The Poor and the Haunted Read online

  “How’s that wife of yours doing? Your kids?” Carlisle asked.

  “Good, good. They’re all healthy. Growing up fast, man. I’m lucky.”

  “What do you do, Jimmy?”

  Carlisle remembered all their conversations about Jimmy’s education and career.

  “I’m a futures trader—mostly milk, some pork belly,” Jimmy said.

  “You can do that from Phoenix?”

  Jimmy laughed, one of the few good laughs he’d had in weeks.

  “It’s 2019,” Jimmy said. “You can trade milk futures from anywhere. You just have to have a computer and read a whole lot about what’s going on in the rest of the world, and how it will or won’t affect milk prices three months from now. Boring stuff, to most people—but I like it. What about you? Do you and Claudia have any kids?”

  “Three. Getting bigger every day.”

  Carlisle thought of Jimmy and Kelly every time he looked at one of his babies for the first time. He understood why, for Jimmy, leaving home meant leaving behind all things Oklahoma. There were no hard feelings. Carlisle told Jimmy to leave and never look back.

  “How old are you now?” Jimmy asked.

  “Fifty! Can you believe it?”

  “Fifty? Wow. You look great.”

  “Well, you know what they say,” Carlisle said. “Black don’t crack.”

  Carlisle laughed and stroked a face that looked almost as youthful as the day they first met. Jimmy could not say the same about his own aging, and Carlisle respected him enough to not offer a false compliment in return.

  “So,” Carlisle said, “I wasn’t expecting to get an email from you. Hadn’t heard from you in ages.”

  “It’s about my father. Do you remember that day?”

  A man with a knife buried handle-deep in his eye socket. A woman under a bathroom sink holding a lighter to a packed glass bulb. Two brave children holding each other, one staring wide-eyed at his father’s dead body. A detective wondering if the knife might be a blessing, trying to push away the thought the real blessed event would have been two dead Lansford parents staring through a hole in a barn roof.

  “Of course I remember that day.”

  Outside of Jill and his kids, Jimmy assumed he occupied little space in the minds and hearts of others. He didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell him why, either. He could go Dr. Phil on himself just fine. Like all children, he once believed he was the center of his parents’ universe. But over the years, he was reminded time and time again that he and Kelly were unfortunate obstacles—at best. It took him a while, but by the time he was five, Diane and Ronnie conditioned Jimmy to expect no compassion from others.

  “I’m sorry. I know. I know me and Kelly were important to you. Do you know I still have those first Nikes you got me?”

  “Really?! Shoot, that’s amazing. You could run, my man. You could run.”

  “Those shoes made all the difference in the world. You know that, right?”

  Carlisle smiled. He knew that wasn’t the truth. When Jimmy was in high school, he could have worn Kleenex boxes on his feet and won medals. The shoes weren’t bought to make him run faster. The shoes were a monument to love and belief, carved by a Nike swoosh.

  “Thank you, Jimmy. That means a lot to me. Now, ask me what you want to ask me.”

  “My father.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve just never asked…never said this out loud…my father—”

  “Let me stop you right there. I think I know what you’re going to ask.”

  Jimmy thought Carlisle couldn’t possibly know the question he would ask.

  “There were legitimate questions. Do you know how rare it is for someone to take their own life the way your father did?”

  “It’s…rare.”

  “Yeah, really rare. I still Google it every now and again, wondering if anyone else has decided to go out that way. They haven’t.”

  “I know. I Google it, too.”

  “Then I know what you’re asking. It’s the same question we had, and for years I thought she killed him. But I’ve believed, ever since your mother passed, that she didn’t kill your father. She was a horrible…she caused an incredible amount of pain. But, she did not kill your father. That I’m sure of.”

  “My mother?”

  “Diane was a lot of things. She was a monster. A monster. She didn’t kill your father, though.”

  The thought hadn’t occurred to him, not once in the twenty-two years since his father died. Perhaps he was naïve; perhaps he didn’t want to think the woman who carried him in her womb could be a killer.

  “How do you know?” Jimmy asked.

  “Because your mother was a drunk and an addict and a loudmouth. I’m sorry, I just, what she did to you kids, your—”

  “It’s okay. You don’t need to feel bad. Say what you have to say.”

  “She was a loudmouth, and half the people she got drugs from were on our payroll. They were informants. Or, snitches, if you prefer. Even that guy Crowder she dated was a snitch. If she mentioned killing your father even once, we would have heard about it. Someone would cut a deal and give her up to shake a charge. No honor among thieves. Or methheads.”

  “Why would she admit it? And why would she admit it to another addict?”

  Carlisle leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers on his desk. He knew Jimmy had seen the worst the world can offer, but the inner workings of a small-town drug trade were likely lost on a milk futures trader.

  “You don’t think someone ever shorted her in all those years of buying crystal? You know they did. More than once. If she killed your father, the first words out of her mouth would have been, ‘I’ll kill you, you blankety-blankety blank mf’er. I’ve done it before.’ That didn’t happen, not once. I don’t think your mother is innocent because she’s a good person. She was a bad person. But at some point, if she had killed him, she would have used it to threaten someone. We have people who make up murders all the time for intimidation. ‘Don’t f’ with me, I put a knife in so-and-so.’ That sort of thing. If she were sober, I would think she just knew how to keep her mouth shut, and maybe she did kill him. But she was never sober.”

  Jimmy looked at a picture on his desk of the family he and Jill pulled from their shared hat, a magic trick that saved one life and created two others. Carlisle couldn’t see what Jimmy was looking at but had a good idea who he was thinking about.

  “You didn’t leave, Jimmy. You moved away. For something better. You had to.”

  The lump in Jimmy’s throat had been back for a while, ever since he first started spontaneously weeping. That night, looking at Carlisle, the lump was more swollen than ever. But he would not cry in front of this man who bought him his first real pair of running shoes.

  Jimmy braced himself to say what he only thought, what he was sure Carlisle would laugh at.

  “I don’t think my father was murdered.”

  There was a pause, and then Jimmy asked Carlisle the question he wanted to ask.

  “What if my father was possessed?”

  Carlisle sat at his desk not moving or speaking long enough for Jimmy to think Skype was frozen.

  “Hold on,” Carlisle said. He stood from his desk and left the screen. Jimmy heard a door close, and moments later Carlisle re-entered the Skype frame and sat back down in his chair. It was clear Carlisle’s graceful aging wasn’t limited to his face. He was still fit. He doubted the chief chased suspects down a dark alley, but Carlisle would still be able to hold his own.

  “Possessed? You mean, by the devil?”

 
Carlisle did not snicker or smile. He took Jimmy seriously.

  “Yeah. Possessed. I don’t know if it was the devil…but possessed by something. I—I know how it sounds,” Jimmy said.

  “Jimmy. Don’t…don’t worry about how it sounds.”

  “I know it sounds crazy.”

  “Jimmy, if there were ever two people who were possessed by the devil, it was your parents.”

  The chief gave Jimmy a stern look—the same stern look he used when he stopped joking around and gave his children Serious Life Advice.

  “But either way they’re long gone. You need to live your life. Embrace those babies of yours before they move away and go to college. Make a few friends. Heck, maybe I’ll come see you out in Phoenix and we’ll go watch a Diamondbacks game.”

  “Can you be sure?”

  “You know, when I was young, a young cop, I thought supernatural evil was a possible explanation for things I saw. A year before I met you and Kelly, I went out on a call on a domestic. The guy wasn’t just a wife beater. He also adopted cats from the local shelter. The shelter folks loved him. You know what he did with those cats? He would take them home and cut chunks out of them—not enough to kill the cat, just enough to hurt it. He would cauterize the wound and bandage it. If the cat lived, he would do it again. He wanted to see how much a living thing could take before it died—when its will to live, its will to endure, just gave out. Oh, and the chunks he would cut out? He fed those to other cats. Jimmy, sometimes I wish there was an explanation as simple as the devil.”

  “You don’t think it’s even a possibility?”

  “Jimmy…I think some people are born bad, some people are raised bad, and some people grow to be bad. No offense, Jimmy, but I think your parents were born bad and were raised bad, and then put a whole bunch of crap in their bodies that made what was already bad even worse. That’s a big reason why you and Kelly stuck with me, why I cared—why I care so much about both of you. Still. Even now. So, no, I don’t think your parents—your dad—was possessed. I don’t…I don’t like cussing like this, but your dad was a mean fuck-up who married a mean fuck-up and together they fucked each other up even worse. But…what do you think?”

  Jimmy stared at a man whose opinion he respected more than any man he ever knew, including and especially Ronnie Lansford.

  “I—partly it’s the method. My father didn’t seem like he was strong enough, and I’ve read—”

  “I hear you. Possession supposedly gives people physical capabilities they don’t have.”

  “Yeah, how—”

  “We’ve all seen The Exorcist, Jimmy. Crystal meth also makes people think they’re Superman. Sometimes they take the crazy out on their own bodies.”

  “Okay. Well, there’s that. But his suicide note. Did you read his note?”

  “There’s something inside me? Right? All caps? Hard to forget that.”

  Carlisle remembered removing the note from Kelly’s hands, the blood on her small hands drying to a crunchy brown.

  “Yes. That, and there was always just a—just a feeling. In my house. In my family.”

  “I won’t argue about that. As soon as I stepped foot on the dairy, I felt the need to vomit,” Carlisle said, looking down and then back up at the screen. “I remember…I walked into your bathroom and puked in the sink. I just lost it. Everywhere.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. I remember feeling nauseous and puking up my breakfast in your sink. I wiped a little off the mirror. It was, at least as far as I remember, the only time I ever vomited on scene. I was embarrassed. But Jimmy, none of this is new information. You’ve had his suicide note for a long time. Why now? Why look me up to go over stuff we’ve both known for so long?”

  Jimmy couldn’t avoid it.

  “Because it’s—something is happening in my house. I don’t understand—I think—”

  Carlisle raised his hand. Were they not separated by a thousand miles and two decades, the hand would lie on Jimmy’s chest rather than filling a screen.

  “Jimmy, I’m not going to ask you to justify your reason for getting ahold of me, or for wondering if your father was possessed. But I want to tell you something, and I want you to listen.”

  “Okay.”

  “If the devil is real, then it stands to reason there is his opposite, right?”

  “Yeah. I mean, right. That makes sense. But—”

  “You had it bad growing up. The worst I’ve seen in Garrity, and things can be pretty bad here. Your sister experienced even worse. Your father killed himself, and sometimes I thought that was best, before he could hurt you or Kelly. That’s how bad it was. Your mom was a dope fiend, and a mean dope fiend at that.”

  “We don’t need to recap everything,” Jimmy said, trying to sound like he was joking. It did not work.

  “Point being, anyone can comb through their past, looking for the devil. Anyone. Even those of us with a…a more normal life. Crap. I don’t mean ‘normal.’ I’m sorry, I—”

  “It’s okay. I know what you mean.”

  “Yeah, well, I apologize. Sometimes I have a big mouth. Point is, since you moved away, look at your life. I’ve kept an eye on you. I don’t have a Facebook page myself, but I can see yours, and you’ve got a beautiful family. Beautiful wife. Beautiful kids—and, my goodness, your little girl looks a lot like her Aunt Kelly. Spitting image.”

  “She does,” Jimmy said. Jessica and Kelly could be mistaken for twins, if they were the same age.

  “Maybe evil has touched your life. Maybe. Maybe it was just bad luck. Most definitely bad parenting. But I do know, without a doubt, that good has made itself part of your life. Look at your profile pic, Jimmy. Someone is looking after you, and it isn’t the devil. You like Springsteen?”

  “What?”

  “Do you like Bruce Springsteen?” Carlisle asked.

  “Do you like Bruce Springsteen? I mean—”

  Carlisle laughed his good laugh.

  “You think black people don’t like Springsteen?”

  “No, it’s just—”

  Carlisle laughed again.

  “It’s okay, Jimmy. I’m joking. Springsteen has a line in one of his songs that says for too long he kept his good eye to the dark, and his blind eye to the sun. You know what that means?”

  “I think I get it.”

  “Well, Jimmy, if you think you’re possessed, or haunted, or whatever, I won’t doubt you, and I won’t make you feel small because of it—provided we keep up with these calls. Look, even I know your kids should be somewhere around the age you and Kelly were when your father died. It’s a hard time for you, I get that, and I’m here for you—but please, please keep your good eye to the sun. Please.”

  Jimmy knew it was good advice. It was also advice that was hard to follow when it felt like you floated out of a storage unit and into space.

  It was time to tell Carlisle goodbye. Jimmy was in the upstairs office, and Jill or one of the kids would soon knock on the door and tell him dinner was getting cold. He couldn’t let them overhear a conversation about possession. Before he went, though, needed to ask Carlisle one more question.

  “Can I ask you something, one more thing before we go?”

  “Sure. Ask away. And if you’re inviting Claudia and me over for Thanksgiving, know the answer is yes. We’ll come. All the way to Phoenix.”

  Jimmy smiled, remembering a pile of homemade mashed potatoes Claudia made that were still the best thing—outside of Jill’s cooking—he ever tasted.

  “One night I came home from a sleepover. Kelly was scared and asked me to come home. When I got home
our mother was outside with Crowder in that Firebird that was in our backyard. Back then I didn’t know it was Crowder. I hadn’t met him yet. She was doing it for drugs and a little money, but mostly drugs. I got Kelly and we took off running, and I thought about calling you, but—”

  “You weren’t sure I would answer?”

  “No. I knew you would answer the phone. I wanted to ask you if we could come over and—”

  “Jimmy, I would have taken you and Kelly in a heartbeat. That night, and every night after. Finding you two, and what you’ve become, Jimmy, it…it made what I’ve spent my life doing worth it. All the crap I’ve seen—you two were just worth it. I loved—I still love you. Both of you. And, I understand why you left all this behind—heck, I helped you do it—but Jimmy, I miss you. I miss Kelly. I think about you two a lot, and I just—I miss you.”

  Jimmy did his best to keep the tears inside, especially when his kids might see. Emotional stability was something he prioritized. Growing up, tears weren’t a sign of vulnerability, sorrow, or joy. They were precursors to or the direct result of sudden violence. But hearing Carlisle tell him he loved him, and his sister, was too much. Tears ran down his cheeks and into his open shirt collar, coming to rest in the hard lines of his runner’s belly.

  “Why?” he asked, his voice cracking.

  “Why do I love you guys?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because, Jimmy. That’s what big brothers do.”

  Jimmy let out a bark, a suppressed cry caged at the base of his throat for a long, long time. He placed his fist against the screen. Carlisle did the same.

  They said their goodbyes, their fists leaving the screen long after the Skype connection ended. Both hoped this wasn’t the last time they would talk. Carlisle told Jimmy not to be a stranger and said again that he loved him. Other than his son, Jimmy had never said those words to another man. It felt good to tell Carlisle he loved him, too.

  Jimmy left his home office, washing his face and hands in the same bathroom Jill had found him in during Jessica’s birthday party. That night there was no smudge in the mirror, no spontaneous vomiting, no presence standing with him—just three people yelling from the dining room that dinner was indeed getting colder.