The Matchmaker's Medium

by Laurel King

  “You want me to put my boots by the door?”

  “Yeah, just sit them next to mine.”

  He shuffled over to the growing pile of clothes and boots, unceremoniously dumping his on the floor. His stocking feet made a ‘swish-swish’ sound as he scooted back across the room, trying to decide where to sit.

  “Try the recliner, it might hold you.”

  He turned and looked at me funny, like he couldn’t tell if I was serious or not, then somehow folded himself into the leather seat. I settled back into the couch, trying to relax, narrowing my eyes a little as Jamal finally stopped laughing and walked over toward the kid again.

  “So you said something about your brother missing, um, what was your name again?”

  He instantly got serious. “Marcus. Yeah, my brother’s been missing for a couple of days, now. He’s only seven, and I’m worried about him.”

  “Seven? Wow; that is young.”

  “I know. He’s never gone missing before, never even wandered off at the store or anything. Trevor’s one of those good kids, almost a mama’s boy, but not a punk or anything. If he gets hurt he doesn’t act like a pussy—I mean, uh, a sissy.”

  I tilted my head to the side, like I was trying to figure him out, but I was really waiting for Jamal to lean over and say something. He had back up, away from the recliner, tilting his head back one way, then the other, looking at Marcus with his eyebrows furrowed.

  Not getting any help from Jamal, I asked, “Where was he the last time you saw him?”

  “Mama saw him two days ago; he was watchin’ cartoons on Nickelodeon while she went to the shower. She wasn’t gone but ten, fifteen minutes, same as damn near every day. She hates to take a shower at night cuz then her hair stays wet in the pillow, and—“

  “Okay, I got it. So, what time of day was it?”

  “Let’s see, I just left for school, I’m a senior this year, so I have a late start class three days a week. Would’ve been around 10.”

  “And there was no sign of anyone coming in? Nothing knocked over?”

  “Nope. Like he just disappeared right out of the living room, vanished. Didn’t even take his boots or coat or anything.”

  “And what did your mother do when she got out of the shower?”

  “She freaked. I mean, I guess she looked around for a few minutes and all, but she said when she saw his coat was still there and the TV was on and the door was unlocked—“

  “The door was unlocked?”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry. We taught him to keep it locked and chained from the inside, and not to answer the door unless a grown up is around,” he put his head down, started fidgeting with his hands. “Guess that didn’t sink in too good, huh.”

  “So she saw the TV still on, the winter clothes still there, and the door was unlocked. Anything else?” I snuck a peek at Jamal, who had his eyes closed, his hands up to his temples, like one of those commercials where the guy has a “really bad migraine, right across here”.

  “That’s about it. The phone never rang, she didn’t hear any loud noises, nothing was knocked over or stolen, Trevor just—up and disappeared.”

  He raised his head, looking at me with big, shining, brown eyes, looking like an overgrown, scared little kid, instead of the almost-man colossus he really was.

  “That’s not a lot of information to go on,” I said, turning to Jamal and clearing my throat. Finally, he seemed to snap out of it, rushing over to my side and whispering frantically into my ear. As he spoke, I repeated what he said, nearly word for word:

  ‘Your brother is still alive. But someone took him out of the house. Someone stronger than him. A stranger to you.’

  I stopped, pulled my head back and asked Jamal, “Are you sure? That’s what you want me to say? ‘A stranger to you’?”

  Jamal didn’t even answer, just pointed at Marcus, as if to say, Tell him!

  “All right, all right,” I said, shaking my head at his strangely cryptic words.

  “Who are you talking to?” Marcus asked, looking at me like I was an escaped mental patient.

  “Didn’t your friend tell you how things work?” I asked, feeling annoyed.

  “Sort of. He said you know stuff that other people don’t know. Like, how to find missing things and people.”

  “That’s part of it. The other part is where I get the information from. To put it bluntly: I get it from a ghost. My ghost. Marcus, meet Jamal.” I gestured from Marcus to Jamal, like they were finally being properly introduced. Marcus lifted his eyebrows and looked like he might want to run outside without bothering to find his boots and coat. Jamal did a formal little bow, smiled, and turned to see how I would handle this one.

  “Just trust me. Jamal here is from D.C. and he’s pretty good at figuring things out for people.”

  “Oh, well, okay, then. As long as he’s one of them good ghosts, not the kind that want to steal your soul or anything.”

  Jamal grimaced, shrugged, and threw his hands up in disgust, “Too many of those stupid horror flicks! They never get it right!”

  Well, they almost never get right, I thought, eyeing my pimp-ghost friend as he paced around the living room, totally annoyed by the inability of ‘the living’ to understand ‘the dead’. Actually, from what I had seen, a lot of the ‘horror flicks’ had gotten it right on the money, in a lot of different ways. I mean, here I was, watching a pretty ticked-off ghost who couldn’t be seen by anyone else—so far—ranting about how stupid ‘living’ people were. I giggled at that, trying to cover it up with a little cough.

  “No, he doesn’t want to steal anything. But let me see if I can figure out what else he knows.” I motioned towards Jamal, who refused at first, stubbornly shaking his head with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Luckily, he gave in after only a few seconds, leaning over to whisper in my ear again:

  “Trevor is in a basement, with the stronger one. He won’t let Trevor out. He’s crying and scared; he thinks no one will find him. He’s calling for his mama—“

  “That’s enough.”

  I nodded, aware that they had touched a raw nerve in the young man. Jamal stepped away, turned his back and disappeared through the wall, to the outside. Not for the first time—or the last—I desperately wished I could disappear, too.

  Marcus’ tears ran freely, spilling down his soft-skinned cheeks, stopping at his neatly-trimmed, barely-peach-fuzz moustache, then detouring down his chin and neck. He swiped at them with the heel of his hands, like he was angry that he couldn’t stop such an embarrassing and inconvenient thing.

  “I gotta go tell the police all this stuff, so they can rescue him.”

  “Okay,” I said, rising to help him gather his winter gear.

  “No, it’s okay, I got it,” he said, waving off my help.

  “I’m sorry, Marcus, I know it’s got to be devastating to—“

  “Look, no offense, lady, but you don’t know anything about how I feel. My little brother barely knows how to ride a bike, cuz I taught him a few months ago. Now he’s in some basement, crying and scared, thinks no one’s comin’ for him.”

  I hung my head, shamed into silence.

  He finished dressing, pulling his stocking cap over his head, as I reached around him to the doorknob. But he touched my hand and asked, “You don’t know where he is?”

  I felt tears filling my own eyes, and I bit my lip, trying to will them away. “No, Jamal didn’t tell me, which means even he doesn’t know.”

  “All right, then,” he said, moving my hand away, turning the knob easily in his huge hand, and popping the stuck door open like it was a piece of paper. “I’ll call you when we find him.”

  “Okay,” I said, watching him walk away, his huge frame bent as he carried the weight of the universe with him, down the crumbled-splotchy concrete walk.

  He didn’t call me.

  * * * *

  About a week later, I was watching the news on a huge flat-screen monitor in the bank, as I waited in line
to get a money order for my rent. Stupid landlord, stuck in the damn 20th century, asking for money orders to pay rent. Every month I had to do it, I complained and bitched about it. But, as I stood there in line with four or five other people, wondering the same old thing I always wondered when I was in a situation like this—What the hell happened to ‘customer service’? It’s like no one cares if the customer is happy anymore, even when we’re the only reason they have a job at all—something familiar caught my eye.

  As usual, the TV volume was on ‘mute’ and I had to read the subtitles for closed captioning—which I always hated, because they missed words or spelled everything wrong—when a picture popped up on the screen. The kid looked like a miniature version of Marcus.

  Oh, no.

  I yelled to the bank teller, “Turn it up! Please, turn it up!” To which, the teller did nothing at all, except look up long enough to give me a dirty look, then go back to what she was doing—leafing through a magazine or catalog.

  Desperate to know what they were saying, I rushed over and manually touched the volume buttons, holding the ‘plus’ until it was so loud dead people from Iowa should’ve been sitting up to pay attention.

  “Hey! You can’t touch that!” the lackadaisical teller said. So that’s how you get their attention. Touch their precious TV buttons. Good to know.

  I flipped her the bird, then turned to the monitor:

  “—police got the information from an anonymous tipster, whose identity has not been revealed. But for little Trevor, the information came too late. Despite the close proximity to Trevor’s house, the kidnapper was able to conceal his activities long enough to elude police and cause the death of this young boy. The investigation is ongoing, with police interviewing the young man who allegedly committed the crimes, later today. In other news—“

  Horrified and numb with shock, I turned away from the TV just as some tie-wearing ‘manager’ type came over to confront me. But, one look at my face shut him up quicker than any words could have. As I mechanically pushed the door open and walked out to my car, the customers and employees gossiped long enough to agree: that woman looked like I had just seen a ghost.

  Chapter Ten

  “No wonder you won’t do real medium work anymore,” Esteban said, his tea sweating on the coffee table, ice melted long ago.

  “Yeah.”

  I chugged the last of my tea, handing him the glass.

  “Wow. I guess it’s thirsty work telling about that stuff,” he said, raising his eyebrows and shrugging a little.

  “What’s happenin’, little mama?” Jamal whispered in my ear, as Esteban walked into the kitchen.

  “Jamal! What are you doing here?” I asked, suddenly terrified: How long has he been here?

  “Only a few minutes, don’t worry. I didn’t wanna see you two whities doin the horizontal mambo.”

  “He is not white, Jamal. He’s Puerto Rican.”

  “Ha! Well, excu-uuse me, white girl!” he said, slapping his leg and faking a smile. Then immediately switching to his Super Serious face. “Now that you’re done getting’ your freaky-deaky on, we got a problem.”

  “A problem? With what?”

  “You mean who.”

  “Okay, a problem with who?”

  He opened his eyes really wide, tilted his head toward the kitchen, and gave me a half-smirk, half-smile.

  “Esteban?”

  “One and the same.”

  “No, way.”

  “Yes, way.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Can’t talk here, he’ll think you’re crazy.”

  “What’d you say?” Esteban called from the kitchen.

  “Oh, nothing! Just talking to myself!” I yelled, hoping he wouldn’t come rushing into the living room.

  “Come on, give the square an excuse so we can split,” Jamal said, settling the argument.

  “Oh, all right, fine then,” I said, already feeling irritable.

  I slammed her hand on the couch, jumped up, and stormed into the kitchen, fuming.

  “I have to go now, Esteban,” I said, rage thickening my voice.

  “Whoa, whoa, what’s wrong?” he asked, holding his soapy hands up like a man surrendering to the bank robber.

  Staring at him, I felt my anger already melting away, much like the soap suds falling from his hands onto the floor with a mighty plop!

  “Oops,” he said, sheepishly.

  He looked at the floor, then I looked, then we both looked back up at each other simultaneously, and started roaring with laughter. Esteban came over and swiped my face with some of the soapy suds, smearing them down my face and onto my blouse.

  “Oh, darn, look at that,” he said, in mock-shame. “Now I have to take that pesky shirt back off, and put it in the dryer.” He stopped laughing, kissing me again, unbuttoning my shirt.

  My last thought was, God, please let Jamal be gone already.

  Standing just outside the kitchen, watching as Esteban leaned closer into Amber, kissing her and taking off her clothes, Jamal felt an old feeling building inside of him, boiling and scalding him with its overwhelming power: jealous, blind rage.

  * * * *

  A few hours later, I was in my car, while the sun was thinking about making its way up from the horizon. At first, I had been relieved that Jamal was nowhere to be found. Especially while Esteban and I had our ‘alone time’. But now, hours later, I was starting to worry. For him to tell me there was something wrong, then disappear for hours on end, was completely out of character. If he was alive, I’d probably be making a few phone calls to hospitals and police stations by now. But, as things stood now, I couldn’t very well call anyone.

  Who ya gonna call? I thought, in the sing-songy version from the movie Ghostbusters. Embarrassed by my own dorkiness, I shuddered and brushed the thought out of my head. Then I felt mad again.

  “Jamal, wherever you are, I hope you know what a complete jerk you’re being, just taking off and not coming back for hours!” I yelled to the empty car, starting to worry about my own sanity. “God!” I slammed my hand onto the steering wheel so hard, the horn button pushed down a little, making the car emit a wounded-cow sound. Surprised, I accidentally pulled the steering wheel to the left a little, swerving into oncoming traffic.

  “Watch it!”

  The steering wheel jerked to back to the right, just enough to pull me out of the path of an oncoming semi-truck, barreling down the hazy highway, horn blaring in disapproval.

  I slowed and pulled to the soft shoulder, gravel crunching under the tires, brakes groaning as I came to a full stop. My heart was pounding a thousand miles a minute, and I felt the iced tea trying to come back up. I put my head down on the steering wheel, trying to slow my breathing, in through my nose, out through my mouth, like that personal trainer taught me in D.C. all those years ago. He was a terrible trainer—spent most of our session staring at himself in the mirror—but at least that breathing technique stuck in my head.

  “Sorry, lil’ mama,” Jamal said softly, in the seat next to me.

  I lifted her head and glared at him. “I hope you’re happy you big loser,” I said, folding my arms across my chest, and leaning back into my seat, “you almost got me killed.”

  “How was I supposed to know you were gonna act all crazy and slam the horn?”

  “I didn’t—oh, just forget it!” I said, turning my head away so I wouldn’t have to look at him.

  “That’s funny,” he said, chuckling a little bit, “you don’t really think I’ll go away if you can’t see me, do you?”

  “No, but at least I won’t have to look at your stupid smiling face!”

  He chuckle-snorted for a few minutes, as my anger slowly dissolved. Eventually, I gave in, when my adrenaline had run its course. Yawning, I reached for the keys to turn the car back on, until –

  “Wait a minute,” I said, turning to Jamal, “did you move the steering wheel back?”

  He just stared at me for a seco
nd, with that cliché deer-in-the-headlights look.

  “Jamal…” I said, like a mother who caught her first-grader in the cookies before dinner.

  “Well,” he said, pretending to have something very important going on outside the passenger’s window.

  “Look at me, Jamal,” I said, wishing for the millionth time I could physically touch him.

  He kept staring out the window.

  “When did you figure it out?”

  “Couple of weeks ago.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He just shrugged his shoulder, still looking out the window.

  I sighed. Loudly.

  “All right, let’s go.” I turned the key in the ignition, the engine rumbling as it warmed up. Slowly pulling away, I said, “Next time don’t hide things from me.”

  He didn’t answer, his back still turned to me.

  * * * *

  I dropped my keys and purse on the table, just as the sun peeked its way above the horizon. As I kicked my shoes off, winding my way past all my secondhand furniture, I felt exhaustion taking hold. Great sex—twice—plus the rush of nearly being smashed to death by a semi, equals too much adrenaline and a huge crash.

  “Jamal, if you have something to tell me, you better hurry up, or I’ll be asleep before you can get a word in edgewise.”

  He was nowhere to be found.”

  She yawned again, a glamorously overdone yawn, feeling like a huge lion in the Serengeti.

  “All right, big guy, goin’ once—goin’ twice—“

  “I know why Victoria’s grandmama kept showin’ up.” I couldn’t see him, but he was nearby.

  “Okay—why?”

  “Trevor.”

  I froze in mid-yawn, dropped my arms to my sides, adrenaline suddenly kicking in again.

  “What about—him?” I still felt bad saying his name. Even thinking his name made me feel terrible all over again, like it was just yesterday.

  “Y’know that kid that killed him?”

  Of course I did. After that day in the bank, I followed the case through the newspapers, online, even called the police station and the courthouse for updates a few times, posing as a reporter. Although I never set foot in the courtroom, I knew more about the proceedings than some of the detectives on the case. That’s the beauty of modern technology: spectators seem to know more about crimes and their subsequent legal proceedings than those catching and prosecuting the criminals.