Spider on My Tongue (2 page)

~ * ~

Well, shit, let me get down to specifics.

When I think of a ghost story, I think about children shivering
around a campfire while an aging man with a long, austere face
summons up--in resonant, wonderfully spectral tones—the way
the misdeeds of the dead will soon be visited upon the living, and I
think about old gray houses that have somehow had Evil
implanted in them, and I think about rocking chairs that rock all
on their own, and about crying in
empty
rooms, about cold spots,
warm spots, hot spots, hounds out of hell, men who hang
themselves in attics and in cellars, again and again and again.
And it’s all true.
I
know
it's all true.
But there's a whole lot more going on over there, on The Other
Side, than any of us can imagine.

—A Manhattan Ghost Story

I like being precise about these things, don't you? "TWO." It gives weight and parameters to this narrative, and specificity, too. It seems to impose order where order—at least as we have come to define it—cannot actually exist.

So I'll begin, or continue, by telling you that I'm in my late forties, that my light brown hair is thinning, though not badly, that I'm not quite six feet tall, that my teeth are perfect, and I wear a size 11 E shoe; my fingers (some have said) are abnormally long (as are my toes) (I play piano, though badly), my nose is straight, narrow and unremarkable, and my heart has a murmur that's not a major problem. My cholesterol (when last checked, though I can't remember when that was) is around 140, and my sexual organs are of normal size (meaning only that none of my partners has ever exclaimed, "Oh, my God, how impressive you are!"); my legs are thin, and I walk with a nearly unnoticeable limp. Isn't that a stunningly uninteresting portrait? It says nothing about me, only that I could be any of a thousand men you might see anywhere on the planet. But there's this: were you to see me (were you able to see me, I should say, which isn't something I'm not absolutely certain is possible), you wouldn't realize it, but I'd
know
you instantly, and perfectly. No, not your life history. Not who you're fucking or hope to fuck, or how many degrees you've earned, your political alignment, your birth weight, your mother's maiden name, or the workings of your inner organs. I'd know
you!
That's the pickle I've gotten myself into, you see. That's the spider on my tongue. Whoever you are, beyond all the facts about your life (and death, if it pertained), would be as clear to me as the color of your eyes and the odor of your breath.

You
exist beyond all the stuff that clogs your life and your history.
You
have been floating about for eons, and although you might refer to yourself as a soul, an entity, a cosmic thing
you
are as unnamable and indefinable as the reason for gravity.
You
assume an identity; for a time,
you
wear a flat stomach or a graceless rear end or a face that makes others look away (or look too long): and, for a time (which is called "a life")
you
sell motorcycles or write greeting cards or are appointed king of this place or that, and then all of it's gone,
Poof!--
down to the last fleeting memory, and
you
continue, unnamable, indefinable, neither a soul, nor an entity, nor a cosmic
thing.

You!

~ * ~

He told me:

"I was walking with the woman I loved and it was my last day on earth. I didn't know it was my last day, nor did the woman I loved, whose name is Karen. We had shared a tasty lunch at a place called "Sid's" (she ordered a bowl of clam chowder and I ordered a tuna rollup) and, as we walked, we talked about the lunch, about the morning that had preceded it, and the evening that had preceded the morning. God, we were happy together. We were inseparable and that's how we liked it. What a way to live!

"Here's the thing, Abner: We were walking on railroad tracks. That's almost always stupid, but we knew the schedules of the trains that used those tracks and we assumed we were okay. Turns out, our assumption was correct. There were no trains. Not that morning.

"Walking railroad tracks is a little like walking on thin ice: it's such great, childish fun to balance on the rails or skip from one tie to another that's two or three ties away, or to put an ear to the rail and proclaim that you can hear a train far, far in the distance: "It's the rail," you say in hushed tones, as if sharing some forbidden secret."It conducts the rumbling of the wheels like a telephone wire. You can hear a train from miles away." But you're aware, with every passing second, that a huge, powerful, and nearly unstoppable Goliath uses those rails and that, if it caught up with you, you'd be reduced to hamburger. There's a little bit of a thrill in that, of course. But, still, as I said, it's like walking on thin ice.

"That grim possibility turned us on big time—Karen and me. So we decided to have at it right there, on the tracks. There was, as well, the always-irresistible possibility that we'd get caught (though no one else appeared to be walking the tracks that day, there was a curve not far from where we were, and we knew that someone could round that curve at any time), of course, so we stripped down quite completely and, as usual, the lovely and buxom Karen took the upper berth so I could watch her flail about, her wondrous breasts cascading this way and that, and while this was going on, I was in some incredible world her marvelous body created for me, a world where the moment that was
everything
lasted an eternity, a world where pain was pleasure, and where I had no idea (nor did I care) what my arms and legs and head were doing, a place where I cared only what my cock was doing, and it was doing just fine, thank you, it was answering the siren call of Karen's tits and ass and pussy, and so I did not really see what
she
was doing, you understand, or feel it—I did not see or care that she had grabbed a great shock of my long hair and that
her
good, strong hands and arms were banging my head against that bright steel rail as she thrashed about in what must have been a continuous orgasm, did not see or really feel
any
of this until I saw it from above, from the height of a basketball hoop, perhaps, until I saw her stop thrashing about, suddenly, and look at me, and I heard her say, in one great outflow of breath, "Larry! Larry! Oh my God!" because, of course, she knew I'd gone the way of the dodo bird."

I told poor Larry that it was a sad and painful and awful story, but, at its core, outrageously funny, too, and he chuckled in his hollow non-corporeal way, then
bleeped out,
the way his kind always do, with a barely perceptible burping noise (a gerbil burp, I used to call it), leaving behind only all of himself, minus his history and the past workings of his inner organs, the color of his eyes, the length of his fingernails, the odor of his breath.

Don't ask me to define the
all of himself
he'd left behind. Such a definition is not something I do or have ever done. I'm not smart enough or articulate enough, and, besides, I simply don't have the fucking time.

~ * ~

Often, I believe I see Phyllis Pellaprat at a distance in the dim woods beyond my windows, so she's nothing more than an imagining, the detritus of a ghost, as if she has shed her other-worldly skin and it has drifted back to earth.

Good God, all of us are seduced by phantoms. I'm not unique. I'm simply someone who has decided to tell the tale and, so, relive the events. But the tale has already been told, and this is a brand new tale that's as old as the sun itself. Just like you, and me, and poor Larry of the smashed head.

Let's make a pact: I'll continue to write as long as you continue to read. Deal?

I'm not going to try and make you believe this is a love story. It isn't. Not, at least, in the usual sense. When I hear

the words "love story" I think of Ali McGraw and Ryan
O'Neal, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, Wooden Allen
and Diane Keaton, Taylor and Burton, Streisand and Redford.

I do not think of Abner
E
Cray and Phyllis Pellaprat.

—A Manhattan Ghost Story

Let me tell you something you need to believe: All things that have happened, all things that are happening, and all things that will happen, are one.

Bullshit!
you say? You may be right, but I think you're wrong. I, and Larry-of-the-smashed-head, and Detective Kennedy Whelan, still looking through the ether for murder, and Phyllis Pellaprat, who sheds her clothes and her skin with equal enthusiasm and effect, and my teasingly seductive cousin, Stacey (who may or may not, at this point, be on one side or the other of this universe), and the billions who have come and gone, or will eventually come and go, think you're as wrong as a right-hand turn on a left-hand curve.

I had a dark beer once that made me sick. I'm still enjoying it, and I'm still getting sick from it. That's what existence is for, you know, and that's what it's all about, continuous enjoyment and regret. You didn't realize that? Where have you been all your corporeal life—dreaming of
heaven?

Here's what Larry-of-the-smashed-head said about heaven:

"It's like expecting the Queen of England to wear a thong during a croquet match."

It's all I could get out of him on the subject.

And here's what another of the allegedly non-corporeal, a woman named Madge who used to tend tables at a restaurant in upstate New York, had to say:

"Heaven is
a place set up to keep us from knowing very much at all."

"About what?" I asked.

"About
heaven,
of course," she answered, and then
bleeped out.
Burp!

And here's what my very, very late friend Art—who loaned me the upper West Side Manhattan apartment where I met Phyllis Pellaprat, had to say about it (before he became so very late): "Abner, you dream about heaven and you might as well be dreaming about your mucous membranes."

"I don't know what the hell that means, Art," I said.

"Of course you don't," he said. "That's the fucking point."

~ * ~

I have no energy. They've sapped it It's all I can do to sleep, and I can't even do that. They've drained me, sapped me—they're vampires, wraiths, ghouls, viruses. They come and go, come and go, come and go: they bark questions, bark answers, become whole, then half.

I have a regular kitchen here, in this little house in the woods. I have a big, cream-colored Mixmaster mixer, which I use often for things like mashed potatoes and white sauce, and I also have a new Tappan electric stove, with two full-size burners and two medium-size burners. The stove was delivered by a tall, bearded man named Steve who drove a large green van with the words "Steve's Appliances/Only the Best" emblazoned on the sides in red. Steve was friendly and chatty, and his legs were quite short. I was going to ask him about this but I didn't want to be rude. When he left, I gave him a small tip, which he accepted with a smile and a nod of his big head.

"Do you believe in ghosts, Steve?" I asked as he was getting into his van.

He looked back at me: "Ghosts?" he said.

"Yes. Do you believe in them?"

"Sure," he said. "I've seen them, in fact."

"I have, too, I think," I said.

"It was my mother I saw," he said. "She was washing her feet in my living room. She always loved to wash her feet. She looked very happy when she washed her feet. She'd been dead for two days, and there she was, washing her feet in my living room, with a huge smile on her face. It was very white, her face I mean."

"I've never seen that," I said.

He looked oddly at me, as if I had an ear in the middle of my forehead, said, "Uh-huh," closed the van's door and drove away.

~ * ~