Phantom

by Thomas Tessier

  "Where do you live, Cloudy?" Ned asked.

  "Oh, I stay in town."

  "At the Capitol Hotel," Peeler said sarcastically.

  "Down near Polidori Street," Cloudy went on, ignoring his partner. "Yeah, I got me a room there."

  "I didn't know there was a hotel in town," Ned said truthfully. To him a hotel was a big building with a big sign, and he hadn't seen one in Lynnhaven.

  "You wouldn't notice it," Peeler said, laughing.

  "There used to be lotsa hotels here, back in the days of the old Lynnhaven spa."

  "Spa?" Ned didn't know the word.

  "Yeah, certainly. All the rich white folks from Washington, D.C. used to come down here to take a bath."

  "In more ways than one," Peeler added.

  "That's for sure," Cloudy agreed.

  "A bath?" Another one of their incredible stories was taking shape, but Ned could tell he wasn't being joshed.

  "Yeah, I'm tellin' you," Cloudy continued. "The rich boys in the govamint come down here with their wives and girl friends and what not, and they took the hot baths at the spa. Supposed to be good for you or something. Right here in Lynnhaven. This used to be quite the town once upon a time."

  "Even had a train station," Peeler said. "Direct line to and from Washington."

  "That's right. Lynnhaven Depot, it was called. Then when it all ended people just started callin' it Lynnhaven. They forgot about the depot part of it."

  "What happened to the place?" Ned asked.

  Cloudy held his hand out, palms up.

  "The waters went bad," Peeler said.

  "Oh, that's what it was, huh," Cloudy said. "I never did get the right of it."

  "The waters went bad and somebody croaked and the next thing was they shut the spa down. And then they took away the train tracks and that was that."

  "How could the water go bad?"

  Peeler smiled at the boy. "Nedly, anything goes bad if people make it go bad. Somebody put something in the water or in the ground there that made the water bad. That's what happened."

  Cloudy frowned. "They prove that?"

  "Nobody proved nothin' ," Peeler said emphatically. "Which only goes to show I'm right. You and me must be the only ones left here who remember anything about it, Cloudy."

  "That's right."

  "And you don't remember much .... "

  "And Mr. Muckle down to the hotel. He can tell you about it too, he was around then."

  "I thought Muckle was dead," Peeler remarked.

  "Not so's you'd notice."

  "Cloudy?"

  "Yes, Mr. Tadpole?"

  "Is Cloudy your real name?"

  "You are one for names," Peeler said, shaking his head.

  "Is it?" Ned asked again, to keep the question from being sidetracked.

  "I won't tell you my real name," Cloudy said with a broad grin. "But I will tell you how I come by the name of Cloudy."

  "Okay." That was good enough for Ned. "How?"

  The black man sat forward on his crate and stared hard at Ned. "Look at my eyes," he said. Ned did so. "Now tell me what you see there."

  "Well ... " Ned concentrated. "Big brown eyes."

  Peeler laughed out loud and took another swallow of beer. The can was empty and he tossed it at the shack.

  "What else?" Cloudy demanded. "What about those eyes'?"

  "I don't know. They're just eyes, that's all."

  "Aw, you ain't lookin' right, Mr. Tadpole. Okay, I'll tell you. When I was a boy like you my momma look in these eyes one day and she say, 'Your eyes is cloudy. Cloudy.' And one of my brothers, fast's can be, he says, 'Is your eyes cloudy, Cloudy?' And I say, 'No, just cloudy, I guess.' And ever since that day they's called me Cloudy. That make sense to you?"

  "Your eyes aren't cloudy, are they?" Ned couldn't tell. What did cloudy eyes look like? He'd never heard of such a thing.

  "They must be, everybody says so."

  "Do you have, like, trouble seeing?" Ned asked.

  "No, I see just fine. But everything do look a little cloudy."

  The two men cackled with laughter again and Peeler punched open another can of beer.

  "Want to know my middle name?" Ned offered.

  "I surely do."

  "Yeah, what is it?"

  "Michael. It's my father's name."

  "Michael," Cloudy pronounced. "That's a name, all right."

  "I can tell you because you're my friends."

  "Why thank you, Nedly," Peeler said warmly, giving the boy a thumbs-up sign.

  "Everybody should have friends in low places," Cloudy said, shaking with mirth. "Now you got 'em."

  The afternoon wound on, interrupted only by a couple of people who drove up to buy some sand worms. Ned told Peeler and Cloudy more about what it had been like living in an apartment in Washington, and how his parents had waited until his school year had ended in June before making the move to Lynnhaven, even though they had bought the house two months earlier.

  "That's the old Farley place you live in now," Peeler said.

  'The Farley place?" Cloudy's eyebrows moved up a notch. "That where he live?"

  "What's the Farley place?" Ned asked.

  "Where you live," Peeler said. "What's your daddy do in Washington ?"

  "He works for the Internal Revenue." Ned realized that by answering he had let Peeler change the subject again, but it wasn't any big deal: a conversation with Peeler and Cloudy could go here and there, around and around, like a fishline bird's nest.

  "Eternal Revenue," Cloudy intoned.

  "That's a good safe job," Peeler said quickly. "Your folks from Washington, or somewhere else?"

  "Buffalo, New York. We go there once or twice a year to see my grandparents. Usually in the summer and at Christmas, but we're not going this summer on account of we just moved into the house."

  "Buffalo," Cloudy said. "You been to Buffalo. I ain't never been there and I'm old enough for a whole army of you, Mr. Tadpole. What d'ya think about that?"

  Long after Ned had left for home and the sky had gathered into a darkening purple dusk, Cloudy kicked the dirt with the toe of his shoe, like a nerved-up horse.

  "I got to go to town now."

  "See you," Peeler said.

  "That boy, he very nice."

  "He surely is."

  "He live on the Farley land?"

  "That's right."

  "You know—"

  "Bullshit," Peeler cut him off.

  "I know, I know."

  "Besides, there ain't a Christ-thing you can do about it anyway."

  * * *

  3. Parents

  Michael Covington handed his wife a glass of sherry and turned to pour a double bourbon with a splash of spring water for himself. He tested it, approved, and sat down in his sturdy leather armchair.

  "We wanted a place that had been overlooked," he said. "A nice, quiet, small, older town. And that's what we found."

  Linda nodded. "I know." She hadn't touched her sherry yet, but held the glass stiffly in one hand.

  "You don't have to go far down the road in either direction to find the kind of new suburban developments that are exactly what we didn't want."

  "I know, and I do like Lynnhaven," Linda said. "It's kind of run-down and over-the-hill, and that's what helps make it charming in a way."

  "So?" Michael picked up one of his pipes and idly toyed with it. He hadn't smoked indoors at home in years, but he still carried at least one pipe with him at all times.

  "That's just the problem," Linda said. "Lynnhaven suits me fine, and you too, as far as I can tell, but—"

  "Absolutely. "

  "—but I'm not sure it's right for Ned."

  "Now that's where you're wrong," Michael asserted. "He's loving it here, and you don't need a degree in child psychology to see that. Getting him out of D. C. was the best thing we ever did for that kid."

  "Don't call him 'that kid,' Michael. Please."

  "Listen, honey, it's like he's discovering the o
utdoors for the first time in his life. He's got the woods and the fields and the brooks to explore, the beach, he can watch the fishing boats go out and come in and unload. I think it's all terrific for him, just terrific, and he seems to be having a great time." Michael sat back with the look of a man who has just reached the bottom line on a dream of a balance sheet.

  "All that is true," Linda admitted, "and it is important and I am happy about it." She spoke slowly and methodically, as if she were trying to explain her doubts to herself as much as to her husband. "But, I don't know ... I guess, well ... He still has no friends here."

  "He will. Give him time. We've only been here a month."

  "That's just it. Kids make friends in a day or two, or an hour or two even. But the other children around here are either too old, in high school, or just babies and toddlers."

  Michael sighed. "When he gets into his new school in September he'll be surrounded by kids his own age and he’ll make plenty of friends then."

  "Maybe, but they'll probably live miles away."

  "Honey, you're worrying too much about nothing. Really. Let's just take it easy for a while and see how things develop. I think it's going to be fine. Ned's really come to life out here."

  Linda looked at the glass of sherry in her hand as if noticing it for the first time and sipped.

  "Maybe if he were involved in some team sports ... "

  "You know Ned doesn't go in for that kind of thing," Michael said patiently. "I tried it with him—baseball, basketball. Remember? He just didn't take to them. He has his own interests and you have to let him follow them. I'm not going to be one of those nutty fathers who drives his son to be the best damn pitcher or quarterback in the neighborhood."

  "No, no, I wouldn't want that either." Linda made a face, annoyed that she was unable to put her finger precisely on the source of her doubts, nor even to articulate fully what those doubts comprised.

  Maybe it's nothing, she thought. And maybe it's everything. Getting older. The usual magazine and talk-show crisis of those in their thirties. But the problem was real, she didn't doubt that. Ned was her only child and she knew she could never have another. And it's so hard to know what is right and good for a child, and what isn't. You keep thinking and hoping that it will get easier as the child grows older, but it doesn't. It gets worse, and harder.

  She looked at Michael. A good, well-meaning man. Solid and reliable. It had been a pleasure to watch him grow over the years from a nervous and somewhat awkward youth into an assured and sociable man. A devoted husband and father, too. If at times he seemed a little complacent, if the edge was softening—was that so unexpected, so terrible? It happened to everyone. Didn't it?

  As for herself, Linda knew she wasn't making much of an effort to fight the tide, real or imaginary. Your body slackens, your face changes. After all, she had been a mother for nearly ten years now. The mind shifts as well. She was aware of the fact that she read more magazines and fewer books than she once had. It seemed that any old radio program would do, whereas in the past she had searched out good classical broadcasts. And, worst of all, she surrendered now to television shows she would never have even glanced at a few years ago. At her gloomiest Linda felt as if she were caught in a vast process of attrition, the slow but inexorable obliteration of herself as a person.

  Day after day

  In every way

  I’m turning gray.

  On the other hand, Michael's mind never seemed to stray within a thousand miles of such thoughts. He had reached the point where he took life as it came and rode with it, lucky man. He was so remarkably free of uncertainty that Linda didn't know whether to be envious or frightened.

  Their lives were one thing, but what was important above all else was to make sure that everything was right for Ned. Insofar as it was humanly possible, Linda was determined to see that it was done.

  A child is all you have.

  One boy-child.

  "Hey honey, why the face?"

  Oh, yes, and a husband. Linda smiled mechanically and took another sip of sherry.

  "Game of cribbage?" Michael asked.

  "I couldn't pay attention to the cards tonight. Do you mind?"

  Michael shrugged. "Okay. I just asked."

  "Do you think Ned spends too much time with those men at the bait place or whatever it is? I worry about that."

  "Oh, I think it's all right," Michael answered after a few seconds' thought. "I asked Bill Fischer next door about them and he says they're just a pair of harmless old coots."

  "You don't think they might be a little ... funny? With Ned being a pretty, young boy, you. know, they—

  "Nah listen. There's no gossip at all about them, and. there'd be plenty if there was even the flimsiest reason for it. You know that. Besides, Bill said they've been here practically since the last Ice Age and never any trouble."

  "Well, it still doesn't seem right to me," Linda persisted. "He goes over there to see them almost every day."

  "So he has found a couple of friends."

  "Michael, they're a couple of old wharf rats who live in a setting that belongs on Tobacco Road."

  Michael frowned at his whiskey. "That's rather judgmental, don't you think?"

  Linda looked away. ''I'm sorry," she said. "Maybe it was, but he is our son."

  Michael rose and went to get another bourbon. He could see that this had the makings of a three-or four-drink discussion.

  "Look, honey, Ned's grandparents are way the hell up in Buffalo and he sees them only once or twice a year. So it shouldn't come as any surprise to find that when he has the chance he enjoys the company of a couple of older people. That's natural and good for a kid. It increases his perspective. And secondly, whether you like them or not, and you don't even know them, what are you going to do? Tell Ned he can't see them, that he has to stay away from that place? What would that accomplish?"

  Linda shook her head unhappily. "No, I don't suppose that would do any good."

  "Of course it wouldn't. More sherry?"

  "No, thanks."

  "Linda, if you want, I'll ask around some more about those two old-timers, maybe even go down there myself and check them out. But I really think all we have to do is what we have been doing: watch out for anything that might go wrong or harm our son, but otherwise leave him room enough to grow his own way."

  "You're telling me I worry too much."

  "We already know that, honey."

  Michael picked up the remote control for the television. Like a fisherman casting onto a lake, he raised his arm above his head and then swung it down, pointing the device at the set and at the same time thumbing a button to turn it on. He repeated the movements half a dozen times, patrolling the channels until he found one that was acceptable.

  Poor Lin. She did get in these moods from time to time. There wasn't much he could do about it either, except to be as calm and reasonable as possible. He knew there was really no way to talk her out of it; you just had to try to help her work her own way back. It was understandable. First, there was the move to Lynnhaven, coming after years of living in a city. That would take her a while to adjust to, but he was confident she would with no real trouble. The move itself wasn't wrong, it was in fact the very thing they had worked for for so long. Second, of course, was her health—not always a conscious fear, perhaps, but a very real one all the same. She must wonder every day if she might be about to suffer another devastating attack like the one five years ago. The doctors had no explanation for it either. Linda had been asthmatic from childhood, she had bouts of wheezing and troubled breathing now and then. The inhalers kept it under control very nicely. But that attack, the overwhelming severity of it ... It had happened only that one time in her life so far, but the threat of a rerun was a terrible thing to live with. Well, he had made their house as safe as he could. They had enough air conditioners, purifiers, dust removers, humidifiers and ionizers to open a small appliance store. Third, Ned was their only child. If they'd had oth
ers, even only one more, maybe the focus of her anxieties would not be so circumscribed and intense. But the doctors had advised against another child. Not the happiest of situations, but it was obviously more sensible to make the most of it and enjoy the one child they were fortunate enough to have than to ache for the ones that would never be.

  Michael was sure that everything would sort itself out in time. Lynnhaven was a nice town and they had a lovely house. He could be happy here for the rest of his life. The house had character. A large and roomy saltbox with two fireplaces, it was situated on a good four acres of land. A sensational investment, too. Sooner or later, sadly but inevitably, more people would rediscover Lynnhaven, and when they did property values would soar. Not that Michael could ever imagine selling the place, but it was nonetheless comforting to know that his home was destined to appreciate significantly—dramatically, even—in the years to come. All in all, they had done well and were in a good position.

  But try to tell that to Lin.

  * * *

  4. A Very Special Room

  It was the best room in the house. It was outer space and inner earth, the triumph of a young boy's mind.

  It was: stamps and coins and a handed-down set of old Hardy Boys mysteries and crab shells with bits of gooey stuff still sticking to them in places and strangely colored rocks and dried out worms and acorns and horse chestnuts and a microscope and a telescope and a salamander in a bowl of mud and comics and all kinds of cards and a cherry bomb hidden for an occasion that would be known only when it came and carved sticks and a jack knife and waterproof matches and a canteen and a pocket magnifying glass for frying Japanese beetles and a rabbit's foot and a shell plugged up with a dead snail and ...

  It was the best room in any house. It was a boy's room. Here and only here could magic forces be found. The Invisible Weights, which on certain mornings anchored your arms and legs so that you couldn't get out of bed until they decided to let you go. The Moving Pebble, which might change position only an inch or two but was never in the exact spot where you left it. The Night Fire, which could only be seen in a mirror in the dark when you brushed your hair (you know it's static electricity, but if that's all you know, you don't know anything).