Sam said, “I know you don’t think I’m a good man. You couldn’t.”
Mikey thought of Lynn’s words from earlier. That’s what friends are for, isn’t it? To tell you you’re good even if you’re bad? He couldn’t decide if he agreed with this. There were a lot of things he couldn’t feel sure about. He couldn’t speak for Sally on how much that moment with Sam had affected her, the scope of the impact. It might have changed everything; it might have changed very little. Mikey gazed at Sam’s pink face, which timorously awaited a response. He couldn’t quite bring himself to say, “You’re good,” or “We’re good,” or even “It’s okay.”
Instead, he placed his hand on Sam’s round, warm shoulder and said the truest thing he could think of: “You are my dear friend.”
Sam gripped Mikey’s hand and said, “You are my dear friend.”
Mikey wondered if having a dear friend, and being a dear friend, might be almost as good as being a good man.
He gazed across the room, where Alice sat on the floor next to Finn, who was curled tail to chin on the knotted umber rug in front of the fireplace. Alice was holding Finn’s paw in her hand and staring into the fire, where the coals had gone blue-gray and the flames rippled low.
Jimmy cracked open a bottle of Lagavulin several minutes later and poured a half inch for himself, then one for Alice and Mikey, too.
Alice said, “What’re you trying to do here, Jimmy? Force-feed me your fancy-pants drinks until I black out? Get me to howl at the moon and shit myself? That the plan?”
Jimmy laughed.
Sam said, “Hey, speaking of blacking out, do you guys remember Blackout?”
“Of course,” Mikey said.
Sam said, “My cousin Marcus is the one that taught me Blackout, then I taught you guys. Remember? Anyhow, Marcus is principal at some rich-kid school in Pittsburgh. Calls me up the other day to tell me they had to make a rule prohibiting it. Too many fatalities. None at their school, but a handful in the area. Crazy, right? Penalties worse than getting caught with drugs.”
Issa said, “Blackout?”
“The Fainting Game,” Lynn explained. “Choking Game. Purple Haze. Fuzz. Really? None of these?”
Issa lifted his hands.
“You make yourself pass out,” Alice explained. “You get this crazy high, sleep for a minute, have like a lifetime of dreams.”
Issa said, “Oh. Erotic asphyxiation. Sure.”
“Well,” Jimmy laughed. “We weren’t doing the erotic part. And we did it to ourselves—we didn’t choke each other out or anything. But yes.”
“How did you do it to yourself?”
Sam said, “You crouch on the floor, breathe super heavy, like giving-birth breathing, then sit up, hold your breath, and go stiff in all your muscles. Then you pass out. Wanna make sure you’ve got a pillow where you’re gonna land.”
Issa said, “Show me.”
“Yes!” Alice cried. “Show us, Sam!”
Jimmy clapped his hands. “Show us, show us, show us!”
Sam grabbed a throw pillow from the couch and went to the center of the room, where he lowered himself to his knees, which crackled like twigs as they bent beneath his weight. He had rolled up his sleeves exposing meaty forearms, thick wrists.
“Put the pillow behind you,” Alice said. “Remember?”
Lynn said, “Make sure you’re tilted backward when you go tight, so you fall straight onto it. Remember?”
Jimmy said, “What are you hoping to dream about?”
“None of your business,” said Sam.
Alice said, “You don’t have high blood pressure, do you?”
Mikey said, “Don’t die.”
Sam breathed heavily in and out, wheezing with the effort, stopping once to cough into his fist, counting silently through his lips, and the others watched.
Then Sam straightened up and leaned slightly backward, his full weight on his ankles, cheeks tomato-red, and he went tight, the muscles in his thick neck bulging.
A loud, high-pitched trumpety fart squealed out from Sam, and he collapsed, not limp backward onto the pillow, but clumsily to the side, laughing now, holding his big belly, laughing so hard he gasped. Alice leapt up from the couch to straddle Sam and pin him down, and she tickled him under his arms as she had done many times when they were children. Sam laughed silently, tears eventually appearing in the corner of his eyes.
Lynn was laughing as she said, “Alice, leave him alone! He can’t breathe!”
Alice crawled off Sam. “Can you breathe?”
Mikey sipped the expensive scotch Jimmy had poured for him. Alice sat back down on the couch. “By the way, Sam,” she said, “isn’t it about time you fessed up to taking my picture that night I spent alone at The Gunner House?”
Everyone looked at her.
Mikey said, “When was that?”
Sam said, “What now?”
Jimmy said, “I remember. Sam put her up to it because she said she didn’t believe in ghosts.”
Alice nodded. “I spent the night there. Must’ve been, what, twelve years old? Thirteen? You guys don’t remember?”
“Vaguely,” Mikey said.
“I had my camera with me that night,” Alice explained. “The disposable kind. Spent the night in the house and didn’t think anything of it until I went to get my film developed a month or two later. It had a picture of me, from that night. Someone snuck in and took a picture of me sleeping.”
Mikey felt a chill race through him from tailbone to fingertip.
Lynn said, “Really?”
Jimmy said, “You didn’t tell us!”
Sam propped himself up on his elbows and said, “It wasn’t me!”
Mikey said, “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I was freaked out,” Alice said. “But I didn’t want you guys to be scared of the place because I didn’t want us to stop hanging out there. Besides”—she turned to Sam—“I eventually just convinced myself it was you. You were the one who wanted me to believe there was a ghost, and I figured it was your way of trying to scare the bejeebus out of me, so I was especially determined to put on a brave face.”
Sam said again, “I seriously swear it wasn’t me.”
Lynn said, “Maybe it was the ghost.”
Jimmy said, “It must’ve been the ghost.”
Alice said, “Ghost-schmost.”
Mikey said, “Maybe it was Sally.”
They all turned to look at him.
Lynn said softly, “Maybe it was.”
Jimmy said, “If it wasn’t any of us, it had to be either the ghost . . .”
“Or Sally,” Lynn said.
Alice frowned. “Why, though?”
Mikey said, “Maybe Sally wanted us to believe in ghosts.”
They shared a quiet and chilly silence for a few moments. Mikey found himself suddenly grateful for Alice’s solid presence next to him.
Eventually, Alice rose from her seat on the couch in order to lie down next to Sam on the ground. “You wanna Indian-wrestle?” she said.
The two of them scooted around so that they were lined up at their hips, head to toe. With effort, both raised their inside leg while Alice counted, “Three, two, one—go!” They hooked their legs together at the knee, and Sam won almost immediately, flipping Alice over into a lopsided back-somersault. Mikey, Lynn, Jimmy, and Issa applauded.
Alice rose, fixed her braid, did a bow, massaged her knee.
Jimmy turned up the music in the other room, which was now featuring an energetic jazz trio, and Issa sat at the piano, improvising a rich harmony along with the recording.
Mikey leaned toward Alice and said, “What are you not tell-
ing me?”
“What?”
“Lynn said there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Jimmy returned and took a seat between Alice and Sam. Alice sipped her Lagavulin and pulled her legs up onto the couch and rested her head in Jimmy’s lap.
Mikey felt himself being pulled into a balmy haze of nostalgia.
Alice said, “Tell us a story, Jimmy.”
“About what?”
“Life,” Alice said.
Jimmy was quiet for a moment and ran a hand through his glossy dark hair. “Once upon a time, there were six best friends,” he said. “They were all different, but they fit together very nicely. One of them loved numbers and solutions. One of them loved music, and she wished the world was more beautiful. One of them was a fearless leader who wanted to protect the others. One of them always wanted to make the others laugh. One of them was kind, and he taught the others how to be good to one another. The last one was . . . a mystery. The six of them needed one another. They belonged together.” Jimmy was quiet for a bit. Then he said, “The end.”
Alice scowled up at him. “That’s not a story! And I don’t like being typecast.”
“Yeah,” Lynn said. “That’s not a story. What happens to them?”
“You have to tell us, Jimmy,” Alice said. “What happens next?”
Lynn said, “A story has to have an ending.”
Jimmy said, “I already said the ending.”
“What was it?”
“They belonged together.”
Lynn said, “But that’s only a beginning!”
“Yeah!” Alice said. “And . . . what does it mean to belong together? What does it actually mean?” Alice’s voice rose in pitch and wavered with emotion. “Tell us something real, Jimmy.”
It was quiet for a bit.
Alice said, “Somebody, anybody, say something real.”
It was quiet for a long time, except for the soft music Issa played, the crackle of the dying embers of the fireplace, and the distant lament of the wind whipping over the frozen lake, singing low then soaring high, a curious melody.
Mikey said, “I can hardly remember her voice.”
Chapter 22
The fire hissed in the corner. The air had a softness to it, and the snowy landscape before them looked swollen and resplendent. Time felt flabby, dubious, and unnatural.
Alice finally said again, imploringly, “A real story, someone?”
Jimmy said, “How about a real scary story?”
“Ooooo.” Alice shivered dramatically and poked at Sam and Mikey on either side of her. “Yes, please!”
Jimmy got up to throw another log on the fire. It sparked and crunched over the coals. He used a wrought-iron poker to adjust the placement of the log and said, “How scary on a scale from one to ten?”
Sam said, “Eleven!”
Jimmy laughed and returned to the couch.
Lynn said, “I want scary enough to keep me up all night!”
“Okay,” Jimmy said. He swirled his fingers together. “Okay. Let me think for one more minute . . .” He paused. “Okay,” he said. He looked around the circle, making sure to meet the eyes of everyone there. “There was a place,” he said. “We’ve all been there. A place that had a darkness to it. Being at the place made people want to do bad things.”
Sam said, “Stop! I’m already too scared!”
Alice laughed. “No, go on!”
Mikey said, “More!”
Jimmy said, “The feeling a person got when they were at this place . . . It gave you . . . I can’t even find the right words. It made you feel near to evil. It made you want to do bad.”
Sam said, “Like what?”
“Evil. It made you feel dark, dark in your heart. Death in your heart. There’s no way to explain it, but everyone who ever went there shared this wicked feeling about it. The thoughts they had when they were there . . . A blackness in the soul.”
Alice whispered, “Where was it?”
“I can’t tell you,” Jimmy said.
Mikey said, “But you said we’ve all been there?”
Jimmy nodded.
Sam said, “Together?”
Jimmy said, “Yes.”
Alice sucked in her bottom lip. “Was it The Gunner House?”
Jimmy shook his head. “Nope.”
Lynn said, “Really? But where else have we all been together?”
Mikey said, “You’re one-hundred-percent sure we’ve all been there? Together?”
Jimmy nodded.
Alice said, “Continue.”
“One day,” Jimmy said, “I was at this place. I was having this terrible feeling, this darkness, when a couple, they looked like they were in their forties or so, walked by. They had a camera. He was taking pictures of her. I asked if they’d like me to take a picture of the two of them together, with the water behind them.”
The fire popped once, very loudly, and Mikey jumped.
Lynn giggled nervously.
Mikey said, “So this place was on the lake?”
Jimmy nodded. “And they said sure. The man put his arm around the woman. They both smiled. I took their picture.”
Alice said, “Then what happened?”
“I handed the camera back to the man,” Jimmy said. He hesitated again.
The wind outside howled. Mikey felt as if his skin were about to jump out of itself. Faintly, a train’s wheezy horn sounded, Whooo-whoooooooo? Jimmy put a finger in the air.
“I could hear a train that day, too,” he said. He softly imitated the whistle. “Whoooo-whoooooooo? It sounded just like that one sounds right now.”
Alice’s eyes were enormous, brows arched with anticipation, practically at her hairline. “And?”
Jimmy said, “And I watched as the two of them walked directly inland, to a wooded area about a quarter of a mile away. I was still at the water’s edge but could see them the whole way. Hand in hand they walked. They looked so happy and loving with one another that I was starting to doubt the darkness of the place. I was starting to think that maybe my feelings were wrong—that it was just in my head.”
The train sounded again. Whooo-hhooooooooo?
Jimmy said, “And I could hear the train.”
Sam whispered, “Then what happened, Jimmy?”
“I watched as the couple approached the train tracks. Still holding hands. They stood at the train track’s edge. Whoooo-whoooooooooo? Moments later, the train was approaching, barreling down, and a split second before it passed them, the woman shoved the man onto the tracks and the train ran him over. The woman was gone by the time the whole train had passed.”
A very weighty silence crashed into Mikey’s ears, and his entire body prickled with goose bumps.
Lynn said, “Wait, is this the place you were talking about? Right here? It happened on those train tracks just up the road?”
She buried her face theatrically in her elbow.
Mikey said, “This is the place that makes people want to do bad?”
Sam said, “Is this where it happened?”
Jimmy nodded.
Alice cried out, “That’s not fair!” She wildly scratched at herself and shook out her hair. “That’s not fair, Jimmy. Too scary! We’re supposed to sleep here tonight. Too much!”
“Yes, too scary,” Mikey agreed.
Jimmy laughed. “You guys asked for eleven out of ten!”
“Wait,” Sam said. “But that didn’t really happen, right? You just made that up.”
Jimmy was still laughing. “No, no, no.”
Lynn said, “What if . . .” She paused and looked around the circle. “What if that kind of place does exist? What if Sally was there?”
Sam said, “Do you mean when she decided to commit suicide?”
Lynn nodde
d. “What if she just found herself at a place where, like you said, Jimmy, there was just a terrible darkness that made her want to do bad?”
Jimmy said, “You mean maybe not an actual place but a state of mind. Beyond her control.”
Mikey’s thoughts returned to Jimmy’s words earlier, when he had said Sally must have been in a terrible place.
Mikey said, “Alone.”
Alice looked directly at Mikey and said, “Have you been over the Skyway since Sally’s suicide?”
Mikey was quiet for a moment. He shook his head. “I take the long way around.”
“Is it because you don’t want to think of her in that place?”
Mikey said, “I don’t want to think about what she was thinking about when she was there.”
It felt too close to him somehow. Sally, even now that she was gone, felt too close. He couldn’t explain it. And he was fearful that if he found himself up on that soaring overpass, if he pictured a slim, pale body dropping straight like a nail to the river a hundred feet below, if he even began to imagine the sort of darkness that could overtake a person, that could take them to a place that was so far away and so alone . . . When Mikey pictured this scene, sometimes he wasn’t sure if it was Sally in it, or himself. Mikey felt as if now that Sally had taken her own life, he understood her better than he ever had before.
Chapter 23
Somehow, it was two o’clock in the morning.
Issa and Lynn were the only ones who made it up to bed; Mikey, Jimmy, Alice, and Sam slept on the couches of the main room, holding one another. Arms and legs crossed all over each other, someone’s shoulder for a pillow, someone’s heavy sleeping arm a comfortable weight across the chest, someone’s slow and peaceful breathing, a slight rattle at its peak.
Then, somehow, it was seven o’clock in the morning.
They were woken by the bright sun skimming over the snow, when it sailed into the room and onto their faces.
Alice watched Mikey as he located his glasses, which were perched on Jimmy’s knee, and he rubbed his eyes and yawned before putting them on. Mikey’s tongue felt as thick and dry as a stone. A dream was still knocking around inside of him, but he couldn’t quite grasp the details.
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