Ghouljaw and Other Stories (19 page)

“Of course,” Herbert answers. “One must attend to the living.”

Silence is suspended between them. Ray finally clears his throat. It occurs to him to ask about their son. “How is Travis?”

“Well,” Steinhauer exhales, “Travis decided to follow your lead, as it were, and light out on his own.” He smiles. “Who knows? Perhaps our son will make a prodigal return one day.” His smile fades as he appraises Ray.

Silence. The red-and-white barber pole twirls slowly.

“Well, I’m afraid we must be going,” says Herbert. “Please give our regards to your mother.”

Ray and Herb exchange a parting handshake. He assumes the couple will resume their Sunday morning stroll, but neither budge from under the shadow of the barber shop’s awning.

Ray crosses the street and gets into the car. Before taking the corner and steering away from Exchange Street, he glances in the rearview mirror. The sidewalk in front of the barber shop is empty, the red and white pole is twirling slowly.

Ray stands over the sink, scrubbing dishes after dinner. His mother is still at the dining room table, solemnly leafing through a stack of old documents and bills that have accumulated in the last few weeks. His mom seemed relieved when Ray had agreed to stay in town until things got back to normal, or at least as normal as possible without his dad around.

Through the window above the kitchen sink, daylight is dimming into the dreamy tints of dusk, the meticulously manicured lawn looks lush and lurid, the sharply defined shadows along the hedge inching toward the house.

In the six years since his initial departure from Deacon’s Creek, Ray would occasionally return, stay for a couple of days, and leave, each departure being a substantially less dramatic reenactment of his original adolescent exodus. Those visits were always more miserable when they coincided with an appearance by his older brother, David. Of course, Dr. David Swanson had flown in from Florida for their father’s funeral.

At the wake, Ray watched his brother engage in long bouts of seemingly sincere discussion with family members before shuffling a few paces, only to be seized by another cluster of mourners. In the moments when David broke away, he’d tried making conversation with Ray. But there was nothing Ray could say. In his heart, the only things they had in common were the blood-ties of siblinghood and parentage. In Ray’s heart, his only accomplishment in twenty-four years was forking over fifty bucks at the bus station and escaping Deacon’s Creek.

“Ray?”

He’s clutching a food-smeared plate, the faucet hissing as water gurgles into the drain. “Huh?” He sets the dish down and twists off the knobs. “What? Sorry about that. I was . . . daydreaming.”

His mother offers a tired smile. “It’s too late to be daydreaming.”

Ray smirks, “Sorry,” patting his hands dry on a tea towel and walking into the dining room. “Something wrong?”

“Well,” his mother lifts a pair of reading glasses, “I found this check in some of your father’s things—it’s made out to Wendell Harper.”

Ray remembered Wendell, the old butcher at Crenshaw’s Market, where he’d spent his younger years as a stock boy. “Does Wendell still work there?”

“Heavens yes,” his mother says. “They’ll have to drag him out of there someday.” She hands the check to Ray. It looks old, ink-faded. There’s no date, only Wendell’s name, his father’s signature, and a dollar amount.

“Do you think Dad forgot to pay for something?” Ray shifts his eyes from his father’s signature on the check and over to his mom.

“As busy as your father was, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d overlooked something.” She gestures vaguely at the haphazard scatter of papers. “And it wouldn’t surprise me if Wendell was too polite to ask.”

Ray chuckles. “Wendell?”—shakes his head—“polite?” He’s quiet for a few moments. “Do you want me to run into the market and find out what it was all about?”

His mother sighs. “Oh, that would be such a help, Ray. Maybe some time this week? Whenever you’re free.”

Aside from playing handyman around the house, Ray has nothing but free time. “Sure thing. Tomorrow or the next day, maybe.”

Ray appraises the cluttered table, noticing a shoebox full of photographs. He lifts a small stack of pictures, flipping through them casually. They’re mostly of him and David as kids. Ray pauses, staring at one particular photo. It’s of him as a toddler—his first trip to Vaught’s Barber Shop. His small, tear-streaked face is frozen in mid-cry, cheeks flushed, a little spittle on his lower lip. There’s a white barber’s cape fixed around his neck, and the cushioned chair looks enormous in contrast with his tiny body. Ray’s mom had always thought this photo was adorable. Ray’s attention flicks to the margin of the picture. His dad’s there, just out of frame—his arms and big hands reaching for Ray, presumably to keep him from struggling out of the chair—a harsh, domineering gesture. Ray drops the stack of photos back into the box and sets the check on the bookcase before returning to the kitchen and finishing his chores at the sink.

Later this evening, Ray is sitting in his father’s recliner. The TV drones with a primetime game show. His mom is sitting across the room, on the couch, contentedly reading her Bible. People around here turned to scripture—to God, Ray supposed—in search of answers when self-reliance failed. Part of him wants to let her be, to allow her to sustain her healing as long as she needs it. Another part of him wants to stroll over there and remove that book from her lap—and save her from dwelling on empty promises.

It’s not lost on him that he is quietly, and if only proximally, filling in for his dad. This is a ritual, Ray realizes.
This is mom’s grieving
.

Deacon’s Creek did not cope well with grief, let alone surprises. Ray’s faithless exodus six years earlier had been no surprise, but Roger Swanson’s fatal heart attack had been a small-town shocker. It had been predictable arithmetic that the all-American Roger Swanson would end up courting, and later marrying, the equally virtuous Alice Burkhart. Roger and Alice were married, and with almost divine swiftness they discovered she was pregnant. David arrived—healthy, perfect. Roger and Alice had originally agreed to have two children, but after the first, they’d decided that one son would suffice.

Abortions were unheard of in Deacon’s Creek—unheard of not because they never occurred, but because they went unspoken. After David, Alice’s subsequent pregnancy had been a “surprise.” But when Ray was old enough to decode the discontent in his parents’ little euphemism, he automatically translated “surprise” to “mistake.” Later, Ray figured he wasn’t so much a disappointment as something they hadn’t prayed for. After all, praying only got you so far.

Over on the couch, Ray’s mother occasionally makes a soft
hm
sound, as if discovering some passage or platitude that pleased her. Now she gently closes the book and looks up at Ray. “Thank you for staying, Ray.”

He doesn’t know if she means staying in the living room to keep her company or remaining in town. He twitches a smile. “Sure, Mom.”

“You may doubt it, but your father was so . . .
proud
of you.”

His smile fades a bit, not out of anger. Maybe she’d intended that comment to be a heart-wrenching sentiment, but it was a bit far-fetched to be true. “That’s very kind to say, Mom.”

“He loved you and David so much. But your brother was always so distracted”—she makes a dismissive gesture—“with his career, all that.” From the TV comes the ding-ding applause of the game show. “He loved you both the same, but that love was different. Does that make sense?”

No
. “Of course, Mom.”

After a while, Alice says she’s going to bed, and Ray hugs her goodnight.

Later, with night fully pressed in against the windows, Ray creeps down to the basement to fetch a bottle of wine from his father’s stash. He selects a dusty one from the cobwebby rack, one with a hard-to-read label, and returns to the chair in the living room to watch some TV.

As opposed to David’s old room, Ray’s boyhood bedroom has gone virtually unchanged since he left roughly six years before. Some of his old clothes are even hanging in the closet. Clumsy from the wine, Ray turns down his bed and surveys the claustrophobic space. Posters from his teenage years have remained hanging here and there—White Zombie, Motörhead, Rage Against the Machine.

Ray glances over at the bookshelf lined with some old paperbacks, a few yearbooks. He pulls one of the yearbooks from the shelf, the one from his junior year—that would have been a year before the accident. It’s not the first time in recent weeks that he’s indulged in this sort of sentimental time-travel, which fills him with a giddy trepidation, as if he might stumble onto something that will make sense, that might be a sign, that might fix things.

But Ray—thanks to some snooping on the computer—had kept track of the present. He knew that Heather lived two counties over, close to Indianapolis, and he’d done his best to keep tabs on the cyclic nature of her love life—the boyfriend/boredom/breakup rebound rhythm of her relationships.

He flips open the yearbook. Because both their last names began with S, he gives a cursory glance at Travis Steinhauer. But no matter how much Ray distracts himself with these antiquated memories—these people trapped between these faded pages—he finishes each pointless return by staring at the black-and-white photo of Heather.

In his dream, Ray is driving. Not his car, but his father’s black ’69 Chevelle convertible, a yellow racing stripe painted down the middle. The angle of the sun and the mildness of the air suggest it’s morning. He’s coursing along a lineless road, curving smoothly through hilly woods. Overhead, spokes of sunlight flash in and out between a low-lying canopy of tree limbs; but in a visual trick, the color of the leaves steadily alternates between the chlorophyllous greens of spring and the autumnal tints of orange, gold, and burgundy, creating a kaleidoscopic effect that mesmerizes Ray, making it difficult for him to keep his eyes on the road. He hears the radio—Springsteen, he’s sure of it. The second track from
Nebraska
. The combination of aural and ocular sensations makes him grin. Just as he extends his hand to turn up the volume he notices his passenger. Heather smiles.

Ray’s heart begins to drum and his dream-respiration becomes feathery. Random mosaics of shadow and morphing shards of sunlight pass over her face; her brown hair lifts in the gently rushing breeze. She’s poised daintily, with her legs tucked up under her. Her skin tone is something between peach and nutmeg, as if she’s been lying out by the pool all morning. Heather’s heavy-lidded gaze grows seductively severe as she murmurs, “Better keep your eyes on the road, Ray.”

The lineless road snakes on, an endless artery of S-curves. But it’s no longer black, and now looks to be covered with a slick layer of crimson.

Ray fumbles for the right thing to say. On the radio, Springsteen’s still singing, a mellow tune, one of Ray’s favorites—the one about everything dying, everything coming back, the one about Atlantic City.

Again he goes for the volume knob, but this time a pale hand clasps his wrist. Ray fixes his eyes on the hand and follows it up to Heather’s face, which is no longer tanned and healthy, but waxy, wasted, as if she were in the throes of some fever.

“Ray,” she says, “you have to pay attention. You have to leave me alone.”

“Why are you sick?” To his ears, his voice sounds as if he’s talking under water.

She shakes her head impatiently. “I’m not sick.” She frowns. “I’m not sick because I didn’t stay.” Heather lets go of his wrist. The dream-sun sinks with alarming swiftness, as if light were being extinguished with one simple exhalation. Under the Chevelle’s headlights, Ray can see the crimson-coated road as he continues coursing through the tunnel of trees. He steals a glance at his passenger.

Heather’s complexion suggests she’s been dead for weeks. Her gray, vein-riddled flesh looks bruised in spots, putridly supple in others. There’s a glossy spot just under her scalp where he thinks the skin has sloughed away, exposing portions of her skull. Her sunken, unblinking eyes are filmed with baby-blue cataracts, and her features are made more livid by the weak glow from the radio.

Ray tightens his grip on the wheel. Heather opens her corpse-purple lips to speak. “Ray—” she starts, but stops when a thick line of moss-colored drool dribbles out of her mouth. Heather quickly cups a hand to her chin. She wipes her mouth primly, as if embarrassed, and offers a demure smile. “Oops.”

Despite her deteriorated exterior, and dream or not, Ray thinks she’s lovely.

When she speaks again, her voice is mud-curdled. “You know Daddy will never let you see me again.” Leaves begin falling from the ceiling of tree limbs. “Ray?” says the boggy voice next to him, but he does not look over. He tries to think of what to say, because he has the suspicion that with the right words—with healing words—he can fix things. He can bring her back.
I’ve changed, I’ve grown up. It’s not too late
. The radio grows static-lashed, and there is someone speaking just under the hissing white noise.

Again the voice comes, “Ray,” but it is no longer Heather’s.

Roger Swanson, wearing the suit he was buried in, is casually angled in the passenger seat, unchanged since the funeral: dark hair slicked back, a mortician’s veneer of powdery makeup, a salesman’s grin showcasing rows of shark-glossy teeth. “Son,” he says, his tone casual, conversational. “You certainly are a fuck-up.”

Ray swallows and looks away. Just under the radio’s static, he can make out the sermonic cadence of a shouting preacher:
“By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac . . . and he that had received the promises offered up his only-begotten son . . .”
Ray imagines a jowly face beaded with sweat.

“Your mother and I were always so disappointed in you.”

Ray exhales thinly. “I know.” His voice is lost under the droning pulpit-pounding preacher.
“And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son . . .”