in the homes of millions of people, the attention they are receiving right now, in lieu of what has happened to Mark, makes them oh so uncomfortable. Gord picks at his cuticles. He clears his throat. The silence becomes awkward. Anne moves her stool closer. She whispers into his ear, “I heard it was a Ryerson student.” He gives her a baffled look. She gently brushes the hair out of her eyes. “I heard it was a recent graduate of Ryerson’s journalism program who…” She pauses, searching for a word other than kidnapped. She can’t bring herself to say it. If she says it, it will be admitting it’s true. This is foolishness, she thinks quickly to herself, I know what has happened, I have seen things like this before. “I heard someone say it was a recent graduate who wanted his job that kidnapped him. Who kidnapped Mark.” She breathes a sigh of relief. It’s not as though it wasn’t out there before, but now that she’s said it, she feels that somehow things will be better. She feels as though she has just got a big secret off her chest.

“But why haven’t we received a ransom yet?” Gord looks at her with a desperation in his face, and she thinks, ‘This is a man who needs to know the answers’, and she feels better about her desire to know what has happened to Mark. “If it was a kidnapping, is a kidnapping, then why haven’t we received a ransom? What if Dailey has just gone off again? Gone fishing for a week or something, up North. It’s not like he’s never done that before.” Gord chuckles a bit, and remembers the time about four years ago that Mark Dailey did just that, went fishing, got away from it all. Went off in search of fresh air with Bob. But that was before he had a wife, a wife who is probably sitting at home very very worried right now. ‘What’s her name?’ Gord thinks about that for a minute or two before he realizes Anne is still talking. He nods his head at whatever she says. It’s easier that way.

***

11.25PM AUGUST 24, 2000. 116 BALDWIN ST.

The police officers seemed like they were ready to go, but instead they came around the back of the van and opened up the doors. They shone their flashlights in on us. We shielded our eyes.

“We need to take your statement now.”

“I thought you said we were going to 52 Division to be registered.”

“Processed.” He corrected me. “52 Division has problems of their own right now, they don’t have time for three little punks.” The officer standing next to the one speaking to us took out his notebook. He cleared his throat and looked at me. For a couple of seconds we both just stood there, making eye contact. Then the other officer yelled at me to explain what had happened.

“On August 20, 2000 at a quarter past eleven in the eventide, myself James Clark,” I gestured towards myself, “along with Wendy Johnston” my hand on her leg, “and Lyndon Peterson,” thumb in his direction, “ran screaming through Grange Park, with balaclavas on our heads, armed only with duct tape. Ours was a peaceful mission, in so much as we would never hurt Mark Dailey—

“He’s like a superhero for us, y’know man?” Lyndon offered while he picked at the scab on his knee. “Like an action figure. We had t’have him.”

“Please ignore my ignorant associate gentlemen. Although, he is correct in that we did need to have him. Mark… That voice, that style, those glib comments, so off the cuff, so completely unrehearsed. But we were covetous—

“We were coveters.”

“Thanks Wendy. Stop helping.” I whispered angrily in her direction. I looked back at the officers. “I’ll say it again gentlemen, we needed to have him with us, in the house, so we could take care of him, so he could announce for us on a full-time basis. We were tired of sharing him with so many other people. The time had come, he was ours.” The three of us nodded in unison, in agreement.

Wendy took off her glasses, folded them up nicely and rested her hands on her lap. Such delicate hands, beautiful long fingers she has. “We felt he was trapped in the newsroom setting, and that if liberated by good Samaritans such as ourselves,” she motioned to me and Lyndon, “that he could really shine. What we really were hoping for was that, once given an opportunity such as this—

“As announcing full time.” Lyndon interjected.

“We felt that Mark would come out of his shell, and really grow. Blossom even. Perhaps he might go on to narrate educational films, or even instructional videos—

“Or maybe automatic phone menus, computers, the TTY operator—

“Lyndon, shut up, man. Look at them. They don’t give a shit what we thought he could have done once we had liberated him, freed him from the shackles that kept him trapped like a little lab rat!” I put another cigarette into my mouth. The in-charge officer took it out of my mouth before I’d even lit it and threw it on the ground.

“Okay, kids, it’s clear that none of you have made it out of high school, so I’m gonna explain what we need from you real simple-like, okay?”

“But I have a degr—”

I kicked Lyndon in the leg. They didn’t need to know we were over-educated kids from the suburbs. It might incite some kind of riot.

The nice officer glared at us and continued, “We just want to hear what you did, not why. Okay, just the facts. Just the facts.”

I muttered ‘ma’am’ under my breath and we were all howling. I thought I was going to piss my pants every time I looked at the cops. But they looked angry. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and I spoke directly to their boots.

“Right, what we did was pretty simple. We went screaming through the night, as I’ve mentioned, and we snatched him. When he was heading out to the parking lot, we were waiting for him and we jumped him—

“All three of us, hey? Like, he’s a big dude.”

“We slapped a strip of duct tape over his mouth and taped his wrists together, then we made him take us to his car.”

“And this is the really priceless part: his car was a piece of shit. Here we are thinking that he’ll have some nice SUV, or maybe a Volvo, and instead he’s got this 1983 Pony! Seriously man!” Lyndon is doubled over again. Wendy shakes her head and elbows him in the gut.

“We take his keys and we’re just about ready to go when Lyndon here points out that it’s a standard transmission and none of us can drive it. We were completely taken aback. We stood there in the parking lot for a minute or two and Mark is squirming around and there are people around and we’re getting more than a wee bit worried. So I say,” and she thumps her hand on her chest as though these lawmen are going to congratulate her on such a brilliant idea, “‘Mark will drive.’ And they all looked at me like I was nuts, but they got Mark into the car.” She looked at me so smugly, and just between us, if I wasn’t trying to get in with her I would’ve said something nasty.

“Then we duct taped him in real good: forehead to headrest, chest to seat, hand to gear shift.”

“In under five minutes too. Duct tape fucking experts we are.” Lyndon is such a braggart. I whispered to him: “Dude, they don’t think it’s cool that we fucking duct taped Mark Dailey!”

***

10.30PM, AUGUST 24, 2000. 116 BALDWIN ST.

The shadow in the top floor room they were chasing is gone now. It must have disappeared while we were climbing up here, thinks Jennifer. They assume that there is no one in the room. The window is open a little bit. Jennifer tries to push it open wide enough for them to each fit through. But it’s stuck, she can’t get it to budge at all, so Harold tries and he can’t get it either, but together, though it is a struggle, together they both manage to crank it all the way open.

And now it is the moment where any and all indecision becomes apparent. Once they go through this window that’s it, they will have crossed the last point of no return. Jennifer looks at the window and just as she is about to go through it, Harold takes her hand and squeezes it. He says nothing, just holds onto her hand for a moment. He wants to tell her he admires what she has done today, this evening, her devotion to a friend, but he doesn’t say anything, just squeezes her hand. And when he lets go and she steps through the open window. ‘It’s such a simple action’, Harold thinks to himself, ‘but to think that could be what saves Mark’. Harold too steps through the window and into the room they have been watching for the past half an hour.

The room is quiet and almost completely empty and not at all what either of them had pictured. It isn’t dirty, or mean looking, there is new-ish carpet on the floor and a big cactus plant by the door. Next to the cactus is a tv and it’s tuned into CityTV. Both of them stop for a moment and watch. Jennifer feels a chill run up her back. She feels that she is witnessing something she shouldn’t, something that is not meant for her. She shudders and turns to Harold.

He whispers to her, “Go and listen at the door. See if you can hear him.” Harold is unsure of what to do next. He has never been in a situation like this, never imagined that he ever would be. Although, he thinks, what could be done to prepare for it? If he is about to see Mark tied up and beaten, could anything really prepare him for it? He reminds himself of stories he has heard war veterans tell, that you never get over it, that it never seems ordinary. He pictures quickly and without warning his rose bush on top of the CityTV building. Such a delicate yellow.

Jennifer stands with her ear pressed up against the door. She hears people talking in another room. But Mark’s voice is not among them. Part of her wants to go back, and the longer she stands there the stronger that feeling gets. She feels unsafe and awkward, and though she knows this is completely reasonable in such a situation, it doesn’t comfort her any. She wonders what she thought she could accomplish by coming here. She can’t force the kidnappers to give Mark back. She can’t sneak him out. Jennifer slumps down onto the floor and starts to cry. “What am I doing?”

Harold sits on the floor next to her and puts his hand on her knee. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know why Jennifer came her or what she expected to do. But he also doesn’t know how he can get back outside and into the truck without using the front door, so he suggests they carry on. “Perhaps his captors have gone out for a moment, Jennifer.” He suggests. They stand up and she dries off her face a little. They agree to open the door on the count of three.

The opened door shows them into a larger main room, with a couch and another tv. And sitting on the couch are three kids. Harold calls them kids, but they are closer to Jennifer’s age and she calls them students. They must be students. And they are engrossed in the tv. They are watching CP24, which is currently airing a special on Mark Dailey’s abduction. They are shaking their heads as Gord Martineau repeats, endlessly, the facts of the case. They do not notice Jennifer and Harold.

Harold tilts his head ever so slightly. He hears someone talking, muttering almost. He looks at the kids but none of them are speaking. It must be Mark. Harold moves closer to the door at the end of the hallway. The door has a firm seal of duct tape around the frame and a towel wedged in underneath. He hears Mark talking. Harold smiles slightly in recognition of Mark being Mark.

All of them, Harold and Jennifer included, watch the tv. They are transfixed. They expect a videographer to happen by at any moment. One of the students, a boy, turns his head and catches sight of Harold. He screams. Then the other two turn quickly and see the intruders and scream too. The students fall onto the floor and hide their heads, expecting gun shots, or at least muzzles being pointed at their heads. And then, the girl peeks out from behind the couch and sees who it is. And she shrieks: “What are you doing here!”

And Jennifer replies: “We’ve come for Mark.” And then, for a while, it is quiet. They all think for a moment about how their lives will never be the same again. One of the boys is the first one to speak. He says: “Please, take him, we can’t stand him anymore.”

***

11.31PM AUGUST 24, 2000. 52 DIVISION.

“Yo, dude, I thought you said we weren’t coming here?” Lyndon sneers at the cop who is in charge of us while we wait for something to happen.

We are in what I assume is the non-smoking waiting room of the cop shop. We are handcuffed to each other and then Lyndon is handcuffed to a pole that is on his lefthand side. I think that we must look like a really ridiculous bike, all locked up in the foyer. The floor is green linoleum and there are no windows. There is one over worked under paid sort of cop at the desk, and there is coffee being burnt somewhere in the distance, and mixed with the coffee smell is the strange but distinct smell of urine.

“Where did you think you were going to go? Disneyland?” The cop sneers back. He stands up and walks to the far end of the room where there is a tv hanging from the ceiling like you see in hospital waiting rooms. He turns the tv on, and much to our delight selects CityTV Late Night News as his program of choice. Part of me hopes we are the top story, although I don’t think even CityTV can work that quickly.

The flashy intro music comes on, that completely rock and roll guitar whine, and Wendy puts on her glasses. We are staring at the tv as if it was Jesus himself come to broadcast the late night news. Our jaws drop simultaneously as Mark Dailey brings the mic up to his mouth. They are live from the yard in front of our apartment. They are live from 116 Baldwin Street and Mark Dailey is reporting on his own kidnapping, and I am thinking, and I am sure that Wendy and Lyndon are thinking too, that this must be the coolest thing ever. We have always felt that, and I feel confident saying this because it has been the subject of many discussions, Mark Dailey has been speaking directly to us, but now I am certain. He tilts his head slightly to his right, clears his throat and begins.

Published in the Queen Street Quarterly, Winter 2000.