Day Twenty-one

His bedroom, in stark comparison to the rest of the house, was only a little messy and just a bit stale smelling. The dirty clothes littered the room as they would any normal teenager's room. He had an open centerfold magazine by his bed that he quickly snagged and put away. My mind raced at the thought of what he did with a magazine like that. He went to his dresser drawers and started throwing clothes into his book bag as if he was in a mad rush.

Wanting to break the silence, I asked, "what's your father's name?"

Without stopping for a moment he answered, "Asshole."

"No, really."

"I'm serious," he said as he moved over to his closet.

"Well, since you're a third, I figured he must have the same last name, only he must be a junior." He didn't respond.

I looked about his room and realized he didn't have any pictures or anything. It was surprisingly empty. His bed was a mess. While he was ravaging his closet, I figured I'd be of some use and make up his bed for him. I lifted the sheet up over the bed and as it floated down it revealed, standing on the other side of the bed facing me, the ghost of the drowned boy. I screamed and fell backwards because it startled me.

"Josh? What is it?"

I couldn't speak. I sat on the floor and couldn't speak because the little blonde boy, still dripping wet, was climbing over the bed coming towards me. I was horrified. Woody came and put his arms under mine and propped me up.

"What is it? What do you see?" I was about to answer when the boy stood directly in front of me and opened his giant mouth. Not only did the cold blue water come rushing out of him in rapids, but a loud ear piercing shriek came with it. I screamed and tried to cover myself up with Woody, but it was useless. The water was freezing and was drowning the both of us. Couldn't he feel it? Couldn't Woody hear it? I clung to him but the water kept threatening to pull me away and into the open mouth of the open corpse.

"Woody, please! Don't let it take me! Don't let it take me!" I screamed. He looked at me in horror as the entire room filled with angry water. The clothes were swirling around us, the bed started to float and the water began to devour my friend as well as he simply looked on with mortified eyes.

That's when we both heard the front door creak open and awkward heavy steps hit the floor in the living room.

"Shit!" Woody said. And then it stopped. The shrieking stopped, the water disappeared, I was completely dry and had both my arms around Woody holding on to him for dear life. I looked behind me and the little boy was gone. "It's the old man," Woody said. "The bastard is home."

He got up quickly and zipped us his bag. "Come on, Peterson, let's get out of here." He slung his bag over his shoulder, grabbed me by the hand and tugged me along with him out of his room.

The TV came on as we approached the living room and I heard the refrigerator door open. Woody pulled me along into the living room and his father was standing there at the refirgerator, the door and his mouth open, looking at the TV as we passed. Before we could get to the door, however,

"Hey, boy! Where the hell'd you come from?"

Woody's hand squeezed mine and I could feel his whole soul sigh. Without even looking at him, he responded, "Nowhere. I was just leaving."

"Now wait a minute there. There's no beer here. Did you drink all the beer, boy?"

He cocked an eye at him and answered defiantly, "No."

"Well, somebody had to drink it! Seeing as there's only you and me here, it must have been you. I know I didn't drink it."

"I don't drink that shit. You were so drunk you probably drank it and forgot. I"m going now."

The mustached man slammed the refrigerator door shut. "Now, you hold up one goddamn minute!" He moved in a little closer to us, eyeing us up and down. "You seem to forget who's boss around here! You'd better watch your mouth if you know what's good for ya!" And then he turned to look solely at me. "Fact of business is I don't know who this here is! I don't recall inviting no black kid into my house!"

"Fact of business is you don't recall a lot of things!"

His father's brow frowned, his mustache burrowed in and his tone dropped an octave. He even spoke slower. "I told you to watch your tone with me! Don't go getting too big for your own britches."

Exasperated, Woody walked me back into the living room, as if to put me on display.

"Dad! This is Josh Peterson. This is the friend I told you about. Remember?! I'm staying with him all week. I just came home to get some clothes. I'll be out of your hair. So, can we go now?"

There was silence as he studied us carefully and my nose begin to sweat with the pungent scent of alcohol that was streaming out of his pores. Then he spoke, very softly, as if he had to struggle to find the right words. "Tomorrow's Christmas. I'm your family. You need to spend Christmas here with your family, boy. Not at some black kid's house I don't even know. I don't even know his parents. If he comes from a good home. I don't know nothing! Now, you send your friend here on home. Then you run down to the corner to Jackson's and pick me up a case of beer." With that, he scratched his crotch and proceeded to move to his moth infested sofa to watch the TV.

Woody's eyes were tearing in hatred of this man. He went to voice this hatred, but before he could even open his mouth, I screamed. They both turned to look at me, but what could I say? That I saw a little blonde dead boy peeking at me on the sofa, sitting beside Woody's father. I only saw his liquid blue eyes at first, but then he raised himself up and I saw his whole blistered face.

"What the hell is wrong with that negro boy?!"

"Will you shut the hell up! He's scared!" Woody turned to back to me and asked, "Josh, what's wrong? What do you see?" I pointed over at the boy who sat next to his father.

"It's him! He's back!"

"Who's back?" he asked.

"Goddamnit, I can't concentrate with all this noise! Son, I don't know who the hell you are, but kindly escort yourself off my property!"

"DAD, SHUT UP!" This shocked him so much that he actually did shut up for a moment, long enough for Woody to turn and ask me again, "Who's back?"

I attempted to put words to what I saw, but anything I said would have sounded ridiculous. I trembled because I thought at any moment the boy's mouth would fall apart and the flood would begin. So, I simply said, "It's a boy ... a little boy." It suddenly became deathly quiet. Both Woody and his father stared at me, dumbfounded, and Woody started to tremble.

Very carefully, he asked me, "A boy?" I nodded. "What does he look like?"

I wanted to say he looked dead. I wanted to say he looked emaciated. I wanted to say he looked like he was in pain. But I just said, "He looks like a little boy. Only 5 or 6. He's got blonde hair and bright blue eyes ..."