“Naw, I kind of like it. The place is supposed to be haunted, you know.”
“Really? Do you believe in that kind of thing?”
“No, I’m afraid not. But it really is a wonderful place. You should look at it.”
I told him I would, said goodbye, and continued my walk. Bill, I think, didn’t give me another thought, but I could feel Pepper watching me all the way down the street.
Tonight it is unusually still outside, as if nature were holding her breath waiting for something to happen. This is not the first time in my long and checkered life that I’ve had this feeling, and I can never remember it meaning anything; yet I am always affected by the sensation. The early hours of the morning have a kind of loneliness to them that at once attract and repel me.
I am not a loner by disposition. Part of the reason Kellem got into so much trouble in Ireland was that she can be perfectly happy by herself for long periods of time. Of course, her great age and naturally cynical disposition had more to do with it, but still, if she were as I am, surrounded by people as often as possible, laughing and crying with them, drinking in the successes and failures of their lives, I don’t think it would have happened.
I suppose that is one reason I am so glad that Jim is here. It’s funny, because while this is not the first house I’ve lived in that was haunted, it is the first where the ghost has been at all communicative. When I first moved to Staten Island, six or seven years ago, I found, as was my custom, a deserted house and at once felt the presence of a very strong spirit. Yet, in all the time I lived there, which is up until last November, when I answered Laura’s summons, I never had any contact with whomever or whatever it was; I know no more about it today than I did the day I arrived.
With Jim it was different. I felt his presence right away (indeed, I think I am drawn to places with such phenomena). I made a brief inspection of the lower floors of the house looking for a place to store my luggage, and had settled on a nice corner of the basement, when a voice behind me said, as cool as you please, “There is an old vault behind that bookcase.” I think I must have jumped a foot into the air, and if I didn’t scream it was purely accidental. I must get Jim to tell me how that looked from his side.
When I turned around, there he was, staring past my shoulder and looking apologetic. “I’m sorry, I really hadn’t intended to frighten you,” he said, or something like that.
I took a moment to recover myself, then said, “Do you know, it has been so long since I’ve been frightened by anything that I almost don’t mind.”
He introduced himself, and so did I, and I asked him how he came to be haunting the place and he just looked uncomfortable, and he asked me what I was doing in Lakota and I shrugged off the question.
He told me how to get into the vault, which turned out to be an old counting room. It was extraordinarily well hidden; even the false wall was much thicker than I’d have expected. It was only just large enough for me and the crate, but it was snug and, after only a few minutes of work, quite clean.
Then I started asking about his life, and it turned out he was even older than I was, and for some reason that endeared him to me; perhaps it made me think of Kellem, who is the only other person I know who can say that.
He seemed desperately anxious to hear about the places I’d been, I suppose because he’d never done much traveling. I was equally anxious to learn what life was like for him in this part of the world, but he didn’t seem inclined to discuss it.
The other thing I remember is that, at one point, he was talking about the superstitions among black people of his time (he calls them “Negroes”), and I asked if he shared any of those beliefs, and he seemed genuinely insulted.
He’s a fascinating man. On the one hand, he never really does anything, I guess because of his nature; but on the other, ever since this business with Kellem has come up he’s been nagging at me to “do something about it.”
And, do you know, I’m beginning, more and more, to think he’s right. Perhaps there really isn’t anything I can do to stop Kellem-I must obey any order she gives-but I ought at least to try. If I were to be destroyed tomorrow, well, there are things I would miss. I do not really believe in Heaven or in Hell, for if these things were true, why do we so busily create them on Earth? And I do not believe in reincarnation, because if it were true, why would we try so hard to continue our existences, in one way or another, through as much time as possible?
What matters to me are those experiences I can take into my memory to look back on, with pleasure or remorse as the case may be. Maybe that is why this little typewritten journal has become so important and why I’ve been writing as if I were telling myself a story; it is a way to preserve parts of my memory, which seems to be very gradually fading, or rather, diffusing, as a photograph will when it has been enlarged too many times.
Yes, I am convinced. I must do something. And I think I know what. Tomorrow, then, I will cast aside the remains of this laissez-faire existence, and see what I can do to make at least some gesture toward self-preservation.
If nothing else, it will make the days pass quickly.
I think it was the experience with Kellem that drove me to action, although I’d been thinking about this in general ever since placing the advertisement in the personals for her. I must say I had hoped for a better result from the advertisement.
In any case, upon rising today, I remembered my resolve at once. I sat in the living room stewing for a few minutes, then left the house, made my way to the offices of the Plainsman (I don’t even remember who or what I met on the way), and entered. There were a few fluorescent lights on in the building, and only one watchman, standing near a door. I didn’t use that door so he didn’t see me.
It took a while to find what I wanted; there were several floors to search; but eventually I found someone sitting alone in front of a computer screen. He was in his late forties or early fifties, about half of his hair was gone and the rest very short and dark, he had a bit of a potbelly and several hours’ growth of whiskers on his heavy face. Maybe he was starting a beard; if I’d had a chin like that, I’d have grown one.
His desk was overflowing with Diet Coke cans, bent paperclips, an ashtray leaking peanut shells, four audio cassettes, a framed photograph of a couple of ugly grammar-school-aged children (no wife shown), a few issues of various news magazines, reference books, and memo pads. He was reading one of the news magazines, and I must have been standing next to him for most of a minute before he noticed me. He wasn’t startled, he just looked confused, then he said in a voice that was much higher-pitched than I’d expected, “Who are you?”
“Jack,” I said. “Jack Agyar.”
“Yeah? What do you want?”
“I need you to dig something up for me on the computer.”
“Huh?”
I repeated myself. He still didn’t seem to understand. I pointed to the terminal and said, “Start that thing up, I need you to ask it some questions for me.”
He looked at me like a Labrador retriever that’s been given a command outside its vocabulary. He said, “Who did you say you are?”
I gave him my name again. I can be very patient.
“You work for the paper?”
“No.”
He finally seemed to have figured out what was going on. “Then why the hell should I-”
I took him by the throat and lifted him up, so his feet were kicking wildly in the air. He made gurgling sounds, but couldn’t get much volume. “Because,” I said, “I would appreciate your help.”
I dropped him back into his chair and smiled at him. He had a coughing jag, and when it was over I noticed that he was covered with sweat and stank badly. He just stared at me until I pointed to the screen. “Now,” I said. “I’m in a hurry.”