Chapter six

“Man, you sure know how to tell a ghost story,” said Charlie Rose.

“Shut up, goddamnit, Charlie,” I said. “Let me think.”

We were both lying on our beds, dressed, smoking cigarettes, staring at the ceiling.

Charlie said: “‘It was theee scaaaarrred maaaan …’ You were great.”

“Shut up. Jesus.” I shook my head. “She wouldn’t even let me touch her.”

“Why should she let you touch her?” I didn’t answer him. He sighed. “I guess it is a pretty shitty way to end Christmas.”

“Oh well, hell,” I said bitterly, “I could’ve guessed that would happen. That was written.”

“Nothing is written,” said Charlie. He pointed to his forehead. “Except up here.”

“Great. What is that—Zen?”

“Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia.”

“Great.”

I watched the smoke drift from my cigarette toward the ceiling: tangled spirals spreading out into a white mass.

“What am I gonna do?” I said.

“Why do you have to do anything?”

“Would you stop it? She wouldn’t even let me touch her.”

Charlie looked across the room at me. “I’m serious,” he said. “Why do you have to do anything? So she’s a screwed up little burbie, that’s the way they grow them out here. It’s her problem. Say you’re sorry.” He took a drag on his cigarette. “Then start looking for another job.”

“Oh Christ,” I said, “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“See: I can be helpful.”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about the goddamned job.”

There was a long silence. Then I heard Charlie say quietly: “I know.”

“What?”

“And I know what you think, man. You think this is what it is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You think it’s like snow and Christmas and giggling virgins.”

“Leave me alone.”

“I grew up in the suburbs, man. I grew up here.”

I turned on him fiercely. “Well, I didn’t.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

“You don’t understand, Charlie.”

“I understand, North, I understand.”

“Damn it,” I said. “Damn it, what am I gonna do?”

He stared up at the ceiling. He said: “Go home, little brother. Go home where you belong.”

We lay together in silence then, smoking our cigarettes down, starting on others. After a while, Angela poked her head in through the door. I sat up.

“How is she?”

“She’s all right. She’s asleep.”

Charlie snorted. “How many Valium did that take?”

“Shut up, Charlie,” Angela said.

“Shut up, Charlie, shut up, Charlie. Gonna change my name to Shutupcharlie.”

“What happened?” I said.

Angela came in and leaned against the door: a long figure in a red sweater over green leggings. She shrugged.

“You scared her, lover. Your story scared her. Maybe you missed your calling. Maybe Stephen King would be interested in a collaboration.”

“Wonderful. I’ll probably need the work.”

Angela looked at me—glared a little, I thought. “I doubt it.”

I moaned. “Oh God, Angela. I made it up, damn it. Maybe they never even had the electric chair in Illinois. I don’t know. I made it all up.”

Angela wasn’t glaring at me anymore. She just gazed at me, kind of sadly, kind of wearily. “Tell her in the morning,” she said. “She’ll feel better in the morning, tell her then.”

I nodded, sighing.

“Merry Christmas, guys,” she said.

“Ho, ho, ho,” said Charlie.

In the morning Susannah was gone, I woke up at seven-thirty, and she and her friends were just driving away. McGill was standing in the doorway waving. He seemed a little puzzled by his daughter’s sudden departure, but that was all. She hadn’t told him anything. She hadn’t gotten me in trouble with the boss. Later that afternoon McGill and I parted on good terms and I went back to the city to spend the rest of the holiday.

Back home, where I belonged.