SMOKE: A GHOST STORY IN THREE VOICES
Maggie Shearon

1. Christopher Daily

I remember messing around with Tony on his deck. We always did it.

I remember Tony jumped and then he was yelling, “Come on you wuss” and I jumped.

I remember—I don’t remember that much. Then I just remember being back home.

Anyways I sat in my room and everything was all straightened up the way it’d be when Grandpa’d come. He’d be staying in my room and I’d be sleeping in the living room in a sleeping bag. I’d turn the TV on low and watch stupid stuff because the antenna Dad stuck up on the roof couldn’t get much anyways.

Dad told me to hold the ladder and when he was almost all the way up I tried to shake it and he gave this pretend scream and shouted down, “Don’t kill me” and then Mom stuck her head out and yelled, “Quit messing around before you break your necks.” Anyways, it was cool to watch TV with all the lights out, real low, and Mom didn’t mind.

So, anyways, I just sat in my room and I guess that’s what I did for a long time.

One day my family was gone. Mom and Dad just gone with our stuff. I didn’t know they were going or I would have maybe tried to get in the car or on the truck with the stuff or something.

Tony’s still here. I see him once in a while taking out the trash but that’s it.

Sometimes I look out the front window watching.

Loud. This new guy plays the stereo real loud when she’s not home. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and Black Magic Woman. Purple Haze, man. But just cause they’re some family moving in doesn’t mean I gotta be in it. The little kid runs up and down the hall and crashes his Hot Wheels into the baseboard. I still do that too.

She doesn’t look like my real mom. This lady’s got kind of like cotton candy puffy hair and little hands. My real mom was taller and just a lot better. Anyways, she knows I’m here. The kid told her. He said, “There’s a boy in my closet.” She laughed and said, “That’s okay Matty, he must have come with the house.” When the kid kept telling her I was in the closet, I said, “Look kid, this is my room.”

Anyways, she really didn’t pay much attention cause he’s got all these stupid imaginary friends. She even has to hold the car door open for them. I think he’s faking. Only one of them is real, anyhow—Danny. Danny says he died when he was a baby, but he’s got long hair and dog tags and smokes. One time he laughed and said, “Look at me I’m still a fuckin’ baby.” He sits in the kitchen smoking all the time, but he won’t let me try one.

I know she hears me racing my car down the hall, hitting the baseboard and then spinning out a turn because of the look on her face whenever I do it. I want a car—a real one—a Camaro—I still got my Camaro Hot Wheel—it used to be red but now it’s the color of this dried blood on my shirt.

Anyways, lately she’s been looking for me. I see her looking down the hall at me. She gets that same look she’s got when Danny’s smoking in the kitchen. One time I almost waved, but Danny says I’d freak her out.

So Saturday she says she wants to take the antenna off the roof—afraid of lightning. And the guy, says, ”Mary, relax, it’s been there for years and it’s never been hit.” Then she says, “Well it’s ugly—we just have to take it down.”

So when her dad, the kid calls him Grandpa Dan, came for a visit, the first thing he says was “What’dya say we take down that ugly antenna, Mike?” It started raining and Grandpa Dan says, “Let’s get busy so we don’t get hit by lightning.”

Grandpa Dan’s holding the ladder but when the dad’s pretty far up the old guy lets go and starts walking around looking at all the bushes they gotta trim next.

I wanna shake the ladder. I go over and start shaking it. It feels good. The metal’s wet and shiny in my hands. I shake it a little harder, then even harder. I’m stronger. The dad’s holding on and shouting, “Dan what the hell you doing?”

But it’s just me—and then Danny shows up. Danny says, “Chris, quit shaking the fuckin’ ladder now man,” but he’s laughing so hard and grabbing his crotch and I say, “Better change your diaper Danny Boy.”

Anyways, Danny says he came special this time to see Grandpa Dan.

My dog. He’s mine. They call him Spider cause it’s almost Halloween. He loves me. He knows me. We lay on the couch and eat chips. I pick off his fleas and squash them and then flick them into the carpet like boogers. We sleep on the floor in my room with the kid.

They’re going over to Tony’s. No, don’t. Don’t. I don’t want you goin' over to Tony’s. Not Tony’s. I gotta stop them. I gotta go with them. But I—I can’t—If Tony tells I’ll kill him.

2. Mary Malloy

I’m drunk. I’m drunk and I am going to keep drinking. Angie’s son Tony was home. He zeroed in on me like he’s been waiting to talk to me for years. First it’s sweet. Tony said they used to play Hot Wheels together at our house. They raced their cars down the hall just like Matty does. They played some game called earthquake and they buried little cars in the mud. As he talked, I watched Matty stuff himself with chips, and I wished that my little boy could have a little best friend like that in the neighborhood.

Then Tony told me why their house is the only house on the street without a deck anymore.

His name was Christopher. Oh god, his mother—did she see him from up on the deck or did she run right into the yard? Did she grab him, shake him, or was she too afraid to touch him? Did she hold him and rock him and pretend he was still breathing? Does she sometimes still pretend?

I think I have her boy. He’s still here. He’s in this house. Oh sweet Jesus. I have her boy.

3. Danny Malloy

One day I found her. First I thought maybe she was dead too, but turns out she’s just living in the suburbs. Married, got a little kid and a dog. Funny how little kids and dogs like me—me a fuckin’ uncle now! Anyway Matty says I’m one of his imaginary friends. I think he trots all of us out just to piss her off.

So then I noticed this little shit playing Hot Wheels. Used to mostly just hang in his old room and fight with my nephew. He swears Matty’s found all his little shit he buried in the yard—Matty’s got it all right. I helped him dig it up.

Guess they went over to that fucker Tony’s house. Tony sits down and tells her the whole damn sob story. Racing little cars down the hall together, playing in the mud, and the whole bit about throwing themselves off the deck.

Stupid little fuckers.

She’s cleaning like a madwoman—like she’s gonna sweep this house clean of ghosts. Good fucking luck. And of course this little shit’s been hiding in Matty’s closet like he’s Casper

She’s driving us all nuts.

So I open the closet door and say, Boo! just for a laugh and he goes and punches me in the face. Hell, he’s getting taller. So I say “What’s wrong with you, you little shit?”

Then he starts bawling and screaming “Stay here and you can’t keep leaving me and where do you go? Come on where do you go?”

He’s getting covered in snot and I just want to get the hell back out of here. He’s hiccupping and wiping his face on that ratty-ass shirt and breathing real hard.

And then this light musta come on in that little Casper head cause I know he’s gonna start in with the questions. And it’s like I know what he’s gonna ask me even before he does.

So I toss him a Camel—man, he’s been after me for a smoke—and I say okay I’ll tell ya—I’ll tell ya what I know.

St. Veronica’s Hospital. 36 of us boys born that Halloween. A new one-day record.

Shit—today’s gotta be my birthday—now that’s pretty fuckin’ funny. You say you lose track—you don’t pay attention—well try figuring it all out when you’re a little screaming baby.

I remember Mom’s smell: L & M’s, Juicy Fruit, Chantilly. Digitalis—a tiny dropper full of bitter, morning and night. Doctor’s orders. Guess my heart’s always been the size of a watermelon beating like a superfreak. Mom would say, “Shhh, slow down little heart, slow down just a little.” And I’d be screaming and gagging and she’d be crying and later back at the hospital they said “Didn’t you give him his digitalis? Wouldn’t he take his medicine?” Hell, I was born an old man with a fat-ass heart that couldn’t slow down for nothing. I was already dead before I was even fuckin’ born.

And my dad, you know Grandpa Dan? Well, he would hold me when I’d scream, and his neck was hot and scratchy.

Have I seen Jesus, or Buddha or Elvis? Yeah, right. But I looked up some of those Halloween babies. So I was thinking I’d hang with them awhile just to see what I’d be doing, but like I said, I wasn’t paying much attention or else I wouldn’ta kept following those fuckers around.

So I smell something and it smells like my diaper. I see a couple of them Halloween babies all grown up crappin' their pants, and then we’re all screaming and running. They drag me by my legs and I’m thinking now I’m dead twice. Private First-Class Danny Boy Malloy reporting for duty—sir!

So after that I started paying more attention. But shit, not much. Like you. Heard Mom’s dead but I haven’t seen her. It’s a real trip running into Dad once in awhile. And of course I got Mary right here. When I sit at the kitchen table, I know she smells my smoke.

Besides, I get to play army man with Matty and his boys. I figure hanging out here is as good as anyplace, just like Leave it To Beaver. And when I’m not here, well, sorry maybe I’m off getting laid somewhere. Maybe I’m changing my diaper. Hell I don’t even know. At least you know where the fuck you are.

Look man—sometimes it’s better not to think about it. Don’t ask me what I think’s gonna happen. Don’t ask me how long I think this is gonna last. Shit, the other day I was so bored, I lay down in the driveway. She backed right over me and I didn’t feel nothin’.

So what’dya want to do? You could try jumping off your own fuckin’ deck. You’ve been thinking about it for years. One more try to get it right. Give it a shot. Can’t get worse probably. Maybe go over to Tony’s—he sure as shit deserves a visit. Or just keep hanging out here and see who moves in cause you know she’ll want to be moving out next. Or just pick up your damn Hot Wheel and get on the truck when the moving men come.

Nobody ever stays here long. Start a new life. Shit, maybe we will run into somebody.

All I know is that pretty soon I gotta find somebody who really knows me, or I’ll just go fuckin’ nuts.

© Maggie Shearon 2005

Maggie Shearon (magshearon@yahoo.com) grew up in Philadelphia, Pa and now lives in Colorado. She is grateful for her Irish Catholic upbringing because it is a constant source of myth and dysfunction. Her poetry has appeared in the Mill Hunk Herald, an award winning, though now defunct magazine of working class literature. “Smoke” is the first short story she has ever written.

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