A ringing noise in his ears deafened him.
In a zombified state, he walked blindly, but with eyes wide opened, through the neighborhood.
Eventually, he made his way back to Pickley Hills Park, where he met up with Bruce again.
Nearly every day, Jack remembered the crackle sound the tobacco in his cigarette made, as he dragged on it. Anytime he heard anything like it, or saw smokers, he thought about his time in the hospice.
Even as he worked in the attic, he tried to forget those weeks with his father, but the images and conversations played themselves over and over again, in his mind.
It was late in the afternoon before he finally sat for a break.
He’d cleaned out most of the cobwebs, and swept up all the animal droppings.
So deep in the last memory of his father, Jack was that he jumped when Tatia walked in.
“Wow, this place is looking good!”
Jack had pushed all the boxes to the left side of the room. All the stuff he’d pulled out were in piles on the right.
In the lower corner on the floor, he’d piled old clothes. Just up from that were old raggedy toys, and, up from that, a couple of old jewelry boxes.
Immediately, Tatia walked over and lifted some of their lids and pulled out their tiny drawers.
She found a couple old rings and necklaces.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Looks costume to me, but some of them have the little stamps on them though. So they’re real gold, though it’s old. We just need to clean it up a bit. Toothpaste will do it: that’s what Maggie at school always says.”
“Who?”
“Just some stuck up rich girl.”
She walked over to the pile of toys. She picked up a doll with bright red hair. “Wow, some old ugly toys, but someone might want them.”
She stood up and walked to a large stack of 10 lb cans that said “Bully Beef.”
“What in the world are these?”
“I think they’re rations from the army.”
“Wow, 1949, it says. Well, I guess that means you didn’t find much. I hate to say it, but I don’t think these necklaces will fetch much. You know how pawn houses are.”
“Are you kidding?” he asked, looking at her like she was crazy. “These cans; this green helmet and clothes are vintage stuff. Someone will buy these. Trust me. Plus, I’ve still got another dozen boxes to go through.
We’ll sell what we can to the pawn shop. With the rest, we’ll take it to the swap meet on Saturday.”
“How are we gonna get these cans to the swap meet? They’re humungous.”
“I don’t know; I need to think about it.”
“Whoa!” said Bruce, who had just walked in. “I can’t believe all this stuff.”
Jack smiled and said, “It’s great, isn’t it. Maybe I’ll get my guitar back sooner than later.”
“Did you get any food?” asked Bruce. “I’m starving.”
“Yeah, I got quite a bit, but I don’t think I’ll be able to go back. The cafeteria guy saw me.”
~~~
That evening, they sat on the couch, eating ham and cheese sandwiches.
“Did you see the ghost at all today?” asked Tatia.
“No but I felt him.”
“Weren’t you scared?”
“Heck, no! I told him to go away, and he did.”
Just then, as if he knew they were talking about him, the sound of a whiney brake entered the room.
This time, they didn’t panic. Rather, they waited for the noise to abate.
When his white form didn’t appear, Bruce said, “What’s up, jerk?” to the air.
Waaaaahhhhhhhh!!
The couch rumbled and shook.
“Bruce, shut up! Don’t call him names,” said Tatia, trying not to drop her sandwich as she held onto the back of the couch.
“Aww, what? Did I hurt your wh’ittle fee’ wings, aww…”
The ghost appeared directly in front of him, looking him straight in the eyes. Tatia gagged as more black sludge spilled down his front. Then, fast, he flew into Bruce and disappeared.
He screamed and jumped off the couch.
“That was cold!”
Bad Side of Town
Chapter 4
That night, they slept, together, in the living room again; afraid that to split up would give the ghost easy advantages.
But Bruce just couldn’t sleep. Gently, he rose from the mattress.
After putting on his shoes, he tip toed to the door. As he reached for the handle, the ghost appeared.
Bruce drew back his hand, not wanting to feel the icy cold again.
The ghost lingered, looking him in the eyes, almost as if it were asking him where he was going.
“None of your business! Now, move!” he whispered.
Wah! Said the ghost, and then it disappeared.
He closed the kitchen door behind him. All was dark in the alley, except for a tiny light in a window on the second floor of a house, a few rooftops over.
Bruce flinched. He thought he saw someone in the window, but when he looked again, there was no one.
Along the dark streets, he went, through Pickley Hills and past the midnight labor line.
Twenty minutes later, he was on the other side of town. He entered a retirement trailer park community.
His grandmother wasn’t allowed to have permanent residents under the age of 65.
He wasn’t sure how old his grandmother was, but she sure was deaf. Sometimes, she tried to talk to him, but it was hard to move her mouth around her dentures. They were too big for her shriveled mouth.
Bruce didn’t know if she understood that her daughter had gone off with her man, leaving him in the house that was, later, sold off at a foreclosure auction.
She was just too old.
She didn’t have any other visitors, except grocers, so Bruce tried to visit her a few times a week.
Bruce got the key from under the plant’s pot, in the bed next to the step.
Inside smelled just as musty as always.
From the room in the back, came the sound of her snores.
He tip toed into the kitchen.
Though he looked in the cupboards and the refrigerator, he had no intention of taking food from her. She barely could afford to feed herself. In fact, Bruce had skimmed money meant for him, Tatia and Jack to buy her groceries, from time to time.
For the moment, she appeared to be doing alright.
Bruce turned to the kitchen sink, which was where she kept all her medications.
Though he never told Jack and Tatia, sometimes the cash he got was not from mowing lawns, but rather from selling his grandmother’s pain medications. He could get $10 for each of the little blue ones.
Bruce pulled out ten and left the rest. He hated to do it, but he had to get Jack’s guitar back from Joey.
After all, it was his fault that Tatia got hurt. If he wasn’t so hungry, he would have never persuaded her to steal food from her father’s house.
His grandmother’s arthritis would be fine, he told himself. The pharmacist would chalk it up to senility, like he always did, and give her the extras that she’d need.
He put the pills in a sandwich bag and pocketed them. Then he fell asleep on the couch.
The next morning, his grandmother woke him with the sound of her hearing aid, like a high pitched radio frequency.
“Hi,” she managed to mumble.
Her eyes were so shifty that sometimes, Bruce didn’t think she could really see him. “B’e’kfest,” she managed to get out.
“Okay,” he said.
Over coffee and eggs, Bruce talked to her, telling her that everything was fine. He told her about the house he was staying in, and how Tatia was scared to death of spiders. How Jack was in trouble with the guitar.
Despite the hearing aid, he was sure she didn’t hear anything he said. He kept talking, anywa
y, because he didn’t like the idea that hearing loss separated her, leaving her without an ability to connect with people. In other words, he didn’t want her to feel lonely.
After breakfast, they watched television for several hours.
When he finally got up to go, she beckoned him with her hands to follow her.
They went to her room.
She pointed to under her bed.
He bent down and dragged out a heavy box.
Then she led him to the kitchen where a few sets of keys were hung. She pointed to the ones she wanted.
She beckoned him back to her room, where she motioned for him to open the box.
He did as she asked, revealing a large mess of papers.
Bruce pulled all the documents out, and carried them to the table.
They stood over them a moment, as she motioned that he should go through the paperwork.
“Listen, I can’t right now. I really gotta go. Tatia and Jack get worried when I stay away too long. By, Grandmom,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll pick up your meds, and I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”
Instead of returning directly to the manor, he tripped down the street, to the nastier side of town. Past the labor line again, he went out to the building that used to be Joey’s family cannery.
At the back of the building was a small black door. He pulled the key out of his pocket. One was given to all the kids there, but if they lost it, they got beat by Joey’s ‘seconds,’ as he liked to call them. Then that person never got another key ever again.
The one he pulled out of his pocket belonged to Mira, a friend of Jack’s.
He walked down the long dark hall, into a work area that had been turned into a bar and dining area. Up above were many offices, all of which had been turned into living rooms.
Up the stairs he went, until he made it to Mira’s, on the fourth floor.
He knocked, softly, on the door.
A second later, a cute dark haired girl opened up. “Hey,” she said, stepping back for him to enter.
“Here, you go.” He handed her the key.
“Thanks. I think you should go quickly. Joey’s got it in for you.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know. Did you do something? He said you’re not allowed in here.”
“I didn’t do anything! I don’t know why he’d say that. Well, listen, I got something. I was gonna trade them with Joey, for cash, but maybe you can trade them for me, then. It’s to help Jack get his guitar back.”
He pulled the pills from his pocket.
“I can’t because he’ll know they’re from you; everybody knows you sell medication.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Open up,” came Joey’s voice. “It’s me. I know you got Bruce in there.”
She opened the door, revealing a tall, skinny guy with a long dark pony tail.
“I knew I saw you come in. What do you got there?”
He stepped in and swiped the little baggy.
“Those are mine!”
“No, they’re mine. You still owe me for that $1,000. It’s been six weeks! Where’s my money?”
“We’re getting it together. That’s what I was selling the pills for.”
“Not anymore. Consider it interest. Who invited you in, anyway? You’re not welcome here until you get my money.”
“No one; I just walked in.”
Joey didn’t believe Bruce.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” he asked Mira. “If you ever let him or his buddies in again, you’re out of here. This is your last warning.”
Then he looked at him and said, “Now, get out.”
Bruce seethed all the way back to the old house. One day, he promised himself that he’d get Joey back for all the problems, and all the cruelty, he was responsible for.
He climbed over the bars of the alley fence.
Before he went inside, he turned his head back and made sure no one was watching.
In the distance, he saw the window from the prior evening. It was open, but no one was there.
Feeling wary, he continued inside and found Tatia and Jack in the den. Jack was cleaning and rummaging through things, and Tatia was messing with the door to the glass case. Like the other rooms, it was filthy from neglect.
“Hey, guys,” said Bruce.
“Hey,” said Jack. “We finished cleaning out the attic.”
“Yeah, I noticed all the boxes in the living room.”
“We’re gonna take them to the swap meet, on Saturday. I found a big old wheel barrel in the back. We can use it to haul all this stuff.”
The sound of breaking glass made Bruce and Jack jump.
Tatia lost her patience when the door wouldn’t open, so she’d put her fist through it.
The ghost, who had been floating about the room, watching, wailed.
Tatia didn’t pay attention until he somehow managed to send a book end, flying at her head.
“Duck!” shouted Bruce.
She hit the floor, looked up and said, “Quit it, Jerk! We need this stuff more than you do!”
The ghost wailed again.
“Shut up!” Tatia bellowed. “I’m gonna kill that ghost! You watch!”
“You can’t kill a ghost,” Jack laughed.
“I’ll find a way.”
“Look at this,” said Bruce, who'd come up to the case.
In a framed photo, a man with a goatee wearing a black leather hat and jacket, stood next to black man with a guitar on his back. The man with the hat had a special light in his dark eyes, and the black man smiled widely.
She picked up the frame for a closer look.
“That’s the ghost, when he was alive,” said Bruce.
“Why is it so cold all the sudden?”
She turned and shouted, “Aah!”
CRASH!
The ghost was right behind them, looking down at the photo.
She bent over to pick up the broken picture frame.
A faint sound echoed through the air.
“Do you hear that?” asked Jack.
“It’s music like my father played in the hospice. I think this one is called The Crossroads Blues.”
Tatia pulled the photo out of the frame. On the back, ‘Langley and Jones, 1968’ was written.
“His name’s Langley,” she said aloud.
“What's wrong with him?” asked Bruce.
They looked at the ghost whose eyes seemed unusually hazy.
The music got louder, and the guitar harsher.
“Maybe he was a musician when he was alive,” said Jack.
The music got even louder.
“Yes, I think you’re right,” said Tatia, who’d picked up a ribbon that lay on the top shelf of the case. “First place, state fair, 1975.”
“I don't understand” said Bruce. "Where's the music coming from?"
“It’s his memory that we’re hearing. Watch his eyes!”
And, indeed, his eyes were focused on the photograph in Tatia's hand. He was deep in nostalgia.
“You like blues, Langley? I know the Crossroads Blues. Personally, it’s not my thing, but, as soon as we get my father's guitar back, maybe we can play together.”
The ghost wailed.
"SHUT UP!" cried Tatia.
Saturday at the Swap Meet
Chapter 5
The following Saturday, they chanced being seen. They pulled the large wheel barrel out of the shed. Into it, they put as much of the clothes, toys, and books as they could; they even managed a couple cans of the army rations.
Having decided to try and sell the jewelry themselves, Tatia put the small collection of rings and necklaces in her pocket.
Langley put up one heck of a fight, as he steam whistled, train horned, and brake whined all about the rooms. He’d even taken to punching holes in the walls again.
When that didn’t scare them, he flung the remaining chairs that were piled in the c
orner, across the room at them. Every time they walked into or past the living room, they had to duck.
When a chair just barely missed Jack’s head, blasting chunks of wood all over him, he said, “Langley, please, I have to get my father’s guitar back.
You see, I never knew my father, until he wrote me recently. I was so mad that I stole the guitar and ran off with it. I lied about my father giving it to me. The truth is, I skipped out on him while he was dying of cancer. That guitar meant a lot to him, and when I think about it, I really think he wanted me to have it. That’s why he went on and on about it, and his days as a musician. I used to think that I didn’t care about my father, but now I realize that I lost a part of myself when I lost him. I can’t lose the guitar, too. As long as I have it, it’s almost like he’s with me.”