by Phoef Sutton
“Where’m I s’posed to go?”
Well, there was an excellent question. “I don’t know exactly.” I glanced to Mrs. Day, feeling terribly ill-equipped for my task. Paul had at least had an idea of what I was talking about. This child didn’t have a clue. What was I supposed to tell her to do? Follow the light? What if there was no light? Take Jesus’s hand? What if the old boy didn’t show? Follow the sweet, beatific smile of her grandmother? What if her grandmother was as crazy a bitch as her mother?
“I like bein’ with Kat’leen,” she said.
“I know you do.”
“I take care of her.”
“You do?”
“Yep. I watch her alla time and take care of her.”
“That’s nice. How come your clothes are all wet, Jellica?”
“I got drownded.”
“You did?”
“Mommy tied me up and put me in the bathtub. Are you cold?”
She must have seen me shudder. “No. I was just wondering why she would do that.”
“So the people in the dark wouldn’t play with me anymore.”
“Jesus.”
“She said it was his idea.”
“Whose idea?”
“Jesus. I don’ like him.”
“I don’t think your mother was telling the truth when she said it was Jesus’s idea.”
She shrugged. “Don’ really matter. How’s come Kat’leen didun’ keep me like she said she would?”
“She tried, she really tried. But she couldn’t. You can’t always do what you want.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Are you mad at her for that?”
“I was. But that was when I was little. I thought she was big so she could do anything. The more I watch her, though, the more I think she’s just really pretty silly. She couldun’ help anybody. But I still like her. That’s why I take care of her.”
“How do you take care of her?”
“I keep her away from bad people.”
“Who are bad people?”
“You’re bad.”
“Why?”
“You play that game. All the boys want to play that game.”
“So you keep her away from boys?”
“That’s one thing. That’s why I brought her here.”
“You brought her here?”
“Sure. I can make her do lots of things, and she doesn’t even know.” She giggled.
“How do you do that?”’
“I can talk to her, and she doesn’t know it’s me talkin’—she thinks it’s her talking.”
“Do you think that’s fair?”
She frowned. “Why not?”
“You keep her alone, don’t you?”
“No. I’m there.”
“She doesn’t have any friends.”
“We don’ need friends. We’re just alike that way. Two peas in a pot, she used to say.”
“You keep her alone.”
“I just keep her away from bad people.”
“Who’s not bad, Jellica?”
“I’m not.”
“I think she’s lonely, Jellica. I don’t think you’re being fair to your friend.”
She glared at me. “You just want to play that game with her.”
“That game is a complicated thing.”
“I’m not listenin’ to you anymore. You’re boring.”
“Kathleen deserves the chance to live her own life.”
“No, she don’t. She’s too silly. She’ll just start getting stupid alla time again.”
“When was she stupid?”
“She would drink that stuff to make her stupid. When I first started watchin’ her, she was stupid alla time.”
“But not anymore?”
“No. I got tired of it. I tol’ her to stop.”
I stared at the child, confused. “You told her to stop drinking?”
“A bunch a’ times.”
“And she did?”
“Yep.”
“That was good. It was good that you did that.”
“I tol’ you I take care of her.”
“You love her, don’t you?”
“That’s a stupid word.”
“You want her to be happy?”
“Sure. She is happy. I’m gonna go.”
“She can’t be happy all alone, Jellica. People aren’t happy when they’re alone.”
“That’s stupid. That don’ make no sense. I was always happy when Mommy left me alone.”
“Not when the bad people came in. At night. Right? You didn’t want to be alone then, did you?”
“Sure, I did. I wanted the people in the dark to leave me alone.”
“Okay.”
“You can’t trick me. I’m not stupid, you’re stupid.”
“But you did want someone to play with.”
“…sometimes.”
“I think that’s how Kathleen feels.”
“She has me.”
“She doesn’t even know you’re there.”
“That’s not true!” Jellica stood up, much bigger in her anger. “She knows! You better go away, that’s all I’m sayin’.”
“You can’t keep her alone forever, Jellica. I won’t let you.”
“You can’t stop me. I can stop you.”
“Jellica, you’re not even there. There’s nothing you can do. You can’t scare me.”
She lowered her face and smiled up at me. “I haven’t tried yet.”
I felt a chill but tried not to show it. “Besides, you don’t really want me to go away.”
“Do too.”
“Then why did you come to see me?”
“I didun’.”
“Did too.”
“I came to tell you to go away.”
“I don’t think so. You came because you want me to see you. It’s nice to have somebody who can see you, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Even Kathleen can’t see you, can she?”
Her lower lip started to tremble just a little. “No.”
“It’s lonely, isn’t it? Not having anybody see you?”
She pulled herself together with an adult toughness. “No. I like it. When people could see me they used to do stuff I didun’ like.”
“They did. That’s true. But not Kathleen. You’d like her to see you, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.” Tears. She looked around to hide them. “Can you make her see me?”
I hesitated. “No, I can’t.”
She gave me a long look. “I don’ like you.”
“But I can see you. And Maggie can, too. Do you like that?”
“Maggie’s okay.”
“And if we leave, if we go away like you say you want, then nobody will see you. What do you think of that?”
“I think you’re stupid.”
“Maybe I am. But why do you think I can see you, Jellica?”
“This is boring. I’m going.”
“I can see you because you want me to help you, and you know I can.”
“I know you’re boring.”
“You’re tired of all this, Jellica. You want to rest.”
“Blah, blah, blah. Stupid liar. I’m tellin’ Kat’leen what a liar you are.”
“Don’t try to threaten me.” Sometimes you have to be tough with a petulant child.
“Can if I want.”
I tried to summon up some of my mother’s sternness. “Jessica Delecourt, you are dead. You are a dead little girl. You are not even here. It’s time for you to stop playing and go where you belong.”
“You’re mean.”
“Fine. Hate me all you want. But you can’t hurt me. You can’t even touch me.”
She screamed. A loud, harsh, screeching sound, like every temper tantrum you’ve ever thrown, to the tenth power. She jumped at me. I fell back from the impact of her wet little body—the sharp sting of her nails digging into my arm, her teeth biting my hand. I struggled against the rough hide of the sofa, tried to pry
her off me, but she clung and kicked and hissed like a frenzied cat. I flung her away, and she was on me again; I shoved her down into the cushion, hearing the springs twang as she flailed, feeling her little shoes kicking my shins, my knees, my balls. I held her down with two hands, pressed my knee into her stomach. She stared up at me, terrible, terrified, spitting anger and fear. Eyes wide and staring at me with all the hate I’d ever seen.
They opened up and swallowed me whole.
I didn’t even fight it; you can’t when you don’t know what you’re fighting. The little girl brought her soul out and smeared it with mine, like a child playing with fingerpaint.
I was in her room. I was in the dark. A lonely dark, but not an empty one. A dark full of threat and promise.
All at once it bore down on me. The dark. The weight. I felt Jellica’s fear. I was Jellica. I felt the crushing powerlessness of a child under the control, under the weight of a man. It was big fear, bigger than anything I’d ever felt, bigger even than the fear I’d felt in the cellar when I’d hidden my children from those evil men. Because it was a fear that held no hope. It was fear that said, “This is the way the world is. These are the rules you will always have to play by.”
The body on top of me was huge and rugged. It pressed down on me with elephantine weight. It touched me with rough fingers, dug at me, shoved at me, split me open with tearing pain.
“I don’ wanna play anymore, Daddy,” I said, Jellica said.
Then the weight told me it loved me.
All at once, the door flew open, and light streamed across me, across us.
“Sammy?”
The weight clambered off me. I started crying, and it started crying, too.
“Are you okay, Sammy?”
Mommy was there now, screaming at me, slapping at me. The weight was gone. and Jellica and I both missed the dark.
“You whore,” Jellica’s mommy was screaming at me, at Jellica, “you little whore, why don’t you leave your father alone!? You littleslutwhore!”
I curled into a ball and wished she’d go away, but she pulled at me, unwound me, dragged me into the bathroom, turned the hot water on again, and I screamed and fought and cried, and I felt so much more fear than I could contain that I prayed for it to burst out from me, to fly away like it did last night in the cellar. But it wouldn’t go away, and it wouldn’t stop building, not even when I felt the wires binding my arms and legs, not even when I felt the steam coming off the water.
It didn’t leave me until she let it.
Until Jellica closed her eyes and released me. I fell back into myself with a wet thud, her fear, her despair, still clinging to my skin like rainfall, like a slug trail to a sidewalk.
I hadn’t moved. My body was still sitting on the horsehair sofa. She was still sitting in her little yoga pose in front of me. Mrs. Day was still sitting across from me, but now she was talking to someone else. I could just make out the indistinct figure of Neil bending over her, looking at me with something like concern. “Are you okay, Sammy?” he was saying. But he was in a different world and didn’t really matter to me now.
I felt Jellica’s hand on mine again, and she spoke quietly, with sympathy. “You all right, Mister?”
“No,” I just managed to say.
“It’s lousy, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s lousy.”
“Now you’re ascared of me.”
“I’m not scared of you, Jellica.”
Neil walked over to me. I could just make him out as he knelt in front of me in the same spot Jellica was sitting. Neither of them seemed to notice.
“Liar. I could do it to you again. I could do it and not stop it,” Jellica said. “I could leave you there as long as I was there, what d’ya think of that?”
“I wouldn’t like that.”
“Then do what I say.”
“You’re not the boss of me, Jellica.”
“Or I could do it to Maggie.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“I could.”
“She’s your friend.”
“She’s your friend.”
“Don’t do that, Jellica. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“You know what my Mommy always says? She always says life’s not fair. And she knows.”
“For Christ’s sake, why don’t you haunt her?”
“I’m goin’ now, this is boring.”
I reached out to stop her, and her eyes caught mine again. I tried to look away, but she caught me, and she sent it at me again. Her fear, her pain, her smallness, her helplessness, her hate. It rushed through me and sent me reeling, toppling off the sofa and into Neil’s arms.
“Jesus, Sammy, what’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’m scared,” I was just able to answer.
TWENTY
I stared at the lack of bite marks on my hand in dull amazement. I could still feel Jellica’s little teeth biting me, but they’d left no trace, no wound at all.
I didn’t speak, hadn’t spoken since Neil picked me up off the floor. I looked up at my friend, but all I could see was his watch and the hairs on his broad wrist working their way through the metal band. Mrs. Day was next to him, but she was just the slightly bulging fold of the waistband of her jeans. My vision seemed to have narrowed to tiny details, and I couldn’t find the power to zoom out and see the whole of anything.
“Atter. Am. Kay?” That was Neil’s voice, but coming at me in fragmented half-words, like a cell phone in a drop zone.
I looked up at Neil’s face, which was an odd collection of pores and hairs and lines and eyes. I opened my mouth, but that trick of being able to speak actual words seemed a distant memory.
“All. Ight.” That was Mrs. Day’s voice, saying something comforting to Neil. All. Ight. Put it together, I told my sluggish brain. All right, I guessed. Sure, she’s telling Neil that I’ll be all right. Well, that was good news. I wondered if she meant it.
Neil’s shoes scudded on a carpet that was red and swirly. The carpet separated itself from Neil’s feet and jumped up, doing that little flying trick from an old Thief of Bagdad movie.
Now, where do I know that carpet from? I wondered as I watched it dance for me. Not in the barn; the barn had a rough wooden floor. I could still picture little Jellica sitting on it in her wet dress. Little Jellica I could see all of—she didn’t break up into little Cubist bits and pieces and dance around like everything else; she stayed whole and complete and still in my mind. She was the only real person in the world.
But the carpet, Sammy, I told myself, the carpet is real. You know it. You’ve seen it before. And that’s where you really are. In some room with a red carpet. Though it felt like an abstraction, I knew it was important for me to know where I actually was. There was a theory formulating in my foggy brain that this reality place was where I was supposed to spend most of my time.
“Atter. Ih. Im?” This was Neil, talking again. Now, let’s try and guess what those sounds mean, I told myself, thinking it sounded like a fun way to pass the time. “Atter.” Matter. Of course. “What’s the matter with him?” There. And once I filled in the missing syllables, I could hear Neil say the whole sentence. This was very good news. It meant I could follow conversations, even though it might be at a several-minute delay. My future was looking much brighter.
Now there’s the matter of answering, I thought, remembering that this was a pretty important part of the conversation deal. I opened my mouth. Nothing came out, but only partly because I couldn’t remember how to speak and mostly because Neil and Mrs. Day were looking at me in such surprise. I wondered how long I’d been sitting there, silent, motionless. Had years passed? Had the new century come? Was one of George Bush’s children President?
“Am? Ah. I-it?” This was Neil again. His brow was wrinkled and the one eye of his I could see looked full of concern. Put the words together, I told myself. And pull back so you can see the guy’s whole face. I concentrated, feeling my features distort with the effort, a
s if I was trying to solve Fermat’s Theorem or paint the Sistine Chapel. Neil’s round, red, worried face started to put itself together before my eyes. “Sam? What is it?” I heard the words he’d spoken seconds or minutes before; I saw his complete face. Seeing that face, hearing his voice; it was such a miracle, such a simple wonder that it brought tears coursing down my face.
I blinked, feeling embarrassed at the whole scene. Neil can’t see me cry, I thought. Crying and Neil just don’t go together.
“Jesus, what the hell’s the matter with him?” Neil was saying to Mrs. Day, clear and loud and coherent. Her face was all put together, too, but it didn’t look nearly as worried as Neil’s. Even as I tried to suck back the tears I found that comforting. She was supposed to be the expert here, after all. If she wasn’t so worried, why should I be?
I gasped, trying to stifle the sobs that came out of me with a body-shaking force I hadn’t felt since childhood.
“I’m…oh…kay…,” I heard myself croak. It startled me to hear my own voice, so dull and stupid sounding, so broken by tears.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Neil asked. It was comforting to hear him swear; somehow it took the solemnity out of the situation.
I shut my eyes and held my breath, trying to kill the crying as if it were a bad case of hiccups. My chest settled itself, and I opened my eyes again. The forms and colors of the real world rushed in at me like oncoming traffic. God, it’s beautiful, I thought, so real, so living. I felt the tears again; my heart burst with gratitude at being able to come back into this glorious place. I wasn’t embarrassed at having Neil see me cry now; it was just so fucking wonderful to be part of this spook-less world. I searched for words to express the depth of my feelings.
“Hi, Neil,” I said. And I meant every word.
Neil looked even more appalled than before. “What the hell has he been doing?” He was talking to Mrs. Day again, clearly blaming her for the fact that his good friend was suddenly weeping and grinning and talking like Forrest Gump.
“He’ll be all right, Neil,” Mrs. Day said, and she sounded so sincere I just wanted to hug her and kiss her. God, she was beautiful when she said I would be all right.
“I’m okay, Neil,” I said, my words still slurred and dopey. “It’s just…I do, I do, I do believe in spooks.” I said this in my best Bert Lahr, and it struck me as not just a little funny, but full-blown, gut-busting, Three Stooges funny. I laughed so hard, snot joined the tears flowing down my face.