Second Chances for Lost Souls

"You shouldn't call people during a thunderstorm," Henry barks into the receiver. "Don't you know that's dangerous?"

He hangs up. The first person to call him in two days is a telemarketer. He grips his aluminum cane so hard he can feel the calluses bite into his palms. The damned thing. He shouldn't even be on it anymore, but he is not doing his exercises. No way in Hell should he have come back from a ten-day vacation with Type 2 Decompression Sickness. From a lousy 35-foot dive.

The memory of that day still burns in him, filling him with rage, with shame. He remembers coming out of the postcard blue water, blood streaming from his nose and the pain pulling on his cranium like gravity. He remembers how the dive guide freaked out -- the 72 hours in the decompression chamber, the eternity in rehab. Air embolism in the brain: a stroke caused by a tiny nitrogen bubble.

"You could have died."

Sure, that puts everything in perspective.

Aloha!

He hates feeling sorry for himself. He is not going back to work. And until September, the checks keep coming.

Outside, the rain mocks the melodrama of his predicament. He fights the urge to scream, uselessly.

"Damn you!"

The cane pounding the floor like Ahab's leg, he crosses the room. Lightning flashes. Thunder rends the air. The room goes dark.

"Damn you, too!" he shouts, instantly regretting his rage.

A boy of maybe five or six, his blond hair matted and clinging to his face, is looking into the window. Henry is struck by how sad and frightened his eyes are. Lighting flashes again. The boy has disappeared, and all Henry can see is his own reflection in the window. No wonder the boy was frightened. How long has it been since he has shaved, or even brushed his hair?

He can't let him stay out there. He'll catch his death.

Standing on the front stoop, Henry peers into the rain, pouring down in sheets. The whole block is without power. Only lighting manages to pierce this darkness.

"Get into the house, kid! It's okay!"

The rain weighs down his hair and clothes. The chill penetrates to the bone. He can't see the boy. Is he homeless?

***

Days later, during one of her visits, Carolyn says, "No, I haven't heard of any homeless children in this neighborhood."

She gets up from the couch, goes to the kitchen, "No, Hon, you stay there. You want some tea, too?"

Henry rises. He hates it when she acts like this is her place. Now she clinks the dishes in the sink, just to let him know they need to be done.

"Where's your kettle? No, the homeless go to the homeless shelter when the weather gets bad. That's what they do."

Henry thump-thump-thumps to the kitchen. Carolyn is filling the kettle with water -- so she's found it -- sporting that mom-smile, the one that makes him feel like a ten year-old who hasn't done his homework. But suddenly that smile falls off her face. Henry can almost hear it shatter on the floor, like a glass ashtray. Hah, victory! But what has he done to earn it?

"That wasn't a homeless boy," there is a rare tone of seriousness in her voice. "There was a little boy who died in this house, twenty years ago. I still remember that awful, awful day. His parents kept him locked up in the attic, and he starved to death. He was only five."

Henry cocks an eyebrow. Is she trying to sell him a ghost story? Before he can say anything, Carolyn adds, "Do not, under any circumstances invite him in."

"All I did was tell him to come out of the rain," says Henry. "That can't possibly count as an invitation."

***

That night he dreams of the little boy. He dreams of him pummeling the attic floor with his little fists, beating them bloody. He is crying, begging to be let out. Henry wakes up drenched in sweat. Thunder rumbles nearby. Better close the window before it gets wet inside. Funny, it's not even raining. In fact, now the noise is coming from inside the house. Someone is on the stairs. Henry feels his neck hairs bristle. Could it be -- ? No. But it could be a burglar. He tightens the grip on his cane. It's not very heavy, but if he swings it hard enough, he will cause the intruder a lot of pain.

He peers into the hallway, sees no one, inches his way toward the stairs, holding onto the wall for support. He can hear his breath, feel the pulse race in his throat. The noise is coming from downstairs.

Someone is at the door.

He whispers through gritted teeth, "If you want a piece of me, I'm ready."

The wooden railing creaks as he climbs down the stairs, one step at a time. Henry unlocks the door, his cane raised and ready to strike, then jerks it open. The screen door swings against the frame. Thump. Thump. Thump. He forgot to hook it shut. Well, so much for burglars and ghosts. Carolyn will get an earful tomorrow for psyching him out like that.

***

The ringing of the doorbell interrupts Henry's evening ritual: watching TV, taking in the latest news of disasters and wars from all over the world. Only a door-to-door salesman would have the gall to bother a man at this time. And true to character, he -- she? -- isn't content to ring once. There it goes again.

"Give me a god-damned minute to get off the couch!"

But it rings a third time before Henry reaches the door, only to find himself staring into the empty street. He feels the anger rise in him. Ah, what's the use? He shakes his head, returns to the couch.

What happened to the news? Why is the cartoon channel playing? The remote control is lying on the floor.

Carolyn's ghost boy?

***

Henry becomes aware of things being in the wrong place. One day he finds the phone book in the kitchen, another day there are forks in the bathtub. Food begins to disappear from the refrigerator. A week goes by, and then he notices the smell from the attic, thick, bitter: like a dead rat.

Muttering angrily, Henry pulls the ceiling hatch down. A cloud of fat, black flies bursts forth. He climbs up the ladder, awkwardly with his stiff leg. The stench becomes palpable. Henry spits out the taste. He lifts himself into the attic, then reaches for the dive light he has clipped to his belt.

"What!" he shouts.

The place is scattered with children's furniture and rotting food. But Henry doesn't have time to take in the details. He hears something rattle above him. The next instant, a carton filled with dishes explodes beside him, making a deafening noise. It has missed him by less than an inch. From across the space, a book case hurtles toward him, scraping along the floor, toppling and spilling its load, but still continuing toward him with furious speed and unwavering determination. Scampering backwards, Henry drops through the opening behind him. Nothing breaks his fall. Nothing softens it.

Endless minutes pass as Henry lies on the beige wall-to-wall carpeting, struggling for breath, letting the envy eat at him as he watches the shiny, black flies enter the opening in the ceiling without punishment.

This is his house. Why is it that he feels he is the trespasser? Because ghosts aren't real. They're not supposed to be.

***

"Ghosts hate Holy Water," says the man in the religious supplies store. "You sprinkle that stuff in enough places around your house, and you'll be sure to drive that little bugger out."

Henry sprinkles every room in the house. But the ghost won't let him go near the attic hatch, sending forth armies of flies every time he gets within a few yards of it.

Night falls, and now it's the ghost's turn. Henry hears the sound of rats scampering in the attic, hundreds of them. Thousands. Scurrying, scratching, squealing. Gnawing at wood, tearing at fabric. They do this all night long. The next night, he hears wolves howling outside at the window. The third night he hears something so terrifying, he is afraid it will drive him out of his mind: a child dying from hunger.

Sitting in his bed, the sheets cold with sweat, Henry presses his hands against his ears. But that is not enough to muffle it. He screams. He screams all of his rage and fear into the darkness, trying to drown out a child's pain, a pain he has not caused and cannot cure.

***

The doorbell rings. Henry groans, rolls over to look at his alarm. It's 8:30. Two damned hours of sleep is all he's had.

"Henry!" It's Carolyn. "Hey, are you all right in there?"

All right enough to strangle her when he gets to the door.

Carolyn leans against the door frame and holds up a Burger King bag and two coffees. The smell of egg, bacon and cheese croissants calls him back to the world of the living, the real. Okay, he won't strangle her. God bless her.

Carolyn giggles.

"Are you going to put some pants on?" she says.

Henry realizes he is only wearing a pair of drafty boxers. He grins stupidly and heads for the stairs. Carolyn clears some space on the coffee table.

"Your neighbors told me you were making quite a ruckus last night," she says. "They thought someone was getting killed."

In the bathroom, looking for his robe, he hears her shout, "So why'd you let the ghost in?"

"I didn't know -- " God, he's in no shape to have one of those conversations now. "What, are you an expert on ghosts now?"

Either she hasn't heard him, or she's ignoring him. He hears the TV coming to life, followed by the flip-flip-flip of changing channels.

Some pop-psychologist is making an appearance on a morning talk-show, "Kids cause trouble because they are in trouble."

If he weren't so damned tired, Henry would have replied with some caustic remark. But something strange is happening. He feels he understands something about his situation that he hasn't understood before. He is fighting with a five year-old, ghost or not. Henry remembers that he used to hate people like that.

Downstairs wearing an unironed shirt and blue jeans instead of the old bathrobe, relishing the egg, bacon and cheese croissant and restaurant coffee, he asks, "What was his name?"

"Whose name?"

***

"Brian?" Henry isn't sure how this is going to work. "Do you like TV-dinners?"

It's Salisbury steak. Nasty stuff. Feeling guilty, Henry adds a glass of milk to wash down the taste and a cookie for dessert. He places the tray under the ceiling hatch. The flies buzz overhead. It stinks here. He'll have to sleep on the couch tonight.

Do ghosts eat? Will Brian just take everything up to the attic and let it rot there, like all the other food he has sneaked out of the fridge?

The couch is uncomfortable, but Brian lets him sleep through the night. At 8:30, Henry can hear him stir around. The kid wants breakfast. He wonders, if Brian understands that this isn't a house where breakfast is eaten -- except when visitors show up with bag fulls of junk food. Better not push his luck, though. He is pretty sure he can find some cereal in the kitchen. It has been almost two weeks since his last trip to the grocery store. His knee is so damned stiff. Otherwise, he'd go more often.

The Salisbury steak is covered with flies. There are flies in the milk, too. Henry picks up the tray. Something moves overhead. A sound like a cry, maybe a whimper, startles him.

"I thought I'd bring you something for breakfast, would you like that?"

Silence. Henry sighs and takes the tray downstairs.

As he adds milk to the cereal and smells the buttered toast's aroma, he begins to feel hungry, too. He should make something for himself after he has fed Brian, he thinks, and then he should make a grocery list.

***

For a whole day, Brian has let Henry place and remove food trays at the spot under the ceiling hatch. Henry is not much of a cook, but the food is working better than the holy water. He hopes Brian will let him remove the spoiled food from the attic. He has an idea.

"Do you like these?" he asks, putting two Tonka trucks under the hatch. He saw them in a thrift store on his way to the gas station. "Sure you do. All boys do."

He waits a little, then sees one of the trucks move, as if on its own. It's kind of creepy. Kid or not, this is a ghost. The other truck begins to follow its mate on some mysterious errand. This reminds Henry of his own childhood, his own Tonka truck days. He smiles, opens the hatch, pulls out the ladder. Brian is ignoring him.

This time the smell is even worse. Henry coughs. He covers his nose with his T-shirt. He pulls the trash bag out of his pocket, takes another look. Some of the stuff has mold growing on top of mold. Using part of the trash bag, he begins to scoop up, clumps of hamburger meat and chicken, lettuce heads, mushy onions and garlic cloves. If that stuff is supposed to be strong enough to chase away vampires and werewolves, why didn't it have any power over Brian? The little trucks wheel and clank below. Henry doesn't see any toys here. In the darkness he can make out a child's bed, a toppled shelf, cardboard boxes, other pieces of furniture. He looks for a light switch, finds it. This is the dreariest, loneliest place he has ever seen. The kid's parents, whoever they were, didn't even bother to cover the insulation, hanging from the rafters in dirty pink shreds.

He fights his tears, unsuccessfully, "I'll make it up to you."

***

Henry invites Brian to eat his meals with him in the kitchen. He has never been a three-meals-a-day person, but things are different now. He is not living alone anymore.

There is a small room upstairs, next to his bedroom, that Henry has been using for storage. He could turn that into a child's bed room. Why should Brian still have to be in the attic?

"My nephew is staying with me for a few months," he tells the young saleswoman, a beautiful redhead with charming freckles and the biggest green eyes he has ever seen. "He likes cartoons. Do you have anything with Scooby-Doo?"

She giggles.

"No one watches that show anymore, Sir. Why don't you follow me?"

Is she flirting with him? He is not the kind of person people flirt with. Not young, attractive saleswomen.

Henry finds, though, that people who buy things for children -- wallpaper, toys, posters -- are treated differently. Even complete strangers treat him with kindness. They open doors for him when he carries an armful of Toys-R-Us bags. They hold elevators. They smile a great deal more.

***

"Would you say that again?" Carolyn sounds incredulous. "I think there is something wrong with the connection."

"I'm inviting you for dinner, and I'm going to cook. Friends do stuff like that for each other."

They eat spaghetti with runny sauce and burnt garlic bread. The salad comes from a bag and the wine from a box. Carolyn smiles, he observes. Very gracious of her. Henry is nervous, because he has never made a candle lit dinner for anyone.

"Are we expecting someone else?" says Carolyn, pointing to the third plate.

Henry clears his throat, "That's for Brian."

Carolyn adjusts her glasses, then looks at Henry, obviously expecting an explanation.

"Is Brian who I think he is?" she finally asks.

Henry points to the glass of milk and nods, smiling.

***

It is not very difficult to get used to the sight of toys and other objects moving without a visible cause, Henry discovers. Sometimes, when Henry is watching the news for a while, Brian changes the channel to the cartoons. Usually that doesn't set off an argument, since at that point, Henry is watching the loop for second or third time. When Henry walks past Brian's room, he can hear the sounds of child's play: Legos clicking, the whirring of Matchbox car wheels, the squeaking of markers on paper -- and laughter.

Henry is doing his exercises again. He doesn't want to be sick and miserable anymore. He doesn't want to depend on the cane anymore. He is tired of feeling sorry for himself. He can't afford to, now that he has Brian to take care of.

***

One night, Henry is awoken by sobbing. It's Brian. He wants to be let out of his room. He wants to eat something. He is afraid to die. Henry stands in the middle of Brian's room, a plate of cookies at his feet, but the crying continues. He has never felt so helpless.

"I don't know why he cried. It came totally out of the blue," he tells Carolyn over dinner. Every Wednesday, they meet for dinner at his house. His cooking is beginning to improve; it's no longer just spaghetti. "I try to make this a comfortable place for him."

"It sounds to me like he was having a nightmare," says Carolyn.

"I guess, his whole life must have been a nightmare. But what do I do?"

"You know, real, I mean living children need to be held. You hold them in your lap and you sing them back to sleep, or -- you'll figure something out."

***

His teachers always told him he was good with clay, but Henry hasn't touched the stuff in years. He is surprised to discover that they make no-bake clay now. All he has to do is add water, sculpt it, and let it dry. He can even use acrylic paints on it. No messing around with glazes.

It takes him a while to get the hands and the head just right. He is not a good painter, but he manages to paint a half-decent likeness of what he remembers Brian to look like. Carolyn helps him to sew the body, the arms and legs.

Carolyn and Henry can't agree on what clothes to get him. She wants something in pinks in reds, "It's vibrant and happy."

Henry won't have it, "My boy is not going to wear pink."

"Oh. Well, why don't you buy him that little Rambo outfit over there?" she says. "I know where you can find some hunting knives on sale."

They settle on something rainbow colored.

***

Henry places the finished, clothed figure in Brian's bed.

"If you have bad dreams again, you can slip into this doll. And I'll cradle you back to sleep," he says.

When Brian has his nightmares, Henry clutches him to his chest with all his strength. He tells him that he is safe, sings him back to sleep. What kind of people would do this to their own child, he wonders, abandon him in the attic like an unwanted pet? What were they doing when he was still alive? Crying real tears, knocking on the floor of his attic prison with real hands? These questions are always on his mind, but in these moments they achieve an unbearable intensity. When he holds Brian's little hands, light and stiff as balsa wood, he envisions a different childhood for him, one that he should have lived. He imagines the tiny hands petting dogs, loading up toy trucks with shovelfuls of sand, stuffing French fries into a tiny mouth, getting messy with sloppy Joe meat. Sometimes Henry wants to know what happened to Brian's parents. He wants to know that their punishment is harsh enough, that they suffer as much as he. No, more. But as cries ebb into sobs and then fade into silence, he decides that it doesn't really matter where they are or how they are.

***

This dream is different from any dream Henry has ever had. There is an unusual sense of clarity, more intense than any waking state. He is floating in mid-air, in a room without doors or windows. Everything is made of light, even his own body. And now he realizes that something terrible is about to happen.

Brian emerges through the wall in front of him. He is no longer a sad and frightened apparition, but the content, loved child he knows from his visions of what should have been. The child that should have been his son. Was, no, is his son.

"Daddy," he says. "Thank you."

A wave of overpowering love flows from Brian, washes over Henry, permeates him. And Henry fights it as hard as he can. He knows what must happen. But he is not ready to let go. The days with Brian were made of gold, precious and radiant. He does not want them to end.

"What will I do without you?" he says, wishing for tears.

Brian smiles, says, "Live."

His shape dissolves, becomes one with the light, leaving behind an endless wealth of all-consuming love.

And the pain of loss.

A crashing noise pulls Henry into the world of wakefulness. It comes from Brian's room. Henry jumps out of bed, hurries to the door, switches on the light.

The doll lies in the middle of the room, surrounded by toy cars and Lego blocks. Its face bears an expression of being at peace that Henry has never seen before.

***

The alarm clock beeps. For the first time in a week, Henry gets up, and not just to go to the bathroom. He is hurting all over, but now, for the first time, he finds the strength face the day. He knows he will always grieve for Brian. But his sense of being cheated by fate and his bitterness over his injury are losing their grip. They can't cripple him anymore. Brian's love can never be taken away.

He resolves the clean up the house, to give Carolyn a call, to thank her for her friendship. But now it is enough to eat his breakfast, drink coffee, read the want ads.