3 Ghosts of Our Fathers

by Michael Richan

  Sean looked at Garth; he could see the hunger in Garth’s eyes. He wanted Garth to have the bread, but he knew Garth would never start the fight. So he pushed him hard enough that he fell to the floor.

  Predictably, this enraged Garth. He leapt to his feet and charged Sean. Sean pretended to fight back, but at seven years old he could easily have beaten Garth had he wanted to. Garth threw punches and Sean took them. He let Garth climb on top of him, swinging. Garth was crying, partly from pain, partly from hunger, and partly from anger. Sean felt his little fists pounding into his stomach. He raised his hands to defend himself but let Garth make contact with each punch. Sean felt like doubling over, but he couldn’t with Garth on top of him. He tried to grab Garth’s arms to stop the swinging, but Garth had turned into a machine, running on automatic, starving and determined to have the bread. Sean felt the pain from the punches combine with his own hunger and humiliation at having to let his brother do this to him just to satisfy Frank. As Garth’s punches slowed, he started to cry and rolled away from Frank so he couldn’t see him, pushing Garth off.

  “Pathetic,” Frank said. “What a pussy.”

  Frank tossed the bread onto the floor where Garth lay, panting and sobbing. “Here you go. Eat it now, in front of me. I wanna make sure he doesn’t get any.”

  Garth grabbed the bread and began chewing it. Sean quieted his crying; he didn’t want either of them to hear how angry and upset he was. After a few moments, he could hear Frank stand up.

  “Now, get out of here!” Frank yelled, walking towards them. Garth was on his feet and out the kitchen door immediately. Sean raised himself up on one arm but felt the pain in the side of his abdomen where Garth had made several successful punches, and he winced. Frank walked over to him and kicked his arm out from under him; he went back down. He grabbed his arm, afraid it might be broken.

  “Out,” Frank said. “Or the next one’ll be on your ass.”

  Sean raised himself up despite the pain and ran towards the door. As he walked down the steps that led into the yard, he saw Garth disappear into the open door of the garage.

  He stumbled through the backyard, walking towards the garage. He knew he needed to talk to Garth. He wanted more than anything to fall down on the cool grass and just rest, but he could hear Garth sobbing in the garage and wanted to go to him, and he felt like putting distance between himself and Frank.

  As he walked through the door opening, the smell of old wood that had been baking in the sun greeted him. The garage had always smelled like this, old and musty and dry. Even though the sun was starting to set and it was getting a little darker outside, the garage still retained the heat from the day.

  Garth was at the back of the lit area, under a wooden bench. “I’m sorry,” he said as he gulped air between sobs.

  “It’s OK,” Sean said, sitting down on the floor, holding his side.

  “Did I hurt you?” Garth asked.

  “No,” Sean lied, “a little runt like you couldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Garth didn’t reply and kept crying. Sean leaned back, thinking it might help the pain. It didn’t.

  “What are you going to eat?” Garth said, still under the bench.

  “I guess nothing,” Sean said.

  “We could sneak in later,” Garth offered. “We could sneak up in the middle of the night, after he’s gone to sleep.”

  “Maybe we’ll do that,” Sean said, rolling over onto his side. He looked into the back of the garage, into the area where they never went. His eyes rested on the piles of junk. There was just enough light still coming through the door that he could see the various pieces of it.

  “I’ll do it,” Garth said. “I won’t get caught. He can’t hear me.”

  Sean thought he’d reply to Garth, telling him that was a bad idea, but instead he blinked his eyes, unsure if he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. Sticking out of the pile of junk was a hand. It was outstretched towards him, as though it was holding something. It looked pale white and he couldn’t see anybody attached to it. He thought it might be part of a dead body. He felt the hair on his neck rise.

  “Shh,” he said to Garth. “Be quiet for a second.”

  Garth quieted his crying and Sean pushed himself back up into a seated position. The new viewing angle confirmed it was indeed a hand. Its palm was open as though it was offering him something, but he couldn’t see what it was.

  “Garth, come over here,” Sean said. “Be quiet.”

  Garth crawled along the garage floor to where Sean sat. When he reached him, he sat next to him, mimicking Sean’s pose.

  “Do you see it?” Sean asked.

  “What?” Garth asked.

  “Look!” Sean said, nodding towards the back of the garage. Garth raised his head and wiped his eyes.

  “Yeah,” Garth said. “What is it?”

  “It’s a hand,” Sean said.

  “Whose hand?” Garth asked.

  “Let’s find out,” Sean said, crawling forward towards the back of the garage. The hand remained motionless, extended and cupped as though it was holding something. Sean couldn’t see anything it was holding, but Garth reached forward to touch it.

  “There’s something in its hand,” Garth said. “I could feel it.”

  “I don’t see anything,” Sean said.

  “Try yourself,” Garth said.

  Sean reached forward. As he pressed a finger into the space above the hand’s palm, he felt resistance against something soft.

  Garth grabbed Sean’s arm. “Look, Sean!” he said, pointing to a space in the junk pile. A small white face stared out at them. It looked like a baby’s face, but after a moment it looked more like a child their age.

  “Try it,” the face said.

  Sean looked at Garth. His cheeks had been red from crying, but now the color drained from his face. They both tensed, feeling the need to bolt from the garage.

  “It’s food,” the face said.

  Sean stared back at the face, which seemed to look older now. He looked back at the hand. “I don’t see anything,” Sean said.

  “Take it anyway,” the face said. “You’re hungry.”

  As though the words themselves caused his stomach to growl, Sean felt the stab of hunger hit his stomach and he knew he’d eat anything to make the pain go away. He reached towards the hand and wrapped his fingers around whatever it was holding. As he pulled his hand back, his fingers were spread apart as though he was holding a baseball.

  “Wow,” Garth said. “It’s invisible!”

  “Eat it,” the face said again.

  “What is it?” Sean asked, looking back at the face. Now it looked like the face of a toddler.

  “Does it matter?” the face replied.

  Sean thought about this and decided it didn’t. He moved the invisible thing to his mouth. Once he felt it press against his lips, he opened his mouth and took a bite. He felt it enter his mouth, and he chewed it. It didn’t taste like anything, but once it was in his mouth and he could feel it inside, he relaxed and felt better. He swallowed and felt it go down his throat. As it hit his stomach, he felt a warmth radiate out from his chest. He felt the pain in his stomach subside and the pain in his ribs lighten.

  “Go on,” the face said.

  He took another bite, and then another. Garth watched him. It looked to Garth as though he was fake eating. “Can I have a bite?” Garth asked. He felt guilty for asking having already downed the bread, but he was fascinated by what he saw Sean doing, and wanted to know if it was real.

  “Sure,” Sean said, handing him what was left after several bites. Garth extended his hand and Sean moved his palm next to Garth’s, turning over his hand and dumping what remained into Garth’s palm. Sean felt full.

  Garth took a bite and after swallowing, smiled. He immediately felt better.

  “He is a bad man,” the face in the junk pile said to them.

  “He is mean,” Garth replied.

  “Who are you?” Sean asked
. “I’m Sean, and he’s Garth.”

  “I’m just a baby,” the face said. As they watched, the face’s mouth slowly opened and its eyes widened. It sputtered and gasped, trying to breathe, shuddering. Its lips turned blue and its eyes began to bulge and roll upward, leaving only white. Garth grabbed Sean’s arm, afraid of what he was seeing. Then the shuddering stopped and it was still. The eyes rolled back down, and it stared past them, no longer seeing. It faded, leaving only a dark hole in the junk pile.

  “Hello?” Sean said.

  Garth stood and approached the pile. He walked around the edge of it, studying it, trying to see the face. “He must be inside there,” Garth said, looking for entrances or gaps that might allow someone to crawl in or out.

  “Here!” Garth said from the back of the pile. “Here’s a hole!”

  Sean rose off his knees. He no longer felt any pain in his side; it was as though the substance he’d eaten had not only resolved his hunger but taken away the pain of his fight with Garth. He walked around behind the junk pile where Garth was standing. They were now in the back corner of the garage, a place they never ventured. The light was very dim, and it was hard to make anything out.

  “Look,” Garth said, dropping to his knees. “He’s in here!” Garth disappeared inside a small hole next to the wall of the garage, barely big enough to accommodate him.

  “Wait!” Sean said, but Garth was already gone.

  A moment later, from inside the junk pile, Garth screamed.

  Sean panicked. He was afraid for Garth, but Garth screamed all the time. He was more afraid Frank might hear the scream, come find them, and beat them. Sean dropped to his knees and looked into the hole Garth had crawled into. He was met with Garth’s posterior rapidly approaching his face.

  Sean pulled back and Garth’s feet and legs emerged from the hole. He was rapidly backing out of it. As his body cleared the hole he leapt to his feet and ran to hug Sean. They both looked at the hole he had emerged from.

  “Run!” Garth said, pushing him.

  Sean didn’t run. He strained his eyes to see the hole, to see what would come out of it. He was expecting a rat. He’d dealt with them before. If it was, he’d stomp on it. A couple of good kicks was all it took to stop a rat.

  What emerged from the hole wasn’t a rat. It was large, and it looked more like the head of a goat. It had two long horns. It had a long, flexible neck, like a snake, but thick. Once the head had emerged from the hole, it turned to look at Garth, who grabbed his brother tightly. Its eyes were dark red and the glow from them lit the garage with a hue that made the walls look like they were on fire.

  Sean knew he should follow Garth’s advice and run, but the creature that emerged from their junk pile was so fantastic that he was mesmerized and felt compelled to examine it. The neck continued to extend out of the hole and the goat head began to rise until it was as tall as Sean. The head moved toward them and Sean took a step back, dragging Garth with him. The mouth of the goat began to open. Inside was fire, a swirling mass of red, orange and yellow. Smoke came out of the goat’s nostrils. The fire extended out of the mouth and towards Sean and Garth.

  Garth screamed again, and Sean placed his hand over Garth’s mouth to silence him. He walked backwards from the goat head, pulling Garth with him, but not turning from the image. As they backed into the safer area of the garage, the goat head pulled back. Sean saw the eyes of the goat go black as it disappeared from view behind the junk pile. The light in the garage dimmed and went out, leaving only the dark and the smell of baked wood.

  “Where’d it go?” Garth asked.

  “Back into the pile,” Sean said.

  “What was it?” Garth asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think it lives in there?”

  Sean didn’t know, but he was tired of Garth’s questions. “Come on, let’s sneak downstairs and go to bed. We can come back out here tomorrow and check on it again, see if it’s still here.”

  “OK,” Garth said, turning to go with Sean. As they approached the threshold, Garth turned and said, “Thanks for the food!”

  Suddenly they heard the sound of a baby crying behind them. Sean and Garth turned to look back at the junk pile. There was the face again. It was the face of an infant, crying and carrying on the way babies do. As they watched it changed into the face of a boy their age, who smiled at them.

  “Come back if he’s bad again,” the face said. “I have more food.”

  They both nodded and turned to leave the garage.

  Chapter Six

  Garth paused. He took another bite of his bagel and chewed. The waiter came by to check on them, and Garth’s entire cup of coffee had gone cold, so he asked for a replacement.

  “We would visit the boy occasionally when we were hungry,” Garth said. “He wasn’t always there. When he did appear, we would try to engage him, find out his name, why he was in the junk pile. He would never say anything more than ‘I’m just a baby’ or words to that effect. And after my experience with the goat head I never had the courage to explore more of the pile. We were still scared of that area of the garage, we just went there when our stomachs were growling.”

  Steven was listening intently to Garth. He had a million questions, but he didn’t want to interrupt Garth’s narrative and make him forget anything.

  “There was only one person we ever told about the boy,” Garth continued. “That was Davy, who lived across the street from us. He was a little older than us and would play with us in our backyard when Frank wasn’t around. For some reason Frank hated Davy, and if he caught us playing with him he’d kick Davy out of the yard and give us a tanning. But we liked Davy a great deal, and we’d play with him whenever we thought we could get away with it.

  “Davy was over one day when Sean and I went into the garage for food. He saw the boy. He went right up to the junk pile and grabbed the hand sticking out, held onto it for several minutes. Sean and I were too scared of the boy to ever do anything like that, but Davy wasn’t afraid of him at all. They seemed to have some kind of rapport, as though they were communicating on some level that Sean and I didn’t know about. I remember asking Davy about the boy, and Davy told us that the boy hated Frank too. Not because he knew him, but because of what he was doing to us. It felt like the boy was our ally against Frank, and Davy could communicate with him.”

  Garth stopped to take a sip of his warmed coffee and placed the mug back down on the table.

  “You’re probably wondering what all of this has to do with Frank attacking you,” Garth said.

  “I think it’s incredibly interesting,” Steven said. “Please don’t edit yourself on my account. I’d like to hear it all, everything you remember.”

  “All right,” Garth said. “I’ll continue. Things went on like this for a while, but Frank became more and more abusive. We would escape to the backyard, Davy’s house, or the garage to get away from Frank, who didn’t seem to care where we were as long as it wasn’t around Davy. We wouldn’t tell him where we went, and we’d just sneak back into the house at night to go to bed. The kitchen door was always open, because in those days you never locked your doors.

  “One day it came to a head. Frank began beating on Sean again, I don’t remember why. Any little thing might set him off. Sometimes it seemed he’d do it just to entertain himself. I ran out of the house and hid in the garage, which is what I normally did when Frank was wailing on Sean. When Sean came into the garage after this particular beating, however, I was mortified. Frank had used the belt on him all over his body, including his face, and he had deep red cuts that were bleeding. Sean fell on the ground in the garage and passed out. At first I thought he died, but then I could see he was still breathing. I inspected the damage Frank had inflicted on him, and I was angry. I didn’t know what to do about any of it. I knew the cuts needed to be bandaged, but there were no clean bandages in the garage.

  “The boy in the junk pile was extending a hand, and I went to i
t to see if there was food there. I fed Sean what he was able to chew, but he kept passing in and out of consciousness. Gradually he began to improve. Whatever was in that invisible food the boy gave us helped heal some of Sean’s injuries; it was miraculous. Eventually Sean was able to sit up. I didn’t ask him what had happened because I knew it was painful for him to speak. And it was obvious Frank had beaten the crap out of him.

  “I was surprised when the boy called me over. I walked up to the face in the junk pile, and all he said was, ‘get Davy.’ So I ran across the street and brought Davy back. When he saw Sean he was afraid. The damage was beginning to heal, but Sean was still covered in blood and he looked pretty frightening. Sean was able to talk and he told Davy what had happened with Frank. Frank had beaten him with the buckle end of the belt, which had caused most of the cuts. I remember looking at Davy’s eyes as Sean told the story and I saw the same hatred and anger in them that I felt.

  “The boy in the junk pile called Davy over and they had a conversation. The arm extending from the pile gave him something, and he returned to us. He told us the boy wanted us to use some items on Frank. He showed us a small object that looked like a wooden matchbox. The other item was a small paper envelope, and inside was some powder. The boy had told Davy we should stop Frank by using the items on him. We asked Davy if the items would kill Frank, and he said no, they would just stop him.

  “Sean said he’d do it, so Davy gave him the instructions. The matchbox needed to be placed under Frank’s bed, and the powder needed to be placed into something he’d drink. When Frank went to sleep in the bed after drinking the powder, he would pass out. Sean was to cut a piece of his hair and to clip a fingernail from Frank, and bring them back to the boy.

  “Sean told Davy he’d do it the next day. Davy said he wanted to be there when Sean gave the hair and nail to the boy, so Sean said he’d call him over when the tasks were done and he had the items from Frank. Davy went home for the night, and Sean and I talked about how he was going to pull it off.