Garrett slipped out of Spanish class with the gaudy Aztec medallion hall pass in his hand, that tacky circle with the faces of Mexican gods and demons that gave students permission to roam the halls and bolted for his spot on the other side of the dumpster beside the auditorium back doors. He plopped down on the yellow curb and fired up a cigarette, eased his back against the brick wall, and exhaled. “Fuck Spanish,” he said accidentally out loud. “This is America, bitch, we speak English here.” Then he contemplated how ignorant that sounded and regretted it even though he still thought banning kids from speaking English in the classroom was lame. He stretched out his back, legs, and arms, still waking up for the day, his body growing too fast, aching as if attempting to escape his body. He caught a glimpse of the scars on his wrists and forearms as they popped out from his black hoodie and picked at the purple polish on his fingernails, his mind wandering into dark spaces where blood splatters, contorted faces screech, and ghosts filter through a person’s subconscious like capillary thread through lethal needles. This place blows, he whined to himself. But he didn’t particularly want to go home either. He didn’t really want to be anywhere. Except maybe Cotton Woods. It was peaceful there. Quiet. No one got up in his face. He could sit on a wooden table or under a tree and play his guitar like he did over the summer and sing to Angus. Then they would hit up Taco Bell or cruise the skate park. He felt a sense of relief then, almost happy. But his relationship, or whatever the hell that was, with Angus had burned down like a barn.
The auditorium door creaked open, and Garrett scrambled to slide up against the dumpster to make himself smaller as he stamped out his Marlboro.
“Garrett are you there?” a soft voice whispered.
“Damn, Sasha, don’t scare me like that,” he winced and then relaxed his shoulders.
“Are you okay? You’ve been gone a long time.”
Sasha came around the dumpster and sat beside him. “Maestra will start to wonder where you are.”
“Trust me, she doesn’t care about me.”
“Oh, poor Garrett,” she taunted sarcastically. “Is something specific wrong or is this just your usual emo depression?”
“I’m gonna fail Spanish which means I won’t have enough credits to graduate which means my dad will be pissed as hell.”
“Bullshit! That’s not it and you know it.” She grabbed his chin with her fingers. “Did you see the ghost again?”
“I won’t go back to Trinity House,” he pulled away from her. “I can’t go back there.”
“I know, I know, it was beautiful and cheerful and full of caring people.”
“Exactly. That kind of happiness is a sure sign of evil,” he laughed but it faded quickly. “But seriously, I can’t go through all of that again.”
“But you can’t live with the ghost either,” Sasha reasoned. “It’ll drive you over the edge. Again. Like I’ve been telling you for a hundred years, talk to your dad. He’s a good guy.”
“He doesn’t want to hear what I have to say. He couldn’t handle it. It’s better to just let it go,” Garrett’s voice sounded like it might break, like he was a balloon losing its last precious gasp of air.
“And ‘letting it go’ has gotten you where so far?” she came back.
“Look, just forget about it. My dad’s right. We have to forget about it, make peace with it, make a new life.”
They sat in silence for a few awkward moments and watched the Queen Anne’s lace flutter in the breeze.
“Let me make you feel better,” Sasha grew a rye smile. She fiddled with the button on his jeans and lowered her head into his lap.
“Not here, you stupid girl,” he pushed her away. “Besides, I thought we weren’t dating anymore.”
“We aren’t,” she clarified. “But we can hook up if we feel like it,” she argued. “Look, I’m, just trying to be helpful. I hate to see you like this.”
“We’d better get back to class. You go first. I’ll be alright,” he assured her.
Garrett wandered through the rest of his day like a nomad who had once searched for water but had since forgotten his purpose. He filtered through the hallways and sat in classes, mechanically opening his laptop, scribbling on quizzes, and responding when prompted, dutiful and dead. When the bus stopped at Green Meadow mobile home park he disembarked and dragged himself home like a swimmer against the current. In his room, the shades pulled, light off, he strummed his guitar by the glow of his mobile phone, a juice box, and a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos on the unmade bed. He thought about how his anguish felt somehow different after his conversation with Sasha, how something had shifted. Where, indeed, as she pointed out, had letting it go gotten him, although he hadn’t really let it go. He had, instead, let it be buried because that’s what one does with dead things. But he was tired of living among the dead and wasn’t sure how much longer he could do it. Maybe this was the moment for the rupture, for the dam to burst and either let the truth flow or drown him.
When Garrett heard his dad slide in the front door of the trailer, he clinched his stomach and made his way down the short hallway. His father was a slight, sinewy man who appeared to stand as if he was attempting to be taller, bigger, more substantial. He swam in his blue uniform, the belt cinched tight to prevent his pants from sliding down while he buzzed around the shop floor. He was unloading his pockets, his wallet, his keys, his loose change onto his dresser when Garrett placed his hands on the door jams.
“Dad, can we talk?”
“Sure, son. Let me get changed and grab a beer. Meet you in the kitchen.” His shoulders dropped in worry as he pulled on a pair of sweats and a tee shirt.
“I want to talk about it,” Garrett blurted out unintentionally when his father rounded the corner. He had no plan. He was winging it. This was his Hail Mary, his last-ditch effort at a life.
“Now,” his father questioned? “Why now, suddenly?”
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”
“No offense, son, but I’ve spent years and every spare penny I have on therapists and doctors and medications and counselors trying to get you to talk about it. Sorry if I’m a bit rattled.”
Garrett shrugged.
“Okay, what do you want to know. I will tell you everything.”
“No, I want to tell you everything,” Garrett felt a sudden rush of adrenaline, a certainty he had never experienced. This was, finally, his moment. He could somehow feel it churning inside him, bubbling, frothing over like unattended pasta water.
“What do you mean? You were six,” his father pointed out.
“I remember it now. Finally. I don’t know why. It just came to me out of the blue. That morning. Mom came into my room. She was frantic. She looked strange. I’d seen her messed up before, but this was different. She picked up a backpack with a blue dinosaur on it and started cramming my stuff inside.”
“Garrett, don’t do this to yourself,” his dad pushed down his hands like he was fighting to lower the temperature of the room.
“She grabbed my hand and said we were going on a trip, an adventure she called it. I remember we got into her car, it was bright red. She helped me into my booster seat and handed me my stuffed turtle, Toti.” Garrett’s voice grew calm and low. “We got on the interstate; I remember because we started going really fast. Then she got a phone call.”
“Was it me?” his dad clarified.
“Yes, I guess so. She was screaming and crying and saying stuff about how you couldn’t take me away, how I belonged with her. I was scared and confused.”
“Son, you must understand. She had kidnapped you for Christ’s sake. She had no parental rights. There was a restraining order. We were afraid she might hurt you, though she would never mean to,” he sighed in frustration. “We’ve been over all of this a million times. I had to keep you safe.”
“I know. But I remember it now. When she hung up, she slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road. She just sat there for a minute like she was somewhere else or in a trance or something. Then she reached back and unbuckled me. She pulled me into the front seat with her. I remember sitting on her lap, the steering wheel poking me in the back.”
“You remember all this? After all this time?”
“Yes, it’s been seeping in, like a leak. Then she said, I can hear her voice now: ‘I love you more than my own life. Always remember that, Scamp’.”
“Garrett, stop! Don’t do this to yourself. You’ve suffered enough,” his father pleaded.
“Then she set me in the passenger seat and gave me Toti, opened the car door, and ran into the traffic.” He stopped and a pall filtered across the room. Garrett’s pain dripped from his words like honey. “I heard tires squealing and a thump, loud sounds and then sirens. I saw…”
“Stop!” his father cried out. “Don’t say it!”
His father slumped over as if he would collapse, tears glistening in his eyes. Finally, Garrett took a breath and his father moved to embrace him, but Garrett could not stop. “Afterwards, someone came and picked me up from the front seat and said they would take me to a safe place. A woman in a uniform gave me a Kit Kat bar. Then you came and got me.”
“My God, Garrett, what you’ve been through. I can’t imagine,” his father placed his hands around Garrett’s head, his dusty mop top crushed tightly in his father’s fingers.
Then Garrett tore at the remainder of his pain like a bandage. “I see her ghost. All those years I never knew what it was. When I closed my eyes I could see this shadowy figure, but I couldn’t make it out. It was her. That’s what’s wrong with me. I’m haunted by her.”
His father took him by his bony shoulders. “She loved you very much, Garrett, but the drugs, the mental health issues, it was all too much. She was a danger to herself and everyone but especially to you. I did what I had to do, and I’d do it again.”
They stood in the little kitchen, the daylight fading in the tiny window above the sink with its incessant drip.
“What made you remember the accident?” his father asked.
“I don’t know. Time, I guess. Maturity. I just couldn’t bare that ghost anymore, always lurking at me, following me, pulling at me. I had to confront it, stop it.”
“I’m so sorry this was dropped on you. You didn’t deserve it.”
“Like you said, you did what you had to do.”
“So, where do we go from here?” he patted Garrett on the shoulder.
“I don’t know. Forward, I guess, is the only option,” Garrett exhaled deeply. He crossed the darkening room and switched on a lamp. He stared into the outside darkness, filled with uncertainty, just like his life. But he had confronted his ghost, finally, for whatever it was worth, maybe nothing. But at least he could breathe now. He could identify the struggle. He knew, finally, what he was grappling with and that was a start.
