Grand & Humble

by Brent Hartinger

“T,’” someone read.

  It shifted to the next letter over.

  “‘U,’” someone else read.

  Then, without warning, the pointer swept its way up and left, almost to the end of the upper arc of letters. It stopped suddenly, like it had caught on something, at exactly the spot to be pointing right at a letter. What were the odds of that?

  “‘B,’” someone read. “Tub.”

  And in an instant, Harlan realized what it was spelling.

  Harriet Tubman High School. They had a swim meet there the following week.

  H2O danger Tub!

  And suddenly Harlan saw himself in water. A premonition! But in his mind, he wasn’t on top of the water, being supported by it. No, he was sinking into it. The water was washing over him, pulling him down. He was gasping for air, flailing, but it wasn’t helping. Without warning, he sucked in a mouthful of water; it felt like someone jamming a solid rock down his throat. He continued to sink—and no one was coming to his rescue!

  Harlan jerked his fingers from the pointer like he’d touched them on the burner of a stove. Somehow, the action also stopped the premonition in mid-image.

  “Harlan!” Amber said. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing!” Harlan said, feeling himself flush. “I’m done! I told you, my fingers are cramping!”

  “We’re not done! The pointer was still moving! ‘H2O danger Tub’? That doesn’t mean anything!”

  “Well, you’re definitely done now,” Jerry said. “Once you take your fingers off the pointer, you break the spiritual connection.”

  Amber sighed. “Okay, so let’s do it again.”

  “No!” Harlan said.

  “Harlan—”

  “I’m not doing it!” he shouted. “You can’t make me!” Had he meant to slap the Ouija board like that? In any event, the board flipped up and the plastic pointer went flying across the room.

  The room fell absolutely silent. Every eye was on him; even Ricky was too surprised to speak. Harlan knew that the only way to redeem himself in the eyes of Amber and their friends was to say something, make it seem like his outburst had been a joke.

  But Harlan couldn’t think of any jokes. He wouldn’t have been able to choke the words out even if he had. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyway—he saw that now. He was too pale, his breathing was too rapid. People had to see the panic in his eyes.

  He just kept sitting there stupidly, with everyone staring right at him. At the same time, a car alarm went off somewhere on the street outside, and it caused the neighbors’ dogs to start howling. It sounded like the baying of hungry wolves gathering for a kill.

  MANNY

  The wooden stairs creaked under Manny’s feet.

  “Manny?” his dad said, below him in the basement. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m coming down.”

  Talk to him, Manny thought. That’s what Elsa had said. Talk to his dad. But what exactly would they talk about? That his dad had reacted strangely that one morning when Manny had told him about his nightmare? Maybe his dad really had remembered that he had some errands to run before work.

  No. It was more than that. He’d been fine before Manny told him the dream. It was something about this particular dream—something Manny had said. It had meaning to his dad. There was something his dad wasn’t telling him.

  Manny found his dad in one corner of the basement, rooting through a rack of cluttered metal shelves. The basement was unfinished, windowless, with walls of bare concrete; the air smelled of spray paint, Christmas spice, and dried aquarium mold.

  “Hey,” Manny said.

  “Oh,” his dad said. “Hello.” The shelf had his attention, not Manny—not that that was necessarily such a bad thing.

  “What are you doing?” Manny said. It seemed important to sound casual.

  “Looking for some of that green florists’ foam that you put at the bottom of a vase. You know, you poke flower stems in it so they’ll stand upright? I was positive I had some.”

  “Let me help.” Anything to avoid doing what he’d come down here to do. “Why do you need it?”

  “Oh, I got snookered into donating something for this silent auction. I can’t afford to actually buy anything, so I figured I’d make a flower arrangement.” This was just like his dad—both the donation and the flower-arranging part. Knowing him, his arrangement would even turn out great.

  His dad sighed and straightened. “Well, it’s not here.” He thought for a second, then glanced around the basement. “What else do we have that I could fob off on the silent auction?”

  “Dad?”

  “Hmm?”

  But Manny couldn’t put into words what he was trying to say. He’d always been able to ask his dad anything. Why wasn’t he able to ask him about this? Maybe because he wasn’t even sure what he was asking.

  “Planters,” his dad said.

  “Huh?” Manny said.

  “We’ve got plenty of planters. Maybe I could fill one with tulips.” He bent down to examine a cluster of ceramic pots. “Nah, they’re all chipped. If they’re not chipped, they’re ugly. Why do I keep these plastic planters, anyway? I’ve never seen one that doesn’t look cheap.”

  “I don’t know,” Manny said softly.

  His dad kept scanning the clutter, thinking out loud. “Christmas is over, so wreaths and ornaments are out. I don’t have time to reupholster furniture—not that any of our furniture is worth reupholstering anyway. Something to do with old CDs? A mobile or something?”

  Manny just listened. What was he thinking—that the perfect segue would magically present itself? Hey, Dad, speaking of mobiles, I wanted to ask you about breakfast the other morning….

  His dad sighed again. “I never realized what a load of junk we have. One of these days, we should take it to the dump. Well, I could always make fudge.” He turned for the stairs.

  “Wait!” Manny said.

  His dad jumped a little, startled. “Manny? What is it?” He had his dad’s full attention at last. But did he dare ask the question he wanted to ask?

  Manny pointed. “The yard gnome! You could repaint it. Bright colors or something?”

  No, Manny hadn’t dared.

  His dad cocked his head. “Well, it’s a thought. But I think the crowd’s going to be kind of upscale. Lots of lawyers.” He started for the stairs again.

  “Dad!” Manny said. “Wait.”

  His dad looked back at him again.

  “There’s something I want to ask,” Manny said.

  His dad’s expression shifted. Was that nervousness Manny saw creeping across his face? Whatever it was, Manny was certain that his dad had suddenly realized what his son was going to ask.

  “It’s cold down here,” his dad said, turning. “Can we talk about this upstairs?”

  No, Manny thought, they couldn’t talk about it upstairs. If he didn’t get this out now, he’d never be able to.

  “Dad,” he said. “The other day, at breakfast—”

  “Breakfast?” his dad interrupted. “What are you talking about? Look, I’ve really got to get started on that fudge.” Now Manny knew his dad had known what he was going to ask. He had responded far too quickly.

  “Dad, just listen, okay?”

  His dad stopped. He couldn’t keep walking now, not without being really rude. But even so, he didn’t turn around to face Manny again.

  “It was when I was telling you about my nightmare,” Manny said.

  “I don’t know what this has to do with—”

  “It’s just that you seemed kind of weird. And I thought maybe I said something that upset you.”

  “Upset me?” his dad said. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  “All of a sudden, you wanted to get away,” Manny went on. “You said you had an errand to run before work, but I don’t think you did.”

  His dad turned to him. “Manny, you were the one who was upset. You’d just had a nightmare!” So
he did remember. He’d been lying before. And as Manny watched his dad now, he saw just how tightly he was gripping the rail at the base of the stairs.

  “Are you sure?” Manny said. “Because it seemed like there was something else going on. I thought maybe my dream reminded you of something. Something about the past.”

  And right then, Manny knew: the nightmares were about something that had happened to him as a small child! He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but he did.

  “Saturday!” his dad said suddenly.

  “What?” Manny was confused.

  “That’s when we’re throwing all this stuff away! I’ll call Goodwill! Maybe they can send a truck! Now, Manny, I’ve really got to get started on that fudge.” Then, without another word, he thundered up the stairs.

  This time, Manny let him go. It didn’t matter. There was nothing he could say to get his dad to give him a straight answer.

  Which was, of course, an answer of sorts.

  Manny stared at his dad’s address book. He’d had the same one for as long as Manny could remember, and it looked like it, dog-eared and doodled on. His dad was always misplacing the damn thing, but Manny had found it right away, by the phone in the kitchen, in the clutter of coupons and utility bills.

  Manny thought for a second. Whatever his dad wasn’t telling him had something to do with Manny’s childhood, something that had happened to him when he was younger. So there had to be someone he could ask about that past: an uncle or an old family friend who could answer the questions that his dad would not, maybe even some relatives of his dead mother.

  Manny kept staring at that closed address book, but no names came to mind. Not a single one. He couldn’t think of anyone who might be able to tell him what he wanted to know. His dad said his own family was all gone: he’d never had any siblings, and his parents and grandparents had all died before Manny was born—Manny had never asked how. As for relatives of his dead mom, his dad had never once mentioned any. Could it really be that his dad had lost all contact with them?

  And even if his dad’s relatives were all dead, where were his childhood friends? His college roommate? Sure, his dad had moved since then, but didn’t he keep a Christmas card list? But there were no old family friends, not that Manny could think of.

  He started paging through the address book.

  Henry Bean. Jason Berg. Ernie Cruz.

  Mostly single fathers, Manny saw. That made sense. Birds of a feather. No one in the address book was scratched out completely—that was the kind of person his father was, never expunging anyone from his life forever. But plenty of addresses and phone numbers had been updated—crossed out and replaced by newer addresses and phone numbers squeezed into the margins.

  Jamie Gardner. Margaret Graham. Katie Ingram.

  These were women his dad had dated; even though none of his relationships had ever worked out, he’d stayed friends with some of them. Once he’d overheard one of them accuse his dad of having “issues.” At the time, he’d thought she was just being overbearing. But now, given the way his dad had reacted to the nightmare, Manny thought maybe that ex-girlfriend had had a point.

  Larry Middle. Sarah Newman. Matthew Orner.

  Some of his dad’s friends had moved six or seven times in the years that his father had kept this book, mostly from apartment to apartment. It looked more like the address book of a college student. But it was really just the result of most of his dad’s friends’ being just as poor as they were.

  Melinda Walker. Eldon Wood. Tim Yates.

  He had come to the end of the address book. He closed it and put it back on the counter.

  He had recognized every single name. He also knew exactly where and when his dad had met them all: each and every one in the last thirteen years that they’d lived in this city.

  The address book was old, but apparently it wasn’t more than thirteen years old.

  There was no one Manny could ask. It was as if the past, at least the past before they moved to their current city, did not exist.

  For the first time in his life, Manny realized that that was pretty damn suspicious.

  Manny went for a long walk in the fading afternoon sun. The idea had been to clear his mind, but it sure wasn’t working. On the contrary, a tornado of questions swirled through his head. Why didn’t his dad have a past? Had his dad been estranged from his parents? Is that why he didn’t keep any pictures of them? Had they disowned him? Were they still alive? Where had Manny and his dad moved from, anyway—and why hadn’t his dad ever said? Where did Manny’s dead mother fit into all of this? And, of course, he still had the question that had started it all: What was it about his nightmare that was causing his dad to act so strangely?

  Something had happened when Manny was a child. That had been his first thought. But what could possibly explain all the mysteries that had suddenly surfaced about his dad’s past?

  Was it something that had happened to Manny? Maybe the event that explained his dad’s odd behavior was also the event that was causing Manny’s nightmares. Maybe he had long-buried memories that were finally reemerging in the form of dreams. If it was something his dad was trying to keep hidden, that would certainly explain his strange behavior in the kitchen and basement.

  Manny caught something out of the corner of his eye—a handwritten sign in the front window of a small beige house.

  Marilyn Swan, it read. Spiritual Reader.

  Manny looked around. He had wandered into an older residential area—the kind with postage-stamp yards and streets that still had sidewalks and curbs.

  He looked back at the house with the sign. It had window boxes and a stucco finish. There was a birdbath in the yard—made of real stone, something his dad would approve of, not Home Depot plastic. And the lawn was well edged, and cut as low as a putting green.

  Manny was actually considering going to a psychic? A couple of weeks ago, if someone had told him to go to a psychic, he would have laughed. And yet here he was. He desperately needed answers, and there was no one else who was able to give them to him. He knew she was probably a fraud. Maybe he just needed someone to talk to, someone to help him sort out his thoughts. Either way, how could it possibly hurt?

  He walked down a narrow concrete pathway that curved its way to the front door. Then he knocked.

  A moment later, the door opened. Could this be Marilyn Swan? She was an older woman, primly but tastefully dressed, a well-heeled matron expecting the Ladies’ Auxiliary for tea. Her smile was honey and molasses, sprinkled with powered sugar.

  “Uh, hi,” Manny said. “I have some questions, and I was wondering if you’d—”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, projecting sincerity like heat from a radiator. “Unfortunately, I’m with a client right now. But if you’d like to come back later…” She handed him a business card—in a tasteful font, no rainbows, no angels, nothing froufrou at all. “It really is best to make an appointment.”

  And with that, she smiled again and closed the door in his face.

  HARLAN

  The woman turned away from the front door. “It appears I am suddenly very popular with high school students,” she said, a knowing smile on her lips.

  A psychic, Harlan thought from his seat on the sofa in the woman’s living room. He’d actually come to get a “spiritual reading” from a psychic. What if the press found out? His mom would be livid. She’d specifically warned him to stay away from psychics; apparently Nancy Reagan had caught hell for consulting with psychics when she was First Lady.

  On the other hand, if premonitions and Ouija boards told the truth, maybe psychics did too.

  “Now, where were we?” said the woman—Marilyn Swan, according to the sign in her window. “Ah, yes. Do you take lemon in your tea?” She lowered herself into a seat in front of the tea set on the coffee table.

  Harlan didn’t take anything in his tea, mostly because he didn’t take tea. But he said, “Yes, please.”

  “So,” she said. “Tell me h
ow I can help you.” She had poured two cups of tea before she’d answered that knock on the front door; now she squeezed lemon into them both.

  “It’s kind of complicated,” Harlan said.

  “It usually is. That’s why I believe it’s always best to start at the very beginning. Sugar?”

  “No, thank you.” He watched her drop a cube of sugar into her own cup and stir. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe this is rude, but I can’t help asking. How did you become a spiritual reader?”

  “I don’t seem like the typical psychic, is that it?”

  “Not exactly.” Then, thinking that maybe he’d offended her, he added, “I’m not sure what I expected.”

  She handed him his tea. “It started when my husband, Richard, died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. My, you’re such a polite young man. Anyway, the night of the funeral, I came home and found him sitting in his favorite chair, just like usual.” She nodded to a black leather wing chair with matching footrest just opposite her. “He was as real as you are.”

  “A ghost?”

  “For lack of a better word. For a long time, I thought I was imagining things. And I knew what other people would say, so I didn’t dare tell anyone. But then Richard started telling me things. Things about other people, things I didn’t know but that turned out to be true.”

  “He could predict the future?”

  She sipped her tea. “Sometimes he sees the future, but mostly he sees the past. But you’d be surprised how, for most people, the past and the future are very much the same thing. Cookie?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Anyway, it seems that in Richard’s past, he had made some rather poor business decisions. He told me about them too, even though by then it was too late to do anything about them. Before long, I was broke, or near enough. I needed to get a job, but suffice it to say that there was not a large demand for a fifty-six-year-old housewife who could not process words. Then, one day, Richard suggested that I become a spiritual reader. He said he could tell me what to say. Of course, my friends were horribly shocked. Then they heard what Richard had to say. They’re all clients now.”