day,
polishing the leaves of some roses she’d cut
to put in the old milky white glass vase
with the crack in it.
Tonight I’m wearing a T-shirt Mother found for me
at a thrift store.
It says ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS, GUN, I WIN !
and it’s my favorite.
At first Mother didn’t want to get a gun,
but there were too many times
we could hear people in our yard, bad guys,
so she went out and bought one. To protect us.
I’m lying in bed, wishing those old cowboy sheets
hadn’t worn out,
when a faint light flashes outside.
It’s almost like faraway lightning.
But the weatherman didn’t forecast
thunderstorms tonight.
I don’t like storms.
Neither does Mother.
I cross to my bedroom window and
look down the block at Walnut Creek Cemetery.
And I wonder, like I always do,
how many gunslingers are buried there.
EMMA
What’s Maxie doing?
I ask.
Communing with the poor dead fucks who live here.
Brendan laughs.
I watch Maxie take pictures
of graves. Then look down at my cell
at the directions Eve texted me.
The ghost house is about a block north of the cemetery entrance,
I say.
Brendan polishes off his can of MoonBuzz
and crumples the aluminum in his hand,
tossing it at my feet.
C’mon, Maxie,
I call out the window, and she suddenly appears, climbing back in the car.
North is the other way,
I say to Brendan, impatient.
I know,
he says, with a frown.
He swings the car into
a sharp U-turn,
tires skidding.
Go slow,
I say.
And as he pulls closer, I see it, or what must be it.
An overgrown mess of shrubbery and trees,
on a corner.
There’s no streetlight on this block, but the
moon is more than half full and through the foliage
I see the outline of a house. The ghost house.
FELIX
back when we were kids, when we were EMFAX, emma was always the one who loved the thrill, the close call. always braver than me, bolder. but i never let on when i was scared. boys can’t. and while i was reading, and rereading, joey pigza books, emma read those goosebumps books. one after the other.
it suddenly hits me, as i watch her lean toward brendan, pointing through the windshield at something, that he, brendan, is now her thrill, her close call.
i think about lighting up another joint, but i’m already too wasted. i remember that gun in the glove compartment. maybe i should let my head clear.
EMMA
You can hardly see the house.
It’s completely dark, a dim silhouette
behind the tangle of bushes and weeds.
Like a fairy-tale castle with everyone
asleep inside. Hushed and expectant.
Waiting to be awakened.
My heart starts beating faster.
Maybe there is no crazy old lady.
Maybe it really is haunted.
I’ve always wanted to meet up
with something not of this world.
I mean truly.
Vampire stories, that old Mary Worth thing,
and the tales told at camp about vanishing hitchhikers
and bloody hooks dangling from car doors.
Even Santa. The tooth fairy. Easter bunny.
I always knew they were fakes.
And it pissed me off.
But a ghost. What a rush that would be,
to see something from another world,
something that most people never get to see.
ANIL
1. If my father lived next door
to the house
we’ve stopped in front of,
with the wild, unkempt yard,
he’d be on the phone,
on a daily basis,
to a local government official,
complaining about standards
and property values
and respecting your neighbors.
2. From the little you can see of it
the house looks abandoned,
like no one has lived there
for a long time.
Maybe the owners moved away,
a divorce, a job transfer,
or an unexpected death.
I get the sudden image in my head
of a dead person, a corpse, lying inside,
on a tattered rug, rotting.
3. My father once took Viraj and me
to a master class on anatomy
at the hospital
to see a cadaver being cut up.
Viraj couldn’t wait.
I didn’t even make it into the room.
In the hallway outside, my dad started explaining
how they preserve the bodies
by pumping the arteries full of a
polishing the leaves of some roses she’d cut
to put in the old milky white glass vase
with the crack in it.
Tonight I’m wearing a T-shirt Mother found for me
at a thrift store.
It says ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS, GUN, I WIN !
and it’s my favorite.
At first Mother didn’t want to get a gun,
but there were too many times
we could hear people in our yard, bad guys,
so she went out and bought one. To protect us.
I’m lying in bed, wishing those old cowboy sheets
hadn’t worn out,
when a faint light flashes outside.
It’s almost like faraway lightning.
But the weatherman didn’t forecast
thunderstorms tonight.
I don’t like storms.
Neither does Mother.
I cross to my bedroom window and
look down the block at Walnut Creek Cemetery.
And I wonder, like I always do,
how many gunslingers are buried there.
EMMA
What’s Maxie doing?
I ask.
Communing with the poor dead fucks who live here.
Brendan laughs.
I watch Maxie take pictures
of graves. Then look down at my cell
at the directions Eve texted me.
The ghost house is about a block north of the cemetery entrance,
I say.
Brendan polishes off his can of MoonBuzz
and crumples the aluminum in his hand,
tossing it at my feet.
C’mon, Maxie,
I call out the window, and she suddenly appears, climbing back in the car.
North is the other way,
I say to Brendan, impatient.
I know,
he says, with a frown.
He swings the car into
a sharp U-turn,
tires skidding.
Go slow,
I say.
And as he pulls closer, I see it, or what must be it.
An overgrown mess of shrubbery and trees,
on a corner.
There’s no streetlight on this block, but the
moon is more than half full and through the foliage
I see the outline of a house. The ghost house.
FELIX
back when we were kids, when we were EMFAX, emma was always the one who loved the thrill, the close call. always braver than me, bolder. but i never let on when i was scared. boys can’t. and while i was reading, and rereading, joey pigza books, emma read those goosebumps books. one after the other.
it suddenly hits me, as i watch her lean toward brendan, pointing through the windshield at something, that he, brendan, is now her thrill, her close call.
i think about lighting up another joint, but i’m already too wasted. i remember that gun in the glove compartment. maybe i should let my head clear.
EMMA
You can hardly see the house.
It’s completely dark, a dim silhouette
behind the tangle of bushes and weeds.
Like a fairy-tale castle with everyone
asleep inside. Hushed and expectant.
Waiting to be awakened.
My heart starts beating faster.
Maybe there is no crazy old lady.
Maybe it really is haunted.
I’ve always wanted to meet up
with something not of this world.
I mean truly.
Vampire stories, that old Mary Worth thing,
and the tales told at camp about vanishing hitchhikers
and bloody hooks dangling from car doors.
Even Santa. The tooth fairy. Easter bunny.
I always knew they were fakes.
And it pissed me off.
But a ghost. What a rush that would be,
to see something from another world,
something that most people never get to see.
ANIL
1. If my father lived next door
to the house
we’ve stopped in front of,
with the wild, unkempt yard,
he’d be on the phone,
on a daily basis,
to a local government official,
complaining about standards
and property values
and respecting your neighbors.
2. From the little you can see of it
the house looks abandoned,
like no one has lived there
for a long time.
Maybe the owners moved away,
a divorce, a job transfer,
or an unexpected death.
I get the sudden image in my head
of a dead person, a corpse, lying inside,
on a tattered rug, rotting.
3. My father once took Viraj and me
to a master class on anatomy
at the hospital
to see a cadaver being cut up.
Viraj couldn’t wait.
I didn’t even make it into the room.
In the hallway outside, my dad started explaining
how they preserve the bodies
by pumping the arteries full of a
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