The Shadow People

by Joe Clifford

  “Hey, Mr. Johnson. I wanted to say goodbye.”

  “I heard. Some of the nurses were complaining that you were too nice to me.” He laughed and coughed at the same time, spitting out gobs of dark yellow phlegm lodged in his trachea. He covered his mouth with part of the bed sheet, wrapping up the mucus and whatever other decay raged inside. Someone needed to change his bedding, but I didn’t have time.

  I checked down the hall for Mrs. Talbot. I could hear the faraway echo of footsteps.

  “I’m off to grad school anyway, Mr. Johnson.”

  “Since this is your last day. Do me a favor? Call me Galen.”

  I laughed, and he glanced at me oddly. I had to assure him I wasn’t making fun of him. “A friend of mine—the woman who raised me—says the same thing. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to use first names.”

  I waited for Mr. Johnson to laugh too. I was making a joke. But he didn’t laugh. Instead, his face washed grave and concerned.

  “That’s because you’re scared to get attached, son.”

  His words were an obvious observation. Anyone aware of my personal history could’ve said the same. Hearing them today felt like I’d been run over by a bus.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “People always leave, don’t they? That’s life. Saying goodbye. You say goodbye to me today. Tomorrow? Who knows? Maybe I say goodbye to everyone else.”

  “Don’t say that, Mr.—Galen.”

  He waved me off. “I’m not scared of dying. You live long enough, death stops hanging over your head. You accept it as part of life.” He looked around his room, at the wires and machines hooked up, lines running to his veins, pumping life-nourishing fluids, prolonging the inevitable.

  I heard the footsteps again, closer now. I didn’t want to waste what little time I had left. Why does it always seem we are racing against clocks?

  I thought I heard “Brandon” from down the hall.

  “Come here, boy,” he whispered, beckoning me nearer. I leaned my ear next to his mouth. His breath was hot and rank. I could smell the bacteria taking root, the fungus winning territory, staking claim, refusing to abandon its spoils.

  “Watch out, boy. The Shadow People are on to you now.”

  I pulled back, studying his face, waiting for him to snicker at his joke. It had to be a joke. But he didn’t laugh, just stared at me with those deep-set old man eyes, like they could see right through my flesh and sinew, past my marrow and beyond organs, to pluck something precious from the furthest reaches of my soul.

  A cold hand clasped my arm.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  When I walked outside the rest home, I saw the boy in blue.

  Kid, teen? Young man? Shabby, wiry, he wore a padded blue coat, overkill considering the temperature. He stood across the street, staring at me. I couldn’t pin down his age—he couldn’t be much younger than I was. Eighteen, maybe. Kids that age don’t always have down social graces. He didn’t intimidate me. I almost stomped across the street to ask what his problem was, the way he stood there gawking. It was rude. But I didn’t. Because I was self-aware enough to understand what was happening. I was pissed—pissed at getting fired, pissed at the personal slight—and I wanted to scream. So here was this poor, dopey kid who had the misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, this scruffy-faced urchin who looked homeless, burdened with a heavier load than I would ever know. Instead of confronting the boy, I stared him down until he walked on, along the train tracks that ran through the tall grasses and reeds of the trestles, vanishing in the fields of mud and bone.

  This wasn’t about a homeless kid.

  I knew a better place to direct my rage.

  When I pulled up in front of the Best Western, aiming to unload on an old man, I accepted my aggression was still misplaced—I wanted to be mad at Mrs. Talbot or my coworkers. But Francis had jimmied my lock. He’d broken into my apartment. I didn’t care if he’d dropped Illuminations by mistake. It’s called manners. I’d have been happy to return the zine. If he’d have contacted me during normal hours, left a note, come back later. At a time that worked for me. He’d made the mistake of leaving it behind; he could wait to remedy the situation.

  For all these reasons, I may’ve pounded extra hard on the motel door. I wasn’t aware how hard until the maid on the landing whiplashed my way. I stopped banging and waved back, hoping to convey a misunderstanding.

  The door pulled inward. The old man stood in a pair of tidy whities, squinting, scratching his white beard scruff. Francis didn’t look surprised to see me, nor did he appear self-conscious or intimidated by the man whose apartment he’d broken into. His grizzled visage seemed to welcome confrontation. He was lucky I wasn’t there with the police.

  I smelled liquor emanating off him, the cheap, sour, day-after kind, where inferior sugars and yeast leak out your pores. The odor was stamped in my earliest childhood memories of my birth parents, who never shied away from tying one on, regardless of the day or time.

  Francis left the door open and walked to the dresser, which was littered with pant pocket treasures—spare change, cigarettes, matches, keys, crumpled receipts. He inspected a bottle of Jim Beam. It looked empty from where I stood, but apparently there was enough for a gargle and rinse. Like it was mouthwash, Francis poured what was left into his open mouth, swished it around. But he didn’t spit anything out, savoring the bargain booze. Then he snatched his Winston’s and a pack of matches.

  “Close that,” he said.

  I stepped in and shut the door.

  “Deadbolt too.”

  I locked the door, turned the deadbolt, then slid the chain over the no smoking sign. I mimed, Good enough? Then for fun, I pulled back an edge of the drapes, which were drawn, peeking down the landing. I didn’t see anyone, not even the maid.

  Francis made no move to get dressed, standing bowlegged in his stretched-out undies that barely covered his skinny old man legs. He still hadn’t bothered with “hello” or asked what I was doing there, which told me he already knew why I was there. He scowled and bulled toward the sink at the end of the room.

  He let the water run, heating it up before splashing his craggy, weathered face. The sink wasn’t even in the bathroom, place so small. It was carved into an alcove beside a closet without any doors. In that moment, I felt sorry for the guy. His only son, dead. Only grandson, dead. Remaining family wanted nothing to do with him, and here he was taking a bath in a sink at a Best Western. Why was he still here?

  The water kept running, growing hotter, more steam rising until, shrouded in a cloud, Francis began lathering up a bar of soap. Grabbing a razor, he started scraping away the scruff. Like sandpaper rubbed over a walnut. I was surprised he was using a disposable razor instead of a straight blade from the ’20s.

  It was up to me to get the conversation started.

  “I don’t appreciate your letting yourself into my apartment.”

  Francis kept scouring the old white dust off his old white face, silent.

  “For one,” I began. “It’s against law. I could have you arrested.” Once it came out of my mouth, I recognized the empty threat. I wasn’t calling the police on the guy. Given his age and the fact he was retrieving personal property, I doubted they’d write him a citation. I was angry. And getting angrier by the second. Other than telling me to batten the hatches, Francis hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t bothered with a feeble excuse or lame justification. Not even an “I’m sorry” as a gesture of goodwill. He leaned on the sink as hot water steamed the mirror. On his back, upper left clavicle, a tattoo of the number twenty-three nested in a crown of thorns. No clue what that faded ink on weathered blue skin signified, other than to serve as a reminder to never get a tattoo.

  I found his lack of manners egregious. I didn’t bother with a courtesy cough, folding my arms and steadying myself until Francis was good and ready.

  He blotted his scraped face dry with a hand towel. Freed from the wh
iskers, he didn’t look any younger. In fact, shaving produced the opposite effect since now you could see all the cracks, crevices, and craters.

  Swiping his pants off the back of the toilet, he stepped into each leg before sliding over a tight plain white tee, tucking in the tails. From the high shelf, he pulled down a small suitcase, a beat-up black rolling bag. He started emptying the hotel’s drawers—socks, underwear, shirts, dirty laundry. Then sat on the bed, and one by one fitted his loafers.

  “Are you going to say anything?” I asked.

  “I didn’t break into your apartment.”

  “Right. Someone else picked my lock to steal that stupid zine.”

  Francis stared me down, conviction unwavering, daring me to call him a liar.

  “Are you really telling me it wasn’t you? You expect me to believe that?”

  “Believe what you want to believe.”

  “Who else would want that stupid zine?”

  “Listen, boy. For one, I didn’t need it back.” Francis unclasped his bag, rifled around the bottom, and pulled out several copies of Illuminations, waving them in the air. “Wasn’t my only copy.” He stuffed the zines back. “And I wouldn’t need a refresher on the subject matter since Jacob ran most the topics by me before he wrote ’em.”

  “His mom told me she hasn’t had contact with you in years.”

  “She hasn’t. But I talked to Jacob all the time.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “All the time,” he repeated, slowing down his diction in case I was hard of hearing or just obtuse. He hopped up, sticking a finger in my face. “Don’t call me a liar again.”

  “I didn’t call you a liar.”

  “Jacob wasn’t sick. My grandson could see things other people couldn’t. They called him sick—like they call me sick—because it’s a convenient way to dismiss us, push our contributions aside, ignore the truth.” He shook his head and fired up another cigarette. “We’re not sick. We have our eyes open.”

  I pointed at the door, red streak slashed through a cartoon burning butt. “It says no smoking.” Then at his rolling bag. “And since it looks like you are about to check out, I’ll tell you, they’re going to charge your credit card. Never mind the cancer it’s giving you, a cleaning fee is a couple hundred bucks. Cigarette smoke is very obvious to people who don’t smoke.” It wasn’t like me to talk this way to my elders—I believed in showing respect. This was the second time I’d done so in the same day. But I didn’t like this man, didn’t appreciate the wringer he’d put Mrs. Balfour and the family through; he seemed to show no regard for civility or basic decency, so why should I? He was a liar too. I wasn’t this repressed, uptight goody-goody, but there are rules for a reason. It’s easy to say rules are meant to be broken. It’s also lazy. Like cynicism, it’s the path of least resistance.

  “The hotel can try.” Francis swept all his toiletries into the shaving kit, which he then stuffed into the rolling bag, before zipping it shut. “I’m surprised there was anything on that card I gave them.” He plucked the lone shirt left on a hanger, the button-up he’d worn to the funeral reception, a faded yellow short-sleeve that had seen too much sun and been washed too many times. Reaching in the pocket, he extracted a wad of money. “I prefer to pay in cash. Those cards have chips in them. Tracks everything you do.”

  In that get-up, with his silver hair slicked back and the pair of two-toned, beat-up, brown-and-cream shoes, he looked all set to hit the lanes.

  I remained rooted to the floor, arms folded, still waiting for Francis to make this right.

  On his way to the door, he stopped beside me, letting go the bag to place a hard hand on my shoulder. The gesture made me feel small. He wasn’t that much bigger, but I felt diminished in his presence, like a little kid in the company of a grown-up.

  “Take care of yourself, boy.” He said it with such heartfelt authenticity, like he’d known me my whole life.

  “That’s it?” I said. “Where are you going?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Tell me the truth. If you didn’t break into my apartment, Francis, then that means someone else did. My lock was picked. That zine was there, and now it’s gone.” I tried to match his sincere gaze. “I’m not lying.”

  “I don’t think you’re lying. That magazine I got in my bag, Illuminations? You think it’s a bunch of gibberish. And, sure, a lot of it is far-fetched—everything isn’t a plot by Big Pharma. But my grandson wasn’t stupid. Jacob touched a nerve.”

  “How?”

  “Wish I knew.” Francis shook his head. “But that’s why they killed him.”

  “Why who killed him?”

  “That’s what I intend to find out.”

  “What—where are you going? You can’t just…” The whole premise felt absurd. Jacob stumbled upon a secret worth killing to protect?

  “You have my number,” Francis said. “In case you need to find me. I hope you don’t have to. Sorry I got you into this. You were Jacob’s only friend.”

  “I told you we didn’t talk—”

  “Maybe not. But they’ve seen me talking to you, which means they’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

  I didn’t ask who or what “they” were.

  “Don’t talk to anyone,” he said. “And whatever you do, don’t search anything on your computer or cell because they’ll be monitoring it.”

  He picked back up his bag and made for the handle.

  Did I want to ever talk to Francis Balfour again? Hell no. Once he walked out the door, I’d be rid of him for good.

  I patted my pocket, reassuring myself I still had that number, just in case.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Walking out into the bright sunshine of the Best Western parking lot, Ponyboy leaving the cinema, I wanted to forget all that gobbledygook about ghouls, goblins, and medicine men. At my car door, I pulled out all the crap in my pockets and tossed it in the center console so I could sit in comfort. I couldn’t shake the sensation, the eyes on me.

  Maids on the landings, holding their vacuum cleaners but not vacuuming; maintenance men tinkering with valves on the wall, ratcheting back and forth, going in circles, making no progress. A few spaces down, a family of five piled out of an SUV, but they didn’t look like a family, facial features too disparate, a hodgepodge of low-rent character actors poorly cast in roles they had no business playing, thirty-year-olds as high school students, Scarlett Johansson as a person of color.

  I knew I was thinking crazy thoughts. I knew I was being irrational. I couldn’t rise above or set aside. People were watching me; this awareness, like a hall of mirrors cast back on itself, persisted as I drove away.

  Beneath ribbons of wispy white clouds, crooked buildings tremored in the distance, the shape of the world felt warped, like I was viewing my surroundings from inside a goldfish bowl. When I stopped at the Price Chopper for groceries because my apartment was so barren, this sketchiness intensified. Stalking the aisles, mothers and children stopped arguing over which cereals had too much sugar. They studied me, casting judgment. Unlike the boy in blue, I had no recourse this time. Stare back, ignore them, they didn’t retreat, stares lingering as I took corners.

  I wasn’t imagining it. Of course they were staring at me. Why shouldn’t they? I looked cracked out, eying the supermarket like a D-list celebrity pretending he didn’t want to be recognized but secretly relishing the attention, Carrot Top in a coffee shop. I’d always been grounded, persuaded by the soundest logical argument. Common sense wouldn’t let me explain this away.

  I’d opened a portal. In my brain. One that wasn’t grounded in reality or rooted in fact, and thus was unwilling to be persuaded by logic. By entering that arena, I’d granted my subconscious license to explore, run and roam free, and it was taking me places I didn’t want to go. It got even worse when I left the Price Chopper.

  People waiting at bus stops but not getting on any bus. National Grid workers perche
d halfway up phone poles, hanging in their harnesses. A priest on the church lawn lights up a butt, takes a drag, watches me as I drive by, but he’s not praying for my soul…

  I’d see these street corners with a gas station or coffee shop or some other architectural landmark, and it would look exactly like another street corner I’d seen. At some other time. In some other part of town. And even though I knew—the logical, rational, sane part of me—that what I thought I was witnessing was impossible, my skin still tingled, wriggling with worms squirming beneath the surface, aching to break free for their first taste of light.

  No matter how hard I tried to steer the internal conversation elsewhere, my own mind waged internal war. I swear to God I almost checked myself into the ER.

  Then I remembered last night. Sam and that asshole outside Soyka’s. I might come up short. I might blow this all in the end. But I was not going to lose to that guy. My last week in town, I needed to fix the damage. My performance outside the liquor store hadn’t been my finest hour. I didn’t think I’d done anything too egregious. I’d acted strangely, okay, but I could play my way out of that; write it off to being overwhelmed by the move. Maybe Sam would have a different recollection. Or I could convince her she was misremembering, feign surprise at her misinterpretation. I’d been wiped and ready for bed, that’s all.

  Having a tangible goal, if only for the short term, allowed me to refocus, a mission to remedy some of the pressure I was feeling. I called Sam from the car—it was a reasonable hour. No answer. In fact, it went straight to voice mail after one ring. Like when someone declines the call. I was being too harsh on myself. Maybe she was sleeping in or taking a nap. Then I asked myself why she might be sleeping in or taking a nap. Maybe because she was up all night fucking Anthony. Then I couldn’t get that picture out of my head, the two of them, naked and writhing, him bringing her to climax with skilled precision, orgasm after orgasm, porno sex, a marathon session with a stud. The images in my head traveled beyond pornographic. Soon I had Sam with more than one guy. She’d met a bunch of other jerks at the party and now Anthony and all of them were doing things to her body that had her lost in the throes of passion. She was on her knees, giving, taking, pleasuring them all, and their eyes faced the camera, looking right at me, and she was laughing at me—they were all laughing at me—my ultimate humiliation.