Mansion of High Ghosts

by James D. McCallister

  But Roy Earl’s junk held the smell of money about it. All the stereo gear was top-shelf, the kitchen of the old brick bungalow up in Herndon Hill above the Old Market tricked out in up-to-the-minute stainless steel and granite, cabinets full of exotic spices and interesting dry goods as though the good-old boy on his way to becoming some kind of hipster chef.

  Roy. Who’d-a thunk it about that honkytonk man’s grandson from Tillman Falls? Boy wasn’t no redneck, not like Devin went around portraying. Roy used to talk about wanting to write poetry, books, that world. Not quite with the same passion Libby had shown for filmmaking, but he’d mentioned these dreams. Coffee and smoothies instead? Whatever worked.

  He sounded as though negotiating a lease on a new endeavor, expanding the brand with another smoothie stand in the big new mixed-use retail and condo development to the northeast of the city; open by the late summer, he wanted the build-out done in time to catch the last of the summer lake season, the back-to-school rush. Also, he discussed training an entrepreneurial eye upon downtown Charleston, as well in the suburb Mount Pleasant across the Ravenel Bridge. Devin listened as he rattled off these plans, about scouting out-parcels for both smoothie stand, Roy explained, as well as another Carolina Beanery Café. The first of a franchise, maybe. “Who knows where it’ll all lead.”

  America. Anything possible. Roy Earl, a businessman badass. Devin, proud.

  Also thinking he ought to get on board the Pettus express. He could slop smoothies into cups all day, couldn’t he? An honorable trade. Hell, in two years—two years—he could make manager.

  Manager.

  King.

  God.

  Or: Devin, launching into another form of hospitality trade, where the real money’s to be made in a college neighborhood like this: he could open a bar. That’s right. Roy and him, yee-haw, they could call it The Dixiana Too, have another franchise. License that iconically cool sign-logo facing a corner of the town green back home in Edgewater County to every town in America—what burg couldn’t use a corporate shitkicker honkytonk to drive the fortunes of dying downtowns the nation over?

  Kidding, thinks he.

  Only kidding.

  Hell, he’d take his inheritance from his daddy—his mother had finally gone through it all with him, shown him everything, in fact, about the stocks and the house and the land up by the river they owned where Dwight had planned to build a vacation cottage, a project he’d never gotten around to, unfortunately. Devin, bucks coming his way. He would have the wherewithal to get financing for whatever business he wanted to try. The wartime Bush economy was humming right along. America.

  Roy Earl had called Devin about fifty times for him to come hang out, so Devin, at last succumbing and driving himself over for a visit.

  All morning back home Creedence, however, a nervous, snippy little ass anyway, running from one end of the house to the other getting ready for an Important Appointment, she kept repeating, in Columbia on campus, she said, about her future. Hustling over to the Korean nail salon in downtown Tillman Falls where Mr. Halsey’s Barber and Salon used to be, where Devin and Dobbs and Roy Earl and all of them had gotten their haircuts all those years ago, had been part of it.

  Devin guessed she just wanted to put her best face on the rest of her life. Who could blame her? He worried that once Mama was gone, Creedence wouldn’t know what to do with herself anymore.

  Mama and Devin were supposed to have been over here today for a doctor’s appointment, but Eileen, at the last minute, decided to cancel it. Devin had been glad. The time had come when doctors couldn’t do anything without hurting her worse. That’s what Devin had helped her decide.

  Devin, on the way from his car parked down the street having gotten caught in a downpour—sunny as hell outside now, just his luck. While his clothes spun in the dryer he’d slipped on some of Roy Earl’s duds, which swallowed him. His osteal frame looked like that of the last starving survivor to have staggered out of a death camp.

  Still not eating much. His stomach hurt. All that boozing had done its damage. He should get some imaging on it. See how gaping the holes.

  Eh. If you go to the doctor hoping to find something, they’re sure to do it.

  Devin, scowling and feeling revulsion at what he felt, which was: wanting a drink. Wanting to slam a few beers with Roy like in the days of old. Hit up some of the bar rails they used to shine with their expanding guts. Wanting fifty drinks, so bad he could already taste the hot-cold splash. The burning in his gut.

  But holding fast, best he could. He had to—his people back home were counting on him.

  Skating on the edge once or twice, but yet to fall.

  Almost tumbling the day he’d called Shelby Fordham, thrilled to hear from him; one would have thought Elvis Presley himself had rung up from Costa Rica where he’s been hiding out all these years:

  “I’d love to see you. Even tonight, if you want.”

  “My calendar’s clear.”

  “I could use it—things ain’t been too good.”

  “How so?”

  “I done split up with that butthole husband of mine again. This time for good, I reckon.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Sounds more like you got good timing, sugar. Just sayin’.”

  “Understood.” He felt chilled, not warm. “I don’t want nobody chasing me with a gun, though.”

  “Shit. That turd’s staying in a trailer in Mayfield Acres with this piece of white trash and—oh, wait. Ain’t none of that worth telling.”

  “I don’t even know who you got hitched up with.”

  She told him. He still didn’t know.

  “Let’s forget about him. I know I’m trying to.”

  “Where you want to go? Run down to Columbia?”

  “How about meeting me at The Dixiana? Would you be okay with that?”

  The Dixiana.

  Maybe it’d be fine.

  Sure. “Sure.”

  “It won’t be crowded on a weeknight—they ain’t got no bands playing.”

  Devin, thinking Shelby Fordham either selfish, oblivious, or perhaps most accurately, not truly grasping the extent of his affliction, how far he’d gone around the bend—but how could she? Certain neither Mama nor Creedence had spread such sordid, embarrassing info around—what, after all, would people think?

  Devin, fuck it; needing a test of his resolve anyway. They set a time.

  Considering sprucing up the mustache, he searched his soul to make sure doing so wasn’t vanity. If this were a date, however, he’d venture out without the old-man cane. Stronger every day. Better balance. He wasn’t even forty years old, for god-sakes.

  Arriving on the town green, he parked the Jetta in one of the angled spaces along the small park of monuments to various war dead, racist South Carolina forebears and generals. The honkytonk itself sat emblazoned with an old mural depicting the original Southeastern Redtails mascot ‘General Reb’ waving his Confederate banner, artwork over which folks sometimes protested regarding symbology and inclusiveness.

  Devin, no dog in the fight. Confederate flag crap—to Gen X it always smacked of bad taste, lowbrow redneck shit. He never identified with such heritage—Devin, for all his phony redneck patois and yuck-yuck tone, had never felt Southern. Only suburban, adolescent, middle-class white, watching the same shimmering episodes of Gilligan’s Island and The Price is Right like everyone, awash in homogeneity. He had driven the roads of middle America. He had seen the sameness with his own eyes. He had lived it.

  Inside the honkytonk, realizing in an instant how agreeing to meet her in a bar, of all places, represented the worst in a series of terrible ideas he’d pursued through the years relating to establishments like this.

  The thirst, all over him.

  Spots boiling.

  Today was merely one-more-day.

  A hug, her body thickened with age but no less shapely and appealing, Shelby still smelled the same as when they’d stolen a few adolescent k
isses in the season before Libby.

  Difficult to concentrate, the tables full of shitkickers eating burger baskets and barbecue all yakking and whooping and drinking, their conversations ebbing and flowing; Toby Keith blared from the jukebox in patriotic fervor; Roy Earl’s granddad, Reynolds Pettus, a barrel-chested World War 2 vet nearing 80, hollered at the kitchen help, ragged on the curly-haired redneck girl working the bar; he still ran his own show.

  Smoke, drifting from Devin’s fingertips and nostrils; no antismoking bullcrud in Edgewater County, SC. No sir. Not yet.

  Shelby, sipping a Corona Light, told Devin how unhappy she’d been; how she’d been treated; her travails; her bad luck streak. Her blue-eyed and blonde-haired cherubic cutie-pie face floating across the bar-gloom at him, the same as when they’d been teenagers.

  Telling Devin how kind she’d always considered him.

  Flirting, both implicit as well as otherwise.

  “How we all prayed for you, after what happened.” She reached across to touch Devin’s trembling hand, damp from holding the glass of cold soda water he’d been nursing.

  Squeezing back, he shook his head not only at how foolish her desire; here, another one like Millie, thinking Devin some kind of catch, a nice guy.

  Also revolted by a small epiphany sneaking up on paw-pads. The wrong sort of what-if thinking.

  “I always did like you, sugar.”

  “Back at ya. I remember some sweet smooches, back in the dewy dawn of adolescence.”

  “Oh, so poetic—but I was dating Sammy, and Greg. And you—well.” Shelby, looking askance, tried to smile the way folks did who remembered it all. “You was going with Libby, all of a sudden. She moved here and scooped you right up, didn’t she?”

  “Along those lines.”

  “So it wasn’t to be.” A demure glance; holding his gaze. “Not then, anyway.”

  “Everything might have been different if we had.”

  “Ain’t no way to know that.”

  Thinking through the alternative time line—Devin and Shelby married, him getting a degree and coming back home work at the Sugeree Nuclear Station, or maybe in sales, working for Uncle Hill. Kids. Football on Sundays; cookouts with Eileen and Creedence and Dusty and Daddy. An ordinary Edgewater County life.

  Meanwhile, Libby, freed. Meeting someone else—hell, Billy, for that matter. In her class as peers; nothing to do with that Dead show or the drugs. The two of them, hitting it off. Living on to make their movies together.

  Libby.

  Alive.

  It would all be worth it.

  Stop this foolishness.

  “It ain’t never too late,” Shelby said, husky. “I don’t know about you, but—well I guess ‘ladies’ aren’t supposed to talk this way.”

  She told him, in detail, what awaited him later. If he felt amenable toward getting his freak on with a gal whose radiator was running hot; a girl hadn’t had nothing but pain for a long while.

  “That sound familiar, sugar?”

  Devin could but agree; but suggesting, in not so many words, that after what she’d already been through? To hook up with an irascible, shiftless ex-drunk such as him could hardly be the tonic her romantic life required for repair and redemption? And all?

  “Honey, you ain’t like the others. You never were.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Hush, silly man.” Sudden, she leaned forward and kissed him, awkward, their lips mashing.

  But then it clicked in. Soft, sweet.

  “I’m-a get that check, I think,” Devin said, high-voiced.

  They ended up in a cheap motel room by the interstate, a grim reminder of many such places. Mind racing, surreal; the last intercourse had been with Millie, a couple of years ago now. Devin’s sordid tales of scabby whores and drawn druggy lot lizards, all an exaggeration, all a hard-case act designed as nothing more than barroom tough talk. Boasting of evils committed, and yet without sin. Well—mostly. Here and there.

  After less than a minute inside her supple and pulsing void, her hips meeting his with hungry enthusiasm, Devin, crying out and exploding.

  Shelby sighed at first, but cooing reassurance she became a gentle, patient fellatrix until he’d again become erect. The second instance of coitus had been good for both of them.

  Devin, at such intimacy, felt a spark of life inside.

  Unsettled by the sensation.

  Upon awakening in the morning they enjoyed a third time, slow and gentle and wonderful, until Shelby’d ruined the mood by peering up at him with eyes that’d shone with affection. He’d averted his own, rolling them both over so that she was on top, rocking and riding him until both came hard; Devin, worrying about being broken in half by her grinding.

  No—more worried more about that loving look.

  No way to allow actual serious involvement.

  Not with somebody in his condition.

  Whatever it was.

  Since that morning he’d ignored her last few phone messages, the final of which had been left by a voice breaking with frustration and confusion.

  “You don’t have to be scared of me,” she said. “I promise.”

  He’d square it with her, eventually. Or else keep hiding until it all went away. It wouldn’t be right to starting anything serious right now. Not with Mama being so sick.

  Devin would have shared all that with Roy Earl once he ended his phone call, except he knew his friend would be troubled by any mention of The Dixiana, of which he was not proud, nor Devin’s presence inside.

  But he did mention Shelby, and his friend, lonely and awkward back in high school and college, expressed delight and appreciation for one of his old crushes, another with whom he’d never made any inroads.

  A real shame—Roy, always such a lovable guy. The right girl, presenting herself in due time. Eventually.

  “Your stuff’s probably dry, now.” The dryer buzzed. “Ah, there’s that Pettus intuition.”

  “You’re a man in tune with his environment. Clearly.”

  “What’s next? Thought we could grab a pizza. Watch some Thursday night football?”

  He rattled off the names of the teams playing in the big game that week, the stakes, the star players and their relative strengths, breathless, information sifted and sorted that rang to Devin as inscrutable, like a coded language among initiates.

  “Whatever you feel like. Just glad to hang out.”

  A couple of beats of awkward silence. “I know I keep saying this, but—boy, it sure is good to have ya back.”

  “It’s good to be here.” But in truth Devin not so sure. The future uncertain, the past threatening at every turn, the end always near. “Or anywhere.”

  “Word to that.” Blooms of color in Pettus cheeks. “I’ve been looking forward to this. I’ve been wanting to talk to you so bad. About the old days, and stuff.”

  “Right on. Now’s your chance.”

  What followed, a pent-up, rambling roundabout speech about the 1989 Dead show, about how things were never the same in their little group afterward, nor were they the same for Roy Earl inwardly. That they’d all done heavy drugs, and that, for all the good the experience had done him—he explained how he’d tripped a few more times, gone to a couple more Dead shows when they’d played in Charlotte or Atlanta, how the whole deal had been a net positive for him, and blaming drugs for shit people do is like blaming the bullets that come out of a gun somebody’s used to consciously kill another person—he still wondered what happened, exactly. How Devin himself had seemed to change.

  “Why’d Billy quit hanging out? Carmen told me her neighbor said they saw y’all fighting that night.”

  Why lie? “It was over Libby.”

  “I thought so.”

  “It all worked out, though.” Devin, ironist, gave the bag-of-tricks wink and thumb’s up. “Didn’t it?”

  “You and Libby were tight after that.”

  “There you go.”

  “Over the yea
rs I’ve thought about that night. And whether doing the acid—whether it’d messed you and Billy up. And Libby,” he struggled with adding. “Whatever it was. Between y’all.”

  “Like I said, nothing happened. A misunderstanding. We were all fucked up.”

  Thinking of Libby, and the joyous months they’d had after Billy’s foolishness. Libby, smiling and laughing, her innocent-yet-not expression, the Bradford pear blossoms floating in the air. Remembering—allowing himself to remember—the surprise at Libby having brought Prudy home.

  Libby and Prudy, equalling life and love.

  Devin, his face split by a smile and feeling as though his was the first smile on the first day by the first man to walk upon the fertile and verdant earth, the first human being to notice the pulse and joy and challenge of life—to be unconcerned with where it all led, good or bad—sighed and embraced the memories of his lost love. Of his dear kitty-cat. And of himself, innocent, before the fall.

  And of only the moment at hand. Not the past. Nor the future.

  “Beau, let tell you something.” Devin, leaning forward and winking, hammed it up. “My life didn’t start until that night. And yeah, afterward was the golden age, the best time I ever did have. So, no—the acid didn’t fuck me up. Nor the Dead. They scared the hell out of me, but left something else there in hell’s place. Something good and true and strong and real. But I lost it again.”

  “I know you did, Devin.” Roy Earl broke out in a brief sob, hid his face in a chubby hand. “Damn, I swore I wasn’t gonna do this in front of you.”

  “Don’t you fret. We cried in front of each other plenty, when we was pups.”

  “True that.” Embarrassed nonetheless, he wiped his eyes and blew some snot into a Spotted Banana napkin from a stack on the coffee table.

  They sat in silence. Roy Earl went to pick up the TV remote, but a slight gesture of Devin’s steady hand stopped him.