Ghosts of Yesterday

by Jack Cady

  “On my nightstand.” Mrs. Perkins whispered so low Aubrey could not hear. Of course, by then, Aubrey had already helped Patsy with her coat and the two were nearly to the doorway, doubtless headed toward intimacy.

  “On your nightstand?” the jar whispered, a whisper between awe and mild excitement. “You always was creative.”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Mrs. Perkins said, her voice throaty and bright as she watched Aubrey and Patsy step into the wet street. Aubrey raised an umbrella. He looked ready to tsk.

  “I expect they’ll be all right,” Mrs. Perkins said. “But it’s just going to be Hail Columbia for the first few years.”

  “It surely ain’t a match made in heaven, plus he had another option. He could of learned to be a buffalo rider.”

  “It’s a match made in a teashop,” Mrs. Perkins said. “You’d be surprised how often it happens these days… no, nope, you wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “I tried to be a good daddy,” the jar whispered. “Take it easy, Spike.”

  “You have to cut them loose sometime,” Mrs. Perkins said. “Let them make their own mistakes.”

  “She’s too pushy,” the jar whispered, “and he’s a natural worrywart. A’course they’re both good kids.”

  And Mrs. Perkins and the jar stood looking onto the busy street, a street of sales and traffic where it may be that a beneficent eye hovers godlike in the sky, directing the affairs of men, the affairs of women, and of women and men who have affairs; and then Mrs. Perkins picked up the jar and stashed it beside her umbrella where it would be handy when she closed shop and went home. She heard a slight sound as she turned to attend to customers, but missed seeing the jar nearly tip from the shelf as it gave a small hop and a jiggle, while weeping only a little.

  JACKET COPY

  “The superbly romantic novel of a man and three women… of intertwined loves and loyalties… of passion rekindled in middle age… and a dazzling exploration of hidden human depths….”

  “Wow,” I said, “exactly what I need.” I was feeling extremely human and depth-ful at the time. I felt that my passions were due for a good rekindling. When your hair turns vanilla, and your bald spot increases, it seems you have to use more matches.

  So I bought the book. It is titled Daniel Martin. It was written by John Fowles whose mildly spectral The Black Tower proved him one of the best writers currently operating in English. I preened and honed my passions. I checked my hormone count and hoped it would do. By heaven, I even rummaged around for a well-chawed old pipe, whilst donning a smoking jacket.

  Daniel Martin is a fine book. Maybe it will stumble around through the annals of literature and finally be adjudged a great book. I have no quarrel with Daniel Martin except for some superficial treatment of a character named Jennie toward the end of the book. I am even glad to say that it is not a breathless book. The rekindled passions are curiously missing. What passions exist depend largely on Daniel Martin’s revulsion of the modern world and his place in it. There are some English-y, squire-type passions as well, but it is best if we leave those to the Brits.

  Still, that jacket copy sets a guy to thinking. If New York publishing was all that wrong, would New York publishing still be in business? I thought and thought, and did not like the answer.

  But two can play the game. I decided that I would write copy for books that are faltering on the bestseller lists. It is the least I can do in the cause of literature:

  Republican National Platform: “A Sizzling statement of Power… The Romance of Big Oil… Dares the reader….”

  Democratic National Platform: “A Sizzling Statement of Power… Passionate… Intense… X-rated….”

  The Congressional Record: “A Thriller… Finest mystery writing since Philo Vance… Greed rekindled in middle age… Taboo sex… taboo education… taboo intelligence…taboo Taboo TaBooooo….”

  State Driver’s Manual: “Not a book for the timid… Soft Shoulders… Curves… Blind entries… A sizzling manual of red hot instruction that has aided thousands… Thrill to the daring truth of lane swapping, and the frenzy of torrid youth learn to cry ‘I Am’….”

  Peterson’s Guide to the Western Birds: “The faster you go, the faster you can go… Daring as a Marsh Hawk… Gentle as a dove… Raw fecundity with no fear of flying….”

  Encyclopedia Britannica: “Brooding… Ghastly… Science gone mad… History amok… Evils of the human psyche, and the growl and sigh of Lost, Lost Worlds….”

  Webster’s Dictionary: “Revolutionary… Profound… Foregoing traditional devices of plot and character the author dazzles with a cacophony of words….”

  The Bible, Old Testament: “A restless and tumultuous saga of a huge family… Bigger than Roots… Adventures in The Red Sea… The passions of Ruth… Jezebel and lust rekindled in middle age… the toll of the wilderness and the cry of Isaiah… the clash of men at arms in a struggle to win a homeland and a Father….”

  The Bible, New Testament: “Not since the legendary Studs Lonigan has a book so captured the turmoil and struggle of a young blue collar worker.

  SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GRIFFIN

  The griffin is an exotic creature composed of one-half lion, one-half eagle. Because of these mixed media, ornithologists are in disagreement about the griffin.

  You will not, for example, find the griffin listed in The Sibley Guide to Birds. This is a pure piece of arrogance on the part of the National Audubon Society… but then, the society does not recognize the pterodactyl, either.

  I am getting a little sick of people running around ignoring the griffin. And the pterodactyl. And, even, the unicorn. I am tired as all-get-out of people who go around hollering about bears (oh, pah, bears), and rhinos they have tamed (oh, tish, rhinoceros), and platinum blondes (oh, yawn). When someone tells me that he keeps sharks in his hot tub I am bored. I detest this continuing sophism that would convince us that the mamba is in every way superior to the common hoop snake. Fah. Give me a sensible, well-ordered hoop snake any time.

  The whole sorry problem is caused by this century’s craze for science. People think that everything must be explained. They want every creature catalogued, embalmed in museums, put on display… and named Alfred. People believe that if science cannot show them a griffin, then griffins do not exist.

  Well, smarties, you are now in trouble. One of my best friends is a griffin. He lives in my chimney and his name is Hector. Hector is a magic griffin. He can shrink himself to about the size of a doughnut, and he can puff himself up to around the girth of your average rocket ship.

  When he is doughnut-sized he looks a lot like my pet cat. When he is rocketing, the whole town nigh gets blown away in the wind from his wings. This, as anyone around here can tell you, usually happens in winter.

  Hector will be exactly 2600 years old next Tuesday. I am giving him a party. The guests will be a couple of hoop snakes named Gloria and Lester, plus a unicorn named Uzz, and three pterodactyls named Prester John, Caligula, and Sam.

  For his birthday Hector is getting an evil charm purchased (after a lot of mayhem) from an obscure tribe in Australia. Hector needs that charm because he is just too good-natured. In 2600 years, and with all the opportunity in the world, Hector has eaten no more than 400 to 500 politicians. It is scarcely enough. He knows it. He knows that I know it. It is the only dark secret in his life that will make him blush.

  At first he tried to alibi. He claimed that the average politician has such bad taste… but, of course, that is no excuse. Anyone who lives for 2600 years cannot think it can be done without a certain amount of suffering.

  There are advantages to associating with a griffin. For one thing, you never have chimney fires. Every time Hector fluffs up his feathers, and gives his tail a twitch, stuff tumbles out of that chimney faster than banalities at a Sunday School picnic.

  In addition, griffins are interesting company. Having lived so long, Hector, even with his flaws, can tell you that a Republican tastes the same as a Comm
issar, and a Democrat greatly resembles a six-week’s dead camel.

  I think we should all quit thinking about bears, and begin thinking about griffins. To push this idea, I am proclaiming the week before election as National Griffin Week. Support your local griffin, friends. It may be out last chance.

  ISRAEL AND ERNEST

  The room was cold and the first wind of autumn rattled the window and there was death in that wind which was beautiful and also very sad. Shake, shake, went a hand, and then it went rattle, rattle. I moaned and a voice moaned back.

  “Depart Israel,” I said. “It is three o’clock in the morning and the truth of that is dark and severe, although, of course, it is also beautiful and very sad.”

  “Up!” Israel hollered.

  “… when the sun rises. For now it is three o’clock in the morning.”

  “Moan,” he said. (For those who do not know him, Israel is the ghost whose job it is to haunt my house. He haunts my house beautifully and very truly and well. He is wonderfully good at the haunting and we have been through much together).

  “That did it,” he said. “That did it, that did-dit.”

  “Did what, hombre?”

  He slapped me awake. “You have to quit reading Hemingway before going to sleep,” he explained. “And,” he added thoughtfully, “you got to get rid of the damndog.”

  “Oooof,” I added. “At three o’clock in the morning?” I yawned. Then a flicker of white drifted across the room. It was luminescent. It panted as it drifted.

  “Arrrr…” I screamed, “a Ghost.”

  “Where?” Israel yelped and made a dive to get under the bed. Israel is scared silly of ghosts.

  “There,” I shrieked and pointed. The flicker of white slathered and simpered. It drooled and wagged its invisible tail. It seemed to bounce on its hind legs even if it did not have any. Then the flicker of white nuzzled closer and I began to sneeze.

  “Oi,” Israel moaned. “They fool me too, and there are tons of them. You have failed me once too often, kid. I’m moving.”

  “Don’t leave me,” I whimpered. “What is it?”

  “Dog shed,” he said. “The dog you so proudly brought home is shedding. Explain yourself.”

  “A long story.”

  “I have until dawn.”

  “A friend downtown….” I began.

  “Search for the woman,” he interrupted.

  “All right,” I said. “I met a lady friend downtown. She told me that I was a crude man who owned cats and wrote nothing but cat stories. She said I was sarcastic about dogs.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “They all are,” I sobbed. “Even the ones who are dog lovers. Or maybe them, especially.”

  “You fool,” Israel laughed. “You blighted idiot. This is too much.” He rolled around on the floor whooping and laughing. “Jerk,” he giggled. “So to impress a lady you bought a dog and a bunch of Hemingway novels….”

  “Nothing in the books say a word about shed,” I protested. “They are brave and true books and they say nothing about shed.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Israel told me. “I’m not leaving. I’m staying around to see you handle this mess.”

  “I’ll handle it all right. Yes sir. No-doubt-about-it.” But, I knew I was in trouble. “I’ll learn about dogs and write dog stories and all my readers will know that I am fair and just and not simply a friend of cats.”

  “Two questions,” Israel said. “First, what does a Hemingway dog look like?”

  “Lean and ranging and intelligent and serious and brave.”

  “Second question. And you brought home a Samoyed?”

  “Yes.”

  “You see the difference?”

  “That’s three questions,” I protested. “But, yes, I see the difference. At least I see it now.”

  “Go back to sleep,” Israel told me. “Tomorrow I’ll teach you to roll over and fetch… and how to use a vacuum.”

  THE TIME THAT TIME FORGOT

  …Ah, love, let us be true

  To one another! for the world, which seems

  To lie before us like a land of dreams,

  So various, so beautiful, so new,

  Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

  Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

  And we are here as on a darkling plain

  Swept with confused alarms of struggle and strife

  Where ignorant armies clash by night.

  from Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

  I

  Through a random cast of ancient humors, or the almighty hand of God; or perhaps only the whim of indifferent Nature, some souls are given to wander widely while the cautious stay at home. We walk the nights, look down unending roads, and the universe stands before us cold as a harsh thought; though speckled with the stares of stars.

  Thus it was in our youth when we went to war, and so it remained in this year of 1879 when we three, Charles Hare, Ephriam Miller, and I, Jonathan Light, arrived in these wet mountains of southeast America. Wanderers three, we proceeded in the name of Science, although by our natures we would, science or no, come exploring.

  Rumors about time a-shifting, and ghosts, and power rose from these hills and stretched as far away as comfortable Baltimore from which we departed with mixed emotions. The greatest war in history is still vile memory. Baltimore abounds with former Confederate officers seeking new professions. Congress has failed America. It manufactures frenzies, although most of our people wish only reconciliation. No doubt it was war that originally caused rumors about this land. Some fleeing Yankee or Reb stumbled into these valleys, and stumbled away, shrieking.

  When we departed Baltimore our interest was ethnology. It is a young science, much praised these days in press, but cursed from pulpit. Our subject: a people living in these remote mountains where time seems skewed and wondrous. In 1879 there exists unexplained movement in skies and forest. The movement is always seen through mist, and whether it be animal or machine we did not at first know. There also exists a civilization that, for all intents, still lives in the 14th or 15th century. And, among the natives of this land are ancients who have power. We now know that the power is fabulous.

  Rumors about shifting time, and ghosts, caught the attention of Charles Hare, our captain who is wealthy and could finance this trip. Charles is usually modest enough and, during the war, brave enough. He has a gentleman’s persuasion about ethnology, and an English-y face not a little like his horse. His hair is brown and mane-like, his hands nearly as blunt as hooves. When he sits his horse one thinks of fox hunts and aristocracy.

  Ephriam Miller, on the other hand, is near opposite. A down-easter of lower persuasions, in his native Maine he is known as a drinker and a brawler. He is also a ship maker and sailor who lives on the bare edge of respectability. During the war he was a Bosun. He is built like a massive barrel, but the girth is muscle and not fat. He is a man too cheery for the grim coast of Maine because he laughs with joy as he fights. He stands for drinks when he wins. No one has ever seen him lose.

  And I, Jonathan Light, am quiet, bookish, and a recorder of this adventure. Before the war I worked for newspapers and perhaps read too many adventure tales by gentlemanly Englishmen. While I make no great noise about it, and sometimes regret the truth; fact is that I am too large for a man of books, too strong. A circus once tried to hire me as a giant. A man of my size does not need to say “no” more than once. Unlike our friend Ephriam, I no longer enjoy battle because I’ve killed too many. I sometimes enjoy laughing.

  These valleys are not easily found. When we arrived in Asheville and completed our outfit with stores of flour and salt and tobacco, local people denied knowledge of this place. They thought us northern intruders, or, as likely, did not wish to think of what lies in these mountains and valleys. Asheville presents a closed and aristocratic society, self-anointed. In Asheville time proceeds, clock-like, day after tranquil day. It is always respectable. It does
not wind around or turn upon itself.

  We departed Asheville in late April, three men, five horses and a mule. We carried .44 Colt revolvers and the new 45-70 rifles with a wealth of cartridges.

  Now it is early August. One horse lies dead. The mule walks overloaded. The animals put a strain on our situation. We buy hay and a little corn at an occasional hill farm, but mostly depend on forage. Thus, the animals are not thrifty. Ephriam and I could do without them; but about horses, Charles is adamant.

  Trails are few and we descend or ascend carefully. Our remaining horses snort and hesitate when entering a trail. They show the good sense of large animals in dangerous territory. And, although we are experienced adventurers we also hesitate before this immensity of forest. Streams run from every hill, crystalline and noisy. Ancient mountains rise mist-clad, round-shouldered, and worn by an eternity of weather.

  The horse was stricken in the midst of storm. We had seen the sites of other strikes, but took them for the results of lightning; because, in this wet land lightning walks the hills on forked legs. Lightning here is common as mist, and mist is common as air. Only during afternoons of full sun does the mist withdraw.

  There is no arguing with these storms. Thunder rolls across mountaintops, booms through valleys, and rain sheets before wind no less than in a storm at sea. We huddle in waterproofs and beneath canvas if in the field. Otherwise, we seek shelter in a cave where we have established camp.

  It was at the camp the horse died. It stood hobbled with the others. The animals grazed until the arrival of storm, then moved toward each other as thunder crashed like cannon, and rain turned their hides bright.

  The doomed mare stood in the center of the little herd. Suddenly, surprised, she fell as silently as night wings. The other horses screamed, edged aside, moved through mist like slow specters. The mare lay with smoke rising from a furious wound. Even with wind, ozone tainted the blowing mist. The carcass lay still. No burns appeared on the other beasts. Worse, no thunder followed. This stroke of light, or lightning, walked in silence.