“Help me clean up,” she said. “Then we can watch an episode of Torchwood, if you want.”
“Yeah, cool!” In my opinion Torchwood wasn’t really cool, but getting to stay up an hour after my usual bedtime was way cool.
“Fine. Just as long as you understand we’re not going to make a practice of it. But I need to tell you something first, and it’s very serious, so I want you to pay attention. Close attention.”
“Okay.”
She got down on one knee, so our faces were more or less level and took hold of me by the shoulders, gently but firmly. “Never tell anyone about seeing dead people, James. Never.”
“They wouldn’t believe me anyway. You never used to.”
“I believed something,” she said. “Ever since that day in Central Park. Do you remember that?” She blew back her bangs. “Of course you do. How could you forget?”
“I remember.” I only wished I didn’t.
She was still on her knee, looking into my eyes. “So here it is. People not believing is a good thing. But someday somebody might. And that might get the wrong kind of talk going, or put you in actual danger.”
“Why?”
“There’s an old saying that dead men tell no tales, Jamie. But they can talk to you, can’t they? Dead men and women. You say they have to answer questions, and give truthful answers. As if dying is like a dose of sodium pentothal.”
I had no clue what that was and she must have seen it on my face because she said to never mind that, but to remember what Mrs. Burkett had told me when I asked about her rings.
“So?” I said. I liked being close to my mom, but I didn’t like her looking at me in that intense way.
“Those rings were valuable, especially the engagement ring. People die with secrets, Jamie, and there are always people who want to know those secrets. I don’t mean to scare you, but sometimes a scare is the only lesson that works.”
Like the man in Central Park was a lesson about being careful in traffic and always wearing your helmet when you were on your bike, I thought…but didn’t say.
“I won’t talk about it,” I said.
“Not ever. Except to me. If you need to.”
“Okay.”
“Good. We have an understanding.”
She got up and we went in the living room and watched TV. When the show was over, I brushed my teeth and peed and washed my hands. Mom tucked me in and kissed me and said what she always said: “Sweet dreams, pleasant repose, all the bed and all the clothes.”
Most nights that was the last time I saw her until morning. I’d hear the clink of glass as she poured herself a second glass of wine (or a third), then jazz turned way down low as she started reading some manuscript. Only I guess moms must have an extra sense, because that night she came back in and sat on my bed. Or maybe she just heard me crying, although I was trying my best to keep it on the down-low. Because, as she also always said, it’s better to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
“What’s wrong, Jamie?” she asked, brushing back my hair. “Are you thinking about the funeral? Or Mrs. Burkett being there?”
“What would happen to me if you died, Mom? Would I have to go live in an orphanage home?” Because it sure as shit wouldn’t be with Uncle Harry.
“Of course not,” Mom said, still brushing my hair. “And it’s what we call a moot point, Jamie, because I’m not going to die for a long time. I’m thirty-five years old, and that means I still have over half my life ahead of me.”
“What if you get what Uncle Harry’s got, and have to live in that place with him?” The tears were streaming down my face. Having her stroke my forehead made me feel better, but it also made me cry more, who knows why. “That place smells bad. It smells like pee!”
“The chance of that happening is so teensy that if you put it next to an ant, the ant would look like Godzilla,” she said. That made me smile and feel better. Now that I’m older I know she was either lying or misinformed, but the gene that triggers what Uncle Harry had—early-onset Alzheimer’s—swerved around her, thank God.
“I’m not going to die, you’re not going to die, and I think there’s a good chance that this peculiar ability of yours will fade when you get older. So…are we good?”
“We’re good.”
“No more tears, Jamie. Just sweet dreams and—”
“Pleasant repose, all the bed and all the clothes,” I finished.
“Yeah yeah yeah.” She kissed my forehead and left. Leaving the door open a little bit, as she always did.
I didn’t want to tell her it wasn’t the funeral that had made me cry, and it wasn’t Mrs. Burkett, either, because she wasn’t scary. Most of them aren’t. But the bicycle man in Central Park scared the shit out of me. He was gooshy.
5
We were on the 86th Street Transverse, heading for Wave Hill in the Bronx, where one of my preschool friends was having a big birthday party. (“Talk about spoiling a kid rotten,” Mom said.) I had my present to give Lily in my lap. We went around a curve and saw a bunch of people standing in the street. The accident must have just happened. A man was lying half on the pavement and half on the sidewalk with a twisted-up bicycle beside him. Someone had put a jacket over his top half. His bottom half was wearing black bike shorts with red stripes up the sides, and a knee brace, and sneakers with blood all over them. It was on his socks and legs, too. We could hear approaching sirens.
Standing next to him was the same man in the same bike shorts and knee brace. He had white hair with blood in it. His face was caved in right down the middle, I think maybe from where he hit the curb. His nose was like in two pieces and so was his mouth.
Cars were stopping and my mother said, “Close your eyes.” It was the man lying on the ground she was looking at, of course.
“He’s dead!” I started to cry. “That man is dead!”
We stopped. We had to. Because of the other cars in front of us.
“No, he’s not,” Mom said. “He’s asleep, that’s all. It’s what happens sometimes when someone gets banged hard. He’ll be fine. Now close your eyes.”
I didn’t. The smashed-up man raised a hand and waved at me. They know when I see them. They always do.
“His face is in two pieces!”
Mom looked again to be sure, saw the man was covered down to his waist, and said, “Stop scaring yourself, Jamie. Just close your—”
“He’s there!” I pointed. My finger was trembling. Everything was trembling. “Right there, standing next to himself!”
That scared her. I could tell by the way her mouth got all tight. She laid on her horn with one hand. With the other she pushed the button that rolled down her window and started waving at the cars ahead of her. “Go!” she shouted. “Move! Stop staring at him, for Christ’s sake, this isn’t a fucking movie!”
They did, except for the one right in front of her. That guy was leaning over and taking a picture with his phone. Mom pulled up and bumped his fender. He gave her the bird. My mother backed up and pulled into the other lane to go around. I wish I’d also given him the bird, but I was too freaked out.