by Dia Reeves
At that moment, the sprinklers turned on, as if to mock him, and flushed a man from between the white butterfly bushes that grew beneath the living room windows—a fat, frizzy-haired blond in a blue suit. The man ran to the front walk, blinking water from his blue eyes, and smiled at Trey. “Hi!”
Trey gaped at him and came down the porch steps to face him. “Hi? Who the hell are you? And what are you doing in our bushes?”
The man’s face was red and jolly. He was holding a boom box. “I know you don’t know me. I’m Cleve.”
Cleve? Benni’s Cleve? Trey looked the man up and down and, for no reason at all, found himself grinning and wringing the man’s hand. “The Renaissance guy. Yeah, Benni told me about you.”
“And she told me all about you. I really envy you, you know that? I mean, true love, right?” He held up the boom box and pushed play:
“There’s only you in my life...”
As soon as Trey heard the first note, he had to lower his head so Cleve couldn’t see him, couldn’t see his eyes.
He didn’t want to miss her.
It was stupid to miss a dead person.
“She wanted me to play this song so you’d know she sent me, but since you recognize me...” He reached for the off button, but Trey stilled his hand.
“Leave it. It was kind of ‘our song.’”
Cleve gave Trey a strange knowing look. He said, “You miss her, don’t you?”
Trey wanted to say no, to scream it, but he felt his head going up and down.
“She had thought, since she’d promised to stay away you might not want to see her anymore...”
“But I do! I...” Trey paused, swallowed. “I just wonder how she is sometimes.”
Cleve smiled brightly, happily, as though Trey had given him an early birthday present. “She was hoping you’d feel that way.” Cleve wrapped his hands around one end of the boom box and pulled it back, high on his shoulder as though he were Jose Canseco at bat...and the next thing Trey saw were stars. Not exactly stars—more like a miniature aurora borealis had crowded into his head.
When the many-colored lights cleared, Trey noticed the pain in his face. It was so great, he almost couldn’t feel it, as though he were only standing beside someone in a lot of pain.
When he felt a dash of cold water spatter across his arm, his legs, he knew he was on the lawn. He wished some of the water would splash across his face, which besides being hot felt squashed and somehow...crunchy.
The sky overhead, the sun in his eyes. He shouldn’t stare at the sun, he knew that, but it didn’t seem to matter. Someone had put the sun on a dimmer and was turning it down and down and down.
Cleve’s fat, round face suddenly eclipsed the fading sun and zoomed in close to study him. When he’d looked his fill he straightened and said, “I think once more ought to do it.”
A frisson of fear rippled through Trey’s body, fear and a need to run, to throw his hands over his face, to flee.
Benni and her stupid Renaissance friends. This was all her fault.
Cleve winked at him. “Will you tell her I said hi?”
And just like that, the fear was gone. Trey looked at the deeply dented (yet still hideously sturdy-looking) boom box poised over Cleve’s head. He swallowed blood. “Okay.” His arms relaxed at his sides.
The song, their song, was still playing, but it had become a garbled slur. And it was the last thing Trey heard as the descending boom box blotted out the world.
✽ ✽ ✽
He was in a tunnel but there was no light at the end of it. The only light was the sun, but it wouldn’t keep still; it kept disappearing.
Trey took stock of himself: same body, his face was his own, nice and restored from the pounding that Cleve had given it. He couldn’t see his feet. Halfway down his shins everything was purple, but he stood on solid ground; he could feel that much.
Trey reached through the purple to feel the ground, but his hand only encountered air; there was nothing beneath him, despite how it felt. He stood.
~Hi babe.~
Trey shrieked and jumped back. Suddenly the ground was no longer solid and he started falling through the purple nothingness.
He reached up wildly and Benni was there. She caught him by the forearms and hauled him up.
For a long while, he simply forgot everything else and just stared at her. She was herself again, short slick hair, dimpled chin, wearing that crazy short plaid skirt with the safety pins in it, an outfit he knew she hadn’t been buried in. It was his Benni all right. She even had the same glow, only literal now, as though neon gas flowed through her veins instead of blood. Assuming she still had veins. Or blood.
And then she smiled, and the ground solidified beneath his feet.
He reached out. Could he touch her? Was it allowed? It was. He ran his hands over her arms up to her shoulders, over her face, her hair. Benni was laughing, watching him, and for the first time, he didn’t feel as though she were laughing at him.
~Welcome home, babe.~
His hands stilled as he looked around the tunnel, the tunnel with no light at the end of it. He stepped away from her. ~You did this.~
~Yes.~
~You killed me.~
She didn’t even blink. ~Yes.~
~Why?~
~Show don’t tell, remember? I told you how much I love you, how much I want to be with you. Can you see that I meant it? Haven’t I shown you?~
~Am I supposed to be grateful?~
~Aren’t you?~
Trey could only shake his head at her unbelievable presumptuousness. ~You cut me down in the prime of my life! I had so much to look forward to: Johns Hopkins, prom. Zoë was even starting to come around.~
Benni just stared at him.
Now that her face wasn’t shifting, he could finally see what she’d been telling him all along. He wondered that he hadn’t seen it before, it was so plain now, so clear. All his angry words just died in his throat. ~You really love me, huh?~
~I really do.~ She leaned forward, as if to kiss him. Could she do that? Was that allowed?
It was.
Trey leaned into the kiss and without even trying, he found that connection he’d been searching for with Zoë. When Benni pulled away, he saw that he was glowing just like her.
He studied the glow in his hands for a few awe-filled moments before placing them on Benni’s hips. ~What are we supposed to do now?~
Benni laughed, her glow intensifying. ~I don’t know. Strum on some harps, hang out with Jesus. Whatever you want.~
The sun zipped past again and disappeared down the tunnel. ~What’s up with the sun?~
Benni laughed so hard, Trey had to squint against the glare. ~That’s not the sun. It’s just kinda...leading the way. Let’s follow it—you’ll see. You gotta be quick though.~
He allowed Benni to pull him forward deeper into the tunnel. ~Is there a light at the end of all this?~
~The light comes from us. Don’t worry. Everything will make sense after a while.~
He was happy to take her at her word. Strange as this place was, it already felt like home. He pulled Benni close and kissed her again. She was familiar; she was home.
He rested his lips against her forehead and mumbled, ~I’m not gonna thank you for having me killed.~
~You’d better not,~ Benni said, trying to sound serious and failing miserably. ~Talk is bullshit. Haven’t you learned that by now? By the way...~
~What?~
She suddenly pulled out of his arms and poked him in the chest. ~You’re it!~ She took off, laughing, and disappeared into the deep purple.
Not exactly disappeared; he never lost sight of her. It was that shimmer of hers; the light at the end of his tunnel.
Trey laughed and gave chase, eager to follow wherever she led.
Bonus Story
The Voyeur of Utter Destruction
I saw the Rag Man for the first time when I was twelve. On a Saturday, I think, two days before Christmas.
&nbs
p; It was Nora’s fault. Or maybe I shouldn’t say fault. I can blame a million people for what happened, but not Nora—she was just a kid. A real bossy kid.
One minute, I was in the dining room up to my neck in meat sauce, slurping down my grandma’s spaghetti strand by cheesy strand, listening to my folks talk over the crackle and pop of burning applewood logs. And the next minute, Nora was dragging me by the hand out into the freezing cold.
Nora’s mother never let her go anywhere alone. So instead of being seen around town in the company of her lame parents, Nora started dragging me everywhere. At first because I was convenient (her school friends were always gone for the holidays), but then we got to be friends.
We hurried along the street, headfirst into the icy wind. The bare, dark trees shook as we passed, clawed at the gray sky.
Nora looked at me disdainfully, listening to my teeth chatter. “It’s not even that cold.” Her words were slightly muffled by the grape Blow Pop in her mouth.
“You always say that,” I said, watching her enviously as she swung her arms like it was June. She wasn’t even wearing a coat, just a couple of sweaters, gloves and a scarf. She had lived in Vermont until she was nine and every winter, she laughed whenever anybody complained about how cold it was.
She took off her scarf and tossed it to me. “Put this on before your teeth fall out.”
I wound the red wool around my neck, my ears burning from the cold and from embarrassment. Nora had a way of making me feel really dumb sometimes. I would have thought to bring my own scarf if she hadn’t rushed me out of the house. I was trying to work up the nerve to tell her so when I saw him.
Nora and I were on Stroker Lane, waiting for the light to change, and he was across the street in front of Simmons’ Used Books, standing underneath the sunny yellow awning Pop had helped Mr. Simmons hang over the entrance.
I shouldn’t have been staring at him—it was rude to stare—but I’d never seen a real live bum before. He was wearing a greasy brown jacket and pants so soiled and threadbare they looked like they might crumble away to dust at any moment.
Him being a bum was weird enough, but as I watched, he slapped a dripping red rag against the bookstore and started dragging it along the sandy-colored brick wall.
Although several people passed him, no one seemed bothered that he was defacing public property in such a spectacular fashion.
I looked at Nora who was tapping her foot and glaring at the red light. “You see that?” I asked her.
Nora removed the lollipop from her mouth to answer me, smacking her lips. “See what?”
“That man over there.” I pointed. “Right there in front of the book store.” I looked at her. “He’s smearing red paint all over the book store!”
Nora looked, craning her head this way and that, and then she punched me in the arm. “Real funny, Jonah.” She rolled her lollipop into her cheek, bulging it out. “If you’re trying to make me think you’re crazy so you won’t have to pay for my skates, forget about it.”
Before I had time to wonder why Nora was teasing me, the man dragged his rag across the display windows—I could hear the wet squeal the paint made against the glass from across the street.
When the light changed, Nora dragged me forward, down to the roller rink, and once inside, I proceeded to forget all about the man and his rag.
The roller rink was packed; some boy was having a birthday party. We didn’t know him, and I didn’t think they’d let us in since we hadn’t been invited, but Nora dragged me inside like it didn’t matter.
It didn’t.
I remember playing crack the whip with fifty screaming kids and eating fat slices of chocolate cake that Nora stole for us and learning how to skate backward and drinking hot chocolate and roller-dancing to “Rock Your Body” and falling down a lot because I was so clumsy and gazing at Nora’s face whenever she laughed.
I remember all that—I even dream about it sometimes—but what I mostly remember is the man who’d been standing outside the used bookstore.
When Nora and I were getting ready to leave, as I was standing near the front desk waiting for her to come back from the restroom, I saw the man again. He was walking past the front of the roller rink, leaving a bright band of red across the windows. I watched, frozen until he’d disappeared out of my line of sight.
I looked around, wildly. The lobby was full of people: parents picking up children, children at the front desk trying to rent skates with pennies and dimes. But no one seemed to notice the wide red smear staining the windows.
I crept over to a boy around six or seven sitting by the wall unlacing his skates. I didn’t mind talking to little kids. I smiled at him. “Hey.”
He smiled back. “Hey.”
“Um, I wanna ask you something.” I took a deep breath. “Can you see that red stuff on the front windows up there?”
The boy looked as he took off his skates. He was wearing Spider-Man socks. He looked up at me, puzzled. “What red stuff?”
“Why’re you talking to my brother?”
I stood up and faced a boy my own age, frowning at me, like I was some pervert.
“Sorry,” I muttered and turned away.
I heard the little boy speak as I rushed off. “He was just asking me about red stuff on the windows.”
“What red stuff?”
“I dunno.”
I went outside.
The line only covered the left half of the front of the building, starting to the left of the doors. I followed the line, a glistening dark brick color against the pale blue cinderblock wall, to where it disappeared around the corner, all the way down the wall.
I walked slowly back to the front of the roller rink, my hands beginning to sweat despite the cold.
The right side of the building was still line-less. The man would be coming around the opposite corner at any moment.
I looked at the wide red line against the wall and, I don’t know why I did it, but I peeled off my right glove and touched my hand to the line.
Have you ever switched on your Walkman only to find that the volume has been turned way up, and you feel like the music is punching you in the eardrums hard enough to bleed? That’s what happened inside my head when I touched that line. Only, it wasn’t the squeal of electric guitars in my ears.
It was gunshots. And screaming. Children screaming.
Just when I snatched my hand away from the red line, I saw the man turn the opposite corner, his arm outstretched, rag flush against the wall, smearing the wall of the roller rink. Marking it.
I looked at him. I looked at him and…
How to explain it?
Imagine how you’d feel if a sixty-foot tall man was walking toward you and suddenly spotted you there on the ground. What if this giant picks you up and pulls you up to his face and stares at you with eyes the size of Hollywood spotlights. Eyes so big they could see straight through you and all around you, to the inner core of you.
He wasn’t a giant and he didn’t have eyes as big as spotlights, but that’s what it felt like. I felt skewered, stripped down—not just my clothes stripped off but my skin too. And then I knew. I knew that he wasn’t human.
He moved slowly, slowly, keeping the line straight and perfect. His steps slow but relentless.
I thought of the gunshots I’d heard, of the screams, and I thought of Nora, still inside.
I rushed into the building shoving aside anyone in my way and ran to the girls’ restroom and banged on the door. “Nora?”
“Jonah?” Her voice, surprised.
“Nora, we have to leave.”
“I’m washing my hands—”
“Nora, I’m serious! Get out here now!” And maybe because I’d never spoken to her, or to anybody in such a tone, she did as I said.
“All right, all right.” She came out, looking disgruntled. “What’s the big damn hurry?”
I grabbed her hands, which were slick and wet because she hadn’t paused to dry them, and this tim
e I was the one dragging her.
We burst through the doors just as he reached them, so close, I could smell his nasty body odor. So close that when the door flew open, it smacked into him. Hard.
Serves him right, I thought, hustling Nora into the street against the light, nearly killing us both. Serves him right for...for what?
What was he doing?
I didn’t let Nora go until we were safely on the other side of the street. And then I looked back.
Maybe it was only the sun in my eyes, but I swear I saw a flash of dark light, like a soap bubble dipped in soot, glint around the building.
The circle was complete.
And the man was gone.
Nora’s hand on my forehead startled me, made me step away from her. She was staring at me, wide-eyed. “I’m telling your mother.”
“What?”
“I think you’re delirious; that’s why you’re acting so crazy.”
I barely heard her. All around me as we went up the street were buildings with red bands encircling them.
But what did the red circles mean?
When we got to my grandma’s house, Nora regaled my entire family with the tale of my sudden descent into madness.
“...and Jonah goes, ‘But Nora, can’t you see him?’ See who I said. ‘The Bloody Rag Man, painting the walls with his blood...’”
She was telling it like it was some big joke, but I just sat there cold and alone by the aquarium while they all laughed.
Bloody Rag Man, she’d said. Had it been blood on those buildings? My hand tingled, the hand I’d touched to that red stuff. My hand still felt wet, although there was no sign of redness on my skin.
I thought of those screams.
Had the Rag Man marked those buildings so that he could come back to them? Come back and—
My thoughts were cut short by a sharp rap at the door. Grandma answered it and, after a moment, I heard Mrs. Benson’s frantic voice. “Have they come back? Is Nora here? Oh God, please let her be here.”