20th Century Ghosts

by Joe Hill

He was like a holy person in a Bible story, someone who can heal the ripped and infected parts of you with a laying-on of hands. You know how Bible stories go. That kind of person, they’re never around long. Losers and jerks put nails in them and watch the air run out.

AT FIRST MY father didn’t like Art, but after he got to know him better he really hated him.

In a friendship, especially in a friendship between two young boys, you are allowed to inflict a certain amount of pain. This is even expected. But you must cause no serious injury; you must never, under any circumstances, leave wounds that will result in permanent scars.

It is my belief that, as a rule, creatures of Happy’s ilk—I am thinking here of canines and men both—more often run free than live caged, and it is in fact a world of mud and feces they desire, a world with no Art in it, or anyone like him, a place where there is no talk of books or God or the worlds beyond this world, a place where the only communication is the hysterical barking of starving and hate-filled dogs.

We were the dumb kids, going nowhere, and for our stupidity, we were rewarded with all the really fun books.

“I wasn’t sure if he was your size or not,” she said. “I thought he was bigger, but I didn’t know. I thought it might only be my memory making him bigger.” “Well. He was just as big as you recall.” “He gets to seeming bigger,” she said. “The further I get away from him.”

Immediately he wished he could take the wink back. It was fake and he didn’t want to be fake with her.

“He’ll be the funny kid now. The funny kid always has something wrong with him. That’s why he’s funny—to shift people’s attention to something else.”

I think this was always one of my critical failings. If something didn’t make sense to me right away, I could never manage to look past what confused me to see a larger design or pattern, either in a structure or in the shape of my own life.