Mansion of High Ghosts

by James D. McCallister

  “Nah. I mean—yeah, sure. Billy’s my main man.”

  “What, then?”

  Devin, grunting and shifting around in his seat, made a show of fiddling with the safety belt strap cutting into his collarbone. Dying to let his suspicions tumble out, the truth now clear:

  Creedence, only his half-sister.

  The enormity of his mother’s duplicity now multiplied, exponential. Thoughts of it all made Devin quiver with thirst.

  “Same old rigmarole.” Casual, controlling his voice, acting up a storm. “Mama wants to sit and talk the way y’all always done. But, I ain’t got it in me.”

  “She’d call me six times a day at work for updates on what I was doing. What Uncle Hill was up to.”

  If here was an open door, Devin, deciding not to go through it.

  “Maybe I’m not much into family.”

  “Aw—we used to have such fun. You remember.”

  He did. “And Mama too, on all them beach trips.”

  “But you seemed to change. Did change.”

  Putting his hand on her forearm. “Only in certain ways. Never stopped loving my sister.”

  Creedence, reaching across and squeezing his knuckles.

  But another shock of recognition, startling. Devin, jerking his arm away and yanking down the cosmetics mirror in the passenger side sunshade. Staring, now, into his own eyes.

  Now tell me, who are you? ’Cause I really want to know.

  “What on earth?”

  “Something in my eye, s’all.”

  “Scared the mess out of me, boy. We need to arrive alive, now.”

  Wondering now how in God’s name he could go and sit in a bar without succumbing, Devin tried to push the thirst out through his pores like sweat.

  The shit’s got no power over me.

  It is only I who’ve the power over my own actions.

  For today, I will not drink.

  One day at a time.

  Over the summer of recovery, Devin, suffering and soldiering through a few key tests of his sobriety, but so far coming through fine:

  One bleak, boring afternoon he did at last hit up the cemetery to visit Libby, but instead of turning at the gates, driving around, aimless, for hours; haul-assing down every country road but the right one, giving the Jetta more of a workout than the battered car could possibly have wanted: up to Parsons Hollow and across to the national forest in the west half of the county, down through those endless pine barrens to Red Mound and what they called the sand hills, places where you could find seashells from zillions of eons ago when the coastline had been situated along what they called the fall line, where the rivers began to flow down to where the briny sea met the sand.

  Ending up in Tillman Falls on the town green right outside of The Dixiana, Roy Earl’s grandfather’s beer joint. Sitting outside for an hour. Sweating, heart thudding. Watching a broken-down old redneck man hobble in to get his fill of whatever got him through the long afternoons. Itching to join him.

  In the end, Devin had put the car in gear and driven home, proud of his resolve and yet shamed by his inability to view Libby’s gravesite, to pay proper tribute to the ancients. In hiding, as them old Pearl Jam boys sang on the alternative rock station from down in Columbia. I’m in hiding, still.

  No. Too much time had passed—Pearl Jam’s now classic, not alternative, rock. The 90s, a blank spot in his history.

  Creedence exited the freeway for the main thoroughfare into downtown Columbia. “I been meaning to ask you something.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “When on earth are you gonna go and see your best friend?”

  A distinct, different shame. “Aw, hell—Dobbs don’t want to see me.”

  Creedence, stern: “If everything you’ve told me is true, about how you’re all better?”

  “Which I am.”

  “Then go and tell him, son. He’s known all summer you’re back.”

  “I don’t know how I can look at him, girl. I never could, after the accident.”

  “Devin. He still believes it’s all his fault.”

  This kind of talk caused ear-steam to leak out. “My boy wa’n’t nowhere near the wheel. It was me.”

  “Devin?”

  He grunted, waited.

  “What were you doing all that time?”

  “When?”

  “When you was gone away. What’d you do with yourself?”

  “Oh—then? I drank. And drove. And I drank some more.”

  “Not for the whole time. Nobody could.”

  Devin, even in sobriety continuing to elide the truth about his dry period with Millie, which had been a year or two. “And yet here I sit, having lived to tell the tale. A sturdy frame, I reckon. S’all I can tell you.”

  Devin, directing her on a series of turns that led them down into the Old Market; they wended their way through a gauntlet of orange traffic cones, backhoes, sidewalks with cavernous voids, all the old sidewalk trees ripped out—the neighborhood, a facelift.

  Feeling it for the merchants. Devin had been told by Roy Earl how the construction had already caused no end of anxiety, but not yet halfway complete.

  “Park in there.” Devin, motioning toward the pay lot across from Lupo’s, marveled at the lack of vehicles parked in the neighborhood. Thinking, back in the day? Even on a weeknight like this? The streets would have been crawling with students. Maybe the younger generation, a later crowd?

  Who gave a rip. Devin, declining to join in their revelry.

  There, the low wall on which he’d sat, watching Billy and Libby so long ago. Wondering what’d been said between them that night. He’d never asked her.

  Getting out of the car, Devin, curious to see Melanie Pinckney, a nylon book-bag slung over her shoulder, sashaying down the sidewalk toward them.

  Billy had done well. Hair ringlets like Libby, a lithe and tan goddess.

  Creedence, a shadow crossing her features: “Tell me that isn’t Billy’s little college girly.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Well, I’ll be shit.”

  Devin asked what was wrong. She said, nothing.

  Creedence, calling out and waving: “Hey, girl!”

  Melanie canted her head over with a curious frown. Her smile, dissipating once she realized the identity of the people approaching her.

  “Melanie, how are you? I keep meaning to get together with y’all.”

  Devin, fumbling with a cigarette. “What’s shaking, gorgeous?”

  A modicum of cheerful enthusiasm. “Are you guys here to see Billy play?”

  “Yeah.” The siblings, answering in unison. Devin, punching Creedence in the arm.

  “Billy’s so silly—he didn’t want me here.”

  Creedence, mock-shock. “Why on earth wouldn’t he want you to come?”

  “Said he’d be too nervous. It’s such a big deal, for some reason. But after hearing how hard he worked on his songs…”

  Devin, chuckling. “Steeple used to be quite the rock star, back in the day.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “A different Billy, back then.”

  The trio stood in awkward silence. The sounds of a female folk duo wafted from the open door of the club.

  Creedence, peering inside. “I reckon we ought to go in.”

  Devin, smoking, cleared his froggy throat. “Say, Mel?”

  “Yes?”

  Stammering as though trying to ask her on a date. “Just a word or two. For a skinny minute or three?”

  Melanie, crossing her arms as though cold. “Go ahead.”

  “Alone, I mean.”

  Creedence, getting it. “I’ll go on in and pay for you. It’s only five dollars.”

  Melanie, left with Devin in foot-shuffling discomfort, looked as though she’d scream if he said so much as ‘boo’ to her.

  “I’m sorry as all get-out. Truly. For whatever happened that night I fell.”

  “Billy said you’d apologized to him. That’s g
ood enough for me.”

  “That’s like, what, step four or six. Some shit like that.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Devin, miming the quaffing of a beverage. “The AA routine.”

  “Are you feeling okay these days?”

  “Dry as the Sahara.”

  “From your fall, I mean?”

  “Oh—a bit stiff when it rains.” He held his cane aloft, danced a delicate little side-step. “Otherwise? A hundred percent.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “One for the books, they tell me.”

  Chewing her lower lip, Melanie hesitated as though carefully choosing her next words. Her youth and beauty stood in high, ghostly relief next to Devin’s crusty drunkard’s countenance of pits and lines.

  “I know how close you and Billy are, or were. But you must realize how much you scared us that night.” Cutting herself off, her face reddening. “My goodness, but it was horrible.”

  “All Billy said was I had got all rowdy on y’all.”

  “In a word.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Should you even be coming in here tonight?”

  Devin, smoking under the crepuscular lavender sky, that twilit moment of almost-dark. “Probably not.”

  “Then why are you?”

  “He called Creedence, not me. But I came anyway.”

  “He called—who?”

  “My sister. Chelsea. Creedence is what we call her.”

  Considering the revelation. “He called her? Not you?”

  Devin, fibbing. “He called us both.”

  Melanie, a trace of angry recrimination. “Since you both came back from Texas, now he’s the one drinking too much.”

  No bueno, Devin said, hand over heart. “Firsthand info.”

  “He barely touched a drop before.”

  Quavering and faint. “Now, look here—you ain’t laying that on me. Ain’t like I been out partying with him.”

  “He keeps talking about how he let you down. One night he even punched a hole in the wall.” A harsh whisper. “And, crying.”

  “Crying?”

  “He’s been crying like nobody’s ever seen.”

  “No shit.”

  “Ruck?” She parroted what Billy would call him, raising her eyebrows. “I’ve never seen him cry at all before. And so, I’m worried.”

  Trying to force his weak smile through a tight mask of degradation, Devin didn’t know what to say. “He always was real emotional. With me, anyway.”

  “You know I’m a psychology major.”

  Devin busted a gut. “Hope you brung your notebook for this crew. Yee-haw.”

  A smattering of applause greeted the conclusion of the vocal duo’s set. “Maybe we should go in.”

  Devin’s energy settled. He sucked his teeth. “Yeah. Let’s go in.”

  “What the hell happened between you that night on the balcony?”

  Truthful as possible: “Far as I know, nothing. We just fell through that sliding glass door.”

  “You weren’t fighting?”

  “God no, girl. We was drunk. We’d just had too much, too fast. That’s all. Now let’s go hear him play.”

  Sixty-Two

  Billy

  Warbling in his reedy tenor, Billy struggled through the first tune.

  In trouble.

  It had been bad enough whittling down his lengthy pick-list. He’d been having early 90s nostalgia. He’d heard titters at the start after muttering “‘Champagne Supernova,’ by the Gallaghers,” into the Shure S-57 microphone. As though anyone in this crowd of musicians and music lovers wouldn’t recognize the overplayed 90s pop hit. He also had ‘Californication’ and ‘Cumbersome’ prepared, along with a few other grunge classics.

  Having a difficult time maintaining the tempo, hands soaked with sweat, slipping on the strings, he couldn’t remember in the least why he'd thought this song so fraught with meaning, nor had his attempt to goad the audience into a sing-and-clap-along of the chorus gone over.

  Wrapping it up with a flourish. Silence. A few claps. The table of three who knew Billy whooped and goosed the applause best they could, Ruck telling him to ‘tear it up, beau’ in that ragged rasp of his and waving a cane in the air. Surreal.

  Why had he played it? Libby hadn’t even lived long enough to know the tune. What a colossal error.

  Forget his fans—he fixated on finding the one wit out in the darkness who had the temerity, the rank discourtesy, to literally boo. Retribution awaited.

  For others as well—peering at his old friend, waving, thumb’s up, but inside? Rage monkey. What, did Ruck find out about her coming over here and have a shit-fit? Did he have some say over his sister’s life?

  The way he’d had over Libby’s?

  Billy, thinking about sending a message—an ugly one.

  “Here’s how I feel about being back here on the Lupo’s stage after all these years.” He plucked around, settled on a key which felt correct. “Here’s one from the old days. From when dinosaurs roamed the earth. It’s for my boy back there. He’s home from the wars. He’s a road warrior. This is for him.”

  “Get on with it,” the boo-er yelled to shushes from Creedence, Melanie and others.

  Yep—Billy launched into a spare, hoarse rendition of ‘Back on the Chain Gang,’ the old lament for departed friends. The whole time he sang he stared out beyond the lights at what he hoped was Devin, a bitterness verging on outright sarcasm, the lyrics and cadence of a vocalist making fun of a song rather than doing it in tribute, the subtext of his message… well… that Melanie, sitting next to Devin, was no Libby. And that if Devin wanted Melanie, it could possibly save his life. As Creedence would save Billy’s. He wasn’t sure it came through.

  After doing the first verse and chorus straight, he stopped strumming and began to sing-speak the rest of the lyrics like William Shatner. “I found a picture of you, yeah. Back on the chain gang. That’s where we are. Yeah.”

  Devin, his hair and shoulders backlit, glowing and ethereal. Still as a stone.

  “What in the actual fuck?” the lone voice of dissent called out.

  Billy, holding up a hand, again strummed the chords and modulated his voice back into a straight, serious rendition. Getting choked up but holding himself together, he sang on through.

  In fact ramping up the performance—Billy, flailing at the metal strings until slicing his unseasoned, callous-free fingertips. Belting out the bridge-verse. The words bearing down on his soul like lead.

  Billy, hating Devin.

  He who had had her.

  Thoughts, out of control.

  Now his voice shattered and broke. Trailing off and sobbing into the microphone, choking. Not giving a shit whether anyone saw him weep or not. His consciousness, awash in intoxication. A wellspring of fresh grief that hit him out of nowhere. He had been drinking nonstop since noon.

  Wiping his blurry eyes, his vision cleared to see a roomful of hushed and shocked faces, bar owner Nicole’s the most horrified of all.

  She had already come onstage. “Billy-boy—you okay?”

  Barking NO and waving her away, he asked for ‘special dispensation’ because of a family issue, a moment to recover and finish his set.

  “No. Come on down,” she whispered, gentle. “Please.”

  Covering up the microphone with his huge hand he caused the PA to screech with feedback. Flinching, releasing the mic, he shouted: “I’ve got one more. I picked it for you—‘Just a Girl,’ No Doubt. I know what you’re thinking, but I assure you I can hit the high notes.”

  “That’s enough, sweetie.” Glancing around at a crowd held rapt by this drama, she begged: “Enough for tonight, now.”

  “Jesus.” Billy, slurring. “I swear I’m okay.”

  A quick, cutting glance at the shadowy looks of confusion on Creedence and Melanie’s faces. Devin’s chair, now empty. No more catcalls—they all rubbernecked at a train wreck still unfolding.

  “Thanks for nothing,
” Billy yelped into the microphone. He threw his guitar into the case so hard that the neck of the instrument cracked and broke; he didn’t care if he ever played it again, nor if anyone else still alive did either. That bitch was Pete Townshend-bound for the splinter factory. Forget music. Back to the screenplays.

  Ignoring the stares of the audience, he flip-flopped over to his people, asking, “You believe these Philistines? And where the fuck my boy Rucker at? Daddy’s ready to party like it’s 1989.”

  Sixty-Three

  Creedence

  Chelsea, watching as Billy came down offstage, felt as though she had witnessed the man of her dreams not at his best; rather, losing his mind.

  In front of God and everyone.

  Oh-kay, then.

  Revelation in a minor key; puzzle-pieces connecting. He hadn’t wanted Melanie here. His tears, because they’re in the process of breaking up.

  It’s why he wanted me here. To show her.

  Devin, who’d gone outside to smoke, had not come back. Sudden, as though someone lit a fire under him, he’d bolted when Billy began the recitation. And her now left with a roomful of strangers.

  Melanie, cooing to her man. “Honey—that was so good.”

  “I’m like so so so glad all you guys came. Anyone wanna get a drink?”

  Tilting his head just so, his twinkling eyes, a little puffy and red, still bore right into her. “How’s Miss Creedence tonight? Besides gorgeous?”

  Felt herself flush. “Been forever since I went out.”

  “Have no fear, fair maidens; memorable times await. Drinks, dancing, debauchery. A night to remember.”

  Melanie, air out of a balloon. “Sounds more like one I’d rather forget. We should really get on home.”

  Billy scoffed and signaled Paddy for a round.

  Paddy, who stood conferring with a troubled Nicole, gave him a little head-shake. Creedence could not blame them.

  “Or—let’s pay my tab and we’ll find friendlier climes.”

  Or at least that’s what she thought Billy had said—his words were coming in a sloppy rush.

  He was piss-drunk.