Everyday Ghosts

by James Morrison

  “How’s that again?”

  “That would be fourteen hundred.”

  “Do you mean to say one thousand and four hundred?”

  “One thousand four hundred and fifty-six, to be exact,” the man answered, consulting the clipboard again. “It’s about a year’s worth.”

  “Excuse me please,” said Father Gabriel.

  He turned and walked back to the Jeep. Pete and the man from the county watched him go. His steps were unhurried, and he looked around him as he walked as if he were out for a stroll. He opened the Jeep’s door carefully. Then he lurched into the front seat, slamming the door behind him. He stared ahead for several minutes. Then he put his head down and covered his face with his hands. Pete saw his shoulders start to heave.

  The man from the county took the pencil from behind his ear and scratched his nose with the eraser end. “Do you think he’ll be back?” he asked Pete.

  “I think so,” Pete answered. “I think he will.”

  The man shrugged again. He pulled a stick of gum out of his pocket, unwrapped it, and folded it into his mouth. He rolled the foil wrapper into a little silver ball and played it between his fingers.

  A few minutes later, Father Gabriel got out of the Jeep. He walked past Pete without looking at him and took his place beside the open grave. It was filled with a mound of black plastic bags. They were tied shut with yellow bands. Many were dusted with streaks of gray-white ash.

  Father Gabriel clasped his hands together and, looking downward, began to speak. “God did not make death. Nor does He rejoice in the destruction of the living. He fashioned all things that they might have being, and the creatures of the world are wholesome. There is not a destructive drug among them, nor any domain of the nether world on earth, for justice is undying. This is a reading from the Book of Wisdom.”

  There was a pause. Father Gabriel raised his eyebrows at the scattered mourners. “Amen,” a few of them murmured.

  “The breakers of death surged round about me,” he went on. “The floods of perdition overwhelmed me. In my distress I called upon the Lord. From His temple, He heard my voice, and my cry reached His ears.”

  After he was finished speaking, Father Gabriel nodded and strode away, back to where Pete stood. He closed his hand around Pete’s arm and held it there. Pete felt his hand tremble.

  “Thanks, Father,” said the man from the county, chewing his gum. “That was great.”

  “Do you know a cheap dentist?” asked Father Gabriel.

  “Sure, there’s a clinic right here in Pomona. I’ll write down the directions.”

  A mourner made her way toward them. One of her shoes was much bigger than the other, and she walked with a limp, holding up a black umbrella that was open above her to block the sun. She gazed at Father Gabriel through the black mesh of her veil. “My brother’s in there,” she said, tilting the umbrella toward the grave. “My little brother Kenny. He never come to much but I wisht it hadn’t ended up this way.”

  “Your brother is not there, my child,” said Father Gabriel. “His soul is with God.”

  “Do you think so, Father?” She leaned forward hopefully. Her eyes glistened. “Do you really think so? He could never catch a break. They got him on every little thing. He tried and tried but it was just no use. Nothing ever come out right. He was a lot younger than me. I used to play with him when he was just a baby. He was such a little baby. But he never had a chance.” Her voice broke, and she sobbed. “That poor boy just never had a chance.”

  “There, there,” said Father Gabriel. He tightened his grip on Pete’s arm. “God’s way is unerring. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.”

  The woman shut her eyes tightly. Then she opened them wide. A tear dropped to her cheek. “Thank you, Father,” she said. “Oh, thank you, thank you.”

  Father Gabriel nodded, turned to Pete, and snarled under his breath, “Get me out of here.”

  In the Jeep, Pete said, “You gave that woman comfort.”

  “Drive faster,” said Father Gabriel. “My tooth is killing me.”

  “I’m going the speed limit.”

  “It was Samuel. The Book of Samuel. The verse goes on from there. ‘They cried for help, but no one saved them—to the Lord, but he answered them not. I ground them fine as the dust of the earth. Like the mud in the streets I trampled them down.’ ”

  16

  The dentist’s office was in a little strip mall between a car wash and a trailer park. On the plate glass window in front was a picture of a big white tooth with a smiling face. When they got out of the Jeep, Father Gabriel took hold of Pete’s arm again and did not let go. The waiting room was mostly full. A nurse at the desk told them to take a seat. Father Gabriel glanced around the room. “Look at them all,” he muttered to Pete. “Just look at them. This time next year they’ll all be ash and I’ll be yammering over their grave.” The woman sitting next to him got up and moved to another chair.

  When the nurse called him in, Father Gabriel insisted Pete come with him. As they entered Father Gabriel stopped short when he saw an Indian man in a green smock standing inside. “Are you the doctor?”

  “I am that,” the man answered with a chuckle.

  “It’s a Hindu,” Father Gabriel gasped, still clutching Pete’s arm. “You have brought me to a Hindu!”

  “I am pleased to say I am a nonbeliever,” the doctor said. “Do come in.”

  Father Gabriel settled uneasily into the chair. The doctor pressed a button, and the chair slanted backward with a low buzzing sound. “What’s happening? What are you doing?” Father Gabriel clutched at the chair’s arms.

  “The better to see you with,” chuckled the doctor, sitting on a stool beside the chair. “Now, open wide. Oh my. Have you been drinking?”

  “What do you take me for?”

  “Very, very bad for the enamel. Tsk tsk. Now where does it hurt?”

  Father Gabriel told him. The doctor dipped a stick into a pinkish gel in a beaker and rubbed the stick against Father Gabriel’s gums.

  “It’s gone,” said Father Gabriel. “The pain is gone.”

  “It’s only a topical,” said the doctor.

  “The pain is gone. One touch and you have taken it away. How can I ever thank you? Oh, I feel like I’m alive again!”

  “It will wear off shortly. Sit down, please.”

  “You have taken the pain away.” Father Gabriel clambered out of the chair and pulled off the bib they had fastened around his neck. “I feel like myself again.”

  “I have not completed the exam,” said the doctor.

  “I misjudged you,” said Father Gabriel. “I misjudged your people. You have given me my life back.”

  “I will not be responsible for this.”

  “You’ve given my life back and I will never forget it.”

  “I don’t think he was finished,” said Pete, when they were in the parking lot.

  “Oh, look,” said Father Gabriel. “Look how beautiful everything is. I don’t want to go back yet. I want to go to the ocean. It’s years since I’ve seen the ocean. The great Pacific! You’ll take me, won’t you?”

  17

  On the way, Father Gabriel laughed and pointed at everything moving past the windows of the Jeep, repeating, “Look—oh, look!”

  Pete had to keep his eyes on the traffic. “Father,” he said. “There are many things I have to tell you.”

  “I know, I know. But not now. Not yet. For the moment I am happy. Look at that—a big fat cigar floating in the sky! There really are miracles in the world.” Pete glanced up. It was true. There was a big cigar in the sky. A bright banner flapped in the clear air behind it.

  Father Gabriel went on chattering happily the whole way, delighted with all he saw. The sight of the ocean silenced him, but it did not stop his joy. Pete could see it still in his face. They stood together on the shore, the sea stretching before them, blue and measureless. On both sides the beach gave way to the slopes of faraway hil
ls peaked with low clouds. Before them, the distance—a great blue shimmer—had no end. The sky widened above them as if it were spreading its arms to hold all that was below. The ocean’s sound was everywhere, even though it was only a whisper, a gentle shushing that rose and fell but never stopped. In its tender way, it said to be quiet, and look, and that is what they did.

  “Look—there’s a Ferris wheel!” said Father Gabriel after a long while. “Let’s go.” He jumped up from where he had been sitting on the beach and hurried off, brushing sand from the seat of his robe. Pete followed.

  The Ferris wheel was at the end of a pier. They edged their way through crowds that stood watching acrobats and street performers or milled around hot dog stands and soda fountains. A fat man chomping on a cigar helped them into their car. “We don’t get many of your types around here,” he said. “But bless your heart.”

  Father Gabriel pointed at his cigar. “We just saw one of those floating in the sky,” he beamed.

  They were lifted up. Little by little, they rose. Even as they did, the sky did not seem to come any closer, but the ocean stretched farther away. The horizon drew back and vanished. Father Gabriel caught his breath. “It’s the top of the world,” he murmured.

  “We’re very, very high,” Pete agreed.

  “It’s the top of the world,” Father Gabriel repeated crossly.

  “Father, what are we going to do?”

  Father Gabriel sighed. “I’m going to go back and face the music and you are going to go off and live your life. It is time. Long past time, I would say.”

  Pete looked down. “Where will I go?”

  “Home.”

  “I haven’t got a home.”

  “You’ll make one.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Then you’ll do without. Look at all those people down there. They’re doing without. Didn’t you see their clothes spread around them on the ground where they slept? You haven’t had a home for a long time. We can’t live in the world and we can’t live anywhere else. Do you want to go on living as a ghost?”

  “No.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I want not to want.”

  An airplane crossed the sky above them. It went higher and higher, then turned on its wing, circling back. Its movement was slow. Its sound was swallowed by the throb of the sea.

  “Brother Dominic, you know,” said Father Gabriel, “is the only one who ever comes to confession these days. Isn’t it odd? I sit hunched in that booth twiddling my thumbs, and he is the only one. And he is quite the little blabbermouth, I must say.”

  Pete met his eyes. “Then you know.”

  “If your question is how long can one live without revelation, the answer is forever. ‘He fashioned all things that they might have being.’ If you have to remember any of it, remember that. And now there is one last thing I have to tell you.”

  Father Gabriel told him what it was. It changed everything. Pete knew what he would have to do. His heart opened. It was as if he had the ocean inside him. Yet he was also filled with rage. He wept, and Father Gabriel took him in his arms.

  “You should have told me before,” said Pete. “All this time I’ve lost.”

  “I’m terribly sorry, my boy. I haven’t been in my right mind for years. Please forgive me, Pete.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “I’m telling you now,” said Father Gabriel. “We have to start somewhere.”

  On the way back to the Jeep, they weaved through crowds along the boardwalk. Sellers spread their wares out everywhere. There were blankets across the ground covered with polished shells and charms for sale, bins and easels filled with colorful drawings, musicians playing their many different instruments in a babble of music that almost drowned out the sound of the sea. A little girl with a ponytail was sitting at a plain folding table. On the tabletop were a little red plastic tube and a square of cardboard. The girl sat with her hands folded on the table in front of her.

  “What is it that you are selling, young lady?” asked Father Gabriel.

  “Oops. I forgot,” said the girl. She picked up a small pink purse from the ground beside her and set it on the table. She unsnapped its bright gold clasp. The only thing inside was a roll of tape. The girl leaned forward and taped the piece of cardboard to the edge of the table so that it hung down in front. In red magic marker, it said, GLIMPSES OF INFINITY—one dollar.

  “You are selling glimpses of infinity?”

  “That’s right. Would you like one?”

  “Very much so.”

  “One dollar, please.”

  Father Gabriel placed the bill into the empty purse. The girl handed him the red tube. It had little plastic see-through circles at each end. They were smudged with fingerprints. Father Gabriel peered into one end of the tube.

  “That’s the wrong side,” said the girl.

  Father Gabriel turned the tube around.

  “You’re still doing it wrong. You’ve got to hold it up.”

  He did. He looked into it for a long time, his face slowly changing. “Oh my,” he said. “Oh my. I never dreamed.” He handed the tube to Pete. All Pete saw were two straight lines, very close to each other. But as he watched, they grew even closer, without seeming to move at all, until bit by bit there was only a single line. Then, very slowly, the line disappeared, and all Pete was looking at was an empty circle in a wash of yellow light.

  “Have you ever seen anything like it?” asked Father Gabriel, taking back the tube.

  “No,” said Pete. “I never have.”

  Father Gabriel set the tube carefully on the table. “Thank you very, very much, young lady.”

  “That’s another dollar,” said the girl, pointing at Pete. “He looked too.”

  18

  When they got back, the superiors were waiting for them. “Where have you been?” demanded the Bishop. “We’ve been waiting here for hours.”

  “I didn’t know Your Eminences were coming,” said Father Gabriel, spreading his arms in welcome. “Your Eminences did not tell me when to expect Your Eminences.”

  The Abbot stepped forward. “Well?” he rasped.

  “I was away doing the work assigned to me by Your Eminences. Then I went to the dentist. That took some time. Then, if the truth be told, we went to the beach. Each life needs a little ease. All work and no play, you know. And finally we had a glimpse of infinity. It was quite a day.”

  “What nonsense is this? Do you mean to be impertinent?”

  The Abbot was a tall man, bald except for curly tufts of gray hair bubbling over both ears. The Bishop was short and grossly obese, which lent a special air to his sermons against gluttony.

  “The thought never crossed my mind, Your Eminence,” answered Father Gabriel.

  “Perhaps you need to be reminded of the high office of the church,” said the Bishop. “The church, that turned the cannibals to faith. The church, that brought light to every dark corner of the earth.”

  “I assure Your Eminences, I have never lost sight of those accomplishments,” said Father Gabriel.

  “One would never know it from how you conduct yourself,” said the Abbot. “The time you kept us waiting we have put to good use. We have looked the place over from top to bottom. We left no stone unturned. We have never seen such sloth.”

  “It’s not bad enough to bring in the police,” said the Bishop. “No, that embarrassment to the church is not enough for you. An abbey is like a garden. You have not tended yours well. The weeds are in every crevice.”

  “Could Your Eminences be more specific?”

  “It is an aura,” said the Abbot. “And it is everywhere, like a rank smell. An aura of something terribly wrong. Something . . . unseemly.”

  “We feel it in our bones,” said the Bishop. “There is nothing godly here. And we have seen the chaos with our own two eyes.”

  Pete thought Father Gabriel might be considering correcting him, since the total n
umber of eyes was actually four. Instead, after a pause, Father Gabriel said, “Surely Your Eminences will agree that it is out of chaos that order comes.”

  “We are not here to discuss theology,” snapped the Abbot. “We find grave fault in you. Measures will need to be taken, Father Gabriel. Definite measures.”

  It was then that a man came running into the foyer where they stood. He was whooping and howling. He twirled about the room, spinning on his feet. He waved his arms and cried out in broken words. His shouts formed a language of their own. He leaped into the air over and over, and flung himself against the walls. Finally, he scurried in a circle, tripped over the loose board, and fell flat on his face, out cold.

  Everyone stood silent for a long moment. The Bishop and the Abbot looked stunned.

  At last the Bishop spoke in a low, quaking voice. “Who is this man?”

  Before an answer came, the Abbot cried, “This man is touched with the spirit of the Almighty Holy Ghost. Did you see him take to the air? Did you hear his gift of tongues? He is in the image of Saint Joseph, whose holy fits began three hundred and sixty years ago this very day—on the glorious Feast of our blessed Saint Francis!”

  “Father Gabriel, perhaps we have been too hasty,” said the Bishop. “Revive this man, that he might tell us of his inspiration.”

  Just then the door flew open. Brother Louis stood in the doorway. He glanced at Brother Walter lying on the floor. Then he said, “The barn’s on fire. But I caught the intruder. I’ve got him tied to a tree.”

  19

  The straw fed the flames, and the wood was very dry. The door had fallen shut and, as was its way, it was jammed and would not open. Pete threw himself against it over and over. “Neb, Neb’s in there,” he screamed. “Please, please, somebody—help her, save her.” Brother Louis ran to the tool shed and came back with a hatchet. He began to chop furiously at the door, but flames crept out from under it, then shot up, and soon they had worked their way from the ground and flared in all directions as they consumed the wood and raced toward the roof, where they thrashed at the darkness above. It was no use. Father Gabriel pulled Pete away from the fire and held him there. Brother Louis dropped the hatchet to the ground and fell to his knees with a terrible moan. The walls of the barn fell in. Plumes of smoke shot into the sky.