by Melissa Good
He had straight brown hair, now silvered on the sides, and puppy dog eyes and Andy had never found it easy to be mad at him. "Sure." He said now, dismissing Jon's earlier greeting. "What all's goin on out here?"
They reached the barrel. About a half dozen men were hanging around it, and there were strips of some meat grilling on a makeshift iron grate sitting over the wood fire. "Lo there." Andrew greeted the group.
"Hey Andy." Several of the men answered. "How's it goin?"
Andy was pleased. He had no illusions their benign mock friendliness was anything but that, however, it had only taken him a minute and a chokehold to achieve. "All right." He said. "How are you all?"
Mutters.
Andy leaned against a second barrel, which was unlit. "I heard somewhat about some crazy story bout ghosts. What's that all about?"
The men quickly glanced at each other, then at Stu, who was sucking on a plain brown bottle just to one side of the fire.
"Aw." Jon answered. "Yeah you heard that huh?" He laughed. "Scaredy cat Jasper wont' come near here cause he thinks daddy's ghost's gonna cut him up."
The men also laughed. "Candy assed pansy." Stu spoke up. "Aint no idea why Sally's wasting her time with him."
"He really believe that?" Andy asked.
Jon shrugged. "Some folks talkin crazy stuff." He admitted. “Jackass is stupid enough to believe it.”
"Old Josh down by the store swears he saw Duke walking round here at night." One of the men said. "We been telling Jasper it's cause he's fixing to make sure his little girl's not gonna marry him."
Andy folded his arms over his chest. "Why would you all do that?"
"Cause he aint' worth her." Stu spoke up again. "Hay. Why don't you talk to her bout it, big bro? She done likes you so maybe she'd listen."
The sarcasm was very evident, but Andrew took the question at face value. "I do not know this feller." He said. "And ah am not one to go messin with folks who want to get hitched when people aint agreeing to that."
"You still hitched to that hippy chick?" One of the men asked, curiously. "From the North?"
"Ah am." Andy agreed. "So if Sally's stuck on this here feller I'm not the one to say nothin." He paused. "Where's he anyhow?"
"Church" Jon said. "Prayin with the pastor."
"Huh." Andrew straightened up and circled the barrel. "Maybe I will have me a word or two with the Lord myself."
He walked off towards the road, the darkness quickly swallowing his tall form.
Stu whistled between his teeth, a soft sound that slid down in tone to a click.
Jon picked up a piece of the meat, hissing and shaking it in his hand when it burned his fingers. "Hay." He looked at them. "You all don't really think Daddy's ghost's round here do you?"
"Jackass."
"Moron."
Stu spit a mouthful of whisky into the fire, causing it to flare. "Wall." He said. "If he wasn't, he probly is now with him around." He jerked his head in the direction Andy left. "Either that or the old man's rolling so hard in th' earth he's kickin hogs up out their pen and everybody thinks all that noise's ghosts."
"We could kick his ass." One of the men said. "Have us some fun."
"Don't fuck with him." Stu said, abruptly serious. "He's got our mama's crazy." He took a swig on the bottle. "We got other things to do anyhow."
**
Andy walked along in the darkness, not in a rush. The moon had risen and there was plenty of light to see by, and he took the time to look to either side of him as he headed slightly down slope towards the church.
It was quiet, in a way that Miami never was. Even in the wee hours, even in the Marina where he and Ceci made their home there were always sounds of the nearby city, and the sea so close nearby.
Here, though crickets were softly buzzing, it was quiet enough for his footsteps to sound loud, and the wind moving through the trees was sharp and faintly startling. The road was empty, and off in the far distance he heard the faint whinny of a horse, and a dog barking.
Then he caught the sound of soft footsteps behind him, and he turned, walking backwards as he scanned the road, his hand going to the small of his back in reflex motion.
The road, half lit in the moonlight, seemed empty. As he continued to look, the sound of the steps faded.
One of his brothers? Andy stepped to the unlit side of the road and found a tree, relaxing his body against it and almost becoming part of the trunk as he stilled and became motionless.
His breathing slowed and his senses heightened, the moonlight losing a bit of it's silver lustre as he forced his vision to flatten and pull tiny details out of his field of view.
He focused on nothing, concentrating on seeing everything, the outlines of the trees, the two parked cars, the garbage pile of old packing crates.
Only the leaves and branches moved in the wind, a puff of it blowing a tin can along the road in a rambling rattle.
Andy was patient. He stood quietly against the tree for a quarter hour, but nothing else came down the road and after that, he slipped around to the other side of the tree and continued on, this time staying on the shadowed side of the dirt road until it met the blacktop, and he could see down the slope to where the church was, lit from inside and out in a blaze of internal fluorescent and external orange streetlamp.
First he had to pass the graveyard though and as he did, he paused to look again through the gates. It was an old place, hundreds of years old with tombstones bearing dates in the 1700’s. Somewhere in there lay countless generations of his family he knew he'd never join. With a shake of his head he moved on, ambling quickly across the grass edged parking lot into the adjoining one of the church.
It was part full even this late and he could hear the sounds of singing inside as he climbed up the wooden steps and pushed open the old oak door.
The smell of wax, and old wood hit him first, and he paused to look around. The inside of the church was clean and spare, long rows of pews set out on either side of a wide aisle that was now lined with posts topped with baskets of flowers, green vines strung between them.
To one side a small group of women were singing hymns, the once familiar sound almost making him smile. Near the altar, three men were talking, and they looked up and spotted him.
Pastor Gray he recognized, though it had been decades since he'd last saw him. Aside from being a little thinner, and a little grayer, it seemed to Andy he hadn't really changed that much at all. The two other men he didn't know, but he figured the younger man next to him was probably Jasper.
Hm. Andy used the time he was walking towards them to study Jasper. He was a man of middling height, with chestnut brown hair that fell in curls to his slightly stooped shoulders. He wore glasses, and now, his eyes were blinking as he looked nervously at him as he approached.
Wall, THere weren't no accounting for tastes. "Lo." He gave the pastor a brief nod.
"Andrew." The pastor hurried down off the altar steps and approached him. "Sally said you would be coming. I'm glad." He extended his hands out . "It's good to see you."
Andrew gripped his hands and released them. "Did promise her I"d be here if she done ever get hitched. Here I am."
The pastor smiled at him, a little sadly. "Here you are." He turned. "I'm sure... well, i'm not really sure if you do know each other. Jasper? Have you met Sally's brother Andrew?"
Andy extended a hand out. "Lo there, Jasper."
The brown haired man approached and took his hand. "Ah've heard so much about you, sir."
Andrew tilted his head and gave the man a very droll look, one eyebrow hiking sharply up. "Ah jest bet you have."
"And this is Jasper's brother Edgar." The pastor said. "He's going to be Jasper's best man tomorrow."
"Lo." Andy took the man's proffered hand.
Jasper smiled nervously. "Have you been out to the house? Ahm sure Sally's glad to have you."
"Yeap." Andrew agreed. "Ah have been there." He eyed them all. “Long enough to hear all
kinds of crazy damn things.”
Pastor Gray frowned. Jasper and his brother looked uneasy, and they shifted, moving a little bit away from him.
Andy didn’t have much patience for it. "Now, y'all tell me what all this is ah hear about mah daddy's ghost being round." He planted himself squarely in front of them and folded his arms over his chest.
There was a prolonged, awkward silence once he stopped speaking.
He waited.
"Wall?" He finally said, as Jasper looked quickly around and the other man did as well. Pastor Gray looked pained, and he glanced over to where the choir was practicing, as though making sure they weren’t listening.
"Ahm' sure somebody round here knows." Andy said. "Cause you all look like you just wet your shorts."
Pastor Gray held a hand up. "Ahm. Let's go talk about this in my office." He pointed towards a small door in the back of the church. "Please."
He led the way and opened the door, standing aside to let them enter. It was a small office, with a plain white table and chair, several bookcases with stacks of old, tattered books in them, and on the wall behind the desk a mahogany wood crucifix had been hung as if to keep watch.
Andrew faintly remembered being in the room once or twice. There were three or four hard backed wooden chairs before the desk and he took one and sat down.
The pastor went behind his desk and sat in his own chair. "Well." He rested his elbows n the desk and rubbed his hands together. "Hard to know where to start, really."
"See, uh." Jasper spoke up, looking uneasily at Andrew. "I wasn't real popular with the o.. with your father."
"Sa'llraight. Me neither."
"He banned me from the house." Jasper said. "Said he'd shoot me if I caught me there." He admitted. "Ah aint' sure if it was that ah... well, I've got schooling and all. Think he figgured cause that, and cause my pa.. well our pa...he quit out the army and all and maybe he thought I wasn't a real man."
“Or something.” Edgar muttered.
Andy studied them. "Less somebody done castrated you, you got all you need to be a real man." He commented dryly.
"Well..."
"It dont' take no more than that, rally.." Andy interrupted him. "But anyhow, the old man'd think like that, probably. Didn't have much tolerance for nothing."
The wind drove the branches outside against the window at that moment, and they paused and looked at it. The branches moved again, and pressed against the glass, making an odd, scratching sound. "Have to get those trimmed." The pastor said. "Gave me such nice shade though over the summer."
Jasper turned back to face him. "He just never took a shine to me, even from the first."
The pastor sighed. "I tried speaking with Duke. I know Jasper here and Sally are sincerely attached, but he was set that he didn't want Jasper to marry her."
"All right." Andy said. "But he aint' here no more." He said. "That house belongs to Sally. Up to her who she wants in it."
The other three men nodded. "That's what we thought too." Jasper said. "And it.. " He stopped. "I went back there first time after the funeral and.. it felt funny."
'Yeah." His brother added, then fell silent.
"Felt like someone was watching me." Jasper said. "Coulda gotten used to that, but then i started hearing things, boots coming after me wherever I went in that place and I would turn and look and nobody's there."
One of Andy's brows lifted.
"Ah know, you all think I"m crazy." Jasper said. "But I heard it."
"Then we started hearing people talk." The pastor said. "People starting say they saw old Duke walking down the road, tween here and the house." He shook his head. "I tried to explain to them... I mean, you know, ghosts don't really exist."
Jasper looked skeptical. "Something was making them noises." He turned to Andy. "Did you hear anything in there?"
"Naw." Andy said, after a pause. "Just an old house."
Jasper looked relieved. "I was figgering.. maybe after we was married, it'd be all right, you know? I mean, the lord's blessing our hitching like."
"I'm sure it will." The pastor reassured him. "Now, Jasper why don't you and Ed go get some rest, and read over those passages of scripture I gave you. Tomorrow's going to be a big day."
Jasper nodded and got up. "Ah'll do that, sir." He nodded at Andrew. "Be seeing you tomorrow too, I guess."
Andy raised a hand in farewell, watching the two brothers leave before he let his hand drop. "Huh."
Pastor Gray folded his hands. "I am glad you're here for Sally." He said. "She said you'll be walking her down the aisle?"
Andy didn't recall agreeing to that, but he didn't mind. "Yeap." He said. "Do that, then head on back to mah family."
'Yea, I don't blame you." The pastor sighed. "Life's hard, and getting hard here. I feel for Sally. Hard keeping up that place with just her bookkeeping job, and what she can get from your brothers."
"He make a living?" Andy jerked his head towards the closed door.
"He's a teacher at the school. Steady job, but you know they don't pay much." The older man said. "I think with the Lord's help they'll do all right. They're not kids, after all."
'No they aint. Not like me and Cec were. But we did all right too." Andy said, with a faint smile. "Life's got a way of working out like that."
"Sally said you'd retired from the service. You all still living in Florida? How's your daughter doing?"
"Yeap. We live on a boat down near South Beach in Miami. Dar done have a place out on a little island just cross from there." Andy said. "She's done real well." He removed the picture from his wallet and passed it over.
"Oh my." Pastor Gray studied the picture. "What a lovely girl. You must be a very proud father."
Andrew took the picture back and grinned, his entire face lighting up from it. "Like to bust most times." He admitted. "Proudest daddy you ever did see."
"Oh that sounds so nice." Pastor Gray smiled. "I'im so used to hearing parents disappointed in their kids.. Anyway." He stood up. "I hope this whole ghost thing fades off once the wedding's done. I don't like talk like that. It's not really right. You know we don’t believe things like that down here."
"You think there's something in it?" Andy asked. "Feller doesn't seem like a kook to make that up."
The pastor frowned. "Do I think your daddy's ghost is walking around Ozark? No. I'm a man of God, and I know better."
Andy pondered if believing in ghosts and believing in men walking on the water and rising from the dead were all that different, but didn't mention that aloud. "Wonder if somethin aiin't behind it." He said. "Some body, ah mean." He got up.
"Well to be honest." The pastor lowered his voice. "It did make me wonder if it wasn't your brothers having a gag." He looked apologetic. "They're good men, but they don't much care for Jasper either."
"Uh huh." Andy preceded him out the door. "Wall, see you all tomorrow."
"Good night Andrew - really good to see you."
**
Andy stood outside the church for a few minutes, thinking. The parking lot was now mostly empty, and the outside lights were off except for the one in front of the door and the windows of the attached house around the back where Pastor Gray had long made his home.
After a while, he pulled his cell phone out and hit one of the three speed dials on it, holding it to his ear as it started to ring.
On the second ring it was answered . "Hey dad." Dar's voice sounded rich, and vibrant. 'How's it going?"
"Jackass."
His daughter chuckled softly under her breath. "I told you we should have come with you."
Now, honestly, Andy wished he had let them. 'Wall, it aint but a day more. Listen Dardar... what do you all think about ghosts?"
Long silence. "What do *I* think about ghosts?" Dar finally answered. "As in... do I think they exist?"
"Yeap."
"Kerry does." Dar said.
"What do I do?" Another voice echoed softly, lighter and warmer and lacking Dar's drawl.
"Believe in ghosts" Dar said. "Dad's on. He wants to know what I think about them."
"Hey dad!" Kerry's voice got a lot closer. "I do believe in ghosts. I don't think Dar does though. I never seem to see them when she's around."
"You all seen them, Kerry?" Andy asked. "For real?"
"I really think I did." Kerry replied. "Oo.. Dar, stop tickling me." She scolded. "I saw them in the old mansion here, and then... we went to an haunted house thing one year and let me tell you i saw SOMETHING there."
