Hold the Light (18 page)

Anyway, I figured he was trying to be different and draw attention to himself while actually saying that they don't care about the attention. I finished that thought and stared at my apple. I rolled it over in my hands and went to take a bite. A gush of wind brushed by my face and my apple flew from my hand and it wobbled through the damp grass.

"Are you following me? Do I owe you money?" The man in the black coat demanded.

"No, I was wondering who you are?" I replied rather plainly.

"What are you after?" He accused.

"Just what I said before," I stubbornly pressed. "Stupid curiosity. I've never seen you around before."

"I am Randy and I do not like to be bothered," he offered.

"I'm George and I like bothering," I probed, realizing that he may not be the rebel jackass I had pegged him to be.

"Well, in that case," Randy cocked his head with a curious look at my apple and kicked it between his feet. "Give me a smoke and I will be happy to talk to the first person to approach me instead of turning away."

I handed him a cigarette and we talked and smoked on that bench for hours and began our friendship like we were boys. It started up that quick. We sat and talked about our similarities and differences and what our backgrounds were. I told him I originally hailed from outside Boston and planned on moving to the city when I graduated. He wanted to move there also, but never talked about school with great frequency or seriousness or his past. After we got to know each other, I often pried about what he wanted to do with his life, but he always said that he was at college just to see if there was anything different. He never seemed to have a problem paying for school and I often wondered if he was even enrolled. Randy never really had a problem with paying for anything, attributing that to his wise saving habits over all these years. All these years ...he was in his late twenties, like me, but always talked about the past like it spanned for decades. I just wrote it off as one of his quirks.

Most of our time though was spent in college splendor. We went to parties and even Jessica came to like him, though she swore she wouldn't. A stubborn one she was, if you ask me.

Randy and I would always seemed to find our way into a little skirmish, but would back each other up. These were often in response to doing stupid tricks to impress women after I lost Jessica, to restore my ego back to almost indestructible. Randy never really needed much help with his life. He seemed to have everything figured out and that made me want to figure out life as well.

It was strange to me that a man the same age as me had his life figured out. He knew what he wanted for himself and was only at college for the fun of it. Or so he said. But that was his business and I never worried about it. Sarcastically, Randy said he was well off, and that was the only thing that he told me about himself that I didn't have trouble believing.

I think Randy was about the same age as me but I was never sure. I never felt like asking him, I just assumed, it just never seemed that important.

We became the best of friends and that was what was important.

Chapter 31

We lived in a time I liked to call the Syntax Era, in which the computer language spilled off all our tongues. Abbreviations, acronyms, and all kinds of slang came out of our mouths but Randy, on the other hand, was a straight talker. He never used cliches or talked like a computer nerd. Nothing that resembled less than perfect English came from his mouth and that was the way he liked it. Erudite like the people of years past, he seemed out of place in the late twentieth century.

Whatever he hid about his past was wrapped up so tightly in his mannerisms that even air couldn't enter or escape. No man I had ever known was able to outrun his past, except Randy, it appeared. I have seen him as sober as a nun and drunk as a wino, but he always appeared genteel. I also understood that some things he might have left for the right time to tell me. So I waited.

There were times when something would haunt him with convulsive shivers, as a distant look seized him. I would see him suck into those moods most often when college let out for vacations or holidays and Randy would come home with me.

As I drove us home, many miles outside the city, we'd pass through a small town that was surrounded by nothing much else than grasslands. Waves of eternal green as far out as the horizon. Randy would stare out the window, never allowing a thing to break his concentration.

With my driving, the world sped past the window in streaks of yellow and green, but he always watched one house pensively. The shack he eyed was meekly carved out of the massive overgrowth, floating like driftwood in a green sea. His head remained fixed on the decrepit house as we passed it, following it with his eyes until it disappeared.

On the last trip home, right before my mother's funeral, Randy spoke up before we reached the rickety old house.

"Would you stop at that house for me?"

"What is it Randy? Why do you look at it?"

"Please, could you just stop there?"

I pulled up and parked under the lone maple tree planted in the center of the yard. The lot reeked of abandonment but the air smelled clean and crisp. The front of the house drooped like a sullen brow. The only thing that held the porch upright it seemed was the house's resolve. The foot-high grass was patchy and somewhat dry, growing out in small colonies within the gravel driveway. The shingles had rained off the roof into small piles around the house and the chipped brown paint might as well have been the only load bearing support left, but the dilapidation was no deterrent.

Randy stepped in and walked with care. I watched him, from the distance, pass the large picture window before I followed him inside. Everything in the house creaked even when we weren't walking. Low moans came from the floorboards and ceilings as Randy glided his fingers across the abandoned furniture. With sealed lips and enthralled eyes, Randy had some esoteric conversation with the walls. They comforted him with some all-encompassing feeling from his past. I felt bad for him as he wandered the place. He looked as lost as the old, broken-down house.

"What do you see in this dump?" I asked Randy.

His hands ran along the wall and paint crumbled off. He poked a finger at a drawer and it fell. Everything he handled broke. I kept my hands to myself.

We passed carefully through the kitchen to the back door. Randy pushed the white door open revealing acres of land. Below a vast sky, there was green and inviting grass all about. Scattered ruins of an old barn sat like a lump in the distance but it was no more than a skeleton. Randy held onto the doorknob as I sneaked past him, off the small porch, damn near tripping on an old rusting tricycle.

"Why did we stop here?" I asked wanting to leave before the house caved in or some locals showed up.

Randy was about to speak when the doorknob rattled in his hand and his face clouded over. His eyes were as clear as stone. He stood there for a moment then snapped awake and looked at me.

Towering black clouds dropped from the heavens and a storm rolled in. Thin strips of lightning shot from the gloom and quickly beheaded the peaceful sky. The day went from pure blue to ominous black very quickly.

We both stood on the porch and watched. I glanced over at Randy for a brief second and looked back again. His jaw had dropped and his eyes were wide. I looked out into the field to where he was fixated but there was nothing but oncoming rain. The static charge in the air tickled my hair. I began to worry.

Another flash of lightning flared and I finally saw what he saw. As the heavens dumped rain miles away in heavy sheets, the lightning showed us a silhouette. I had to rub my eyes. I looked back at Randy, but he didn't budge an inch. Thunder followed and I jumped with the noise, losing the silhouette, half-believing I never even saw it in the first place. The lightning picked up in intensity and with each burst, I could see the shadowy figure again. And each time it came closer. I couldn't distinguish any features on the face. The sky was as dark as it could be. The ghostly person floated our way without moving a leg, gracefully gliding along the emerald grass. Another flash of light revealed long hair curling in the wind. She was dark no matter how much light was produced, and didn't look real. She appeared more like a pencil drawing.

Flashes rapidly multiplied and the silhouette came even closer. I was scared stiff. The lightning created a strobe effect on the woman and it entangled me completely as I watched her features appear. She had come within thirty feet of us.

She was strangely beautiful, macabre with a dark serenity. I wanted to say something but the air around me was still and wouldn't move into my lungs. Pure like a memory, as if the atmosphere was my skin extended for a moment, I felt like the electric charge of the storm under my skin. The charge activated my senses and I inhaled. The air smuggled panic back inside of me and I was poised to run. Fear warned me that the approaching woman was a ghost and my common sense screamed it wasn't worth staying there to find out. My arm darted out and pulled on Randy. Trying to move him was like towing tons. I pleaded and yelled for him to move, but he barely swayed. The dulcet figure, enchanting Randy, closed to within fifteen feet when I sent a kick to the back of his knee. His weight stuttered and I caught him.

"Let's go," I barked as I dragged him away.

"But ...it's her," he pleaded, reaching out for her.

With my hands locked around his chest, I pulled his body as I walked backwards around the outside of the house like a mother pulling her kid through a toy store.

"We need to go back now. We need to," Randy said hysterically as I lugged him towards the car. He had no strength to fight me.

"I don't care," I mumbled tossing him into my passenger side. I slammed the door and the clouds let the rain loose as I drove off into the downpour.

On the entire drive home, he never looked anywhere but back and out the window.

Chapter 32

When we got home, my mother was ailing. Her face was ineffable. I prayed she'd make some show of emotion or at least crack a smile at dinner, but her eyes were glazed and her face was pale. I hoped she would fill with vigor after a night of sleep, but at breakfast she carried her tiny body awkwardly, limbs pendant as she struggled to raise a spoon to her thin lips.

"You boys headin' back soon?" she asked with the slightest smile.

Randy cracked his traditional smirk whenever she called us boys.

I spoke quickly, "No, Mom. I wanna stay with you."

"Yes, we would love to stay in your company," Randy added.

"Absolutely not boys, I won't have it," she said with the only fervor she showed our whole visit.

"Mom wait ..."

"I said no, dammit," she raised her voice, "You need to do well and not worry about me. I'm the mom. I'm supposed to worry about you, not the other way around."

I stood and took our plates to the kitchen as Randy and she talked. I returned and we talked for a couple of hours then left, on schedule but off kilter. The last thing I wanted to do is leave her alone at home but it was worse to get her all riled up. My goodbyes to my mother were long and emotional. We drove halfway home in silence as Randy pondered and I worried. I couldn't stand the quiet for long so I broke the silence.

"Randy?"

"What?"

"What about your family?"

"What about them?"

"Exactly. I don't know anything."

"I have a sister named Betsy."

"How old?" I asked with an excitement that I was actually getting some information.

"She is the youngest, but she is getting so old."

"Where's your family at Randy?"

"Around here."

"Well let's visit them," I said cheerfully, "I wanna meet them."

His lips pursed and a trembling hand covered his mouth. "All of them but Betsy are dead," he stated coldly and reluctantly.

I stopped questioning. Thoughts of my mother dying flooded into my mind and I could barely hold in the tears. The last thing I wanted to do was remind Randy of his losses. Angry images of my father popped into my head. I cursed him and drove on in silence.

Chapter 33

On an unseasonably warm spring morning, a day and a half after I visited home, I woke to the ringing of the phone. The sun heated my bedroom as I crossed in front of the window. I cleared my eyes and groggily answered.

"Boy," an effeminate voice said. I needed a couple of seconds to realize it was my mom's brother, Uncle Bill.

"Yeah," I answered still half asleep.

"Boy, I don't know how to tell you this..." he said sibilantly.

His lisp always annoyed me. As he spoke, I could see his fat jowls bouncing with his labored speech. Corpulent everywhere, his breathing was heavy in person but much more arduous over the phone. In all my experiences Bill came around for only one thing, money, but there was something genuinely turbulent humming deep within his throat, alerting me to a real problem.

"Your ma, her sickness yeah, well ...she's not gonna make it," Uncle Bill's voice crept with a sob, "Come home now."

I hung up immediately, told Randy and we both left.

The drive was dead silent. Randy seemed jittery.

We arrived at my mom's house late. Cars lined the driveway and people lined the hallway. I could see it in all of my relatives' eyes that my mother had died before a word was spoken. Amber had found her lying in her bed, quiet and still, just an hour or so before I arrived. I went straight into my old room and spoke to no-one. I didn't want to mourn or cry; I just wanted to sit. People came into my old room and asked me questions. I could see their lips moving, but I understood nothing. All I realized was that Randy was sitting on the bed next to me. My brain cataloged not a single shred of input until the day of her wake.

On that day, my senses devoured every detail. Amber, Randy, and I sat in the front row of seats at the funeral home. Rows and rows of relatives filled the space behind us. There were so many huge bouquets of flowers arranged around the casket that the room's white paint had no choice but to reflect all the reds and yellows. It was so bright it hurt. Tears stung my dry eyes. Saturnine pats on my shoulders expressed condolences as people walked by; they shook their heads and then visited the casket. But nothing blocked the red and yellow shine. The bouquet conflagration drove tears down my cheeks then the heat on my face evaporated them just as quickly. Sweat beaded along my brow and down my collar, while yet more relatives' added new floral arrangements to fuel the fire. The heat forced more perspiration down the small of my back.