Strange Perceptions (2 page)

Marty must have noticed my confusion. He grabbed my shoulder. I mean really grabbed it; I felt his fingers squeezing. I didn’t flinch though. “How come …” my question trailed off.

“How come I can touch you now, but not when we shook hands?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“You’re a baby, kid. You don’t know how to touch. I’m 82 years dead now. It’s easy for me.”

Death isn’t just weird, it’s surreal.

“Don’t worry kid. You’ll learn. I’ll catch up with you later. For now why don’t you go play.”

He smacked me in the chest with an open palm—which I also felt—and I snapped back to my tenth birthday party.

The instant Marty smacked me I heard a loud roar in my ears but before I could cover them—not that my ghost hands over my ghost ears would have helped—the noise stopped and I was someplace new.

I’d have recognize the mottled olive-green linoleum floor anywhere. I stood in mom’s kitchen, our old place, the mobile home she got after dad died. Ten year old me sat at the kitchen table, the old rickety thing I stood on two years later and busted. Friends surrounded me at the table, watching me get ready to blow out the candles. Exactly as I remembered it.

That’s when I realized I could remember everything from my life. I mean every instant, every thought, every action. I could even remember the dreams I had while asleep.

Overwhelming, to say the least.

I thought about my death, the car accident, my best friend Jeremy Smith driving. We had picked up a six-pack from the Overland Station, the only place in Warner’s Crest that didn’t ask for ID. Half their beer business came from high-school kids. It was just after lunch and Jeremy and I decided to skip school, go hide out on state land and throw back a few cold ones and listen to some tunes. Jeremy reached into the back seat of his old Volkswagen bug, “The Beast” he called it. The car looked like a patchwork quilt with different color doors, fender panels, and hood. He reached back to grab a beer and came up on the corner too fast, the front passenger-side wheel went over the edge, the car rode along on its undercarriage and Jeremy jerked the wheel. Miraculously, the car popped back up on the road, almost as if God had been looking down, thinking these kids are stupid but I’ll cut them a break, and reaching down to pick us up and set us back on the road.

I looked at Jeremy. What a close call.

Then a Dodge Ram pickup, came around the corner and hit us head-on. Next came an ambulance ride, three operations, laying in a sterile hospital bed for two weeks in a coma. Finally, dying.

I didn’t know what happened to Jeremy.

“Reo?”

I turned. There stood dad, strong and healthy, no sign of the cancer.

“Dad.”

I think, had I been alive and had a body, tears would have blurred my vision. I felt as though I cried, but had no tears. Maybe ghosts can’t cry. I opened my arms to hug him, but stopped. I didn’t know if I could handle it if my hug went right through him.

Dad didn’t hesitate. He wrapped his arms around me, and I felt his hug. Gentle, like he was afraid to break me.

He broke our embrace. “Sorry, I’m two years up stream. Everything’s harder when you’re so far away.”

I didn’t have a clue what he meant.

“You’re new aren’t you?”

I nodded. Around us, at the birthday party, kids in party hats sang happy birthday to ten year old me, mom and several other parents hovered, Mr. Hancock’s hand lingered on mom’s. Wow. I had never noticed before. Mr. Hancock, my friend Peter’s dad, a single parent like mom, seemed to be at our house quite often then. A couple months later he stopped coming over.

The room faded and a distant roar sounded in my ears. Dad’s hand shot out, grabbed my arm, and the room snapped back into focus.

“Careful Chance. Sorry, Reo, you still seem like Chance to me.”

“What happened?”

“Being ghosts we’re attached to our life,” he said. “If you don’t concentrate on what’s around you, then you’ll pop to random points in your life. If you get lost in thought you get lost in your life. Don’t worry, it gets easier the longer you’re dead. If you find you’ve slipped away, just think about where you were and you’ll snap back. You move around by closing your eyes and thinking of a point in your life.”

He examined my face, worry lines grooved his forehead, and continued. “Moving away from your live body is hard. Try going across the street. The further away you get, the harder it is to concentrate. It’s the same way if you move after your death. Or before your birth.”

“You mean we can move through time?”

“Yes,” he said. “Sort of. Time and place are different when you’re dead. You always exist in the now, in world time. See, we’re at your birthday party, but we’re not part of this time, we exist in the now. You can go back anywhere in the past, even before you’re born, but the farther you get from your life, the harder it is. Make sense?”

I shrugged one shoulder.

“It’ll all get clear. The future is different. If you’re strong enough you can go up to the now. Since you’re a ghost, now is always after you died. It’s been what, nine years since I died? I don’t know if I’m strong enough to go to the current now, but I’m strong enough to see you here at your tenth birthday party. Here I’m two years away from my life.”

“So, could I go ahead in time, find the winning lottery numbers and then come back?”

Dad laughed. “No. You can’t go past the current now. The true future has infinite possibilities. And what good would lottery money do for you now?”

Death is strange.

“Listen, Reo. I can’t stay much longer. If you see your mom before I do, send her my love and tell her I forgive her.”

“Oh my God. Mom’s dead?”

“No, she’s alive. Just in case you see her before me.”

Dad’s form became faint. He faded away.

I stared at the spot he had been for a moment. What did he mean he forgave her?

Not knowing what to do. I decided to watch the party.

Ten year old me had already blew out the birthday candles, tiny, multi-color, wax pillars. Mom always made chocolate cake. It’s the best birthday cake she says. Ten year old me smiled, showing a missing front tooth.

The kids around the table came from the neighborhood, mostly. My birthday was July 8th, summer, so I didn’t get to invite kids from school. Except for Jeremy Smith, my best friend even all those years ago. He didn’t live in my neighborhood, but I still invited him. Jeremy had red hair and so many freckles he seemed to be more freckles than not. He hated being teased about his freckles. I never teased him, about the freckles anyway.

Mom had made me invite Ivy Romaine on account she was best friends with her mom. Ivy lived a few houses away. She was the only girl at the party. I’m sure she hated being there as much as I hated her being there. A few years later I developed a massive crush on her, but I couldn’t stand her then. Ten year old me was so stupid.

Four other boys besides Jeremy attended the party. Bobby Marshall, Peter Hancock, Doug Rivera, and Shelley Perkins. We all were close in grade school but middle school throws you together with more kids and stirs everything up, resulting in different friends. I used to mock Shelley and tell him he had a girl’s name. Or I’d sing “Shelley, smelly, fatso belly.” I kept mocking him even when we got to high school. I think he hated me.

“You still here, kid? I thought you’d have blown this party by now.”

I turned. There stood Marty, chewing on his cigar.

“Listen kid. I only have a couple minutes. By now one of two things usually happens. Either you get all blubbery and go on about how you were too young to die, life’s unfair, and all that crap, or you’ve got a million questions.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “You feeling all sad? Need a shoulder to cry on?”

I didn’t know how I felt. I shook my head no.

“Good. That happens I have one piece of advice. Get over yourself! You’re dead. You’re a ghost. Nobody cares. Especially me. Capiche?”

I nodded my head.

“Good. Okay, let’s go through a couple questions real quick. First the big one. The grand poo-bah of questions. What’s the meaning of life? Now, I could give you some metaphysical bullshit like it’s to achieve enlightenment or to become one with all things. Phhttt!” Marty blew a raspberry. “Who knows the meaning of life? More important, who cares? I had this kid a couple years back who told me with great certainty he knew the meaning of life. Want to know what he said?”

“Sure,” I said.

“42. He said the meaning of life is 42.” Marty laughed. “I mean, where the hell did he come up with that? He was dead serious. Get it? Dead serious. Anyway, I guess 42 makes as much sense as any other answer. Okay, second thing, now that you’re dead you remember everything. Everything from your life and everything you do in death sticks with you. It’s always there. The dead never forget.”

I had already figured this out.

He looked at his clipboard. “I need to go. Got another car wreck coming in. I don’t know why the alive drive around in those things. Every single one’s a deathtrap. If I were still alive you’d have to stick a gun to my head for me to ride in a car. Even then I might take a bullet to the brain. They had those Model Ts around before I bought the farm. Never rode in one. What else? You should know sometimes ghosts leave. They disappear. Some believe you move on to another place, but I don’t know. I never seen someone move on. Without seeing it I don’t believe it. I’m from Missouri. There’s also the question ‘What’s my purpose?’ or ‘What am I supposed to do?’ Let’s save that one for next time.”

“What about—” I started, but he had already disappeared.

Ten year old me ripped through his presents, tearing off ribbons, shredding wrapping paper, tossing the trash to the floor. He opened Jeremy’s present. I already knew it was a green plastic water pistol. Just like I knew a little later he’d squirt Ivy in the eye with it and she’d cry and run home and mom would make me go apologize.

It’s weird knowing what’s going to happen before it happens. Like watching a movie you’ve seen a million times.

I closed my eyes, wondering what I should do now. I heard a brief, loud roaring noise and reopened my eyes.

I was in a hospital room.

My hospital room.

Nighttime. Shadows across the hospital bed, the machines monitoring live me hummed softly. Two beds in the room. The other was empty, its sheet and cover tucked tight under the mattress corners. Mom slumped back in a chair next to me, a large chair with plastic turquoise cushions and aluminum tube arms. Her head was back, mouth open, a sliver of light across her from the parking lot security light beaming through the window’s vertical blinds. She snored.

I looked at my prone body, a nest of wires on and around me, IVs in both arms, tubes taped to my mouth. I would die soon.

“Dude!”

I turned. Jeremy stood there, goofy grin on his freckled face, shifting his weight from foot to foot, in that bouncy way he had.

“You can see me?” I asked.

“Duh. I’m dead too. I knew you’d come here. We all do.” His face clouded for a moment. “Whoa, this is hard.” His face brightened, goofy grin back. “Dude, you’ve got to help me. I’m desperate. Only I can’t stay here. It’s too far away. Remember last time you crashed at my place? We got pizza and you thought Rover the Cat walked on it?”

“He did walk on it,” I said.

“Why would he? Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Meet me there.”

Jeremy disappeared.

I looked at my body in the hospital bed, knowing it would die soon, wanting to be here for the moment and see with my ghost eyes. I remembered it, every detail, but there’s something different about watching it, from spectating it instead of living it.

Jeremy sounded like he needed me. I could come back later.

Dad had said to close my eyes and think of a time.

I closed my eyes, thought of Jeremy ordering pizza and arguing with him about whether Rover the Cat had walked across the pizza. The familiar roar sounded in my head.