A Certain Slant of Light (12 page)

  
"And the ones that think they're still alive," I said, "what do
they say to you?"

  
"Nothing," said James. "They can't see me or anyone. Not
even each other."

  
"What do they do all day," I asked, "and night?"

  
"They usually repeat some task from the past. They walk
home from school, they clean the windows of a building that's
not there anymore, they look for something they lost or someone
they lost."

  
It seemed so sad. "How many are there?" I asked. "Can you
see any now?" The idea made my skin prickle.

  
"You mean this guy?" James nodded to the foot of the bed.
When I gasped, he laughed at me.

  
"That isn't funny."

  
"You're right." He tried not to smile. "There aren't as many
as I thought there'd be when I saw my first in the hospital hall
way," James said. "I've seen only a dozen or so since then."

  
Although I knew that he was not seeing an apparition in the
room with us, I still felt unnerved by the idea that one might appear at any moment.

  
"Where do you think Billy is now?" I asked. "You said you
saw him only once. So he's not attached to his brother or the
house."

  
James shrugged. "I don't really know, but I don't think he's
attached at all." He looked around the room at Billy's sketches
taped to the walls. "Maybe he's wandering, like a runaway
child."

  
I wondered what it would be like to fly from house to house
and face to face at will. It sounded liberating but at the same time
lonely. I felt overwhelmed suddenly, the way I had in the phone
booth, and I moved away from him, into the corner. Too much
was new too fast.

  
"I'm sorry I tricked you," he said. "About seeing a ghost."

  
I couldn't explain my cowardice. The tension whined like in
sects around me.

  
"How many hosts have you had?" he asked me, hoping to dis
tract me from any escape plans, I could tell.

  
"Five."

  
"How did you choose them?" he asked.

  
I told him briefly of each host and how I had claimed them. I
left out the envy I'd felt for what Mr. Brown had shared with his
bride. The idea of describing my coping with their love life made
me want to fold up like a fan and hide.

  
"And now I'm host number six," he said.

  
"Yes." But I felt confused again. "I need to be alone a little," I
told him.

  
And he simply said, "Of course."

  
I melted out of James's room and wandered through the rest
of his house. The rain had slowed to a fine mist. In the living
room a man in overalls and a kerchief tied around his head slept
on the couch with his arm over his eyes. There were cans, bottles,
and crumpled paper all over the floor and furniture. In the
kitchen, dishes filled the sink and the faucet dripped. In the other
bedroom, Mitch slept, with one shoe off and one shoe on, his
pants unbuttoned, sprawled on top of his covers. There was a tiny
empty bathroom with the light left on and a small back porch
where the roof dripped rainwater onto a shiny black bag of trash.
I wished it were not Saturday but Monday so that I might go to
school with James and see my Mr. Brown. No, he's not yours anymore, I reminded myself. You have a new host. My
James.

  
I heard a stirring from the hall. Mitch was walking unevenly
to the bathroom. I kept my distance, drifting into the kitchen.
There some pictures tacked to a corkboard beside the back door
stopped me. In one of the photographs, a child of twelve, a dark-haired boy, was holding a four-year-old brown-haired lad upside
down by the feet. The little boy was screaming with laughter, and
the big boy was mimicking a body builder's triumphant growl. What stopped me was not only the little laughing face, which
must have been James's, or I should say Billy's, but more it was
the slightly blurred woman's hand and leg that were caught in
the margin of the scene, the owner's face missing from the mem
ory. Their mother, in the wings, as often mothers and grand
mothers are, ready to catch the children should they need saving, but otherwise invisible. Her hand was a pale flutter, her leg slen
der and bare, wearing a white shoe, the corner of a light green
skirt caught in the frame just above the knee.

  
"Damn it," Mitch grumbled from the bathroom. The door
must've been standing open. "The fucking toilet's broken!" I
heard a hollow sound like porcelain scraping on porcelain and next a sound that made me cold all through. An animal danger
thundered down the hallway. I was afraid, but I rushed there.
Mitch ran to James's door and kicked it open. James, who was just
unbuttoning the shirt he'd slept in, jumped back in surprise and,
bumping into the bed, sat down on it. Mitch pulled a hand back
and slapped him so hard across the face that James flew back on the bed and his head thumped the wall. Mitch held a clear bag of
white powder in James's face and shook it.

  
"Are you a fucking idiot?" he yelled. "What the hell is this?"

  
James was breathing hard and didn't seem to see anything
yet. He put his hand to his face and tried to sit up. Mitch slapped
him again. I cried out, but I don't think even James could hear me. He scrambled back away from Mitch up against the wall,
blood in the corner of his mouth. Mitch shook his striking hand,
as if James's face were poison.

  
"I should just call the fuckin' cops right now," Mitch screamed
at him. "You wanna kill yourself, go live in the goddamn street."
The anger burned red on his face.

  
"I'm sorry," said James.

  
"Fuck you, you little shit," Mitch yelled. There were veins
standing out on his neck and arms. He paced back and forth for a
moment, his fist flexing on the plastic bag.

  
"I told you I got messed up that night," said James. "I can't
remember everything."

  
"You are so full of shit!" Mitch kicked the chair so hard it
slammed into the door frame and slid out into the hall.

  
"I forgot about that one," said James. "I didn't use any, I
swear."

  
Mitch stormed out again. I could hear the groggy voice of the
man in the kerchief who'd slept on the couch. "What's the matter
with you?"

  
"Shut the fuck up," said Mitch. Then the sound of water running in the kitchen.

  
The fury ebbed out of the room. I waited, watching James
touch his jaw gingerly, dabbing at the blood with the back of his hand. He glanced at me, ashamed.

  
"Are you hurt?" I asked.

  
He sighed. "I'm all right." He rose stiffly and brought the
chair back into the room, placing it on its feet beside the desk. Then he looked me in the eyes for a longer moment. "I'm sorry
you were frightened."

  
I didn't know what to say. He noticed that his shirt was open
and modestly closed the middle button.

  
"I should shower." He excused himself and I sat on the bed.

  
Down the hall, the water pipes began to hoot as the shower
started. The bedroom door opened wider as Mitch stepped in. He
moved with stealth now and not anger. He went immediately to
the dresser and opened one drawer after another, starting at the
top, looking under the rumpled clothes and feeling the sides and top of each compartment.

  
Mitch opened the closet and rummaged through the clutter
on the floor within. He pulled out two scratched army boots,
thrusting his hand into each one. I watched him as he looked in
side the lampshade by the bed. I stayed very still until he sud
denly turned, kneeling, and put his hand where I had been sitting
on the blanket. I stood on the bed and backed into the corner as
he reached between the mattresses and felt around. His face
tensed and he pulled out something hidden there. As soon as he
saw the magazine, he laughed and put it back. On the front I
caught a fleeting glance of a woman in a tiny bathing suit step
ping out of a pool. Mitch was smiling as he felt under the bed.

  
He pulled out James's treasure box and looked inside. Frown
ing again, he brought out the art book. He shrugged and returned
it. He was just starting to open the poetry book when the man in
the kerchief came into the doorway.

  
"You're turning into a narc," he pointed out.

  
Mitch pushed the box back under the bed and stood up.

  
"Why're you still here?" Mitch wanted to know. "I gotta be at
work."

  
"I need a ride."

  
Mitch and his friend left Billy's room as the sound of water in
the shower stopped. I slowly sat down on the bed, for some reason
still so careful not to cause the slightest stir even though the two
men were now well away, their voices in the kitchen.

  
When James came into the doorway, he was wearing a towel
like a kilt, and his hair was still dripping. "I need some clothes,"
he said in apology and skulked to the dresser.

  
"I'll go," I said, and I was through the wall at once, lingering
in the bushes outside the house, near the bedroom window. The
sun was trying to push through the clouds, and every leaf was
wet and clean. I did something then I'd never done. I watched my
host dress. I didn't go back into the room, but, like a guilty thing,
I stayed at the window sill, a peeping torn, watching James throw his towel onto the corner of the bed and pull a pair of gray shorts from the top dresser drawer. He stepped into them and I meant to
stop, but it wasn't just the novelty of his nakedness that gripped
me. It was all of him. He let the door stand open to the hall, so unmindful of the other men, yet he dressed quickly, as if not
wanting to keep me waiting and as if he would be too modest to
have me arrive back before he was covered.