Phantom (34 page)

It was amusing and fascinating. Ned had no
feeling that they were talking about him. Strangely, it was as if
they were discussing some other person. He was the star, but he had
missed the whole show! To think that his heart had stopped dead.
And he was still here, still alive. It was a little scary, but it
also gave him an undefined feeling of accomplishment—he knew he had
done something without knowing what it was.

They also spoke of how his mother had
punched his chest in an effort to revive his heart, and then she
had "blacked out." Ned had been sore for a couple of days and he
had seen the bruises on his body, but he couldn't remember the
incident. His mother beating him. To save his life. She had, too.
Ned could think of no other way to explain the fact that he was
still alive. The other part, however, was not so good. He didn't
like to hear of his mother blacking out. He couldn't bear the
thought of anything bad happening to her.

Ned's father was cool. He wanted to play it
all down. He told Ned's mother that the boy had suffered a hard
case of summer flu and that she had overreacted "quite naturally."
When Ned's fever was at its worst, she had, according to her
husband, brought a "mini-attack" on herself. What it amounted to,
as far as he was concerned, was a long, rough night, a nasty
experience, but not the matter of life and death she thought it
was. Ned had an inkling of something then: that it was important in
some way for each of his parents to have their own versions of what
had happened, with neither seriously challenging or being
challenged by the other.

Dr. Melker came to visit Ned again, the day
after the big night. He was not wonderful, but okay. The way his
hair was arranged around the bald spot on the top of his head
reminded Ned of how the circular garden looked from the top of the
wall. He half expected to see steam rise up from the physician's
scalp. Dr. Melker went through his routine of talking, asking,
poking and listening. Then he patted the boy on the head, said
something and went downstairs to confer with Ned's mother and
father. Then followed five boring days of "recuperation."

Ned wondered about the missing day. What had
happened to him? Where had he gone? Was he just sick? Or had the
phantom come to take him, plunging icy hands into his heart,
freezing the life in him until, somehow, perhaps through his
mother's efforts, the spell was shattered? He would have to live
with the riddle. Without knowing the answer, he knew he had it
within him, buried deep in his own memory. And he was sure there
was more to it than just a short history of the life cycle of the
twenty-four-hour flu. Much more. Perhaps someday it would begin to
surface, a little at a time. Or perhaps it never would.

But one thing was certain: the fear was
gone. It wasn't a question of ignoring it or burying it. The fear
was gone, and that's all there was to it. At some point during the
illness, it had fallen away like dead skin. Ned didn't disbelieve
in the phantom; if anything, he believed now more than ever. But
there was also a fresh feeling within him. It was as if he had
crossed a threshold and reached a point where he could know for
sure that he was safe, that he could protect himself. The phantom
was still there, right behind him—but in some way he knew the
phantom now, and the compelling urge to look back over his shoulder
had ceased to exist. The way from here was forward.

The sounds, the spa, the illness—everything
he had gone through was now past experience. It was over and done
with. It was a part of him, something he had absorbed in the same
way that the body takes certain elements from the food that passes
through it. Ned would think about it again, and often, his sense of
wonder undiminished. But a kind of distance was setting in,
bringing with it a crucial redefinition. The participant was
becoming the spectator, the situation was becoming the memory,
closed and intact. Ned knew it only as a feeling, unaware that it
would inform his being for the rest of his life.

Ned slipped the envelope into his shirt
pocket and then he put on a light sweater. He put his mother's
gloves back where they belonged.

Linda told him not to be out too long, and
to be sure to come straight home if he should begin to feel the
least bit tired. She stood at the front door and watched her son
walk down the street until he was out of sight. He will be all
right, she told herself. Fear was the daily goblin, love the daily
miracle.

It was great to be outdoors!

Summer's heat was spent. The air had a fine
edge to it now and the breeze was spry enough to herald autumn. The
first week of September. Time to have another go at the deeper
waters.

It wasn't a long walk from his house to the
post office in the center of town. Ned covered the distance in a
few minutes. He was careful to touch the envelope only on its thin
edges, not the flat sides. He dropped it in the LOCAL slot without
bothering to put a stamp on it. As soon as he turned to walk away,
he had second thoughts. Had anybody seen him, anybody who would
remember the unstamped envelope and the youngster with the red
sweater? Ned didn't want the police to come looking for him. As far
as he knew, he hadn't done anything wrong (was there a law against
anonymous letters?), but his parents would be upset. Well, it was
too late now. He had done it. The letter was gone. He told himself
again that he had done the right thing. It would have bothered him
more to remain silent about that lonely corpse in the spa.

As Ned was going along Polidori Street, he
stopped suddenly. He saw Cloudy up ahead some distance and on the
other side of the street. He was walking in the same direction as
Ned, and the boy hurried to catch up. Ned broke into a trot,
keeping the black man in view while at the same time watching for a
gap in traffic so he could get across the road. Ned knew that
Cloudy had a room at the Capitol Hotel, which was somewhere around
here, but he had never seen it, for he seldom had any reason to be
in this part of town.

Cloudy turned down a side street and
disappeared. Lost him, Ned thought. It didn't matter; they'd
probably see each other at the baithouse later. But he jogged on,
crossed the street and reached the corner where he had last seen
Cloudy. Ned was curious to get a glimpse of this other side of his
friend's life.

The street was short and narrow. Ned had
almost walked past the place before he noticed the sign, a darkly
tarnished metal plate that identified the Capitol Hotel. It looked
more like a house than a hotel, and it was as run-down and
weather-beaten as Ned might have expected if he had ever given it
any thought.

He went through the front door, into a
hallway. A young man with a blemished face and oil on his hair sat
at a small desk. He wore a T-shirt that said SWORN TO FUN LOYAL TO
NONE.

"Excuse me. I'd like to see Cloudy."

The man stared at Ned.

"What?"

"I'd like to see Cloudy."

The man worked his stare again, but then it
got to be too much trouble. It was wasted on a kid, anyway. Come to
think of it, what's a white kid doing visiting an old coon? Come to
think of it, who gives a shit? He pointed.

"Down the end, down the stairs, down the
end, last door."

Ned found the stairs at the back of the
hallway. The steps were bare cement, winding down to the low cellar
passageway lit by a fluorescent bulb. He passed three doors. The
fourth was the last. Ned knocked.

"Yeah?"

It was Cloudy's voice. Ned opened the door
and stepped into a small, plain room. The floor was covered with
old linoleum and the only items of furniture were a painted bureau,
an armchair and a camp bed. Cloudy was sitting on the bed, sorting
through a pile of clothes. He wore rumpled, baggy white pants and a
loose white jacket. He must do some work here, at least part-time,
Ned realized. It felt very strange to be there and to see Cloudy
there, in an environment so completely different from the one in
which they knew each other. The baithouse was shabby and poor, but
it was also enchanting and magical. This place was simply drab.
There was an air of unrelieved melancholy about it. Cloudy doesn't
belong here, Ned found himself thinking. The old man was recovering
from the shock of this unexpected visitor.

"Why, Mister—why Ned—well, I—“

"Hi, Cloudy."

"What're you doin' here? Not that I ain't
glad to see you."

"I saw you on the street, so ... I just
wanted to say hi and see how you are."

"Well, come in, come in. Sit down here.
That's mighty nice of you to come see me like this."

He patted Ned on the back and settled the
boy in the armchair. But Cloudy seemed a little uneasy, as if he
had been caught off guard at the wrong moment.

"I was sick," Ned said.

"You was? I'm sorry to here that, but you're
all better now, ain't you? You look okay, still skinny but
okay."

''I'm all over it now, but I
was
really
sick,
Cloudy. I heard my mom tell my dad she thought I was going to die.
And there's a whole day I don't remember any of at all. The doctor
came to see me a couple of times."

"My goodness, I guess you was sick at
that."

"I had to say in bed for five days."

"Well, I'm glad you're better now. Ain't
right, a fine young fellow like you gettin' sick at all, and bein'
stuck in bed all the time, is it?"

"No, it's boring."

"'Course it is." Cloudy folded a shirt, set
it aside and looked up stiffly. "You been around to the baithouse
since you got over bein' sick?"

"No, I'm going out there this afternoon,"
Ned replied. "Today is my first day out of the house. I had to go
to the post office this morning—that's why I'm in town."

"Oh, I see." Cloudy nodded, but his features
seemed to be wrestling with themselves. The old man was trembling.
"Oh, Ned, Ned ... I have to tell you ... Peeler died .... "

Ned's mouth opened. Cloudy reached over,
lifted the boy out of the chair and hugged him.

"In his sleep a few nights ago .... We was
drinkin' and talkin' and singin' … havin' a high old time, till we
both just fell asleep ... in the baithouse .... Peeler, he never
woke up. He's left this world, Ned. I'm sorry .... "

He held Ned for a long time. The boy clung
to his chest and cried until he was exhausted and there were no
more tears, just deep, shuddering gasps. Cloudy rocked Ned gently
in his arms. He wanted to say something more, to find words that
would ease the child's pain, but there were no such words.

"The phantom took him," Ned spoke
finally.

"No, no, no," Cloudy whispered. "He just
died. It's death, that's all."

"That's what the phantom is."

"A man's time comes," Cloudy went on.
"Nothin' you can do. It ain't easy, but that's the way it is.
Peeler, he had a good life accordin' to his own way. It was his
life, nobody else's, and if a man can say that, he's doin' pretty
good. You understand what I'm sayin'?"

"The phantom came for me, and took Peeler
instead."

"Ned, Ned, you ain't listenin' to me. Come
on," Cloudy pleaded. "Peeler wouldn't want you to hear it any way
but right. His time was up, and that's all it is. You
understand?"

Ned was unsure, but he nodded anyhow.
"Cloudy, where is he? I mean ... where does a person go when they
die?”

"A better place."

"Really?"

"Has to be," Cloudy said impatiently. He
knew he had to say or do something to keep the boy from becoming
morbid about the subject. "The thing is, we can't sit around
feelin' sorry for old Peeler," he said. "You think he'd like it if
we did? The hell he would. And we can't sit around feelin' sorry
for ourselves, neither. That's plain selfish. Even though it hurts,
we got to remember to feel glad. Glad we knew Peeler, glad he was a
friend of ours. You see? Glad he's in our hearts for the rest of
our lives. We're damn lucky for that, and don't forget it."

"I won't."

"All right." Cloudy exhaled heavily. "Now I
got to tell you somethin' else you won't like."

Ned gave a start, but the old man's arms
held him close.

"What is it?"

"I'm movin' on from here."

"What? No! Cloudy, no!"

Ned struggled to sit up and look at Cloudy.
Tears filled the boy's eyes again.

"I got to, Ned. I can't stay here no more.
Winter gets in my bones, worse every year. And I'm tired of this
place, I can't stay here. I got to go."

Ned's body shook as he cried within. He was
sorry now that he had gotten better, sorry he had stepped outside
to find his world changing so drastically and cruelly. It was
several minutes before he could speak again.

"Where?"

"Florida. I got relations down there. It'll
be better for me, it truly will. Otherwise, I wouldn't go."

"But you and Peeler were my only two
friends," Ned said miserably. "And now you'll both be gone."

"You'll be okay, Ned. You know your way. You
don't need us for that. If you did before, you don't now."

"But I do."

"Besides," Cloudy hastened to continue.
"Even if they're miles and miles apart, friends are still with each
other if they're real friends. You'll find that out, Ned, I promise
you. Are you goin' to forget Peeler?"

"No."

'''Course you won't, and that means he'll be
with you all the time, no matter where you are or what you're
doin'. Same goes for you and me."

"I know that, but—"

“
Ned, hey, Ned .... " Cloudy
felt dull and inadequate. The boy was in a state and he had to
bring him out of it. Even if that meant appearing to be brusque.
There was another way. The boy had to accept what was. "Now listen.
I got to go over to the baithouse and get a couple of things I left
there. You want to walk with me?"