by Dan Foley
Charlotte shivered at the thought. “That sounds awful. How could you stand it?”
“You get used to it. There’s no other choice. The real sense of isolation comes when the boat goes to sea. When we dive, you realize the ocean is always out there, always trying to get in, always trying to drag us down. The day we submerge we know we’re going to be underwater for at least sixty days.”
Charlotte was starting to feel claustrophobic just listening to Melvin.
“When we first go to sea, we have milk, fresh fruit and veggies, but we run out of those within a few days. After that it’s canned fruit and canned veggies for dinner. To drink we have coffee, tea, bug juice, water or powdered milk.”
“Bug Juice? What’s bug juice?” Charlotte asked.
“Kool aid,” Wolf told her.
“That’s it?” she asked.
“That’s it,” he answered. Then he told her about sitting on watch for hours with nothing to do but listen to the hum of the equipment. About the time when your mind wanders and you go so deep inside yourself that you’re not sure you’ll ever find your way back out. About the minutes of pure fear when things are going to hell in a handbasket and you’re powerless to do anything about it. About how, sometimes, it seemed like the hull was shrinking even though you knew it wasn’t. Finally, he told her about the ghost that had come on board and killed several of his fellow sailors before they had driven it off.
“How did you do it? Drive it off I mean,” she asked when he fell silent.
“He got into my head and I got into his. In the end, I was stronger than he was and he fled the boat.”
“Where did he go?” Charlotte asked.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Wolf answered. “He was gone. We finished our patrol and went home.”
Before she could ask another question, Wolf had one of his own. “How about you? What did you do while I was gone? Grandmere says you got married.”
Charlotte unconsciously reached for a wedding ring that wasn’t there and wondered just how much she should tell him about her marriage, about the constant fighting, the verbal abuse, the cheating. No, the less the better she decided. Maybe later, if things started to work out between them she’d tell him more. “I was young, you were gone and I made a mistake. It only lasted a year ... thank God. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“What, you mean getting married?” Wolf asked.
“No, getting married to an asshole,” Charlotte replied.
Before Wolf could ask for details Charlotte glanced at her watch and said, “My God, look at the time. I have to work tomorrow, today actually. I need to get home and get some sleep.” She was both pleased and a bit disappointed when Wolf agreed with her.
When he walked her to her pickup she wasn’t sure whether to kiss him goodnight or not. He solved that problem for her when he gave her a quick peck on the lips through the pickup’s window before she drove off.
9 – New Wheels
Wolf sat at Grandmere’s table looking out over the swamp, not sure if he was ready to go back out there or not. He still had to get a motor for the jon boat, but that didn’t concern him. If Billy didn’t have a used one for him, a good used one, he’d bite the bullet and get something new. Hell, a new one might not be a bad idea. If I’m going to face Old Ben out there, do I really want to rely on a used motor?
“I found you a used, 10-horse Mercury,” Billy Bodie told Wolf when he walked into Mackey’s.
“Damn, did you buy it already?”
“Buy it? Hell, no. I just found it. You want it, you can buy it.”
“That’s good,” Wolf answered, “Because I’ve decided to go with something new. What have you got here in stock?”
“What are you going to put it on?” Billy asked.
“My old jon boat.”
“You still got that thing? I thought your grandmere gave it to Bobby Pettit.”
“She gave the motor to Bobby. The boat’s still in her shed.”
“I can get you a 25 horse Johnson. That would go good on that old jon boat. It’s got enough power for what you need and its light enough so as not to lift the nose of the boat too high.”
“How soon can you have it here?” Wolf asked.
“’bout a week. How’s that sound?”
Wolf had hoped to get something sooner, but when he thought about it, a week would be fine. He still needed to find an old pickup. He didn’t want to have to stick the motor in the Torino’s trunk. “A week is okay,” he told Billy.
“You’re going to need a gas tank and hoses, unless you already have those,” Billy told him.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Wolf agreed. “Just get me everything I need.”
“Sure thing,” Billy agreed, and Wolf knew he was already adding up the sale in his head.
“One more thing,” Wolf told him before he left. “I’m looking for an old pickup ... cheap. I’m just going to use it for around here.”
“How cheap,” Billy wanted to know.
“Cheaper the better ... but it has to run,” Wolf called back as the screen door swung closed. He was just climbing into the Torino when Billy came out behind him.
“Hey Melvin, you superstitious?”
“No. Why?” Wolf asked.
“Woman down the road has a pickup she wants to get rid of. It’s been sitting outside with a For Sale sign on it for a couple of years.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Wolf asked.
“Her husband killed himself in it. Stuck a pistol in his mouth and blew his brains out. Nobody around here will buy it because they think it’s either bad luck or haunted.”
“How can I find it?” Wolf asked.
“Just head south. You’ll see it parked in the front yard. I think it’s an old Ford.”
The truck was sitting out front of a small, single-story house that had seen better days. Weeds had grown up around it, two of the tires were flat and one was on its way. It might have been red once, but now it was a sun-faded pink. Other than that, it looked good. Wolf couldn’t see any rust from where he was, and all of the windows looked to be intact. It was exactly what he was looking for.
Wolf listened to the Torino’s tires crunch as he pulled into the oyster-shell covered drive. He parked behind a ‘75, four-door Dodge Dart that looked as worn as the house. Years ago the house might have been white, but the paint was yellowed and peeling and the roof looked like it needed new shingles. Hard times, Wolf thought as he got out of the Torino.
On his way to the house, a furtive movement in the pickup’s cab caught his attention. Instead of going to the door and knocking, he detoured to where the truck sat. The windows were caked with dust, but as he got closer he saw a gaunt, angry face staring back at him through the grime. Wolf grinned back at it and felt the thing inside him stirring.
“You can have it for a hundred dollars if you want it,” a woman’s voice called from the house.
A hundred dollars was a fair price for the truck if it ran. Wolf was still ready to dicker on the price — why not — but when he turned around, the woman could have been his grandmere. “Mind if I look it over?” he asked.
“Go right ahead,” she called back, and Wolf noticed that she had stopped a good thirty feet from the truck and didn’t seem to want to come any closer.
“It’s unlocked, keys are in it, but it won’t start. The battery’s dead,” she told him from where she stood. The two flat tires wouldn’t be a problem if the motor ran.
“Okay. Thanks,” Wolf called back as he walked to the front of the pickup to pop the hood. Before he did, he looked back at the woman to see if she was going to come any closer. She wasn’t. She stood like a small, black bird in a faded house dress, nervously wringing her hands as she watched him. When he reached his hand under the hood Wolf heard a small gasp behind him. When he turned around to look back at the woman, she had clasped her hands over her mouth and was slowly shaking her head back and fort
h.
As Wolf’s hand fumbled under the hood looking for the lever that would allow him to pop it open, the air around him start to chill. Then a wave of anger tinged with hate washed over him from the cab. From behind him he heard the woman moan. When he turned to look at her, she was running back to the house.
Wolf withdrew his hand from under the hood and walked around to the driver’s side door. When he peered into the cab through the dirt caked window, a ravaged face rushed at him from the passenger’s seat. Before he could even blink, a pair of skeletal hands with pieces of bone showing through rotted skin and a screaming face with bloodshot, hungry eyes were plastered up against the driver’s side window only inches from his own. Wolf’s head snapped back in surprise. Inside the pickup, the ghost screamed in triumph. “Fuck you,” Wolf muttered as he reached out and grabbed the door’s handle.
Wolf ripped the door open and jammed his face into the apparition’s. The ghost’s screams filled the cab, frost coated the windows and flakes of snow formed in the humid air. Wolf could feel the power in his blood rage. The thing that had been growing inside him fought for release. And then the ghost was gone. One second it was trying to ravage his mind, and in the next, it had fled.
Wolf fought to get his own rage under control when the phantom disappeared from his mind. As the power calmed, and the thing inside him went back to wherever it hid, Wolf saw the ghost cowering in the knee-well below the dashboard on the passenger side of the pickup. Its face was turned away from him and he could see a gaping hole in the back of its skull. Here was the damage inflicted by the .45 caliber bullet the man had sent rocketing through his brain. Wolf left it there, defeated, while he went to talk to its widow.
“I’ll take it,” was all Wolf said when she answered his knock. The woman was speechless when he handed her five twenty-dollar bills. “I’ll be back to pick it up later.” Even if it doesn’t run, she needs the hundred more than I do.
When he backed the Torino out of the drive and pointed it in the direction of Bayou La Pointe, Wolf hardly noticed the old woman standing in the shade of a live oak at the next house. Instead, he glanced over at the pickup before he left. The ghost was there, staring out at him through the dirt encrusted window. It quickly averted its gaze when their eyes met. He would have to decide what to do with it — but that was a problem he could deal with later. Now he had to figure out how to get it home. For that he needed Buster.
Buster’s Garage, and Buster himself, had been a fixture in Bayou La Pointe for as long as Wolf could remember. In all that time, the only things that seemed to change were the cars parked outside and around the back. The further out back, the older they were. Some of them had been there since before Wolf had been born. Buster knew every one of them. He called them his retirement. Everyone else called them junk.
“Hey, Buster, you in here?” Wolf called out as he walked into the Garage.
“Down here,” a hoarse voice answered from beneath a 65 Dodge station wagon. “Have a seat in the office. I’ll be out in a minute.”
The “office” was a ten by ten room with an ancient wooden desk with an equally ancient office chair on wheels behind it. There was a single file cabinet and stacks of paper everywhere. A vinyl covered bench seat salvaged from an older pickup provided the only other place to sit down. The one window was half open. That and the door Wolf had entered from provided what little ventilation there was ... and that was practically nonexistent. Wolf elected to wait outside.
“Well, if it ain’t Melvin Lobo. I heard you was back,” Buster said when he came up out of the oil change pit wiping his hands on a rag that looked like it had never seen a washing machine. “What can I do for you Melvin?”
A lot of things had changed since Wolf had left, but Buster wasn’t one of them. The man seemed to have a perpetual, scraggly, three-day growth of gray whiskers that could never be mistaken for a beard. He was short, stick-thin, wore greasy bib coveralls and a stained, almost white T-shirt. Wolf guessed his age to be anywhere from fifty to seventy.
“You know that old Ford pickup that’s for sale a couple miles down the road?” Wolf asked.
“I know it,” Buster replied, a definite note of caution in his voice.
“Well, I just bought it,” Wolf told him. “I need to get it home. I thought you could help with that.”
“No how, no way. That pickup’s haunted. I looked at it, was gonna buy it myself until I tried to climb into it. Felt like my heart was gonna jump right out of my chest. Soon as I got out and away from it, I was okay. I’m not going near it again.”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want too,” Wolf told him. “I just need you to tow it back to Grandmere’s place. I’ll sit in the cab if you want me too.”
“You’re gonna sit in the cab?”
“Yep, the whole time. I’ll even put it on the hook. All you have to do is drive the tow truck.”
“Last time I looked, that truck had some flat tires. Can’t tow it like that,” Buster said, and Wolf knew he was looking for a reason not to tow the pickup.
“We can put some air in them. If they hold, fine. If not, I’ll put new ones on. I’ll need to get them anyway,” Wolf countered. Buster was about to say something else when Wolf asked, “What are you getting for a tow these days, Buddy?”
“Twenty five dollars,” Buster replied.
“All right, I’ll give you fifty to get it to my Grandmere’s.”
“And you’ll sit in the cab the whole way?” Buster asked again.
“Yep,” Wolf answered.
“All right, but you’re going to get those tires aired up first. I’ll give you a compressor, you come back when it’s ready.”
“Deal,” Wolf said, sticking out his hand for Buster to shake. Buster hesitated for a few seconds, but he finally grabbed Wolf’s hand and shook it.
10 – Decisions
Charlotte drove past Grandmere Leritz’s and was relieved to see that Melvin’s Torino wasn’t there. She wanted to talk Grandmere alone, woman to woman.
She parked her pickup in the Torino’s space and walked to the front of the cabin. She was about to knock, when the old woman called to her from inside, “Come in dear, da door’s open.” Charlotte found her sitting on the porch, staring out over the bayou.
“I was wonderin’ when you was goin’ to stop by here and see me,” Grandmere said when Charlotte joined her on the porch. “You be wantin’ ta talk about Melvin, I s’pose.”
“That’s right,” Charlotte answered.
“Well set down, an’ let’s get to it. You want coffee or somethin’?”
“Maybe some coffee,” Charlotte answered. Grandmere’s frankness had taken her by surprise and she needed some time to think.
“You want chickory, or that regular coffee Melvin likes?”
“Regular coffee would be fine,” Charlotte answered.
“Come on then, we can talk in da kitchen while I make it.”
Charlotte watched as Grandmere filled the percolator with cold water, placed coffee grounds into the basket, and put the glass-topped lid in place. When she put it on the stove, she turned to Charlotte and said, “So, have you got your eye on that boy?”
“I’m not sure. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. He’s not the same Melvin that I used to know.”
“That true, an’ you not da same Charlotte he used to know. You both be different people then you was.”
Charlotte had to admit Grandmere was right, but Melvin seemed to have changed a lot more than she had. She was worried he might have outgrown her and Bayou La Pointe and just didn’t know it yet.
Grandmere sat down across from Charlotte as the plop-plop of the percolator and the aroma of coffee started to fill the room. “If you want to be with that boy, you got to know who he is now. Melvin has a power in him. He sees what others don’t see ... things like ghosts. An’ they know he see them. They want da power he has so they try to take it from him.”
Charlotte started to respond, but Grandmere cut her off. “Maybe you don’t believe in things like ghosts and such, an’ that be the problem. Some of these haints is just miserable, weak things that cain’t hurt Melvin. But some of them, like Old Ben, is mean, powerful spirits that could kill that boy if he has any doubts ‘bout his power. If you with Melvin, and he knows you don’t believe, he might start doubting hisself. That could be bad. That could get him killed.”
Charlotte was quiet as Grandmere took the coffee pot off the stove and poured a cup for her. “Aren’t you going to have some, too?” Charlotte asked when Grandmere dumped the rest of the pot in the sink.
“Not that dishwater. I’m goin’ to make some real coffee for myself. You think I don’t know you and Melvin dumped the coffee I made you out? I think this be more to your likin, but I cain’t drink it,” Gandmere told her as she started on a second pot.
As Charlotte waited for hers to cool, she said, “So, you’re telling me I should either believe all this ghost talk or leave Melvin alone.”
“That’s ‘bout it,” Grandmere replied.
Charlotte shook her head in dismay. She had been counting on the old woman as an ally, and here she was being anything but that. “I really like Melvin. I loved him once, and probably still do. I just need time to find that out. I know he believes in these ghosts. A lot of folks around here do. I want to too, for him, but it’s hard. I’ve never believed in ghosts, or boogie men or other monsters.”
“You believe in God?” Grandmere asked.
“Of course,” Charlotte answered.
“Why? Why you believe in God — because most people do, an’ because your mama and papa told you he real? You cain’t see him. Cain’t talk to him ... well you can, but he don’t answer. What if most people believed in ghosts? What if they tell you since you was little that ghosts was real? You believe in them then?”
“I ... don’t know,” Charlotte answered.
“Then you better think about that,” Grandmere told her.
Charlotte sat, unsure of what to say next, so she just sipped her coffee. “Have you ever seen one ... a ghost I mean?” She finally asked.
