The Ghost in Love (35 page)

The verz stepped up its pace. They were running now. “Yes. He's invested you and his girlfriend with the same powers he has. He just doesn't know that yet. But you're going to tell him.”

Danielle sent her verz
to find Pilot as soon as she'd heard enough blab from the three men, whose conversation was now going in useless circles. Spilke and Stanley clearly had their own agendas that they were pushing. Meanwhile, befuddled Ben just stood there spellbound, listening to them. He did not have a clue what to do next and would probably take any reasonable advice they offered, which was a bad idea. Because of what she had learned at her picnic, Danielle knew that if Ben Gould did not make his own decisions now he would fail, and that failure would ripple out and powerfully affect others as well.

These were the sorts of things that had made her decide she didn't want to be there anymore. Too often life was cruel, unjust, or impossible to understand. All the reading she'd done in the Bible since her accident brought Danielle neither solace nor understanding. Plus, her head ached nonstop from the operation, which was her constant reminder that terrible things could and did happen at any moment. The good times were too few and the bad too many to count. Having mulled over the stories about her past that she heard at the picnic in the parking lot, she realized that no matter what kind
of new powers or possibilities for the future she possessed now, she didn't want them or what they could do to change her mediocre life.

Danielle Voyles wanted only to be happy—only that. She knew there was absolutely no guarantee of happiness in anyone's future. But as a teenager in the Lotus Garden restaurant with Dexter Lewis, she had been happier than at any other time in her twenty-nine years. So, very sensibly, she had decided to go back to that time as a teenager and stay forever. Because it was both familiar and fixed, she would return to that happiness in her past and live there for her remaining forty or fifty years rather than hope for some more to come in a future that was as unreliable as the weather and offered no guarantee of anything except eventual death.

Having made the decision, she then chose to come back first and help Ben Gould. She knew he wanted to remain in the present with his nice girlfriend and old dog. There were things she had learned at the picnic she could tell him that might be of use. However, Danielle did not return because she admired Ben's courage or decision to stay and face the formidable challenges ahead. It was simply his choice, like choosing which style of shoes to buy. Her choice was different, but she did not believe that either of them was right or wrong—those untrustworthy, so often misused words.

The first thing she asked the group on reaching it was “Where's the dog?” Ben said Pilot had run off after a female. Danielle didn't believe that for a minute but kept silent about it. When the time was right she conjured her verz way down on the corner of the block. Telepathically she told it to go find the dog and bring it back pronto. The white animal raced away. Danielle turned her attention back to the conversation, which was still going nowhere.

A short time later she watched German walk over and attempt
to engage individuals in the swelling crowd of Ben people. Danielle could not get over the fact that when she met her many selves at the parking lot picnic, every one of them looked like her at a particular time in her life. In contrast, these Bens were a wide variety of shapes, sexes, and ages. From that she logically assumed each person's experience would be different when it came to this part of their adventure, if that was the right term for it.

She watched German talk to the woman who eventually slapped her face. Danielle did not move when she saw it happen. Nor did she move when the kid threw the mud ball at German and she called out to Ben for help. Danielle didn't do anything, either, when he ran over to protect his girlfriend from the looming, menacing crowd.

But the moment Ben was out of earshot, Danielle laid into the other two men standing there. She said exactly what she thought of them and what they were doing. It didn't take long, but when she had finished, even Stanley, the Angel of Death, was hanging his head like a schoolboy just caught cheating: he knew most of what she was saying was correct.

Danielle pointed an accusing finger at Spilke. “
You
are a total idiot and have learned nothing. You still want Ben to do it your way, even though you already know it won't work because it's only one way:
yours
. He has tried his whole life to be one single Ben. But that's not who we are! That's what I've learned: we're made up of so many different people inside. We're never going to sand them all down and glue them together into a single ‘me.' Look at Brave Ben over there protecting her. But Scared Ben is inside him too. And Ling Ben, who hates
your
guts for lying to her.” She pointed her chin at Stanley.

“What people have to realize first is they're not just one single person who does weird, out-of-character things now and then.
We're all made up of many different selves that fight and compete with one another constantly. We've got to somehow get them to agree on just a few basic things. Get them to stop fighting with one another. They all have different needs. One part of us wants safety, but another wants adventure. I want to be loved. I want to be left alone . . . Those aren't contradictions—they're independent selves saying ‘I want this'!

“We've got to create some kind of United Nations inside ourselves.” She touched her heart. “All the different ‘me's' working together to try and reach . . .” She stuck out a hand as if trying to grab the correct word from the air.

“Consensus?” Spilke suggested.

Danielle bowed to him. “
Consensus
—exactly! All those separate ‘me's' having their say, making their demands, and then working out a consensus.”

Next she pointed at Stanley. “I recognized who you were the minute I saw you. You're worse than Spilke because you're an angel, so you know more than any of us do. But you still want Ben and the rest of humanity to act the same way we've been acting for the last zillion years.

“Yoo-hoo, things have changed. People aren't dying anymore according to your schedule. We took our lives back into our own hands. Or some did and everyone will sooner or later. That's going to happen and you know it. People like us are just the beginning. Your rules don't apply anymore. They
can't
. So why don't you and the others just stop and let us find our own way through this without your meddling?”

Somewhat defensively Stanley asked, “And what about you?”

Danielle answered without hesitation, “I know what I want but it isn't here. Respect that and let me live the rest of my life the way I
choose. Most people will want to stay here. The ones who do, you should let find their destiny without your interfering.

“People have a hard enough time getting out of their own way. Look at poor Ben over there having to protect his girlfriend from different parts of himself who
hate
her. Isn't that challenging enough for you? Isn't that enough drama? Ben Gould fighting Ben Gould for the woman some of him loves and some of him wants to
stone
.”

She would have continued, but just then Pilot appeared and walked over to the couple. They were now completely surrounded by the milling, jabbering crowd. Danielle, Spilke, and Stanley remained silent, waiting to see what would happen. Ben said something to the dog. German said something to the dog. Then Pilot leapt forward and bit a man in the leg.

It was no little nip or playful love bite, either. Broomcorn screamed in pain and utter surprise. Then he kicked the dog in the ribs a glancing blow to get it off.

“Don't kick him!” Ben bellowed.

But the man had already drawn his leg back to boot the dog again. A woman standing nearby holding a purple umbrella ran forward. Handle extended, she caught his foot as he was about to kick. Her move caught Broomcorn both off guard and off balance. He hopped, stumbled, and fell down, banging an elbow on the ground.

Enraged, Broomcorn jumped up and kicked the umbrella woman in the shin. She whacked him over the head with her umbrella. Someone else shouted, “Don't kick a woman!” and gave Broomcorn a shove. He hit the shover, the shover hit back, and away they went.

In seconds fists were flying. Fights broke out all across the crowd of the various bad sides of Benjamin Gould. Those that weren't fighting naturally took sides and voiced their support or scorn for the
combatants. Which led to more fights when these people started jostling and shoving one another, demanding to know where X got off supporting Y when it was plain that X was to blame. The answers were more punches in the nose. And because all of these people were Ben Gould, they had exactly the same temper and knew one another's weak points and hot spots. Boom.

As the verz had predicted when they were hurrying over there, after the bites came the fights. German Landis snatched up her old dog. She wanted to get him away from there. No luck. Before she'd moved ten feet, the man named Tweekrat grabbed one of Pilot's dangling back paws and told her to let the damned thing go because it needed a pounding.

Ben grabbed the guy hard by the shoulder and told him to let go. Tweekrat smiled and, raising his chin in a challenge, said, “I don't think I will. How's your stomach, Ben? Isn't it feeling a little jumpy right now?” It was a cruel question but an effective one. Tweekrat was Benjamin Gould when he was excited or furious or scared: Ben when his heart was racing because life was challenging him and making demands.
That
Ben unfortunately had a treacherous stomach that often betrayed him at the worst times, particularly in moments of stress. He could never stop it from happening and he had never had any control over it. Frequently, when he got angry or nervous or even very happy, his bowels cramped and he'd have to find a toilet fast or else. It had been like that all his life and always shamed him, particularly as a man. He had spent so much time finding ways to either prepare for it or hide this embarrassing weakness from others. To him, it was emblematic of immature, neurotic, or even broken things in his character. He did not like to think that way, but he did: If I were strong, if I were adult, if I were less insecure, then it wouldn't be this way . . .

Until that moment, the bedlam going on around them was so distracting that he had thought of nothing else. But now that his stomach had been mentioned, he felt it lurch dangerously.

The crowd, the chaos, the stomach, the noise, the confusion, the anxiety about everything—besieged on all sides, Ben spoke now without thinking. His words came from someplace inside that he did not really know but could feel now intensely. A right place, a place of clarity and insight that had remained hidden and obscure until that moment. When he spoke, he knew for certain that the words were both wildly out of place and correct. They were the only truthful ones to say in this calamitous situation.

Faced with this nemesis and enemy—Benjamin Gould at his worst: mean-spirited; self-defeating; undependable, particularly to himself; semifulfilled but never enough; semimotivated but never enough; hopeful but helpless too often when crisis arose—Ben said simply to this man and to the crowd as well: “Help me.” Looking straight into the others' eyes—straight into the center of his own worst qualities—he then repeated those words more clearly, in case his antagonist had not heard his plea: “Help me. I know you'll never go away. No matter how much I want to get rid of you, I can't. I know that now.

“You're not my friends and never will be. We just happen to live in the same house. You want me confused and scared, or angry and weak. And I accept that, because you're as much me as any other parts.

“But I'm asking you from the deepest part of my heart—
our
heart—to help me now. Help me handle all this and get through it.

“If you do, we'll figure out later how to live together without destroying each other. We will find a way. We'll
negotiate
. I swear to God, we'll find a way. I promise not to fight you anymore. I won't hide you or pretend you don't exist. But now, please, help me.”

The entire crowd had stopped fighting. Most of them were staring at Ben now, waiting to hear what he would say next, waiting to hear what he wanted from them.

But he had nothing more to say.

No one had expected that silence. Not the throng of people who were Ben, not German or Pilot. No one, not even Stanley the angel. Everything was quiet for a few tense beats, and then from off to the side Broomcorn said, “No. No deal. We won't help you, will we?” He looked around at the crowd but got little reaction. They wanted to hear what else he had to say before deciding if they agreed.

“Just because you didn't die, Ben, doesn't change our feelings towards you. Just because you have new powers doesn't mean
we've
changed. We still hate you. We're going to fight you forever because that's who we are. We're the negative pole of your magnet. No matter who you are now or what you discover about yourself. As long as you live we're going to keep messing you up, and nothing can stop us. Self-hatred is always the last thing to die. How many people do you know who like themselves—ever?”

Many in the crowd nodded. What he said was right: if they helped Ben now, they would no longer be themselves. No, they would not help him.

After Broomcorn spoke, Ben looked at the ground and breathed. Inhale. Exhale. Try to hold it together. The only things that filled his mind were German and Pilot. They were all that mattered. Let them be safe. He just wanted them to escape because he knew there were parts of him in this crowd who wanted to hurt these two beings he loved so much. Let them be safe. That's all I want: Let them be safe.

This gave Ben a little hope. Not much, and certainly not enough to help win the battle he knew he was going to have to wage against
the dark parts of himself for the rest of his life. But he
was
cheered by the fact that at this perilous time he worried only about his two loves.