Day Nine

I believed him. I sat there and looked into the inviting tomb of his hurt filled eyes and felt a strange comfort.

"Why are you looking at me that way?"

"What?" I asked and then realized with a jolt I was looking at Rainer, my lover, a smile on my face as I recalled fondly that day in the cafeteria that Woody and I became friends.

"You're looking at me like ... No. It's more like you're looking through me. All the time these days. Are you going to tell me what's going on?" I looked down into the cold cup of coffee I held in my hand. How long had I been sitting there this way? "Well?" he pressed. He was annoyed. Irritated. Hurt that I wouldn't open up to him. But how could I? It had been 12 years since I had seen a ghost. Nobody ever believed me back then, except for two people, the only two people that ever meant a damn in my life until Rainer. What was I to tell this ruggishly handsome German blonde who I had called a live - in lover for only a little more than a year? That as I child I saw ghosts? That now, at 25, I saw the dead again? That I was still barely more than a child living in an adult casket? Of that much, I'm sure he knew. He looked at me so disapprovingly, so hurt.

"Honey, why won't you talk to me? Why won't you let me help you?" Because you can't help me.

"Because, Rainer. They're just nightmares. I feel ... really foolish. Every child has nightmares, ok?"

"But you're not a child. And you're terrified."

"I'm not terrified."

He took the cold mug from my hands and held onto them as if he were searching for my lifeline. He cupped the side of my face, willing me to look at him, to really see him, which I hadn't done since the nightmares began. When he spoke, the scent of vanilla coffee was so strong it was intoxicating. Yet still, even though I felt this man with all my senses, it was as if he was speaking to me from another place, from behind a closed door.

"Last night you were terrified. You screamed at your own reflection and you cried in my arms and I held you like a baby."

"I know," I said as I ran my fingers through his golden locks. "And I love you for that, baby." I tried to smile, but he kept me firmly under his stern gaze. His eyes were misting.

"No, you don't." I felt I had to respond, but I didn't know what to say. I had told this man many times that I loved him. After sex, before he left for business trips, in the middle of the night when I clung to him for safety, I always said, "I love you." Simply saying it again now or professing my undying love for him just seemed inappropriate. Especially since I knew that a certain someone still had all the pieces of my heart. The truth is I loved Rainer as much as I could, which was probably not enough.

A moment of silence is all it takes to change a life. And in that moment I changed his. His hands grew ice cold and he pulled away. "I'm going to be late for work." He jumped up and grabbed his briefcase, making every effort not to look at me so I wouldn't see the water building up in his eyes. "Um, don't wait up. I don't know what time I'll be home tonight. I've a lot of work at the office. Deadlines. Not a lot of time." As he opened the door to leave I said,

"You're on borrowed time."

He turned to me cooly, horror on his face as if he'd seen a ghost.

"What did you say to me?" Suddenly I was pulled back into reality yet again and realized I had spoken aloud. The words were not meant for him.

"Nothing," I said. He didn't believe me. He walked out and slammed the door behind him. What the hell had I done? What had just happened? He said something about time and suddenly I was 12 years old again, listening to my grandmother tell me what she had told me so many times during my childhood, in her old creaky voice:

"It's all part of God's plan, boy. You're on borrowed time. You're not supposed to be here."

My Grandmother passed finally three years ago. I thought she might live forever she was so old. She went peacefully in her sleep, and with her went the only family I ever had. I heard her voice just then so clearly, as if she was sitting right next to me.

I got up to empty my mug and put it in the dishwasher. Sometimes a simple task was needed to clear one's mind. In this instance it didn't work. I thought about my life and how unneccessary it really was. I didn't have a lot of friends and the friends I did have were more like casual acquaintances. I'd had a lot of sex with many random men before I met Rainer. He was the only real lover I'd ever had. Even though I'd managed to escape Mississippi and make it all the way to DC, I hated my job. Day in and day out it was the same routine. I was simply on auto pilot. What did my life mean? For awhile there, I thought it actually had a meaning. I thought that seeing ghosts served some kind of greater purpose, like I was destined to do something great. I believed that because that's what he told me.

"There's gotta be a reason for it," he said. "People just don't see ghosts to be seeing 'em." He was like a monkey as he leaped from tree limb to tree limb, sweat clinging to his face and to odd wisps of hair in his armpits. I always noticed the smallest things about Woody. Like when for a moment his accent disappeared when he became really pensive. I thought he had ancient eyes that had been here before. I also noticed he liked to scratch himself a lot, but a lot of boys did that I guess. I just didn't mind it as much when he did it.

We'd been friends for a while now. Sometimes people would try to pick on us, but unlike me, Woody didn't stand for non-sense. He put them in their place alright. He was the type of boy that if you looked at him you knew he came from the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak. He looked like if you brought him trouble, he'd know what to do with it. But he was so gentle. He was not the person he appeared to be, though he did land himself a couple of detentions behind defending me. I looked up at him and thought, "my hero," then immediately realized how extremely gay the mere thought sounded and vowed to never think it again. But looking back on it that's what he was. He gave me a reason to laugh. He gave me a reason to live.

"Are you coming up here or what?" he yelled down at me.

"Hell naw I ain't coming up there! I'm liable to fall and break my neck!"

"I won't let you fall."

"How's that exactly? You're not superman. You can't fly."

"Wanna make a bet?" He leaped from one branch to the other in this immense tree that looked to me as if it would come alive at any moment, like in that scary movie Poltergeist. He hung upside down by his legs and reached his hand out to me.

"Come on now. Don't be a chicken shit all your life."

Against my better judgement, I could not resist when he reached out to me. I walked up and put one foot on the bark of the tree. I reached up and put my hand in his and held on tightly, fingers to palm. With my other hand I grasped the tree the best I could and hoisted myself up. When I did that he pulled and suddenly I was going in an upward motion. It was fantastic! This wasn't so hard. He raised himself up and sat on the branch. I was still holding onto the tree for dear life.

"If I come out there, will the branch break?"

"Are you kiddin'? You weight what? 2 lbs.? Get your ass out here. This here tree ain't goin' nowhere." I slowly slid onto this humongous branch and rested my back on the tree when I made it on. I breathed a sigh of relief and he laughed at me.

"See. That wasn't so bad, was it."

"Naw man, nothing to it." I looked down at the ground and couldn't believe I had done it. We were pretty far up. We could jump out at the height, but it wouldn't be an easy jump. I'd probably bruise my knee, but Woody said all bruises heal. It's the wounds you have to be careful of. Sometimes they come apart.

"So, have you thought about the reason why you see these ghosts, Peterson?" I used to hate it when Corey called me by my last name, but when Woody did it, it made me feel important.

"All the time, " I answered. "Ain't no reason I can think of."

"You ever asked your parents?" It astounded me that during all the time we had spent together, we managed to steer clear of any talk of family. I looked at him for a moment and didn't want to answer. The answer would make me even weirder than I already was.

"Well? Have you?"

"No."

"Why not? You have told em about these ghosts of yours, right?"

"I can't tell em. I don't have no parents. They're both dead." When I told him this he looked like he had felt the loss right along with me.

"Jesus Christ, man. I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Well, my mama's dead for sure. My daddy, I don't know about him, but I figure he's dead in that I ain't never know who he was." He looked away as the sun began to set behind him and a gentle breeze disturbed the still air between us.

"Well, I don't have no parents either."

"They died too?"

"Not exactly. My mom, she left. I was five when she left. I barely remember her at all. And my dad? Well, he's just a piece of shit. That's all. Sometimes I think it's better to not even have a father."

We sat there for a moment in silence. It was another one of those life altering silences, though nothing truly life altering happened. We just realized why it was we related to one another so well. We were born to know one another. I knew it when he first walked in Science class and I believed it moreso sitting in that tree with him. Who else could you just sit with, for minutes on end with sun going to sleep and a sliver of the moon beginning to nestle into its home, and not say a word, and yet be unbelievably comfortable? I realize now only the lucky ones get a chance to know someone like that.

"It's getting late," I finally said. "Do you think we should get goin?"

He looked at me as if we were spies on a mission, as if trying to say something without saying it. Finally, "Naw. I like it here."

"Yeah, me too. But this bark is making my ass itch." He bust out laughing. He broke off a piece of bark and threw it at me.

"You're a freak."

"I know."

"Come on, let's get out of here." He jumped and I followed. Perfect landing. We started running, though neither one of us knew where we were running to. It turned into a race, only he let me win.

"You're just too fast for me, Peterson, " he panted between his gasps for air.

"Well, if you get to fly, I at least get to run fast."

"Fair enough." He collapsed onto the ground and I fell beside him. It was getting very dark yet neither one of us was in a race against time.

"So, who do you stay with, Peterson?"

"My granny."

"Is she nice to you?"

"Why? You gonna beat her up if she ain't?"

"Maybe."

"Yeah, she's nice. You wanna meet her?" He looked over at me, his breathing slowly returning to normal. How he looked at me. Wow. I became very scared because I was suddenly aware that maybe I shouldn't be feeling the way I was feeling. I knew that other boys didn't like other boys that way. I knew that. I figured it was just another way that I was weird. I thought that if he knew that about me he wouldn't be my friend anymore. I was terrified. I had to close my eyes. I couldn't look at him. If I looked for one more instant at his perfect mouth, his dancing freckles or his marble eyes, I would ignite and the entire field we were laying in would be set ablaze.

"Yeah, I'd like to meet her. But let's just stay here for a minute. It's a nice night."

"Yeah," I said. "It really is."

"Peterson? Why you got your eyes closed so tight?"

"Um ... I don't know."

"You're such a freak."

"I know."

I would have given my last breath to just hold him and put my lips to his, to hold his head between my hands and kiss him ... my very last breath. Oh God. Something was happening to me.

"We have to go now!" I got up and began to walk away fast. Very very fast.

"Hey, where you goin? I thought we were gonna stay here awhile!" he yelled after me.

"Uh, I gotta pee! I gotta go home now." I turned around. I didn't wanna leave him there. "You coming."

"Yeah. Why not." He caught up to me and we walked the rest of the way together.