by Hugh Sheehy
“What were you screaming about?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t call it a scream,” said Erik. “A spider jumped out of the pine cone.”
“There are worse things than spiders out here,” said the boy. “Maybe you should go in the house and watch TV. It’s safer in there.”
“It’s no big deal,” said Erik. “I just wasn’t prepared for it. The same spiders live in my yard at home. The little jumping ones, with striped bodies. You know, the ones that crouch.”
“I hate those little bastards,” the boy told him. “I’m Brad.”
The sun had fallen behind the trees, and the long yard was a trough of shadows. Brad announced he was going to get a Manwich, which sounded made-up, cannibalistic, and faintly homosexual. Erik felt cautious and curious, as if he’d received a key to a witch’s tower, but Brad made no protest when he went along. In the garage was a table covered with a paper cloth. Adults stood around, happy and drinking, their faces marvelous masks in the light of three ceiling bulbs. A Manwich, it turned out, was a sloppy joe. Orangeish meat steamed in a crock pot. There were bubbles. Erik made a small sandwich that he didn’t want, while Brad covered a paper plate with potato salad and baked beans. Sodas lay iced in a red cooler at the end of the table. They sat on an old railroad tie that had been used to terrace the garden around the garage, Brad ravenous, Erik holding the forgotten sandwich. Two floodlights had been switched on to illuminate the soccer field, and the game of the older boys continued.
Brad began to talk about a new episode of a show called Seinfeld. He said his favorite parts of the program were the segments of stand-up comedy. He ate his Manwich and talked confidently, like a sports fan at a game.
Erik had never heard of Seinfeld. His parents watched Sixty Minutes, The McLaughlin Group, and Fawlty Towers. He was rarely allowed to watch television. His mother brought him VHS releases by Fairy Tale Theater from the public library. These he enjoyed in shameful privacy, drifting further and further, he knew, from the norm. He listened closely to Brad’s banter, ready to laugh at the precise moment the other boy did.
“I think that in the future there will be TV shows that are all stand-up,” said Brad. “That’s one thing to look for in television. My dad even says so. It’s on the way.”
“You’re probably right,” said Erik. He thought of the boys’ reformatory they had passed on the way and wanted to tell Brad about the grotto, but he restrained himself. He had identified his desire to mention Huck Finn. If there was anything that other boys hated, it was when he began to talk about characters in books. He had made this mistake at St. Boniface once, mentioning Taran Pig-Boy, only to hear, in response, the shout, “Erik farted!” and the cries of mock-horror that accompanied it.
“Have you seen the new Nightmare on Elm Street?” asked Brad.
“No,” said Erik, afraid he might let out an involuntary sob. It was on the back of his tongue, pacing, throwing up its hands in frustration. He worried that Brad would stand up and leave him, this boring imposter at his parents’ party. He had to keep talking, to keep Brad’s attention until his words brought him to something cool to say. “No, but we passed a haunted reformatory on the way here. There’s a shrine behind it made of rocks.”
Brad sighed through his nose and watched the soccer game.
“It’s true,” said Erik. “We stopped, because my dad studies ghosts. He’s a phantomologist.” This was not true. His father sat in a bank all week, thinking about and moving other people’s money. Erik went on, trusting himself, against his better judgment. “He wanted my mom and me to see it. But the building was locked, with a big No Trespassing sign hanging on it. It’s been locked up for years because the sightings have caused several people to lose their minds. Now they’re homeless people. There are messages written in blood on the bathroom mirrors. I especially wanted to see those. But we just listened at the door. Something scratched the other side.”
“I bet it was a raccoon,” said Brad.
“That’s what I told my dad,” said Erik, sure to make eye contact. “So he took us around back to the shrine. We had to step down into it, and the air was wet, like in a basement. There was a statue of Mary there and a place to kneel. So we all got down there and knelt and closed our eyes. We held our hands like we were praying but we didn’t pray. And then we heard it.”
“What?” Brad folded his messy paper plate and crumpled it in his hands.
“We heard crying. All around us. The sound of boys wailing in pain. My dad thought they were the voices of kids who went down there to pray.” He held his eyes wide open, afraid to look unafraid of ghosts.
Brad looked around at the faces of the preoccupied adults. He whispered, “Show me.”
“It’s too far,” said Erik, relieved, close to sealing the fib. “It’s a half hour by car.”
“My brother will take us,” said Brad. He looked toward the soccer game, unsure. Then he shook his head. A moth fluttered past. He turned to face the woods. “We have ghosts out here, too,” he said. “You want to see?”
“Yes,” said Erik. The thought of the woods, full of discomforts, made him cold all over. The trees here were taller than those near his house in the suburbs, and he had noticed, when it was still light, dense ground-level brush. He expected vines, poison ivy, thorny bushes. But here was the golden offer of friendship, the invitation to the secret on the grounds. He had a sense that the night could go on, defy the turning motion of the earth, and never end. Erik knew with a fierce certainty that he must sustain this feeling. “Yes,” he said. “Let’s go.”
He followed Brad through the house, surprised by the black iron stove and the mounted heads of elk on the log walls. The lustrous wooden floors were covered in throw rugs, soft under Erik’s feet. They had removed their shoes at the door. No one did this at Erik’s house, and as a result the carpets were stained and tough in places. The kitchen shone with new appliances. By comparison to the Dravinskis, Erik’s family lived in a dust trap, a storage closet for stacks of financial papers. All the rooms of their house had a quality of attics, of stillness interrupted by sudden light.
Brad opened a closet and climbed past the coats inside. He came out with two large flashlights. He held them like Indian clubs, reconsidered Erik as if he might not be trustworthy to handle the family’s things, then conceded and handed one over.
“It’s heavy,” said Erik, hefting the thing like he would a short baseball bat.
“These are what the cops in L.A. beat the gang-bangers with,” said Brad. He held his at arm’s length and turned it over. Erik presumed this was all very impressive, and said, “Wow.”
“Yeah buddy.”
They sneaked out the side door. A light came on above the porch, and they saw an older boy and girl who were standing close, touching, on the sand of the volleyball pit, look up and step away from each other. The boy scratched in his cool bowl haircut and frowned at his foreign shoes.
Brad stood with his feet apart, his mouth slightly open. He breathed once and said, “Get off of my property.”
Anger surfaced in the older boy’s eyes. It quickly sank again, and he relaxed his shoulders and looked away. The girl, her arms crossed defensively, stared at them like a child caught stealing. Erik instantly pitied her. He would remember her fondly. He would wish to have been her friend, then more.
Brad said, “Get out of here, or I’m going to tell Cal.”
The girl said, “Brad, please don’t.”
The older boy rolled his eyes, produced a battered baseball cap from his back pocket, and started for the cars parked along the road. “I’m going,” he said. The girl looked at him with gorgeous concern, started to follow, then turned quickly on Brad.
“Please don’t say anything to your brother,” she said.
Erik watched her catch up with the older boy. He should have been that guy, he thought, the one with the thick chest and the chin stubble. Where were they going? The air had turned dangerous, full of unpredictable movement. A c
ool breeze lay on his arms. Brad was walking away toward a fortress of trees. Erik ran to catch him, tight in the chest, desperate for knowledge and camaraderie. The quest for ghosts was spoiled now, a child’s pastime. The trek through woods loomed ahead like a terrible chore. He knew to keep his voice low.
He caught up with Brad. “Who was that?”
“My brother’s old girlfriend,” said Brad. “When I tell Cal, he’s going to kick that guy’s ass.”
“Shouldn’t you tell him now?” Erik asked. He hoped to see a shouting match, a fistfight, the girl crying. He wanted to comfort her.
Brad turned to the road. The couple had driven off in a dark sedan. “Cal will whip him later,” he said. His self-assurance calmed him. He faced Erik in the darkness. “Come on, we’ll go in right up here.”
They reached the edge of the woods and stopped. Erik’s eyes adjusted. Low branches and underbrush reached like arms around a low opening in the trees. He expected to fall down right away, but he was unwilling to return to the party by himself. He watched as Brad ducked and pushed through the branches.
“It’s not bad once you get inside. We can’t turn the flashlights on until we’re farther in.”
Erik believed him until he had taken a few steps into the darkness. His shoes caught in brambles, his ankles were immediately scratched. Above him he saw the dense weave of a thicket against the broad fans of pine limbs. The footsteps in front of him were getting away, leaving him in this snare. He prayed for an abrupt opening, the discovery of an easy passage, and pursued Brad. There was a narrow, trampled path, its edges thorned and ferny. He walked fast, bent over, until a flashlight switched on just ahead and blinded him. Gradually Brad appeared, illuminated, solemn, as if he were about to tell a ghost story. Erik found he could stand. Above lay a crude maze of night sky, stars. Crickets nearby grew silent.
“Come on,” said Brad. “This path goes to the old cabin.”
They walked on quickly, light with anticipation. An owl called from somewhere, in brief bewilderment. Mosquitoes found them and attacked. They were relentless. Erik swatted them and wiped the blood from his arms, calves, and face.
Brad talked about his brother’s ex-girlfriend. “They might still get back together. That’s why Cal invited her. I don’t know what that kid was thinking. Cal is going to kick his ass. If he doesn’t, Greg will.” Greg was the oldest brother, Erik remembered from his parents’ conversation, a senior at St. John’s. He would apply to Ivy League schools this fall, they had said. He wished his parents weren’t so impressed by the Dravinskis, because he was, too. He didn’t understand why his parents didn’t change their lives. The owl hooted again and was cut off by Brad saying, “That’s one thing the Dravinskis can’t have, guys messing with their women.”
The path narrowed and disappeared into a cluster of thick hawthorn bushes. Their round berries turned red to black as Erik flashed his beam over them. He saw the long thorns, the branches like cords, and hesitated. He feared for his eyes and saw himself emerging from the woods flailing, his skin laced with scratches. He remembered that Brad lived here and thought he must know a way around this obstacle. “Where to now?”
Brad stood, rethinking their predicament. He looked helpless, still shirtless, his arms folded, like a young faun still learning about the forest. His mouth was wider than his eyes. He held his light on the gray-green leaves. “These weren’t here before,” he said. He pressed his lips small and colorless, and glowered. It was as if he was tormented by the thought that they had been growing here all along. He shrugged and said, “We’ll have to just go through them.”
Erik was about to protest when Brad plunged into them, shouting in pain and surprise. The flashlight revealed only thrashing shrubbery and the unconscious swaying of upper branches. Brad’s cries became steadier, louder, more determined. The bush continued to thrash. This seemed like the right time to turn back, Erik decided. Not to see the cabin would be a disappointment, but he preferred the cozy backseat of his father’s car to going any further. He waited for Brad to reappear, bleeding and vanquished. He heard zany laughter.
“I’m here!” Brad shouted from the far side of the bush. “Rad! Come on, man! Do it!”
With great reluctance Erik faced a cruel fact about this universe, how never getting to a place prevented you from knowing whether it was, finally, just as you’d imagined it. Brad knew this, too, which was why they had come out here. He closed his eyes, crossed his hands before his face, and charged into the brush. Long thorns lodged in his arms and tore his clothes. It was as if he had fallen into a carpenter’s laundry. All over his body the points of intolerable pain were too many to count, and his desire to go back drowned in his fear that he was closer to the other side. He growled and squealed and fought through the bushes until, gurgling, he stumbled out, nearly running into Brad.
The other boy wore the smile of an idiot who promotes leaping out of airplanes. He gestured at a small log cabin sitting atop a knoll covered in high grass. “Here we are,” said Brad. “Ghost central.”
The brutal feeling vanished as Erik shone his light over the dark windows. Fallen leaves and branches covered the roof. Patches of wood showed where shingles had fallen away. It was the perfect clubhouse, a place to live apart from your lunatic family, close enough so you could still go home for rations. He would have moved his stuff out here years ago.
“Let’s go in,” he said. He started through the grass, leaving Brad behind him. At the windows he held his flashlight against the warped glass. His elbows cooled on the stone ledge. Inside, a wooden table stood bare beside a short, stout icebox. In one corner a thin mattress lay on a rusty bed frame. It was a perfect villain’s hideout. He could see himself, living here, sitting at the table, keeping a journal of animal sightings. Occasionally he would be visited by other outlaws who needed his advice. None of them would have been so well established as to have a cabin, and they would naturally look up to him. The police would come and question him, and he would shrug off their questions, let the rustic accoutrements of his simple existence do the talking. He felt Brad standing behind him. “I bet criminals stay here all the time. Ever see any?”
“What?” Brad stood quietly, his flashlight pointed into the long grass that reached past the cuffs of his khaki cut-offs. He seemed to be thinking. “Um,” he said. “Once my dad found a family of raccoons inside.”
“Let’s go in,” said Erik. He was struck by the possibility that the ghost of a pioneer inhabited this structure, that if he lived here he could lie in bed at night and watch canned goods float around the room. The ghost of the pioneer would write in his own journal, nostalgic for the days when Indians visited the cabin, instead of common lawbreakers.
“We can’t go in,” said Brad. “It’s locked. The ghosts are out here. My brothers both saw them. Look out.”
Erik stared at this shadowed boy in disbelief. He saw how a little brother could be the composite copy of older ones. There Brad was, trapped by the lies he could not make work in his own words. Without his circle of young adults, he was barely more than animal. Erik would have said all this if he’d thought that it would do any good, but he suspected Brad had never been disobedient in a way his brothers had not. The owl called again.
“Did you hear that?” said Brad.
“That was an owl,” said Erik.
“How do you know?” Brad sounded annoyed. “Can you see it? Point it out. Prove it’s not a ghost.”
Erik walked around to the cabin door and felt gravel beneath his shoes. He turned and shone the light toward what appeared to be a lawn with large maples spaced out by a landscaper. Saplings grew up all around them. “Where does this path go?” he asked.
“Don’t change the subject,” said Brad. “It goes to the street. Where do you think it goes?”
“No, seriously,” he said. “I just heard something. There was someone here.”
“No there wasn’t,” Brad said. “Shut up. Did you really hear someone?”
; “Listen, you can hear his footsteps.” Erik shone his light over the high grass and young trees, then swung the beam across the trunk of a large ash tree. “There he is,” he whispered.
Brad came up beside him, heat and the smell of deodorant rolling off his torso, breathing softly through his mouth. “Who is it?”
“It might be that guy from the party,” Erik whispered. “The one with your brother’s girlfriend. Maybe she’s out here, too.”
“No way. My brothers will kick his ass.” Brad went forward into the yard, shining his own light around, over grass and bushes, trees and sky. He jerked to face one way and then the other, as if he expected whatever presence awaited him in the darkness to attack. “Come out, whoever you are,” he called. “We’re not afraid; there’s a whole bunch of guys real close who are going to kick your ass.”
Erik turned off his light and padded up the gravel, concentrating on Brad’s back, the muscles knotting each time the boy shouted. He seemed so intent on watching the air in front of him that he had lost all sense of what lay behind him. Erik stood with his dark hands raised, feeling like a magician, and when he could no longer contain the giggling sensation deep in his stomach he leapt forward and grabbed Brad’s bare shoulders.
Brad screamed, dropped his flashlight in the gravel, and began to thrash. The sound only lasted a moment, but the experience electrified Erik, for it was not a cry or a shout or a girlish shriek, but demonic, belonging in another world. He immediately let go of Brad’s shoulders and jumped back, terrified and numb in the chest, unsure of whether to burst into laughter or run for the cover of adults.
