A Haunting of Words

by Brian Paone et al.

  Oscar smoothed down his clean yellow shirt and wiped some dust off his leather shoes. He ran a hand over his unruly hair. He wanted to look tidy, but casual—like most authors on the back covers of children’s books. His reflection on the glass wall seemed to wink at him. Oscar knew deep inside, no matter how much he tried, he’d always look old-fashioned. Too late to think about that. It was now or never.

  Troy Harris, the Troy Harris, had requested his manuscripts. This was a good sign. More than that, it was his chance to keep working in America. Maybe he’d get a book deal on top of a renewed ghostwriting contract. His heart pounded; he was ready.

  He pushed the Up button on the wall repeatedly, as if that would make it hurry. Going back to London to write more nonsense gossip and rumors for the celebrity magazine wasn’t an option. Not at forty.

  “Twenty-second,” he told the elevator attendant. His voice resounded like a drum. The hangover was dwindling, and now his chest burst with hope.

  Troy Harris, Editor-in-Chief—as it read on the plastic sign— opened the door a few seconds after Oscar knocked. He was white, round, middle-aged, with a scruffy face and a head that shined like a crystal ball. Troy smiled briefly and pointed Oscar toward his cluttered desk.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” Troy said, sitting on an oversized office chair.

  “Sorry if I’m late.” Oscar took one of the guest chairs on the other side of the desk. The immenseness of Central Park rolled down like a royal green carpet at his feet, on the other side of the glass wall. It was a powerful feeling to be so high over the city.

  “Judy Swift said you are one of the most talented ghostwriters in the fantasy-erotica department.”

  “Thanks, that’s kind of her,” Oscar said, crossing his legs, then uncrossing them immediately. He didn’t want to look too confident. He realized the palms of his hands were sweating.

  Troy cleared his throat and opened a folder. Oscar recognized it at once: the manuscripts he had sent to Judy.

  “What makes you want to write children’s books, Oscar?”

  “There’s magic in writing for children—”

  “Yeah, yeah … But what makes you think you can write for children? I mean, have you actually studied the market?”

  Oscar’s blood rushed to his cheeks. “I suppose I haven’t.” Maybe I should’ve. “But I’ve read and written all my life.”

  Troy smiled and nodded. “Sure. All writers have. They think that gives them the ability to write for children.”

  Oscar opened his mouth, but Troy broke in before he could speak. “Look, Octavius, I’m trying to do you a favor here, since you’re such a good friend of Judy’s. She’s my best editor, and I want to keep her happy, know what I mean?”

  Troy took a look at one of the pages in front of him and tapped a finger on the desk while reading it. Click, click, click, like a dripping faucet. Like a freaking dripping faucet in the middle of the night. For a few minutes, Oscar held his breath, trying not to shout in the bald man’s face.

  Finally Troy said, “I don’t think these are children’s stories.”

  “They’re fairytales,” affirmed Oscar instinctively.

  “Fairytales? Beautiful princesses and enchanted carriages … all that crap that little girls dream of? Not your stories!” Troy flipped some pages of the file in front of him. “The Happy Prince? Seriously? I’ve never read anything more depressing.”

  “The prince is happy to bare his soul to help the poor—”

  “Eight-year-olds don’t want to know about poverty! They want to read about people like them—like, I don’t know, what to do with your teeth if the tooth fairy doesn’t show up.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “Rewrite this, man! Make the Happy Prince happy. Have him meet the joyful princess. Too much violence in your stories, Oliver, way too much violence—”

  “Oscar.”

  “Look, it’s not that you aren’t a good writer. You have your moments, but no one wants to hear about people dying in children’s stories.”

  “There are deaths in fairytales, Troy …” Oscar cleared his throat. “Can I call you Troy? Cinderella’s father dies almost at the beginning—”

  “But she marries a prince! And not just any prince—a charming, handsome, rich prince! That’s what we want to see. Happy. Or at least funny.”

  “Okay, you have a point.” Oscar inhaled deeply, willing to listen.

  “Here, The Nightingale and the Rose. What’s that? The bird stabbing herself with a thorn? I think the student should be the main character. Make him a little wimpy kid. Kind of a nerd. Kids love the underdog. Parents would give us crap if we put a dying bird in one of our books. And what kind of bird is this—” Troy said, fluttering his hand in the air as if looking to grasp an answer.

  “It’s a nightingale. They have this powerful song—” Oscar explained, leaning toward the desk.

  “Look, just change it for a parrot or something more exciting— that’s an idea! What if they’re pirates? Well, I’m just brainstorming here. You’re the writer, after all.”

  “Okay,” Oscar said. He pulled a small notepad and pen from his back pocket and scribbled: Parrot—pirates—no deaths.

  “Let’s see … The Selfish Giant … Oh, yeah, he dies too. I kind of liked it in the beginning. It reminded me of Jack and the Beanstalk, but then all that about the Christ-like child. We’re not a religious imprint.”

  “It’s not a religious story,” Oscar assured him, looking up from his note taking. “It has a moral, like most fairytales—” He stopped when he noticed the sardonic look on Troy’s face.

  “It’s just not happening. Look, your writing is sharp, but it’s not commercial. Put that in your notes. It feels … old-fashioned, almost.” He tapped the table again, harder this time.

  Old-fashioned. Not from this era. I’ve heard that before. Oscar’s stomach knotted painfully, and he wished once more that he hadn’t drunk so much the night before.

  He caught a glimpse of his reflection on the glass and saw his rebellious hair sticking out. His reflection looked older, so much older. And tired. He breathed in and said, “That’s one of my best stories, I’ve been told. It’s about forgiveness.”

  “Five-year-olds can’t even spell forgiveness. It just wouldn’t sell. Believe me, I’ve been in the business for more than twenty years. Children’s books sell as good as candy but not if they have a moral, too many words, or dead people in them.”

  Oscar stopped writing to look at Troy. “Then you’re not going to publish any of my stories?”

  “No, no. I didn’t say that.” Troy went back to the opened manuscripts. He moistened his thumb with his tongue and turned over the pages. “Here it is! The Remarkable Rocket. I think it has a lot of potential. I kind of like the idea of a huge party thrown for the prince’s wedding, told from the firecracker’s point of view.” His green eyes softened. “Look, I didn’t mean to be rude before, but I have children and I know what they want to read.”

  Oscar glanced at the picture frames on the top of Troy’s desk nestled behind a pile of books. Three chubby children were rolling on the sand of a deserted green-water beach.

  “They’re beautiful,” Oscar lied.

  “Thanks.” Troy nodded. “I’m not insensitive, you know? I understand you think your stories will sell and all that romantic crap writers think.” He chuckled and then lowered his voice as if to confide some deep, dark secret. “I was a writer too, once. I wrote day and night when I was in college. I even thought I’d have a career as a writer, but … someone has to pay the bills. This job allows me to do that and more. I know a lot about children’s literature, that’s why I tell you that The Remarkable Rocket should be more about the beautiful Russian bride. And magic! Make the rocket cast spells. Make it vibrant. Make children want to grab dollies out of the remarkable rocket! You know what I mean?”

  “Sure,” Oscar said, sounding unconvinced.

  “Oh, and the word count. A sho
rt story should be short. Give me the story in less than five thousand words. Cut it to seven hundred. We won’t publish anything for children with more than seven hundred words—children’s attention spans are short, you know? If you want more words, then give me a chapter book for middle graders. But short stories? Please. No one reads them. No one buys them!”

  Oscar scribbled once more on his notepad. 700. Short.

  “But before you go, I have some bad news for you,” Troy said, closing the file with the stories inside. “Judy didn’t want to tell you, but … your ghostwriting contract—the one that is expiring—won’t be renewed. Sorry. We just have other expenses.”

  Oscar jumped out of his seat. “But you said I was one of the best ghostwriters!”

  “I didn’t say that, Olaf. Judy did.”

  There was an awkward silence in the room.

  Oscar put his notepad on the chair beside him. “It is Oscar.”

  “What is?” asked Troy distractedly.

  “My name. Oscar. Oscar Wilde.”

  Troy pulled another file in front of him. “Come back when you’ve rewritten The Remarkable Rocket. Make it ready for the big screen.”

  Oscar saw the trees and lampposts of Central Park below him through the glass wall. The cars looked like beetles and the people like ants. He wanted to smash them. Dizzy, he turned toward the door.

  “Oh, Oscar?” Troy called from his desk.

  He stopped and turned slowly, his leather shoes squeaking on the tiled floor.

  “I read the manuscript of your Dorian Gray novel. Speculative fiction is not your thing, buddy. I’m telling you this from one writer to another. Think 50 Shades of Grey instead. Now, that sells.”

  Oscar quietly walked to the elevators. He felt as if he were being carried by an invisible current. Everything around him became a blur, and every sound turned into a screech. He didn’t feel his legs moving, yet he moved, and soon he found himself sitting on one of the plastic seats of the train that took him home.

  His name wouldn’t be famous after all, like his mother had once predicted. His gut gurgled and churned. He’d have to return to London being the same loser he was when he left. Shit. Even worse, he’d have to go back to a place he didn’t belong. But where did he belong?

  His distorted reflection seemed to laugh hysterically on the shiny metal pole. His grotesque mouth rippled around it, his tongue contorted like a red snake. Oscar turned his head and ignored it.

  He wouldn’t stop writing. He’d write until his fingers cracked and bled, even if his stories didn’t please anybody but himself. Maybe he’d marry Jeff to stay in America. He had said something about marriage the night before, but Oscar hadn’t been paying attention at the time.

  Marriage can’t be that bad. Not this time.

  The train stopped to let more passengers on. Oscar quietly chuckled in his seat. Now he could picture Troy picking up the little notepad on the empty chair. He imagined Troy reading the words he had scribbled there. F-U-C-K-I-N-G A-S-S-H-O-L-E. He could see Troy’s face turn red with anger. He laughed out loud, pounding his fist on his knee. His mouth rippled on the metal pole.

  A woman in front of him eyed him and clutched her purse a little tighter.

  The high-pitched squeal and crashing of a frying pan against the kitchen floor was indicative of yet another fight between Charlie’s parents. He lay in his bed in his upstairs bedroom with a pillow covering his head. The pool of tears beneath his head was nothing new, nothing unlike the night before or the night before that.

  Charlie’s parents argued every night, and it always seemed to happen just a few hours after his mother would put him to bed. He’d grown accustomed to awakening at an hour a normal seven-year-old child shouldn’t, when his father chose to arrive home with slurred speech hardly recognizable to Charlie’s ears. The noises he would hear would consist of similar things: his mother yelling with colorful words he knew only grownups used, his father yelling back the same, and pounding noises that surely meant physical contact. Where that physical contact was, he didn’t want to know. He just wanted them to love each other like they had before. He wanted his father to pay attention to him again; Charlie could hardly remember his face.

  Over the loud yelling and continual arguing, Charlie heard the first two knocks at the door. He lifted his head from under the pillow and wiped the tears from his wet face. Charlie climbed out of his bed and took a peek out of his bedroom door. The rowdy screams of his angry mother became clearer, and he could make out words, but there was no one in the hallway. He closed the door and listened more closely.

  The knocking came again, this time he was sure of it. Two knocks. Charlie walked to his closet and stood before the great white door with the shiny brass doorknob. He waited for the knocks to come again but nothing happened. He felt his heart throb in his small chest as he raised his hand to the switch outside of the door, watching as the light illuminated the threshold.

  If it was the Boogeyman, then light would get him, Charlie thought.

  But Charlie knew the Boogeyman wasn’t real, his mother had told him so. He just wanted to take simple precautions before opening the closet. His hand rested on the brass knob for only a moment as he twisted the knob and snatched it away, allowing the door to swing open.

  His school clothes remained on their hangers untouched, and his board games lay in a pile on the top shelf. His shoes were still lined neatly on the floor. Charlie closed the closet door and turned out the light. He was still not satisfied and wanted to know where the knocking had come from.

  Charlie tried knocking on the closet door and waited for a moment. He didn’t know what to expect. Maybe the closet door would fly open by itself and the monsters would come out. Maybe he would enter an enchanted land he’d read about in storybooks. He didn’t know, but he waited.

  It seemed like forever until he heard three knocks at the door. Charlie’s heart jumped at the sound, but he didn’t rush back to his bed.

  “Who’s there?” Charlie asked.

  “A friend,” a shrill child’s voice told him.

  “Why are you in my closet?”

  “Because I wanted to meet you, Charlie.”

  “You know me?” Charlie asked eagerly.

  Charlie’s bedroom door opened as the lights came on, flaring his sensitive vision. At the door stood his mother.

  “Baby, why are you up?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  Surely her throat had swollen from sobbing so hard. Charlie hadn’t realized the argument had stopped.

  “The boy in my closet,” Charlie said explanatorily, pointing at the closed closet door.

  “Honey, we’ve talked about this,” his mother said, walking to the closet and opening the door. “See, there’s nothing there, okay? Now it’s really late, let’s get you back to sleep.”

  She picked Charlie up and laid him in his bed, not taking note of the wet spot beneath his pillow. His mother retrieved some cough syrup from the bathroom medicine cabinet and gave him the proper dosage so that he would sleep soundly.

  It was playtime again, and Charlie was sitting on the floor by the classroom cupboard stacking dominoes. The other kids played games with one another. Some built starships, ray guns, and swords with Legos as they traveled on their various adventures across the galaxy. But Charlie only wanted the dominoes. He would stack them, building intricate lines and patterns, and topple them just at the end of playtime. He wanted to play with the other kids, but they didn’t seem to like him very much.

  Charlie set down his final domino in the intricately built swirl pattern he’d worked hard to create over the last thirty minutes. As he stared down, carefully studying the dominos, two knocks came from his side. He looked up at the closet door, perplexed for a moment before remembering the night before. He stood, careful not to destroy his hard work. He returned the knock with three of his own before receiving three more from the other side.

  “Is it you again?” asked Charlie.

  “Yes, it’
s me again,” the childish voice answered.

  “You still never told me your name.”

  “I don’t know my name.”

  “Your mommy never gave you a name?” The thought of it was absurd to Charlie. Every child had a name, even if some were names he found funny.

  “No,” the voice replied ashamedly.

  “Do you go to my school?”

  “No, I just wanted to come play with you, Charlie.”

  “Then why don’t you come out of there?”

  “Because I’m scared. Why don’t you come in here?”

  “I don’t know. Why are you scared?” Charlie asked, not realizing that the room around him had gotten quieter.

  Footsteps behind him drew closer as the teacher stood over him; her flowery dress and matching glasses seemed a bit out of date. Miss Greckski was a woman in her mid-forties with salt-andpepper hair that flowed just past her shoulder blades.

  “Charlie, who are you talking to?” she whispered. She didn’t want the other children to stare.

  “The boy in the closet,” Charlie replied.

  Miss Greckski waited for further explanation, but when the innocent brown-eyed child just stared back at her smiling sweetly, she opened the closet door, knocking over Charlie’s dominoes in the process.

  Charlie looked at the piled papers and old crayon drawings and then looked down at his swirled creation, ruined.

  Jessica worked at the help desk at South Suburban Hospital. This had been her job since Charlie had been eight months old. She knew eventually Ronnie’s drinking problem would be too much to deal with. Jessica had thought she could change him once he got back on his feet. Being in the Navy for six years, then getting discharged for too many DUIs, should have been warning enough for her, but she wasn’t ready to give up on her husband. She loved him before the Navy and she would love him after.

  Only now Jessica had her son to worry about. She knew why her baby boy couldn’t sleep at night, the reasons why he would lie awake. Her marriage was crumbling before her eyes, and she knew there was nothing she could do about it.