PLAY ON

by Marilynn Halas

  When the door closed, Jake locked it and turned the sign on the door to Closed.

  “Somebody better explain to me what the heck just happened. Where in the world is the miserable guitar that guy really flew all this way to see?”

  August 26, 2011

  It took a week to clear the land and a month to get the permits to build a new house on the other side of the Charles family farm. They decided to build a small cottage with a wrap-around porch that would be perfect for sipping sweet tea and watching the sunset.

  Ever since they started working on it, things were slowly getting better. Clint put Danny’s flag and wrecked dog tags in a shadow box in the new front hall, and he and Sara spent their days working with the horses and their nights working on the house.

  “Mr. Charles? Hi, this is Fred Monroe. I work over here at The Lead Guitar Shop.”

  Clint was delighted to hear from someone at the guitar shop.

  “Hello. I bet you have some good news for me. Is the guitar ready to be picked up?”

  “Not exactly. The thing is, it appears to have been lost in shipping. Mr. Jake sent it to Memphis for a special sealant and now we don’t have it.” Fred felt sick. He hated covering for Jake, but he needed his job. “Sir, I’m really sorry.”

  When Clint put down the phone, he was heartbroken.

  “I can’t believe that fool lost Danny’s guitar! I never should have left it with him. How could I be so stupid?”

  Sara just gave him a hug, and what she whispered into his ear put the whole lousy thing into perspective: “We already lost the most precious part of our lives when Danny was killed. I don’t need a guitar to remind me of our son and neither do you.” With that she sat down and announced that they were going to New York for Christmas.

  “New York City?” Clint was confused.

  “Here’s the thing: Danny always wanted to go there and he never got the chance, so I thought maybe we could go for him.” It made perfect sense; Sara wanted Danny’s dreams to live on.

  September 9, 2011

  Dillon came home and threw his new backpack onto his bed. What a day! School had just started and he was already counting down to Thanksgiving vacation. He had more homework than he knew what to do with, but there was no way he could start yet. He needed to unwind at least a little bit, so he picked up his guitar. He was about halfway through a new song when he screwed up the bridge, again!

  “Man! You think you’re ever gonna make it all the way through?”

  Dillon flew off his bed with the guitar clutched in his white-knuckled hand. “Who said that? Who’s there?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to wait until I say Knock, knock before you ask who’s there? No wonder you can’t get that G7th chord. You’re always moving too fast and getting way ahead of yourself.”

  Dillon was as white as a ghost. Clearly he was losing his mind. “Hearing voices is never a good sign,” he muttered to himself as he slid down his bedroom wall. His heart was racing and he wished he could believe the radio or TV was on, but unfortunately he knew they weren’t.

  “First off, you are not hearing voices. It’s just one voice. I wanted to talk to you, but it took me a while to figure out how. So I’ve spent the last two months figuring it out and then waiting for the right time to talk to you, and you know what? There is no right time for a spirit to start talking to a kid, so I just decided today was your lucky day.”

  “You’re a spirit, as in dead?” Dillon whispered.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

  Dillon started to sweat. In his mind he kept telling himself that he was fine, maybe just a little too stressed or tired, or maybe he just had a crazy imagination, but his brain could not persuade his ears not to listen. That’s when his eyes joined the mutiny. He could feel his fingers loosen their grip on the guitar. It was like he was handing it to someone, but there was no one there. His guitar began to move, and then it began to play. In fact, it wasn’t just playing: it was playing perfectly.

  Dillon watched his floating guitar, and what he saw next had his gut churning and his lungs gasping: the longer the music played, the more clearly Dillon could see a young man materializing. He wasn’t ghostly at all, at least not in the Hollywood way. He wore blue jeans and a red T-shirt. His hair was brown and he had big blue eyes. The only part of him that was hard to see were his fingers, but not because they were translucent or made of some kind of cosmic vapor. They were hard to see because they moved so fast over the strings.

  “If you look real close, you’ll see sparks flying from my finger tips,” he joked as he played. When he was finished, he put down the guitar and began to fade out of sight. “My name is Danny and this used to be my guitar. I guess I just missed it more than I realized, because when I heard you trying to play it, I had to come.”

  Not really up to date on astral etiquette, Dillon stammered, “I’m Dillon, nice to almost meet you.”

  A moment later Danny was gone. Dillon sat down on the bed with a thump. He took a deep breath, willing his heart to return to its usual steady rhythm. Did he really just see what he thought he saw? Hear what he thought he heard? Slowly, he turned his head and gazed at the guitar. The same guitar that had just risen into the air and then was being played by a . . . no, not possible.

  He reached over and grabbed the guitar. “Okay,” he told the instrument, “I’m either schizophrenic, seeing things and hearing voices . . .” Dillon frowned. “Or maybe I’m psychic and really seeing ghosts.” Dillon didn’t know what to think, but he kept coming back to the same two indisputable facts: someone or something put that note in his guitar case, and someone or something had just appeared out of thin air and played his guitar.

  “You’re not crazy or sick or even particularly gifted, as your massacre of that G7th chord has painfully pointed out. No, man, you’re just a normal kid hearing from a normal guy who happens to be dead. Really, this is no big deal from my side.” Danny said in his smooth southern drawl.

  “What are you talking about? Dead is a pretty big deal on any side! And speaking of sides, why the heck didn’t you stay on yours? Isn’t this against the rules or something?”

  Danny began to float back into view and then fade out again. Only his voice remained clear and steady. “By the way, much as I hate to admit it and much as I love teasing you, I think you may have a gift for music, in spite of your abominable chord progression.”

  Dillon decided right then and there, even if this was the first symptom of schizophrenia, he was going to just go with it. Whoever or whatever this guy was, he was funny and friendly and a great guitarist, so as long as no one found out about it, why not? Hanging out with a ghost could be fun. And who knew, maybe he’d learn something too.

  September 11, 2011

  Dillon hated the divorce, he hated 9/11, and he hated the vacant look in his mom’s eyes whenever she talked about her brother, Joe. Dillon couldn’t remember life before the War on Terror, but those who could remember said that 9/11 changed everything. Dillon didn’t know. All he knew was that there was no way to measure the toll taken on that day because some families would live in the aftershock forever.

  Dillon walked to church between his mother and father, a rare occurrence on any day, but nearly unheard of in the five years since the divorce. The tenth anniversary of 9/11 was a tough day in New York City. There were all kinds of memorials and Dillon couldn’t figure out how Mayor Bloomberg could possibly be in so many places at the same time. Dillon didn’t remember much about Uncle Joe, but he knew he had been a firefighter who gave his life on that day, and he knew his mom was never the same again.

  After the service Dillon grabbed his guitar and headed over to the park. He needed to be alone. It was weird to see his parents together and he needed to shake off the strangeness and overall sadness of the day. He sat down on the end of his favorite bench beside the gate. The sun warmed his face and the smell of a hotdog vendor made his stomach growl. As he began to play, he breathed a little easier and soon
he was lost in his music.

  “Man, I hate sad songs.” Dillon was startled to hear Danny talking to him here at the park, but he tried not to show it. “Seriously, don’t you know something else?” Danny asked.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m ignoring you,” Dillon muttered. “This cannot start happening out in public.”

  “And in case you haven’t noticed, you are talking to me, out here in public, looking like a fool sitting on a park bench playing sad songs on my guitar.”

  Dillon and Danny were both startled when a passerby threw a dollar into Dillon’s guitar case.

  “Whoa! Looks like you’ve officially gone pro.” Danny laughed.

  Dillon smiled and started playing again. This time, he decided to sing a little louder. By the end of the afternoon, he had made $82.35. Not bad at all for a kid from New York playing country music in the park. At one point, a man asked him if he wrote the song he was singing. It was an old country song about an unsolved murder. Dillon couldn’t resist the joke.

  “Yeah, I wrote it. Do you like it?”

  “No, I do not!” the stranger replied. “It freaks me out.”

  Dillon could not believe that no one else heard Danny laughing. “It freaks him out? That’s awesome! That means you sang it just about perfect.”

  Dillon started spending all his free time at home playing the guitar. He still saw Tom at school, but he just couldn’t bring himself to talk about the World Series when all he could think about was the ghost in his guitar. And there was absolutely no way he was going to talk to anyone about that. Tom was his usual self, reading Popular Science and trying to look cool with a skinny tie hanging from his skinny neck. “Hey Cowboy,” Tom offered, “let’s hit Coffee Crème after school. I could seriously use a latte.”

  Dillon just shook his head and shrugged, pointing to his earbuds as if he couldn’t hear a word Tom said. Tom would have been furious if anyone else had done that, but Dillon looked so lost that Tom wondered whether Dillon even realized just how weird he was becoming. He spent less and less time with his old friend and more and more time with his old guitar. Dillon’s parents were glad he liked to practice, but they were starting to notice that he was always alone. The thing was, Dillon was never actually alone.

  That night when Danny arrived, Dillon had a question. “Why are you here? I mean, not that I don’t enjoy your company or anything, but why? Heaven must be lame if you’d rather hang out in this place.”

  “Let me tell you something: heaven is ridiculously awesome, I think. Anyway, I’m here because, well, technically I’m not exactly sure why I’m here with you, but I know it's for a good reason.”

  “That sounds lame all right.”

  “Look, I’m a spirit, that’s true, but I never said I was a psychic. I don’t know why I get to be here, or why you can see and hear me. What I do know is that there must be some reason.” Dillon thought that was a wholly unsatisfying answer, but he let it go.

  Dillon and Danny were sitting on Ryan’s couch after school the next day. “Unbelievable!” Danny exclaimed. “I cannot believe you missed that one.” Dillon played the video game as player one, but lately he always had advice from his ghostly wingman.

  “You couldn’t hit that either,” Dillon retorted.

  “Hit it? I would have crushed it!” Now it was Dillon’s turn to laugh.

  Later that night at his mom’s place, he found another note in the guitar case. It made him more than just a little bit nervous, but Dillon reached into the case and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. He flattened the note out by pressing it against his jeans and then held it up to the light. When his eyes wandered from the note back to the guitar, he thought about Danny. Dillon didn’t know why Danny didn’t just talk to him, but he figured that the whole thing was so strange anyway, one more weirdness didn’t really matter. He unfolded the note and saw one word scrawled across the page: Death.

  Dillon’s hand trembled as he held the paper. What kind of note was this? Danny seemed like a nice guy. Why would he send such scary notes? For that matter, why send notes at all? Dillon could see Danny and hear him, so why not just get to the point? Why the drama?

  Dillon hated drama. He hated it during his parents’ divorce, he hated it at school, and he sure as heck hated it in his paranormal encounters. At that moment, he wished he could curl into his mom’s lap and feel safe again. It had been a long time since he felt safe. His parents’ divorce made him feel like a drifter in his own family. In fact, he was literally drifting in between his parents’ homes, rules, and friends, and each place kept a strict border so that the two would never overlap. He had separate wardrobes, games, books, and rules at each house. The only thing that crossed the border with him was this guitar and Danny; and if now Danny was going to go all psycho about it, Dillon was pretty sure he couldn’t bring him along much longer.

  No doubt about it, Dillon would have to confront Danny and find out just what the heck was going on. Remember? Death? Was someone about to die? What did the notes mean?

  Dillon put away the guitar and climbed into bed. His mom was working late as usual and he was too tired to warm up dinner anyway. Dillon fell into a deep and heavy sleep right away.

  “Dillon! Dillon! Wake Up! Can you hear me? Dillon, please!”

  Dillon fell like a brick onto the floor and tried to shake himself awake. He felt groggy and sore. When he could focus his eyes, he felt sick. There was something sticky all over his hands.

  Dillon’s mother knelt beside him on the floor. She examined his hands and looked into his eyes. “You’re a mess. Eyes bloodshot, pupils dilated, but given the darkness of the room, I guess that's to be expected.” Dillon’s mom helped him up, but he couldn’t tell if she was more mad or upset. Dillon’s stomach turned and he felt the room spin. His mother’s tight grip on his arm began to throb as he staggered toward the bathroom. When the lights went on, Dillon gasped. Why were his hands covered in blood?

  “Where does it hurt?” his mother wanted to know as she turned his hands over and examined the other side.

  “I . . . I don’t know, Mom. I know it’s weird, but actually my hands don’t hurt at all.”

  “You mean they’re numb? Do you have any feeling in your arms?”

  “Mom, you don’t understand. My hands aren’t numb. In fact, they feel fine. My hands don’t hurt at all, but where did all this blood come from?”

  Dillon’s mother couldn’t quite decide if she was relieved that his hands were uninjured or horrified about what must be a serious head injury if he really thought he was okay. She slowly walked Dillon over to the bathroom sink. There was no doubt about it; Dillon seemed fine in every way. She turned on the water and put her son’s hands under the tap. As the bloodstains disappeared, Dillon’s flawless hands were revealed. The only injuries he had were the tiny blisters on his fingertips from playing the guitar.

  “Mom?” Dillon’s voice crackled with rising panic. “What’s happening to me?”

  The nurse in Dillon’s mom took over and in her best “It’s not so bad” reassuring tone, she told him to try to relax because everything would be all right soon. She put a salve on his blisters and made him promise to lay off the guitar for a few days. Even though neither one of them believed it, she blamed the blood on the blisters and declared that they must be a lot worse than they looked. Dillon was about to object, but stopped. Maybe the guitar was getting to be a little too much for him. A break from the whole thing might be a good idea after all.

  Dillon tried to remember something about his dream. What little he could remember was more of a feeling than an actual narrative. He had a feeling of overall sadness about time wasted, and he thought maybe Uncle Joe was in the dream, but that was probably just because of all the 9/11 talk all around him. He wished he could remember the details, but it was like trying to catch a bubble: every time he almost had it, the memory just popped and disappeared.

  Dillon flipped on the TV and heard the news blare. “This just in:
Thirty Americans military personnel presumed dead after a helicopter attack outside Kabul, Afghanistan, this morning.” Pictures of fresh-faced soldiers in new uniforms flashed across the screen. One guy reminded Dillon of Danny, and he began to wonder about how Danny died.

  The more he thought about it, the more he realized he didn’t know too much about Danny at all. He knew he was young, a ghost, and a great guitar player. Judging from his southern drawl, he was definitely not a New Yorker, and he seemed like a good guy or ghost or whatever, but Dillon really didn’t know much else about him.

  Now that he was getting notes that would freak out a monster, Dillon wasn’t so sure he could just keep going along for the ride. He needed answers from Danny and he needed them now. He knew what he had to do. Dillon didn’t believe Danny would hurt him, but he had to find out what was happening before things got worse.

  The next morning Dillon was up early. He played the guitar for a full hour before school. Nothing. He called for Danny and he even prayed that Danny would come, but nothing. Tired and frustrated, he went to school. At lunch Dillon’s friend Tom could tell something was wrong, but he didn’t mention it. Things just weren’t the same between them anymore. Dillon tried to catch Tom’s eye, but Tom looked away. “Maybe it’s better that way,” Dillon said mostly to himself. A few months ago he would have walked right up to Tom and within fifteen minutes he would know everything. He would know what Tom had had for breakfast, his weekend plans, and which girl he was hopelessly crushing on, but not now. The sound of the people shouting in the cafeteria reminded Dillon of the fight he and Tom had last week.