Pennies for the Ferryman - 01 (5 page)

“You’re not gonna hurt her no more!”
he hissed.

“We’ve never hurt Rose. We’re trying to help her cross.” I figured I’d try that line on the first ghost we ran into.

The guy stopped for a second,
“What?”

“You know, go on! Pass over. Shit, she’s choking Jenny now!” Not having time to argue the merits of this, I smashed my fist into his solar plexus and left him gasping for whatever it is that ghosts breathe.

With a strength born of fury, I ripped Rose Goodman off of her daughter and began pummeling her. Thinking back, I was probably projecting some of my own unresolved parental anger on the dead woman, but it’s like the bitch at Walter Reed said, when I experience uncontrolled anger, I should find a way to cope and not take it out on a living creature.

What do you know; the idiot was actually right about something!

Rose started to fade into the ground, but I snatched her up and dragged her to her feet. “Oh no, you’re getting a ring side seat for this!”

Jenny was crawling away on her hands and knees, but I got her attention. Choking out raw sobs, she managed to get to her feet. The one remaining ghost was watching us cautiously, but seemed to be making no more threatening movements.

It took five more minutes for Jenny to find her mother’s grave, but when she began to dance, the wind picked up and the ghost in my arms moaned and tried to break free. Muttering obscenities and finally begging for Jenny to stop, Rose faded from view.

There was a long moment of silence as the wind died. There were welts and bruises up and down my arms. My chest felt like someone had shaved it with a dry razor and poured a bottle of rubbing alcohol on it. The one remaining ghost scratched his three chins thoughtfully and approached me looking somewhat ashamed.

“So you help people get to the other side, right?”

Episode 2: Retreat from Gettysburg

I rubbed my aching jaw, “So, tell me why I should help you again?” Standing in a graveyard, looking at the ghost responsible for my aching jaw, I was skeptical.

“‘Cuz I need some help?”
The bloated specter said.

“Yeah, I got that part. You realize that you and your buddy were just kicking the snot out of me back there?” I asked. He gave me a blank look, so I decided that was enough physical contact for the time; I was in enough pain as it was already.

“Mike you should help him,” Jenny whined. “It is a
him
right? You didn’t get beat up by a bunch of
women
did you?” she asked, moving her hands to her hips as she cocked her head at me.

I frowned at Jenny Goodman, who, despite almost being killed by her long-dead and now just recently departed mother, seemed to be in a good mood. She made her way to my side while I conversed with the “good old boy” that I had “wrassled” with.

“Yes, it is a him. I helped
you
because you’re a friend. Let’s go, we’ve still got a long ride back to Maryland.”

Jenny didn’t get the hint.

“Well how about we come back next weekend and help him out?” Jenny asked excitedly.

Obviously, Jenny wasn’t satisfied with putting her own foot in her mouth, she was willing to stuff mine in there as well.

The ghost was looking at me all pathetic like. Given that he was an overweight, mid-forties-looking country bumpkin, it wasn’t that hard. I originally called him “Bo”, but after speaking with him I was tempted to go with “Goober Pyle”. Reluctantly, I reached out and touched him, so I could hear him.

“…man. You just gotta help me, please?”

I sighed. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not a bad guy, but I didn’t really see any incentive to get involved. Natural inclinations aside, I did have Miss milk-of-human-kindness standing next to me, so I supposed, I should find out exactly what I would be getting myself into. “So what kind of help do you need?”

“The other guy you cold-cocked back there. He’s Mitch …”

“I’m only considering helping you, not Mitch.” I said rather forcefully. What did he think I was doing there – charity work?

“No – ya don’ understand -- he pretty much hangs around to make my time miserable,”
the spirit griped.

“Why?”

“Well, it’s complicated …”

This was getting annoying, “Uncomplicate it or we’re leaving.”

“Mitch is haunting me.”

I’ll freely admit that I wasn’t expecting that one. Why would a ghost haunt another ghost? It seemed like a good question, so I asked it.

“Well it was during hunting season two years ago. He was carrying a deer across his shoulders and I couldn’t see his vest; on account of the dumbshit didn’t wear no orange vest! Anyway, I shot that deer and I ended up shooting the idjit holding it too. Then, I kinda panicked and I buried him out there.”

I stopped to fill Jenny in, because she was already pestering me for the details. It was like being back in Iraq, holding stop-and-start conversations with the locals through our interpreter.

“Ask him what happened next.” she prompted.

Back in the Army, there was a saying in the unit – MOTO, or “Master of the Obvious.” In this case, I guess it was “Mistress.”

“Well, him and his wife wuz already havin’ problems, mostly cuz of his drinkin’ and his cheatin’, so I hid his truck down a trail--behind some pine trees--and went on with my life. Most everyone including Emily pretty much figured that he done went ahead and left town, like he kept telling everyone he was gonna.”

I pulled away and explained that I needed to rest my hand from the pain. I never had a brother or sister that would sit next to me when I was on the phone and ask, “What did they say?” all the time. Jenny gave me new respect for anyone out there that does.

Jenny lecturing the ghost on how he should have gone straight to the police and taken his “lumps” amused me, but then I took pity on “Bo” and reached back out with my other hand.

“She don’t shut up much, does she?”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. “Occasionally, but it never lasts.”

She sputtered, “Hey! Are you two talking about me?”

“Of course not, Jenny. Now, what happened next?”

“Things started going wrong in my life. My truck was always breaking down. My alarm clock would never go off and I ended up getting fired. Then one day all that drinkin’ and overeatin’ got to me and my heart gave out. Come to find out that it was Mitch doin’ all those things! I pretty much figure I gotta square things with Mitch before I can move on.”

“How do you intend to do that?”

“Well, I reckon, if you could take the police out to where I done buried him and show them his truck, Mitch’d get a proper burial and all that and then he’d leave me alone.”

“So, you just want me to waltz into the police office and take them to where Mitch is buried and where you stashed his truck?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s to stop them from arresting me for killing Mitch?”

That stumped him and I figured I was home free and heading out of here. Naturally, Jenny found a solution.

“Mike, if it was two years ago, you were either in Texas or Iraq. It’d be easy enough for the police to verify that you weren’t anywhere near here. We can just tell them that you’re a psychic, which I guess you sort of are.”

“Yeah! What she said! That’s one smart little girl you got there! You tell her I said that, by the way my name’s Bobby Joe Lambert, but everyone calls me Bebo.”

“What’s Mitch going to say about all this, Bobby?” I asked. I didn’t tell him that Bebo sounded like some kind of clown name.

“He keeps goin’ on about how I done left him in the woods and all that, so I reckon he’ll be happy. He done told the girl he was seeing on the side that they was through and now he’s angry cuz he done did the right thing by Emily but she thinks he’s a no good cheater who left town and shacked up with some other woman. He wants his name cleared.”

“Fair enough. Look, we can’t do this tonight. I’ve been through a lot and so has Jenny. We need to head back to Rockville tonight, but we can come back down maybe not this weekend, but the next one if that’s okay with Jenny?”

The petite brunette chimed in, “Sure! It sounds like fun, but let’s do it this coming weekend?”

Even Bebo looked at her like she was crazy.

“Well I’m sure if you just explained to Bebo that you wanted to go up to Gettysburg and see if you could find Darren Porter’s ghost he would have understood.”

“I was trying to get out of doing it altogether!”

Jenny looked at me somewhat puzzled, “Why?”

“Because I don’t know if I want to become some kind of freak. I didn’t believe in ghosts and now I see them all the time! It was bad enough when people were looking at me just because of the patch.” I also was beginning to think that we were “safer” with the one-eyed guy and his somewhat expired driver’s license behind the wheel than with me shifting for her, so she could use the uninjured arm to drive. Jenny’s mom might have created her fair share of accidents, but it looked like Jenny was either used to it or had her own particular death wish when she’s driving.

“But you have a gift!” Jenny exclaimed.

“Do you know how cliché that sounds? Gift is a four letter word and not all gifts are good. I’ve got bruises and blotches all over my body. Sure I beat up on those two, but I didn’t exactly come through all nice and squeaky clean. Your mom took a damn rolling pin to my arm!” I emphasized my point by holding up my left arm with the nice deep muscle bruise on it.

Jenny dismissed all my rational arguments. “You’re just looking at the downside.”

“So tell me, what’s the upside?”

“You can talk to ghosts! Think about it! If you went to England and you found Princess Di’s ghost, you could find out what really happened! You could meet up with Kurt Cobain and maybe have him write a hit song from the grave. How cool would that be?”

The little lane changing maniac was scaring me on so many levels it wasn’t funny. I finally asked her to slow down as I sought for a nice way to answer her question. I couldn’t come up with one, so I settled for answering her harshly.

“There are two possibilities to the princess, car accident or conspiracy. If it was a car accident, so what? If it’s a conspiracy, I’m guessing the people behind it might not like me spilling a whole bunch of nasty secrets. As for Cobain, I never liked Nirvana or his skanky wife and my life’s aspiration is not becoming a sideshow freak!”

That seemed to break through her excessively perky outlook on life. She actually looked disappointed.

“So that’s it then? You’ll just go on about your business while all these people are being harassed by ghosts when you’re the only one who can do anything about it?” Jenny asked. She had a great future as a mom; her guilt trips were well refined.

“Jenny, I’m still trying to piece my life back together. I volunteered for one war already and paid the price – a messed up eye, no hearing in one ear, metal rods in my leg, aches whenever the weather changes, and a bunch of scars on my face. Right now, I need to figure out what all this means and get some answers and not go wandering around in the woods of western Virginia looking for a body while simultaneously convincing the police that I’m not a whack job or the guy responsible for the murder.”