Lost Echoes

6

So now Harry, he’s thirteen, and he’s got the horny on bad. If they rated how horny he was on a one-to-ten scale, he’d been about an eleven, maybe a twelve. So he’s got this horny on, and he doesn’t know shit from wild honey about such, but he’s got it going and he thinks he knows something, and what he doesn’t know, Joey Barnhouse tells him. Not that all of Joey’s information is right either, but it’s interesting, all this info from shithouse walls and the mouth of Joey and the technique of artful guessing.

One day Harry tries to steal a kiss from Kayla Jones, the pretty blond who lives down the road from him, on the other side of Joey, but she whips his ass soundly. After the ass whipping, he likes her even more. Kayla, she’s some sack of dynamite. Thin as a reed, hair yellow as the burning sun at high noon, fists like lead. Pissed off because her father yells at her mother a lot, and vice versa, and though Harry doesn’t know it at the time, he’d think back later and consider maybe they had, like, some kind of link.

Joey doesn’t like her, or says he doesn’t, thinks she’s too tall and too tough. This because he’s about four feet high and one foot wide and growing like dead grass. He’s got big feet, though, says that’s a sign he’s gonna grow, says he’s got a hammer like something Thor would carry, provided he could swing it between his legs.

Harry knows better. Joey, like him, darts about in the shower at PE, keeps his back to folks when he can, his hand over his privates, quick to grab a towel.

He ain’t showing nothing. Not like William Stewart, who has a goddamn python. Flaps it about like it might strike, maybe grab someone in the locker room, squeeze him dead, drag him up a tree for later consumption.

No, Harry figures Joey isn’t any better than him in that department. But it’s cold comfort.

He’s got that on his mind. Inadequacy. Stuff that his dad at thirteen probably didn’t think about at all, or didn’t have time to, working most of his kid life away, but there it was. His concerns. The worries of Harry Wilkes in all their glories. Late-night rambles over a girlie magazine Joey had given him and he kept hidden under his mattress.

Yeah, that was him. A magazine in one hand, himself in the other, doing the dirty deed, feeling guilty because of Sunday school and church, a bewhiskered, voyeuristic, smirking, self-righteous God peeking over his shoulder while he brought the juice to freedom.

It made a fella nervous.

No doubt about it, he thought as he lay there in bed. I’ve got one of them…what do they call it…?

Oh, yeah.

A complex.

That’s what I got.

A goddamn complex.

On the morning after Harry battled his complex, he awoke with a plan in mind.

Bravery. That was the thing.

Stand up against a ghost, do it in front of a girl. A girl like Kayla. You could show you were tough enough to be the boyfriend of a girl who could beat you like a circus monkey. Going after and seeing a ghost, that had to be worth points.

That said, he wasn’t that brave. Decided he would have to go down the road and find Joey first. Might be best to have reinforcements. He figured—hoped—he could make an impression with reinforcements. He liked to think it could be done.

’Cause, you see, there was a ghost, all woo-woo and ectoplasmic. He and Joey and Kayla had heard about it from other kids, older kids in the neighborhood, and he had even heard his mother talking to Joey’s mother about it. Down the hill and in the tonk. A specter.

Poor old Evelyn Gibbons’s spirit. Trapped in the abandoned honky-tonk, roaming about nights, her head hanging to one side, draped against her shoulder, her neck red as if she were wearing a scarlet scarf.

That was the story. There were those who claimed to have seen her. Some said you could hear her scream from time to time. Joey’s older brother, Evan, who beat them all up now and then, even Kayla, though she gave a good fight, said he had heard Evelyn Gibbons scream a couple times, and both times it had pricked the hair on his neck and made him run.

Evan could have been lying.

He liked to jack with them.

But on this matter Harry chose to believe him, because it suited his plans.

He had to believe in the ghost.

Mainly, Kayla had to believe in the ghost. Down there in the tonk, floating and moaning and screaming about.

Down there. Waiting.

The night was oozy-rich with velvet darkness, moonlight and moon shade. Their shadows darted across the ground as they ran, outlined by the silver rays of the moon.

When they got down the hill, near the honky-tonk, they paused to catch their breath.

“My daddy finds out I slipped off,” Joey said, “he’s gonna give me a worse beating than I got last week.”

Joey was talking about his eye. His father had punched him in the eye. Joey often had a black eye or a fat lip or a lump on his jaw or a bump on his head.

Harry had seen Joey’s father slap him alongside the head once. For hardly nothing, leaving a drawer open, something like that.

Harry’s father said James Barnhouse was a bitter old bastard. Mad because his leg had gone bad in high school. Football injury. Too many big guys on top of his kneecap. Before that he was hot shit, gonna go pro. After that he was lucky he got a caddy job, toting rich dudes’ golf clubs, living on a little wage and a few good tips. Reading crime magazines and old sex-and-bondage magazines, beating his boys if they found them and read them. Hitting his wife once in a while just to keep his arm loose and stay in practice.

Coasting. That’s what Mr. Barnhouse was doing, Harry’s dad said. Coasting. Feeling sorry for himself.

Joey’s old man didn’t scare Joey enough, though. He was always willing to take a chance and stand a beating. But he was nervous; Harry could tell that.

“I’ll get grounded,” Kayla said. “No TV. No phone. Nothing.”

“It ain’t the same as a punch in the eye,” Joey said.

“I’d rather get hit than be grounded,” Kayla said.

“That’s the way it sounds till you get hit,” Joey said. “Till my old man hits you; then you’d rather get grounded. You can trust me on that. Harry, here, he’d just get a talking-to, wouldn’t you, Harry? No grounding. No punch in the eye.”

“My parents aren’t much into spanking,” Harry said. “And they don’t do punching. But I could get grounded.”

“Yeah,” Joey said, “like when?”

“Grounding or no grounding,” Harry said, “I don’t want to get caught.”

“Your parents don’t punish you for anything,” Joey said.

This was pretty true. Since he got bad sick as a child, since the ear infection, his mother had been as protective as a hockey goalie. Worrying about asthma, which he didn’t have, allergies, which he might have, falling down, which he did a lot—just about everything. He and his dad went outside to play ball, she insisted on knee pads under his pants, wanted him to wear a bicycle helmet.

A bicycle helmet to play ball. Now that beat all. The idea of it—him out there in knee pads and a bicycle helmet to toss the ball around with his dad—well, that just wasn’t done.

Bad form, as he heard an English actor say on TV.

He was glad Dad had talked her out of it, ’cause if he did stuff like that, might as well have had a sign painted on his back that said: I’M THE BIGGEST PUSSY THAT EVER LIVED. PLEASE KICK AND HIT ME UNTIL MY BRAINS FALL OUT.

They stood for a while at the base of the hill, looking at the back of the dark, abandoned honky-tonk. Across the way the drive-in screen could be seen. Kung fu personnel were leaping about the big white square, mouths wide open, yelling silence.

“We come to see a ghost or not?” Kayla said.

“Yeah, sure we did,” Harry said.

“I don’t really think there’s any ghost,” Kayla said. “My daddy says there aren’t any such things, and he’s a policeman.”

“My brother says there are,” Joey said. “A policeman, he might know handcuffs and doughnuts, but he ain’t nothin’ more than anyone else when it comes to ghosts.”

“Since when do you care what your brother says?” Kayla said. “He told us you could get a girl pregnant by putting your little finger in her butt. So what’s he know?”

“He was just kidding.”

“I don’t think so. I think he’s that dumb.”

“Maybe it was the truth,” Joey said. “You want to bend over and let me try it?”

“I do that, it won’t be your finger; I know that. Just stay your distance.”

“You two are too nasty,” Harry said.

“It isn’t me,” Kayla said. “He’s the one’s got the stupid brother.”

They went on like this for a while, then eased up to the honky-tonk on the dark side. Joey grabbed at the window and pushed. It didn’t budge.

“We got to knock it out,” Joey said.

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “That wasn’t my idea, breaking nothing.”

“You want to see a ghost or not?” Joey said. “That was your idea, man. The ghost. I’m gonna get punched, I think I ought to go all the way, see what’s inside.”

“Just don’t think we should break anything.”

And no sooner had Harry finished saying it than he looked at Kayla. She was in shadow, and he couldn’t see much of her, but he could see her shape, and in some way that was more exciting than if he could see all of her. He wanted very much for her to think he was brave. He swallowed, said, “Sure, we can do that.”

“Maybe we ought not,” Kayla said. “It’s okay, you don’t want to, Harry.”

“Nah,” Joey said, “it’s all right. He’s all right. He don’t mind. Ain’t nobody using this place nohow.”

Joey picked up a rock, snapped it against a pane of glass. The glass shattered. Joey reached through the hole, got hold of the window lock, moved it. He pushed the window up easily and climbed inside.

Kayla came next. Harry linked his fingers together so she could step into the web of his hands and mount the window frame.

“Watch for glass,” he said.

Kayla smiled at him. She was out of the deep shadow now, and he could see her smile. It made him feel ten feet tall.

She stepped into his hands and through the window. He glanced at the drive-in screen before he clambered after her. It was a bloody death scene. A kung fu master with a sharp sword was beheading a warrior woman.

Inside the shadows were thick, and so was the dust. It choked them, and Harry began to cough. Kayla pulled a small flashlight from her back pocket, clicked it on.

There were tables and a long counter and against the wall a jukebox. The smell was strange. It gathered on them and clung like a cobweb.

“Stinks in here,” Harry said.

“Ghosts have a smell,” Kayla said. “I read that.”

“Do they smell like shit?” Joey said. “Shine the light over there.”

They caught a cat in the light, pooled him briefly in yellow. The cat bolted, disappeared behind the bar.

“Must be a hole in the wall somewhere,” Harry said.

“Let’s get it,” Joey said. “Let’s get the cat.”

“No,” Kayla said.

“What for?” Harry said. “Leave the cat alone.”

“I don’t like cats,” Joey said.

“Don’t you hurt a cat,” Kayla said. “You hurt a cat, I’ll never speak to you again.”

Joey processed this information for a long moment, studying Kayla, standing defiant behind the small beam of light. He turned away from where the cat had gone, said, “That stink. It’s cat shit. Watch where you step.”

“That won’t be easy,” Harry said. “We just got the one light.”

“And I have it,” Kayla said.

Harry and Joey eased up close to Kayla. Harry could smell Kayla’s hair. It smelled like some kind of flowery shampoo. And she had on a heavy dose of perfume. She always wore too much, but he liked it. He felt funny all over. He wanted to put his arm around her, but didn’t.

“Shine it on the jukebox,” Joey said.

Kayla did. The records were still beneath the glass. In fact, one was cocked up on the spindle, ready to drop.

“I heard she got killed right there,” Joey said. “By the jukebox.”

“You don’t know that,” Harry said.

Kayla said, “It was in all the papers, Harry. My daddy told me about it. He talked to the cops were here, down at the station. She was found lying against the jukebox. Everybody knows that.”

“Her head was near cut off,” Joey said. “Let’s see if there’s blood.”

They went over close and shined the light around. The blood had long since been cleaned off the floor and the jukebox, but there were little spots of something on the wall, and the trio decided to believe it was blood, even if it wasn’t.

“It’s stuffy in here,” Kayla said.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “And cold too.”

“I thought there was a ghost if it got chilly,” Joey said. “You know, they call it cold spots. She’d be in this spot, wouldn’t she? This would be the spot, right?”

“I look like an expert on ghosts?” Harry said. “How would I know?”

“There isn’t any ghost,” Kayla said.

Joey poked at Harry with his finger, making Harry jump.

“Don’t need a ghost,” Joey said. “Harry’s scared enough.”

Harry shoved at Joey. Hard. Knocked him back against the wall, stumbling into the jukebox, causing him to lean against it.

“Hey,” Joey said. “I didn’t mean nothing.”

Joey put a hand on the jukebox to right himself, jostling it further. The record on the spindle dropped and there was a clacking sound as it fell against the one beneath it.

The little snapping together of those old-style records was to Harry like the sound of two cymbals being slammed together, and there were bursts of other sounds, unidentified—sounds that seemed to lurk behind some invisible barrier—and there was lots of light, like he had experienced before, but brighter yet, and really hot this time.

And there was Loretta Lynn, singing about Fist City. The words to the song were at first muffled, like some kind of insect beating its wings in a bag, then they became identifiable and loud, as if the words and notes were solid things, invisible creatures hopping about the room, landing on his ears, crawling inside. And inside the darkness of his noggin a paint store exploded. Colors burst in every direction and there was a loud thump, and another sound like someone drawing a line on paper with a ballpoint pen. Then he felt warm, and there was pressure, as if he had been wrapped too tight in fuzzy wool blankets.

Then the images: a room, the very room he was in, lit up bright and very clear. Him standing alone in its center, and yet he was somehow viewing from overhead as well.

There was nothing else in the room in that moment, not Kayla, not Joey. Just the warmth and the light and the tight sensation, and then there was a woman in a short black dress, not a young woman, but someone his mother’s age. She was standing against the jukebox. And there was a man. Like the woman, he seemed to come from nowhere; shadows rushed out of some hole, gathered up, and made him. His face was unshaven, and he had a big scar on his upper lip, little ones on his cheeks. When he moved, his thick black hair shook as if it were a mop.

The man had a curved-bladed knife in his hand.

The knife flashed out and the overhead light caught the blade and made it shine like a glimpse of torchlit silver down in a mine. Then it moved out of the light and red beads leaped. The beads froze. In that moment Harry saw that the woman, who had turned and opened her mouth to speak, had a red cord around her neck. Then it came to him that it wasn’t a cord at all. It was a cut. A fine line growing wide.

The red beads came unfrozen and flew about, and she stumbled forward, and the man grabbed her, and slung her against the jukebox. She tried to get up, a hand at her wound, but he slashed across her throat again, cutting her hand, severing the tip of one of her fingers. When she jerked her cut hand away, she fell, one hand on the jukebox.

She looked up. Her dark eyes narrowed. Her expression was like the one you had when you found you’d put your hand into something you’d rather not touch.

Loretta continued to sing.

The man leaned forward, hooked the knife under her left ear, and pulled hard and slow under her chin, along the now thick red line he had made, pulled the knife almost all the way to the other ear.

Her head sagged, knocked against the jukebox.

Her eyes went flat and dead as blackened pennies.

Blood was everywhere.

The man stepped back and Harry could see his face, but just for a moment, because the shadows that had made him came apart and fled in all directions and the man was gone. It was the same for the woman, a flutter of darkness, and she was out of there, and the song went with her, as if the words were being sucked down a drain.

Harry was left with the tight warmth and the light. Then the light faded and it got cool and his head exploded all over the place in bursts of color. He ended up finally in grayness, then blackness.

“Harry, you all right?”

It was Kayla. She was holding her arm under his head, and she was leaning over him, her long blond hair dangling around his face like a curtain, and he could smell that fine shampoo smell, the overdose of perfume, and for a moment he thought the ghosts that had jumped on him, filled his head, sick and ugly as they were, might be worth it just to have him end up with Kayla’s arm behind his head.

“I saw the ghost,” he said. “More than one.”

“We didn’t see dick,” Joey said.

“You had to. The woman…the knife.”

“Dick,” Joey said.

“Kayla?” Harry asked.

“Dick,” she said.

“I saw it. I tell you, I saw it.”

“Dick,” Joey said. “There was dick. You fainted, you sissy.”

“No, you’re not,” Kayla said. “You got hot. It’s hot in here.”

“Sissy,” Joey said.

“Tell me about it,” Kayla said.

He told them.

“Sometimes some people see ghosts that others don’t,” Kayla said.

“We’d have seen it,” Joey said. “There was ghosts, we’d have seen them. What’s wrong with our eyes, huh?”

Harry sat up, hating to lose Kayla’s arm at the back of his neck. Hating it a lot, but feeling he had to do it, had to sit up, try and look a little less wimpy.

“I saw that on TV,” Kayla said. “Some people see them, some don’t.”

“You seen that on TV, did you?” Joey said. “Where’s that? The Sissy Channel?”