 
### Soul Searchers

By Dan Baumgart and Joe Hudson

Cover design by Caligraphics

Copyright 2015 Dan Baumgart

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Contents

Start the Story

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Sneak Peak

#

Stephanie turned the radio up to drown out the previous hour's events, the yelling, the crying, the accusations turned confession. The radio produced, not the heavy percussion and electric guitar she would have liked at that moment but rather Tracy Chapman's new single, _Fast Car_ , in which the artist sings a tale of cyclic poverty and alcoholism, two things that Stephanie never had to experience. Stephanie was admittedly not into songs with much depth or meaning, mostly she liked Madonna, and though _Fast Car_ was pretty straightforward, it had a message and told a story, not usually her first choice in lyrical content, but tonight it was perfect. She was hearing someone else's problems instead of focusing on her own, which seemed small, embarrassingly so by comparison. Though it was a mere breakup, heart-wrenching and nauseating, it wasn't the breakup itself that caused the worst of her current physical manifestations. Scott, whom Stephanie had been dating since they were freshmen, had been cheating on her with her best friend, Julie, for the past two months. It was the deceit, the humiliation, the pain brought on by that combination that was enraging Stephanie. She tried to focus on the song as tears rolled down her cheeks one after another. She wiped her eyes and took in a breath, stuttered air bursting through her exhalations. She was trembling from her fingertips to her shoulders, her chest was tense from a solid, rapid heartbeat, the torment unforgiving.

Now it was this sad song, which she thought would temporarily cease her own sadness but eventually compounded it. The woman singing, a child at the time of her experiences, had a bad relationship with her father but dropped out of school anyway to see to his needs when his alcoholism took its toll. Stephanie thought of her own father, a man who rarely drank or even swore, a man with whom she had a strong relationship. Now Stephane had to tell him that Scott, a young man who her father thought fondly of, was a cheating scumbag and that Julie, who had been a loyal friend and a regular fixture at their house for years, was the person Scott was cheating with.

Stephanie's father would blame himself. That much she knew. She and Scott had had a few fights in the past, and her father would encourage them to make up because Scott was a good kid. He didn't smoke or drink or take drugs. He was the captain of the basketball team, starting point guard and had scouts looking at him. Even if his basketball career didn't elevate to NBA status, he was smart and would likely get a college scholarship. He was a real catch, as her father put it.

It was difficult not to be mad at her father, but Stephanie understood that he only knew the polite boy who opened the car door for his little girl, who brought flowers and wrote corny but heartfelt poems to his daughter. Why couldn't he have seen Scott for what he was? Surely, there is an ulterior motive for guys who try so hard, and someone as intuitive as her father should definitely be able to see it.

Stephanie's vision blurred again, and the thickening rain outside did not help. She could hardly see the road in front of her, not even well enough to pull off to the shoulder, so in a moment fueled by outrage and sadness, humiliation and shame, she stomped on the gas and screamed. Moments later, the tires responded with a scream of their own, and though she slammed on the brakes, realizing too late that her rash actions were met with speedy consequences, the car was already out of control. It struck a tree head on, and when her face smashed against the windshield, Gary woke up.

# 2

Gary Young was thirteen years old. He had just awakened from a nightmare so vivid and yet so alien that it couldn't have been his own dream. Who was Scott? Who were Stephanie and Julie? Why did the names sound so familiar, like people he knew, even if he didn't personally know a single human being by any of those names? The only certainty was that Stephanie was dead.

Gary looked to Joe, who was snoring on the floor next to the bed, which was only a mattress, no box spring or headboard.

"Joe, wake up," he said, out of breath, terrified.

Joe only moaned. The sun was not up. Gary looked at the clock. It was just after midnight. Gary turned on his radio and fumbled with the knobs, looking for a station. As soon as he heard _Fast Car_ by Tracy Chapman, he knew what had happened.

"Turn that stupid shit off," Joe groaned.

Gary sat up, wide-eyed, staring at the wall. When the song ended, and the DJ came on the radio, Gary said, to no one in particular, "Stephanie just died in a car accident."

That morning at school, there would be an announcement over the PA that Stephanie Longfellow, a senior at McKinley High, was killed in a one-car accident. Joe, fourteen years old at the time, would accost Gary in the hallway after his home economics class was dismissed and ask his best friend how in the hell he knew something that had happened while the two of them were fast asleep.

"I was in her mind," Gary said. "Right before she hit that tree."

The information regarding the tree would not be available until the accident was reported on the five o'clock news. Again, Joe, who never thought Gary to be very bright or creative enough to make something like that up, asked how he knew.

"I told you already," Gary said. "I was in her mind. I think I lived her last moments in my dream."

# 3

If I'd come to know Joe Smith and Gary Young at any other point in my life, I would dislike them. Actually, that's untrue because my feelings for them currently skirt dislike. I would loathe their mere presence on this planet, the fact that they are allowed to breathe the same air that Albert Einstein and Gandhi once breathed. When I first met them, the only thing those two clowns did perfectly was waste oxygen. Oddly, they would become my best friends, even if I've still got my share of qualms with their behavior.

I do not dislike them because the squalor in which they live is unpleasant and causes me great discomfort. Plenty of things they have done in the time I've known them induces discomfort, downright anxiety at times. I do not dislike them because they lack education. I've known plenty of impressive autodidacts in my time, and though they are definitely not two of them, their lack of knowledge in many areas is not especially irritating to me either. What bothers me is their propensity for great ideas hindered by a near flawless lack of ambition. And they're both drunks.

Joe's and Gary's alcoholism is not problematic to anyone but themselves, so I suppose it seems unfair to include that in my ongoing list of complaints against them. They do not drive around drunk because that would denote a car and a driver's license with which to do so, and they do not alienate their loved ones with their drinking because neither of them has a loved one to alienate. Joe can hold his liquor as I imagine only a Viking on heavy doses of LSD could. One would scarcely know if he were sober, five beers deep, or had just finished a case to himself. Aside from the alcohol scent radiating from his sweat and breath, he seems to be the same person, drunk or sober.

Gary, on the other hand, is a stumbling example of why AA was invented. He slurs and he totters, he hiccups and cries. Once the buzz hits him, a mysterious look washes over him, an enigmatic glare that lets one know that he has transformed from a sloppy creature into a sloppier one, unpredictable and emotionally fragile, quick to snap and go on a howling, nonsensical rant of near indecipherable English, or he may laugh into his hands until he is sobbing.

Regardless of all that, they are an undeniably perfect duo. Joe is fat and unhealthy. Gary is rail thin and probably unhealthier. Though they are in their thirties at the time of this writing, Gary looks fifty due to his binge drinking, bad diet, and overall malnourishment. Because Joe is a year older, he fancies himself the smarter of the two, which is definitely true but not saying a whole hell of a lot. I will credit Joe for being an avid reader, but for everything he's read by Dostoyevsky, he's read three years of Hustler to get the bitter taste of existentialism out of his mind. For anything by Faulkner or Joyce or Cormac McCarthy, he's read his weight ten times over in comic books and _Star Trek_ paperbacks, so there is hope for his intelligence, though the wisdom and inspiration he's gained from reading the greats or even the not-so-greats proves to be pushing nil when it comes to applying himself.

I have often heard the words _trailer trash_ used to describe Joe and Gary. Gary once told me that the obnoxious, foul-mouthed girls from the trailer park were stuck up snobs, if that gives you any insight into how they live. Trailer trash would signify a trailer in which to dwell. Though they are not entirely homeless, Joe and Gary have not paid an iota of rent or property taxes. They currently live in a place which they have dubbed Warpwood Village. Their abode is a construction office, one of those near-gutted trailers that sits on construction sites, and it is nestled on fifteen acres of the shittiest land imaginable. Aside from the project's humble beginnings, the property is utterly vacant.

The story goes that a wealthy land developer wanted to put a high-end subdivision on that plot of land. The majority of the trees were cleared and the blueprints were drawn up, but shortly after the road was paved and the first house was in the building stages, the land developer had a massive stroke that ate away at his project's funding just as it did at his brain.

Due to its locale near trailer parks, liquor stores, and drug dens, no other developers wished to invest in the project. Even while it was under construction, junkies would often steal tools from the jobsite, and bums would harass the workers for spare change and niblets. It was a project destined to fail, and though the developer owned the property and someone still pays the property taxes, it just became an empty lot with one road and a cul-de-sac, the skeleton of a potentially nice house at one end and a lone construction office in the middle, which Joe and Gary have called home for the last three years.

You might be saying to yourself at this point, "Lars, you seem like a pretty smart guy. How did you ever get mixed up with these two shiftless hobos?" Perhaps you're not, but I'll tell you anyway. There's a simple answer for that: public school. More specifically, the Integration Program. This will take me back many years, but it's where we first met and how Soul Searchers came to be.

The Integration Program was popular in the 80s. An overpopulated, underperforming school in the inner city would shut down due to a lack of everything (except an underachieving student body), and the other, better schools in the surrounding areas were stuck taking in the riffraff. Like magnets, these morons were attracted to nice things in which to turn into shit, so most of the integrated schools would fail and eventually shut down as well. That is, until the government decided to lower the standards to accommodate shit-for-brains, which allowed morons a place to thrive and drag down both test scores and morale.

I was a student at George Washington Middle School when one such shitty school nearby locked its doors and boarded up its windows and sent its garbage to us. Joe and Gary were among that garbage, but sadly, they were far from the worst of it. I was in eighth grade when I met them formally, my last year of middle school.

It seemed that, like many other integrated schools, the gangsters would take over, but oddly, there were only two gangs of note, and they were truly something to behold. Firstly, there were the Black Panthros, and no, that is not a typo. They were a quasi-militant group who sported T-shirts featuring the visage of the Thundercats hero. Their objective was to create awareness so that Panthro, who they perceived as superior to the cartoon show's hero, Lion-O, would be recognized and one day immortalized as a prominent African-American pop culture icon. They tagged lockers with crudities meant to be Panthro's face. They beat up kids wearing clothing that featured Lion-O, and it was rumored that they jumped a group of fourth-graders who had gone as the Thundercats for Halloween, leaving only the boy dressed as—you guessed it—unscathed but were sure to chastise him for being an "Uncle Tomcat."

As far as gangs go, however, they hadn't much competition, so they were relatively harmless. Due to their T-shirts, they were easily spotted, rounded up, and sent to the principal, where they were forced to disband or be expelled. In a more mature but still groundless maneuver, they passed around a petition to have the school's name changed from George Washington Middle School to George Washington Carver Middle School. They were a source of racial tension previously unbeknownst to the likes of me, but not the worst of it.

Rivaling but not so often battling the Black Panthros were El Banditos. Their name suggested a Spanish origin, but only their leader, Geraldo, was of Hispanic descent, and he (though his existence was dubious) was in prison for singlehandedly killing three police officers with a pair of nunchuks. El Banditos was full of white kids wearing skullcaps year-round and flannel shirts with only the top button fastened. Though their accents were a mockery to Latinos worldwide, and they had a near-complete lack of knowledge concerning Mexican heritage and the Spanish language, El Banditos was a bit more vicious. I, myself, fell victim to their pummeling more than once, rather brutally one time when I pointed out to Geraldo's white predecessor, El Shark-o (all of their names were predatory animals with an _el_ preceding it and an obligatory - _o_ at the end, like El Snake-o or El Lizard-O), that his upper lip was bleeding where he'd drawn a pencil-thin moustache on his face. With pencil.

He didn't take well to the accusation that perhaps puberty hadn't actually hit him and that his facial hair was nothing more than uneven graphite and blood. I was only saved from a more severe beating because the Black Panthros stormed into the same bathroom, as they had a bone to pick with another Banditos member, El Lion-o. Wonder why.

Aside from the two gangs, there were the obligatory white trash kids who remained unaffiliated because they stank, dressed raggedly, and were not considered smart enough to join rank with the gangs, and that was truly saying an awful lot. The Panthros, however, at least had something of a political ax to grind, but being white, the white trash kids were not accepted as official members (though they were permitted to hand out literature in exchange for protection).

The white trash kids, dubbed WT by their social betters (I did not put myself on any pedestal but eventually felt the social sting of taking up with Joe and Gary), were the nose-pickers, the ones who broke wind mightily during exams and laughed with uproarious pride about it. They were the ones who got the white lunch cards because they were poor and spent most of their time away from home to avoid the confusing wrath of angry stepfathers or the various boyfriends of their mothers. They could depress me on sight, and aside from the occasional belch or dirty joke, they usually did. Joe and Gary were no exception.

As he is now, Joe was fat back then, and Gary was, as he still is, skinny as a Popsicle stick. They were Laurel and Hardy on welfare, straight out of Shady Acres Mobile Home Park. It was there that I realized, for all of their shortcomings, of which there were many, that there was something special about those two idiots, Gary in particular.

Gary was Joe's ward, the Slobbin to his Fatman. He followed Joe around like a stink, and stink, he certainly did, but he was definitely not alone at Washington Middle School by then. I asked my mother whether or not poor people had soap and running water. She grounded me for my ignorant insensitivity.

Joe, even though they were clearly best friends, was rather cruel to Gary, always making some sort of crack about Gary's mother (who was most certainly unattractive but still found work as a peep show booth dancer in a seedy adult entertainment club called Cinema Blue).

"Gary, your mom's such a whore that even rapists use condoms."

"Gary, your mom's so nasty that a skunk took a whiff of her ass and passed out."

"Gary's mom's so dirty, she went to the doctor and asked if she had the clap, and he said, 'No, ma'am, you've got a round of applause'."

Clever as they were in hindsight, I didn't understand many of Joe's jokes at the time.

Before he and Gary arrived at Washington Middle School, there was virtually no one like them in the entire school. By the 1988, however, there were four or five Joes and Garys to a classroom, a handful of Black Panthros with a smattering of El Banditos. Most of the respectable parents yanked their kids from the integrated schools within a few months and moved on to greener pastures, those who could afford it. Others, like my parents, who could afford it, thought it would do me some good to be educated among the other half, to learn cultural diversity and socioeconomic plight firsthand. It was an unpleasant experience that often haunts me to this day.

So yes, I was often bullied for being what was perfectly acceptable prior to the school's integration. Joe and Gary seemed to take no notice of me until I brought a camcorder to school for show and tell. That was in the spring of 1989, so not many kids owned or had ever seen the likes of a camcorder, especially among the recently acquired breed of classmates. I knew it was a valuable item, so I took great pains to hide it in my locker, and of course, by then end of the day, it was missing.

I was terrified to go to the principal because at any given time, two or three Panthros, or a few El Banditos would be in the office, answering for their various offenses, and if they overheard my snitching, I was sure to take an ass-beating.

My mother escorted me to school the next day, and as usual, was getting looks from students and faculty alike. She had been a fashion model in her teen years into her early early twenties and paid her way through college to become an advertising executive. Though she allowed me the use of the camcorder for making short films, she often used it for work, filming possible locations for commercial shoots, so she was reasonably pissed when I came home without it.

I tried my best to hide my face in the principal's office as El Hawk-o eyeballed me (in retrospect, he could have been and likely was staring at my mother's ass, but it was a scary gaze nonetheless, one that I did not wish to meet). My mother was bitching to the principal about the sanctity of personal property, laying it on a little thick if you ask me, but it was working because the principal, an inhumane hulk of a man, responded humbly with, "Yes, Ma'am" or "Absolutely, Mrs. Pitkin."

Mom stomped out of there, leaving me to my own devices. I felt like a victim, a pariah, whereas before I was one of five hundred sixth through eighth-graders not unlike myself. So much for cultural diversity. I was supposed to be witnessing it, learning from it, but instead, I was forced to learn how to deal with being a minority myself, even if coming from a stable home was what made me such.

Still sitting in the principal's office, I was terrified, believing that El Hawk-o was looking for a fight. His gaze could now only be upon me, as my mother was threatening a lawsuit just prior to her sudden departure. I was also (unfairly) under the impression that El Hawk-o had stolen my camcorder. It wasn't his fake Mexican heritage that led me to such a belief, but even with very limited Spanish-speaking abilities, I was certain that El Banditos translated to The Bandits. What a great score a camcorder would have been in 1989.

El Hawk-o, sensing my discomfort, lunged at me, and when I flinched violently, he let loose a high-pitched, annoying titter and then proceeded to insult me in a language that might have passed for Spanish if one were on a mescaline trip.

"Knock it off, Stuart," the principal said. "I don't understand or speak a lick of Spanish. Obviously, you don't either."

"My name ain't Stuart, homes. Eet's El Hawk-o," said Stuart, trying desperately to sound Latino but only further humiliating himself and infuriating the principal.

"Alright," the principal went on, pointing his finger "if you don't take your butt back to class this instant and apologize to Ms. French, I'm gonna call your stepdad and tell him how you've been behaving, and it's no secret what he thinks of Mexicans."

The principal shot me a wink, as if it were a joke I was in on. Apparently, El Hawk-o's stepfather was not too fond of Mexicans, as the blood drained from his face and left him looking whiter than he normally was.

"Lars," the principal said to me, "you can go ahead and go to class, bud. If anything comes up concerning your video camera, you'll be the first to know."

As I was leaving the office, El Hawk-o's voice became very white-bred American as he pleaded with the principal, "Please, Mr. Phillips, you can't tell Walt. He just got his disability check today, and I know he's gonna go to the bar, and-and..."

It was actually very sad, but fuck him, I thought. This asshole stared at my mother's behind and then tried to intimidate me. He had also been present in the bathroom when his fellow Banditos kicked the shit out of me just three weeks prior. Hopefully, his stepdad tied one on but good and gave him a taste of his own medicine. But I digress. That's cruel. As a fourteen year-old, however, who had been repeatedly stripped of his dignity, whether through beatings or insults, I couldn't have cared less what this Walt character did to him.

Later in the day, I was crying softly at my locker, which was still devoid of a video camera. I suppose I was hoping that it would materialize where I'd left it. It was none other than Joe and Gary who spotted me and gave me a little support. Joe was sporting a mullet, a hairdo that, even back then, baffled me. It seemed as though his barber had a radical idea but quit after trimming the top and leaving the back long. Maybe Joe could only afford half a haircut. At any rate, it was a confusing hairstyle to me and made Joe appear unpredictable, dangerous, and stupid all at the same time. When he saw me crying, however, he looked sympathetic, an emotion I had yet to see come from the WT kids.

"Hey, man, you alright?" Joe asked.

Wiping my nose, I said, "Someone stole my camcorder yesterday. My mom's gonna kill me if I don't get it back."

Joe nodded, eyes closed, as if he knew exactly the kind of pain I was going through and put a meaty paw on my shoulder.

"That sucks, pal," he said. "This school's full of assholes, isn't it?"

I nodded and wiped my nose on my sleeve.

"Listen," Joe said, an idea suddenly coming to him, "me and Gary here are kinda like detectives. We know a lot of people, a lot of the goings-on here, and we'd be happy to ask around, right Gary?"

Gary looked confused, a dumfounded glaze over his light eyes, but when Joe shot him a look, he seemed to come to from his trance-like state and nodded. "Yeah," that was all he said and awkwardly so, as if he'd missed his cue and overly emoted to make up for it.

"Okay," I told them, willing to accept any help at that point, WT or not.

"Cheer up, man," Joe said with a thumbs-up. "We're on the case, free of charge."

I don't know why I took comfort in any of it. Something stunk, and it wasn't just their armpits, breath, and seldom-washed clothing. There was a shadiness to it all that I was too upset to acknowledge at the time.

True to their word, however, Gary came and got me during lunch the next day and said, "Put the pizza down, Larry. We found your camera."

Excitedly, I did just that and corrected him, "Lars. Not Larry."

In the hallway, I was met by Joe, a confident smile on his face that displayed a handsome, noble person aching to break free from the fat, poverty-stricken kid with the horrible diet and horrible parents.

"We've got a lead on your video camera, Garth. It's kinda off the books, so we don't want to involve any authority figures unless it's absolutely necessary," Joe told me in a hushed tone with his arm around me. His breath was like garlic and old meat. "If we don't make any noise; they won't. It's that simple, you dig?"

I nodded and said, "Lars."

"No, I'm Joe," he thought he was correcting me.

"I know that. I made the effort to remember who you are. My name is Lars. Not Larry, not Garth...Lars. You're Joe, and he's Gary," I said, pointing to Joe's skinny friend, who I noticed was ravenously devouring the pizza I'd left behind.

"Whatever," Joe said, "there's no need to get off topic. The point is, we need to meet this guy in the bathroom in like five minutes."

I rolled my eyes and looked at Gary, who was wiping the red sauce from his chin with his sleeve. I said to him, with growing annoyance, "I could've finished my lunch in five minutes."

Gary met eyes with me, and not bashfully or shamefully, belched and struck his chest lightly with his fist.

"You're welcome," I told him sarcastically.

Gary looked around, confused, for the person who he believed had thanked me. I shook my head. I would have found his stupidity more amusing than annoying had I not thought of his apparent hunger first.

Into the boys' bathroom we went, where El Eagle-o and El Bear-o awaited us, holding a much smaller, bony, terrified kid between them.

Joe nodded to El Banditos and said, "Thanks guys, we owe you big time."

" _Tu_ is...welcome," El Eagle-o said in a horrible accent, once again displaying his gang's failed linguistics.

When El Banditos exited the bathroom, Joe looked the scared kid up and down, nodding, stroking the spot on his chin where an unkempt goatee would be in three years.

"Typical fucking thief," Joe said of the kid with a glance in my direction.

"Who, him?" I said, shocked. "This kid wouldn't hurt a fly. Matter of fact, I know him. You're Rudy right?"

Rudy nodded vigorously, visibly relieved that I'd championed for him as he looked nervously from a large, intimidating Joe, to a creepily vacant-eyed Gary, then pleadingly back to me.

"Wouldn't hurt a fly, huh?" Joe wondered and nodded again. "Show him what we found in your locker, Rudy."

Rudy lifted a backpack off the floor that I hadn't noticed before. I could only imagine what Rudy's parents would think when he brought home a backpack that smelled like piss and was loaded with...

"My camcorder!" I shouted when Rudy produced it.

I lunged at the poor bastard, fist raised as he flinched and squealed and covered himself with eerily bony arms, but Joe held me back and said, "Whoa, cowboy, hang on a second. It was found in his possession. He claims no knowledge of it. I don't believe him, but it's not my video camera. If it was, I would break it over his dorky fucking face, but that sort of justice is not mine to hand out," and after turning to me he said, "It's yours. Use it wisely."

That was one of Joe's pearls of wisdom, one among many, I was surprised to later find out. If a particular action did not affect him, he was not one to combat it with anything more than his opinion. "It's kinda like," Joe would tell me years later, "being angry by anti-abortionists. Sure, their views are lame and do nothing but encourage the morons of the world to breed more morons, but they don't bother me to such a degree that I should feel the need to punch one of them out. But one of them did follow me around, poking me in the shoulder with his fingertips so that he could holler gospel in my face, so I shoved him to the ground and peed on his dick," after which Joe laughed wheezily and backhanded me hard but affectionately in my chest and added, as if I didn't understand, "so it looked like _he_ peed."

How Joe got out of that one, I never understood fully, but he had brought up how disturbed the anti-abortionists were by such a lewd act that they stepped aside and let Joe and his then girlfriend get her abortion. Joe used to joke that she was so ugly and stupid that the doctor looked her up and down and said, "This one's on me."

Anyhow, I took the moral high ground and let Rudy go but warned him that I was gonna kick his fucking ass if he ever stole anything from me again. It was probably the first time I'd ever sworn, and there was something exhilarating about it, something that made me believe that I was growing up. In fact, I got an erection as well, a boner that I equated to said exhilaration and certainly not due to the fact that I was sharing the boys' bathroom with two homeless-looking kids and a third boy who I was pretty sure had muscular dystrophy.

From that moment on, I felt protected in Joe's and Gary's presence, more so Joe's, but they were a double act, and Gary, more like a detached appendage of Joe's, usually said very little. I would likely adore Gary if he'd remained that way.

Being that they were poor and homely, easy targets for ridicule, I watched them get into many fights over the years, especially in high school. Eventually, people didn't mess with them because Joe was big and could hold his own, but in the unlikely event he would find himself losing a fight, Gary would sneak up with a cinder block or whatever lethal object was laying around and throw it at Joe's attacker. Twice I saw something of the sort make contact, which was horrifying to me both times. Johnny Caster took a brick to the head and was unconscious. Blood was coming out of his ears. I thought Gary killed him. He had a concussion and some mild but permanent brain damage, but I would have testified to the fact that Johnny pulled a knife on an already beaten Joe if it had come to that.

The second such incident involved Joe being jumped by three seniors when he was a sophomore. Gary shoved the corner of his remedial science book into one kid's face so hard that he lost his left eye (we joked that it was the only usage Gary ever got from that book, which was likely true). Again, Joe didn't press charges against the three of them for assault (he spent two days in the hospital and left with a broken nose, a broken wrist, and two cracked ribs, aside from his two black eyes and grossly swollen upper lip).

In that fight, which did go to court per the eyeless kid's mother, Gary was viewed as temporarily insane. I don't believe it was temporary, nor do I think it is permanent, as his lawyer suggested. I just think he was simply oblivious to the fact that sharp objects shoved into one's face can cause permanent damage and that heavy objects thrown at one's head can be harmful or fatal. His thought process concerning such matters never seemed to advance beyond that of a four year-old. My colleague, Ted, sometimes refers to Gary as Joe's "retardian angel."

However, those are the only two times I saw Joe lose a fight, or at least lose so badly that Gary came to his aid whilst screaming and brandishing weapons. Sometimes, especially in the rare instance it was one on one, Gary stood by and watched, even if it looked as though Joe would get pummeled. Joe could dish an ass-beating as much as he could take one. He never sought vengeance. Another of his pearls of wisdom: "Anything that needs sorting out can get sorted out right now. Whatever the outcome, so be it. That is the outcome."

Over the years, I watched Joe lose teeth and knock teeth out, receive a black eye and give out two in return. I watched him go from uncoordinated lard ass who won fights because of his size, to street-brawling lard ass who won fights because of his size, strength, and experience. The wiry, quick guys got tired, thinking that their speed would give them an edge but only proved that Joe was patient before his brutality kicked in. The bigger guys thought that their athleticism, which came from years spent on sports teams, would prove superior to Joe's largeness, which came from a terrible diet and years of not playing sports. They didn't realize that Joe was a dirty fighter.

"I'm not out there to look good or impress anyone," he once said, while the guy on the floor screamed in a corner, holding his inner thigh, where Joe had bitten him so hard that he spat out blood and skin fragments, "I'm out there to preserve myself by any means necessary. They can go ahead and play Rocky if they want. I'm gonna play caveman and live to see another day."

Joe performed such violence, and often not so much violence, as when the fights were over in one punch, with such calm that I often wondered if he wasn't a little touched like Gary. He would knock someone unconscious with a thundering, meaty fist and then walk away as if he'd just batted at a mosquito.

To be fair and not portray the guy as a complete whack job, Joe only fought when he felt it was absolutely necessary. He gave people plenty of opportunities to walk away or deal with the consequences. I'd seen that happen more than a few times. These were usually the fights Joe knew he would win and win quickly because it was usually a smaller guy trying to make a name for himself.

This happened to him with two members of the Black Panthros and a half dozen members of El Banditos over the years, and this is why Joe gained their respect. He was as fearless as he was reckless. If it came to a fight and the kid wouldn't give up, Joe would slam his head into the lockers until two teachers would have to pull him away. Instead of screaming at the kid, "I'm gonna fuckin kill you!" or even screaming at all, Joe would simply say calmly, as the teachers hauled him off, "I warned him like five times, you guys."

Even though Joe knew he was gaining a reputation, he never cared, nor did he particularly want one. On a few occasions, girls even asked him out, turned on by his latest fight, which often left him at least a tad injured (I think he liked letting his opponents get a few licks in so that he had a black eye or a split lip to entertain his spectators), but he turned them down.

"Fuck no," he once said to a girl who asked him out on a date. "Your father would chase me out of the house faster than that nigger who ran off with my TV set last week."

I'm not using that language for shock value but just to illustrate the fact that Joe, though not a racist, often said what no one else was thinking. That particular comment came with an ass-beating from Mookie, head of the Black Panthros and with no intervention from Gary. Mookie and Joe shook hands in the end, and Joe apologized for his racial insensitivity. You see, Joe knew he had said something dumb, and he knew he had to pay for it. Some speculate that Mookie was not very tough and that Joe, ever the glutton for punishment and justice, threw the fight to teach himself a lesson and to give the Black Panthros a feeling of victory. Such was life for Joe and Gary, picked on but toughened up because of it.

# 4

After school, I raced home, camcorder in hand, with such a feeling of pride that I almost wept and triumphantly burst through the front door to see my mother, holding up her index finger to indicate that she was on the phone. I said, "Yeah, but...," and held up the camcorder. She smiled and nodded, duly noting my success and returned to her intense phone call about deadlines and photo shoots and taking things to the next level. I sauntered upstairs to my bedroom and slammed the door behind me for unnoticed dramatic effect.

I lay on the bed thinking. My mother and I had spent years together. She was fresh out of college when she was pregnant with me and therefore stayed clear of the workforce until I was in first grade and she could get a nine to five career rolling. Before then, she worked as a part-time freelance consultant who mostly worked over the phone, and that was done during my naps or trips to my grandparents' house or whatever else kept me from knowing that Mom was a budding career woman who was destined to exit my life. She was a beautiful and intelligent woman, my favorite teacher and my best friend. She would die of cancer before I graduated high school, so moments like the aforementioned, which were painful at the time, became reasons that she was able to leave me an inheritance, which I would use for college, a place Joe and Gary, my only two real friends who consoled me during my time of loss, would never step foot.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Lying on the bed, pining for my mother's affections, I noticed that there was a tape in the camcorder, one that was not present when I'd taken it to school. There was no label and nothing written on it otherwise, just a plain black VHS tape. I was curious, fascinated even, and I waited impatiently, pacing the room as it rewound in the machine.

When it finally stopped, I raced to the VCR and pressed the play button, and who, to my surprise should appear but Joe and Gary. They were sitting at an old, cheap dinette set with mismatched chairs, yelling back and forth at one another, but no sound was coming out. I cranked up the volume. I could still hear next to nothing, so I turned it up full blast and put my ear directly up to the speaker, only to be startled by the sound of a simple bass line and a woman screaming in exaggerated pleasure and a man moaning as though in pain. On the screen, no longer Joe and Gary, was a very loud porno, whereby a woman was receiving anal sex from a man, who was, in turn, receiving anal sex from another woman wearing a strap-on dildo.

I struggled to shut the TV off but not before my mother knocked at the door and said, "Lars, what are you doing?"

Embarrassed, my heart racing, I hollered, "Nothing, just watching a movie!"

"I can hear that," my mother said and asked, "What movie?"

"Just uh...a-a movie," I said. "Two guys from school made it."

And then cringed, realized how that sounded and just how utterly far I'd dug myself. My mother had clearly heard the moans, both male and female. Luckily, she was too busy and told me that she had an important dinner with some potential clients and that there were leftovers in the fridge. I trembled with embarrassment, hearing in her tone that she thought I was shamelessly masturbating to a version of sex hitherto unbeknownst (and extremely disturbing) to me.

Once the shock subsided enough to move forward, my thoughts once again shifted to why on earth Joe and Gary were on this tape in my camcorder, the camcorder that Rudy had supposedly stolen.

After fast-forwarding the sex scene, which went on for a painful seven more minutes, Joe alone popped up, looking more serious than normal. He was seated at the same dinette, only this time surrounded by candles, which lit the room with a dirty orange glow. He was speaking, though with the volume all the way down, I could not make it out. With caution, I gradually turned it up, little by little and noticed the reflection of Gary, holding my camcorder, in the mirror behind Joe.

"What is it you want?" Joe asked, looking at the camera and then looking about the room. "Why are you not at peace?"

The flames danced to the left, and Joe shuddered. "She's in here with us," he said, looking around the room cautiously.

"Stephanie, why did you come back? Or should the question be, why haven't you left?"

It was then that I realized he was attempting to invoke a spirit.

The candle flames then swayed to the right, and Joe looked about again, startled. "Stephanie, is that you? If it is, I give you permission to be at peace."

And with that, the flames simultaneously extinguished, leaving utter blackness.

"Holy shit," whispered Joe, and I could hear Gary's labored breathing from behind the camera.

Not believing in their séance or whatever the hell it was they were doing, I was nonetheless impressed by the theatrics and by Joe's acting. He seemed genuinely mystified and afraid.

Suddenly, the candles relit themselves, and the mirror behind Joe revealed a teenaged girl, pale and translucent, wide-eyed and horrified standing next to Gary. Gary screamed out in horror, and the camera fell to the ground.

"Did you see something?" Joe's voice.

"Nuh uh," Gary said off camera, "I burnt myself on this damn candle."

"What? You ass!" Joe complained, "Were you even paying attention? Tell me you at least got the candles blowing out and relighting. Tell me you're not that stupid!"

After the camera shuffled around for a bit, Gary said, "Oh, shit, man I hope I didn't break that Larry guy's camera."

"Who the fuck is Larry?" asked Joe.

"Larry, the kid whose camera this is."

"His name isn't Larry," Joe said. "It's Garth, and you..."

The tape ended. Well, their footage did anyway, and rather than gamble over whether or not more porno scenes were going to pop up, I decided to rewind the disturbing image of the girl in the mirror, the image I thought Gary had been so startled over that he'd dropped my camera but was apparently not paying a lick of attention to when it happened.

I recognized the girl. I paused it on her face in that mirror, white as a ghost, sad. Then I recalled the name, Stephanie. Stephanie Longfellow was killed in a car accident the previous year. She was a senior in high school, a very pretty girl. How on earth Joe and Gary captured this chilling image was beyond me, but I had to find out.

# 5

"Why'd you do it, and how'd you do it?" I asked Joe in the cafeteria the following day, finally saying what I'd been rehearsing, what I thought would be so obvious and sound so cool that he would immediately buckle and tell me everything.

Instead, a confused-looking Joe asked, "Um...do what?"

"You took my camera, asshole!" I snapped. "But I'll look past that for now if you tell me how you did it, how you made those special effects?"

Joe turned to the ever-present Gary with a scowl and said, "You dumbass, you left the fucking tape in it?"

Gary was confused, and the events from the previous day, the recovery of my camcorder, somehow did not occur to him.

"The fucking VCR tape, you idiot!" Joe snarled.

"Look," I went on, "I don't care that you stole it. Well, I do, but right now I just need to know how you got Stephanie Longfellow's face to pop up in your mirror."

At this, Joe perked up and asked, "How did you know it was Stephanie Longfellow we were trying to contact? I don't recall using her last name."

"You didn't," I reminded him. "She appeared in the reflection of the mirror behind you, right before Gary dropped my camera. I recognized her from the newspaper."

"Bullshit," Joe was astonished but not entirely ready to abandon his skepticism.

Now it was my turn to be confused as I looked back and forth at them, "Didn't you watch the tape?"

"No," Joe said. "We were going to, but our sources told us that your hot mom was in the office talking about pressing charges, so we never got the chance, thought it better to return your camera."

"What source?" I asked. "That fake Mexican kid?"

"Well, yes, but he did provide us with some _real_ information," Joe said. "And trust me, that Rudy kid had fuck all to do with any of it. He only allowed us to plant the camera on him because we promised protection from El Banditos in the future."

"Protection? Why the hell would they pick on him? I'm pretty sure he's disabled," I pointed out.

"Yeah, well I'm pretty sure they don't discriminate and that a few, or perhaps many of The Bandits themselves are, at the very least, mildly retarded."

I couldn't argue that. He was probably right. Anyone who would pretend to be a different race to the point of speaking a gibberish form of the language and drawing facial hair above their lip had to be somewhat devoid of mental faculties.

"That's beside the point," I said. "Show me how you guys made that footage."

"You've got to show me the footage first," Joe said, "because I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"I think it's fake. You've got to show me how you did it," I answered.

"Whatever is on there, it's not fake. Look at us, man. Do we seem that clever to you?"

I looked to Gary, who had his index finger so far up his nose that his eyes were watering.

"Alright, fine," I said. "We'll try to contact her again. But this time, I'm coming, and you morons aren't touching my camera."

Joe nodded and said, "Fair enough, Lars," and continued in a hushed tone, "but I gotta warn ya. Once you go to the other side, you'll see things that'll forever be imprinted in your mind, disturbing things."

"Yeah, whatever," I said and walked off. I sometimes wonder how my life would have turned out if I had taken him seriously and decided not to go.

# 6

The footage had been shot at Gary's house. Well, in his mother's trailer to be exact, and that's where I was going to meet them that Friday, with my camcorder, as promised. They would not stop going on about how nothing was faked, how they were not aware of Stephanie Longfellow's ghostly presence because, like the idiots they were, they had not watched the tape before returning my camcorder, complete with ample evidence that they'd stolen it.

Even the look of the trailer park gave me the chills. A man who looked like an impoverished Stephen King sat near the park entrance in a chair, peeling an apple while watching me with a smile that I wish I could forget. I wouldn't have known how to describe it then, but now the best word I can use is lustful. I was a clean-cut kid from a well-to-do family, not this creep's usual catch but a challenge he might have enjoyed.

The park, twenty acres of shoebox-like dwellings with dull, aluminum shells, was a maze, littered with garbage and junky cars and quite likely junkies themselves. The place I'd only heard about was now a scary reality. Children, not kids my age, but children in diapers wandered about, filthy, escorted by six through nine year-olds, some who eyeballed me suspiciously. It occurred to me that, aside from Stephen King's pedophilic doppelganger, there seemed to be no adults in this trailer park, none who took notice of the odd goings-on of the children anyway.

A soot-covered man peaked out from underneath the hood of his crappy car, the clicking of a ratchet prominent, like the eerie soundtrack of this otherworldly place. A very pregnant woman smoking a cigarette stood on, what I suppose was a porch, more of a small platform atop the steps that led into her trailer. These distracted adults took as much notice of me as they did their own children, which was not much.

"You fuckin' lost?" a high voice came from behind me as I'd circled the same street three times.

I turned to see a boy of probably nine years and three other boys, a year or two younger, standing behind him. They wore shorts that they'd outgrown the previous summer, no shirts, and they were all dirty. Jesus, if these were the criminals of the future, things were even starting to look dismal for crime.

"Were you talking to me?" I asked the eldest, who I assumed to be their leader.

"No, the other faggot on a bike," he said and was way too good at swearing. I wondered how his reading and writing skills were. "Yeah, you."

"I'm looking for lot forty-two," I said.

The eldest boy chuckled and the other three joined in.

"You come to get your cherry popped?" the boy asked.

"Excuse me?" I said.

"I said, did you come to get your cherry popped?"

"I don't get the question," though I knew the term, just not why he was using it.

"It means get laid, stupid," he said, making the other boys laugh. He then turned to his young minions and said, "This muffucker's like twenty and don't know what get your cherry popped means."

I wanted to ask how or why he knew such a thing, but instead I said, "I'm actually fourteen, and I'm looking for Gary Young's trailer."

"Yeah, I know what you're looking for," he snapped, as if it were the tenth time he'd told me as much.

"Am I going the right way?" I asked.

"I don't know, faggot. Are you?"

"You've got a big mouth for a little thing, don't you."

"Little?" he was aghast. "Muffucker, pull your pants down, and I'll show you little. Ain't nothing little about me, bitch."

This was bizarre. I felt like I had stepped into an R-rated version of the _Twilight Zone_ , where the kids ran the show and the adults had to be in at a certain time. I imagined Rod Serling's narration for such a setup: "With their scumbag parents in bed, passed out from a cocktail of cheap whiskey and prescription drugs, the children wander the streets like animals, in search of food and perhaps a pair of socks."

It was then that I realized that the leader was wearing adult-sized work boots and no socks. Thanks, Rod Serling, for pointing that out. I looked up from the boy's feet to see that he was scowling at me, his front tooth missing, the remaining teeth crooked and gray. He smiled at me and said, "See something you like, faggot?"

"Why do you keep calling me that?" I asked, getting annoyed.

"Because you're gay," was his snappy comeback. "Look at them clothes."

Though I suppose my family was wealthy, I didn't think I dressed like a rich kid. I usually wore a button-up dress shirt and jeans and a pair of Adidas tennis shoes, not unlike what I was wearing that day. Though it was a nice outfit, it was not something from the lap of luxury. Still, it was apparently leagues from anything these kids had ever seen, and I suppose, by comparison, I looked a bit flamboyant to them.

"What's wrong with my clothes?" I asked.

"What's wrong with my clothes?" he mocked in a girlish falsetto, generating more laughter from the youngsters behind him. "What you want for that bike?" he then asked.

"My bike?" I asked.

"Did I stutter?" he said. "Yeah, muffucker, the bike."

"I'm afraid it's not for sale," I said.

"Everything gotta price tag," he said. "How much?"

"You've been standing there insulting me and calling me names, and you think I'm just gonna sell you my bike?"

"Oh, boohoo," the boy said sarcastically. "Sell me that bike, and I'll take you to Gary's trailer. I'll even walk you to the front door. Hell, I can even show you to his ma's bedroom. That's why you're here, right?"

"I...no, I'm not."

"What's in the bag?" was his next question.

I'd almost forgotten that I was wearing my backpack, which held my camcorder, my toothbrush, and a change of clothes. That's how distracted and nervous those weird children had made me.

"Nothing," I said.

"It don't look like nothing," he correctly pointed out.

"Just some stuff. Change of clothes and a toothbrush."

"Toothbrush?" he said, with more laughter coming from his cronies. "What you gonna do with a toothbrush, scrub them faggoty shoes?"

"No," I said, getting annoyed, "I'm gonna brush my teeth with it. You ought to try it some time."

"You making fun of me, faggot?" he asked.

"What do you think?" I said.

"I think I'm a go get my older brother to come stab you in the neck. That's what I think."

My heart dropped at the sound of that, so I thought of a different approach.

"Look, there's no need for violence. Here," I said and reached into my back pocket for my wallet and produced a dollar bill. "I'll give you a dollar if you just tell me where Gary's trailer is."

This amused them all to no end. When he caught his breath, the leader said, "What am I supposed to do with a dollar? You can do better than that, Richie Bitch."

I fished around. My mother had given me a twenty for pizza, and I had thirteen dollars left from my allowance, which I really didn't want to hand over to these cretins, but it was looking as though I didn't have a choice. I pulled out the other two ones and said, "Three dollars. Come on, it's not like you have to work for it."

He shook his head and said, pointing to his fellow children, "These are my boys. If we can't get at least a dollar each, no deal."

I sighed and produced the ten, doing my best to conceal the twenty and handed it over. He snatched it and smiled.

"That's a little more like it," he said and pointed down the road, and in a helpful tone that I did not think him capable of, he said, "What you're gonna wanna do is go down to the end of this road and hang a right. Once you get to the end of that road, you'll make a left, and the Youngs' trailer will be the third one on your right."

I thought about it and said, "Right, left, third trailer on the right."

"Yep," he said and added, "and by the way, my name's Isaac. If you need anything else, you come let me know. For real, muffuckers wanna start some shit with you, just tell them you're my boy."

"Isaac," I said, "Jesus, just like _Children of the Corn_."

"Naw, man," Isaac said, "like the scientist. You know, the one who invented the Fig Newton?"

I opened my mouth to correct him but thought better of it and instead said, "Alright, thanks, Isaac. I'm Lars, by the way."

"Lars?" I knew that the name evoked mystery in most, and these kids were no exception. "Like Metallica's drummer?"

"No, like my great grandfather. He was from Scandinavia," I corrected him, though it was nice to see that he had some knowledge, even if it was useless pop culture.

"Whatever you say, faggot," he said, though I could tell that he was joking now. "Better get a move on before Gary's ma leaves for work."

"Okay, thanks," I said and waved good-bye. They returned my wave before turning to huddle over the ten dollar bill as if it were a cache of rubies.

"Let's go get some food," I heard one of them suggest as I rode off.

# 7

I arrived at Gary's trailer and knocked at the door. Joe opened it and looked around suspiciously and said, "Gary's taking a shit, said it looks and feels like Cream of Wheat. Come on in."

"Okay," I said, shaking my head at the useless plethora of information.

Though they were deprived of many possessions, the trailer was tidy if more than a tad crammed.

On the wall to my right, was Gary's school picture, which I had to try very hard not to laugh at. His hair was unkempt and his eyes were closed, a slack-jawed look where a smile should have been. Above his school picture was a picture of a wolf, howling at the moon. It was not a normal picture. It appeared to be made of velvet. Above that picture was a gaudy but authentic dream catcher. Adjacent to that wall, where most families had an entertainment center, the Youngs' television sat atop a milk crate with a VCR on the floor next to it.

Sitting in a ratty old recliner and watching a televangelist was a sixty-something man in his underwear, a pair of graying tighty whiteys that had seen better days, and a yellowed A-shirt, which I'd once heard my father refer to as a wife-beater. Though I never fully understood why, I could picture this old man slugging a spouse or two in his younger days. He had week-old white stubble and white hair that was unkempt and thinning to oblivion, and though he was scowling at the television, his eyes made him appear confused.

My current surroundings made me more uncomfortable than did the little boys wandering the streets. My heart was beating so rapidly, I could hear it and thought perhaps Joe did too when he said, indicating the old man, "I know he's gross to look at, but he's harmless."

How the old man didn't hear him was beyond me. "Hey, Leroy!" Joe hollered, startling the old man, who looked in our direction, making me more nervous.

"This is Lars," Joe said loudly, pointing to me. "He's a friend of me and Gary."

"How's that?" the old man said in a mushy, toothless voice.

"This is Lars!" Joe hollered again.

"What's that?" Leroy asked.

"It's not a what; it's a who. Lars!" Joe said.

Leroy shrugged us off with a wave of his hand and got back to watching the televangelist, who was snappily dressed standing in a nice church though complaining of his parish's lack of generosity, informing people of the eight hundred number on the bottom of the screen in which to send cash or check donations.

Gary emerged from the bathroom down the hall and saw me and said to Joe, "What's he doing here?"

Joe said, "We invited him. Remember? He brought his camcorder."

Gary thought about it, thinking being a great source of pain for him. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers and pointed at me and said, "Oh, yeah. You're the guy whose camcorder we got back from that Rudy kid."

"No, Gary," Joe said. "He knows it was us. Remember, you left the tape in the camcorder? There's no need to be an ass."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Gary said.

"Jesus, Gary, stop being a retard," Joe snapped. "He knows it was us. We're gonna get some more footage of that dead girl."

"And make a million bucks?" Gary said with a smile.

"That's the idea," Joe said, and turning to me, he said bashfully, "We were thinking about starting our own business if we can figure out how to contact spirits."

"Cool," I said, trying my best to sound enthused rather than startled by the fact that Leroy had just loudly hacked up a thick phlegm wad and swallowed it vigorously. Even Joe cringed at the sound of it, and the three of us stood around uncomfortably (though Gary, I would say, was more indifferent than anything). Joe then extended his hand in the opposite direction, realizing that we'd barely moved a foot beyond the doorway and said, "Shall we get to it?"

The direction he was pointing was toward the dinette in the kitchen area, the same one from their video. Even though the place was sparsely furnished, the narrowness of the trailer and the crammed space were making me dizzy and short of breath. Atop the feeling of disgust and discomfort brought on by the weird children and this weird trailer, I was beginning to feel physically and emotionally homesick. In my mind I was telling myself that I had not ridden my bike eleven miles and given up ten dollars to find this place, only to back out before I'd gotten any footage. As Joe had observed, _once you go to the other side, you'll see things that'll forever be imprinted in your mind, disturbing things_. I hadn't even seen a ghost yet, and already I was equating the other side to which he referred as the other side of the tracks.

After my day thus far, seeing a ghost was likely to be a relief by comparison. The three of us sat at the dinette. I was unpacking my camcorder while Joe lit candles. Gary stared at the mirror behind us, though he showed no sign of interest in it.

"Do you guys know a kid around here named Isaac?" I asked, deciding that breaking the silence would do us all a bit of good.

"Sure," Joe said, "Isaac and the Urchins."

"Sounds like a nineteen fifties Jewish rock band," I said, and Joe laughed his ass off.

"That's pretty funny," he said, "I thought you were too uptight to have a sense of humor."

"I'm not uptight at all," I said.

"Really?" Joe asked. "Then why did the sight of a grown man in his underwear make you turn white as a ghost?"

"Are you serious?" I asked, lowering my voice. "That's not normal."

"What is normal, Lars?" Joe asked. "Don't you ever lay around in your undies?"

"Sure I do, but...,"

Before I could finish, Joe interjected, "So there you have it. Just because you do it in the privacy of your bedroom doesn't make you any better."

Now Joe was adding to my already jangled nerves, but he soon chuckled and said, after punching me affectionately but hard in the shoulder, "I'm just fucking with you, Lars. That shit's fucking disgusting. Leroy only looks like he smells like testicle grease and pickle juice because he does."

"Praise the Lord!" Leroy hollered from the other room in what sounded like a response to Joe's insult but was, in reality, communication with the televangelist.

"You see?" Joe said to me. "Even he knows."

Equipped with the knowledge that Leroy could not hear a word we said, I laughed, which was apparently Joe's way of accepting, even embracing this strange world. I found the sight of a brazenly half-naked old man to be appalling and frightening, whereas Joe saw fodder for jokes. Sometimes I envied him for that reason. I was being drawn into a world where a guy like Joe Smith was the voice of reason and sanity, and I can't say as I liked it very much. But there I was, ready to film this world.

I was getting preliminary shots of Gary, who was still in a daze. I turned the camera to Joe and said, "Say something."

"Like what?" he asked.

"Like anything," I told him. "If you're gonna make this into a business, you might as well look at it as show business. If I'm gonna film it, you've got to give us some narration or something, otherwise it's just gonna be two goofballs staring at each other."

Joe nodded. "Fair enough," he said and thought for a moment, after which he said, "I can't think of anything to say."

"Come on, usually you can't shut up, now you can't speak."

"Hey, fuck you, man," he snapped. "It's different when there's a camera pointed at you."

"Well, what the hell were you two talking about before your séance?"

Joe thought for a moment and said, "What?"

"You know, before your disgusting porno scene, which got me in trouble by the way."

Joe laughed immediately and said, "Oh, my god, it worked. We weren't saying shit. The idea was so that someone would crank up the volume right before hearing that broad and her man getting slammed up the poop chute."

"Mission accomplished," I said. "I had the most uncomfortable talk with my parents in my entire life, so don't do something like that again."

Again, Joe howled with wheezy laughter, even slapped his knee, though I don't think he did it for effect. I truly believe he was that amused by causing someone else such hassle.

"Okay," Joe said when he finally calmed down. "The candles are all lit. We'll talk later. For now, let's get down to business."

# 8

Nothing much happened for the first few minutes. Leroy was kind enough to shut the television off and sit in the darkness while we tried to contact the dead, a request that he was somehow able to accept as perfectly reasonable. I was filming, and Joe and Gary sat at the table while Joe asked the potential spirit a few questions.

"Are you with us, Stephanie?" he asked. "Are you in this room with us? In this house? Where are you?"

I was beginning to feel put on. I thought that perhaps they were caught in their lie, unable to produce their special effects with me in the room. That is, until the candles slightly flickered, and I was aware that someone had walked by behind me. It wasn't Leroy because I could smell perfume.

"My god, she's here," I said, terrified.

I heard movement beside me but could see nothing. I turned the camera into the direction of the movement, into the void, and suddenly, an orange glow illuminated a witchy face, and I screamed. The witchy woman yelled out as well and turned the light on. It was Gary's mother, who had flicked her lighter to light a cigarette. She had the overly tanned, leathery skin of a sixty year-old chain smoker though she was barely forty.

"Sorry, honey," she said to me with a smile, closing her bathrobe, which, when slightly opened, revealed her fake breasts and the laciness of lingerie. Her voice was gravely, like a demon who drank shots of whiskey and chain smoked Camel non-filters.

"Mom, you ruined it," Gary whined.

"I'm sorry, baby," she said and exhaled a stream of smoke that went directly into my face.

When I coughed she said to me, "What's your name, honey?"

"Lars," I said nervously, her presence making the discomfort come back in nauseating waves.

"Ooh," she said. "That's a cool name. Is it Hispanic?"

"No," I said. "Scandinavian."

"Ooh, so it is Hispanic."

I decided not to argue with her. She took another large drag and inhaled rapidly, deeply, and said, "You boys have fun. I gotta be to work in an hour. Please mind Leroy. He's in charge."

"He just sits there," Gary pointed out.

"Then I guess he'll be a good babysitter," she said. "You don't bother him, and he won't bother you."

"Whatever," Gary said. "Mom, you're killing the mood."

"Okay, baby, you go ahead and get back to your little séance."

She shut the light off and exited the dining area. Nervously, I lifted the camcorder back onto my shoulder and began filming Joe and Gary.

"Are we rolling?" Joe asked.

"In five, four, three, two...," and I pointed to Joe.

"We're trying to contact the soul of Stephanie Longfellow, killed a year ago this April in a single-car accident. Why did we choose her? Well, we didn't, she chose us. More specifically, she chose Gary."

"What?" Gary said and perked up, torn from his daze. "I heard my name."

"Dip shit, I was trying to explain about Stephanie Longfellow," Joe complained.

"Oh," he said. "Sorry."

"Anyhow," Joe went on, his voice becoming serious, good for narration, "the very night she died, Gary had a dream that Stephanie was in her car, distressed about the recent breakup with her boyfriend, Scott. As soon as her car hit the tree, Gary awakened, fully aware of an accident that happened nine miles from here. When he turned his radio on, he was startled to hear the very song she'd been listening to in the moment of her death, the very moment Gary dreamed of it."

"Holy crap," I said. "Is that true, Gary?"

Again, he was released from his daze and said, "Is what true?"

"Everything Joe just said," I told him, though I was certain he hadn't paid attention to a word of it.

"What did he say?" Gary asked, confirming my suspicion.

"Jesus, Gary," Joe snapped. "Are you deaf or just plain fucking retarded?"

"Fuck you, fat boy!" Gary yelled.

"That's a good one," Joe said. "Did you come up with that on your own or did you follow me to the scale?"

"Shh," I said. "I heard something."

Joe and Gary both shut up and listened.

"I hear it too," Joe said and pointed toward the living room area.

It was a soft, sad moaning, that of a sick or dying animal. Though I was horrified, I was bound and determined to get some good footage, so I aimed the camcorder in the direction of the sound, and Gary flipped the light switch to reveal his mother, straddling Leroy, giving him a vigorous lap dance with her robe opened to reveal her black lingerie, which would have been sexy on the right woman but on her was simply unacceptable on many levels. Her thick thighs and buttocks made wrinkly waves, and she stopped when she saw me, and quickly jumped up and closed her robe.

"You sick little pervert," she snarled.

I heard the moaning again and realized it was merely Leroy, yodeling in ecstasy, moments from climaxing into his threadbare underwear.

"I'm so sorry," I said, setting my camcorder down.

I could barely breathe and thought I would vomit on the spot, so I made a run for it before things could get any thicker, any more horrific. I bolted out the front door in embarrassment, my anxiety at an apex.

# 9

I sat on the curb across the street, hugging my knees with my head down, trying to catch my breath. Much to my horror, Gary was filming me from his lawn, and I could hear him and Joe mumbling to one another.

"I think he's crying," Gary said quietly.

"Maybe he's not cut out for this," Joe mumbled.

"You think?" asked Gary.

"Just give his fucking camera back, Gary. Let him go home and cry himself to sleep."

"I can hear everything you're saying," I called to them.

"So you're done then?" Joe called back.

I stood up and marched toward them, wiping tears from my eyes.

"No," I said angrily, "I'm not done. And for your information, I _was_ crying, okay, and not because I'm not cut out for this. I was crying because I just watched Joe's mother having sex with that old man right there on the recliner."

"She was dry humping him, Lars. Grow up," Joe said.

"Whatever they were doing, I didn't wanna see it," I snapped. "How can you stand there and act like that's normal?"

"What are you, gay?" Joe asked. "It was two heterosexual people enjoying a little foreplay. What's so wrong with that?"

"No," I told him. "I'm not gay, but after seeing that, who knows, I may never want to have sex with anyone, man or woman. And to answer your second question, _everything_ was wrong with that! That filthy old man in his underwear with Dorito powder stained onto his crotch. Gary's mom humping him while he moaned like a frigging cat in heat. It's just not something I'm used to seeing, okay."

"Dorito powder," Gary repeated with a chuckle.

"What's normal, Lars?" Joe asked. "Tell us. What's so normal about the suburbs except that you keep everything behind closed doors? You live in your sheltered world where pornography is icky and your mom bakes cookies after a well-balanced meal. Well, newsflash, pal. This ain't Beverly Hills. It's a fucking trailer park. The best meal you're gonna see is mac and cheese with sliced up hotdogs in it. Walk through any one of these other doors right now, and you'll think Gary's trailer is Beaver Cleaver's house. You'll see people hitting crack pipes while their mongoloid kids drool in front of a TV set. You're gonna see drunks smacking their wives around for no good reason, pederasts thinking of your sweet little butt while they jerk off into a crusty old sock that sounds like a work boot when it's in the dryer. You're gonna see shit far worse than what went on inside, and if your view of people is so shitty that you barf at the sight of two consenting adults being kinky, then you're just a spoiled rotten, shallow cocksucker."

I could have argued his points, decent as they were. I could have told him that it was unfair to consider Gary's trailer normal simply because of the much sicker abnormalities in the others. I could have told him that, consenting adults though they may be, there are appropriate times and places to perform sensual acts, in front of teenage boys not being one of them. I could have told him that just because my parents did not get each other off in plain sight, fifteen feet from my friends, didn't make me a stuck-up misfit living on the fringe. Regardless, I had embarrassed Gary's mother and possibly Leroy as well, and I owed them an apology, even if I felt the apology was owed to me.

We went back into the house, where Ms. Young was wearing a trench coat that likely housed her lingerie underneath. I tried not to notice as I said, "I'm sorry, Ms. Young. I thought I was hearing something else. I didn't even know that you and Leroy were still in the room when I...I...you know. I'm really embarrassed and hope you'll forgive me."

She smiled and said in her gravelly voice, "Don't mention it, sweetie. Perhaps I came off a little too harsh myself. You know, you're the first friend of Gary's to ever apologize for peeping on me. Most of them do it with pride."

I wanted to shudder and explain once again that I really wasn't interested in her body or her lewd act but that I thought Leroy's moaning was the voice of a dead girl from beyond the grave. Neither of them sounded appealing, so I thought it better to simply nod and smile and move on. She patted my cheek affectionately, accidentally scratching me with a long, fake red fingernail.

Much to my horror, Gary had been filming the entire time. I rolled my eyes and snatched my camera, ready to get back to work, when Joe suddenly shouted, "Anybody else hungry?"

I offered to order and pay for pizza, much to their delight. I couldn't shake the fact that Gary, if they were telling the truth, obviously had a gift for communicating with the dead, and that they had a camcorder at their disposal to film the results of one such communication and that they had zero desire to get to work.

Over a greasy three-meat pizza, of which I only ate one slice (the nausea didn't go away with the addition of food to my belly, as I'd hoped), I tried to get some information from Gary, but he was more interested in the food. Leroy joined us at the dinette, still in his underwear and wife-beater, and slurped the pizza and moaned with each bite as though eating caviar whilst getting a blowjob under the table, a sight and a sound I could have done without.

Once Leroy retired to the recliner and turned the televangelist back on, we got back to business. I thought the best thing to do would be to first prep Gary for a proper interview and ask him about his experiences. What I learned would provide endless fascination, and by the time the night was over, we would have a mission entirely different from Joe's idea of starting a business, a mission that would eventually test our morality. Well, mine anyway. Joe and Gary's scruples appeared to be of the "on the fly" variety.

When we were ready, we agreed that Joe would ask Gary the questions, and I would film.

"What was it like to be inside the mind of someone who was about to die?"

"Well," Gary said, composing himself less like an imbecile than I'd ever seen him do, "I don't really know because neither of us knew she was going to die."

"What did you learn about her?" was Joe's next question.

"I guess everything," Gary shrugged. "I was inside her mind. I knew that she liked coming home to the smell of her mom's dinners. I knew that she was a cheerleader. I knew that she loved her parents and her baby brother very much."

"And were these characteristics of Stephanie's present in your dream?"

Gary thought a moment and shook his head and said, "Not really, no. They were just in her mind, you know. It's like: how do you know that you like watching cartoons if you've never told anyone? It's just in the back of your mind. Everything I knew about her was just in the back of her mind. Just small movies that your brain plays, something like that. I saw her cheerleading. I saw her feeding her little brother. But I didn't see those things at the same time, you know? They were just there."

"In the back of her mind," Joe said. "And yours."

"Yeah," Gary said. "I wasn't just thinking what she thought or feeling what she felt. I was actually her. I had no clue who Gary Young was. I was just this heartbroken girl whose boyfriend had cheated on her with her best friend."

Joe nodded and said, after a dramatic pause, "Tell us about the accident."

Again, Gary shrugged and said, "I don't really know what to say. Accidents are so fast that people don't even know that they happened until afterward, you know? I heard the boom and the glass break. I even felt like my head hit the windshield, but once that happened, I woke up."

For being a clueless moron, Gary was really emotional about all this, and I began to believe their story more and more, unbelievable as it was. If Gary was simply acting as though this whole ordeal were unpleasant and emotional, he deserved an Oscar. If he were merely acting like he was an idiot every other time, he deserved an Oscar for that as well. There was complexity to the kid yet.

"Tell us about the sightings. How soon after her death did they begin?"

"A few months later. I saw her in the bathroom at school in the mirror. I kept hearing a voice saying, 'Hey you. I know you can hear me.' But I knew no one else could hear her. I thought I was losing my mind."

"Well, when you live out the last few minutes of someone else's life, your mind truly isn't your own, so in that sense, maybe you did lose your mind a little."

Gary shrugged and said, "I see her a lot more now, but I can't be inside her mind like I was the night she died. It's like because she's dead, there isn't a mind to get into anymore."

That line was not scripted, and by god, it was profound coming from the likes of Gary. He continued, "She wants to make contact. Maybe it's not easy when your soul is no longer a part of this world. There were times I would see her ten times in a day, then there were times I would see or hear her ten times in three months. Maybe she's trying to communicate with other people, but I think she comes back to me because she knows I can hear her and see her."

"Does she see the horrific things you do in the shower?" Joe asked in a professional tone.

Gary looked to me, as if for clarification. I simply sighed with annoyance, and Joe chuckled and said, "Don't answer that, Gary. I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself."

"You know?" I said, an idea arising. "That might be a good point."

"No, she doesn't come to me in the shower, okay," Gary said.

"Then think about it," I said. "She may be dead, but she somehow still understands a person's right to privacy. She really isn't trying to haunt you to scare you. Something of her humanity is still lingering."

"That's very profound, Lars," Joe said, and I blushed, until he added, "now shut the fuck up and let me conduct my interview."

"Right," I said.

"But that does present us with a question, Gary," Joe went on. "Has she ever asked you anything pertaining to her humanity? Okay, that's a confusing question for you. Has she ever asked you to tell her father she loved him or to tell her little brother to hang in there, anything like that?"

Gary shook his head and said, "No, it's like she's just trying to get my attention."

"That's right," Joe said. " _Your_ attention. We've been going about this all wrong. Lars, cut the camera and help me light some candles."

And so we did, and when the camera was rolling once again, it was Gary in the driver's seat this time, Joe at his side the candles lit once again.

"Stephanie Longman," Gary said in a mysterious and hammy voice.

"It's Long _fellow_ , dip shit," Joe muttered under his breath. "And say it normally. You sound like you're having a fucking stroke."

"Stephanie Longfellow," Gary said. "Are you here with us?"

As in the video, every candle flame swayed to the right, blown by an unseen force.

"I'm here, Stephanie," Gary said. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

A chill suddenly passed through my body, through the entire trailer, as I saw Gary shudder as well and look around.

" _Nobody knows what they did_ ," said an electric-sounding female voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

If I wasn't so fascinated, so mystified, I probably would have dropped the camera and run out of the house. Again. The dream catcher on the wall swayed, and the pictures danced back and forth frenetically, moments from hitting the floor. I was sure to get that footage as Gary continued.

"Nobody knows what who did?" Gary asked.

" _Scott_ ," she said next. " _Julie_."

I looked around for the source of her voice and noticed that Joe was doing the same, both of us coming up short and finding nothing.

"That's right," Gary said. "Besides you and Scott and Julie, no one knew that he was cheating on you."

" _Yes_ ," her voice lowered.

"You want everyone to know what they done?" Gary asked.

" _Yes_ ," she repeated.

"What can we do, Stephanie?" Gary asked. "Tell us."

And with that, the candles went out, just as they had in the previous video. I clicked the light on and filmed Joe and Gary, both of them sitting silently, though their faces displayed an array of emotions, perplexity, horror, awe.

"Stephanie, are you still here?" Gary then asked, seconds before the candles relit themselves and everything went back to normal.

"Holy shit," Joe said.

"What now?" I asked.

"What do you mean, what now?" Joe said. "We use this fucking tape to prove that we can contact the dead, and we set up shop and make a million bucks."

"Whoa there," I said. "We've got about ten minutes of footage. That's not nearly enough to prove that you've done anything but a few parlor tricks. Besides, who's to say this isn't a fluke?"

Joe was shocked and said, "A fluke? Lars, did you put some mushrooms on your pizza that perhaps you unearthed from a pile of cow shit? That shit was as real as it fucking gets."

"That's not what I meant," I said and explained, "what if this is the only time Gary ever receives contact from a spirit? Like a one-time thing, some freak accident that connected the two of them?

"Then we fake the rest," Joe said, and another wide-eyed idea hit him. "And make a TV series out of it. Fuckin A, a TV series. We've already got a camera and a ghost. What more do we need? Jesus, we could be millionaires."

Though Joe was onto something, something that rekindled memories from my past as a horror film buff, I couldn't shake the notion that he was treating this idea in a childish manner.

"Hey," I said, liking the idea of fame, fortune, and a TV show, "I'm all about making money too, but we have to be realistic. You can't just drop this tape off on some producer's desk and say, 'Where's my money?' Come on, it's not that simple."

"I'm not a complete idiot, Lars," Joe snapped, "but if we just sit on a million-dollar idea like this, we're throwing away a lifetime of fame and fortune."

"Guys!" Gary butted in loudly, and his utter shift in tone, one that he rarely displayed, shut us up immediately. "What about Stephanie?"

I aimed the camera at Gary, who said, "What does money have to do with anything? Stephanie wants us to help her."

"And help her we will," Joe said. "We'll send a few dozen roses to her grave or something."

"You know that's not what I meant," Gary said, and I could tell that he was in this for the nobility of giving her spirit some closure, something Joe and I were too selfish to think about. We'd lost ourselves in the money and the prospects of starting a business or a TV show, so much so that only Gary, bumbling, stupid Gary, had his heart in the right place.

"Okay," Joe said, gathering his thoughts. "For what may be the first time in his life, Gary's right. I suppose any good TV show, whether about werewolves or corrupt cops, needs to have a human element to it, otherwise we don't have an audience, do we."

"Exactly," I said to both of them. "I think exposing Scott and Julie will definitely give her some closure. Then she can rest in peace."

"Exposing Scott and Julie for cheating?" Joe whined. "See, that sounds like a shitty soap opera," and he continued in the deep but subdued tone of a television voiceover announcer, "Next, on _One Life to Live_. Joe and Gary expose Scott for cheating on Stephanie with her best friend, Julie."

I chuckled almost silently. I didn't want Gary to hear me because Joe was already giving him plenty of shit, and for once, I did not wish to see Gary's feelings hurt. If the guy was going to have any conviction about anything, any ambition to do something good, it would be this, and it would have been criminal to stop him.

Joe continued in the same voice, "They thought they would get away with it after Stephanie's tragic death...but that was only the beginning."

In a brisk motion, the camcorder flew effortlessly from my grip across the room and struck Joe in the head, hard, sending him to the floor with a thud. The camcorder landed on the table and spun around until it stopped and aimed at me. My face revealed utter shock and confusion, as we were to see later when reviewing the footage. Joe got up, rubbed his head.

"Fuck, I'm bleeding," he said and looked at me, pissed, "What the fuck did you do that for, Lars?"

"It wasn't me," I said.

"The hell you say," Joe said, "who the fuck was holding the camera then, Macho Man Randy Savage?"

"No, I-I...no, I," I said, pointing to my arm and my hand, failing to explain what had happened.

"I ought to pound the shit out you, Lars," Joe said, surprisingly cool, considering there was, indeed, blood dripping from somewhere in his hair and running down his forehead.

"Leave him alone, Joe," Gary said coolly, detached. "He's right. He didn't do it."

"Who the fuck did it then?" Joe asked.

Gary pointed very close to me, and when I looked, indeed, there stood a once beautiful girl, her tragic death and sadness engulfing her metaphysical presence to reveal a pallid, dark-eyed form. I shrieked immediately and sunk to the floor, hugging my knees, crying loudly.

"Okay, okay," I wailed. "I don't wanna do this anymore. I just wanna go home! Please don't hurt me, Stephanie; I'll do anything you say! Please, just please don't hurt me. We don't have to make a TV show. We won't start a business. Just tell me what you want, but please don't hurt me."

Stephanie flipped Joe the bird, and Joe, though stunned, smiled as her appearance suddenly vanished and extinguished every light in the house. From the living room came Leroy's victorious cry, "Praise the Lord!"

I continued crying, shivering in a fetal ball when the lights came back on. The camcorder was on the table, still aimed at me. It had recorded my entire nervous breakdown, every moan and every tear and every inch of my trembling person. But on the bright side (or dark side, I suppose), we also caught a clear shot of Stephanie's ghostly presence standing next to me. It was more than just a creepy reflection in a mirror, it was more than the sound of her voice. It was a soul, emotionally scarred by the abrupt ending of her earthly life and metaphysically exhausted from searching for someone who could help her, only to find him at the bottom of a barrel in Shady Acres trailer park.

# 10

We spent the next few days following Gary around with the camera. He seemed a bit more talkative now that we had a mission, and he was to be directly involved. The formalities of our TV show/business idea bored him to almost literal oblivion, as he was in such a trance-like state three quarters of the time that it was difficult to snap him back into our world. But his ideas for exposing Scott, though oftentimes criminal, were fun to hear, if a little morbid.

"I could climb a tree outside of his house and drop a cinderblock on his head," Gary once suggested with eerie enthusiasm.

"What's with you and the cinder blocks, man?" Joe asked. "I think an exposé needn't result in murder, even if the kid is a schmuck."

"Might not kill him though," Gary said.

"Maybe not," Joe admitted and added, "but you do something like that, you're gonna get people to feel bad for the bastard. Wouldn't you rather have him live in misery?"

"Like a letter to the cops?" Gary wondered.

At that point, Joe shot a look at the camera and shook his head, but keeping his demeanor calmer for the camera he said, "Kinda like that, yeah. But the cops won't do anything about it, Gary. There's no law for cheating on someone, and even if there was, I would think it would have more to do with married couples than high school flings."

Gary nodded in understanding and said, "That sucks."

But we did have an idea that would involve some sneakiness on our parts, illegalities as it were, and it would also involve Gary contacting Stephanie again. This he did in private, as she insisted that "the fat ass" and "the wuss" not be privy to their conversations. Though it hindered any success of getting any footage of her ghostly visage, we were able to sneak up on Gary's bedroom door and get some audio. It was mostly shots of a door with Gary asking seemingly innocuous questions (which Joe and I had devised) on the other side of the door.

"What time do her parents get home from work? Okay, cool. How can we get in? Sounds easy enough."

Through this, we were able to find a fount of personal information and items that only Scott and Julie would understand, from Stephanie's favorite lipstick color, to her stuffed dog, Charlie, a toy she'd had since childhood that both Scott and Julie would recognize.

Gary, however, found something completely different throughout his conversations with the ghost of Stephanie Longfellow: a friend. We often heard him whispering to her, which creeped me out to no end, and sometimes, he laughed genuinely. Often, he would have no information and say that they were just telling jokes or they were just talking and instructed us to mind our own business when we inquired about the nature of their conversations.

"But Gary," Joe pointed out one day. "We're getting no footage here."

"This is her last chance for earthly contact. She hasn't had a real conversation in almost a year."

Though I know how much Joe wanted to make a sarcastic remark about Gary's prowess as a conversationalist, he let it go for the sake of the drama we were capturing. For once, Gary was the star, even if he didn't know or care. Half the time (thankfully), it appeared that he was completely unaware that we were filming, and his emotions were genuine. People would witness Gary's character arc, from nearly non-existent, slow-witted side note to hero. Luckily, Gary didn't realize his own transition, so he wouldn't let the stardom get to his head. He wasn't in it for the fame or the prestige. He simply thought it was the right thing to do, and that was admirable.

On the day we were to exact phase one of Stephanie's revenge, I hopped on my bike, backpack with camcorder slung over my shoulder. I told my mother, who was happy I had made new friends that we were going to the mall, so I was able to get thirty dollars from her for supplies. We went to a costume shop and got fake moustaches and wigs (which Joe procured via the front of his trousers) and then to the thrift store for suits. None of the suits were very official-looking, but we didn't have to look like any particular person. We just had to be disguised.

First, we had to get into Stephanie's house. It was Friday, and Stephanie informed Gary that the family would be going out to dinner, a Longfellow weekly tradition. The place was local, and ever since her death, the Longfellows didn't stay any longer than it took them to eat, whereas before, they would stick around for coffee and dessert. Because of this, we had to be in and out. There was a key inside a hanging flower pot on the front porch, which we would use to get in. It was a nice neighborhood, so for once, I thought I would feel a bit more at home than at the trailer park. However, I could not have felt more detached, for we were entering the residence of total strangers and preparing to loot a dead girl's personal items on behalf of said dead girl's lingering spirit.

Joe insisted I film it, even though I told him that the only thing dumber than doing what we were doing was filming what we were doing.

"We're here on behalf of a ghost, Lars. If we get caught, we might as well have something to cover our asses," Joe said, his fake Magnum P.I. moustache and mirrored sunglasses a huge distraction (as was my own phony moustache and bleach-blonde wig, which was rank from being nestled in Joe's underwear for twenty minutes).

In a way, he was right. I hadn't brought the camcorder to wuss out now, so there I was filming Gary as he nonchalantly grabbed the key from the flower pot, unlocked the door, and let us in. A loud, continuous beep sounded, and though Joe and I panicked, Gary was on it, punching in the code from the box in the living room. Apparently, Stephanie had given him more information than we knew about.

Gary directed us to the second floor, the bedroom on the left. Upon entering, a chill poured from my brain to my toes and not in the same way that Stephanie's ghost brought a chill. This was a sadness and weirdness I was not accustomed to. I had never known anyone who'd died at that point, and there I was, standing in the bedroom of a dead girl, not much older than I was. Under different circumstances, I would have found the bedroom cheerful, if a little too pink for my taste, but it was the room of a stereotypical teenaged girl. It was also a room that she would never sleep in again, full of makeup she would never apply, clothes she would never wear.

Clearly it had been left just the way it was, a shirt and a pair of shorts and loose socks on the ground, a Bon Jovi and Madonna poster hanging on either side of the vanity, where various makeup items were strewn. There was a rocking chair in the corner, on which sat several stuffed animals. Gary went through them until he found the stuffed animal, the dog Charlie, and shoved it into a garbage bag. Gary then walked across the room and into her walk-in closet. While he shuffled around, I could hear the rattles and snaps of plastic hangers against one another, the squeak of the hooks sliding up and down the closet rod. It was a rare sound, the sound of Gary hard at work.

Gary emerged from the closet, trying not to smile. Joe didn't like that and said, "Look, this better have something to do with why we're here because if we came all this way and risked our asses so that you could steal a dead girl's panties, I swear to God, Gary..."

"It's okay," Gary said and meant it. "Trust me."

Joe and I exchanged a glance that displayed our concern. I had only known them for the better part of three weeks, but we'd spent nearly every day together in that time, whether at school discussing our project or filming, and it didn't take a decade to realize that when Gary used the words _trust me_ , one would have only felt squeamish of the outcome.

Gary fumbled with some items on the vanity and shoved a few of the makeup accessories into his bag, which was now bulging. Gary then slung the pack over his shoulder like a malnourished Santa Claus (complete with phony beard), and gave us the nod that it was time to go. Gary led the way and reset the alarm, locked the door behind us, and returned the key to the flower pot.

"Where to now, boss?" Joe asked Gary.

"Nowhere," Gary said. "We're done until Tuesday morning."

"What?" Joe and I asked at the same time.

"Let's get back to my house, and we'll work out the details," Gary said, sounding oddly like a professional.

On the bike trek back, I asked Gary what was so special about Tuesday morning.

"Julie's mother doesn't work," Gary informed us, "but on Tuesday at ten in the morning, she meets with her book club. That's the only time we can do it."

"Gary, we've got school on Tuesday," I reminded him.

He shrugged and said, "So."

"I can't ditch school," I told him, slowing my pedaling to his leisurely pace. "I'm working on perfect attendance four years running."

"That's great, Lars," Joe said, sounding convincing, but I knew a shitty remark was coming. "What has it done for you? You got Harvard recruiters knocking at your door because you show up to class every day?"

"Well, no, but...," I began.

"Okay then," Joe interrupted. "You're not gonna break any hearts missing one day of school."

"What about my mother?" I asked.

"What about her?" Joe asked. "What, she doesn't allow you to be sick?"

"But I'm not sick," I said.

"It's an act, man," Joe said. "No one's asking you to butt fuck your dog without wearing a rubber. It's a little white lie."

"I was raised better than that," I said, trying to erase the mental picture of bestiality that Joe so kindly imparted to me. "My parents expect me to be honest."

"No they don't," Joe insisted. "They expect you to come out of that bomb shelter you live in and have a little fun. You don't think that your mom tried a cigarette or that your dad jerked off into a dish towel against their parents' wishes when they were your age? Christ, what are they, Quakers?"

"No, we're Catholic," I said.

"Jesus, then I don't _wanna_ know what the hell they were up to when they were your age," he said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"What do you think it means?"

"I don't know; that's why I asked."

"Look, Lars," Joe said, getting back on topic, "your parents might expect you to be honest, but they don't expect you to be perfect."

"Oh, so you're a parent all of a sudden?" I asked.

"No, but I've met my share of them. Even the shitty ones will cut a good kid a little slack every now and then. Besides, you just illegally entered a girl's home and filmed Gary while he rooted around in her panty drawer. Isn't that a little worse than cutting class?"

"But it's Friday," I told him. "And school let out hours ago."

"It's Friday," Joe chuckled and said to Gary, "You hear that? Our dear Lars is but a weekend miscreant."

"What's that mean?" Gary asked.

"Never mind," Joe said to him, and back to me he said, "You've got a serious problem with scruples, pal."

"No, I don't," I said, though I wasn't entirely sure what scruples were at the time.

"Yes you do," Joe argued. "I'm all for viewing morals as more than just black and white, but I'm pretty sure you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would find ditching class to be a greater offense than criminal trespass and burglary."

"It wasn't burglary," I said. "Stephanie let us in."

"Ha," Joe said, "tell that to her father or better yet, to the police."

He was right, and I'd be completely full of shit if I didn't admit that entering the Longfellow residence, let alone Stephanie's bedroom, was the most thrilling thing I'd ever done (aside from our nontraditional yet successful séance, of course). But this was a point in my adolescence where I never expected to be. I had no problem saying no to drugs, and I didn't lie to my parents, and I certainly didn't want the first offense against my upbringing to be from cutting school, something I viewed as pretty heinous for reasons beyond me these many years later.

"Sorry, guys," I said. "I know it sounds stupid, but I'm out next time."

"No," Joe bitched, "it doesn't sound stupid. Stupid isn't a strong enough word, Lars. It sounds like the most insane, asinine fucking thing I've ever heard come from such a smart kid."

"Shut up, Joe!" I yelled, tired of his shit.

"Whatever, Lars," he continued. "Why don't you pedal on back to the 'burbs, pussy? Go get a hard on from watching bra commercials while you watch _My Three Sons_ as a family."

"I think I will," I said and made a U-turn and pedaled off in the opposite direction.

"Be cool, stay in school!" Joe yelled. "But don't be an ass an' keep trespassin'!"

"Screw off, Joe!"

"No, it's _fuck_ off, Lars!" he hollered back. "And you can fuck off for good! Don't try to contact us ever again, or I'll kick your fucking teeth in you little slimy faggot bitch!"

I was so pissed off that I pedaled faster and harder than I ever had in my life to fight the tears of rage and sadness.

# 11

I had not been so happy to be home in quite some time. So I thought. In fact, as the seconds turned into minutes, I felt odd in my own home, as though I wasn't welcome. The spaciousness and luxury felt alien and wrong. Perhaps it was because I had just committed a crime in the name of entertainment, to attempt to launch a TV show, even though I hadn't the first clue how to go about it aside from aiming my camera at the two weirdoes I'd taken up with. Or perhaps I was feeling, dare I even type it here now, homesick from being away from the trailer park, a place I'd felt such a nauseating uneasiness and claustrophobia that I didn't think I could handle another visit. But there I was, wondering what Joe and Gary were doing, wondering whether or not they were talking about me behind my back (not that Joe would bother; he was clearly unafraid to say anything to anyone). It seems childish looking back, but fourteen, no matter how mature I thought myself to be, is still a child.

I walked upstairs and entered my bedroom, not realizing how exhausted I was. I sprawled out on my bed. Not more than ten seconds passed before I heard a knock at my door. When my mother entered, she screamed and slammed the door shut once again, only adding to my feeling of being unwanted. That is until I realized that I was still wearing a bleach blonde wig, matching fake moustache, and was decked out in an oversized lime green leisure suit.

"It's okay, Mom," I said. "It's just me."

"Lars?" she asked when she cautiously entered again.

"Yeah, sorry," I said and added, "I was just messing around with Joe and Gary."

She noticed my backpack and the camcorder hanging out.

"Were you making a movie?"

"Yeah," I said.

She brightened and said, "That's great, Lars. Can I see it?"

"No," I said, perhaps a bit too hastily, for her face showed hurt, and I said, "it-it...it's not finished yet."

"Okay," she said and smiled. "Anyway, speaking of movies, I wanted to see if you wanted to go see _Pet Cemetery_ tonight."

I was stunned. Who was this woman who was suddenly interested in me, and what had she done with my all-too-busy mother?

"No, thanks," I said. "Maybe another time."

"Really?" she said. "Come on, honey, we can go just to make fun of it if it's bad. I got out of work early just to surprise you and take you out to dinner and a horror movie, just like we used to."

It was my mother's morbid fascination with all things horror that I suppose drew me to Joe and Gary. Their world, all sensitivity aside, was definitely horrific from my perspective, and the fact that at least one of them could contact the dead only added to their creepiness.

"Come on, Lars, we can ask your little buddies to come along if you want," she said, somehow sensing my longing to hang out with them again, even if to tell them I was sorry for being such an asshole.

"No," I said, "definitely not."

"Why not?" Mom asked. "You've been hanging out with them for weeks. What's the big secret?"

"Nothing," I said.

"Fine," she said. "Then call them up."

"Mom," I nearly shouted. "What's the big deal? I don't want to go anywhere. Why is that so hard to understand?"

My mother sighed and shot me a look that haunts me to this day. She tried to give me an understanding smile, but I could see the hurt that was just below the surface. If I could erase any memory of my mother, it would be that one.

I suppose it was the onset of puberty. Perhaps I was just in a foul mood because Joe had pissed me off, but at any rate, I didn't feel like the Lars Pitkin I'd been before, and I blamed it on being forced to adjust to the odd, sometimes violent life that clowns like Joe and Gary and the Black Panthros and El Banditos had brought to Washington Middle School. I was an honor roll student with perfect attendance who loved being behind a camera, a young man whose only vice was staying up late on weekends to watch R-rated horror films. It was only then, as my mother closed my bedroom door slowly behind her, that I realized how much being behind the camera had become an obsession and that because of my obsession, I was seamlessly entering a life of crime. To this day, I have never watched _Pet Cemetery_ , the movie Mom had invited me to, a movie she invited Joe and Gary to as well.

All was not lost, however, between my mother and me. Over a very quiet meal that evening, she practically insisted that we invite Joe and Gary to dinner so she could finally meet them.

"What's so bad about them?" she asked. "Is it me or them you're ashamed of?"

I wanted to tell her that she was the greatest person in the world, that she was beautiful and smart and sensitive and compassionate and fun. Then I wanted to tell her to take every word I just used to describe her and apply the exact opposite to Joe and Gary. Instead, I said, "Okay, I'll ask them."

Mom smiled happily, though I knew it was more a smile of relief than one of genuine glee. I had never, that I could remember, turned down an invitation to go to the movies with her. We always had a great time, even if one of us was having a bad day. Whatever movie we saw, which was usually a horror film, any horror film, would only be the start of our great evenings together. We'd get something to eat afterward. She would get a slice of cheesecake and a cup of coffee, me, a milkshake and a basket of fries, and we'd discuss the film, even if it sucked. She would challenge me to find six good things about it, and once I was done, she would try to come up with six different things, and then she'd say, "See, maybe it wasn't that bad after all."

I loved my mother's view of horror movies. "It's the most challenging of the genres," she once told me after I asked why they so fascinated her.

She told me that in 1985, and it was a decent year for horror. We'd seen A _Nightmare on Elm Street Part Two_ , _Fright Night_ , and _Silver Bullet_. "Most horror films are just good for cheap jump scares, nothing that challenges you to go to sleep at night," Mom had said. "Sure, Freddy Krueger looks creepy, and he has no problem killing off the youth, but in the end, he's a bit of a goofball. He cracks jokes and laughs, so it sort of takes you out of what's a really terrifying premise. Besides, I don't really care about any of the characters."

"Why not? That one guy was pretty funny," I said.

"Funny, yeah," she'd said, "but engaging or believable or even likeable, no. Most horror directors are all about delivering the jumps and the gore, and Wes Craven does that admirably. However, compare that to _Silver Bullet_. We were introduced to the werewolf right away, but then, to let us breathe, we get to know the characters, their families, and the townspeople. Some are likeable, some not so much, but even the unlikeable ones, they're human and we see reasons for their bad behavior, even if we don't agree with it. Then, when the deaths start up again, we don't want it to be anyone. And instead of some doofus teenagers making out in a car in the middle of a forest, we get the protagonist's best friend, a young boy, torn to pieces in a gazebo.

"Oh, and the suspense, Lars. I got the chills during the scene on the bridge, remember? When Marty was lighting off the fireworks? There were a few good scenes like that. It wasn't a flawless horror movie by any means, but it was good, right?"

"I liked the uncle," I told her. "He was funny."

I always liked the funny characters, probably because such violence could do with some comic relief. It was always the jokes they told or their hijinks that I thought about before bed to thwart the nightmares. I could never tell my mother of my many sleepless nights because horror movies were her absolute favorite. I pretended to understand her various insights into their deeper nature, if they had a deeper nature, and if they didn't appear to have a deeper nature, she would find one. "Every movie has something to say," she once told me. "The horror films do it best, whether it's a melodramatic film like _The Exorcist_ or a realistic horror film like _Taxi Driver_."

" _Taxi Driver_?" I asked. "I thought that was kinda boring until the end. And it wasn't really scary. Was it?"

"Some movies," Mom said, "show us the horrors of reality. And let's see what makes a horror movie great. Shocks. Gotta have a few shocking scenes in there, right, where the violence is sudden? There's got to be a foreboding feeling. De Niro's narration does just that because we're never quite sure where the action will lead us after hearing the rants of a social misfit. What else? Oh, a horror movie has to make you uncomfortable, right? Well, we sense the girl's discomfort when Travis takes her to the porno movie. Heck, _I_ was uncomfortable. Then he starts stalking her, showing up at her work, stuff like that. You see, Scorsese knows that horror villains don't have to jump through windows with a butcher knife in the middle of the night. Travis walks around in broad daylight and makes people nervous.

"You see, the reality of Travis Bickle was that he was losing his mind, more and more in every scene. It was hard to tell whether or not he was gonna fly off the handle, and when he finally did, it was a creepy, crazy guy who killed a bunch of people, a raving lunatic who finally snapped on the real streets of a real city. There was no fantasy or supernatural element to _Taxi Driver_ , not even much exaggeration, and that's what makes it get under your skin, Lars. Insanity is a scary and unfortunate reality, and it makes you wonder how many people out there are like Travis Bickle or perhaps worse."

In five lifetimes, I would have never thought that way of _Taxi Driver_ , and when I watched it again, I found that she was right. De Niro's performance, Scorsese's direction, even the music, it all burrowed under my skin like ticks and crawled around and laid eggs. The photography was as gritty as the acting and storytelling, and _Taxi Driver_ became my favorite horror film from then on, one of my favorite movies period. Sure, nowadays, a film like _Taxi Driver_ would be classified as a psychological thriller, but it wasn't until _Silence of the Lambs_ that the horror genre would split into separate categories.

It was after remembering that particular conversation with my mother from years ago, the conversation Joe had stirred in my head by talking about making a TV show, that I realized I wanted to make my own films, which my parents (Mom mostly) nurtured with the purchase of the camcorder. I think Mom using it for work, though I had seen her take it out a few times, was an attempt to make me feel less like a spoiled brat with a luxury item and more like a kid who had to be extra careful and responsible with a shared family object. We'd only had the camcorder a few months when I met Joe and Gary. It was as though an unfair, uncouth destiny was laughing at me as I was plunged into both realistic and supernatural horror, camcorder in hand, testing the bounds of my dreams. Lying there, worried about cutting class to shoot our next scene, I realized that I'd failed that test, and there was only one way to make it up.

# 12

I had to find a way to invite Joe and Gary to dinner. Jesus, I was nervous. I had never met Joe's parents, the elusive Smiths. Joe was more a permanent fixture at the Youngs' trailer than a guest, so I hadn't figured his mother or father into the equation. Now I had to figure out a way to tell him and Gary that my mother wanted to meet them, parents and all. Angry or not, I had a good feeling they would accept my mother's invitation. There was a hearty meal involved and a chance to see me squirm with unease. Besides that, I knew they were curious as to the appearance of my home. Perhaps, for once, when they entered a big house with matching furniture and saw stocked bookshelves, smelled the powerful scents of eucalyptus and lavender-scented candles instead of the smell of stale whiskey and feet, they would be appreciative of my life and have a shred of understanding why theirs was so alien to me.

Because the Youngs didn't have a telephone, I would have to make that eleven-mile trek to the trailer park. I had in my possession two loaves of my mother's homemade banana bread, two logs of summer sausage, and a pound and a half of various cubed cheeses. That wasn't going to Joe and Gary, as my mother assumed. It was going to my messengers, who would deliver the invitation.

"What the fuck's in it for me?" Isaac asked and made a sweeping gesture toward his fellow urchins. "For us?"

I produced the foods, which they seemed more fascinated by than my ten-dollar bill.

"But," I told them, "I will only hand this over when I know Joe and Gary have received my message."

I handed Isaac the envelope, on which were directions to my house, the telephone number in case they had to cancel (and could borrow someone's phone to do so), and a question at the bottom of the page, the answer to be verbally delivered. Only Joe or Gary would be able to answer it. The question was: _Where are we going to be on Tuesday at ten in the morning_?

Isaac sent two of the urchins to deliver my envelope.

"So," Isaac said, while we waited, "did ya screw Gary's mom?"

"Isaac," I said, shaking my head. "I think you're a little mistaken about Ms. Young. She's actually a pretty nice lady."

"I'll bet," Isaac said with a smile. "You know she's a stripper at a nudie movie theater, right?"

"It's not quite like that," I explained. "Cinema Blue is more than just an adult movie theater. They have peep show booths where a guy can sit behind glass and watch a woman dance in the minutes before his movie starts. That's where she comes in. She doesn't have sex with them or screw them, as you put it."

"So she ain't a pros-protect-uh...prosecutor?"

"If you mean prostitute, I'm gonna say no," I said.

"That ain't what I heard," Isaac said.

"Well," I told him, "you shouldn't always believe everything you hear. You should find things out for yourself."

Isaac nodded and I asked, "Where are your parents, by the way?"

"My mom's in front of the TV. My dad's in the army. My mom said he's fighting in Vietnam."

Confused, I said, "Isaac, the war in Vietnam ended almost twenty years ago."

"Yeah, muffucker, I know that," he snapped. "What you want me to say? That he's in the booby hatch because he always cried for no reason and pissed himself all the time. I ain't trying to break my mama's heart. She thinks I believe her, so I go with it. You gotta problem with that, faggot?"

I shook my head and smiled. This little shit was smarter than he'd led on, even at his young age.

"That's cool," I told him. "So what about your older brother, the one who was gonna stick me in the neck?"

"What about him?" Isaac asked, and I could tell he was getting sick of my questions. "He kills cats and dogs for fun. He ain't but thirteen and his girlfriend's pregnant. She's like fifteen. Them fools can't no raise no kid."

Much smarter than he'd led on indeed, wiser at least. It was tragic that he seemed to understand that he was just another cog in the seeming perpetuity of poverty and filth and poor choices that surrounded him.

"You're not stuck here," I told him and repeated something my mother always said to me. "When you get older, you'll see that there's a whole world beyond this little one. And if you're willing to work hard, that world will accept you and cooperate with you."

I'm not even sure why I said my mother's words of wisdom, but for the first time, they made perfect sense.

Isaac nodded and said, "But who's gonna take care of my boys?"

I ruffled his hair and smiled, and we saw two of his boys running back to us. They were already hollering, excited to eat the vittles I'd brought them.

"They said, they said...," one of them began.

"Joe said that-that...," the other was trying to speak over him as they ran in what appeared to be fast-motion.

"Whoa, Timmy, Ollie, calm down," Isaac told them as they slowed to a halt and caught their breath. "Don't tell me. Tell Lars, and only one of you needs to do it."

"Okay," the one called Timmy said, out of breath. "They said um...Joe said um...that-that they'd be there, and um...he said the answer is um-um...that you're going to Judy's house on Tuesday."

I smiled and said, "Close enough. Good work, boys."

I handed out the food, and Isaac gave me a smile well beyond his years. I returned it and pedaled off, knowing he did not wish for his boys to see any more sentimentality than they already had. He had a reputation to uphold.

# 13

Dad was in his shirtsleeves with a tie, not too formal but looking like 007 compared to anything these kids had seen a grown man wearing outside a classroom or courtroom. Mom looked radiant but definitely not overdone, a tasteful dress, very little makeup. She put on some earthy-sounding music, Enya or some such artist. The house was spotless and polished, and though we were wealthy, certainly not rich, we felt like the Rockefellers that day.

Perhaps we were putting on airs a little bit, but I don't know of anyone who would suggest a sink full of dirty dishes submerged in gray water or a dirty bathroom that smelled of piss and toothpaste masked poorly by cinnamon air freshener as a way to make their guests feel at home. We had a nice house and nice things, and though we didn't brag, we had every right to be proud, especially my parents, who worked very hard to give us that life.

Before I was born, my mother and father lived in an area not unlike Shady Acres. Once Dad finished college (software design), he was considered a valuable commodity, and shortly thereafter, they stayed in a cheap apartment, kept the budget tight so that Dad could pay down on his student loans and his maxed out credit cards. Once that was under control, Mom went to college, had me, got her career rolling, and now here we were, upper middle class and happy in that niche. I suppose that was why my parents insisted on my staying at an integrated school. They knew firsthand what a handful of the other parents were going through (the ones who were poor but busily trying to better themselves).

I began to grow anxious as I took in our wealth, the sights, smells, and sounds of it. My mother wanted me to wear a tie, but I opted for something not a whole lot different than I would have worn to school. Joe and Gary already thought I was a stuck-up rich boy, and wearing a suit and tie would have nullified my insistence of the contrary. My everyday outfit was all I had going for me, and Joe's vulgar mouth would likely have much to say about our home. Having less fodder about my appearance might cause Joe to relax.

The all-too-familiar sound of Gary's mother's pickup truck sputtered in front of the house, Joe and Gary riding in the bed. Surprisingly, Gary was wearing a nice outfit, and his hair was combed. Even Joe was wearing a short-sleeved white dress shirt and slacks, though I wasn't sure if his red bowtie was meant to be a joke or if it was tasteless overkill.

Ms. Young got out of the driver's seat and walked around to open the door for Leroy, who was far more decrepit than I thought. He had a cane and walked very slowly and clumsily on it. He was, however, wearing a suit that rivaled anything in my father's closet, which was more than I could say for Ms. Young, who was wearing a gaudy blue sleeveless dress that was cut at mid-thigh and sported no back. It appeared to be made from linoleum and was obviously something that she wore to work. Draped over her person and around her neck was a billowy light blue, feathered scarf that looked more like part of a Halloween costume than it did a fashion statement.

My mother greeted them at the door with a genuine smile. She extended her hand to Ms. Young and said, "Hi, I'm Marcella Pitkin. You can call me Marcy."

"Hi, Marcy, I'm Yolanda," Ms. Young (whose first name I had never known until then) said in her gravelly voice and then added, "Oh, wow!" as she looked around the house.

Mom then extended her hand to Leroy and said, "Hi, you must be Leroy."

"I'm gonna be buried in this suit," he said joyfully as he took my mother's hand in a very gentlemanly way and kissed it.

"Oh," my mother said, shocked by his outburst, "well, might as well get all the miles on it you can then, huh."

Mom then turned to Joe and Gary and said, "Hi there, boys. It's great to finally meet you. You know, you're the first friends Lars has ever brought home for dinner, so this is really special."

"Mom," I whined under my breath as Joe and Gary exchanged a smile.

For dinner, my mother went all out. She made a glazed ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli and cheese casserole, and green beans with slivered almonds. Everyone had seconds. Post dinner, my mother grabbed a bottle of wine and showed the adults.

"Anyone for some wine?" she asked.

"I'd love some," Joe said, and I slugged him.

"Leroy can't have none," Yolanda said. "But I'll take something stiffer if ya got it."

"Oh," Mom said, "sure."

"Joe, you won't mind driving home, will ya'?" Yolanda then asked.

"Of course not," he replied as though this wasn't the first time he'd done such a thing.

"You got Black Velvet?" was Yolanda's next question to my mother.

"How's Johnny Walker?" my mother offered.

"Oooh," Yolanda replied, impressed.

While my mother and Yolanda indulged in the scotch in the living room, my father and Leroy disappeared into Dad's study, presumably so that my father could smoke a cigar and discuss his many awards and pictures of him holding up large fish.

Joe, Gary, and I sat in my room in awkward silence, occasionally hearing bursts of laughter from my mother and grating chuckles followed by coughing fits from Yolanda. My mother, likely drunk (something she very rarely was), was clearly having the most fun of all of us.

"You know," Joe said to me, "you didn't have to send the urchins to deliver your message. I wasn't really gonna kick your teeth in. I was just saying that."

"I've seen you do it to others," I told him, having witnessed a few of his fights prior to meeting him.

"They weren't my friends, Lars," he said solemnly.

"Well, I'm glad you guys came," I said with a smile and meant it.

"That ham was good," Gary said. "I had three great big pieces."

My smile widened and I said, "I'm glad you liked it."

"So Lars," Joe said, "how is it that you keep from staring at your mother's beautiful ass when she bends over to get that food out of the oven?"

I shook my head and sighed. Things were definitely back to normal. If I didn't indulge him, however, his jokes would only get worse, so I said, "I suppose that would be because she's my mother. But as long as we're on mothers, why don't me and Gary go get on yours?"

I felt like a dick immediately. He hadn't brought his parents, and I knew nothing of them. However, he didn't appear offended and was ready with his usual ammo and said, "Go ahead. But I'm warning you, she's been on the couch for the better part of two weeks with no shower. Let me know how it smells in there."

I shuddered and chuckled but then asked, to avoid the topic of banging mothers, "So Tuesday, huh? Big day. You guys ready?"

Joe looked at me with a strange glare and glanced at Gary and said, "You didn't tell him, Gary?"

"Tell me what?"

Joe looked solemnly at his feet and said, "I went home and did some thinking, and you know what, Lars? You were absolutely right."

Confused, I asked, "I was?"

"Yeah," Joe said, "I figured, we broke into someone's house, we plan on breaking into another with the possibility of running into an angry homeowner, but...well, cutting school might be going a bit far by comparison."

"Fuck off," I smiled and Joe burst into a fit of laughter that caused him to cough uncontrollably.

When he caught his breath, he said, "Seriously though, I'm psyched about this. Are you guys?"

"Honestly, yeah," I said. "I really am."

I looked to Gary, who shrugged and twiddled his thumbs. His quietude was normal, usually due to having nothing to contribute to a conversation, but it was different knowing that he would lose Stephanie's friendship once she received her metaphysical catharsis.

The silence was broken by my mother's drunken laughter and an audible snort that followed and caused much more laughter.

Joe smiled and said, "I think she just saw how small Gary's mom's dick is."

"Eat my asshole, lard ass," Gary said calmly.

Joe laughed and said, "Ah, you're learning the art of the comeback, young Jedi."

Gary finally produced a smile, to which Joe replied, "But don't get too excited, stud. I love eatin' me a nice, dirty asshole."

# 14

As planned, I cut school. I showed up, but once there, I feigned a stomach illness during first hour. As Joe had predicted, no one seemed to care that I was going home, so apparently, my perfect attendance streak was of no concern to anyone but myself.

After being excused to go throw up and call home, I went to the office, where the principal asked if I wished for him to wait outside with me. I told him no, probably a bit too hastily, but what did it matter? I was Lars Pitkin, straight-A student with perfect attendance. One day wasn't gonna kill my academic achievements. That's what I told myself as Joe, Gary, and I hiked through the thick woods. I'm getting ahead of myself.

Getting into Julie's house was going to be much easier, even though it seemed like it would be much more difficult. It was a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood than Stephanie's, but that added to the trust element that these folks had for one another. However, that trust element meant that the neighbors were likely nosy, but Gary and Stephanie had apparently worked it all out.

Stephanie informed Gary, during one of their many conversations, that Julie left the rear door to the garage unlocked at all times so they could sneak out and hike through the woods, where someone would pick them up once on the outskirts, usually Scott. After the party or their late night rendezvous at the movie theater, they would hike the very woods we were in and sneak back into Julie's house, unnoticed.

"This is fucking bullshit!" Joe complained, getting red in the face from both exercise and anger.

I didn't complain. I was trying to keep my breath, as it was sometimes hilly terrain, not easily scaled while being smacked in the face with the thin twigs of thick branches.

"Who the fuck would go through all this just to sneak out of their fucking house?" Joe then whined.

I did my best to ignore him, but I purposely trudged ahead to get a few shots of Joe bitching while clumsily trying to hike. Twice he nearly fell and yelled out, "Goddamn shit motherfucking cock-sucking bitch! Fuck this!"

It was a long half mile, partially because, aside from riding our bikes around, we got no exercise. It showed in various ways on poor Joe. I was getting a cramp in my side, I was thirsty and tired, and I could only imagine what a guy a fraction of an inch taller than me who outweighed me by fifty pounds was going through.

Gary was different than both of us, however. If he felt any signs of fatigue or annoyance, he didn't show it. He was in this mission, body and soul, and he trudged on quietly, serenely even. Dreaming the last few tragic minutes of a person's life was, to me, the most terrifying, psychologically damaging thing I could imagine happening to a person, but it was proving to be the best thing that ever happened to Gary Young. After years of stewing in that aluminum shoebox of a trailer, failing classes, and constantly taking shit from Joe, Gary finally had a sense of purpose.

Once out of the woods, Joe insisted we rest. I didn't argue. Gary, with his garbage bag full of Stephanie's belongings slung over his shoulder, asked me for the camcorder and decided to do the rest on his own.

"Fuck that," Joe said, struggling to catch his breath. "We're going too. I didn't walk all this way to stare at this broad's back yard."

"You're not gonna sit here and stare at her back yard," Gary told him. "You two are gonna by my lookout."

"What, I'm not going either?" I was shocked.

"No," Gary said and stared at the back entrance to the garage. "I'm gonna do this."

For whatever reason, Gary wanted to do it alone. After many scenes of staring off into space and being insulted, he was ready to take center stage and become the unlikely hero. When I explained this to Joe, after Gary pressed on, he shook his head.

"Come on," I said. "It's a good angle. Our audience will expect you to be the brains of this operation, but when they see that Gary, quiet Gary is taking on the lead role, they're gonna root for him. He's the underdog. Like Rocky Balboa."

Joe seemed shocked at my analogy and said brusquely, "The only thing Gary has in common with Rocky Balboa is that they're both fucking retarded."

Though I wouldn't have put it so crudely, I nodded in agreement. Rocky and Gary did have a simplicity about them, though Stallone's titular simpleton was more loveable than Gary. Whereas Rocky was illiterate from a lack of education and an excess of blows to the head, Gary was more adrift in a sea of perverted daydreams, partially from a lack of education but more so due to time spent at Cinema Blue, where women of various ages, his mother among them, wore very little clothing and talked like sailors.

"A woman's body ain't nothing to fear, son," Yolanda would say to Gary. "And it ain't nothing you should be embarrassed of neither."

Gary heeded those words. Before Leroy came around, Gary would often accompany his mother at Cinema Blue, though once the shows began, whether a film in the theater or the live action of the peepshow booths, Gary was made to sit in the boiler room, where scantily-clad women or Chet, the gruff but equally silent janitor (whose job Gary would later have), would often check in on him. Though Yolanda brought coloring books and drawing pads and pencils, Gary more often than not stared at the walls, transfixed by the visual nothingness and the sounds of thuds and growls and hums emanating from Cinema Blue's industrious underbelly. Both Joe and Gary would become employees of Cinema Blue several years later.

# 15

As Joe and I argued over which _Rocky_ movie was the best, a natural transition from our comparison of Rocky to Gary, we lost track of time.

" _Rocky IV_ sucked," I'd told him for what seemed like the ninth time. "I can enjoy a movie that's unrealistic if it's entertaining, but come on. The robot was just too much."

"Fuck the robot!" Joe said.

"No, I won't," I told him jokingly, "but I'm sure Paulie did."

"I meant who gives a fuck about the robot?"

"I do," I snapped. " _Rocky_ was about a poor, down-on-his-luck part-time boxer and loan shark who was given a once in a lifetime chance to prove himself. He lost the fight but gained self-respect, and the love of a woman."

"Thanks for the TV Guide synopsis. I know what _Rocky_ was about or else we wouldn't be having this discussion."

"Okay," I said, "but where in that TV Guide synopsis did you hear anything about robots who could consciously communicate at the same level as human beings?"

"So two or three scenes with a robot, and the movie sucks. That's your logic?"

"What if _Platoon_ had a flying, purple unicorn in it? Only two or three scenes though."

Joe sighed and stared off in thought and nodded and finally said, "I see your point."

"It diminished the power of what _Rocky IV_ could have and what it should've been," I said.

A sound Joe and I dreaded crept up on our conversation. It was not only the sound of a car pulling into the driveway, it was the sound of _the_ car pulling into the driveway, the 1989 Toyota Camry, and there was no sign of Gary.

"Shit," Joe said, trying not to be too loud, "that's no good. Shit, shit, shit, that's no fucking good!"

Trying to keep my cool, something Joe was losing his grip on, I said quietly, "He's gotta know, right? I mean, he heard the car didn't he?"

We crouched behind the well-tamed shrubbery, out of sight but able to be seen from the second-story window, the room Gary was currently in. The car turned off, and the car door closed.

"He heard the car, right?" I said, my energy level rising.

"How the fuck should I know?" Joe said in a hoarse whisper.

"We gotta warn him," I said. "What should we do?"

"I don't fuckin' know," Joe said as he stretched to glance over the bushes and then immediately dropped down and pointed behind us frantically. "They're fucking coming this way," he whispered.

"They?" I whispered. "Who the fuck's they?"

We sat completely still, staring at one another in shock, both of us with a look in our wide eyes that wondered whether or not we should haul ass and leave Gary or hope that Joe hadn't been seen peeking over the bushes. To our instant relief, the same door Gary had entered through, the secretively unlocked rear garage door, was the door the driver and passenger had gone through.

We sighed in great relief, caught our breath.

"We've got to warn him," I said.

Joe nodded and started rooting around at the base of the shrubs.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm looking for a rock," he said.

"A rock, right," I said.

As soon as he found one, he took a last brief look over the bushes cautiously. When he saw that the coast was clear, he stood, reared back and whipped the rock at the second story window. Before I even heard the glass break, I cringed and shut my eyes. I could tell, even though it was a small rock, that he'd thrown it far too hard.

The broken window was followed immediately by a shrill woman's scream, and it was too much for me. I got up and bolted back to the woods behind us, getting whacked in the face by twigs and branches but not feeling a thing under such intense pressure. I could hear Joe's labored breathing and heavy footfalls behind me. For a big guy, he was keeping up. When I came to the edge of one of the hills, I stopped to catch my breath and heard, "I can't fucking stop, Lars!"

Joe was hurling uncontrollably toward me, and even with my adrenaline at its peak, I could only wait to be barreled into, which I was almost instantly, and we both lurched down the hill. I rolled with the wind already knocked out of me and hit a tree at the bottom of the hill and saw black.

I regained consciousness and took in a sudden deep, audible breath and exhaled with some effort. I repeated this several times, and until my breathing was back to normal, I thought I might black out again. I looked around and saw Joe, sitting up ten feet from me, rubbing his head and wincing.

"You alright?" he asked me.

I nodded, still unable to speak.

"Jesus," Joe went on, "I was too freaked out to know my own strength. I was just trying to get Gary's attention."

"You got someone's attention," I said, finally able to speak.

"We gotta go back for Gary," Joe said. "I don't know what he'll do if he gets backed into a corner by some crazed housewife with a butcher knife."

Before I could utter my disdain for the illogical idea of going back, we heard Gary's voice in the distance. "Joe! Lars!"

"If he murdered that broad, we have to destroy the tape," Joe said, a crazed look in his eyes.

"Obviously," I told him and then asked warily, "Do you think he'd do something like that?"

Joe shrugged.

"Laaaaars! Jooooe!" Gary called again.

"Down here!" I yelled back.

Gary walked carefully down the hill without his bag of goodies but with my camcorder. Oddly, he looked ecstatic, couldn't keep the smile off his face.

"Holy shit!" he shouted. "That was genius!"

Joe and I looked at each other, and when we got home to watch the footage (Gary refused to tell us what had happened, said we had to see for ourselves), we would find out why Joe's rash act of breaking the second story widow, while accidental, was, in fact, a stroke of genius. And luck.

# 16

Gary readied the VCR back at the trailer. Joe and I stood at the bathroom mirror, tended to the scratches on our face, hands, and neck. There would be no hiding it from my mother. If I told her that it happened at school, she would be up there with a lawyer the following day. Even before bullying got such a bad rap (not to say it was ever commendable, but it certainly wasn't a topic of crusades or a matter of public policy back then), my mother had zero tolerance. Even the few run-ins I'd had with bullies didn't leave me looking like I did after my encounter with nature.

There was a swollen purple welt as thick as my pinky finger and half the length under my left eye and another about the same size on my opposite cheek that had clearly bled. My neck was peppered with scratches of varying sizes and degrees of swelling as well. It was actually quite a disturbing sight considering I felt none of it as it was happening, but it sure as hell stung when I swabbed the cuts with alcohol.

"It's ready," Gary said from the other side of the bathroom door.

Joe and I sat on the floor next to the mattress. Gary hit the play button and sat on said mattress with a smile on his face. I could feel him watching us, waiting for our reactions.

On the screen we got a view of the interior as Gary filmed his trek throughout the house and up the stairs, up to Julie's bedroom, which was not unlike any other teenage girl's bedroom. However, we glanced it but briefly, as Gary set the camera on the bed, filming the wall in front of him as he dug through the garbage bag and did various things off camera.

I began to grasp just why Joe and I were able to have such an extended philosophical discussion, of which I've only included a bit in this writing. Whatever the hell Gary was doing, it took him the better part of twenty minutes.

"What the fuck Gary?" Joe finally asked after watching Julie's wall and hearing Gary shuffling around her bedroom became tedious. "I'd rather watch your mom blow Leroy than watch this shit."

"Just wait," Gary said. "It gets good really soon."

On screen, the camera was lifted off the bed, and Gary first taped himself with a smile on his face and then aimed the camera at the vanity mirror, where much had been done. The word SLUT was written across the mirror in thick red lipstick, and below it, the words, I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS. Near that, Stephanie's beloved stuffed animal, Charlie, was pinned to the vanity's wooden frame with a large knife going through its torso.

The camera turned to see the truly frightening likeness standing near the bed. It was a mannequin donning a brown wig, similar to but not exactly like Stephanie's hair. It was the way the makeup was done on the mannequin's face, the cheerleading uniform with the letterman's jacket over it that Julie would undoubtedly recognize, a sight she would recall, as Stephanie always wore Scott's varsity coat over her cheerleading uniform on game days.

The eyes of the mannequin were painted crudely, white circles with solid black pupils at the top, but the message was clear. It was meant to look dead, and it did.

"Jesus, did you do that?" Joe asked.

Gary smiled and nodded.

"That's kinda creepy," Joe admitted with an approving nod.

"Those earrings on the mannequin," Gary pointed out, "were Julie's. Steph borrowed them a long time ago but loved them so much that she swore not to give them back until Julie asked for them. Steph knew that Julie would recognize 'em."

On the screen, the camera zoomed in on the flashy pink nail polish on the mannequin's fingertips. Gary narrated, " _So we've got the nail polish that Steph and Julie used to paint Scott's nails when he passed out a party one night. I thought she might not remember, so I wrote this on the wall._ "

Behind the mannequin, written in the very same hot pink nail polish were the words PUSSY PINK, and Gary continued, " _It's the nickname they gave this color because they thought it was such an ugly color. With the mannequin and the message on the mirror, Scott and Julie will know they've been haunted by Stephanie_."

On the screen, the camera jerked toward the bedroom door, and Gary the narrator said, " _Oh, shit, someone's here_."

Gary rushed into the closet and shut the folding doors behind him. The screen went black until Gary cracked open the closet door just enough to get a slit shot of the room, particularly the doorway.

It was Scott who walked in the door with Julie in tow. They were both immediately stricken with wide-eyed horror. Julie had apparently taken her mother's car to school prior to ditching the rest of the day. Her mother must have found some other way to get to her book club meeting.

Though the field of the camera's vision was very limited, it was obvious she was looking in the direction of the mannequin and the writing on the wall. Her intense gaze then switched to the mirror, and she covered her nose and mouth with her hands and began to weep.

" _What the hell's going on here, Julie_?" Scott's voice off, nervously off-camera. " _Look, this isn't funny_."

Before Julie could answer, Gary attempted to open the closet a bit more, but the hinges squeaked, and Julie was startled and looked through teary eyes in the closet's direction, directly at the camera as a matter of fact.

"Steph?" she said in a scared, forlorn voice. She had only taken one step in the closet's direction when Joe's rock burst through the window, just two feet from where she was standing.

Julie screamed out in terror, the very terror that Joe and I had heard in that very same scream, and then she ran out of the room and down the stairs behind Scott. Gary eventually exited the closet, and the camera went with him as he walked out of the room, quickly down the stairs, and into the living room, where Gary got a brief but effective shot of the Camry pulling out of the driveway and squealing down the road.

And the footage ended there.

Joe and I were stunned, unable to say anything right away.

"That," Joe said with rising excitement in his voice, "couldn't have come out so beautifully if it was fuckin _scripted_!"

We all three erupted into joyous laughter at the luck of the timing, of the seeming impossibility of it all. We also realized that what we had just witnessed was not scripted, that Joe was right. The reality of the situation made it more intense. It was not acted out or rehearsed. It was raw emotion, raw shock caught on camera. But a fact remained that I hated to bring up, as much as I wished there were an easy way around it.

"You realize that we got this footage illegally," I said. "Along with some of the other stuff. Even if we could prove beyond reasonable doubt that Stephanie's spirit was the reason we were able to pull this off, it wouldn't let us off the hook. It's still illegal. So how do we get around that? There's gotta be something we can do."

Joe and Gary settled down, both of them at a loss for words but certainly not lacking disappointment on their faces.

"Well," Joe said, "first we need to ask a serious question, really the only question, and that is, will this seriously ever find an audience?"

I scoffed and said, "Are you kidding me? We've got actual footage of clairvoyance at work. We've got the story of a dead girl's sadness and vengeance. What more do we need than that?"

"Like you said, Lars," Joe repeated, "a lot of this was done illegally. We should count our blessings that we're not in jail or that someone hasn't gotten hurt yet. Today was a close call."

After he said that, I couldn't help but graze the welt under my eye with my fingertip. It had swollen to the point of slightly hindering my vision and would still require explanation to my parents without incriminating anyone but myself.

"So that's it?" I asked. "We've gone through all of this just for fun? What about the TV show? What about making more money than we know what do with?"

"Do you know the first thing about making a TV show?" Joe asked.

"No," I admitted.

"Neither do I," Joe said and angrily added, "so let's stop pretending that we've got anything but some really great footage that will never be seen outside this trailer."

"Joe," I argued, "when we first started doing this, I would have agreed with you. In fact, I wanted you guys to get bored of it, so I could just move on with my life. But you don't realize that we're not using special effects or acting. This is real emotion and-and a ghost for God's sake, a real ghost with a purpose."

Joe sighed, though I don't think he realized how serious I was, so I stood up and continued, "You guys, this _needs_ to be seen because it _demands_ an audience. We've worked too hard and risked too much to keep it locked up. And what if it happens again, a different ghost with a different purpose? I'm sure you'll want to film that also, right? But are we gonna waste more time and say it was all just for fun? Don't you guys get it? We're not making home movies here. We're making human and cinematic history!"

I felt as though I were giving the most rousing speech of my life to a crowd of students, eager to make films, to inspire and be inspired. Instead, I got two guys, one quite intelligent, the other genuinely clairvoyant, yet neither of them smart enough or intuitive enough to see the significance of what we'd done. I had given an unrehearsed, inspirational speech, and in return, I got Gary, staring off into space and picking his nose, and Joe, who looked at me and said, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear that last part."

"What last part?" I asked, annoyed.

"The last part of what you just said."

"What did I just say?" I asked, expecting the worst.

Joe sighed and said, "Okay, I guess I wasn't paying very much attention to any of it, Lars."

Unbelievable! One of the coolest and most eloquent things I'd ever said in my then fourteen years on the planet, and Joe had paid no attention. For Gary, it was excusable, expected even, but Joe? If either of those two had a thought that existed anywhere in reality, it was Joe. He must have sensed my frustration because he then said, "I was just having trouble wrapping my ahead around how much time we wasted. You can repeat it if you want."

"Forget it," I said. "Take the tape out and give me the camera, Gary. I'm going home."

Though I wished to convince them to go forward, the rational side of me, the sane side returned, and I knew that it wasn't to be.

# 17

School continued as normal, but as the weeks went on, I saw less and less of Joe and Gary. I had admitted to my parents that I'd cut class that fateful day, and that I had decided to go on a soul searching adventure into the woods because I was bored in my buttoned down suburban life. I told them that I fell down a hill (that much was true) and that I must have sustained my injuries along the way. I could see that my mother wasn't buying it, but I promised her that I would never do it again. My father grounded me for two weeks. He never specified from what I was grounded, exactly, so I buckled down and stayed home and did my homework and studied, something that made him proud, though I would have done so anyway, grounded or not.

I suppose I grounded myself, in a sense, from mingling with Joe and Gary. The truth was, they often made me feel awkward, sometimes dirty, and other times I felt depressed in their presence. I was a straight-A student taking advanced classes. They were in remedial classes (though Joe was undeniably intelligent, he was simply too lazy to show it). I skipped school one time. They skipped school one time a week. I dressed completely different than they did, walked and talked completely different. And yet I missed them. Or was it that I missed making the show, a show that was an on again-off again obsession with me?

I dreamt of that night in the trailer, Stephanie's electric voice traversing the ether between living and dead, the candles extinguishing and relighting, her ghostly body manifested right next to us, she and Gary discussing plans to expose those who had wronged her. I watched the tape several times a day. As much as I hated to admit it due to our illegal activities, I couldn't deny that it was a brilliant, if fortuitous narrative, a darkly humorous tale of culture clash (I cringed every time Yolanda and Leroy's trailer park lap dance appeared on the screen), genuinely creepy at times, and genuinely moving as well.

Though I wanted to see how the story ended, I could not help feeling that we had gone far enough, that we had not been caught by the law and had only received minor injuries, but that was as lucky as how beautifully sequential our footage was. But no matter how much homework I did, how many books I read, I could never get the idea of our documentary out of my mind.

Joe and Gary must have felt the same way. About a week after I turned fifteen, Joe and Gary invited themselves to sit with me at lunch. Usually, they were out back sneaking cigarettes, but this obviously couldn't wait.

"She won't leave Gary alone," Joe said.

"Huh?" I asked, feigning perplexity, though I knew exactly what was going on.

"She wants us to summon her one last time," Joe said. "She's been contacting Gary. Apparently, the closer she gets to finishing her work on Earth, the further she is from our plane of existence. Gary's her last hope, her only hope."

I couldn't fake my excitement. A smile formed on my face until I saw Gary. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. Between having his sleep interrupted by ghosts haunting his dreams and feeling like he was losing the only girl who ever meant something to him (dead or not), this entire ordeal had been taking its toll more than usual.

"Meet us at the trailer, eight o'clock Friday night," Joe said.

They got up to leave, and before they walked too far away, I called, "Hey, wait!"

They both stopped and faced me, and I couldn't think what to say next. _I miss you guys_ crossed my mind but was out of the question. They weren't that touchy feely, and frankly, I wasn't either, not with those two anyway, so I looked down at my pizza and fries and my roll and said, "You guys hungry?"

My excitement had overridden my appetite, but they sat down, Joe grabbing a handful of fries and taking half my roll down in one bite, Gary starting in on my pizza.

# 18

As I rode my bike through the trailer park on Friday night, I felt a warm surge of relief, a sort of homecoming. Isaac and the Urchins waved at me. I reached into my pocket, which was full of quarters, change from my lunches at school over the past month, and threw them at their feet as I rode by. They scurried for it excitedly.

At the trailer, I was met by Yolanda, who was leaving for work.

"Hello, sweetie," she said. "Go on in, the boys are waiting for you."

"Thank you," I said, and she smiled at me with her yellow-toothed but genuine smile and coughed from the effort.

Joe and Gary were already setting up as I got my camcorder ready. There were several more candles than usual, and Joe suggested that it would give us better lighting, as some of the candle shots were grainy.

"I've got a better idea," I told him.

After hearing me out, they both agreed that Gary sitting in the middle of the living room with the candles encircling him would be more dramatic and a touch creepier.

When we were set up, we escorted Leroy to his bedroom with half a box of cold pizza and the television, giving us ample room. Gary was positioned Indian-style in the middle, and I stood almost against the wall to get both him and the candles in the frame. Joe appeared in the foreground, a pad of paper in his hand and proceeded in his somber narration, "Today, we will embark on yet another summoning of the late Stephanie Longfellow, dead one year ago as of last month."

Joe then held up the pad of paper and continued, "Gary will be our acting medium, as he is the only one who possesses the clairvoyance necessary to communicate with the dead. This is a process known since the nineteenth century as Automatic Writing, sometimes called psychography, in which the deceased will inhabit Gary's being, thereby writing, in her own dead scrawl, her own words, her final words...the words she never got to say."

After pausing on Joe's mysterious and very sober face, I said, "And cut. That was brilliant."

"Thanks," Joe said with a rare smile. "I actually rehearsed that."

"So when were you gonna tell me about this psychography thing?" I asked, lowering the camcorder and preparing to shoot from a different angle.

"It was actually Gary's idea," Joe said, pointing to Gary, who was staring at a candle flame. "He said her communication's been a little fuzzy lately, so like a good friend, he offered to be her vessel."

"Nice job, Gary," I said and saw him violently jerk his hand away from a hot flame. "Yeah, don't touch that," I was sure to add in a paternal tone, as though explaining hot fire to a three year-old.

When we got the camera rolling once more, we shut the lights off, and Gary sat in the middle of the flaming circle with the notepad in front of him, an ink pen in his right hand, prepared to write.

"We are trying to reach Stephanie Longfellow," Joe said. "Stephanie, if you're out there, we are ready to help you."

Gary looked around. I panned the camera across the room, to Joe, who looked toward the circle with concentration. He continued, "Stephanie. You need only come forward. Your messenger, your vessel awaits."

A sound poured in from the ether, something like a long, otherworldly exhale, too deep to be human, too unsourced to pinpoint yet all around us.

"She's here," Joe said, and immediately, the candles extinguished. Moments later, the lights turned on by themselves and to our shock, Gary was no longer seated in the middle of the circle.

"What the fuck?" Joe said. "Where the fuck is Gary?"

"How should I know?" I asked.

Gary then emerged from the bathroom, and Joe and I both yelped in horror. However, upon seeing Gary, the foreign way he looked at us, at his surroundings, at his own hands, I knew that it wasn't quite Gary we were looking at.

"Eew, what's that smell?" Gary said in a whiny voice and femininely waved his hands in front of his nose with a twisted expression.

Joe looked to the camera, at me actually, and then back to Gary and said, "I'm not sure, but if I had to make a comparison, I'd say nut sacks and old baby food, but I thought you'd be used to the smell of this joint by now."

"Wait...Stephanie?" I asked, and Gary looked toward the camera, startled, then looked down at his hands, pulled at his clothes, confused.

Joe, not so suddenly aware what was going on, but aware nonetheless, bent over and picked up the pad of paper and the ink pen and handed it to her, to Gary. "I'm not sure how long you've got," Joe said. "Better get to it."

Gary sauntered to the table, carrying the ink pen in his left hand, and he sat at the dinette and quickly began writing. The words sprang onto the page rapidly. Whatever it was she was saying, she'd had it all planned out, and this was likely the most writing Gary had ever done in his life, though he wasn't technically around to witness it. A few times, he stopped and thought a moment but quickly continued.

The lights began to dim and brighten, dim and brighten, turn off and on, off and on. Joe observed this with equal parts anxiety and fascination.

"I think you should hurry, Stephanie," he said, "I think you're being summoned elsewhere."

"I'm going as fast as I can," she said in Gary's voice, from Gary's body.

"Whatever we're doing here," Joe said to the camera, "I don't think it's legal. We appear to be breaking some sort of metaphysical boundaries."

A shrill scream pierced whatever silence there was, a high-pitched demonic cry that rattled the walls.

"Jesus Christ!" I yelled.

The lights began to turn on and off so rapidly that it was as though we were under a strobe light at a nightclub. I kept the camera on Gary the entire time, writing away, and in one flash, he was Stephanie, pale and exhausted but determined. She instantly materialized back into Gary, but the rhythm of his writing did not cease. He flipped the page over and began on the other side.

"Stephanie, you need to hurry," Joe said. "It appears that you're wanted back in hell."

The cupboard doors opened and closes rapidly, slamming each time. The sink turned on and off. The refrigerator tipped over, and scared as I was, I was getting it all on camera.

Frantically, Gary continued to write, until he was finished, and I zoomed in on the very bottom of the page, where Gary had written, in bubbly feminine letters,

Your Daughter Eternally,

Stephanie Anne Longfellow

He dotted the "i" in her first name with a heart, and slammed the ink pen down, and hollered, "Done!" and then fell to the floor. Almost immediately, the lights came back on, the cupboards stopped slamming, and the candles relit themselves to show us that all was well.

Gary, however, sat up, shivering so badly that it bordered convulsion. Tears streamed down his confused face, and blood was trickling from his ears. He was disoriented, afraid.

"Gary," Joe said and immediately rushed to his side. "Hey, Gare, it's me, buddy."

Gary looked from Joe to the camera and back to Joe and then looked around the house and wept. Joe cradled him in his arms as Gary howled in painful sobs.

"It's alright, big guy," Joe said and rubbed Gary's back paternally, "You did good. You did real good."

It was one of the most moving moments I would ever catch on camera involving Joe and Gary, as their relationship would evolve into that of a filthy sitcom married couple that would never evoke this moment, a moment where Joe, who made frequent cracks about Gary's mother, Gary's clothing, Gary's overall poverty status, and Gary's lack of intellect, was now embracing his friend with sincerity and concern.

The moment that Gary vanished and reappeared coming from the bathroom was revealed to us as we replayed the footage, Gary sitting up on his bed, clenching a blanket around his person, occasionally sniffling.

When the lights went out, the tape revealed a timeframe that was not privy to Joe and me in our world, our dimension. In fact, as Joe pointed out, the timestamp in the bottom right corner of the screen was rapidly scrolling through the hours, minutes and seconds. It was as though our world, our version of time, had paused. On the screen, Gary slowly levitated from his spot in the circle of candles. He went from sitting Indian-style to immediately losing all motor capabilities, and he hunched over midair, as if he'd died instantly. His body slowly lowered to the floor, and the bathroom door opened, and out walked the ghastly apparition that was Stephanie Longfellow. The apparent exhaustion on her face, even in its translucency, gave her an evil look, her eyes sunken and the skin underneath them half-rimmed with purple bags. Her lips were chapped, and her hair hung past her shoulders in ratty tangles. Even as a ghost, she appeared to be under severe stress.

Joe and I watched in awe as she carefully lifted Gary under the armpits and dragged him to the bathroom. From there, whispers cum sobs were audible, though my camera filmed nothing but the wall in front of us. A faint glow emanated from the bathroom and became more and more brilliant as Stephanie whispered indistinctly yet desperately to Gary. The light crept down the hallway and then quickly vanished, sucked back into the bathroom, at which point Gary was heard coughing, and the lights came back on, which was when Joe and I realized that Gary's whereabouts were completely impossible.

"Holy shit," Joe said, unable to take his eyes from the screen. "Lars, is it just me, or did Gary's absence seem much quicker than that?"

"Quicker?" I asked loudly, also unable to detach my own attention from the TV screen. "It was instantaneous!"

"It's like the crossover slowed time so that it existed somewhere in between," Joe observed. "Like our dimension and hers."

"Like life and death," I suggested.

"Why the bathroom, Gary?" Joe said, finally looking away to get Gary's input.

Gary shrugged and said, "She ran my head under the faucet. She was saying, 'Wake up, Gary.' Like she didn't know what was going on, but she needed me, and I was...," he continued warily, "I was dead. Like her. That light coming from the bathroom was me."

Joe and I looked at one another, as bewildered as we were nervous.

"Maybe we shouldn't be fucking around with this shit after all," Joe said, words I didn't think I'd ever hear him say.

"What?" I was stunned. "Today might have given us the best footage of all."

I pointed to the TV, where Gary was writing Stephanie's note.

"We almost lost him, Lars," Joe said, a tinge of emotion in his voice.

"But we didn't," I said. "Look, he's fine now. You're fine, right, Gary?"

Gary nodded reluctantly, not having fully collected himself yet. He glanced at the TV screen, on which he had just toppled from his chair after finishing Stephanie's note, and said, "I don't remember that."

"What do you remember?" I was curious.

He shook his head and said, "Nothing. I was more gone than asleep."

"Did you see a light?" Joe asked.

Again, he shook his head and said, "No light. No dark. Not hot or cold, not scared or anything like that. Just...nothing. No feelings. No thoughts. Completely blacked out."

"He was nonexistent," Joe said and then turned to me and added, "He was dead."

Though my parents were technically Catholic, I was not raised in a typically religious household, so this still flew in the face of how I'd heard near-death experiences described. There was always a light, a comfortable feeling, a reunion with loved ones or a welcoming deity or angels or something similar to all that. It seemed disconcerting at the moment, but I rapidly grew to accept it as I sat thinking about it, that nothingness is just that. There's nothing to be upset over, nothing to marvel over, nothing to look forward to or reflect upon. There was just blankness in every sense of the word, which makes the something we do on this Earth seem a little less but also a little more significant. Less so because, from Gary's experience, there was nothing, no punishment, no judgment, no reward. But that seems a relief from the stresses of a life, to whatever degree one experiences stress. Stress at home or at work, with marriage, children, the stress of a battle-hardened soldier, of a madman, of a starving child in a third world country. The thought of such things made me want to leave an imprint in the something called reality before I retired to the nothing, a mark that said, "I did this. I'm proud of this, and I can exit happily."

And I knew it was our show that would leave that mark.

Early the next morning, Gary insisted we go to the cemetery and that we film the passing of the note. I had my reservations, as did Joe, but Gary was adamant, something he rarely was. He'd made an anonymous phone call from the payphone at the corner store, telling Stephanie's father that he had something for him, to bring the whole family.

We stood behind a tree that was twenty or so paces from Stephanie's gravestone. We were decently hidden, but the problem was distance. There would be no way to extract their conversation, their emotional words, but I was able to film them standing there, solemnly.

Stephanie's mother, father, and little brother were gathered around the grave. Her father knelt and laid down a bouquet of red roses. Though I was obscured by distance, I managed to get a shot of him kissing his fingertips and rubbing his hand over the headstone. The little boy began to fidget and whine, so Mrs. Longfellow picked him up and walked off, whispering something to Mr. Longfellow before she did. He nodded.

Mr. Longfellow stood silently, staring at the grave, reflecting. Gary came out of hiding and approached him, and Joe hissed, "No, Gary, what the...?"

Gary took the folded note from his pocket and handed it to the grieving man. Very few words were exchanged, but Mr. Longfellow listened, nodded. As Gary walked away, the bewildered man carefully unfolded the note and began to read, almost immediately holding his free hand to his mouth and continuing through tears. A few times he smiled, but mostly he cried. He flipped it over and read the last of it and wept into both hands. When he took his hands away, he moved his awe-stricken gaze to the Heavens and smiled brightly. He took in a deep breath and walked away, refolding the note as he did so.

I filmed him disappearing over a hill, to where I assumed their car was parked below. I needed nothing more. I did, however, keep filming, as Gary wandered up from another grave with a flower in his hand. He looked as sad as he did relieved. When he set a flower (which he'd lifted from someone else's tombstone) atop Stephanie's grave, he kissed his hand, much the same as Mr. Longfellow did, and tapped it on the headstone.

"Holy shit!" Joe was not loud but surprised. "Gary, up there."

Gary tuned, as did I, and I got it all on film. At the top of the same hill, where her father had just been, was what Joe was pointing at, the ghost of Stephanie Longfellow, though this time, even in the distance, she looked as gorgeous and healthy as she had in life. She smiled and waved at Gary, who smiled and waved back as she also disappeared over the hill, never to return to our world. When she was gone, I zoomed in on Gary's face, the mixed emotions radiating from his expression in a way that could never be acted. He looked moments from crying, as his eyes were glossy, but instead, he laughed as the tears fell.

Gary sat on a nearby bench to gather his bearings. I got a shot of Joe standing behind the bench, putting a hand on Gary's shoulder. Eventually, Gary stood up, and the two of them walked toward me. When I was through, I put my camera back in my bag and said, "Well, we've got to edit this bad boy, and that's gonna take some ambition that I don't have at this moment. In the meantime, who wants to watch the greatest horror film of all time?"

" _The Exorcist_?" asked Joe.

"Nope," I said.

" _Munchies_ ," said Gary.

I chuckled and said, " _Hell_ no."

" _Hellraiser_ ," Joe guessed.

"You'll never guess," I said mysteriously as we walked down the narrow path between headstones.

" _Cujo_ ," Gary said. "That was scary."

"Not _Cujo_ ," I said.

I pedaled home to borrow my mother's VHS copy of _Taxi Driver_ and rode all the way back to the trailer park.

# 19

None of us knew how to go about getting a TV show started. The bottom line was we had an idea worth selling and a genuine clairvoyant who was a colorful character to say the least, and it was all true. As time went on, however, our dream of filmmaking fizzled out until I received a call from Joe one day, and he told me that there was a movie out that we would all have to see. I knew what movies were playing and at which theater and bragged about this to him, to which he replied, "You don't know this movie."

And that's how it came to pass that Cinema Blue, where Gary's mother took off her clothes in a peepshow booth, the one and only movie screen normally reserved for porno films, would be dedicated to the showing of a movie made by some aspiring amateur filmmakers. I didn't know yet that it was our footage, edited over a course of eight months by Joe and Gary, mostly Joe, who had been working with a stoner of an audio visual student named Ted Guiles (later to be one of our colleagues). Joe and Gary also handled the advertising. They handed out fliers and made a few phone calls, and Ralph, the owner of Cinema Blue, agreed to show our movie for one night. It was a full house that included my parents, Yolanda and Leroy, Isaac and the Urchins, and several members of the former Black Panthros and El Banditos, and many of the local porn fans who figured they'd humor us since _Adventures in Babysitting_ was not playing that night (not the Chris Columbus-directed children's film but the XXX-rated version starring actress Elizabeth Screw).

Our film was a local smash, and because every seat was sold and a few standing room only stragglers who Ralph had no problem accommodating by violating the fire code and because the concession sales were up three hundred percent, Ralph awarded us young filmmakers two thousand dollars, one thousand more than was agreed upon.

The theater was filled with laughter, genuine laughter, gasps of awe and concern. I watched my parents as much as I did the movie, my mother's beaming face, truly amazed at what we'd created. Though from different sides of town, different socioeconomic backgrounds, our community became one to enjoy a little forty-seven minute movie, brilliantly titled _Soul Searchers_.

My parents were endlessly proud, my mother in particular, and I'm glad that she got to see our movie. She was able to catch a glimpse of my future, to see what I was going to become, and there was not much else in the world that would have made her happier. She always bragged about me, and whenever I met one of her friends or colleagues, they would say, "Oh, you're the filmmaker," which made me blush every time.

# 20

When my mother got sick, I had just begun high school. I was able to maintain my impressive attendance and outstanding GPA, but I came home from school to take care of her as well as keeping up with my studies. It put a serious damper on the soul-searching business, though Joe and Gary, uncouth as they could be, were understanding, sympathetic even. However, due to my busy schedule and my mother's health, I saw very little of my middle school filmmaking chums. I really didn't even find a new group of friends, a few here and there, study buddies mostly, so Joe and Gary definitely didn't figure into my life in high school. But I always had Mom to remind me of them.

"You boys did such an incredible job with that movie," she'd often say. "Don't ever forget how amazing that experience was, how proud it made you boys, how proud it made me."

I watched her wither away over the next few years, and three weeks before my high school graduation, she was dead. Helping her stand and walk to the toilet, feeding her, talking with the homecare nurse and doctors all became so routine that I cannot think of any significant way to summarize those years. I was on autopilot most of the time.

Mom's death was as peaceful as nearly four years of cancer would allow, with copious amounts of morphine and moral support. My father and I were at her side. It was two o'clock in the morning.

At the funeral, Gary put a hand on my shoulder and said, "I was sleeping when she died, Lars. I slept right through the night."

Gary had had a few more encounters with the dead throughout high school, all of them the same as Stephanie, needing to put closure on unfinished business and haunting Gary's dreams with their final moments on Earth. Due to my mother's failing health, I wasn't around to film any of it, and due to the fatal nature, Joe and Gary knew better than to include me. However, Gary telling me that he'd slept through the night when my mother died was his way of saying that she hadn't haunted his dreams, had left no unfinished business, and that she left this world peacefully and prepared.

I would find out just how prepared shortly after her death, when I found that she had begun a savings account in my name when I was born that she and my father had been paying into over the years. With the interest, I received $65,000 and some change that could only be used for college, and after graduation, I wasted no time and went to film school, where I would one day fulfill my dream of making horror movies. I knew it would make Mom proud, and it was something I truly wanted to do. Life has a funny way of redirecting our dreams.

Though I loved my mother dearly, I've included her sickness and death almost as a side note here because, while it was very affecting on many levels, it is ultimately not the story I wish to tell. It has been noted that she inspired my love of film and film analysis, and she nurtured my education in every way she possibly could. Losing her was very damaging in many ways, but most of my healing took place during college, where I filled my mind not with the booze and drugs that would be expected of a budding artist in the wake of tragedy, but with knowledge.

Admittedly, my first few student films revolved around likeable, beautiful women who would die in the end, leaving the surviving characters in a state of anguish. They were obvious cries for help, but instead of help, I received harsh criticism.

"Jesus, how bleak!"

"Nice fucking ending, Pitkin. That was the push I needed to go home and shoot myself through the brain!"

"What a steaming pile of derivative shit!"

"Way to take cheap shots, Lars!"

They were right, and I know that now as much as I knew it then. But it was therapeutic for me, artistically expressing the emotions I felt from the time Mom got sick until the months following her death. All of my film scores involved a somber set of strings, which were provided by Lenny Chung, an Asian music major who played cello in the symphony. All of the films were shot in black and white, and though they were obvious musings on my own psyche manifested onscreen, they were well-done to the degree that each had a definite beginning, middle, and end and a definite protagonist dealing with struggles that were somehow resolved in the end.

It was certainly filmmaking 101 almost all throughout film school, but we were also encouraged to delve into more abstract methods of storytelling, using overt or subtle symbolism to propel a narrative more than dialogue and action. We studied a lot of films by filmmakers ranging from the simple (like James Cameron and John McTiernan), whose narratives were creative and fun and followed a typical three act structure, to the bizarre and complex, nightmarish shit (sometimes in a good way) by the likes of Pier Pasolini, David Lynch, Peter Greenaway, and Lars Von Trier. Oftentimes I was perplexed, and because these filmmakers are usually pretty guarded in revealing what their films "truly mean," there was really no wrong answer to give while writing paper after paper and giving exhaustive presentations on their work.

My masters' thesis was a script I'd written for a film that I also shot and directed called _A Lazy Death_ , which was supposed to show elements of surrealism infused with a straightforward narrative. Though my previous efforts sucked, I was sought-after for our thesis film because I truly "got it" when it came to doing as our instructors asked. I aced every bit of homework, every quiz, test, and presentation, even though people saw me as "that dude who made all the depressing shit," it paid off, as everyone wanted to work with me.

Those, sadly, were the highlights of college, academically speaking. Other than that, it truly was quite uneventful in retrospect and not worth getting into over a period of twelve chapters. Hell, I could sum up the highlights of my collegiate experience in under twelve paragraphs.

I smoked weed once and felt dizzy and puked. I got drunk twice and felt dizzy and puked both times (the second time, just prior to puking, I was crying in front of three girls, and I don't recall why). During my third year, I lost my virginity to a skank, a very hot skank but a skank nonetheless, who had sex with me to win a bet (my being a virgin must have been well-known around campus). She won the bet and wanted nothing more to do with me. Of course, being my first, I thought it was special and that she loved me, so I followed her around for a little while. Well _, a little while_ is putting it lightly. So is _followed her around_. I essentially stalked her for the next six months. Nothing too creepy, as my constant presence was known, just simply ignored. Finally, she said, "Look, Lars, you're cute and smart and sensitive, but that's just not what I'm into."

I cried myself to sleep for two days. Pathetic, I know. I guess she was into idiotic guys who were unattractive and insensitive. There was nothing I could do to woo her at that point. I could stop showering and otherwise neglect my appearance and pretend that I didn't know my asshole from a plastic fork and then smack her in the face or something, but I wasn't into the act of being someone else. If she wanted Lars Pitkin, she was getting Lars Pitkin, tears, proper hygiene, and all.

I had a serious girlfriend the following year. Her name was Sue Ellen, and she was from Alabama. Her accent melted my heart and often aroused me, and she would twirl her blonde hair with her index finger. She had a way of biting her bottom lip and squinting her blue eyes while listening to our professor that looked as though she was having an orgasm. I felt like the luckiest guy on-campus to have snagged the likes of Sue Ellen. Then I got a taste of my own medicine for how I'd been a constant presence in my skanky one-time fling's life (I should stop referring to her as that; her name was Ashley...fucking skank).

Sue Ellen was up my ass twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes, I liked that (forgive a joke that Joe would approve of), but it got to the point that I couldn't study, I couldn't see a movie that she disapproved of, I couldn't read a book by an author she didn't like. We dragged it out for the better part of a year, and though the sex was great, even on those days that I wished she'd drowned or had gotten into a car accident (terrible, I know, but she began telling me who I was and was not allowed to hang out with on weekends and what foods I was even able to eat), I was becoming miserable. I didn't truly want her to die. I suppose that might have been going a little far. But I often wondered, in a dark corner of my mind, _hoped_ even, that the obnoxious knock on my door would one day be not Sue Ellen but a police officer to deliver the horrible news. That horrible, liberating news.

But alas, Sue Ellen was always there and always nagging, controlling. When I could take it no more, I called it off. Creepily, she took our breakup well. Actually, she shrugged, said okay almost indifferently, and turned and walked out of my dorm room with a cheerful whistle issuing from her lips. She did spray paint the words Faggots Within on our door, and she flattened all four of my tires (kind enough to let the air out via the valve stems rather than slashing them, but it gave me a hard time anyway).

Being an art major, she became more and more creative in her vengeance, which, as I said, could have been worse. She left me a framed picture that she drew, a very large one actually. In said picture, I was forcibly bent over a bed with a rather large, rather black man penetrating me from behind. I was crying in the picture and had blood dripping down my naked leg. Sick as it made me, it was a very good, if overly detailed drawing.

The second time, she sketched a rather excellent picture of me. I was naked, sitting down Indian-style. She got everything right, down to the hair on my legs, though she purposely gave me an uncircumcised, infant's penis. I began to find her drawings amusing. There was a cartoonish one that she appeared to have done in a few minutes' time, but it was still very good. I was sitting on an upside down flagpole with a look of ecstasy on my face, and again, blood dripping from my anus (she had a thing with that) down the pole and onto the Confederate flag on the other end.

We actually became friendly when I ran into her the following year. She invited me to her off-campus apartment for coffee, where I half-expected to see sculptures and oil paintings littering the joint, all featuring me in some sort of painful, humiliating sexual position. She had apparently outgrown that, but she thanked me for breaking her heart, as it apparently awakened a long-slumbering artist. "Glad I could help," I told her and thought of the pictures at my dorm and then added, "I guess."

After a cordial conversation and about six cups of coffee, she actually asked for her drawings back. It was odd that she thought I would keep them, filthy and tasteless as they were, but I did. In all honesty, they were too good to simply throw away out of anger or embarrassment, though she invited me to her art show, where I got a few looks from art dealers and spectators alike. There was obviously a theme to it all, and that theme was heartbreak. There were also four or five drawings and an oil painting of me, none of them tasteful. They were sexually abnormal like the rest of them and featured yours truly in perverse positions and situations, which I'd rather not go into.

Okay fine, I will. After the baby penis drawn onto my person or the Confederate flagpole lodged deep into my ass, how much worse could it get? Well, the oil painting showed me in a toga, where one robotic woman was feeding me grapes and a second one was going down on me. Both robots resembled Sue Ellen. I overheard her saying something about love being artificial, but a man will keep up the act just to get his rocks off. I guess she was right. The sex really was the only thing keeping it going after the first few months. I was too horny and too big a coward to break it off five months before I should have. _People can change, Lars_ , I kept telling myself, but I eventually realized how selfish it was to assume that they should do so for the sake of my comfort and happiness.

Oddly, Sue Ellen's art show was a smash. Baby Dick Lars, Black Man Prison Raping Lars, and Lars Gets a Blowjob from Robots (not sure of their actual titles) sold for nearly twenty thousand to who I can only assume to be some very perverted people. That, or I just didn't understand art. She wrote me a check for three grand for the use of my likeness. "Happy to help," I told her, even though I donated almost all of it to various charities that helped rape victims.

With the little remaining, I gassed up my car and thought of my own art, my films, which had also been nothing but obsession-themed due to heartbreak. It was time for a change, and I knew what I wanted to do. I had to find my old friends and begin a new project, one that was fueled by the high from my recent graduation and from my obsession with loss. I smiled and sang the songs of my youth all the way back to my hometown, songs by Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Skid Row, wondering how much had changed, how successful my old friends were (or weren't).

First I went to visit my dad. I knew that losing Mom was hard on him, and I'd left as soon after her death as was possible. Dad was always a man of few words and preferred silence in the wake of tragedy. When his father passed, also a man of few words, Dad went outside and sat on the bench in our flower garden, smoking cigarettes for six hours. Similarly, when Mom died, he'd sat in their bedroom for countless hours. When he walked out of there, he was all business with the funeral arrangements, nary a tear shed until we drove away from the cemetery. Even then, it was a lone tear, as if he'd permitted himself to cry one tear for his wife, the love of his life, the mother of their only son. One tear can surely speak volumes.

"Hello, Son," Dad said and extended his hand. "Congratulations."

He was referring to my master's degree. He was not present at the ceremony, as he was away on business, but he did come to my bachelor's graduation.

"Thanks," I said.

He opened the front door wide, inviting me in. I looked around the house. It seemed as though Mom had never died. The floral arrangements, the dusted coffee tables, spotless countertops, all as she had left them. I had no clue how my father did it. His job always seemed more demanding than hers, and that was saying a lot. I plopped down on the sofa, but Dad remained standing. He paced around a few moments and then said, "Lars, I've met someone."

Though it took me by surprise, it had been nearly seven years, so I nodded and said, "That's good, Dad."

"Really?" he asked, nervous-looking.

"Sure," I said and jokingly added, "you're not that old. You're not a bad-looking guy. Besides, I pretty much knew."

"Oh?" he said curiously.

"Well, yeah," I said, "look at this place. It's still spotless and pristine. No man could ever pull that off."

Dad chuckled nervously and said, "That's uh...actually, that's not entirely true."

It was my turn to be confused, and I pointed to the condition of the house and said, "You mean, you...I mean, you've been...um."

"Rocky and I, yes," he said.

"Rocky," I said, "as in short for Raquel?"

"Rocky as in short for...Rocky."

It took me a moment more than it should have as I put together the very simple puzzle in my head.

"Huh," I said. "I guess I...so are you...you're what, you're gay?"

"Um," Dad said and sighed. "I suppose I am. I mean, I've always been bisexual. Even your mother knew that, but I made a vow to be with her. She died, and now I've made a vow to be with Rocky. I suppose I will be gay for as long as he and I are together."

"Wait," I said, "Mom knew you were bisexual?"

"Well, yes," Dad said, as if I should have known that all along. "As was she."

"Mom was bi?" I asked, becoming nauseous, not because of their lifestyles but the fact that it had been so secretive.

"She was," Dad said. "Both of us had done more than merely experiment with the same sex before we got married. I thought you knew that."

"Why would I know that?" I asked.

Dad shrugged and said, "I don't know. Why wouldn't you?"

"Oh, I don't know," I said sarcastically, starting to get a bit too snotty. "Somehow, the possibility of either of my parents being bisexual didn't present the need to arise in casual conversation."

"Well, we were, and we have many gay, lesbian, and bisexual friends, many of whom you know very well. Hester and Larry and Greg and Owen. Fawn is gay."

"Fawn who used to babysit me? That beautiful woman?"

"That beautiful woman, yes, Lars, is a lesbian. Beautiful people can be gay as well. Look at your mother, for instance. Or even you."

"Even me what?" I asked. "You think I'm gay?"

Dad then looked at me with scrutiny, looked me up and down and said, "Well, aren't you?"

"No!" I shouted. "Jesus, Dad, how long have you thought that?"

"I don't know. Since you were about nine or ten I guess. Your mother and I both thought so, Lars. Don't be upset. I suppose we were just wrong."

"Damn right you were wrong!" I hollered. "This is so fucked up!"

I wasn't allowed to swear growing up, and I rarely did anyhow, but there I was, reuniting with my father, who now had a male lover called Rocky. I was taking in far too much at once. I needed some air. I pulled open the slider that led to the flower garden, and before I could inhale the smell of jasmine and gardenias, I saw a very muscular man in a red speedo watering the flowers. I yelled out in fear, as did he, until he took a second glance and recognized me from the photographs throughout the house.

"Oh my dear God," he said in a very deep, very un-gay voice.

I ran back into the house and almost ran into my father, who was standing in the doorway.

"I'll get back to you, Dad!" I hollered as I ran out the front door, inappropriate behavior I know, but it had nothing to do with Dad's homosexuality or Rocky in the speedo or my late mother believing that I was gay. Actually, it had to do with all of that, and it rushed into my head too quickly. I found myself gagging in my car as I pulled out of the driveway.

# 21

My next stop was the trailer park. Odd that after all those years and never truly believing I missed the place, I felt at home in such a sad, dingy environment. Like it was yesterday, I saw Isaac, still dirty but years older. The urchins, who had also grown (the youngest of them was probably sixteen at that point), did not look a whole lot different. They were still shirtless, two of them shoeless, all of them still dirty. I pulled my car up to the group of them, who were standing on the corner like drug dealers but were likely just keeping an eye on things.

"What you want, faggot?" Isaac said, obviously not recognizing me.

"Oh, nothing," I said. "Just wondering if you and the urchins can tell me how to get to Gary Young's trailer."

It took a moment, but then a light bulb went on in Isaac's head, and he smiled and said, "Lars?"

I nodded and returned the smile.

"Damn," he went on, "almost didn't recognize you in this fancy ass car. What is it, a '57 Chevy convertible?"

"I wish," I said, confused how even someone like Isaac could be so far off. "No, this is a 1995 Chrysler LeBaron. But it is a convertible."

Yes, that much was true, as the top was down.

"It's a sweet ride," one of the urchins commented.

"Thank you," I said, "but this sweet ride has cost me more in repairs than buying a '57 Chevy likely would have by now."

Isaac did not get the joke. He seemed confused. After he cleared his throat, he pointed in the direction of Gary's trailer and said, "Anyway, what you're gonna wanna do is, go all the way down to the end of this road and take a right. Then...,"

"I remember, Isaac," I said with a reassuring smile. "I was just messing with ya."

"Well, you ain't gonna find 'em at the trailer now anyhow. I think they're both at work."

"Really?" I said, happy and surprised that they'd found work.

"Yeah, they both work at that dirty movie house where y'all showed that movie a few years back."

"Cinema Blue?"

"Yeah, that's it," Isaac confirmed. "Hey, when you guys gonna make part two? Man, we've been waiting on that shit for years."

I shrugged. "Didn't know they were still into all that."

"Are you shittin me?" Isaac said. "They used to be like Scooby Doo and shit. Solving mysteries about ghosts. I can name like three people who went to 'em."

I smiled. They had become paranormal investigators. "Just like the Ghostbusters," I said.

"Nah, the Ghostbusters was smart," Isaac said. "The Soul Searchers just fucked off half the time, arguing and shit."

I nodded. They had used the title of our film to start up the business. It was surprising.

Good as it was to see Isaac and the Urchins, I had another place to be, and that place was Cinema Blue.

The red light district looked even more disturbing than it had in the seven years I'd been gone. Perhaps it had always looked that bad, but my youth had put up some sort of barrier. Now that I was older, I felt that I was in legitimate danger of being robbed at gunpoint or worse.

The buildings on either side of Cinema Blue were boarded up now. One had been a strip mall with a gym, a deli, and a video store. The other had been a pawn shop. Now they were vacant buildings with water stains and graffiti all over the plywood that served as windows.

There were no other cars in the parking lot when I arrived. I got out and looked over both my shoulders, awaiting the crack fiend or the gangster looking to ice a suburban white boy to make a name for himself.

I looked at the marquee to see that that night was playing a double feature, _Glad He Ate Her_ (a parody of Gladiator, no doubt, as it starred Russell Blow and Joaquin Penis) and _Sex Toy Story_ , an animated charmer about the secret lives of dildos and French ticklers. Though I was never much into pornography, I'd be lying if I said that the animated film didn't intrigue me. It wasn't so much the sexual curiosity as much as the audacity and ambition behind a computer-animated porno film, coming from an industry legendary for its lackluster production standards.

I formed crescent shapes with my hands and held them against my face, shielding my eyes from the reflections of the passing traffic, the better to peer into the building with my face nearly touching the glass. I saw some movement, but a familiar voice from behind startled me away from the window.

"We open at nine, perv," Joe said. It was obvious from his expression that he didn't recognize me right away, looked me up and down and said, "Gay night's not until next Saturday."

"No, Joe, it's me," I said with a smile. "It's Lars."

Stunned, he said through laughter, "Oh, holy shit! Right, Lars. Jesus Christ, man, it's good to see you." To which he added, "Man, what's with those faggoty duds?"

Same as always, solid-color dress shirt and jeans with conservative tennis shoes. I could only shake my head and wonder. Joe had gained weight and grown a full beard. He was also in need of a haircut that didn't appear to be on his to-do list, but thankfully, he was no longer rocking a mullet (which he'd proudly sported throughout high school). He was donning blue coveralls and had a towel slung over his shoulder.

"What the hell brings you here?" he asked.

"I'm out, man," I said. "Graduated. Ready for the big leagues."

Joe looked around and said, "What big leagues? You're back in this shithole burg."

"Nice to see you too," I said. "I thought the big leagues would be here. I'm ready to do _Soul Searchers Part Two_."

Joe sighed and took a set of keys from his pocket and stepped lightly in front of me to unlock the door. I stepped aside and was somewhat surprised when he held the door for me. Though it was a porn theater, it was still a movie theater, a place that made me feel at home, at peace. The ticket counter and the concession stand, the posters for upcoming features (up cumming, as spelled out on the posters within those particular walls). Though it wasn't where I saw myself as a filmmaker, it was where my first movie had been shown, our first movie. I attempted to articulate all of this to Joe, who seemed less than interested as he sprayed down and wiped the counters.

"Look, Lars," he said. "I really am glad to see you, and Gary will be too when he's done mopping the jizz off the floors and walls of the peepshow booths. But I gotta tell ya, Soul Searchers is over with."

"What?" I was stunned. "I just saw Isaac, and he said that you guys were doing it like detectives. I think that's a good angle for our next movie. Infuse the business with the entertainment. It's solid gold."

"Did Isaac tell ya that Gary's twice the fucking idiot that he was? Not only is he still a moron, he's a drunken moron, and it made for some pretty horrible experiences with potential clients. He became an embarrassment, crying and pissing himself, and we spent most of the time fighting, verbal or fist, depending on his level of buffoonery, and people started to get up and leave halfway through a séance."

"Why would it come to that, man?" I asked. "I mean, you were a great narrator and collaborator. I've got the education now, so we can get access to the best equipment. Not only that, Gary's a legitimate clairvoyant."

"He used to be," Joe said, somberness in his tone. "Now he's a partially clairvoyant, legitimately retarded alchy."

I shook my head and said, "What a waste."

"Well, to be fair, it's not entirely his fault," Joe said, "and because we're old friends, I don't think he'd mind me telling you this."

"Okay," I said, curious.

Joe reached into the cooler behind him and grabbed two beers, tossed me one. I didn't really drink, but I thought it better not to insult his gesture. Besides, whatever he had to say, it required cracking into a beer, so I was all ears.

"About four years back, Leroy died, right?" Joe began.

"Shit, I didn't know," I told him.

He waved it off, as though irrelevant and continued, "Anyhow, he had a massive heart attack whilst banging Gary's mom. He went out in the throes of an orgasm, the lucky fuck, and it was discovered that he had some unfinished business here on earth."

"Right," I said.

"Gary also experienced that heart attack. Both men, one of them living, the other about to die, climaxed looking at Yolanda's naked body vigorously straddling them."

"Oh, my God, so...," I couldn't finish, so Joe did it for me.

"Yeah, Gary had an orgasm that was inadvertently given to him by his own mother while finishing off her deceased boyfriend."

I wanted to puke but instead downed my beer. I coughed and dry heaved, and my eyes filled with tears. Normally, that would've amused Joe to no end, but he seemed to have lost his sense of humor.

"So," Joe went on, "needless to say, Gary was a tad...shall we say quiet for the next few months, skittish at times, all the while being haunted by Leroy, who was a bit incoherent in life, a lot more so in death and also bordered illiterate, so finding out just what the hell he wanted through verbal and written communication was a dead end, pardon the pun or don't pardon it."

"Did you guys ever figure out what he wanted?"

"Yeah, we did," Joe said. "And it wasn't worth the effort or Gary's sanity and dignity. Apparently, Leroy has – at least he had – a son. Leroy kept a shoebox full of cash from his various odd jobs underneath Yolanda's bed, and we were to deliver it. Once we got it to the guy, it wasn't the same tenderness of releasing Stephanie Longfellow's soul. This fucking guy was nuts, and not like funny nuts but like padded room nuts. He wanted to fight us for the money and wouldn't accept the fact that we were simply giving him a gift from his late father. It was only eight or nine hundred bucks, but the guy was fucking adamant, and he lived in filth. Shit, you thought Shady Acres was a rotten trailer park to live in, you should venture into Wedgewood Estates some time. It makes the sickos in _Deliverance_ look like guests at one of Gatsby's shindigs. Hell, it made _my_ skin crawl for fuck's sake."

"So you gave him the money?"

"Well, we fought him for it," Joe said and swigged his beer.

"Why?"

"He wouldn't take no for an answer, kept saying he wouldn't accept it unless he won it fair and square. At least I think that's what he said. Who fucking knows? The guy was nuttier than a fucking Baby Ruth. So we had to fight him, and in order to give him the money, obviously, we were gonna have to let him win. So I wrestled with him for a bit, Gary got a couple licks in, just to make it look like we tried, but the crazy bastard came at us with a broken baseball bat, laughing the whole time, saying he was gonna stick it up our asses and shit like that. So I let him have it. I took the thing from him and beat him upside the head a few times. Apparently, when you're that crazy, you don't feel a whole lot of pain because he wouldn't go down. So I said, 'Fuck it, dude, you won. Take the money. We give up.'

"That wasn't good enough either. Crazy bastard grabs a fucking ax from his hall closet and starts chasing us around with it, still laughing his ass off like double homicide is more fun than a blowjob. He stuck it through his wall, six inches from my face, broke two windows, and cleaved a cat's tail off before we left the money on his couch and ran the fuck outta there."

Joe winced and took another drink, as though the memory were still fresh. "He chased us a good two miles before he ran out into traffic and got splattered by a soccer mom driving one of those suburban Humvees."

"Jesus, did he die?"

"Fuck yeah, he died. Fucker was a pavement patty. Looked like fucking hamburger underneath a sleeveless flannel and a pair of shit-stained tighty whiteys. It was an awful sight, and I've seen enough sick shit to know.

"Anyhow, after a long, pointless interrogation, it was finally decided that Gary and I were the potential victims of an ax murderer and not potential killers. Cops let us go when the ax was found in a ditch about sixty feet from where he was hit, so our story checked out.

"Shit, that poor soccer mom felt terrible. I don't think she realizes that she probably did the world a favor. If not, she sure as shit did me and Gary a solid. So yeah, needless to say, soul searching became a bit dangerous. I doubt that's the word Gary would use. His experience ran a bit deeper and much, much darker than that."

I sat trying to wrap my mind around the sickness, the absurdity of it all. All I could do was shake my head once I broke from the daze.

"So we had a few gigs when word got around that Gary could communicate with the dead. We had a few successes, made some pretty good money but mostly failures. It became as embarrassing as much as it did infuriating. Half the time, I just wanted to snap Gary's spine over my knee and leave him twitching in pain until he starved to death. But I really couldn't blame him for trying to lose the memory of it all at the bottom of a bottle."

It saddened me to think that something we'd all held so dearly, something we were all so proud of became a sick joke just before it dissolved into nothing.

"This is what I came back for," I said, not really to Joe but to myself.

Joe shrugged, killed the last of his beer, and said, "And it's also the reason I'm sure you'll be leaving again."

"Who says I'm going anywhere?" I asked, a bit offended that he seemed to be booting me.

"No one," Joe said, "by all means, stay. You can grab a mop and bucket and wipe semen with Gary, or you can clean off countertops, stock concessions, and hand out ticket stubs to pornos with me. Take your pick because pickings are slim. You might be able to get a factory job in one of the four factories left in the state of Michigan, or you can get a job punching numbers into a computer all day, but something tells me that's not why you went to film school. Hell, I ain't got a degree in shit, but look at me, working twenty-five hours a week for minimum wage. So go ahead, Lars. Stick around, old buddy."

I chuckled softly, but it turned into maniacal laughter. Joe, once a good sport in the humor department, seemed depressed and angry. Gary was a complete wreck, wherever he was hiding. "And to top it all off," I said, "I just found out that my father is gay and sharing my mother's home with a massive man in a red speedo."

I thought Joe might finally find some humor in another's misfortune, but he simply shook his head and got back to work. I couldn't help but feel to some degree that Joe was urging me to leave because I'd ditched our once future projects to focus on my education while caring for my dying mother. Even if he didn't do it consciously, I felt that he was resentful in some way. I walked out without saying good-bye to Joe and without even seeing Gary. I wouldn't return for another five years in 2006, after my dreams of being a filmmaker hit rock bottom.

# 22

I went to Hollywood, where I thought the action was. I got a job working for Bert Goldstein of Hyman-Goldstein Productions after being denied an agent multiple times and being denied the funding to get any independent projects going. They were "too arty" or "lacked mainstream appeal." Essentially, they didn't suck badly enough to be popular and profitable, but to be fair, it was in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attack in New York. Hollywood didn't want my depressing shit, as the country was depressed enough. They wanted heroic good guys blowing up evil bad guys.

I worked as Bert's assistant, which basically meant getting coffee and lunch and getting yelled at. It was a paycheck, and I was in Hollywood, closer to my dream than ever but somehow further away than I thought was possible to feel.

Bert was a mean-spirited prick. The only nice things about him were his office and his wardrobe. He said evil things to people who were lower on the proverbial totem pole, which was nearly everyone. I took a lot of verbal abuse from that man over the next few years.

Eventually, Bert recognized my ability to take his disgusting, evil tirades without crying or quitting (I had Joe to thank for that thickness of skin), and he bumped me up to the job of script-reader, which paid decently but was shit by Hollywood standards. I was able to get a crappy studio apartment, which was an upgrade from the crappier one I'd been in. I did most of my reading from home. If I thought a script was worthwhile, I pitched it to Bert's new assistant, who, in turn pitched it to Bert, who turned ninety percent of them down.

I also wrote as a freelance horror movie critic for _Slasher Monthly_ , a magazine with a small but loyal following. That gig also paid shit, but it was extra income, something I sorely needed. I was a self-proclaimed nostalgia critic, bringing into light the horror films of yesteryear in the hopes of finding them a new audience, movies like _Prince of Darkness_ , _The Brood_ , and _Eraserhead_. I wrote a two-page analysis of _Taxi Driver_ , complete with my mother's theories on what made it a horror movie. In the hopes of bringing my mother's theories into light, I instead became a laughing stock, and the editor only allowed it to go to print so that he could publish the insulting responses in the following issue for his own amusement.

So for the next five years, that is what I did, always swearing to set aside a few bucks here and there in the hopes of funding my own movie, which almost always had to go toward rent or groceries. In all that time, I read and wrote treatments for about six thousand scripts, most of them shit, and very few of the good ones were given the greenlight by Bert Goldstein. They were mostly lowbrow action and lowbrow comedies, the occasional sappy romance movie, written for an audience of sixteen year-old boys and fourteen year-old girls. Sadly, they all performed well at the box office. Bert's dreams obviously did not include Academy Awards. He simply knew demographics.

"Lars, get me some black scripts," he told me one day. "I want at least three black movies released between next December and February. We've got Christmastime, Martin Luther King Day, and Black History Month, back to back to back, and I wanna make sure that Negroes spend their time and their money in the theater. I don't even care if they're good."

It seemed to me a racist angle, but I dutifully read and suggested five black scripts, three of which Bert gave the greenlight (leaving out the two good ones), all of which had horrible plots that wound up being terribly acted and directed but all of them with a built-in audience feeling a sense of racial pride around the time of their release. One of them was a black reimagining of _White Christmas_ called—you guessed it— _Black Christmas_ , and it starred Steve Harvey and Whoopi Goldberg and was as good as it sounds, but it made some money, not a lot but enough to make Bert and his black audience happy (many critics shunned it, one black critic expressed his "embarrassment for the producers"...Bert cared not, even laughed about it). Even if he did it unintentionally, Bert taught me quite a lot when I sifted through his degrading remarks and sought out the wisdom and the business sense therein. He never shot for that billion dollar movie. He liked the movies that cost under ten million to make and would rake in twice that. Most of them did.

"It's not a fucking racial decision, you fucking overly sensitive pussy," Bert snapped when I expressed my concern for his seemingly condescending tactic toward his black audience. "It's business. Blacks will go see movies during those months, doesn't matter how shitty. Five years ago, we based a film on two plays, _Hair_ and _Grease_ ; we put a black spin on it and called the movie _Afro Sheen_ , and it was a fucking hit, regardless of the fact that it was a racist pile of dog shit. The brothers ate it up like chicken wings and hot sauce."

Before I dared express anymore concerns, Bert assured me of this: "I don't give a flying turd if an audience is predominately boogie, spick, himey, honky, or chink, as long as they're in the fucking cinemas. Ya' don't release a fuckin _Star Trek_ sequel when the blacks are out in droves. You deliver black shit, maybe rerelease a few of the classics, _Shaft_ or _Dolemite_ or some shit. Trust me, they love it. And chinks love _Star Trek_ and orange juice."

How Bert imparted these degrading words of wisdom cum non sequiturs with sincerity is beyond me. I chuckled because initially, I honestly thought he was putting me on. Surely, no one used those words and meant them in a serious way. Even Joe, though he had a racially diverse sense of humor, would not arbitrarily use language like that. Bert definitely illustrated that the folks behind the scenes in Hollywood really weren't required to have much of a filter. They weren't the ones giving interviews when shitty movies flopped, nor were they giving speeches or accepting awards. The Bert Goldsteins of the world sat in offices crunching numbers, reading pie charts, catering to specific people at certain times of year, making loud phone calls, and writing large checks. The check-writing is what likely gave people like Bert the freedom to say what they wanted, as most everyone, black, white, brown, or yellow, went to the likes of Bert, hoping to get money for their projects, willing to get on their knees and beg for his approval and his money.

Bert got off on that, as was displayed when a recent Japanese film graduate by the name of Sam Sasaki came to Bert and pitched an idea for a movie, and Bert, paying no attention to the pitch and ever the racial softie, asked him to sing _Lollipop_ by the Chordettes.

"Lollipop, lollipop, oh, loll...," he sang, and Bert cut him off.

"No, no," Bert said, "sing it like a chink."

Like so many others, Sam Sasaki entered Bert's office willing to sell his soul, so singing _Rorripop_ for Bert's amusement was no problem, complete with the finger in the cheek pop at the end of the chorus, to which Bert said, "Too bad you didn't have a gong for that part. Would've been fuckin perfect."

Feeling humiliated and uncomfortable, Sam was given the greenlight for his project. Another young guy, Frank Dennett, crawled around woofing and sniffing the floor and was made to lift his leg at anyone who came in. Bert was very gracious of who he let in and out of the office that day, making sure as many beautiful women as possible were admitted to see the pathetic man-dog crawling about on the floor.

"Tell him to shake, doll," he'd say to a woman, who would do so and take poor Frank's hand in hers. "Tell him to speak, sweetie," he'd say to another, who feigned laughter, though she was doubtlessly disturbed by the disgraced, panting human being on all-fours in front of her.

Disconcerting as it was, I learned a great deal of what went on behind the scenes in the offices of the movers and shakers (depravity mostly). However, I still longed to work behind the camera, though I suppose it was nice to know what kind of person my money would likely come from, what kind of utter indignities I would have to suffer to achieve my dreams.

# 23

Shortly after my thirty-second birthday, which was shortly after my thirty-second unsuccessful pitch to Bert for a movie, I had a panic attack while watching late night reruns of _Cops_ and eating my ten or so thousandth bowl of ramen noodles since my arrival in California. I felt that I had hit an all-time low. I had my master's degree in film and spent my days and most of my nights reading the shitty ideas of high school dropouts and cab drivers. By that age, I thought I would have Oscar statues or at least Golden Globes on my mantel instead of nothing. I didn't even have a mantle, as that would denote a fireplace or even a shelf. I had a rickety bookcase that I'd purchased from Walmart years prior that was on its last chunk of particle board. It was a sad sight, and I had to do something about it, else I would succumb to the drug-addled bohemia of the philosophy major.

I blacked out momentarily and thought I was dying when I came to, though I was paralyzed, helpless to stop my impending doom. I felt as though the walls were closing in on me, that my wasted life was about to crush me. I don't even remember when or how I sat up, but I caught my breath and cleared the tears from my eyes. I looked at my pathetic visage in the mirror and knew what I wanted to do. It was something I should have done a long time ago, and it was as much a want as a need. It wasn't feature films I should have been concerned with. It was something bigger, something I was familiar with and loved. So instead of lobbing the idea for another dreary, death-themed melodrama, I vowed to march into Bert's office and pitch him the best idea for a reality TV show that had ever been concocted.

"Soul Searchers?" Bert said in a less than enthusiastic tone when I was through with my spirited and well-rehearsed pitch.

"Come on, Bert," I said with more balls than I'd ever dared. "Think about it. What's hot right now? Reality TV. We infuse that with society's collective obsession with death and the paranormal, and we've got a hit."

Bert eyeballed me for a moment too long, as though he were sizing me up for my funeral attire and said, "Why Michigan?"

"Tax breaks, Bert," I said. "The auto industry is all but dead there, and they'll do anything for press that doesn't involve Michael Moore filming rundown houses and hopeless weirdos. Besides, that's where the Soul Searchers are from. They'll be in their element."

"And you've spoken to these friends of yours? They're on board with this asinine idea?"

"I haven't yet, but trust me, all they've ever wanted is the opportunity to turn this into something great and something profitable."

Again, Bert scrutinized my very being with his dark, piercing eyes and pointed at me and said, "If this idea turns out to be shit, which I'm sure that it will, you won't even be able to get a job sucking dick for sandwiches in this town. If you try to hightail it out of the country with my money, I will spend every possible man hour I've got hunting you down, and once you're caught, and you will be caught, I will have you repeatedly butt fucked by HIV-ridden heroin addicts, understood?"

"Loud and clear, Bert," I said, trying to mask my smile.

"I'm gonna give you a hundred grand plus thirty thousand for equipment expenses. You'll have six weeks to shoot a pilot, and if I like it, I'll fund you for one season. If I don't like it, by yourself some kneepads and cold sore ointment because a mouthful of stiff penis is gonna be the only meal you'll ever be able to afford again, you got me?"

"Yes sir," I said, even though six weeks seemed a ludicrously small amount of time.

"Good, go get with my secretary, get a company credit card and arrange for a flight to Michigan. And I want receipts, motherfucker. If you buy a hand job from a trucker, I want to see a paper trail."

I nodded and nearly ran out of his office. I was not asked to do anything indecent or undignified in order to get the greenlight, so I was a bit leery but also so high spirited that I saw past it for a moment. My mixed emotions, whatever natural high I was on, told me that Bert was setting us up for failure. He was worth just under a billion dollars, so chucking me less than one hundred fifty thousand to never bother him again was pocket change. Also, if I failed, he could keep me in my position of script-reading for life to repay the debt. The alternative was that perhaps he liked me, respected me just enough to not demand that I bark at and sniff the asses of people who entered his office. But being set up to fail seemed much more likely, which made the challenge all the more exhilarating.

Either way, I was determined, something Bert maybe hadn't reckoned with, to produce an un-fucking-forgettable pilot. I went back to my apartment, grabbed my laptop and a few changes of clothes. Looking around the place, I hadn't much else of note, and that filled me with one last shot of depression. It quickly faded in a wave of euphoria. I was going back to see my old friends, two guys who I really couldn't stand but whom I dearly missed, two guys who I had to convince to get on board with me, lest I spend my days in Bert's office dressed like a sailor with my thumb in my mouth or whatever else sort of deviancy Bert would have me do. Above all that, however, was the fact that I was getting a fresh start, an opportunity to begin anew in my home state, my home town.

And so it was that I flew back to Michigan, filled with the same excitement I felt the first time the ghost of Stephanie Longfellow materialized on camera. I knew it was extraordinary then, and I knew it still was, and I had little doubt that we were going to awaken the world to _Soul Searchers_ , a paranormal reality series unlike anything anyone in the world had ever seen.

###

Thank you for reading our book. If you enjoyed it, please take a few moments to write a review at your favorite retailer. Thank you, and stay tuned for _Soul Searchers: Book 2_.

#  Acknowledgments

The authors wish to first and foremost thank Smashwords for their contributions to budding writers, for allowing them an easy outlet for their work. To Mark Coker for his book, _Smashwords Style Guide_ , one of the most helpful tools for anyone interested. To the heroes of the authors, those whose art was or still is on the the fringe, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, people who cared about the controversy in their work, artists who have both entertained and enlightened the world through humor. Thank you to our families, who have recognized and appreciate our sacrifices. To Cal Sharp at Caligraphics for his cover art, which captured the exact tone we were looking for. Lastly but certainly not least, thank you, dear reader. It is you who have made it this far, and the authors can only hope you have enjoyed sharing this leg of their journey, one among many, and hope you will join them again as the journey continues.

# About the Authors

Dan Baumgart and Joe Hudson met while working as printing press operators in Grand Blanc, Michigan. Both natives of Flint, Michigan, they found that their experiences growing up in poverty-stricken areas could best be presented with a sense of humor wedged into the sense of dread.

Dan lives in Flushing, Michigan with his wife and daughter. Joe currently resides in Murray, Utah with his wife and daughter. Their lives, though they may have taken different geographical routes, have so echoed one another over the years, that _Soul Searchers_ seemed a natural course, one they have enjoyed for nearly a decade and continue to enjoy as they maintain a close friendship from across the country.

## Sneak Peak from Soul Searchers: Book Two

## 1

David was sick and tired of his friends calling him a wuss and a coward. Some of the bolder kids called him a chicken shit and a pussy. They'd all been to the old Wicker house, so was the claim. Though they all knew where it was, their stories varied, whether in the description of the house itself, the landscape, or the ghostly old woman who haunted the property. It all led David to believe that they were full of it. But there was no convincing them that the inconsistencies made their respective tales less believable, if not completely fabricated.

There he sat nonetheless, on the seat of his bike, looking into the woods that would come out into a clearing where the Wicker estate sat, if the stories were true. He trembled with fear, even though he was certainly further than Jackson or Ronnie or any of the others had ever been. They all asserted that there was a clear path leading directly to the house. If there were a clear path, it had been mysteriously obscured by a seemingly endless thicket of mature blue spruces. Somewhere through the chunk of forest, whether a quarter mile of five miles, David did not know, was the house where it was said that many children met their end and a further dozen had disappeared over the years.

The legend told of a tall, pale woman on the premises, old and frail, hunched over. Some said she was a witch; others said she was just a scary old woman who killed children. Those kids didn't know anything about research, David thought. They were just trying to scare younger or weaker kids with stories that had been handed down and manipulated over the years from their parents, their parents before them, back at least three generations, David figured, considering the little history he knew of the Wicker house.

Indeed, a woman named Myra Wicker was found hanging naked in the house in the latter years of the nineteenth century. She was tall and pale, that much was true, seventy-two years old, and an alleged child killer. It was true that many children from Bronson, Michigan had come up missing before her suicide, and it was true that the wave of kidnappings in the area stopped when she died. However, stories had been told of an apparition haunting the premises. Children dared one another to trek through the woods to the old mansion in order to see where the once wealthy, once respected woman had hanged herself. The children came back psychologically damaged, two of them completely insane. Three others never returned. David had researched that much for himself, and regardless of his skepticism toward the supernatural, even at age eleven, there was something undoubtedly horrifying about the place.

David looked behind him, still waiting for Ronnie, a so-called friend who had been one of the biggest provocateurs when it came to insulting David for his lack of bravery. A chilly breeze rattled the prickly spruce branches, whispered softly to David, an uninviting sigh from Mother Nature. David knew it was time to be a man, to stop letting his imagination take control of his logical, rational side. If there were such things as ghosts, there would be countless thousands of documented sources from reputable skeptics and scientists, confirming the evidence. Alas, there were parapsychologists and self-described ghost hunters, people with a presupposition toward the existence of the supernatural, which does not help in the authenticity department.

David took one last look around. A faint laugh was heard from the forest, a child's laugh, which startled him. He thought about it for a moment. He deduced that it was merely his imagination in high gear due to the history of the place. He took in a deep breath and said to his absent friend, "Screw you, Ronnie. I'm going myself."

Ronnie showed up ten minutes later. David's bike was found. David was not. When Ronnie thought he heard something, he leapt into the thicket, peering out only to see the most terrifying thing he would ever see in his life: a creature, taller than human, robed in a long scarlet cloak. It was digging a hole. When Ronnie gasped, the creature turned to reveal the head of a bear. Ronnie ran through the brambles faster than he thought himself capable, hopped onto his bike, and pedaled home in a near blackout daze.

The Bronson police would later interrogate Ronnie concerning his business in the area. He would repeatedly tell them that he was looking for a friend whose bike was seen near there. He claimed to see a beast digging a hole. The police did not believe him. David was never found, nor was his bike when the police searched the scene. Ronnie would never be the same.

## 2

I sat on the airplane brainstorming on a sheet of paper, looks for the show, creative lighting, editing techniques, something to be able to discuss as soon as I found my old, weird friends. I was nervous that they would refuse once again to take part in _Soul Searchers_. If they did, I would have to wing it, hire actors and special effects people. With the budget I was allowed, I was certainly not going to be able to pull it off, and I would have to return with Bert's money, tail between my legs. I'd have to go back to reading scripts for seventy-five bucks a pop if I was lucky. It may seem like decent money (to the likes of Joe and Gary, I was Bill Gates), but living in Hollywood is not cheap, even in the poor neighborhoods. I suppose that's why the dingiest of Hollywood folk would look like royalty when viewed through the eyes of people from the ghettos of Michigan.

I needed someone to operate lights and a boom mic, someone who knew his or her way around editing software. I needed someone to research the cases, to take the phone calls of potential clients. _Soul Searchers_ was not just going to be a TV show. It would once again become a business, so Gary would have to lay off the drinking, and Joe would have to wear shirts that fit a little less snuggly to conceal his mammoth, furry beer gut. But I thought of these things as though Joe and Gary were on board. If they weren't, I was screwed. If they were, there was still much work to be done, much more than they were inclined to do. We had to make up for a lack of sex appeal in our show's protagonists, which would not be easy. Luckily, Joe was relatively intelligent and quick-witted and would offset his neglected appearance. Gary, last I'd heard, had become a career alcoholic. That would not be easy to work around. I was not off to a great start.

When my plane touched down, my father was waiting for me with his lover, Rocky, who was holding up a sign with my name on it. He was also wearing a chauffeur's cap, which may have been an article of headwear from his regular rotation. I'd made a less than understanding first impression when I squealed in fear at Rocky standing in my late mother's flower garden wearing naught but a red speedo. I had no qualms against the way my father chose to live his life after my mother's death, but I did find out that both of my parents had the idea that I was also gay. It was a lot to take in, but I'd had a few years to soak it all up. I was ready to meet with my new parents, my dads, such as they were.

I smiled at their gesture as Rocky opened the back door for me, and I climbed in.

"So you're back in town to make a movie, huh?" Rocky inquired from the driver's seat, his hat still perched atop his head.

"A TV show, actually," I corrected him. "Well, a possible TV show. We'll have to see how much my producer likes the pilot."

"That's pretty exciting," Rocky said.

Dad was still a man of few words, but Rocky was full of questions and comments. Apparently, he'd tinkered with the idea of getting into film himself. A self-proclaimed movie buff, he did not disappoint when it came to the greats. As it happens, _Taxi Driver_ , which was a favorite of mine and my mother's, was somewhere in Rocky's top ten, though he had trouble placing it.

"It's just so hard with so many great movies in every genre," he said. "Then you have to narrow it down by director. Alfred Hitchcock did some of the best thrillers ever to graze the silver screen, but if you're going for top ten movies of all time, you have to narrow it even further. You've got _Rear Window_ , _Psycho_ , ooh, and _Rope_ , that was a good one."

I knew at that point that if my father was going to replace my mother with a man, it had better be a film buff, and Rocky was no slouch.

When we got home, I retired to my old bedroom for a nap. Though I needed the rest, I could not sleep. There was so much to do, and the clock was ticking. I went into my closet and fetched a box of VCR tapes, among them was my very own copy of Soul Searchers, the amateur documentary narrative that Joe, Gary, and I had filmed so many years ago. I popped it in and laughed and cringed, even gripped the edge of my seat, though I knew how it played out. For amateurs, we really nailed it, even if we didn't realize it at the time. Not until we sold out every seat in Cinema Blue, the peep show/porno theater where Gary's mom, Yolanda, worked for many years, did I realize the impact of our work.

I smiled and was near nodding off just as Gary was handing the letter to Mr. Longfellow, father of the late Stephanie Longfellow, whose soul we were guiding to the other side after she'd gotten her vengeance on her best friend, who had been sleeping with her boyfriend. I recalled Joe complaining that it seemed like a soap opera plot, but it was that infidelity, the embarrassment and hurt that it brought which caused poor Stephanie to lose control of her vehicle and crash head on into a tree.

When I awakened, I was welcomed by the savory smell of prime rib. Though Rocky had doubtlessly spent a long time in the kitchen, I had a job to do, and he was very understanding, though he insisted I try a bite. It nearly melted in my mouth, and the au joust was a perfect compliment. Instead of complaining that I would be absent from dinner, Rocky tossed me a roll and a soda and told me to keep my energy up, and he promised that there would be leftovers. I was really starting to like the guy, unusual as the circumstances still felt to me, but it was time to locate Joe and Gary. It was time to film _Soul Searchers_.

