The Ferryman

by Amy Neftzger

  Her brain felt like an overloaded dryer with a very wet load. Karen shook her head to clear all of the tumbling thoughts. She would need time to sort out all the confusion, but she had a job to do first.

  Karen glanced at the ghost sitting on the bus stop bench. She was a rotund woman of about thirty five, and she was concentrating on the approaching traffic, as if searching for someone in the crowd. As Karen thought about how to converse with the ghost, she wondered how Fortune could help her if Fate knew everything before it happened. She studied the ghost, but the kiss haunted her more than anything. Her mind was not on the task at hand. The thought of that brief encounter was enough to stir Karen into longing for Fortune again. She wanted to be near his musky scent and feel his skin against hers.

  She stroked her fingers through her hair a few times as she attempted to clear her thoughts. She needed to stop dwelling on him. She had to stop thinking about his beautiful clear eyes and his soft lips or she would never finish this job. She had been doing so well up until now. This was no time for her to lose focus.

  She moved forward and sat down next to the ghost. Karen pinched herself on the thigh to clear her thoughts of distraction and bring herself back into the moment. She knew herself well enough to understand it would be at least a day before she would be functioning normally again. Fortune had left a mark on her, like a secret message that only she could hear. Perhaps part of his identity was the ability to do things without Fate’s knowledge, Karen mused. The kiss had awakened more than sexual desire in Karen. She was also feeling hopeful, a sensation that had been absent from her life since Claude’s father left. Love does that. It opens the heart to more than just the other person.

  “How do you know when you’re in love?” Karen asked the ghost.

  The woman turned her head to look at Karen and blinked a few times. Karen wondered if the ghost needed stronger eyeglasses, despite the thick lenses she already wore.

  “Did you just talk to me?” the ghost inquired.

  “Yes,” Karen said as she tried to smile. “I just met a man, and it’s like my body is telling me that I need to be with him. Have you ever been in love like that?”

  “Run,” the ghost said flatly as she turned to look down the street again.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t trust your body. It will lie to you. That’s how good girls wind up in trouble.”

  “I’m not worried about getting pregnant,” Karen replied dismissively. She didn’t even know if Fortune was capable of having children. Besides, she’d already experienced being a single mother and she knew that it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to a woman. The worst thing was having Fate act like she owned her.

  “You should be,” the woman replied. “Because once you have a child you’re responsible for it forever. No one else will take care of a child like its mother.”

  It was true in her own life, Karen thought, but that didn’t make it a universal truth. Besides, only good things would happen when she was with Fortune. She could feel it.

  “Do you have children?” Karen continued with a polite smile.

  “Oh, yes,” the ghost nodded as she gazed at the oncoming traffic.

  “How many?”

  “Five.”

  “Five?” Karen repeated, surprised.

  “Yes. Two boys and three girls.”

  “How nice!” Karen tried to catch the ghost’s attention, but the specter kept looking over Karen’s shoulder and down the street. Karen turned to study the scenery in that direction. There was nothing but streams of cars and trucks moving down the street. They all appeared the same to her. “Excuse me,” Karen continued, “are you looking for something?”

  “I’m just waiting for the bus.”

  “Are you on your way somewhere important?” Karen asked.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she replied as she straightened up attentively. Karen heard the noise of the bus making its way up the street towards them. She turned and saw the massive vehicle approaching. She felt a sense of panic, wondering if the ghost was going to get on the bus and if she had to follow the ghost wherever she went. It wasn’t clear if this woman knew she was dead or why she hadn’t moved into the next life. Karen had just barely gotten started, and the ghost was standing at the curb.

  “I’m Karen,” she quickly introduced herself as the bus pulled up to the stop. “Do you have a name?”

  It was as if the ghost never heard the question. Karen reached out as she grasped for something to say that might keep the ghost from leaving, but after a moment she dropped her arm and felt a slight chill as she watched the scene unfold.

  Instead of boarding the bus when the door opened, the ghost stepped in front of it. Karen stood up. She knew that the bus couldn’t kill the woman, so she thought that the ghost must have been suicidal. As Karen contemplated what to do next, she saw the ghost pound her fists on the windshield and begin screaming expletives at the driver. Despite her matronly clothes and prim appearance, the specter was suddenly aggressive, hurling her body at the front of the vehicle and managing to kick out one of the headlights.

  The glass from the headlights shattered and exploded into the street. The sound reminded Karen of icicles breaking when they fell from a rooftop.

  As soon as the glass broke the ghost’s skeleton became momentarily visible, and Karen saw the pattern of connecting bones vividly displayed. It was like a work of art, and Karen recalled her medical school textbooks explaining how it all functioned together systematically. The memory made her nostalgic for the career she had lost, but she was quickly brought back to the present by the wailing ghost.

  The skeleton faded from view as the phantom continued to pound her fists on the bus and howl like a crazed banshee. Karen’s ears hurt from the shrill screams, and the scene was enough to make Karen momentarily forget Fortune’s kiss. She stood staring with her mouth agape.

  “Are you getting on or what?” the bus driver shouted. It took Karen a moment to realize that he was talking to her. “I’m not keeping the door open all day with this wind. It always seems to whip around the corner here.”

  Karen shook her head as she continued to stare at the spectral temper tantrum taking place in front of the bus. The driver didn’t appear to notice the phantom, but it was unnerving to watch, and Karen was dumbfounded at the violence and constant stream of expletives.

  The bus door closed with a hissing sound, and the vehicle moved forward like an overweight bear through snow. As the ghost let go of the sign hanging over the windshield and jumped off the front of the bus she instantly transformed into the mousy little woman who had been sitting on the bench a minute earlier. There was no sign of anger or hostility. The ghost adjusted her glasses and smoothed the front of her pleated skirt.

  Karen suddenly felt a sense of panic. The spirit was probably bipolar, she reasoned, but there would be no way to medicate her. Maybe Fate sent her here to die at the hands of this monster. Perhaps that was why Fate appeared unconcerned at the way Fortune had kissed her. Maybe she knew what would happen shortly afterwards. Maybe this was karma paying her back for kissing another woman’s husband. Karen pressed the heel of her hand into her forehead and wiped the perspiration away.

  “My name in Nancy,” the woman said politely as she sat down again. Karen dropped her arm to her side and pulled her eyebrows together as she studied the woman’s face. She didn’t know how to address what had just happened, and now the woman was acting as if it didn’t happen at all.

  “Did you just smash the headlight on that bus?” Karen asked quietly. What if the ghost wasn’t aware of what she had done?

  “Probably,” Nancy answered with a shrug. “I didn’t notice. Sometimes they break and sometimes they don’t.” She was sitting with her hands folded as if she’d just set down her knitting. She waited a moment and then asked, “What’s your name again?”

  “Karen.”

  “I nearly named one of my daughters Karen. I’ve always liked that name.�
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  “I supposed my mother liked it, too.”

  “Were you named after a relative?” Nancy asked.

  “I don’t know. My parents died a long time ago,” Karen explained as she sat down on the bench, also.

  “Oh, you poor thing!” the ghost reached out and patted Karen’s shoulder, but Karen cringed at the faint touch.

  “What was that?” Karen finally asked as she motioned to the place where the bus had been just a minute before.

  “The 9:15,” Nancy replied. “We have nine more minutes until the next one. They come every ten minutes and they’re usually on time.”

  “I meant the thing you did. It’s like — you transformed or something.”

  “That’s a little trick I learned,” Nancy laughed as she spoke. “I’m still working on it, but I have to get very angry or they don’t notice at all. I think I’m getting better. Right now they think there’s a wind blowing. I don’t know for sure, but I think that I might be able to make myself grow taller or even change my shape. I’m sure it will take years of practice and I’ll have to get really mad in order to do it, but I’ve got plenty of time to practice.”

  “Are you trying to turn into a monster?”

  “Of course,” Nancy said as if the whole situation should be obvious. Karen had thought that the day she’d met Fate had been the strangest in her life. However, today she had kissed the lips of Fortune and witnessed a bipolar phantom on a tirade. She studied the timid-looking ghost again before continuing.

  “Why?” Karen finally asked. “Why are you doing this?”

  “To make the world a better place.”

  “How does getting angry make the world a better place?”

  “It serves as a warning.”

  “For what? Is the bus in danger?”

  “Heavens, no.”

  “Who needs to be warned?”

  “The bus driver.”

  Karen replayed the scene in her mind. Nothing made sense. She knew that Nancy had some sort of issue that kept her from being able to move into the next life, but her answers were ridiculous. Completely disjointed and insane, in fact. She thought back to what Nancy had said earlier, but there were too many missing details to make sense of anything.

  “Is this your neighborhood?” Karen asked.

  “No, no, no.” Nancy shook her head.

  “I’m sorry,” Karen said, her voice as even-toned as if she were conducting an interview, “but I’m having trouble understanding what just happened with the bus. Why are you upset with the driver?”

  “I’m not upset with that particular driver. I know that everyone has to work. That’s why I’m here. This is my job.”

  “Your job is to scream at the bus?”

  “Of course. When I died I realized that my children didn’t need me anymore, because a ghost couldn’t help them. But I could help other children. This is the street where the little boy was killed.”

  What little boy? Karen couldn’t recall any children dying on this street. The way Nancy had stated the fact made it seem like everyone was familiar with the incident. Karen studied the woman’s clothes for a clue as to how long she had been dead. However, the skirt and blouse appeared crudely homemade and lacking in any style that Karen could put a date upon.

  “When did this happen?” Karen asked after hesitating several times. She wondered why the boy wasn’t there fighting the bus that had killed him.

  “1978.”

  “Really? That was a long time ago.”

  “I can see that even you’ve forgotten,” Nancy replied sadly.

  “I was born that year, so I wouldn’t have known about it.” Karen explained. “Things have changed since then.” She paused for a moment and then continued as the thought occurred to her. “Were you hired for this job?”

  “No. I just needed something to do after I died. This is sort of a hobby of mine.”

  “What year did you die?”

  “1978. I died trying to save the boy,” Nancy explained as she craned her neck to peer down the street. Karen felt sympathy for Nancy’s effort to save the boy, but the fact that Nancy couldn’t let go of the death appeared to be an unhealthy fixation. Nancy had been haunting the bus stop for as long as Karen had been alive. Too long, Karen thought.

  “Look,” Karen said with a sigh. “I’m not sure if you know this, but safety has improved a lot over the last few decades. There are cameras and sensors on buses to help prevent accidents like the one that happened to you.”

  “Cameras. Buses take pictures? How does that help anything?”

  Karen explained the safety improvements that had been developed over the past three and a half decades. She even took out her phone and after Nancy marveled at the technology for awhile, Karen showed her a few online videos about how the safety devices worked. The discussion took another twenty minutes and was interrupted each time a bus came to the stop and Nancy had to pause the conversation to engage in her tirade all over again.

  “Does that help you understand?” Karen finally asked as she shut down the browser on her phone. “You don’t need to keep shouting at buses. It’s much safer for children on the street now.”

  “Sure. But they can still get hurt.”

  “But it’s not as likely,” Karen insisted.

  “It can still happen. We all pay the price of carelessness.”

  “Does what you’re doing make a difference?” Karen snapped as she tossed her phone back into her purse. Really, she thought, this job shouldn’t be so difficult. “What does it change? You’ve been doing this for way too long, and nothing is different because of what you’re doing here.” She crossed her legs and waited for a response. Nancy stared back with wide eyes.

  “You just showed me that safety has gotten a lot better since I’ve been here,” she replied. “I have made a difference. None of those improvements would have been made if I wasn’t scaring the drivers all the time.”

  Karen sighed. This was not going the way that she thought it would. She needed to switch tactics, but she was at a loss. She glanced down the street to where Fate and Fortune had left together. Her thoughts drifted back to Fortune and whether or not karma could reveal a way to release herself from serving Fate. She was at a loss for what to do next. She stared up at the sky for a moment and felt the sun’s warmth before changing the subject.

  “Do you believe in karma?” Karen asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m just curious about what you believe. Are you religious? Do you have faith in anything?”

  “I believe in a lot of things, and because of this I have a duty.”

  “What makes you think that you’re the person who should be doing this particular job?”

  “I was here when he died!”

  “And you’re still here,” Karen said in a calmer tone. “But the little boy is not.” She waited a few moments and then asked, “What was his name? Was he your child?”

  Nancy’s shoulders bobbed up and down as she started to weep.

  “No, he wasn’t mine,” Nancy replied in between her sobs. “I’d never seen him before. I was just here when it happened. His name was Bobby, but I only know that from hearing his friend call his name when it happened.”

  Karen put her arm around Nancy’s shoulders and let the ghost weep for a long time. At least one bus came and went without Nancy throwing a fit. When the bus stopped Karen waved it on with her free hand as Nancy’s slimy tears oozed down the shoulder of her best blouse. She waited until Nancy was calm enough to talk.

  “I know it’s a terrible thing to see a child die,” Karen said. “I have a child of my own, and it breaks my heart to think about losing him.” Karen recalled her relationship with Claude and how she had been over protective of him for so long and how much Claude resented it. Nancy’s attitude would certainly suffocate a child like Claude. “I’m willing to bet,” Karen continued, “that if Bobby thought that warning buses for eternity was a good idea that he would be here.”

/>   “He’s just a child. He wouldn’t know.”

  “Yes, but he’s a child who has been somewhere and seen things that you haven’t. If you want to understand what happened and the best way to resolve it, don’t you think you should talk with Bobby about it?”

  “The boy?” Nancy asked as if she’d never thought about him before. “You think he knows something?”

  “Yes. This accident brought you together. Maybe you don’t believe in an afterlife, but perhaps Bobby appreciates what you did when you tried to save him and he could be waiting to thank you for trying to save him.”

  “The boy.” Nancy’s voice was soft as she pondered the idea.

  “Bobby may be just fine. He may be with his mother again. We don’t know because we’re here.” Karen pointed down at the bench.

  “I don’t know,” Nancy said. “I thought I had it all figured out. I thought this was where I was supposed to be. I thought I died here for a reason.”

  “What about your own children?” Karen asked. “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Nancy replied. “I lost track of them after I died.”

  “They may be waiting for you, also.”

  “They couldn’t.”

  “We don’t know,” Karen insisted with a shrug. “I don’t think it’s healthy to be stuck in one place for too long.”

  Nancy watched another bus come and go. Her legs twitched when the bus neared the stop, but she resisted the urge to stand up. Instead, she pushed her weighty glasses back up her nose and turned her attention to Karen.

  “Maybe what you need is to take a look around town,” Karen suggested. “The world is a different place from when you were alive, and if you explore it a little I think you’ll see that it’s also no place for the dead.”