Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions (21 page)

The boardwalk never seemed so loud,
so bright,
so
complete
as it does tonight.

I’m here
but not.

They stagger through me,
drunk,
half naked,
high school behind them,
the future ahead.
Do they know how lucky they are?

Some do,
those who’ve lost a friend,
a brother,
a sister,
a boyfriend,
a girlfriend,
or even a secret fuck buddy.

But tonight they want to forget.

Those who aren’t drinking,
and some who are,
take part in Ocean City’s
“Play It Safe” activities—
free fun in the form of
midnight bowling,
rock climbing,
volleyball,
karaoke,
laser tag,
etc.,

etc.,
etc.
Things that won’t get you arrested
or pregnant
or killed.

Three girls walk straight toward me,
platform flip-flops thunking the boardwalk.

The one on the right,
with a dark ponytail and glasses,
suddenly lags behind,
pretends to focus on her
giant tub of Thrasher’s fries.

I pretend too,
stepping aside,
then,
at the last second,
I enter her path.

She swerves.

I point at her. “Ha!
I knew you could see me.”

“Go away.”
The girl keeps walking.

I zoom up to her.
“I know this is weird,
but I need your help.”

She shakes her head,
munches another fry.

“I need you to talk to my brother Mickey.
If it helps, he’s really cute—
like me, only with dark hair and a pulse—
and his girlfriend isn’t with him this week.”

She rolls her eyes, like I’m a total asshole.
(Which I am.)

“I’m scared he might kill himself.”

She stops.

Mickey drifts
through our favorite cheesy gift shop,
as always
drawn to the aisle
with the religious stuff.

Candles for saints
or Hindu gods
or Voodoo spirits.
Light a match,
summon the divine,
like it’s that easy.

Mickey stops,
picks up a
white
porcelain
Pietà
—
that Michelangelo statue
of Mary cradling Jesus’s
thin
limp
corpse.

I tell Krista what to say
so he’ll know she’s for real,
so he’ll know I’m for real.

She doesn’t sidle.
She doesn’t shift.
She stalks right up to him.

“It reminds him of you,” she says,
“the way you held him the night he died.”
The statue shatters on the floor.
Jesus’s head pops off,
shoots through my feet,
rolls under the shelf across the aisle.

Mickey brushes past Krista,
making another escape.

She grabs his wrist,
her fingers a handcuff.
“Look! I don’t have time to chase you
while you pretend you don’t want to talk to him.
So let’s just do this, okay?”

He scowls down at her.
“Who are you?”

“I’m no one.”
She lets go of his wrist.
“I think that’s the point.”

The ocean’s rhythm
isn’t.
I count the seconds between waves
and realize that
they crash when they crash,
with no regular timing,
like our ex-drummer
when he was drunk.

Like my heart’s final beats,
1,000
in three minutes.

The waves’ arrhythmia
is all I hear in my brother’s silence.

We sit side by side on the pier,
our legs dangling over the edge.
He and Krista pass a cigarette
back and forth
through me.
Mickey has quit smoking
six times in two months.

I splay my fingers,
admiring how the smoke curls
around and within
their violet glow,
like dry ice at a rock concert.

Mickey drops the cigarette butt
into his can of Pepsi.
It sizzles as the fire dies.

“He was so heavy.”

He presses the back of his hand
against his mouth,
as if those four words
are the first drops in a flood
that will drown us all.

“Heavy, like a sandbag,
in my arms.
And behind that door.
It took both of us,
me and our sister, Siobhan,
to push it open.
I thought, What idiot got so wasted
they passed out on our bathroom floor?
And probably puked all over
Mom’s favorite guest towels,
and we’ll have to clean it up,
and I swear to God,
this is the last party
we’ll ever have.”

He shakes the Pepsi can,
the cigarette butt rattling
staccato.

“So the door finally opens,
and there’s no puke,
no blood,
no nothing.
Just him.
Clean and dead.”

I remember watching Mickey
drag my body into the hall,
start CPR with Siobhan.
No matter how much they pressed
and breathed
and cried
and cursed
and screeeeeeeeamed,
I couldn’t come back.

“I’m sorry.”

Krista repeats my words.

“Who’s sorry?” Mickey asks her.
“You or him?”

“When I speak for myself,
I’ll hold up my hand.”
She makes a Boy-Scouty gesture,
then lowers her hand.
“Logan is sorry.”

He flinches at the sound of my name.
“What the hell’s he sorry about?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him.
“But you were really pissed off that night,
so I figured I should apologize.”

Mickey puts his head in his hands
when he hears my answer.
“I didn’t mean to yell at him.”

“You always yelled at me.”
I pause to let Krista translate.
“Why would you stop when I died?”

“I did not always yell at him!”

Krista raises her hand.
“You’re yelling at him right now.”

“Well—he—”

Mickey chokes out six
or seven
incoherent syllables
before lurching to his feet.
He stomps away,
down the boardwalk.
Fast enough for drama
but slow enough to follow.

“Sorry.”
I hunch my shoulders
as Krista stands, sighing.

“Stop saying ‘sorry.’
Mickey should be saying that.”

“He won’t.”
I get up to join her.
“He’s a douche.”

“Your turn to talk,”
Krista tells me
as we catch up to Mickey
down the boardwalk.

The first question is easy.
“Ask him why he hates me.”

She rolls her eyes,
but does as I ask.

“I don’t hate him,” he says,
but too quick,
like a reflex,
like someone,
maybe a therapist,
has asked that question before.

“You think I’m a sellout,” I tell him.
“You think I don’t care about the music.”

This he doesn’t deny,
just shoves his hands deeper
into his pockets,
slows his pace,
glares harder at the wooden slats
in front of his feet.

“So if I’m a sellout,”
I continue, slowly enough
that Krista can translate,

“then why did we play
all those songs I wrote?
Why were they good enough,
when I wasn’t?”

Mickey glares at her.
“I never said he wasn’t good enough.”

“Don’t talk to me,” Krista tells Mickey.
“Talk to Logan.”

He stops short and turns to her.
“Okay, L—”
My name catches on his tongue.
“You were good.
You were amazing.
You took my fucking breath away.”
His eyes skewer hers.
“But it wasn’t enough, was it?
No, you had to be famous.
You had to be famous
yesterday
.
You couldn’t wait until we were older,
when you could handle it.
You were just a kid,
a stupid kid.”

Mickey’s face crumples,
red with rage
and something else.
He clutches his hands
in his thick brown hair,
like he could tear it out.

“And now you’ll never be older.
You’ll never be
anything,
ever,
but a stupid kid.”

As I stare at Mickey,
feeling twelve years old again,
a whimper comes from my right.

I turn,
and Mickey turns,
to see Krista,
her eyes wide and wet,
lower lip trembling—
classic
girl
pre-cry
symptoms.

Mickey’s hands come up,
as if to grasp her shoulders.
“Oh God, I’m sorry.
I was looking at you,
but I swear I was talking to him.
You were just—”

She slaps him,
hard enough
to knock the self-righteous mask
clean off his face.

“Logan’s right,” she hisses.
“You are a douche.”

Jim Morrison died in the bathtub.
They buried him in Paris,
but some people think he’s still alive,
just like Elvis.
That he’d had enough
of this bogus life
and decided to get
a brand-new one.

My brother and I
catch up to Krista near the
entrance to the Jolly Roger Amusement Park.
She’s wiping away the tears
with her fists,
as if she can pummel her sadness
into submission.

“I’m sorry,” Mickey says
(to her).
“Can we start over?”

“No.”
Sniffle.
“But we can keep going.”

“Your turn,” I say to Krista.
“Tell us why you freaked.
But first, make Mickey buy you
a funnel cake.”

On a bench
by the Ferris wheel
they eat.
I crouch a few feet in front of them,
in the middle of the foot traffic.
Apparently I never sat on that bench
in my whole life.

“My brother died when I was ten.”
Krista tugs off a long string of fried dough
and dangles it into her mouth.
Powdered sugar
showers over the edge of her lips
down to her chin.
I wonder if Mickey wants to lick it off.
I would
if I could smell
and taste,
or think of anyone but Aura.

“What happened?” Mickey asks.

“OD’d.”
A strong breeze
sweeps her hair into her mouth
as she speaks and eats.
She tucks it behind her ear.
“Officially an accident.”