Ghost Town

by Cherie Claire

  The three of us fall on to the couch and catch up, TB and Sebastian talking cars — Sebastian has use of the publisher’s Karmann Ghia for the weekend — and he and I sharing news of our careers. I’m pleased for Sebastian’s new fame and fortune but miss him terribly. He doesn’t seem to miss me as much, unfortunately, and I wonder when I’ll see him again.

  “Come out to South Carolina,” he tells me. “You’d love the Low Country. The publisher has this gorgeous spread near the coast and we go hunting every chance we get.”

  This doesn’t gel with my environmentalist twin. “Hunting? Since when do you go out killing things?”

  He looks at me as if I’ve sprouted wings. “Hunting keeps animal populations in check. I’ve joined Ducks Unlimited and they’re one of the biggest conservationist groups around.”

  I’m still not convinced. Shooting defenseless animals never appealed to me although I don’t begrudge others. Now that I live in Cajun Country, I wouldn’t have friends if I took a stand against hunting and fishing. The local newspapers devote whole sections to the outdoors and I have neighbors who walk the streets packing. It’s all strange for a city girl like me and I can’t believe my liberal brother is falling in step.

  “Well, look who’s home.” My mother walks into the living room wearing an apron and holding a roux spoon. “Glad you could fit me into your busy schedule.”

  I stand and kiss my mom on her cheek. “Nice to see you, too, Mom.”

  She looks frail today, and dressed in jeans and a loose-fitting top, unusual for my mother who never leaves the house without being impeccably dressed and made up. Her eyes lack their usual luster as well. I start to inquire but she barks off instructions, we all do some part bringing food to the dining room table, and gather round. Portia’s children, who were immersed in some video game in the den, rush in yelling and fighting and my mom looks ready to explode. Sebastian senses her anxiety so he grabs both and shakes them hard until they start laughing. My mom rubs her forehead, still upset by the noise, but I think she realizes the chaos is starting to wane.

  “Are you okay, Mom?” I ask.

  “Just dandy,” she mutters and heads back into the kitchen to retrieve the gravy for the pot roast, the one Portia has slaved over all morning long, says my sister.

  “Pot roast is so time-consuming,” Sebastian retorts. “You buy the meat, put it in a pan with seasoning and cook it. So kudos to you, Portia.”

  “Like you would know,” she fires back. “Celery slicer.”

  I can almost picture the hairs on the back of Sebastian’s neck at full attention. “Bitch,” he whispers so the children won’t hear.

  “Ingrate slacker,” she whispers back.

  When my mom returns, Portia’s son, Reynaldo, announces to my mom, “Sebastian said a bad word.”

  “Shut up, Rey,” his sister Demetrius says — my sister followed the Shakespeare tradition — and the two begin fighting again.

  My mother places the gravy boat on the table too hard, causing its contents to spill, and fusses at Sebastian while Portia admonishes the kids. I look over at TB who smiles, enlarges his eyes as if to say, “Can we leave here fast enough?” Despite the distance between us, I’m thankful for an ally in this familial mess.

  After the obligatory hour of dinner, then another hour listening to various family members talk about their lives — no one asks either me or TB how we’re doing — we head back to Lafayette, with a quick stop by the house, with me waiting in the car. TB’s disappointed I don’t come in and peek at the new kitchen but he’ll get over it.

  Once back on the road, night falls with the sun setting straight ahead, causing us both to squint. As we cross the Mississippi Bridge at Baton Rouge I search the mighty river, thinking about the time I read Siddhartha and was blown away at the end when the protagonist finds spiritual enlightenment at the river, noting the interconnectedness of nature. It was something I even discussed with Lillye once.

  “Do you realize the water beneath us could be a drop from the river’s origins in Minnesota,” I tell TB.

  I see the wheels turning in his head and wait for an answer, wondering if I’m getting too deep for him, pun intended.

  “And it’s all the same,” TB says quietly. “Individual drops making up the whole river, so what we see here is the same wherever this water is. Like universal consciousness. Individuals connecting to make up the whole of the universe.”

  I stare at my ex-husband whose idea of intellectual reading is the LSU playbook. “What?”

  “Something I read in that box of yours,” he says.

  “What box?”

  “The one you brought back from Lake Lorelei.”

  “You read all that?”

  He shrugs. “Nothing else to do while you were gone. Besides, you know I like helping you with your work.”

  Elijah had called while we were at my mom’s house, leaving a message that his grandmother would be up for a visit this week if I were willing and able. He suggested spending the night, saying he had an extra room, and that Sirona might be able to have us over for dinner. I relay this conversation to TB.

  “Can I come?”

  I picture TB asking a million questions, many of which are inappropriate — he’s prone to do this — but he’s been a godsend at times with research. I’m thinking I could drop him off at the library, maybe have him poke around the ruins while I interview grandma.

  “If you can get off work.”

  He frowns. “Not sure, will have to check.”

  “For now, tell me where you read that bit about consciousness.”

  TB lights up as he explains the theory behind Masaru Emoto, a Japanese scientist who experimented with water.

  “He took water from a mountain stream and some from a polluted one and froze them both, then studied them under a microscope.”

  I know the story but it’s nice hearing TB talk about something other than construction.

  “I think I heard about this guy,” I say. “The crystals from the stream were beautiful and the others distorted, right?”

  Now TB’s getting really excited, and I’m again surprised by his interest.

  “Yeah, but it gets better. He did more experiments, this time having people talk to water, write words or place pictures on glasses of water. The ones who said and wrote pleasant things on their glasses had the pretty crystals again. The ones with the angry words and negativity had ugly ones.”

  “Interesting.”

  “He believed people could change the molecular structure of water by positive vibrations, which means….” He looks at me, his eyes shining bright, and I don’t think I’ve seen him so fascinated by something so metaphysical. “…that water might be a blueprint for our reality. That’s what Emoto said, a ‘blueprint for our reality.’”

  I ponder this, slurping on my water bottle, thinking about the molecules of what I’m drinking entering my body made up of mostly water in a world that’s overwhelmingly water. Not to mention my psychic connection to H2O. How this relates to Lake Lorelie, I haven’t yet discerned, but that buzzing has returned so I mull over this new information all the way back to Lafayette.

  I’m standing on a ridge above Lake Lorelie with a dramatic drop to the water’s edge, amazed at the rolling hills a short distance from flat Lafayette, with below-sea level marshes to Lafayette’s south. Elijah had said the lake was here before the state intervened and damned up a nearby stream, but it’s hard to imagine this land having more altitude than what’s in front of me.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  An elderly woman known as Miss Bessie to locals, Elijah’s grandmother, leans heavily on a cane and approaches to my rear. I attempt to assist but she waves my hand away. “I’m perfectly capable, young lady.”

  I don’t know what to say so I wait patiently while she hobbles to my side. She raises her cane and points it toward the dock at the end of the pathway leading downhill.

  “My son built that dock. I used to go fishin
g there every morning. Would do it still but Elijah won’t let me. You slow down a bit and they assume you’re ready for the old folk’s home.”

  I can’t imagine this frail lady climbing up and down that long staircase, not to mention she’s more than slowed down a bit, but I keep quiet.

  She glances over at me. “You the ghost lady?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “About time someone came up here to help us with this problem.” She glances at me sideways; she’s a good five inches shorter. “You do know what the problem is, don’t you?”

  I glance back at the lake, anything to escape those piercing brown eyes. “No ma’am, I’m afraid I don’t. I was hoping you would tell me more.”

  Miss Bessie huffs, turns, and starts back toward the house. “Useless.” The word describes me well, I think, and wonder if I’ll have to return the money. But grandma turns and waves me over. “Well, come on then. I’ll make some coffee.”

  I wish Elijah were here. He had set up this meeting and met me at Hi Ho’s that afternoon but after driving me over to Miss Bessie’s, announced that he had some city business to attend to. He dropped me off in the yard leading to his grandmother’s house and hurried away, claiming it was an emergency.

  I follow the old lady to the house that’s a bit worse for wear on the outside but squeaky clean on the inside. In fact, I’m astonished at how neat and clean the home is.

  “Didn’t think an old lady could keep house?” she asks, giving me that stink eye again.

  “No ma’am,” I lie. “I’m just impressed. My house is usually never this clean.”

  “That’s because you young people are lazy. Don’t have the same work ethic like my generation.”

  She turns her back to me and pulls out two cups, a mini pitcher of what looks like real cream and a sugar bowl, placing them all on a tray with cloth napkins and little silver spoons. “Get that coffee, will you?”

  I search the counter and find a French press next to a bag of hazelnut Starbucks coffee, which smells heavenly. It takes me back a bit.

  “Don’t think an old lady knows how to make coffee either, do you? Or do you think we backwoods darkies grind it in a pestle and boil it over a fire.”

  I don’t know how to respond. Truth is, I thought only hipsters under thirty, of all colors, used French presses and bought Starbucks by the bag.

  She pushes me aside and grabs the French press, places it on the table with the rest of the coffee fixings. “I usually like to grind up the whole beans but Walmart’s been out of it since Tuesday.”

  I want to wait until she sits down, thinking that’s the polite response to my elders, but Miss Bessie doesn’t comply and gets exasperated with me. “Sit down, ghost girl. You my guest.”

  I do as I’m told but right now I’m rather frightened of this tiny sprit of a woman. I think she senses it for she pours me a cup and hands it to me along with the cloth napkin and a spoon.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “What do you need to know?” she asks after taking a long, satisfying sip of her Starbucks. I have to admit, this is damn good java, nice and strong with an adequate dollop of cream, just the way I like it.

  “Elijah said the ghosts started appearing at Easter. Is that when you saw the mayor coming through the yard?”

  I try not to laugh as soon as those words fly out my mouth. If Portia could see me now.

  “Easter, right after the sun went down. They come out at dusk, you know?”

  I nod. “Is this often?”

  “Like clockwork. I take in the clothes off the line, I finish pulling up weeds in my garden — you name it — and when I head into the house as the sun’s going down, there they are.”

  “They?”

  “Whomever wants to visit me that day.”

  This makes me sit up straight. “You’ve seen more than one in your yard?”

  “Half a dozen at last count. Maybe more.”

  I shake my head trying to make sense of it. “Weird.”

  “You ever heard of this before?”

  “No ma’am.”

  She looks at me sternly. “You even seen ghosts before?”

  “Yes ma’am.” I decide to come clean. “To be honest, I only see ghosts that have died by water. I told Elijah this but he asked me to come anyway.”

  Miss Bessie rubs two fingers over her lips as she studies this. “I knew someone once, had a gift like that. Called it a funny name.”

  “SCANC?”

  She purses her lips like she’s tasting something awful. “What? No. That’s sounds crazy.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Those lips keep moving as Miss Bessie searches her brain, then her eyes light up. “Tea Bags.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Tea Bags. Stands for trauma-induced ability to believe in apparitions, ghosts and specters.”

  I can’t help myself; I laugh this time. This is a new one on me and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard them all.

  “It’s not funny,” Miss Bessie says sternly.

  “Well, ma’am, it is kinda funny and yes, that’s me. I was in Katrina so my trauma relates to water.”

  “And you’d rather be called a skank?”

  I smile. “‘Specific communication with apparitions, non-entities, and the comatose.’”

  Miss Bessie shakes her head. “They’re both rather stupid, if you ask me.”

  “Yes ma’am.” I so agree, but I didn’t make this shit up. Finally, we both laugh and take long sips from our coffee.

  I look out the window at the placid lake and wonder why this place, why Easter? Miss Bessie reads my mind for she utters, “Who knows?”

  I decide to get some history first.

  “Matt what’s-his-name with the state said they created this lake but Elijah said it was here before the dam.”

  Miss Bessie sits back in her chair and relaxes, coffee cup still in her gnarly hands. “Oh yes, I grew up on this lake. Even as a child, it was large and deep.”

  “So, why does the state say they created it as a reservoir?”

  Miss Bessie rises and pulls a photo album off a nearby bookshelf and opens it to a page showing what looks like family, shot in the 1930s. There’s a Model A truck in the background and the lake is barely visible on the horizon.

  “That’s my family and you can see the lake in the distance.”

  “Looks just like it does now,” I say.

  Miss Bessie nods. “Yes, it does.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Miss Bessie turns the album around and runs a loving hand over the photo.

  “They screwed up. Folks came in and started looking for oil by the springs and one November night in 1932 the water level dropped. An accident of some kind. The state blamed it on the drought but a lake doesn’t half disappear during the night. We woke up and found our boats in the mud, fish flopping everywhere. We knew it was them that did it.”

  “Them? The state?”

  Miss Bessie closes the album and returns it to the bookshelf. “I ain’t saying. Folks get in trouble for saying too much.”

  “What folks?”

  Miss Bessie huffs. “Black folks, of course. Who else is going to get hurt, going to get the blame? If you know what’s good for you you’ll stay away from that Matt fellow. He knows the truth but it’s not safe for some outsider to come here and bring it all up again.”

  There’s something going on and I want to learn more but Miss Bessie looks out the window at the setting sun.

  “You ready to see some dead people?”

  The sky’s turning gorgeous shades of crimson and gold, a myriad of colors reflecting off the lake’s waters. I’m entranced by the scene before me but Miss Bessie wakes me from my revelry.

  “Come on, Ghost Lady,” she says sternly.

  I look up to find Miss Bessie standing with her hand on the front door, so I rise and follow her slow steps on to the front porch. We stand at the railing and wait.

  “Do
n’t get your hopes up, Miss Bessie,” I say. “If these dead people haven’t died by water I’m afraid….”

  I feel a presence before I see a silhouette of a man in old-fashioned attire appear out of the tree line, walking across the yard as if in a trance. Ripples of heat flow through me and beads of sweat break out on my forehead. A dull ache begins behind my eyes and I rub them to clear my eyesight, afraid I might be hallucinating.

  The ghost doesn’t acknowledge us, which means he’s not an intellectual haunting, and slowly moves toward the lake, passing within a foot of us until he vanishes.

  I turn to Miss Bessie with my mouth hanging open. I need to sit down, try to focus on what just happened.

  “Wait,” Miss Bessie says. “There’s more.”

  As if on cue, four more haunts float across Miss Bessie’s back yard and I stand watching this parade in amazement. I hear Miss Bessie call out their names — first, the mayor who died of old age, then the proprietor of the general store who had a heart attack, a girl who fell out of a citrus tree and hit her head, and an African American man Miss Bessie seemed to know personally but refused to say how he died.

  Once the sun sets, the parade concludes. All five ghosts simply vanished on the way to the lake. And none, except for possibly the African American, had died by water. I’m so excited about that fact I can barely contain myself. I give Miss Bessie a hug that almost knocks her down.

  “Take it easy there, Ghost Lady,” she admonishes me, but there’s a smile on her face.

  “You have no idea what this means to me.”

  “Hopefully it means you’re going to send these people packing.”

  I hop up and down. “I sure will try.”

  I can’t wait to call TB and tell him the good news, that I can see ghosts who have no connection to water. That I might finally be able to speak to my angel, the love of my life on the other side. I’ll call Carmine as well, let him know that his theory on ghost-talking evolution is crap.

  “Why you so happy?” Miss Bessie asks.

  I feel a kinship to this woman now, so I start to explain how I lost my daughter, Lillye, to leukemia, only to be given the gift of talking to water-logged ghosts, not my spirits of choice. But, Elijah drives up in his truck and parks in front of the porch. When he approaches us, he finds us grinning like schoolgirls. The look on his face, however, doesn’t mirror our enthusiasm.