

### Not to be Cavalier

### Published by J. Lewis Celeste at Smashwords

### Copyright 2020 J. Lewis Celeste

### License Note:

### Thank you for downloading this eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Thank you for your support.

Not to be Cavalier

" **It's no fish yer'e buying— it's men's lives."—Sir Walter Scott**

So, it is now 2018, and I feel enough time has passed to share a story that you can choose to believe or not, but I salute the more robust reader who decides to query further into this heart-rending tale that I am about to unfold. For me it is all too true and tragic. Before I delve into the horror I have secreted deep in my soul, I want to stress to those of you that seek to navigate the open seas, whether for trade or recreation to heed the mysteries of the deep and stay superstitious—always, for it may bide you well. Also, I highly suggest that you scour your family history and research any of your kin that may have plied a trade or traveled frequently the open water, and make sure, make absolutely sure, no ill omens attached to these relatives while so embarked. Know for sure if any ancestor perished, or worse, survived when others of crew or manifest did not. If so, I encourage you to seek new employment and travel habits as far away from the ocean as possible. You will see why soon enough.

This story begins with a bizarre re-acquaintance with a childhood friend, which took place 20 years ago, and I'll roll right into that in a moment, but first know this— when the tragic events I am about to relay concluded, I was charged to share all the awful things I witnessed. Gratefully, I was granted the discretion on when to share them, but to share them was unconditional. I want you to understand this, and also, that this is a somber and terrible task— to put to paper these horrible things. Not the writing of it all, no, because no matter how many years have passed, for me, these things happened yesterday, and today and will again tomorrow. But this story has been my terrible secret all these years, and although I relive the nightmare every day of my life, sharing it brings a new and unknown fear to me.

But this, my final task, was unequivocal, and I really have no choice. Well I do, but the consequences of not fulfilling my charge would be another horror, and I really have no room for that. And it is for you, more than another's demand to set the record straight, that I do so. At least that's what I will continue to tell myself. So, this story is meant to warn you, to advise you, that evil deeds done in the past will be answered, and the reckoning can pass through generations if need be. That anyone may be taken to task to pay for some past act, even that of distant kin—any ancestral crime from your shadowed lineage, from those family unmentionables. If a price is to be paid, it will be paid, eventually. Fruit from the poisonous tree, a fine doctrine, but certainly not limited to the barristers, for a bad seed carried to a new orchard is still from that tree and the righting of wrongs, even ancient transgressions can and do happen down the line no matter how far removed.

So please consider your family tree and ponder what, if anything, may require a reckoning, especially if you desire to rock and sway in the great blue sea. For it may come to pass that you will find yourself in the undertow of the deep forevermore to pay a debt for someone you never knew.

Since the horrible events of which I am about to speak of are absolutely true, I must protect my family and my friend's family. So, with permission from he who charged me, I have changed the names of all parties, except those related to the events that occurred over a century ago, the events that led to this horrible tragedy. Those names are real, and the events historically accurate. And so, we begin...

Chapter One

(Arming with tallow)

It was 1998 and I was in my third year at Northeastern University working towards a Criminal Justice Degree. I always wanted to be in federal law enforcement, initially interested in a nautical gig like the Naval Command Investigative Service, or the Coast Guard Investigative Service, or even Fish and Wildlife. But after my first two years in college, I realized that you take what you can get, and I landed an internship with an OIG in Boston, and aspirations to be waterborne were quickly sidelined for any law enforcement opportunity at the federal level.

On a particular night when the weather in Boston was confused—wafting between damp fog and a light clinging drizzle, my mother called. As typical, her timing was surgical, and happened during my baton pass from Heineken to Johnny Black. After normal pleasantries, she told me that she had a strange visit from Giotto DiGenarro, a childhood friend that I grew up with. Someone I haven't heard from in years. She became pensive when she got to this revelation, and since I was four deep on the Heinekens, I immediately thought Joe, or "Joe-tow," as he was known, was now a junkie or worse and looking for a handout from my family. I went from "Hi mom," to "what the fuck," in three seconds. But mom was quick to settle me down and said that everything was fine, but Joe could use a friend. She said he was very polite and respectful and only asked if she could reach out to me on his behalf and left his number.

I parted ways with Joe-tow in high school, but from first grade through middle school we were inseparable. Except when he was working with his uncle in the harbor. Joe-tow was sixth generation Gloucester, Massachusetts, and sixth generation fisherman. His family, the DiGennaro family, is one of the oldest families in Gloucester, and have maintained a thriving business in the heart of the Gloucester commercial fishing industry. For decades Joe's uncle ran the biggest towing and salvage operation in Cape Ann, but by the time Joe was a toddling deckhand, he down sized to just harbor work, puttering around in a 34-foot tug named "Pinocchio". Named because he painted eyes on the forward hull and the spar was light tan, so if you saw it pass by it resembled the little wooden character. Joe got his moniker at eight because his job at that age was to throw the monkey-fist and pay out the towing line. His uncle, who obviously loved puns, replaced Giotto with Joe-tow and his family has called him that ever since.

My family was not sixth generation Gloucester; we were first. My parents both worked in finance, dad in Boston, mom a little further up the coast in Boxford. They loved the idyllic and settled in Gloucester when I was three. Being raised in a fishing town, I readily took to the water and like I said, Joe and I became very close in our forming years. We loved playing with our GI Joe toys and spent hours along the shoreline having epic battles. But as the years passed, Joe graduated from casting lines with his uncle to working on the larger trawlers in his dad's fleet. As we got older, he began missing a lot of school, replaced with work. I never asked if it was his desire, or family commitment, but as we drifted apart, I sensed it was more family pressure than his own will, because he became increasingly sullen and distant.

By my junior year in high school, I rarely saw him, and by graduation he was a memory to me and certainly to the school. So, I was perplexed that he would seek me out now almost five years later. I toyed with the idea of blowing him off, but as a kid I knew him to be very persistent, like when he insisted that Major Bludd always got away. I figured he would continue to reach out through my mother, and I didn't want her in the middle of whatever it was, so I called him the next day. I felt a little awkward and was considering what I would say but lost my train of thought when he answered in a flourish on the second ring.

"Hello!" a hoarse but still familiar voice croaked out.

I hadn't expected a pickup that fast, and was actually hoping for his voicemail, so I hesitated.

"Is that you Max?" He asked in a hopeful rush. Startled, I stumbled out an awkward acknowledgement.

"Max! Hey now, it's good to hear your voice my friend, how are you?" He asked. His tone was slightly less rushed and maybe even hindered in a way, but after five years, his words seemed normal enough, after that almost desperate opening.

"Good Joe," I replied, "my mom told me you stopped by yesterday. It's been a long time, is everything ok?" I asked, hoping for an all good.

But what I got was a long pause; an uncomfortable pause, and I could feel the tension on the other end. Joe was struggling with what to say, perhaps fearful that he would scare me away. When the silence passed the point of appropriateness, I said "Joe?" to convey that maybe we were inadvertently disconnected. Another long pause, but I could her him shuffling about.

"I'm here Max," he finally replied, "I'm just not sure what to say. It has been a long time and I don't want to sound weird and all, it's hard though, but what can I say, I'm not going to shit you. No Max, things aren't that good with me. In fact, things are pretty fucked up."

My stomach sank. Five years was a long time indeed, without even a hello, and now he's reaching out because things are bad? That's never good for the schmuck who calls back. So, after a more natural pause, I offered what anyone would offer to someone they once knew, under the circumstances:

"Sorry to hear that Joe," I replied in a non-committal way.

After another awkward pause, because I offered him no encouragement to further explain his dilemma, Joe made his mournful pitch:

"Listen Max, I know it's been a while and we lost touch. I always regretted that. But family business pulled me away, forced me I suppose. My situation isn't money, it isn't drugs or alcohol... it's..."

He was struggling for words, and my discomfort was flaring, I was caught up in the anxiety of the moment and did, in a curious way, want to know what was going on. I'd like to take that back, replay that moment and instead of prompting Joe, I should have extricated myself, I should have hung up that phone, but of course that is not what happened.

"What Joe?" I urged him, "What is it?"

I could hear him shifting and fidgeting, the sounds of his shambling over the line exaggerated because of the poor quality of the connection, but definitely heightened the stress I felt. He finally pushed words out, words that quickly defrayed my foreboding sense of it all.

"It's a family matter Max, and it's tied to the ocean." He stammered, "from my past, way past," he almost snarled. "It's very difficult to talk about Max, especially over the phone. I just need someone to talk to, someone to share this with.

From a sense of dread, I instantly switched back to common sensibility—

'Not drugs? Not booze? I pondered. Poised again on the safe side of skepticism, "What about the ocean Joe? Are you in debt? Bad blood? Hell, I don't want to know anything that could put me in a bad position Joe. I'm trying to start a career in law enforcement. If you're in the middle of some family issue, maybe you should see a lawyer. If it's dangerous, maybe you should go to the cops." I said, now saddling toward an exit from the conversation. But then he laughed.

The phone erupted in a riot of cackling. Real laughter to be sure, not contrived, but from the soul—passionately bitter humor, eerily pitched, almost shrill. I recall feeling unnerved at that moment; wondering how his deep crackling voice could raise so high. I waited, now leaning back toward dread again, wavering like a seesaw. It took him a few seconds to compose himself before he spoke again.

"I'm not in trouble like that Max, though I can see how you would figure that. No, it has nothing to do with my family, well, not with my living family that is... He paused again, and I heard him take a deep breath.

"Do you believe in ghosts Max?" He asked, now back in his grizzled, mournful tone.

'Ghosts?' I frowned. Was he mad? I asked myself, delusional? Not drugs, not liquor, not girl trouble to be sure. And something connected to his past, his family history. This was not good; I didn't need him hovering around my mother's home if he was seeing ghosts, bothering us with whatever bullshit he created. 'Why did I call him back,' I remonstrated to myself.

"Ghosts Joe?" I said irritated.

"Yeah ... I know Max, I sound nuts and you must be thinking I'm crazy and why did I respond, right?" He said resentfully. "Why did I call this loser back? I get it, I understand, but I'm not crazy Max. I wish I was often enough, then this hell I'm in would be okay I guess because then it would just be in my mind."

He paused again and I could hear his raspy breathing. I waited, for I knew he wasn't done.

"I knew it was a long shot reaching out to you Max. But I am at my end and desperate and I need to share my story. I don't have any friends I can talk to and my family is useless, they would laugh and mock me even more than they already do. I don't know if you knew this, but Uncle Tony died two years ago, and he was the only one who ever really gave a shit about poor little Joe-tow." He stopped abruptly, as if something startled him. I felt his pulse increase rapidly though the phone, but realized it was mine as I held the receiver so tight. His breath quickened and I sensed his agitation and fear.

"I get it Max..." He stammered, "I'm sorry I contacted you like this... Forget about it." Before I had a chance to respond, and I was going to, for human empathy is very powerful, he hung up on me.

"Joe? Joe?" I called out, knowing we were disconnected, but going through the motions all the same. I looked at the receiver in my hand and considered. I had not known his uncle died, and he was truly Joe's only real family. I wondered if he knew my dad had passed away too, just a year ago. Even though Gloucester is a small community, the knowing of some things is just not projected. He reached out. He reached out to me and I can tell it wasn't easy for him. Whether he was nuts or on drugs, the least I can do is hear him out. Ghosts and the ocean, I'm sure it would be fascinating. So, about a half hour later, I called him back. This time though it went to his voicemail, and I fully expected that.

Chapter Two

(By the mark 2)

We met at a bar in Wakefield on a breezy Saturday afternoon. Joe did not want to meet in Gloucester, and he was emphatic about not meeting near the ocean. I recognized him when he entered but was shocked at his appearance. He was gaunt, with bones prominent, way past the point of emaciated. His cheeks were sunken hollows, his eyes recessed smudges. He was weathered, much more weathered than I could have imagined. It was crushing in a way, for we were the same age, but he truly looked like bait cast into the deep, a gnawed trifling that once cut the current but was now just mushy flesh at the end of a hook.

He smiled wanly as he approached in a jerky unsteady roll and held out a thin leather hand. His grip was surprisingly strong and the nubs of horned callous bit hard into my palm. The strength in his wiry arm belied the visage before me and reminded me of the tough life of a Gloucester Fisherman. He ordered a beer and sweet potato fries and began fidgeting the moment the waitress walked away. Small talk was strained and limited to comments on the current weather. I felt bad for him and wondered how long he has lived so uneasily. I waited quietly **,** hoping he would settle down. I was a little apprehensive myself, not sure what was coming next.

The waitress must have sensed his tension as well because she hurried back with his beer. After two sizable gulps, he took a deep breath and looked at me directly for the first time since he walked in. His pupils peered out of ridged crevices focusing on me and perhaps looking at something beyond as well. It was no act, those poor tortured eyes. They screamed horror and torment and I couldn't maintain the gaze for long and looked away. He chuckled bitterly and took another sip.

"Haunting huh?" He asked miserably.

"You look terrible Joe." I said honestly.

"I know," he muttered under his breath. He rubbed his head vigorously, rolled his boney shoulders, and said he doesn't sleep much. I smiled, hoping to break the ice.

"I can tell," I replied deadpan.

He smiled back at me placed his hands on the table and said, "buckle up Max". He took another deep breath, another swallow of beer and began his story.

"My great grandfather was a dory-mate Max. Do you know what that is?" I shook my head.

"Back in his day cod fishing was done by hand and up close, meaning you were at water level hauling in lines. Dories were small shallow boats that were stacked on schooners. When the Captain decided where he would fish, these dories would drop into the sea and drift out dropping lines by hand. Each boat had two mates, dory-mates. These guys had to depend on each other in every way. Cod fishing lines back then had hooks every couple of feet, each baited by hand, hundreds of hooks on hundreds of feet of line. Once the line was all played out, they would slowly haul it back in and with the Captain's luck, there would be plenty of cod filling the bottom of the boat. They would then return to the schooner with their catch. These boats went out in all conditions and it was a very dangerous job. But it was also the most lucrative, for an average schooner can hold 10 – 12 dories and that meant lots of line and lots of fish.

"Anyway, my great grandfather was a dory-mate on a schooner named the "Cavalier," a pretty famous boat in his day. He fished for the Cavalier for ten years, from 1907 – 1916 when he abruptly quit and moved to Nevada. He died in 1936 at the age of 52. His death was listed as natural causes," Joe snickered, and picked at his fries for a moment.

"Does it strike you Max?" He asked quizzically—but didn't wait for me to ask him what he meant— "Why a Gloucester man would suddenly quit his calling in his early 30's and move to the desert never to return?"

I shook my head pondering, but not particularly curious for it could be anything.

"Maybe he got spooked, a close call at sea or something like that and decided fishing wasn't for him," I shrugged and immediately regretted my comment for Joe burst out laughing, that same tense maniacal laugh on the phone. So animated, he was slapping the table spilling beer everywhere. I looked around startled at his outburst. Some of the other customers took notice, but didn't appear to pay it much mind, but I was slightly embarrassed anyway. He got himself under control, wiped up the beer with his napkin and chuckled under his breath more to himself than to me—

"Got spooked," he repeated again slyly.

I began feeling a little irritated by that point. Joe looked like shit, he was acting weird and has now drawn some attention to our table. I didn't need this shit, so I cut to the chase:

"Look Joe, I agreed to meet you here to talk but outbursts like that aren't sitting well with me, so either tell me whatever it is that you have to say or I'm going to take off."

He immediately became conciliatory and asked me not to leave. He lowered his voice and leaned forward over the table, once again haggard and wane.

"I'm sorry Max, you have no idea why that was so funny, and I haven't had any humor in a while, believe me. My great grandfather got spooked all right, but that isn't what caused him to flee like he did. He loved fishing, made good money at it and when he left, he left everything— his wife, his two sons, all of his possessions.

His reason for taking off like that was something more than fear or being spooked Max..." He pushed his half-eaten fries away and leaned back in his chair. "It was guilt Max," he said emphatically. "Guilt and shame drove him away. But no one knew it then and no one knows it now, except for me and soon you." He added cryptically.

And then something strange occurred. Now, all these years later, an old and familiar acquaintance, but at that moment when Joe said 'and soon you,' with an odd feeling of intimacy, I felt the first touch of real trepidation. Not a marginal dreading that I could dismiss, but a palpable, real thing, like a grim shade sitting at the table boring into me. The premonition was like a warning, a foreboding that chilled my soul. My discomfort was immediate and must have been visible for Joe was quick to move forward in his pitch, as if he knew we had come to a critical moment.

"Please Max," he thrust his words at me in a rush, leaning forward again, "please don't go, I need you to hear my story." He gushed out pleading. And his eyes held me, those mournful slits begging from their battered caves, and my apprehension wavered, and the shade rocked back and forth at my periphery, and my mind was saying 'I aught not.' But man's inquisitiveness is a remarkable thing— don't open the door, but we do, don't go into the forest, but we do, don't whatever... but we do, we always do.

So, after a brief struggle I relented and shrugged off the momentary fear that stroked me. And the shade receded into the shadows as I nodded to Joe in reassurance. He let out an audible whoosh of breath and reached for his beer, as did I, and we both drank deeply to drown away the willies that had so suddenly crept up.

The waitress arrived on cue, cleared our table and brought back two more beers. After another sip or two, Joe picked up where he left off:

"The Cavalier was captained by a well-known mariner, Master Robert Porper, a legend from the old Halibut Fleet. In 1907, he recorded the biggest haul ever; 63 thousand pounds of halibut and another 12 thousand of cod, and my Great Grandfather was a part of that crew. So no Max, he didn't quit fishing lightly. He had a lucky captain and their hauls were always plentiful. He was quite content during those years on the Cavalier and lived a good life up until his last trip in October of 1916. That was a very unlucky trip.

"They were a man short just before putting out for that trip. My Great Grandfather's dory-mate had a freak accident the day before and broke his hand and since the Cavalier was one of the last boats to head out, replacements were light. Captain Porper couldn't find any locals and had to go with a recent arrival, a swede named Severin Hanson."

There was an unmistakable flash in Joe's eyes when he spoke the name. He shuddered, shook it off and drained his beer before continuing.

"The trip started bad and finished worse. They had a Jonah onboard and everyone other than the swede was tried and true, so obviously the crew singled him out as the source of their problems. It all started when the cook suddenly died just three days out. It was then the murmurs of a Jonah began."

Not fully understanding his reference, I interrupted.

"Sorry Joe, what do you mean by Jonah, I kinda get it, but I want to know for sure?"

"Oh yeah, he smiled, you wouldn't know would you. A Jonah was a term used back then for someone onboard a boat who brings bad luck. They labeled Severin Hanson a Jonah. After the cook died the situation got worse, bad hauls, sickness, grueling weather. So the crew becoming more and more resentful and suspicious of Severin started voicing their concerns. A group of the regulars petitioned the Captain to cut the trip short and get rid of Hanson. But Captain Porper was not prone to superstition and dismissed their worries, focusing instead on trying to find the schools. By early December the hostility toward Hanson was at it's peak and some of the crew took matters into their own hands."

"Own hands?" I asked.

"Yeah," Joe shuddered again, "up to that point they harassed him regularly, and the Third Mate, a guy named Danny Veara was merciless. He was always accusing Severin of sprucing off and being a gold brick, so he forced all kinds of extra duties on him. The Second Mate covered for Veara whenever the Captain or First Mate asked if anything was amiss. As for the rest of the crew, better Hanson than any of them was the consensus. And my Great Grandfather was stuck in the middle and was having a rough go as well because Severin was his dory-mate. At first he tried to help him, but facing ostracizing of his own, he turned on the poor guy as well and began nodding to the increased mutterings of bumping Hanson off the dory when the weather was right. As for Severin's account, he never complained. He sucked it up, but it did niggle away at him."

I stopped Joe again, I couldn't place the lingo, even though I grew up in Gloucester and spent considerable time on the water, the words Joe was using were foreign to me.

"Joe, I'm having a hard time following you, these words I just don't understand— Spruce off, niggle away, I don't remember them growing up."

Joe paused thoughtfully and I felt like he was gauging me. He started to tap the table lightly with his fingertips, as if he was playing the piano. It was apparent that he was thinking about what to say next.

"Neither do I Max, these were words used back then, I'm just sharing the story."

"Sharing the story?" I asked. "Didn't you say your great grandfather died in 1936?"

"He did."

"So, did he come back at some point? Has this been handed down through your family?"

He stopped tapping the table and looked down at his hands. I looked at them too. Wire thin, sunbaked and calloused hands that should be the appendages of an old man. He flexed them a few times and looked up.

"You would think so wouldn't you Max, it would be the logical assumption of course. But no, I got this story firsthand. But please, let me finish this part first."

I sat back in my chair quite perplexed, and I felt a hindrance at the fringes of my awareness, like that shade that shared our table earlier, a there that wasn't really there, but still unmistakably there. 'Firsthand?' I thought but put it aside as he continued.

"On the night of December 1st, just around midnight, a gust blew fierce on the Cavalier. Hard over her mainsail jibbed, and the strain snapped the mast just above the crosstrees. Hanson was hit on the head and died instantly. At least that's the official story."

I considered briefly, but I was there for a reason, Joe needed to share a tale that has scared him all to hell, and this conclusion definitely wasn't it.

"So, there's another story?"

Another quaff of beer and some more fidgeting, and an odd rubbing of the legs, Joe was working himself up.

"Yes Max, the real story," he said under his breath.

I would like to tell you that the suspense was killing me, but strangely it wasn't. That hindrance, like the shade before was cloying at me for sure, but I was more puzzled than expectant, so I casually asked,

"And what's that?"

He continued his annoying fidgeting, rubbing his rail-thin thighs as if he was revving up. It was beginning to look comical and I was about to tell him to knock it off when he finally spit it out...

"Severin was murdered Max. Veara and his main stooge Alberto Silva grabbed him in the dark on the fantail and they beat his head in with a mallet. And of all people, my Great Grandfather was their lookout!" He croaked out in despair, covering his head with his gnarled hands.

Joe looked like he needed to recover, so I didn't ask any immediate follow-up, even though I had some of course. The most obvious was who told Joe this story? He said it was firsthand and that was the most perplexing thing for that would have to be one ancient mariner to be sure; easily a centennial for it was over eighty years later. Maybe that Veara guy is still kicking around and sought out Joe to purge his soul. But why would Joe be so shook up over it? Sure, it's fucked up to hear that a relative helped kill someone, but Joe doesn't own that.

And what about the phone call, Joe said something about ghosts. Did I believe in ghosts? Sure, he looks like he's been sleeping with ghosts, but surely this can't be why he's so fucked up. I watched him try to get himself back together and wondered if he was actually on drugs or maybe he was getting scammed. But that newly arrived hindrance in the back of my mind wouldn't leave me, a gnawing clinging unease about what was coming next. Looking at Joe's face, his harrowed visage, I hesitated, but then, we are so curious, aren't we?

"So who told you this story Joe?"

He didn't answer at first, he just sat there fidgeting and tapping the table. He was staring at his hands again; lost in this nightmare he created. But I confess as the seconds ticked by my throat dried and my hackles raised, and that hindrance was now hovering behind me. And when Joe began to chuckle, low at first, but increasing, the feeling of a presence behind me was laughing too. My focus narrowed to Joe's face, still looking down at his hands, but frightened, so frightened, and then he lifted his head and his stare was bleak, worse than bleak actually, desolate and inconsolable. I realized he was looking behind me and he was shaking. I wanted to turn, I wanted to dispel this feeling I had that two clammy hands were on my shoulders, but I was riveted on poor Joe, locked in on his calamity. Then he gasped and perhaps I did too, I don't know for sure, and in his wretched gasp he said what I knew he would say for I came to the same realization as a chill ran down my spine emanating from my shoulders.

"You know that Max, you already figured it out."

Chapter Three

(By the deep 3)

My drive back to Boston was not very pleasant. Freezing rain was pelting my windshield intermittingly. A pattern orchestrated by swirling gusts of wind. Route 1 was busy as usual, New England drivers, so used to inclement weather barely notice icy conditions. With Thanksgiving a week away, the always ever-punctual punctual puritan ethos was alive and thriving as moms and grandmoms choked the slippery road to stock up for the coming holiday.

But it wasn't the driving conditions that perturbed me, although the annoying cut-offs were irritating. No, I was troubled and could not take my mind off of Joe and his strange story. So spooked in fact, that I kept looking in my rearview mirror expecting to see a dark figure in my backseat. My shoulders still shuddered from that ghastly touch! 'Just my imagination,' I reasoned for the twentieth time. I knew there was more truth to Joe's story than fiction. I felt it, like I felt the specter behind me.

Before we parted, Joe and I agreed to meet the following weekend in Gloucester. He said he had something to show me, something that would answer many of my questions. And I sure had questions, a lot, even if I could not formulate them right then.

'Ghosts? Really Joe?' I speculated, but that eerie feeling I had at the bar, that odd "watching" feeling was still with me. And what else could explain Joe's wretched countenance? His odd behavior? Sure — drugs, insanity, maybe a little bit of both — but aren't the ghosts those terrible illnesses create real in some way? I remember my dad's brother had ghosts and they were real as fuck. Uncle Barry was a Vietnam combat veteran and an extreme alcoholic and when I was ten, he stayed with us for a couple of months. My dad was trying to help him, but it was hopeless. I remember watching Barry once run in circles in the living room waving his arms over his head screaming about locusts. My dad grabbing at him, telling him there was nothing there, but to my uncle they were there, and it was terrifying.

And then Barry woke me up one night, soon after. He was sitting at the end of my bed panting and gasping and pointing a shaking finger at my desk chair.

"Who's that Max?" He asked in a trembling voice. I looked at the empty chair not yet awake and mumbled that no one was there. But he was convinced, and he said, "look Max, it's a boy, younger than you and he's wearing shades and a ten-gallon hat! Surely you see him Max?" He pleaded, his voice rising, his fear rising. I could hear my father getting up, he was calling out for Barry, but Barry needed something right away, and a ten year old boy knows empathy, he knows sympathy, and before my dad got there I saw the boy with the cowboy hat and his smiling cherub face and I told my uncle so, and I dare anyone try to me otherwise, as he crumpled into my father's arms crying hysterically.

There was one question that I was able to put together for Joe as we waited for the check. And I reflected on it as I drove. We were both pretty freaked out, and antsy to get out of there, me for obvious reasons, and Joe for so many more, but this one pressing question I was able to muster —he refused to answer! And he started getting shrill again when I gently pushed, so I backed off as other patrons looked over again.

'Why Joe,' I asked him, 'why is Hanson haunting you?' I thought about it hard all the way home and I couldn't shake the terrible answers I came up with on my own. And for the next few days, even as I tried to concentrate on other things like class assignments, all I could think about was why all these years later would Hanson seek out Joe? There were so many others in his family, his uncle Tony stuck out or any of his cousins, even his dad. Why Joe and why now?

Another creeping thought I couldn't shake, and actually the recurrence of which kept me wondering—even as the days passed, when superstition generally diminishes the further removed from the source—was a nagging omniscience that that shade in the bar was still with me. Sitting in the back of my car, standing in my closet, curled up under the bed. So palpable that I was leaving lights on at night. But other than this persistent awareness there was no actual manifestation, even as I steeled myself every time I moved the shower curtain. But the thought dominated that it was _there_ —hovering around, and that it was real and now inevitably linked to me. The notion this was so was indeed profound, very profound.

As the week progressed my dread of the weekend increased. Although I had no siblings, my mother did — a sister in New Hampshire, and a brother in western Massachusetts **,** and it was her turn to host, and she _loved_ to host. So, my aunt and her family, and my uncle and his would be heading to Gloucester for the holiday. They would stay through Friday and leave Saturday morning after a nice brunch as was the tradition in our family. Joe and I agreed to meet Saturday night, so I would have a couple of days to digest Gloucester before we continued our odd reunion, and the rest of the story as they say... at least, I hoped!

My dread wasn't so much the pending meeting with Joe, as was the proximity I felt I was placing myself to this dark presence which made my skin crawl. 'Was it Hanson?' I wondered, 'could it actually be?' I didn't feel any malevolence toward me, but I sensed a great sadness and loss and an underlying loathsomeness. I felt that as I got closer to Cape Ann and Gloucester Harbor, that shade cloying at me would become stronger and even more real, like physically real, and for so many reasons this distressed me greatly.

Wednesday afternoon arrived and it was time to go back home. I packed a bag and headed up the north shore. I was always grateful that my family gatherings were close, the farthest trip was to Aunt Claire's in Lincoln, NH and that wasn't too bad, even with traffic, maybe three hours. Most of the time, whether Thanksgiving, Christmas or the Fourth of July, I got to wherever the festivities were being held without much traveler's stress. But this time was different, being embroiled in the Joe-tow saga, I was hoping for some serious traffic, something that would put more time between me and this inevitability I was feeling.

No dice, I made it to my mother's house just as the sun was setting. Aunt Claire beat me there, I guess she drove down earlier in the day. She was six years younger than my mom and a very hip and trendy soul for her age—somewhere in her late fifties at the time—but I'm not saying, even though this was two decades ago! She is still with us now, the only one of the three. She is still sharp, up on the scene and completely independent, and me and my cousins dote on her. My uncle Dave, the eldest passed away in 2008, he was in his mid-seventies at the time and a lifetime smoker, so you can surmise what got him. My dear sweet mom followed him four years later from a different form, but cancer is cancer.

I was glad to see my aunt; she was always a hoot and the life of the party. The stories of her youth are always such a great pastime for me and my cousins! Yes, even the young can live vicariously! Aunt Claire was something in her day for sure. Not only was she her sorority president, but also the Greek Council president, voted unanimously three years straight! Yeah, the legendary escapades of her class at Plymouth College are still shared today and will probably be as long as the school exists.

My mother was never one to "tie it on," but she did enjoy a few glasses of wine on special occasions and I could tell by their animated chatter that they already had a couple of glasses. Aunt Claire gave me a big hug and kiss and began asking me the usual probing questions about school, health, social life, why I hadn't called her in a while and of course the big family speculation— why no girlfriend? I mumbled out some grades, and got to "I'm good," about my health, when my mom rescued me and handed me a grocery list.

"I hope you don't mind sweetie, but I forgot a few things."

A quick glance down and I frowned, it looked like she forgot quite a few things. But I shrugged and extricated myself from Claire. She gave me another big kiss and summarily dismissed me by turning me back toward the kitchen door, adding "we need the pineapple and marshmallows soon so don't dawdle!"

It was light dusk when I walked back outside, and the breeze off the ocean carried the familiar brininess that always used to excite me. But at that moment, alone again, just back in Gloucester, with this peculiar Joe issue in front of me, all it did was tease me that ill portent was to come, and it was unsettling even though I was home. I looked around briefly before I got back in my car feeling as if something was watching me. My mother's house was on a street two blocks from the harbor, so I didn't have a clear view of the ocean from our driveway, but I could feel her reaching out. The ocean did that in coastal towns, she let you know her presence whether you were facing her directly or not. I thought about the Cavalier, about how hard it must have been hauling those cod lines, especially in small shallow dories. I thought of Joe again, wondering what he was doing at that moment. We had no contact since we left that bar in Wakefield. I sensed that he was giving me space.

He knew I would be in Gloucester for Thanksgiving, I told him so and that is why we agreed to meet on Saturday. I hoped I didn't bump into him before then, and I sure as hell hoped he didn't decide to stop by the house. Not that it would be awkward, which it certainly would be, but something was nagging me that this thing with Joe, and now regrettably, with me, needs to be kept close, very close. I was definitely spooked, and now back in Gloucester, my heckles were prickling and I didn't need Joe showing up with that fucking shade in tow! No pun intended.

Mom's shopping list drained me fifty-eight bucks, and I had to substitute canned cranberry sauce because they were out of fresh. But I didn't mind that because I was always partial to canned anyway. When I pulled back into our driveway, two more arrivals: Uncle Dave's pick-up and my cousin Sherri's VW Golf! I smiled, Sherri was a trip and likely my favorite cousin—although I love all my cousins—. Sherri was a gothic chick who loved to portray a sullen, dark mysterious girl, but she was actually the sweetest, most caring person I knew. She was a year older than me and we spent many summers together growing up. Over the years we developed a very strong bond. I hadn't spoken to her in a couple of weeks, so she knew nothing about my reacquaintance with Joe. Sherri knew Joe, many of those summers when Sherri would stay in Gloucester with us, we would pal around with Joe and at one point in our early teens, I suspected they had a crush on each other, but as far as I knew nothing ever came of it.

I thought briefly of telling her the story, at least to let her know that Joe had some problems, but as I got out of my car, that dark scrutiny returned, even more profound now that it was night, and I quickly reconsidered. Sherri would immediately empathize and want to see Joe as soon as possible. And that tug at the corners of my soul cautioned that this would not be a good idea. So, as I shuffled back into the kitchen with more shopping bags than I normally carry, I promised myself that I would avoid the Joe topic altogether. And it seemed to me that this internal agreement was strangely acknowledged.

The night started out pretty well, we hung out in the kitchen area playing trivial pursuit while my mom and aunt worked their magic. Trivial pursuit was a family favorite, especially to Uncle Dave who usually won. He was a Jeopardy junkie and knew everything! Sometimes, we would all team up against him, picking the hardest questions, but he sure knew his shit and that night was no exception.

Sherri and I were getting quite buzzed on Captain and Coke and we were trying our best to stump Uncle Dave. We kept replacing the question cards trying to find the most obscure thing that he couldn't possibly know, and when he did, we would howl! And on his rare misses, Aunt Claire would rip his shit and we would all hoot even louder because that always pissed him off. He would stomp away saying the question was fucked. One of our favorite pastimes—busting Uncle Dave's balls when he didn't know something!

The rest of the family would be arriving the next day **;** Ben, Dave's son, was bringing his new girlfriend, a big deal with the coven who would be sizing her up immediately. She had no idea what she was in for. Ben had found the "one" at least four times up to that point and Aunt Claire was ripe with inquisition questions for Dave, asking him all kinds of details to which Dave hadn't a clue. All he would say was, "she's a doll!" Not getting anywhere, Claire finally said "well, Ben has had quite a few dolls!" And we all laughed. Yeah, this poor chick was going to get grilled for sure.

Ben's twin sisters, Becky and Pamela were coming up from Rhode Island, both attended Brown University and were in their senior year. I never asked, but I think Uncle Dave got some sort of discount, or my cousins got extra scholarship money being in the same ivy league school. They were both brilliant, very studious and were "save the world," focused. Becky was getting a degree in cognitive neuroscience and Pamela in biophysics, and no, neither of them were nerds! They were fun, cool and hip, they just happened to be brainiacs, like their dad! Rounding out the crew was Claire's husband who was the Fire Chief in Lincoln, NH. He always worked the night shift before Thanksgiving, and unless something happened that would delay him, he made it to wherever we were before the dinner bell, which was always 2:00 sharp!

Things were going quite well, and I almost forgot the foreboding anxiety I was under, when Dave, who was on the verge of completing his pie—I think he needed green which was Sports and Leisure, his weakest category—when he opened the kitchen door, heading out for a smoke. As he was about to exit, a sudden urge compelled me, rather forced me, the more I recall it, to look outside. And what I saw staring right back at me caused my cackles to race up my spine! So immediate was my shock and horror that reaction alone forced me to rise up in fear, in fear! And I knocked over my drink as I yelped in the most pitiful way a man can ever do. I scampered off of the kitchen stool and backed into the wall, awe-struck and speechless.

The sequence of events that surged at that moment, I can assure you, I have recollected over and over again these past twenty years. Sherri, who was looking for the perfect trivia question reacted to the spill with a "what the fuck Max!" She never looked up to see what I was staring at, even though she was seated next to me and would surely have seen the foul apparition in the driveway. My uncle stopped, casually holding the door open, as if he was meant to, looking back at me with his cigarette dangling from his lip and smiling in a bemused manner. And both mom and Aunt Claire, each gifted with that keenly aware maternal instinct, looked over with immediate concern. My mom uttered "Max!" sharply, which is likely the initial reaction of all moms when they sense their child is suddenly afraid. My aunt, slightly pickled by that point, but with alacrity, pulled aside the window curtain to see what just scared the shit out of me.

But it was gone, just like that! But it was there— and the stench of it lingered in my nostrils as the haunting image pierced my brain like a spear! I knew immediately who it was and why it had appeared. A hello! A hell of a hello from the shade that has shadowed me since I sat with Joe in that bar a week before. And I feared a visit from Joe! There before me for that split second, yet an eternity since, emblazoned like a burning portrait seared into my mind, a photo of a besotted, tattered shell of something that once was a man— the salty reek, the seaweed matted hair, lank and splayed in clumps around a skeletal visage, like old moldy funeral drapes parted just enough to showcase a long dead face.

But it was alive! He was alive! Certainly corporeal, standing and dripping outside my mother's kitchen door. Glowering at me with flinty, piercing green glowing eyes that burned into me, welcoming me back to Gloucester.

It seemed like forever to recover, but I knew it to be just a few moments, terrifying though they were. I saw my aunt looking through the window, my mom scrutinizing me closely, Sherri, glancing toward the doorway, then asking if I was going to help her before all the cards got soaked, and my uncle, chuckling and looking back and forth with his cigarette jangling, "What Max," he said whimsically, "did you see a ghost? Halloween was last month!" He walked outside and closed the door.

And that last action brought me back, I started mechanically to help Sherri, as Claire passed me paper towels. I focused on the task, dismissing the whole event by saying everyone gets the jitters now and then. But my mom knew better, though I didn't know this at the moment, and she had a worried expression on her face as she considered me. I felt her staring and tried to reassure her by fake laughing at Dave's comment. But she knew something just scared the shit out of me and she let me know she knew a little more than that—

"So, you must've reached out to Joe?" She asked evenly.

I looked at her, suddenly concerned about what she might actually know, and noted also, Sherri's speculative stare.

"Joe, Max?" Sherri inquired, "You've been in touch with Joe?"

Chapter Four

(A half to the white cotton rag)

Consider it paranoia, or this queer omniscience I recently developed, but I glossed over the reunion with Joe and mom, and more importantly, Sherri let it go after a bland recounting of our "brief" reacquaintance. The last thing I needed was to rehash what Joe told me to my family. And I reminded myself, that the story wasn't over yet. I was curious that my mom didn't chime in. She would normally push me to extract details, but oddly she just listened quietly. I sensed that she knew I was not being forthright about my contact with Joe.

The night wrapped up around midnight and I went to bed troubled on multiple fronts. 'Was I going crazy? Was that really Severin in my driveway? How ghastly!' I shuddered, quickly searching for something else to focus on. I was somewhat mollified that I was able to deflect as well as I did, and avoid even more discomfort in front of my family, glad that Sherri or Dave didn't push it. But I knew mom knew something more about the whole thing and that worried me. But these fleeting thoughts were mere distractions, trying to avoid the thing I was really thinking about—that horrid presence in my driveway.

To say I had the heebie-jeebies that night would be a gross understatement. I had been wired tight about half-way through Joe's story a week ago and my anxiety definitely increased since. But now, after seeing that shade in the real, rather than just feeling it, that vaulted me to another level of trepidation to be sure. I must have peeked out of my bedroom window ten times that night. Every time I heard a sound, even just the wind blowing, I would crawl out of bed and sneak over to the window certain I would see it again. Was it sitting in the tree? Maybe lurking in my backyard? Perhaps waving from my neighbor's window, or just hovering in the air watching me!

But nothing more that night, just that one time. 'But why?' I asked myself over and over. 'Why would Severin make a house call and why did I know it was Severin?' I was seriously creeped out and thought of calling Joe and confronting him about it. But I had my family here, and the rest to arrive tomorrow. I had to wait, and I knew it, but what the hell did I get wrapped into? 'Was I going to be the haunted now? Was this like a baton pass?' With these troubled thoughts plaguing me, sleep was elusive, but I was finally able to doze off by focusing on Uncle Dave snoring in the next room.

I woke up around eight from all the bustle and repetitive toilet flushing. I heard from the chattering that my cousins were a couple hours out. Sherri was talking about the Macy's parade, which was always watched, along with the usual line-up which followed: "The March of the Wooden Soldiers"; "The Wizard of Oz"; "Miracle on 34th Street"; "The Sound of Music"; and the finale, "It's a Wonderful Life"! This steady flow of Christmas spirit got the coven all revved up for their shopping extravaganza the next day. The men in the family avoided most of this by drifting down to the basement, where we had a pretty nice man cave set up, courtesy of my dad. There, we drank beers and watched football and stayed the hell out of the way.

When I made my way downstairs, Sherri and Dave were sitting in the living room watching the balloons float down Fifth Avenue. It was a blustery wet day and I felt for the balloon handlers, especially with what happened the year before. Uncle Dave was chuckling and said even with the John Deere tractors, the wind and heavy rain was going to cause another shitshow. I hoped not, but the weather was not looking good. Mom and Aunt Claire were in the kitchen doing their thing, they both loved cooking and they worked so well together. Sherri certainly did not have her mom's culinary passion, but the twins can throw down and when Uncle Dave hosts, the four of them ultimately get into it over cooking methods and techniques and we all stay well out of the way or risk being called upon to judge something.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and stared out the kitchen window. It was a dreary wet day, and I heard Claire say it was snowing in Lincoln.

'When does it not snow in Lincoln,' I quipped to myself. I focused on the spot where I saw Severin the night before. I was looking from a different angle, trying to force myself to believe it could have been a trick of light. Our driveway lights were motion-sensored, so any movement set them off, even blowing leaves, and there were plenty of leaves. 'Could it be just my imagination? And why am I so sure it was Severin? I have never seen him, so I had no idea what he looks like.'

But the lanky figure that was there the night before somehow signaled that it was Severin, at least my weird sixth sense said it was, and although still maintaining a healthy level of normal doubt, I was not in normal anymore and I was convinced he actually paid me a visit. But why? That fucking "why" that has pestered me since Wakefield.

"It's not still there is it Max?" My mom asked suddenly, teasing me of course, but I obliged all the same, shaking my head as I watched four leaves chasing each other in a tight circle. I heard Claire chuckle lightly as she opened the oven door to inspect the turkey. The smell was wonderful, enough to pull me from the trance I was in watching those leaves play. Mom gave me a quick hug from behind and then told her sister that she needed to speak to me and gave me a light tug.

I followed her upstairs to her bedroom, and she closed the door behind us. I always felt odd entering her bedroom after dad died. It felt like I was intruding, even when invited, like I was not supposed to be in her sanctuary. And at that moment, I felt it more than usual. She looked at me critically and patted the bed to sit beside her. I complied of course, but with one of those forewarning "son to mom" remarks—

"What mom!?" with just the right tone and inflection to convey budding irritation, which every mom has ignored since the dawn of time.

She immediately pacified me—another unique skill all moms have had since inception—telling me that I deflected very well the night before, but she added that Sherri was very keen and astute and she will bring Joe up again, and then asked, as if reading my face,

"You did know she had a thing for Joe, right?"

I was mollified by her compliment, but more intrigued, for I know my mom and I knew this was going somewhere interesting. As she reads me, so I read her—a skill of sons since birth, you know!

"Really mom?" and I meant that, "I always suspected something was going on back then, but I never asked."

"Oh yes," she remarked conspiratorially, "for a couple years she was smitten. She used to write the cutest crush poems and cut out red hearts, the whole bit. I'm surprised you didn't know."

"Well, I wasn't keen on stuff like that back then mom, so I wasn't paying attention I guess." I remarked, "Was it mutual?"

"No, unfortunately. It was Sherri's first foray into love and Joe was not reciprocal. I think they kissed a few times, but it didn't go anywhere." And I sensed mom's sadness at that. I looked at her sharply—

"Mom, we were just kids, are you kidding? Romance as a tween?" I asked her incredulously, then added "and things were getting weird those last couple of years, him missing school and ultimately dropping out, and the exhaustive demands of his dad and their family business, that was when Joe started distancing himself."

"Yes," she said, very melancholy, "I remember Max, I know it upset you so much, and that summer when you turned 14, Joe wasn't around at all, and you and Sherri were heading in different directions as well. I remember the constant tension and the two of you bickering all the time. It was a bitter summer for you both and if you recall, the last one you spent together as kids."

"Yeah, that was the year for sure, but I don't get why you are so sad about it, like, do you think her innocent love could have saved Joe from his family? From his destiny—and as I said that word, I think my heart skipped, as if perhaps my cousin's love would have. And I stopped at a sudden loss for what I was driving at, caught in that what-if. Mom didn't catch the awkwardness of my pause for she was in her own discomfort, but I didn't realize that. I saw Joe's face, I saw his fidgeting habits and his fear, and I was suddenly melancholy too, because surely Sherri could have made a difference. As I wondered about that, I noticed my mom was suddenly fidgeting as well. Her way was the rolling and wrapping of the hands in her lap, and I realized we were not in her bedroom to discuss my early teenage years.

"Why are we here mom?" I asked pointedly, feeling the closeness of the room, her consternation, and thinking of how she had just said how I deflected so well the night before. She didn't reply right away, and took as much time as one does to almost make the other person say something in encouragement, but she finally pursed her lips, stopped rolling her hands and said—

"Joe stopped by the other day. He mentioned that you met last weekend and were going to see each other again here in Gloucester. He didn't want to intrude on us during Thanksgiving but wanted to drop something off for you."

From melancholy back to irritation, like a seesaw, I switched so fast. I didn't want my mom mixed up in this mess and now apparently, she was! To what extent, I needed to know so I began to pry.

"You know it could be drugs mom, or quite possibly he's insane. I don't want him coming around here and I will tell him." I said adamantly.

She watched me in a pensive way, not from some concern that my protectiveness would somehow create problems between Joe and I, it was something more, as if she was on the brink of sharing a secret that may hurt me. I felt it intensely, her indecision, and my irritation increased because of it. So I stood up to move about, suddenly needing to be mechanical. She waited a moment, a long moment then said softly:

"It's not drugs Max, and Joe is sane, perhaps too sane under the circumstances."

And that was it, I thought, that was the "aha moment" I was searching for. "Circumstances mom? What do you know about his circumstances?" I demanded a bit too harshly.

She sighed and her fidgeting increased, but she waited to speak, and all I could do was stand there looking at her. Now, years later I know why she was hesitant, but not then, at that moment I only knew that Joe involved my mother in his troubles, and I was pissed.

"What did he tell you mom? What did he say!?" I pressed, my voice rising. 'How dare he!' I thought.

She stopped rolling her hands and clasped them together. She asked me to sit back down, which I did in frustration. After another few seconds of tense silence she said:

"He is being haunted Max. He is terrified and so alone." She paused, shaking her head in compassion. "I'm so glad you went to see him, and that you are going to see him again, he needs you Max, he needs a friend."

"Haunted?" I blurted, "is that what he told you?" I probed. She shook her head.

"No, he told me nothing, though I did ask, Max. I love Joe. He was like your brother all those years, and I could tell he was hurting... I know what I was seeing." She paused again, slowly shaking her head. "He looks awful Max," she murmured. "I tried to get him to open up to me, to the point tears were in his eyes, but he would not relent. He said he could not. He said he could only share what was happening to him with one person and that person would not be me." She sighed, and took a deep breath, "what he is going through is heartbreaking."

Placated at the revelation that Joe did not tell my mother what was going on, my anger reduced noticeably. But I was still troubled by her words. That he could only tell one person his problems alarmed me for sure, but it was that other thing she said that concerned me even more, that she knew what she was seeing, what was that all about? I looked at her closely and her discomfort increased under my scrutiny. And I asked her the question that she knew was coming—

"What do you mean you know what you saw?"

She didn't answer right away, and I knew her resolve had vanished. She looked toward the head of her bed, the side my dad used to sleep on, staring vacantly, as if in a daze. Then she nodded, very slightly, almost imperceptible, and it would have been had I not been watching her so closely. And another revelation began to dawn on me, one that certainly raised my hackles as I too looked toward the headboard.

"You knew what I saw last night didn't you mom?" I blurted with sudden epiphany, "you knew it wasn't my imagination." She nodded, this time with certainty. "Yes, Max, I know you saw someone, I don't know whom, but I know it wasn't your dad." She replied confidently.

'I'm sure it wasn't your dad... I know what I was seeing... haunted'.

The words jumbled around chasing each other like those leaves in the driveway. I grasped at her meaning while fixated on the place my father used to lay. And then it smacked me, the immediate clarity of it all... Preposterous! I wanted to shout, but was it? My soul was warning me to tread lightly, my heightened intuition on edge, I looked closely at the pillow, at the headboard, and my skin crawled anew. Nervously, I asked her—

"Mom, does dad haunt you?"

She nodded again, gazing at something on that pillow, '... my dad?' I wondered, trying to discern an outline, a faint indentation, but I saw nothing. She turned toward me suddenly and the spell was broken, I almost jumped back from her movement, the tension had been so taut. She had tears in her eyes, but not from fear or from a hollowed sense, for she had the blush of roses in her cheeks and her glistening eyes twinkled.

"Not all hauntings are bad Max."

As we sat there, suddenly holding hands, a peace came over me. A sense of right and good as I tried to see him sitting there with us. I like to think that I did see him, at least all these years later. I didn't but be assured I have no doubt that he was there. As I absorbed what had just passed between us the doorbell rang, and we heard pleasantries being exchanged. The twins had arrived. Mom looked at her watch and said:

"We need to finish this up, I told you Joe dropped something off and he asked if you could take a look before you meet again. He said it was important." She got up and went to her closet and retrieved a large manila envelope that was very worn and old looking. It was covered in various layers of duct tape, most noticeably where it had been opened more than a few times.

"I think it's a book, at least it feels like one, but I didn't open it. I almost did," she said smiling, "but I wouldn't do that to poor Joe." She handed me the packet. It had some weight to it and as I turned it around in my hands, I couldn't locate any markings or posts. Just a lot of duct tape.

"Don't open it now Max," mom cautioned, "it's for your eyes only and we need to get downstairs anyway. I do hope you can help him Max." I nodded, examining the envelope. She turned to leave and was about to, when I asked her if we would talk about dad at some point. She looked toward the headboard again and smiled. "Of course, Max, I was so worried you would think I was a whacko, but yes, you need to know some things. How about Sunday, before you head back to school?" She suggested. I said that would be fine and we left her quiet bedroom, quiet, but perhaps not empty.

For the rest of the day, I did my best to be a part of the family gathering, but my mind was pre-occupied with memories of my dad and the previous holidays when he was with us, often vying with Aunt Claire to be the life of the party. He was such fun at times. A bull at other times, and an ass more times than not to be sure, but I missed him very much and the notion that he was still there with us, just not in the flesh was both comforting and sad. And more, this developing sense that things are not always as you may think, and I mean the intangible things, was weighing on me. But I held up and pushed my newest companions, dread and melancholy, away and I did enjoy most of the day, as if that creeping unease hovering at my peripheral took a break for the holiday as well.

Chapter Five

(By the mark 5)

I got to bed around 1:00 in the morning. I thought about opening the envelop but I was tired, and I knew if I started now, I wouldn't be going to sleep any time soon. I put it in the drawer in the nightstand, so I couldn't see it and focused on winding down. It was difficult, but there were enough fun moments during the day for me to recall that I was eventually able to out my dad, Joe and Severin out of my mind. The ladies were going to head out around 5:00 am for their shopping ritual and they were taking Ben's girlfriend with them. 'She was a doll!' I smiled, recalling her lively attitude and quick witty comebacks.

She won over the coven in record time and Uncle Dave gloated about it all day. Dinner was excellent, the desserts sublime, and the night finished with laughs and remembrances.

Uncle Dave and Claire's husband, Jim, were going to leave later in the morning, Dave had some "secret plans" that he wouldn't cough up, even with Claire's most vicious needling. Jim had to get back to Lincoln because he was taking the night shift again. That left me and Ben until the ladies returned. And depending on their gusto, that could be many hours. Ben and I got along well enough, but he was ten years older than me and we didn't have much in common. So, I wasn't looking forward to spending idle time with him, especially when I had some serious stuff to tend to. Fearing my mind was drifting towards Joe's mysterious parcel again, I pushed the thought away and focused on Uncle Dave's snoring. I was thinking of ways to excuse myself from Ben when I finally drifted off.

Stress can have so many effects on us. One of which is certainly not deep, restorative sleep, rather the opposite—insomnia. I was definitely stressed out the whole week leading up to Thanksgiving. And, I am normally a light sleeper, easily wakened by the slightest sound. And without question, every night since I met Joe, I have had difficulty sleeping, hearing everything all night long, especially Wednesday night! But that Thanksgiving night I crashed hard. Maybe one's mind when pushed to the brink of mental exhaustion forces the neurons to shut down, the synapses to pause. I don't know, but I definitely was knocked out. I didn't hear the ladies leave, which I am sure wasn't carried out with timidity or stealth. Surely, there were banging doors and lively chatter as they gathered and planned their excursion. And I would have slept through Uncle Dave and Jim's departure as well, had I not been physically roused by Dave who was shaking my shoulder vigorously.

"Get up Max, Jim and I are taking off soon," floated through my hazy brain.

After a few grunts, Dave left my room muttering how is it the "kids get all the rest." I looked at my watch and it was 9:45 am. 'Damn, I did sleep in, didn't I?' I hurried myself and got downstairs about ten minutes later to say goodbye. It was Jim and Claire's turn for Christmas, and we all agreed we were looking forward to it. I even quipped:

"As long as we don't have to get there by a sled of our own of course!"

"Yeah, Jim," Dave added, "aren't you guys snowed in already?"

"Since September Dave," Jim replied deadpan. We all chuckled, knowing full well that the fall season in the white mountains was gorgeous and many tourists, especially from Europe visit the Lincoln area for the idyllic New Hampshire Indian Summer.

After they took off, Ben and I sat in the living room watching highlights from the football games the day before. Ben was a big sports fan and he was still irritated at the overtime coin flip in the Steelers/Lions game. He said that the ref should have done a reflip. Of course that's not what happened, instead, the ref claimed Bettis said "heads-tails" while the coin was in the air and he decided to honor the first call of heads. The Lions got the ball and went on to win 19-16 three minutes later from a sudden death field goal. Ben predicted there would be a rule change because of it and said the call should be made before the flip. He was right, for not a week later, the NFL made that decision, coin toss calls were to be made before the flip, not during.

I wasn't as much of a fan as Ben. I followed the Patriots and Red Sox of course, but if it wasn't a home team playing, I wasn't that involved in the goings on. Unless some crazy play happened, or the game was so intense that you'd be a fool not to watch it. And the Vikings/Cowboys game definitely provided both. I agreed with Ben when he said Randy Moss was an incredible receiver and would have an amazing career. Moss was a rookie in 1998, but during that Thanksgiving game, he caught three deep passes, all touchdowns, and all impressive. Minnesota won 46-36 in a thriller. We chit-chatted about the games for about a half an hour, then I excused myself to go take a shower. He told me to take my time, he was going to head out in a few to get some things at the store and that he had work to do as well. That was good by me, relieved that I didn't have to host for the day. I headed upstairs excited to get to that package, now that I was free and clear.

I thought about that shower for a moment, but my pent-up eagerness led me right to the nightstand, and I took the envelope out without hesitation. I turned it around a few times, looking for markings I might have missed the day before, and considered where to open it. But like everyone else before me, I settled on the overused top seam. I fished around in my old desk looking for something to cut with and found some scissors from my childhood. I paused, reflecting for a moment because they brought back some memories, and as you know, I had been spending quite a lot of mental energy on memories the past couple of days.

They were red plastic safety scissors and I smiled recalling the many silly arts and crafts projects I used them on. I also remembered when I graduated to real scissors. I remember the pride when my dad handed me "real" scissors to cut out a snowman during Christmas when I was eleven. I handled the scissors fondly and wondered if they were the same ones Sherri used to cut out all those hearts to Joe. I still hoped to avoid having to discuss Joe with her, especially at that moment, as I was about to see what was in the envelope. I did, by the way, I avoided telling her about Joe that weekend, and I regret it, like I regret a great many things about this story, but it is what it is and you decide if it was right, you decide.

Being safety scissors, it was difficult to get the tip under the thick gummy duct tape, but I was eventually able to worm it into the corner and cut along the seam. The first thing I noticed was the smell. Very musty, almost moldy, old for sure. I pulled out the contents, two books, an old black composition book, and what appeared to be a green leather scrap book or photo album. Both books were very worn and brittle-looking. The scrap book cover was also duct-taped, across the front binding. It wasn't very thick, but I could tell right away that there were brown sleeves inside that contained items, some of which bulged in places.

I decided to look through the composition book first because right in the middle of the front cover in faded blue ink I could make out the name "Alberto Silva," and that name brought me back to Joe's narrative about how Hanson was murdered, and Silva was part of the group who carried it out.

A chill ran up my spine realizing I was holding a journal or diary from one of Severin's killers. I opened to the first page and was disappointed to find that the yellow, musty paper barely held the faded entries. Most of the writing was so faded that I knew I would not be able to read it, but there were spots that I could make out, but that was the second layer of difficulty, apparently Silva was not very literate and created his own spelling and most of it was not even phonetic! Also, his penmanship was atrocious, with very crude lettering. I almost put it down to look at the scrap book, but as I flipped through the pages, I discovered that the entries abruptly stopped about three-quarters of the way through the book. And I confirmed this by carefully turning the pages of the last quarter or so, to see if there was anything more or if pages had been ripped out. Finding no evidence of either, I turned back to the page with the last entry, obviously drawn to it as anyone would be in my circumstance.

This final entry was not as faded as the others, and certainly more discernable than the first page, with some of the lettering imprinted with such force that they not only indented the page, but in some places pierced through. I made a few attempts to read it, but the best I could make out, was that it was some sort of prayer, or a rambling request for help or forgiveness. Each word was misspelled, but unlike other entries, it appeared to me that they were written in a rush, and as I already mentioned, hard put— almost frantic.

Now, to offer you the best accounting of what Silva wrote, I will interpret what I was able to deduce, but it would be silly of me to write the words verbatim, for the letters I was looking at made no sense. And I still have the book if anyone wishes to give it shot. But these are the lines I was able to salvage, and after careful review over the years, and with what I experienced afterwards, I think you will agree that I did a decent job:

"God help me! Lord please guard my soul!"

"I know a reckoning is come... I know my part now... I fear! I fear! Oh Lord save me... I fear!"

With what I already knew at that point, the words, once deciphered, creeped me out considerably, and I looked around my room fearful I would see Severin's shade watching me. Certainly, Silva was afraid of a reckoning and with how his entry suddenly stops, I couldn't help thinking that the reckoning took place then and there. I read backward from that last entry—well, to the best of my ability to be fair— he didn't number the pages or indicate a new entry by date or other marker, just a scrawling mess of created words.

I was only able to discern the different entries by a blank line, like a paragraph break. The book was ruled, although most of the lines were more faded than Silva's chicken scratch, but if there was a space between the lines as it were, I determined it to be a new account. The entry just previous to the final one was just as frantic and difficult to extract much from, but what I was able to flesh out was harrowing: —

"Dan got done... by the by."

"He got muckled and sinkered."

"Danny what have we done?"

"We the Jonah now Dan, we the Jonah... Lord save me!"

Page after page, hard to decipher gibberish with only sporadic words I could make out. A lot of "God," and "Lord help me," a lot of whining and groveling. Misspelled slang terms like "blotto," which means drunk, "bunk," for nonsense, a few "gousers," and "beating the gums," complainers and idle chit-chat respectively, but most of all, better than fifty, sixty percent of the passages, I was clearly able to make out "we have to pay."

After pouring over the journal for an hour or so, I turned my attention to the scrap book. When I flipped to the first page, I was so startled that I dropped the book. The book fell onto the floor open to that first page **,** and staring up at me, centered on a brown background surrounded by hand drawn crosses and misspelled bible verse, an old black and white photograph of a tall young man with shoulder length hair with a sad forlorn expression— a previous version of the shade I saw in the driveway, a live version to be sure, but without any doubt, a photo of Severin Hanson. My hands trembled, involuntarily, as I absorbed his sallow gaze, his empty dejected stare. As if he knew in that picture that he was doomed. I picked up the scrap book and looked closer at the crosses and verse circling the photo and I could tell it was Silva's writing and it seemed to me an attempt to either enshrine, or to contain the sad countenance of Severin.

My skin crawled as I stared at the photo and that fringe sixth sense that has been haunting me as much as Severin's shade was buzzing with the implications of it all. Distantly, like a far-off cry, something inside me wanted to know definitively that the picture was of Hanson. There were no markings on the photo itself and no indication of who it was on the page it was affixed to, so I tested its bond with my fingernail, jittery as my hand was, and lifted the corner slightly. Creases developed where it bended up and I realized that I would destroy photo if I tried to pry it off the backing. 'Perhaps on other pages,' I surmised, and turned to the next two. More photos, none of Severin, but photos of crews on boats and men posing on docks. One of a man in a Captain's hat smoking a pipe, possibly Porper; another of two sailors standing side by side smiling. One short and stout, reminding me of Smee, from Captain Hook, the other, larger with jutting forearms. Below the photo the words:

"Dany an me, Cavleer, 1918."

The next two pages, more photos, none that caught my eye, and some newspaper clippings about the Cavalier, Captain Porper and his knack for finding halibut and cod. One clipping drew my attention, it was dated December 9th, 1916. It was an article regarding the death of Severin Hanson aboard the Cavalier, December 1, 1916. Like everything else in the collection, the ink and the paper it was printed on was brittle and fading, but I was able to read all of it, and here it is in its entirety:

"Struck on the head and instantly killed by a falling spar in rough seas, Severin Hanson died. Hailing from Sweden, he was a recent arrival to Cape Ann. Like the many other foreign arrivals seeking a prosperous livelihood in the Gloucester fishing fleet, he would roam the docks seeking an opportunity to fill in for a light crew. Some might say he was fortuitous, at least initially, when an unexpected injury opened a slot for a dory-mate late in the final run of the season for the esteemed Cavalier, and her renowned Captain Porper.

"Upon return two days past, the captain reported the tragic death and stated that Hanson was able-bodied and competent, and carried his weight on his first and only trip out on the Cavalier. A sad finale to an unfortunate expedition from the start, and all the worse, for Hanson's remains were swept out to sea never to be seen again, even though his body was securely lashed to the top dory upon return to port.

"It was a terrible go all around," Captain Porper relayed, "we lost our cook Olson early on as well, just keeled over a few days out, so we had to put in at Novia Scotia for a replacement. That never bodes well for sea-faring men—losing your cook—most sailors see that as a bad omen, and in reflection, it certainly appears that this was so. After Hanson's death, we set to return to harbor post-haste, but the seas were rough, the wind howling and the night dark as pitch, so she claimed her prize she did, and took the dory Hanson was in, may God rest his soul. And for the whole damn trip we only hauled in a meager 8,000 pounds Halibut and 10,000 of Cod."

Hanson was unmarried and has no known family in the Cape Ann area, his possessions will be maintained by Our Lady of Good Voyage until next of kin are notified."

The next two pages of the scrap book contained more photos, two of which immediately drew my attention, one of which almost resulted in me dropping the book again— a photo of the crew from the Cavalier dated 1915! Veara, the Smee looking 3rd Mate, and Silva, and circled over and over again in charcoal or pencil, as if someone was transfixed and just kept circling...

The face of Joe! Clearly Joe! Absolutely no question to me, to anyone, I dare say, if I were to show it around. Same height, same body-type, same skittish demeanor even, haloed over and over again in angry dark circles, Joe-tow! Joe-tow staring back at me! And it freaked me out to the point that I pushed the book aside and got up pacing my room. Pacing back and forth, rubbing my thighs that were suddenly cold.

Wild, crazy thoughts bombarded me. 'Reincarnation?' I wondered in astonishment... 'that Joe was Mario was Joe? Could it be?' And that repeated phrase throughout Silva's journal—"we have to pay"— 'pay what? Pay whom? The shade? The sea?' I wondered.

A more realistic notion, pushed aside as I absorbed what I just saw, but there waving, saying keep it together Max— 'he's just the spitting image of his great grandfather,' it reasoned, 'nothing more, just an amazing coincidence.' The more I paced, the more this secondary idea took lead and eased my troubled mind. Just a startling coincidence, a shocking thing to be sure, but under the circumstances— why was I even looking through these pictures in the first place! — this more palpable concept began to dominate my thinking, settling my radiating nerves, calming my frayed senses. Eventually I sat back down and picked the book up again.

The second picture that drew my eye was another photo of Veara and Silva. In this one they were not smiling. They looked drawn and haggard, worn out. And Silva's script beneath looked mournful as well, scrawled slowly:

"Dan an me – 1926"

The next two pages held nautical memorabilia like old discharge books and hand-written graphs—charts of fishing grounds in the banks— an old pamphlet on cordage and knots. Nothing of particular interest, though I was careful to look through the material in case they hid some secret or clue.

The last page chilled me anew, but now a cyclic event, so I bucked up and continued to stare blankly as the goosebumps ran amuck again. Centered just like Hanson's on the first page, one final photo of Veara and Silva with similar crosses and bible verse encircling. And their faces were no longer just haggard, they were haunted! And I knew this because they looked as grim, as hollow, as defeated, as Joe. Their eyes were sunken, their vigor all gone, just casings of flesh around empty souls waiting for death, waiting for death. The picture was dated November 1938.

I wasn't able to glean much more from Silva's journal, but I did notice that it was loosely chronological. And it appears Silva began writing it after the murder. Near the front I found an entry that refers to Joe's great-grandfather. Following is what I was able to piece together:

"Ass Mario took off bat and hell," translated – like a bat out of hell.

"Danny pissed coward fuck."

"In it no matter where goes."

"Dan not worried... No worry Al... Mario say nothing... be stupid,

he in irons."

"Let's get blotto, blow scratch."

I kept going back to the crew photo with Mario in it—Mario, Joe, whatever, it was so uncanny. I was immersed for hours and didn't take that shower until late in the afternoon. There was no point in any more review, I was fairly sure I got as much as I could from the material and put the books back in the envelope and placed it in the drawer.

The coven returned around five and they were quite sated. We spent the evening shooting the shit and eating leftovers. My mom and Aunt Claire retired early, exhausted from the day's events and they both had very little sleep the night before, even though this was routine to them, the older you get the more it taxes you. The rest of us watched movies and chatted, but I knew I would eventually get cornered by Sherri. I didn't want to lie to her but more important than that, as a matter of course, I could not let her know how bad Joe was doing. I concluded that I would minimize the contact I had with him and leave descriptions out of it.

She approached me in the kitchen after we finished watching Caddy Shack and asked me about Joe. I told her how he had reached out a couple of weeks ago and we met up in Wakefield. I put on an air of humdrum recollection and said he is always busy on the boats and we really didn't get deep about anything, mostly small talk, nothing that interesting. She asked if he mentioned her at all and knowing what I knew from my mom, the best I could do was be truthful in that regard, and that regard only, even though I knew it would upset her.

"No," I said as casually as I could, "we didn't talk much about family or the past." The stinging truth followed by a blatant lie all in the same sentence. She chewed on that for a moment, then asked how he looked, and I replied, "like a seaman Sherri, a hard-working fisherman." She smiled, then shrugged and we walked back into the living room to see the next flick, one of my all-time favorites— Kingpin! And I felt very good about how that went down and looked forward to some more comedy for a change.

Chapter Six

(By the deep six)

We met at Pratty's at 5:00 PM as arranged. I found him at a table near the door. He looked worse than before, and only a week had passed. My stomach turned and I grimaced reflexively, as if my face had to react to his desolation. He was not haggard anymore, now he looked gone, worn out to nothing, like that last photo of Veara and Silva. I was mad, confused and had a bunch of questions, but I could not look at him and stay callous, which was my original intention for dragging me into his nightmare. But my heart broke for him, immediately and sincere; the memories my mom churned up, all of those good times growing up could not be denied, and now I was staring at my childhood friend as he literally stood next to his open coffin.

He was almost a shade himself, I thought, and then how quick the mind switches— 'Was that it?' I asked myself, as my self-preservation reset. 'Was Severin somehow leaching Joe's lifeforce?' I recalled all the vampire movies I have seen, even some that were fairly recent like "An Interview with a Vampire," and "Bram Stoker's Dracula." 'Was Severin slowly sucking the life out of Joe? Was that the price? Is Veara and Silva ambling around as shades of their own? And after Joe, then who?'

I sat down and placed the manila envelope on the table. Joe looked so defeated, so wrung out, that he didn't even bother to greet me.

He looked at the envelope like it was poison. On the contrary, although I waxed and waned with all the stress and sympathy, the fear and the concern, I was full of energy, brimming I suppose, and full of charged questions and accusations. And like I said, these shifts from care for Joe to care about me were like vicious switchbacks that cut back and forth with fierce determination. I wanted answers, I needed clarity, and I did have questions now, many in fact. So, I didn't bother with worthless pleasantries either. And watching Joe, I wasn't sure how much time I had.

"Have you looked through this?" I asked abruptly, pushing the envelope toward him. He glanced up briefly and nodded.

"Did you circle your face?" I asked, but more like accused, and hopefully I might add. He winced and shook his head but didn't offer anything more.

"How often does Hanson haunt you Joe? I asked in an icy tone, almost hissing the question at him. He started to tremble and looked around nervously. His eyes were wild and bloodshot, and his hands suddenly on the table pushed the envelope away in a quivering jerky spasm. His voice crackled like old vellum—

"What Max... is he here!? Tell me he's not here!" His fear was palpable, and another switchback, but only a brief one because I needed answers —

"No Joe," I softened, but just for that moment, then I pounced because my own fear rose up like a shade of its own— "But he has paid me a few fucking visits as well!" I snapped at him sharply, "Ever since we met, he's been hovering around me. I think the fucker followed me to Boston. I couldn't shake the sense of him! And then Joe, then, he pays me a visit in my mother's driveway the other night, like a fucking welcome wagon. And I know it was him Joe, I know!" My voice raising, my peripherals narrowing. "And I need to know why Joe!" I spit out harshly.

Joe began blathering in a low mumbling babble. His trembling was now full-blown shaking. He began moving his head side to side with singular purpose and increasing force, but I didn't relent I was so angry to be involved, and my mother involved, and my dad another ghost for Christ's sake, and all the unknowns—the fucking unknowns! If Joe was about to drop dead and transfer this horror to me, I wanted to know it and I needed to know why.

"Why Joe? Why is your ghost now haunting me?" I barked at his piteous frame, slapping my hand down on the envelope. "Why did you involve me in this shit? Do you have to pass him on Joe? Is that it, like a fucking pyramid scheme, am I the lucky bastard you selected?" I yelled, besides myself, even as, distantly, I could tell that I pushed Joe too hard.

His head kept moving side to side with piston force, and he cradled his bony shaking arms around it and started to rock, almost like a mentally disabled person would respond to such an overwhelming of his senses. And the other patrons at the bar took notice, everyone around took notice and what they saw, was me badgering a sick, broken young man. Most of the patrons were locals and cast dark looks my way, with many of them muttering under their breath words I couldn't make out, but definitely felt. I backed off, leaning back in my seat, but I had gone too far, and Joe **,** being well known in Gloucester, there was no pivot I could make that was going to curtail intervention.

Two men in particular, I noticed as I scanned the bar, were very focused on me and Joe, who, by the way, was still rocking and cradling his head. They looked angry and were speaking to each other closely. I was about to lean toward Joe to pat him on the shoulder or something when they both stood up and walked toward our table. One of them, the larger of the two, and older looking, with a full beard shot with gray called out to Joe as they approached:

"Joe-tow, you okay? What's this guy said that got you so upset?" He asked menacingly.

Now, I'm no slouch, I was in very good shape back then and I wrestled all four years in High School, making state three years in a row. I took fourth place in my Sophomore year and lost the championship twice, back to back to the same guy from Lowell, who was phenomenal. In fact, had I not set my career goals on law enforcement, I could have gone to some snazzy Ivy-League schools on a three-quarter scholarship. But I chose Northeastern and I have no regrets.

Regardless of all that, I definitely wasn't looking to square off with anyone, let alone two. Before I had a chance to begin conciliatory efforts, Joe snapped out of his paroxysm. He lied immediately, and very convincingly. I was impressed with how quickly he transitioned, and I played my part appropriately.

"Hey Mike, Tommy," he began, hoarsely, with a flutter in his voice, "it's ok, this is my friend Max, he just broke some bad news to me, it's a big shock and very upsetting." He said slowly, as he composed himself the best he could. They looked skeptical and the smaller one, looking directly at me said:

"Yeah? It looked like you were pretty mad fella, you looked more angry than sad to me."

"That's right Tom, looked more like bullying than sharing some bad news." The big one said, then turned to Joe, "everyone's noticed that you aren't looking well Joe, hell, you've been wasting away for weeks. And when you left the boat back in June without any explanation... we're all worried about you, especially your family." He paused, gauging Joe's reaction, which wasn't much, he was looking down, fidgeting. "Is it drugs Joe? Are you on drugs? Is this guy your dealer?" He asked, ramping up.

I started to tense, waiting for the first swing or grab, I would take the big guy first and the empty table across from us would be the landing spot. Right when I thought it was coming, Joe gesticulated by throwing his hands up in disbelief.

"Drugs Mike!? Are you fucking kidding me!? I'm not on drugs. I'm having a hard time and I needed to take some time off, so what? And I told you this is my friend and we're good. In fact, Max is here trying to help me. We grew up together, Max is from Gloucester!" He said in growing exasperation, "please back off, thank you for caring, but it's just some bad news and I lost a little control that's all."

I hadn't moved or spoke since the two of them approached, I didn't really have an opportunity. I felt like a schmuck not speaking up, but Joe was doing his thing and my role was not to give any additional reason for either of them to take offense, because then it would no longer matter what the original intent was—friendly support, trying to help, whatever— the superseding one, that of direct confrontation, would take over as it usually does. Joe got up and ushered them both back to the bar. The smaller one kept eyeballing me, looking for a reason to escalate, but I gave him no opening. After a minute or so, Joe came back to the table gesturing for us to leave.

We sat in his truck in Pratty's parking lot, we were both pretty hyped up and frayed and after a few awkward moments, I apologized for my outburst.

"Sorry Joe, this shit is freaking me out. Everything in Silva's journal and the pics Joe, the fucking pics! It's you Joe, it's a spitting image of you. It's crazy, all of it and Severin and all the crosses and shit, what is that all about? I saw him Joe! Why am I seeing him?"

Joe was rubbing the steering wheel, shaking his head in exasperation and said suddenly **,** "Let's get out of here." He started his truck and pulled out. He fumbled around with his cigarettes and after a few attempts got one in his mouth and lit it, inhaling deeply.

"It's bad Max," he blurted, tearing up. "It's so fucking fucked man; you have no idea. I'm sorry, so sorry to involve you but I had no choice. I had to pick someone, and it had to be someone that would help me."

I didn't get that, what he meant by "no choice." I understood his family might not have helped, but those guy's at Pratty's, maybe one of them would've, or some other friend, but I didn't think on it too much because his driving was erratic, and I began to regret getting into his truck. If he was as gone as he looked, he could easily say fuck it and drive us both into the harbor. I checked the door lock in case I had to jump for it. He caught that and laughed bitterly, that maniacal laugh I remember from our first phone call.

"Don't worry Max, I'm not gonna do anything crazy — crazy is happening to me!"

He pulled into Fort Point, pulled into a parking spot near the playground and killed the engine. It was a blustery evening, and I was hoping he didn't suggest a stroll, which he didn't, he just sat staring out the window smoking his cigarette.

"To answer the questions you had earlier, no, this is not a baton that I can pass on. It is mine exclusively, my burden, my anchor chain." He sniffed bitterly. "And yes, when I saw that picture of my great grandfather, I had a similar reaction. The only other photo of him I ever saw was in an old family album, and the lighting and angle were different, and although I recall that we looked alike, it wasn't as freaky as the one in Silva's book."

He paused, took another drag and flicked the cigarette out the window. This annoyed me. Litter bugs piss me off, especially people who throw their cigarettes out of car windows, but I didn't say anything because of the situation. He took a breath as if to steady himself and continued:

"As far as Hanson haunting me, he first appeared to me about a year ago. That first encounter was very brief, we were heading out to the banks and it was dusk. I was on the fantail having a smoke and I caught a strong whiff of chum. It immediately struck me as odd because we were making way and our bait was in the hold. I suspected we were coming up on a large carcass, which happens sometimes, caught in loose drift netting, maybe a shark, or even a whale. I looked toward the bow to see if I could see anything floating toward us and to my amazement, I saw an old Jon boat, with a dark figure onboard off our starboard quarter.

"My first reaction was to yell up to the pilot house, but as I turned to do so, I noticed the smell was coming from it, so I asked myself how could a shallow Jon boat be out here? I looked at it again, no outboard, no oars even, and it was in bad shape, a derelict, and should not be floating. And the figure, he didn't move, he just bobbed up and down on the swell. I could not see his face and he made no sound, but I knew he was looking at me. I hailed him, and also yelled up to Tommy in the pilot house to look starboard. But before Tommy replied, the figure and the boat disappeared, as if swallowed by the sea. When Tommy, now looking out the window asked what I saw, I could not reply. When he asked a second time, I lied and said I thought there was some netting, but I was mistaken. It freaked me out and I spent days during that trip looking for it again. But after a while, I figured it was just my imagination.

"Six months later, we were returning from the banks from another trip and I had the mid-watch. We were about sixty miles southeast of Sable Island and he walked right into the pilot house as if he was part of the crew" Joe shuddered in recollection. "I smelled him before I saw him, and that close it was worse than rotting chum! When I turned and faced him, my knees buckled, and I gasped! He was horrid! I know I don't have to describe him to you, but the missing part of his head drew my eye, the jagged edges of broken skull, the matted kelp stuck like the ocean's bandage, the empty eye-socket. I have seen him up close and personal many times since, but that first face to face was the worst. And he can appear less ghastly if he chooses, but I guess he wanted my full attention, which he surely got.

"He didn't say anything at first, allowing me to absorb the reality of it all. I remember thinking this was the figure in that Jon boat, and if reading my mind, he nodded slowly. I tried to dispel him, dismiss him as a figment, a trick being played on me. And yes, Max, like anyone else would I tried all the methods to make this happen—looking away, pinching myself, stating out loud 'this can't be!' All the while shaking like a leaf. But he was real, and he was there, just without the flesh!" Joe said with a snicker. "When I gave up trying to will him away, he spoke—a gravelly, water-choked rasping:

'I have come Mario,' he said, 'I have come, and time is nigh for you to pay.' And then he waited, as if expecting me to reply. But I couldn't reply — I didn't have that function at the moment. But my mind saw hope! My brain, grappling with the horror before me, for a flashing second, saw escape!" Joe sputtered unabashedly, wiping his eyes. He paused to calm himself down and lit another cigarette. He took a deep drag and rubbed his head vigorously. A habit, I noticed, as if he could wipe his reality away. After a few moments he continued:

"After he realized I couldn't speak, he added, 'the others have paid, now you must pay.' All I could do was shake my head at him Max, trying to let him know I wasn't Mario, and at that moment I had no idea what Mario he was talking about! So, I meant what I was trying to say Max, without doing a very good job of it, I wasn't Mario!

"I'm not Mario!" Joe spluttered forth. "And he seemed to know my thoughts Max, and this time he shook his head slowly and said—

'No, you are Mario. Blood for blood is the price. You must pay.' By that point, I was able to muster some response and I asked him 'pay for what?' He turned slowly, this way and that, looking out the pilot house windows; he raised a bony, fleshless arm draped in seaweed and old netting and said, 'this is my domain and I have waited, now my wait is over and you must pay.' And like any other fool, with fool-in-the-brain fear, and not knowing what else to think, not understanding who Mario was, not even linking my great-grandfather at that point, I asked him what I had to pay? In reply, a gurgling chuckle, that raked my soul Max! Then he said, 'that I will explain another time. For now, I task you with two errands, each important: one to explain, the other to explain to.'

"And my brain, latching onto 'another time,' was so grateful that he was not about to drag me into the deep, eagerly asked for those tasks so he could leave, anything for his foul presence to leave without taking me with him! And still a distant hope that I would wake from this nightmare. But as you now know Max, this nightmare is all too real," he said bitterly. "The first task," he continued, "I was to go to Oak Hill Cemetery and dig up an old seaman's chest by the headstone of a man named Alberto Silva. Inside I was to find those two books in your lap. The second..." He stopped, misting up again, his trembling increased as he flicked ashes out of his window. "I'm so sorry Max!" He cried out, "I had to choose again, and I made two previous choices, but Hanson didn't accept them. But he agreed to you."

My hackles raised, a habit of my own now, each time another shocking revelation was made. "What do you mean he agreed to me!?" I said, alarmed at the implication. Joe smoked and rubbed, smoked and fidgeted, and I glared at the side of his distraught face, fighting the urge to shake the shit out of him. He finally answered me, but it didn't mollify me one bit, not one bit—

"Obtain a suitable witness. There must be a witness."

Chapter Seven

(Red woolen rag)

Of course, I asked Joe what Hanson meant by "witness," and what made me "suitable." He shook his head and said —

"He hasn't explained that part yet Max, and that is one of the reasons I'm so fucking scared. I don't know what I have to pay, but I know it won't be good, whatever it is. He said _blood for blood_ , and I have to pay Max, if I don't others will. And considering whatever happened to Veara and Silva, which I don't know because he hasn't said—all he says is that the others have paid— but looking at their last photo, I'm thinking it was their lives, Max! And I can't help thinking I'm going to lose mine too!"

He started crying again, a wretched low quivering wail. I reached over and grasped his shoulder. He leaned over the steering wheel in misery, snuffling and trying to speak, but he was a mess. I sat in silence, what could I say? It'll be alright? Don't worry? Empty words, best to say nothing. We sat like that for a while, maybe five minutes while his sobbing lessened. I released his shoulder with a couple of pats and waited, feeling helpless.

But there is always that selfish thing, especially, as I intimated before, when you realize that what you think is, is not always. And I wasn't sure at that point if the "suitable witness" was a backup plan if the subject defaults. I'm not being coy, rather very serious for my initial instinct was to tell Joe to run, go to Vegas like Mario did, to get away from the ocean, away from Severin. But in my inner, self-preserving thoughts, I cringed at that idea, fearing that if he took me up on it, payment would transfer to me.

I'm sorry I thought that then, but I'm just being honest. Under those terrible circumstances, where I was facing such an implausible reality— ghosts and evil deeds and blood debts—but facing it nonetheless, and knowing it was real, and really happening. I think you can understand that I preferred my position compared to his. As a consolation to him, or perhaps to myself, I thought about spiritual help, and I suggested this to him. But Joe scoffed—

"God isn't going to help me, Max. I've been asking for months. For all I know this is His justice."

I made no comment. Who was I to offer an opinion on the goings on of God? What happened to Severin Hanson was abominable, a stone-cold premeditated murder. So, although I felt what was happening to Joe was terrible, I didn't have any standing to say who has to pay for what. Indeed, if this tale has an underscored caveat, it is that we may inherit more than pecuniary debt from our predecessors. And in Joe's sad case, much, much more. Eerily, as if things could get more so, my sixth sense suddenly surged with a feeling of righteousness, as if my sentiments on the matter concluded something profound and just. Almost like I somehow justified, in my private thoughts, my role as the witness in this whole mess.

"After I retrieved those books," Joe gestured at my lap, "with Hanson standing over Silva's tombstone, directing me, I went home and looked at those pictures and tried to read the journal. I spent hours at it but didn't get very far. I did figure out that my great grandfather was the "Mario" Hanson was talking about, and they were on that schooner together, and I realized that something bad must've happened on it that involved them. And of course, the resemblance between me and Mario freaked me out—but how does a fucking ghost get an identity wrong Max? It was so long ago, and now I'm Mario? Really? Because I look like him?" Joe shouted in exasperation. He shook his head in disbelief and continued—

"After hours of getting nowhere, I dozed off. I don't know how long I was out, it could have been a minute, or it could have been hours, but I woke with a start, from that familiar nauseating reek. I opened my eyes and there was Hanson dripping his green slime at the edge of my bed. I stifled a scream, or perhaps he stifled it for me, as I pulled myself into a ball as far away from him as I could. He gurgled, which I took for a sneering laugh. But it left quick enough because he seemed annoyed. He pointed at the books spread out on my bed and said:

'You don't see do you Mario?'

"I shook my head, breathing hard and told him, 'I'm not Mario!' He sloshed— 'You are! Blood of the blood! But I will remind you.' He then told me the whole story, the whole fucked up thing: starting with the death of the cook, the continual harassment, increasing assaults and torment, then his awful murder—in grisly detail—and the scheme afterward to toss his corpse into the sea. And then their laughter, their camaraderie and euphoria after the foul deed! His bitterness oozing out as he described every detail.

"He told me that Captain Porper and the rest of the crew believed it was a falling spar that killed him, as it made perfect sense given the circumstances. But it was actually the perfect cover-up because it was rough that night and the mast did break, and this bit of dark fortune became the convenient truth for the conspirators—for rather than simply toss his body overboard and let the Captain report that he must have fallen overboard in foul weather—they had the perfect story—'the po' greenhorn got hisself kilt by the raging sea! The words of Veara in the wheelhouse, remember Mario? But it did not sit well with you did it?' He hissed, 'No, you fled, but as you see no one can flee from such deeds, and now you must pay.'"

Joe was running low on cigarettes, chain-smoking as he was. He lit another one and got out of the truck without explanation. He disappeared for a few moments, enough that I was getting concerned, but then I saw him walking back muttering to himself.... He got back in and said under his breath that he had to take a leak.

"Let's talk about Silva's stuff," he suggested, gesturing at the envelope. So, we went over everything that stuck out and compared thoughts. We concluded the same things, adding what Hanson told him directly. Joe explained why he believed Veara and Silva had paid with their lives. He pointed out the line 'Dan got done' in particular. He also cited Silva's last entry, how it just ended like it did. He told me that muckled was a term they used back then for smacking the fish to kill them or knock them out with wooden mallets called muckles. Sinkered was more obvious, a weigh on a line to ensure it sunk.

I was silent, his prospects were bleak and we both knew what we were thinking. I purposely avoided comparing how Veara and Silva looked in their last photo with how Joe looked right then, but the similarities were alarming. What it suggested, I didn't want to get into, for Joe couldn't be any more fragile or broken than he already was, so whether he was at the end of a chain, one way or another, I wanted to avoid him losing the slim hope he still had.

"I won't tell you my first two choices for the "witness," (he air-quoted), as you don't know them, and telling you their names doesn't really matter. What _is_ important, is that Hanson was looking for something specific for that role, your role..." He paused in consideration. "A quality," he continued, "an understanding I guess, I can't pinpoint it, but whatever makes you, _you_ , I guess. He told me so last night when he delivered one last task for us."

"Us?" I blurted. Joe rubbed his head again, nodding, revving himself up again, "I haven't been on the water since that trip back in June Max, and the last thing I want to do is to go back out there," he waved toward the harbor, "but we need to take a boat ride, you and I..." He couldn't finish, he choked up again. As he battled his emotions, I considered everything I knew up to that point and my gut was hollowed out thinking of what was to come. I looked toward the harbor with dread.

"What if we don't Joe?"

My question lingered like the haze of smoke surrounding us. With a mighty effort, Joe was able to get himself under control.

"I can't run from this Max, I want to, don't you think I've wanted to?" He gushed. "But the consequences would be terrible, and it would be my fault this time, not Mario's." He added somberly.

"Consequences Joe?" My flesh crawled. "Yes Max, he warned me about fleeing again. He said he would place a curse on my family, a binding curse that would endure for generations. He said he would become our Jonah forever! He described how he would continually torment the DiGennaros: 'Every bright moment would be followed by a darkness, each achievement, ten-fold failures, a new birth will cost two deaths—the briefest of joys followed by lingering pain—' He said he waited for me to return, he waited a long time, and blood for blood is the payment, if not the one, then all will suffer."

I watched Joe struggle with the obvious — I was struggling with the obvious too, and I was also struggling with whatever portends for me. Would my family be cursed if I didn't follow through as the witness? And when will I receive my instructions, for I still had no idea what the witness was supposed to do. When will Hanson appear to me? On this boat trip?

"Tell me about this boat ride Joe," I asked as softly as I could. He was slowly rocking himself at this point and rubbing his legs. I felt so terrible for him, he knew what was to come and he was trying to face it, but who can accept that which we fight so hard against? The unbelievability of it all, and the apparent price for the wrongs of an ancestor he never even knew! And I knew that I must steel myself as well. I knew I had to stick with him through it whatever the end, and that bitter taste of self-preservation deep in my throat that disgusted me, I still held onto like a beacon.

"December first, Max, in three days. He said, 'be in her, out of the fort heading north by midnight.'"

It wasn't lost on either of us that Hanson wanted us on the water the very day and time he was murdered. We sat looking out at the harbor, each lost in his own grim thoughts. As I considered the surreal likelihood that I would be the only one of us returning, I began to worry about the potential aftermath. No one would believe the truth; I was deeply involved, and it's hard enough for me. Would I lie? What could I say without drawing suspicion? My mother knew I was trying to help Max, and those two men at Pratty's, hell everyone at Pratty's saw us, and my behavior toward Joe. I would be accused of murder myself; I was convinced of it. Was this the twist on why Hanson needs a witness? The passing of the baton that I feared was Joe's idea, but is much more sinister? The more I thought about it, the less inclined I was to join Joe on that boat, and I was on the verge of telling him so. But strangely, as if by cue, he started speaking again—

"Hanson told me to leave the harbor alone, and to make sure I was seen. He said I was to pick up the witness somewhere north, out of the way, unseen..." He faltered again, absorbing the implication. "I guess he doesn't want the witness, _witnessed_ Max." He said grimly.

And I am ashamed as I write this, for I was so relieved at that consideration, for it suggested that whatever my purpose was to be in the horrible events to come, I was to be unknown afterward. And shame to me more so, that I did not focus on what that also meant for Joe.

"Have you ever been to Halibut Point?" Joe asked.

"Yes, many times, we used to go there often for picnics."

"Meet me off the point, around seven Tuesday night. The park closes at dusk, but you can park and walk to the shore. Bring a flashlight and bob it three times and I'll know it's you. There are a few spots I know of where I can get close enough that you won't even get your feet wet." He spoke mechanically, exhausted, resigned to his fate. We drove back to Pratty's in silence, I got out, said I would be there on Tuesday, and left the manila envelope on the seat.

I drove back to my mom's house in a mute daze. I was so mentally and emotionally drained that I couldn't think in any string, my mind flashing from one remembrance to another, unable to focus or continue a thought and I was grateful for it. My mother was still awake, watching television in the living room, I suspect she was waiting up for me.

She asked how Joe was doing, and it was all I could do to minimize, but as I said before, moms know the thing of things regarding their children and she knew the situation with Joe was dire, but she didn't push. I told her I was tired and was going to bed. On my way up the stairs, I stopped abruptly; I had my fill of ghosts for the weekend, and I needed to get out of Gloucester to clear my head, so I turned back to her and said:

"Mom, I'm thinking of leaving early tomorrow. I know we were going to talk about dad, but I think I need some time before that talk." She nodded, "Of course Max, I understand."

Sleepless and restless best describe the hours since I left Joe Saturday night. I self-medicated Sunday night and suffered for it all day Monday in a hungover daze. Monday night, I tossed and turned as much as my mind did. As if I was stuck rolling in a strong eddy or twirling in a whirlpool. All night long I found myself sitting up to shake off a sudden rush of anxiety at the what-ifs I was to face the very next night. I winced often, wondering how poor Joe was holding up. No one but Joe and I knew of our pending trip, and no one but Hanson knew what the outcome would be, yet the signs we concluded, were ominous.

I went to classes Tuesday morning, but I didn't gain anything. I was thoroughly distracted and basically just filled a chair. I was only there in a corporeal, focused on my fated rendezvous with Severin Hanson, the polar opposite of a worldly presence. I skipped my afternoon class, as it was from 3 – 5 and I didn't want to risk being late. I certainly did not want Joe freaking out waiting for me, he was in such a fragile state already. No, I intended to wait for him. I wanted Joe to see me on the beach waiting for him, a signal that we will face whatever horror was to come together.

I got to the park a little before six. It was the tail-end of twilight and the parking lot gates were closed. I was afraid that would happen, but then, leaving my car in a conspicuous spot was probably not a good idea, if by happen chance a Rockland cop on patrol sleuthed too much and runs my plate. For many reasons, I didn't want to leave any trace that I was in that area, or worse, on the water that night. But I had a contingency, actually an even better idea; I had been to the park many times and I knew I could turn right into the park, which was not gated, and park at the old quarry building which was still in use by the Parks Department. I would tuck it close to the building so it would look like it belonged there if anyone took notice. I didn't hesitate, wanting to appear as if I was going exactly where I was supposed to go, so I turned left onto the dirt road and drove to the quarry. All the lights in the building were out and there were no cars in sight other than a Parks truck which I conveniently parked next to. I killed the lights and waited a few minutes just to be sure. Nothing stirred, just a light breeze rustling the trees. It would be cold on the water, but I prepared for that, but who could prepare for the cold to come internally?

'Well, I'm here,' I thought, as if congratulating myself for having the courage to get this far. I waited until 6:15, before I stepped out and headed toward the rocky shore. With each step, I hoped fervently that I would walk on solid ground again. And even with the indications that this would be so, I didn't know for sure. When I broke the tree line, the full blast of cold ocean wind hit me. Yes, cold tonight to be sure, and choppy as I gauged the swells. They were two to three footers just beyond the breakers, maybe up to fives offshore. I hoped Joe chose the boat well. I had no idea how far we would go, surely not all the way to Sable Island, that would take two days at least. But there I stood, bundled up in foul weather gear staring at the black churning sea, restless like me.

I waited until 6:45 before I sent my first signal. No reply. I waited another fifteen minutes and signaled again. No reply. I noted the wind and the sea chop, Joe could not be in a hurry, so figured he was a little behind. At 7:15 I signaled again, slow and deliberate, no reply. I then began to wonder:

'Did he bail? He was on the verge of losing it. Could the strain of waiting those last few days taken its toll? Or worse, was the horror too much for him... was he still with us? Or did he take his own life? But the curse Hanson told him about... Joe was mess, but he seemed certain Saturday night that he could not, that he would not pass this hell on like Mario did. But he was a mess and just barely holding it together.' These thoughts and others like them assailed me for the next half hour as I signaled more often, like every three minutes.

When my concern got to the point of how long do I wait, three short flashes to my right just at the southern bend. He had her running lights off, but I could just make the outline. She was making way at a steady clip, maybe 7, 8 knots. I drew a deep breath and blew it out, relieved, but pensive because we were at the point of no return. I thought of my own wavering courage and then of Joe's. As I watched him advance, I realized that even with all his breakdowns, with how broken and defeated he looked, Joe-tow was quite possibly the bravest man I would ever know.

About 200 yards out, he made for a point off to my right about 100 feet away. He slowed considerably and basically drifted in. My night vision was good after waiting so long, so I could clearly see him gesturing to a spot between two large boulders jutting out from the beach. I made my way carefully, the rocky shoreline was strewn with various sized ocean smoothed rocks, hard enough to navigate in daylight, treacherous at night, and the last thing I needed at that point was to break an ankle on my way to visit a ghost. By the time I got to the boulders, he was nosed in-between them, still free and clear on bottom, his fenders lightly buffing the large rocks. Knowing a little something about boats, I was glad about his pick. His dad had many boats, most of them commercial offshore trawlers, but also a few smaller pleasure and fishing crafts. I knew the one I was about to board well, his dad's 88' Boston Whaler 27. With two Evinrude 225 outboards and a hardtop helm, it was ideal for the trip. I hopped onto the bow from one of the boulders and he backed out of the nook slowly. He was only using one engine; he had raised the other just in case. When he got to the breakers, he throttled down and turned north, switching on his lights.

"Thanks for being here Max. It means so much to me," he said desolately, his voice hoarse and gravelly, as if he spent the last two days screaming. It was heartrending. I patted him on the back **,** took position next to him and looked ahead grimly as we bounded north jumping the swells. After the shoreline receded to a thin dark line, he cut back to about 7 knots, enough to punch the swells smoothly with little bounce. Strangely, the further we drove out the less choppy she was, which was unexpected. Usually two footers inshore mean four to five offshore, but we were getting the opposite. We didn't speak; I don't think either of us had anything positive to say, each staring over the bow waiting for whatever.

After two hours of bleak, dark, and silent travel without seeing any other vessels, I checked the radar; we were 26 miles out heading northeast. It was 10:30 and we were both antsy. Joe was chain smoking and fidgeting in his usual manner. He occasionally muttered something unintelligible under his breath, but I didn't have the heart to ask what he was saying. I was pacing and tapping and left the protected helm to catch a full blast of northern wind to remind me that I was really there, and we were really on our way to meet a ghost and an age-old reckoning. I was constantly scanning the horizon for a glimpse of something, anything to forewarn, but saw nothing. Joe had the VHF volume all the way down, so other than our shuffling, the deep crackle when he took a drag and the rhythmic slap of the boat meeting water, silence, unnerving, saturating silence.

At 11:00 we were 30 miles out and Joe began humming. I tried to place the song, but he kept changing his intonation from angry to sad to angry again, so I couldn't catch the melody. It became grating, it was so erratic and discordant, that I started to clench my jaw in silent protest. Silent because what was I to say to him? We are an hour from whatever doom awaits you, I know you're under extreme stress and fear, but do you mind? No, of course not, but as the minutes crawled and his awful humming became increasingly jarring, I had to stop it. Not just for me, but for him because he was at the very edge of sanity and the slow progression toward midnight was too much and he needed a snap back, something to help him hold on.

"Joe! Come on man, keep it together!" I said, part exasperation, part sympathy. It was 11:22 and we were 33 miles from shore. The sea was becoming eerily calm, the swells were now negligible, almost placid. Still going around 7 knots, it seemed like we were cruising. The sky above us was cloudless, put all around us, rolling dark gray billowing masses appeared to follow us, track us as we continued north. Joe stopped humming, cut the throttle down to about 4 knots and stepped away from the helm.

"Take the wheel Max," he said and went to the fantail. I looked at him as he stood facing aft, looking at the horizon. I didn't know what to expect. 'Would he jump?' I wondered, 'Would Severin leap up and seize him?' He stood there for a while, not smoking, not humming, not sniffling, he just stood looking back. It was now 11:33 and still not one of those rolling clouds touched us, but hovered near, oh so near. They were all around and I realized in sudden horror that they were encircling us. Unless my eyes were playing tricks on me, the clouds circled around us like the walls of an arena or a coliseum. Even the ocean, now that I was tracking appeared to be setting up a stage. Smooth and flat, almost glassine around us, but on the margins the rise and fall of the swell, the true swell, that what it should be, easily fours, even fives rolling in undulating waves, like excited spectators waiting for the show.

Chapter Eight

(By the deep eight)

At 11:45 the engine suddenly cut off, as if it ran out of gas. A moment later all the electronics lost power, even the VHF went out. I saw Joe looking at the outboard shaking his head. He was back again, back to his skittish, fear-induced manner. He rushed back toward the helm wild-eyed and shivering. I scanned the water around us looking for any break on the surface, any ripple to suggest an approach, nothing, just the strange ring of swell and cloud around us. Joe was fumbling with his pack of cigarettes, desperately trying to pull one out but he lacked the motor function to do it. I took pity, for I knew we were there, at the bitter conclusion to this horror that started so long ago, with Joe now the debtor and I the witness. I helped him and lit his smoke. His eyes glistened, a rheumy dribble running down his hollow cheeks. He huffed and puffed and then took the deepest drag I have ever seen.

"Easy Joe," I said, as he bent over in abject fear. He inhaled too much, even for him, and he began to cough and hack, which quickly switched to heaving. A moment later he was puking all over the floor. I gently smacked his back, trying to reassure, but I was just as afraid of what was coming. I looked up as he wracked and spasmed and my stomach roiled as well. A fog had developed, an unnatural fog creeping in from the north. I looked at the radar, but it was out, the console clock was out, so I looked at my watch—it was 11:55!

Not losing my senses, even though I was in dreadful fear myself, I left Joe bent over dry-heaving, grateful that he had not noticed the fog rolling in. I hurried to the bow to drop anchor. We were not under power and likely drifting. Common sense dictated that we hold in place, even with the unnatural cloud formation above and the surging seas—mysteriously stand-offish—but still around us, as if ready to pounce if so directed. The clanging of the anchor chain pierced the silence like the tolling of a broken bell, a last mournful countdown, a ghastly penultimate timer announcing that the hour has arrived for long awaited retribution.

I went back to the helm and found that Joe had recovered enough to watch the fog approach. He was panting and whimpering awfully, and I myself, cringed as I gaped at the slinking advance of that evil-looking vapor. I tell you as I write this wretched recollection that I was morbidly afraid, frozen in fear! Even knowing in the back of my mind that I had hope, but just I, and I did! But it was a singular and selfish hope, and I coveted it. I held onto it like a secret—me and my salvation—nothing more, nothing mattered more. Of a sudden, the ghastly mist stopped not more than 20 feet from our bow, as if first driven, and then reined in. And then, unbelievable to my eyes, and more so to poor Joe, it slowly, sinuously, encircled us in a tighter ring, a more intimate ring. And the clouds crept in closer and closer still, until we were in what I can only describe as a grey funnel—like the inside of an old farm silo with no opening to the sky. Sealed off above, below and all around.

Joe elevated to pure panic and it took all I could to not follow him; in hindsight, it is likely that my empathy for him helped me quell my own fright, at least enough to act. But also, and maybe more so, that I held on to the belief that the observer must endure, and I intended to do so. Joe was hyperventilating and sputtering gibberish, I grabbed his shoulder and squeezed hard, harder than I did in his truck. I squeezed to reassure him that I was there. And so we waited, maybe a minute, maybe a little more, transfixed on the wreath of fog, staring over the bow, for we knew instinctively Hanson would come from the north, his domain. It was deathly quiet, not even the gentle sway of our boat on the still surface offered a sound. Even Joe's whimper reduced to silence, as if ordered to do so.

And then, from the edge of the fog before us, a creaking of wood and the light pitter-patter of an oar stroke, emerging through the thick mist two old Jon boats—two dories! They slid into the circle effortlessly. The boat on our left held two dark figures, the one in the rear larger, the one in front round and stout. The larger one absently dipping a broken oar into the water, stroking back, but the oar had no leaf and surely did nothing to propel the craft forward. In the other, sat Hanson himself. He was forward in the bow and was without a mate. His eye sockets gleamed a foul greenish glow, and I shivered at the sight of him and the portent of the empty seat in his dory. Both boats stopped ten feet from our bow, but the stench of rotting decay came forth and permeated the helm, swaddling us in fetid miasma. I gagged from the putrid stench; I was unfamiliar with it **,** for Hanson did not offer that detail when he greeted me from my mother's driveway.

Joe was now gone, mentally done. He was babbling to himself incoherently and shaking. I propped him up against the console as I stared in awe. A closer inspection revealed that the two figures on the left were Veara and Silva, though I already deduced that the instant they emerged through the fog. They sat silently, as if waiting for a signal. Both, I noticed, had old slimy cordage lashed over their rotting shoulders and wound around their bodies. And they each had a large gaping hole on the left side of their skulls, broken shards of bone, some bent inward, other loosely hanging. Plastered over the hole on Veara's, pulsed a large orange starfish, from Silva's a gangly clump of red algae that trestled down like dreadlocks. Looking back at Hanson, the same hole in the same place, wrapped in dripping seaweed. Decaying lashings also adorned his decrepit body.

I was horrified, and if I was not holding onto Joe, I might have collapsed from the crushing fear that pushed upon me. It was stifling, it took my breath away. Think of it! I dare you to place yourself there, to swap spots with me, even for a minute. And then think of Joe, poor, poor, Joe. I did, if it wasn't for me thinking of him, I would have faltered too. But I could not. I would not—I had to see it all, I had to memorialize this terrible fate that has fallen on Joe. My sixth sense told me so, and I resolved to, come what may. And if my internal decree was a signal to Hanson, I'll never know, but as soon as I bolstered myself, he nodded as if in acknowledgement. A moment later, Veara and Silva began an incantation, water-choked and low, as if neither has uttered a word in decades, which I'm sure they hadn't! But their words were clear enough, reverberating off the walls of the dark cylinder we were in—

"Mario must pay, there must be a witness.

Mario will pay, there is a witness."

They said this three times, each delivery stronger than before, and the echo—an echo that should not be—but was, a disjointed cacophony of ghoulish returns, as if thousands of lost souls were in the fog, and in the clouds, repeating what was said—

"Mario...Pay...Witness...Must...Pay...Mario...Pay...There is...Pay...Mario Pay...He will pay...Pay...Pay...Pay...Pay... Pay..."

When the words ceased reverberating, Hanson stood up and stepped into the ocean, literally! He sunk down slowly as if descending stairs, and his eyes never strayed from Joe. In a distant part of my awareness, fragmented as it certainly was, I was grateful that Joe had lost his wits, and I was sure he did, because he was babbling and trembling and showing all the signs of someone who had gone mad. Once Hanson's head disappeared beneath the surface, I diligently scanned the water, hoping to see where he would pop up against the boat, trying to prepare myself for the close encounter. But as was his want, he didn't "pop up," he simply appeared, and I knew this from the smell wafting behind me. I turned around slowly, holding Joe tight against the console, ensuring he was facing the other way. And there he stood, Severin Hanson, or, the tortured leftovers of what once was, and he was within arm's reach. He raised a slime-sluiced bony arm and pointed to Joe.

"Turn him," he ordered. I had an initial bravo thought to resist, but to what end? I was the witness, I resolved to be the witness and that was my fate. Poor Joe's fate was his, deserving or not. I realized in an instant that there would be no heroes that haunted night. I turned Joe around, it was easy, no resistance, no nothing, just the shambling of what was once a man, now more shade than not. I had a fleeting thought that perhaps God had given mercy and I hoped that Severin would do the same. But it was a fleeting thought, for Hanson clearly would not.

"Look at me Mario," he croaked.

Joe continued to mumble and shake, blissfully unaware, but Hanson would have none of it, no, he would not be cheated of his most coveted revenge, the one that is meted out to those who were trusted but ultimately betrayed. He grasped Joe by the jaw, and I heard the clack of bone on bone, like magnets joining— and oh, how his skeletal hand, dripping green droplets of ichor, reeked! How close to my own face, this monstrosity, this demon, but real, no denying it, so fucking real! I turned away in disgust.

He made Joe look at him and something passed between them, something that brought Joe back, for he stopped his quivering and his chattering. He became rigid and attentive with his face held tight in that horrible vice-grip. I have no doubt that Joe was fully aware again.

"Mario," Hanson continued, "you have come back, and now you pay. Blood of blood, you pay. One for one and no more, each to his deed, the debt will be paid in full... The witness will release him!" Hanson suddenly said to me, and from the water—

"There is a witness!"

I knew that once I let go of Joe it would be over. He would be dragged into the sea to pay for his great **-** grandfather's sin. It was so wrong, so unfair, that my soul would not comply. Joe was no longer whimpering, and it seemed to me like he was conceding, yielding to a fate he didn't deserve. 'How cruel!' I thought. But as before, Hanson apparently read my mind, for he looked at me sharply, the green light emanating inside his skull flashing bright.

"No," he said, "not cruel, justice!" And from the water—

"Mario must pay!"

"Release him now!" Hanson hissed, tightening his grip on Joe's jaw. I felt Joe tense, but he made no sound, no protest. My heart was breaking for him, but what could I do? I made my paltry attempt for him, from the righteous part of my soul, but the other part, the majority, overruled! My task was not to fight this apparition, or to save Joe, but to persevere myself. And Hanson nodded, agreeing with me.

At that moment I don't know who I hated more, Hanson for what he was doing, Joe for acquiescing, or me for self-preserving, but I let go, and when I did my heart broke. Hanson started moving backward, pulling Joe by his face. He backed up to the transom. Joe didn't resist, he never uttered a word, after all the torment, the mental and emotional torture he endured, now at the end, he moved with Hanson, almost complicit!

I was riveted, revolted, but watching all the same. I expected Hanson to simply step over the side dragging Joe after him, but then I noticed something in Hanson's other hand—a wooden mallet! A muckle! And my knees buckled as I realized the price Joe was about to pay. I should have screamed out— "No! Please no!" But I could not, I was on my knees, immobile, horror-struck, taking it all in, carrying out my appointed role.

Hanson turned Joe toward the sea, never letting go of his face. He turned to me as if to make sure I was watching. Joe stood erect, no more slouch, no more shudder, no more self-pity. Hanson released his face and moved behind him, at an angle, so he could see me too.

"You are the witness," he said to me. And from the water—

"The witness sees!"

Tears were running down my face, their gush stinging my eyes, but I made no attempt to wipe them. I was a stationary witness, a silent witness. And Joe was so brave, ready to fulfill a debt that wasn't his in the most awful way imaginable. And then, with a grotesque smirk, Hanson slowly raised the mallet high over his head, looking at me to ensure I watched, and then swung it down in a vicious blow striking the left side of Joe's head with a crushing thud. Joe crumpled to the deck, as Hanson struck again and again. I dropped forward onto my hands and threw up, hacking and crying, and then I screamed. Hanson threw the bloody mallet over the side, then dragged Joe's quivering body into the sea. I retched again, crying and shaking. Then, to get away from it all, my vomit, Joe's vomit, the clumps of rotten seaweed and slime that Hanson left behind, and most of all, that dark spreading mass of blood at the stern, I crawled up to the bow and curled up into a ball. And from the water—

"Mario has paid!"

A few moments of respite followed, enough for me to get myself under control, maybe five, perhaps ten minutes. As if Hanson purposely gave me a breather. But I knew it was not over. I was still in the fog funnel and the rolling sea was still held at bay for the boat sat motionless and silent, not even a gentle sway to ease my ruptured soul. I sat up and looked toward the dories. Veara and Silva were silent and still, the other dory was empty, but I knew it would soon be filled.

On cue, the surface broke with barely a ripple as Hanson rose up in the same manner he had entered. He took his place in the bow of the dory and right after him, a new shade crawled into the boat to sit behind him. Unlike Hanson who seemed to glower at me in satisfaction, this new, fresh shade made it a point not to look my way but hung his dripping half-head low and away. Nothing further was said, not a word from Hanson, and no final refrain from Veara and Silva. I watched the dories slide backward into the fog disappearing into the grey vapor, and I was left alone in my terror and despair.

The minutes ticked by, I stayed in the bow huddled up against the hull, exhausted and numb. After a while, the fog began to dissipate, the clouds were rolling again, and the ocean reclaimed the area around Joe's boat. Being anchored and broadside of the swell, I was starting to take a fair pounding and even though it was a whaler, I did not want to continue to yaw like that. As I gathered my frayed senses, I began to consider the predicament I was in. It was bleak, not as bleak as death, at least I wasn't there yet. But I was alone, and it looked like I would have to make my way back to shore and try to figure out how I can ditch the boat and keep this whole terrible nightmare a secret. Just as I was about to make my way aft that strong rancid odor came back. I looked around for the dories, but I couldn't find them, but I did see Hanson at the stern. An involuntary shiver ran down my back, but I made my way rear and faced him.

"The witness must return to the mainland; the witness must remember." He intoned.

The thought of returning to the "mainland" revived me, but I didn't respond. I was in his "domain," and since he was the master of that environment, how that task was to be accomplished wasn't up to me. Besides, I had nothing to say. We stood there looking at each other while the boat pitched and rolled. He repulsed me, his smell aside. What once may have been a just reckoning for an evil wrong became nothing less than another evil deed carried out with zeal and extreme cruelty. Hanson replaced Mario with Joe, a complete innocent, and he knew it! And he butchered Joe after spending months reducing him to almost nothing.

'But life wins you fuck,' I thought, hoping Hanson was reading my mind again. 'Life wins because at the end Joe overcame his fear and his self-pity and he stood like a pillar as you massacred him. Joe had a choice. He could have fled like his great grandfather had, he could have run away and let you curse future kin that he would never know. But he didn't. Yes, he wavered, he faltered, and just before the end he broke. Who wouldn't? But he came back didn't he, you wretch. He was a rock when you struck him down. I said there would be no heroes this night, but I was wrong you fuck. Joe was a hero and he always will be, even if I am the only living soul who knows it.'

After a considerable pause, Hanson waved his fleshless arm as if dismissing me and said:

"You are the witness; your feelings are not important. Think what you will, but remember, and record all, and in due time tell. This is your charge."

I did not reply, but couldn't help thinking 'shit, I wasn't going to speak about this to anyone, ever.' Hanson laughed, a water-logged chortle, a sloshing chuckle.

"You will, you must, you are the witness. But now we must go."

I looked around gesturing, "In this?" I asked bitterly. "Where you slaughtered my poor friend? Should I just pull back into Gloucester and rinse the deck off?"

"No," he said bemused, his eyes sparkling, "not this boat, that one." He pointed behind the stern at something I could not see, but my stomach lurched knowing which boat he spoke of, I cringed knowing who would be in that boat. I blanched and shook my head.

"No, no, I can't," I gasped, "I can't do that, it's too much, all of this is too much!" I pleaded, horrified that I would be sitting next to poor Joe with his shattered head and lost soul. But Hanson continued pointing over the side, his hollow eyes flashing.

"Come," he said, "we must go."

I stood firmly resolute, my feet wide and planted. More for the pitch and roll, but my stance conveyed my position. He chuckled again and moved his hand in my direction and beckoned. I assumed he was gesturing at me and I wondered if I was about to move toward him against my will. But he wasn't calling me, it was the sea, and although I didn't see it, a large wave, at least 10 feet, maybe 20 hit the starboard bow and since I wasn't bracing for that kind of force, I lost my footing and tumbled to the stern landing hard against the back of the boat. And for my impunity, my face rolled over the blood spot where Hanson crushed poor Joe's skull. That sickened me but did not equal the revulsion I felt as my legs touched his putrid limbs. Even through my pants, the chill soaked through and I violently pulled my legs back as the boat dipped into the trough.

Still chuckling, Hanson reduced the sea back to threes and fours as I spit and spluttered pulling myself up. I looked over the back rail and saw the dory, but to my surprise it was vacant. Hanson pointed again, no longer laughing.

"Go!" He ordered. I feared that if I failed to comply this time, he would grab me and throw me over. And since Joe wasn't in the dory, and I certainly did not want to feel Hanson's touch again, I climbed over the side got in the boat. It was unbelievable to me that the thing even floated, it was in such poor condition. But it was Hanson's dory and under his mysterious power, so it floated and was propelled by some unnatural means, and it might even fly for all I knew. I sat in the back, consciously. I was uneasy sitting in Joe's spot, but it was far better than in the bow. Hanson stepped into the dory and took his place without a word or look my way.

We drifted away from the whaler and when we were about 100 yards back, Hanson twirled his hand in its direction then sat sill. At first nothing happened, the whaler still moved with the swell, but then I noticed that the water around the boat began to swirl slow at first, but the gyrations picked up speed and the whaler began to swirl too, like a merry-go-round. Faster and faster it spun, like a mechanical ballerina! The maelstrom was large now, spiraling down it began pulling her in. I watched wide-eyed, in awe as the boat spun down into the spinning hole until it was gone. We waited for the ocean to calm again, and after a few moments the waves settled back to an easy roll, and no one would ever be able to mark where Joe's boat was claimed by the sea.

The dory turned southeast and began to move forward. I was glad I was in proper gear for I would be soaked before long. We had an unnatural following sea, for the wind and chop were obviously moving north, and although I could not tell how fast we were going, I was sure that was unnatural as well. I hunkered down with my head tucked low as the harsh wind and the spray washed over me. The stench emanating from Hanson forced me to take shallow breaths. Even with the wind, I was fighting my gag reflex. After about 30 minutes I looked up and could make out the distant shoreline. 'Impossible!' Was my first inclination, but I quickly dismissed reason based on everything I already experienced. I knew there would be parting words from Hanson, last minute instructions for the "witness". But I wanted to know some things and felt this was the moment to ask, for I certainly did not want any more contact once I stepped on land.

"Where's Joe?" I shouted at his back. He didn't answer me. And even with all the horrific events that I had experienced that night, to include that very moment, sitting in a rotten old boat behind that evil shade, perhaps I should have let lie, but I wasn't done expressing my feelings to that malicious fuck, so I pressed—

"Where's your dory-mate, Hanson? Where is Joe?" He still did not answer. I thought him pretty petty at that point. But I had other things to say, so I yielded,

"Where's Mario?" After a moment he replied,

"He waits with his mates for my return. I deemed it improper to bring him along. Time for us when I return, all time for us. My dory-mate then, my dory-mate now again, my dory-mate evermore."

"You know it's not Mario, Severin," I barked, "You know you tortured and killed an innocent victim. Joe may be related to Mario, but he is not Mario, he is a victim like you were on the Cavalier, all you have done is added a guiltless soul to your tragedy."

"You know not. You think, but you are wrong." He retorted in annoyance, "Blood of blood was the price. I waited long years in the cold deep for his return, my dory-mate, and now we rest, now we rest. The debt is paid."

I looked toward the shore, we were close, maybe five more minutes before we were inshore. I was so angry at his continued denial of the truth, and being so close to land, I was feeling bolder, so I lashed out—

"I am not wrong!" I yelled in rage, "you are! I have no sympathy for Veara or Silva, that was just, and had you found Mario that would have been just too, but you didn't! He fled to the Midwest after your murder and died in 1936. So you brooded and sulked all these years and then you compensated your dark soul by taking poor Joe **'** s. A remarkable likeness to be sure, but not Mario! Joe is his great grandson and you beat him down with threats and vile curses to his family and then you savaged him. No, you fuck, a debt hasn't been paid, one has been created! What you did was a sin for a sin, nothing less and nothing more!" I was trembling with anger, as I held onto the gunwales as we entered the break.

I didn't expect any response and was shocked when the dory suddenly stopped and pulled back out of the break. The change in direction scared the shit out of me, and I thought I went too far and was now to be another mate. I braced as Hanson turned to face me. He gazed harshly, the green light now mere slits piercing at me. He reached his hand over the side of the boat and clenched tightly. In the next instant, the water bubbled not ten feet from us and breaking the surface was the other dory. In it were Veara and Silva and to my dismay, in-between them huddled low was poor Joe. 'What have I done?' I asked myself, 'this close and now I will cause him more pain!' I was appalled and wanted desperately to take back what I said. But Hanson was shaking his head at me, he would chastise me, he would use Joe to do it.

"Stand!" Hanson suddenly ordered, and Joe immediately obeyed. At first, he was meek, hunching forward with his crushed skull hung low. But then he straightened holding his head up and looked my way. The ocean had not the time yet to take his eyes, so he actually looked at me. The right one was wide open and steady, the left, pushed down the socket from Hanson's blows, just peeked out. They were filmy, but the pupils were aware and focused on me. I shuddered in fear and grief.

"Who are you?" Hanson asked sharply. Without hesitation, Joe responded, "I am Mario."

"Who are you Mario?" Hanson pushed.

"I am the dory-mate of Severin Hanson."

"What have you done?" Hanson asked grimly.

"I murdered my dory-mate." Joe said sadly.

"And what do you do now?" Hanson asked, his tome now much softer.

This time, Joe did hesitate, and I sensed it was for my benefit. Then looking straight into me he said—

"I rest with my dory-mate." He said with finality. And then in unison, as was their way, Veara and Silva announced:

"Mario has paid, now we rest, Mario is back, now we sleep!"

The implication washed over me. Joe's horrible death will release these wretched souls, all of them. But I equivocated, struggling to see the justification of the act and the loss of the one, equaling that for the others. And I could not then, and I have not to this day, and I ponder it often. But I took comfort in knowing that at least Joe's soul will find peace. And in farewell I nodded to him.

Hanson waved his hand, and the dory sunk back down into the ocean. He turned back toward the bow and we moved toward the rocky coast again, traveling the rest of the way in silence, for I no longer had questions. He pulled in-between the same two boulders which Joe had chosen, and as the bow lightly tapped the rocks, I climbed out, pulling myself onto one of them and turned around. His eye sockets were still frightful as their ghastly green light smoldered softly. His gurgling ton was softer as well, but no less hideous.

"You must tell this story. When, is up to you. But the witness must fulfill his charge, or a debt will be owed," he warned. His eye sockets blazed, and his mouth contorted into a gruesome smile. I nodded as his dory slid back into the surf and kept nodding to myself when far out beyond the break, I saw it slink beneath the sea.

Finis

Addendum

It was twilight and a light rain developed as I drove down route one heading back to Boston. I spent the day with my mom, and we had our talk about dad. It was a pleasant talk. Some might say having a casual conversation about speaking with the dead is odd. But there was nothing strange about it to us. I think mom would have appreciated our discussion even if I was just patronizing her, but I was not, and she knew this. The day before, we both attended a memorial service for Joe at Our Lady of Good Voyage and then had a few drinks with his family and friends at Pratty's, Joe's favorite watering hole. I got to know his two former crewmates, Mike and Tommy and we did a shot of Jack D in Joe's honor.

A week before, on February 20th, the U.S. Court declared Joe legally dead after a presumptive death hearing. He was reported missing the morning of December 3rd, when he did not return from what the family assumed was just a short coastal run for rainbow smelt, which Joe has fished in the colder months for years. He did not tell anyone where he was going, and left no plan, so the Coast Guard mapped out a large grid pattern and began looking for him. After an intense four-day search operation, they called it off declaring that he and the vessel were lost at sea. The only item found was a common fishing buoy about 75 miles southeast of Sable Island. Joe's dad had the same type onboard his whaler but could not say definitively that it was his. The whaler was not equipped with a radio beacon, and Joe never used the VHF, so it was anyone's guess where he went and what ultimately happened. It was noted that Joe was going through a rough time and was likely depressed, but there was no evidence to suggest that he may have committed suicide.

For all these years I have known the truth, but I'm sure you would agree that keeping it secret was necessary. It was a tremendous burden to bear, but had I told someone, anyone, even my mother, it would not have been believed. And every way I look at it, I would have caused more pain and even deep insult to his family and friends, and the consequences for me and my family would be just as awful, whether branded a sick kook, or a murderer. The day after they called off the search, I received a package mailed from the Danvers Post Office with no return address. In it were Silva's journal and scrap book. Also included was a letter from Joe. The letter is very personal to me and I treasure it as my most sacred possession. Although I will keep its contents to myself, I can tell you that it helped me carry the burden, and it will help me still, even after this story is published. There were also two additions made in Silva's material, an entry in the journal, only a sentence, which followed Silva's last one:

"The debt has been paid."

And in the scrap book, a new picture, Joe and I, in the summer of 1990, on the stern of his dad's whaler, each of us holding up an impressive striper, smiling triumphantly.

As I said in my opening statement, it is up to you to believe or not, but I will leave you with these final thoughts— first, ghosts are real, and not just our loved ones that hover around not wanting to leave you, but angry malicious spirits that will not rest until they extract vengeance. Second, the wrongs of others are repaid, eventually, and no matter how many times you weigh the deeds and actions, you may never accept that the payment is just. I will never accept what happened to poor Joe was the righting of a wrong and I don't have to. That was not part of my charge, I had to share it and I have done so.

I hope you never have to pay or bear witness for the past deeds of others but know that this happens.

Be safe,

Max

