by Dia Reeves
“Trey, really.”
“I’m just saying, you can’t treat me like I’m five and then expect me to act like the queen of England.”
“The queen?” Pop looked at Mom. “You see what I mean? We need to ship him off to Risington. Immediately.”
“Sending me away isn’t gonna solve anything.”
Pop slammed a black stone onto the board. “It would solve one thing.”
“It’s okay if she haunts me just as long as you don’t have to deal with it?”
But Pop didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t think an answer was necessary. He just blew smoke at his board and slammed down a white stone.
Mom sighed. “Nobody’s blaming you.”
“Stop saying that. Everybody’s blaming me.” Trey looked at Benni in the window. “Everybody. It’s not like I don’t want her to go away. If she did, I could stop feeling so...I mean everything would feel normal again. I wish I knew what she wanted. What would you do, if you were me?”
It was Mom’s turn not to answer, but only because the news was back on.
“Let me tell you what I’m gonna do,” Pop said, startling Trey. He slammed down a black stone. “Either you get rid of that ghost or we’re getting rid of you.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Richie charged forward on his skates, screaming and twirling his hockey stick high overhead like a demented majorette. He swung the stick down into Carmin’s ribcage as though he were felling a tree. While Carmin was bent over, Jimmy swooped in and took control of the puck.
“Hey, shithead!” Marco yelled, as Jimmy scored a goal. He got up in Richie’s face. “No high sticking! That’s a penalty!”
“Penalty?” Richie yelled, shoving Marco out of his face. “This is street hockey. Carmin oughta be glad this stick ain’t jammed up his ass!”
Jimmy laughed and slapped Richie a low five.
“Same ole Richie.”
The brothers all skidded to a stop at the sound of Trey’s voice. They faced him, a loose semi-circle of gaping mouths. Trey’s own mouth went dry, but he didn’t let that stop him. So what if they’d been avoiding him for months—who hadn’t been? “Hey guys.”
Jimmy skated forward, grinning. “Hey Tr—”
Richie hooked his hockey stick around Jimmy’s throat and hauled him back in line. “Who’re you talking to Jimmy?” he asked, glaring at Trey.
Jimmy, who’d talk to a cucumber if he ever found one with ears, glanced from Richie to Trey and then back. “Nobody?”
“Right. Nobody.”
It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault. Trey said, “I just thought we could get a game going or something.”
Richie turned away from him. “Let’s go to Smiley’s,” he said, and Trey wasn’t stupid enough to think he was included in the invitation.
“That’s cool,” Carmin said, still holding his ribs. “I heard that ceviche’s back on the menu. I love that stuff.”
Trey just stood there while the Trilio brothers turned their backs on him, as if he’d suddenly ceased to exist. How could they treat him like this after all they’d been through? Getting into brawls with the punks on Skater Street, getting drunk in Evangeline Park after dark and swapping sex lies til dawn. Had he dreamed all that?
~Poor Rudolph.~
Trey turned and saw Benni lumbering near the streetlight in the middle of the lot. Although it was nearly dusk and the light was on, Benni’s rosy blobbiness cast no shadow.
~Never gets to play any reindeer games.~
Trey leaned against his hockey stick, frowning as he tracked Benni’s shifting form. “You think that’s funny? Driving all my friends away, sabotaging my love life—?”
She flared bright red. ~I’m your love life. And I didn’t drive them away. They couldn’t even see me.~
“They know you’re there. Everybody knows; that’s why they’re ignoring me. They think you’re haunting me because I did something bad to you.”
~That’s stupid. You’d never do anything bad.~ She pinkened. ~Not unless it was for extra credit.~
Trey pushed away from her and pulled his puck from his back pocket. He tossed it down and took aim, trying hard not to pretend the puck was her face. Why did she have to make a joke out of everything?
“Pop’s threatening to ship me off to Risington,” he said and slapped the puck down the lot. He skated after it, and then hit it twice more before he realized she wasn’t following after him the way she usually did.
She was still by the streetlight and she’d gone white. ~Risington?~
“Benni?”
~That’s so far away.~
“It’s not that far,” Trey said, hating to hear such sadness in her voice. “It’s not even twenty—” He froze then when he realized he was skating toward her with his hand outstretched. Outstretched why? To put his arm around her? Benni no longer had shoulders.
You couldn’t comfort a blob.
He skated back to his puck. “If you would just get off my back, I won’t have to go there.”
~Off your back?~ He looked back in surprise at the sudden anger in her voice. The white now blistered a volcanic shade of red. ~You begged me to be your girlfriend. Remember? You asked for me and now you’ve got me so don’t tell me to ‘get off your back.’~
“Look at it from my point of view,” he said, knowing he would have to be the mature one as usual. “I’m going into my senior year, I got college interviews in the fall. What’s Johns Hopkins University gonna think when they ask me what I have to offer? I say ‘a 4.0 GPA, a summer internship at Baylor Medical, and oh yeah! A dead ex-girlfriend who, by the way, is sitting right next to you.’”
~That’s why you’re always so mean?~ She drifted alongside him, great roiling swathes of greyish pink. ~Because I’m not ‘alive’?~
Trey rolled his eyes. “Yeah Benni. If it weren’t for that slight detail, I’d be all over you.”
~But I thought you liked death. Blunt force trauma. Suprapubic punctures. Liver mortis.~
“Livor mortis.”
~You’re really very lucky, you know? Some people would kill to have their loved ones come back.~
“Some people would kill to see Yanni in concert. Fuck people. If they knew what it was really like...” Trey faltered, trying to breathe around the sudden lump in his throat. “Why do you have to float so close to me?” he yelled suddenly. “I can hardly breathe. I wish you’d stop crowding me.”
When he skated forward, she hung back, but he could still sense her behind him, a dark cloud on his horizon. He stopped before the puck and swung.
~What if I told you there’s a way for me to come back?~
The puck went sailing into the windshield of the ‘68 Buick rusting next to a Dumpster on the other side of the lot. Trey hardly noticed. He whirled around. “To life?”
~All I have to do is prove myself worthy.~ She’d gone all yellow and glowy. ~The problem is it could take a long time. Cleve’s been trying since the Renaissance.~
He felt as though Richie had clubbed him in the stomach with his hockey stick. “Who’s Cleve?”
~Oh don’t worry. I know it won’t take as long for me. I’ll win back a body. Not the one I had, you understand, but it won’t matter will it?~
“No not at all. Especially if it takes you as long as it’s taking your precious Cleve. You idiot. By the time you got another body, I’d be long dead!”
He watched her yellow glow bleach to white and suddenly felt like the biggest dick in the universe. He sighed. “Benni, forget about me. You should be enjoying yourself, playing harps and shit or hanging out with Jesus and them. Why are you even bothering with me?”
~Because I love you.~
He flinched, as though dodging a blow. He skated back to the Buick to retrieve his puck from the windshield.
~You asked for me,~ Benni said, like she was accusing him of something.
“Yeah, well, now Jesus is asking for you.” He skated off. “Jesus and Cleve. So go to him. Go. And I mean it this time.”
>
He’d almost made it off the lot when he heard her speak:
~This time?~
✽ ✽ ✽
“So I told her ‘look it’s just not gonna work out what with you being dead and all.’”
They were sitting together in his ratty club chair, Zoë’s bare legs draped over his making him wish he’d worn shorts. They were near the aquarium and the sound of the water was soothing.
Zoë was toying with the Saint Luke medal around his neck, her head on his shoulder. “And she just went away? She didn’t try to hurt you or anything?”
“Nope. I guess all I had to do was talk to her. I feel stupid now.”
“You should.” She raised her head and regarded him with serious eyes. “That’s the problem with boys. You never want to talk things over, like you think it’s a waste of time. Well look how much time you could have saved. Instead of wasting time trying to avoid Benni, you could have been spending that time with me.”
She was so wise. Every word from her mouth was solid gold commonsense. What did she see in a dumbass like him?
He leaned forward just as she was turning away, and his nose wound up in her ear, completely off target. She smelled like pink soap.
She was laughing at him, but nicely, looking at him so that he could laugh with her if he wanted. He didn’t. He waited for her to stop and then he leaned forward again, hitting the mark this time.
He’d read somewhere that while kissing, it was possible for two spirits to touch each other. Maybe if he concentrated hard enough, Zoë’s spirit would touch his and some of her wisdom, her steadiness and clear-headedness would pass to him. He put his arms around her and crossed his fingers.
~~Get off him, you bitch!~~
Trey broke away from Zoë, startled, guilty. Benni hovered in the corner near the window, a blood-red blob, a small apocalyptic thundercloud ready to rain hellfire.
But what did he have to feel guilty about? No, to hell with guilt, he thought, rising, planting his feet. She had no right trying to make him feel guilty. “Benni, get out of here! Didn’t I tell you—”
He broke off as Zoë went flying up from the chair, legs first, and slammed into the ceiling, barely missing the glass light-fixture.
“Trey!” The sound was muffled as Zoë’s face was firmly pressed into the ceiling, so firmly her nose was squished to one side.
“Benni stop it!”
~~Two-timer!~~
“We were just...talking.” He cleared the shakiness, the ridiculous goddamn reticence, from his throat and yelled, “What’s it to you, anyway? I told you to go away!”
~~Go away so you could cheat on me?~~
Suddenly everything in his room was unanchored, unhinged. His aquarium, his specimens, his anatomical models, his photos of roadside corpses.
He managed to dodge everything successfully until his poster of Giovanni Morgagni flew into his face, blinding him. After a moment of breathless struggle, he finally ripped the poster from his face and realized that, while Zoë was firmly pressed to the ceiling, her dress was not. As he helplessly admired the intricate lace design of her underpants, his metal wastebasket slammed into the back of his head, knocking him to his knees in a flood of wadded up paper and empty potato chip bags.
~~You get that hussy out of here now!~~
Trey crouched, his hands over his head to protect himself from flying missiles. “Just let her down—gently!—and I will.”
Despite his plea, Zoë hit the ground with a resounding thump, her arms and legs and dress all a-tangle. He helped her to her feet, and winced when he saw the bruise forming along her left cheekbone.
He hustled her out into the hall. “I’m sorry, Zoë.”
Although she wasn’t crying, she sniffed and wiped under her nose. Trey let go of her when he saw the blood streaking the back of her hand. When the guilt flooded in this time, he let it. He’d earned it. “I can make it up to you. We could meet tomorrow—”
“No Trey. I’m not into ménage à trois, especially when one of the trois is a ghost.”
Zoë smoothed her hair then passed her hands over her face as though she needed to smooth her expression as well. He couldn’t believe she wasn’t crying or screaming at him. He wished he could be that mature.
“You’re a nice person,” she told him, and he could see she really meant it. “It’s not like we can’t be friends, right? We can still talk.”
He blew up. Not at Zoë, but at everything. He kicked the wall, jiggling the photo of his grandparents. “Talk is bullshit. Why does everybody wanna talk all the time? I talked to her and what did it get me? I mean, besides a completely trashed bedroom and a traumatized girlfriend?”
~I’m your girlfriend!~ All the picture frames along the hallway wall cracked.
Zoë squeaked and ran down the stairs. But before she disappeared completely he heard her call, “Bye Trey!”
Trey sighed. She was so damn considerate, even while fleeing in terror.
Why couldn’t he be like that?
He turned to Benni who was crowding the doorway. Although he’d never done so before, he walked through her, just to see what would happen.
Nothing, of course. No slime. No freezing cold. No tingles. Nothing. And why should he be surprised? She was dead, after all. He set about putting his room to rights.
~I’d do anything for you. Anything. Why are you trying to replace me?~
He was going to need a mop. His aquarium had overturned near his desk in a flood of water and glass and algae. Some of his hardier pencilfish still flopped wetly on the floor. He palmed them, felt them still, then stiffen in his hands. He picked up the wastebasket and dropped them in, confident the fish wouldn’t return to fuck up his life.
~Stop ignoring me!~
“Why shouldn’t I ignore you?” Trey said calmly, dumping paper and some of the larger bits of glass into the wastebasket. “You’re nothing. Nothing but air. Loud, annoying air.”
~If I could grow flesh for you, don’t you think I would? I love you.~
Trey had to actively fight the urge to scream.
~Why is it so hard for you to accept how I feel?~
“Who gives a damn how you feel? What good does it do me?” He could feel his control breaking and had no idea how to stop it.
~Just tell me what do you want me to do?~
“I want you to get out of my life.”
~I can’t.~
“See? Nothing works with you. Talking doesn’t work, showing you doesn’t work.”
~Showing me what?~
“Jesus, Benni! What do you think it means when I puke whenever you sing that stupid song and run away from you and date other girls?”
~Show, don’t tell. Like Mrs. Bertram taught us in English.~ Inexplicably, her white started to brighten to yellow. ~I think I understand you now.~
“Good. Now piss off!”
The door to his room suddenly flew open. Mom stood there, eyes roaming the room, taking in the damage. “Is that you Benni?”
~Yes ma’am.~ Just a squeak of a voice. Benni had always been leery of Mom.
“Do you mind cutting down the noise? I can barely hear Bill Moyers downstairs.”
~Yes, Mrs. Beasley.~
Trey stepped forward ready to defend Benni, God knew why. “I’m sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have been—”
She waved her hand at him dismissively as she walked out the door. “It’s not your fault, sweetie.”
Trey gritted his teeth. He was still holding the wastebasket so he threw it, dead fish and all, at the door just as it shut. “It is my fault, goddamn it! Stop saying it’s not my fault!”
~But it’s not your fault.~
“I’m not talking about this!” Trey threw open his arms to encompass his wreck of a room.
~Neither am I.~ She had gone steely grey. ~It was an accident, Trey. I fell through a manhole cover. One chance in a million.~ Streaks of pink suddenly cut through the grey. ~It’s even kinda funny when you think about it.~
“It�
�s not funny! You think everything is funny. I shouldn’t have been chasing you.” He was crying. He had no idea how to stop that either.
~We were playing tag—chasing’s part of the fun.~
“I’m going to medical school!” Trey kicked out his foot but there was nothing within kicking distance. “Why am I always trying to have fun?” He pointed his finger at Benni. “Why are you always trying to make me have fun?”
Benni sighed and faded to white. ~I’ve been handling this wrong from day one. I’ve made you so unhappy.~
“You know how to fix that, don’t you?”
The white color deepened, until Trey had to close his eyes against the glare.
~Goodbye, Trey.~
Those were her last words to him. When he opened his eyes she was gone.
✽ ✽ ✽
Trey thought his world would steady when Benni left for the second time, left him for good, but he was wrong. Time became weird after she left.
He’d open the door to his bedroom...and step through the door of the library downtown. He’d step out of the shower...and into the grocery store. His life had become a series of ellipses as whole hours, whole days slipped away from him.
He didn’t want Benni back. Losing time didn’t bother him that much, but he couldn’t help thinking about her. Not obsessively just...constantly.
Zoë would sit with him, at Smiley’s or wherever, holding his hand even as her eyes nervously scanned the air over their heads. She had said she’d be his friend, and she’d meant it. She often sat with Trey, listening to him go on and on: “...and I don’t know how she did it, but she jump-started Mr. Drayson’s tractor and we drove it all the way down to Luna Swamp. Probably would have driven it clear into Louisiana but Sheriff Conway caught up with us and then...”
Trey should have talked to Zoë about other things, anything, besides his ex-girlfriend. He should have told her how pretty and nice she was, how he’d do whatever it took to make her like him again, really like him, as she had before. Maybe he did tell her those things, but he never remembered doing so.
He did remember leaving his house one day, well into summer judging by the blackberries snaking up the trellis and the heat mirage shimmering over the street. He stepped onto the porch and squinted his eyes against the green of the lawn which seemed too bright, fake, as if a rainstorm could easily wash away the emerald color and reveal the withered brown growth lurking beneath.
