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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
My cousin took the ramp onto 610, accelerated onto the freeway and sifted over one lane, letting traffic drift into place around us. He drove like a man who drove a lot. His shoulders were high and tight and he kept shaking his head. The wipers made their tired heartbeat sound, squeak-chonk, squeak-chonk. We headed east, pouring down the freeway, me staring through the side window as the lights streamed by, apartment blocks and billboards.
"Hey, Will. How long since you've been back to Deer Park?"
"Not long enough." I thought of Uncle Billy, his blind eyes sliding off of mine. I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
It's harder to tell the living from the dead at night, and harder to tell the ghost roads from the real ones. There weren't many ghost roads in Deer Park when I was a kid -- not like they have them in Galveston, say, or over in the Fourth Ward -- but I saw at least one every time I rode the bus to school. They don't stay put, though. One day there might be a long gray alley stretching out behind the 7-Eleven. Everything in it would be in black and white, real sharp and clear so you could read the grain of the cement, or pick out the shadowy pits in the telephone poles and see the rusting staples where old flyers used to be. But the next time I went in for a Slurpee, the alley would be just normal again, with crows on the telephone wires and red-and-white Coke cans tangled in the hedges.
I never walked down a ghost road myself, not even when Josie left me. There are some places we just aren't meant to go.
Hanlon said, "A ghost can't actually hurt you, can it? She can't actually...you know. Touch me."
"Most ghosts don't. But they can still scare you to death. You ever hear about those people who think they're Jesus? They believe it so hard that nail-holes open up in their hands." AJ had told me about that. "I knew this guy once who was haunted by a dead girl," I said. "She kept trying to slash him with a switchblade. At first he couldn't feel anything, but after a couple of weeks, these cuts started opening up on his skin."
Hanlon stared. "My God. What did you do?"
"Got him a box of Winnie the Pooh Band-Aids."
"Like hell."
"They weren't bad cuts. Once he realized he could take the worst she had to dish out, and fix it with a Piglet Band-Aid, he got less and less afraid, and she did less and less damage."
Hanlon gave a little choked laugh. "I guess that's why they pay you the big bucks."
Amber taillights fled along the highway in front of us. I asked one of the questions I always ask the haunted. "What did you want to be when you grew up, Tom?"
"Spy." Hanlon grinned self-consciously. "I wanted to be a secret agent. American James Bond. This was when I was maybe eleven or twelve. Spring-loaded Walther PPK. Microcamera. Stealing secrets from the Russians to save America. Very hush-hush. Nothing in the papers, no appearances on TV. Handshake from the President. Fast car."
Big dreams, small life. Loner. Haunted. Well that's just great, I thought. He's a fucking Cobain.
Generally speaking, I divide peopleliving and deadinto five groups:
1) Buddhas
2) Tell-Tale Hearts
3) Cobains
4) (Jack the) Rippers
5) Zombies
I use the rating scale two ways. First, to identify what kind of ghost I have to reckon with. If someone is being haunted by a guilty conscience, that's a Tell-Tale Heart. A mom who let her kid drown in a swimming pool, for example. If you can get her through the worst of the guilt, the ghost will stop coming.
I also use the scale on living people, judging how likely they are to return after death. Buddhas never come back: they have their shit together and they keep their accounts in order. The Buddha said, Desire is the root of all suffering. So if you don't want to suffer, all you have to do is stop wanting anything. That's the part that gives me trouble.
Cobains are a funny bunch. They brood to the point of obsession. They mix guilt and bitterness. They nearly always feel betrayed, by lovers or parents or life, and especially by themselves. They tend to be introverts with a need to act out: clowns, lady poets, vengeful suicides. Spy -- that was perfect. A perfect Cobain.
