Pennies for the Ferryman - 01

by Jim Bernheimer

  A cold shiver ran down my spine as I read the article. It was probably the first real bit of sheer terror I’d felt since combat and I can assure you it hasn’t been the last. I knew exactly where I had been at that moment. A corpsman was wheeling my battered body across the tarmac at Dover Air Force Base. That was probably the exact moment I had returned to American soil.

  When Mom got home, I turned down leftover pizza and told her that I wasn’t feeling well – not a big stretch! I was restless that night. It was a lot like those nights in Iraq, or Germany, or Walter Reed, while I was healing. Back then, a feeling of hopelessness crushed me - my prospects were pretty bleak - but this time it was dread -- cold clammy dread. Was I some kind of freak? I considered not using my drops and hoping my eye would reject the cornea.

  I should have been jumping for joy, right? I’d just seen proof of life after death – the eternal question and all that jazz. I was scared; scared like riding in a Hummer waiting for something bad to happen. I thought about a bad movie I’d watched once and concluded that I didn’t like seeing dead people.

  At some point, I must have passed out from restless exhaustion. When Mom woke me up, I could smell the coffee and nicotine on her breath as she kissed my forehead. Of course, I probably smelled like cold sweat and body odor, so let’s call it a draw.

  Stumbling through my morning routine, I prayed that the stuff I’d read last night was a bad dream. I had no desire to speak to the mental health “professionals” any time soon – not after that dumb bitch working off her ROTC scholarship at Walter Reed gave me my mandatory psychological counseling for my war injuries. She might as well have read from a damn form letter! The military docs were all right, but I’ll be hanged if I can figure out where they get their psychologists.

  Unfortunately, what notes I had on Darren were still there. It had been a nice delusion while it lasted. I doubted that I’d run into Jenny that day. Our next class together wouldn’t be until next Tuesday. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I looked in the Yellow Pages, stopping short of actually copying down the address for a nearby psychic reader. My gut instinct told me that if someone actually had any talent like that, they sure as hell wouldn’t be listed in the phone book here in suburbia.

  Trying to decide what to do, I finally came to the conclusion that I should prove that this wasn’t a fluke. I could track down Jenny, but her little friend didn’t exactly seem like “Casper the Friendly Ghost.” That meant I probably needed to find someone to talk to. Well, there was one person I wouldn’t mind seeing again.

  All Souls Cemetery in Germantown wasn’t my favorite place. Cemeteries in general have always given me the creeps. Now, I understood why. The man sitting on the ground next to the headstone – twin headstones reading Warren and Melanie Majors – looked as if he was in his early sixties. His wool suit was a little heavy for the warm weather. He stood and greeted me with a wave as I came up to the plot.

  I hadn’t come to visit Grandpa’s grave recently. In fact, the last time I’d come up here was that week of leave shortly before my unit shipped out. I tried to ignore the fact that I could now see Grandpa Warren plain as day.

  In a way, when Grandpa passed, it was the start of bad times for the Ross household. After his estate had been settled, there was enough money in the bank that a week later dear old Dad emptied the account and decided to make a fresh start for himself, without his wife and son. If I ever catch up with Mr. David Michael Ross, Senior, last known residence Phoenix, Arizona, I’ll have to decide if I’ll spit in his face before or after I beat the shit out of him. Want to really get me going? All you have to do is call me David, Dave, Davey, or especially Junior. It sickens me to no end that I share that SOB’s name.

  I looked around to make sure no one was close, before I looked him straight in the face. “Hello, Grandpa. You’re pretty blurry, but I can see you standing right there.”

  The ghost in front of me seemed excited and started mouthing words at me, but I couldn’t make anything out.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t see you well enough to make out what you’re saying, but it’s good to see you again!” I could tell he was smiling as I held my hand out to him.

  When he gripped it, it felt like I was getting an electric shock. It was painful! Almost painful enough to make me ignore that it felt like I was really shaking his hand.

  “Damn good to see you too, Michael.”

  Stung, I let go, but not before hearing his faint greeting. I looked again and his mouth was still moving, but I couldn’t hear him anymore. There’s nothing like pain to really drive home how surreal a situation can be.

  “I could hear you when we touched, but it hurt. Let’s have a seat and we’ll try it again.” Seemed like there actually was an explanation for all those “phantom” pains I experienced in hospitals. Now I really never wanted to set foot in Walter Reed again. I didn’t even want to think about what I might see.

  Sitting on the ground, I tentatively reached out for him again, just barely touching his index finger with the tip of mine. This time the feeling was like someone stepping on my hand – painful, but tolerable.

  “Can you hear me now?”

  Despite the pain, I almost laughed, but knew he probably wouldn’t get the reference. Grandpa never could stand television advertising.

  “Yeah, how are you?”

  “Dead. Bored. Lonely. Take your pick. Mostly, I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Why? Are you stuck or something? Where’s Grandma?”

  “I’ve been waiting and hoping to talk to you. You’ve got a real gift. I need you to tell your mom that I’m sorry for being so hard on her. I was wrong and too stubborn to admit it. You give her that message and I know that I can go on and finally see Mel again.”

  “It’s not just this guy’s eye?”

  “No. You might not remember, but when you were four, you used to come over to the house, and you’d play with your imaginary friends. One day, you came into the house and were singing a little song. I’d always thought that your mom taught it to you, but no. It was Mel trying to send a message to me – letting me know she was still around.”

  Not a lot of memories left in the old noggin circa age four. I just shook my head at him. There was a nice breeze blowing through the park. I tried to focus on it instead of the feeling that someone had my finger in a vise.

  Digesting that, I asked, “And what do I do with it? Go give ghost tours? Be Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost?”

  “Whoopi who? No need to get short with me, young man! You’ve got a special gift. Far as I know, you don’t gotta do nothing with it. You could just ignore it and put that eye patch back on, or you could be some kind of angel of mercy and help people out. If you’re a no-good mercenary bastard like your dad, I reckon you could help the ones who’re willing to pay you.”

  Give Warren Majors some credit; when he was alive, he’d hidden his dislike for my dad pretty well. During his life, he’d been an electrician and a union man first, last and always. From what I remember, he believed in doing right by people and in the value of hard work. He also expected to get paid for that hard work.

  I kept switching hands so we could talk. Little red welts and blotches were starting to develop on my fingers. I kept trying to get him to explain what it’s like on the ‘other side’, but he just shrugged and said that it’d be like explaining sight to a blind man and that was only the in-between. Even he didn’t know what was next. After the fourth time, he cut me off and said not to bother asking any more questions about what it’s like. We talked of other things, like what he could do and what he couldn’t do, for the next few minutes. Then, we talked about me and my life. He wanted to know if I was happy, and when I told him I wasn’t, he asked what I intended to do about it.

  “Well, that’s what you need to figure out, Michael. Listen, most of us departed can only hang out so long. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, but I managed to last long enough to deliver my message to you. I can move on now and go find my
wife and find out what really is next.”

  “What about the ones who are haunting someone? There’s this girl in my class…”

  Grandpa Warren just started howling with laughter. I let go, seeing as I wasn’t likely to be getting any information anytime soon.

  “Sorry! I don’t really get a chance to have a good laugh out here. There’s always a girl involved, isn’t there? Well, the ones that won’t go away, they done latched on to somebody or something. Getting rid of one of them is tricky business. You either have to destroy or bury the object they’re anchored to, or the person has to free themselves. Is the ghost bothering the girl?”

  “Yeah, you could say that.” I explained what the ghost was doing to Jenny.

  “Well, you can touch me right? Pick up that stick there. Now, poke me in the leg. Nope, just passes through. Kick me with your foot. Damn! Not so hard! So, I can feel your shoe, but not a stick in your hand. I suppose you could beat the tar out of him and convince ‘em to go away.”

  “Her,” I corrected.

  “You shouldn’t hit a woman, Michael – dead or not, it’s not right. I was going to recommend you get yourself a nice set of brass knuckles, but I don’t want to hear nothing bout you hitting no woman! You were raised better than that! You’re gonna have to convince that girl to free herself.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?” I didn’t want to offend his sensibilities. After all, the woman was already dead!

  “Well that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it? You just gonna have to figure that one out. Looks like I’m done here.”

  Sounding like some cheap movie extra, I said, “Wait! Don’t go! I have more questions!”

  “There are plenty of people who can answer them – but not me. My time’s up. If you ever manage to convince your mother that you can do this, tell her how proud I am of her. I shoulda told her that more often when I was alive.”

  He paused for a moment and chuckled, “She’s pretty grounded in the here and now, so I reckon you’re in for an uphill battle on that one, but she might come around one day. You can mention that I never did punish her for stealing that fifty dollars from me when she was sixteen. I’ll bet she’ll remember that. Take care of yourself, Michael. Hey, see that woman over that way with that big guy jumping up and down next to her screaming ‘The money is in the attic!’ I think you’ve got your first customer.”

  I couldn’t hear anything but my Grandpa speaking, but as I looked over at what he was talking about and a sensation passed over me. It was like holding a rope and feeling it go slack. Spinning back, he was gone.

  For a brief moment, I was again that startled preteen, who’d just lost his grandfather. Rarely would anyone catch me admitting it, but that was the point that my life hit rock bottom. The bastard listed under the father block of my birth certificate ran off right after that and ever since, it’s been a long climb out of debt and poverty for mom and me.

  Swallowing the sudden hurt, I stood and started towards the young black woman crying by a graveside. A portly man was standing next to her looking both ashamed and exasperated. Meanwhile, I was trying to think of a scenario that wouldn’t end with her calling the police.

  “Excuse me miss, but I think I can help.”

  “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “My name’s Mike. I want to help.”

  “Great! I don’t know how much more help I can stand from you damn crackers! You’re already about to take my house. What the hell else do you want from me?”

  I pointed down to my ripped jeans and faded shirt. “Do I look like The Man? Do I have a three piece suit? Am I carrying a briefcase, wearing a tie? I don’t think so. I see a big fat dude looking like he’s throwing a fit and trying to tell you something.” I looked at the headstone and turned to the ghost next to her. “I assume you must be Lamont? Come on over here, Lamont, and let me touch you.”

  Lamont looked as shocked as his daughter did, but did as I asked. “Now hold out your hand. Let’s see if this works.” I brush his fingertips and feel a sharp stab of pain. “Ow! Damn, that hurts. Start talking!”

  “Tell Denise the money’s in the attic! There’s an old suitcase on the bookshelf. It’s got some old cigar boxes in it. The money’s in there.”

  “How much?” I skipped the whole moral dilemma thing. I didn’t plan on cheating people, but I’d be damned if I was just going to give it away! Even ‘Angels of Mercy’ have to eat.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. You think I’m just going to stand here and let you shock the shit out of me for free? I want a finder’s fee, or I walk. How much money is there?”

  He hesitated. “Eight large.”

  “Lamont here says there’s a stash of money in the house. He says it’s ‘eight large’, I’ll tell you where it is, but I’m expecting a finder’s fee. Say five hundred?”

  Denise took some convincing, and it took several more jarring discussions going back and forth with Denise asking Lamont a question, and me getting the answer, before she agreed to my terms, but I eventually found myself sitting on her porch and waiting for her to come back down from the attic.

  I heard the deadbolt click and lock the door. “Hey! What gives?” The mail slot opened and a fifty dollar bill slid out.

  Through the door she said in a menacing voice, “That’s all you’re getting! Now get your skinny white ass off my porch before I yell out to the brothers on the corner and have them come beat the shit out of you.”

  Considering I was a white guy in the middle of an all-black neighborhood, things didn’t look promising. “Fine, I’m leaving, but I can tell you that Lamont’s not happy with you.”

  “Don’t you dare talk about my daddy! I should pop a cap in you right now! You start walking or I start shooting.”

  Lamont stepped through the door. He was laughing and pointing at me. I grabbed his arm. “What the hell was that all about?”

  He smiled a feral grin at me and taunted me with a wagging finger. “Tough break, whitey! She’s upstairs right now with fifteen large! I never did like your kind no how! Now go on and get outta here!”

  I punched Lamont hard, driving my hand into his gut and throwing him down the steps. My hand really stung, but the ghost actually looked hurt. Grandpa was right; brass knuckles might be a good option. With one hand clutching his gut, he started to fade from view, but not before flipping me off.

  Walking towards the nearest bus stop with not much to show for all this, I thought about the lesson that Denise and Lamont had just taught me – get my cash up front and don’t expect gratitude. I considered mentioning Denise’s windfall to the surly dudes hanging out on the corner, but I guessed I’d come out ahead, just not as far as I would’ve liked.

  I still had twenty dollars left by the time I ran into Jenny again. I’d told Mom I’d done a few “odd jobs” (I just didn’t want to tell her exactly how ‘odd’) and gave her thirty bucks towards groceries. Jenny and I were eating at the poor man’s haven – Taco Bell. Ten dollars there equals dinner for two plus change.

  I endured all kinds of questions about my time in Iraq. No, things weren’t as good as the politicians wanted you to believe, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the press said either.

  “So now you’ve heard all about me. Tell me something about you.”

  “Well, I live with my aunt and uncle. My dad’s a colonel in the Army. He’s in South Korea right now.”

  “What about your mom?” I knew the answer already.

  “She died a few years ago – car accident. My parents split when I was eleven and she took me back to Roanoke, which is why I still sound like a hick. After she died, I went to live with my dad at Fort Benning, but he’d already gotten the tour in Korea and if those orders got cancelled…”

  “The next set would have read Iraq,” I finished for her. I did Advanced Infantry Training at Benning. I wondered if our paths might have crossed back then. She’d have been jail bait at the time since she was barely
legal now.

  “Yeah, so I moved in with Dad’s older sister and I do my best not to wreck their house.”

  “I’m sorry about your mom.”

  A dark expression crossed her face. “Don’t be. She was a hateful woman. She bled my dad dry and did her best to turn me against him. The only reason she even fought for custody was so she wouldn’t have to work any more. I’m still ashamed of her. Oh, hell! Sorry about that, Mike. I didn’t mean to spill my drink everywhere. Here, let me get some napkins.”

  I didn’t need to pull back the eye patch to know what just happened, but I did anyway. Her mother was glaring at her.

  “No worries. I’ll get you a refill and we can change the topic.” I didn’t see the need to make the spirit angrier. I suspected that fighting with a ghost in the middle of a fast food restaurant would go over real well on the evening news. Despite my best efforts as a teenager, my police record was still clean and I intended to keep it that way.

  Frowning, Jenny looked down at the stain all over her skirt. “I need to go change. Fortunately, I live within walking distance.”

  “Want company?”

  “Are you hitting on me?” she asked, slightly curious.

  “For now, just call me friendly.” I couldn’t exactly tell her that we should go someplace private so I could interrogate the ghost haunting her, now could I?

  She seemed to not mind the idea of an older guy hitting on her, and she agreed, although she did make an excuse to call her aunt to let her know she was with Mike Ross, that guy from her English class.

  Great! If the ghost decides to hurt her, I wonder who will end up taking the blame.

  Her aunt’s townhouse was a nice upscale one – probably worth a pretty penny these days. I weighed the options while I waited for her to change. Beating around the bush with her seemed like a good option, except I’d be leaving her with “Mommy Dearest.” I finally had a name for her though, after spotting a framed wedding invitation on the wall for Allen Goodman and Rose Carter.