do,” she said. “We’ll talk more when you get back.”
“Tell Louie I’ll see him soon. Tell him I love him.”
“He already knows.”
“You think he loves me back?”
“Yes, I do. And I think he always will.”
Before I could take things any further, she said goodnight, and with a quick and final click she was gone, swallowed back into the silence from which she’d come.
Not long after Jill and I split, when I finally dragged my ass out of that motel room chair, I called Caleb. His apartment number had been disconnected and his cell didn’t answer. I left a message. Two hours later some stoned-out hippie chick named Jane called me back to tell me it wasn’t Caleb’s phone anymore. He was hurting for money, she explained, and had sold it to her a few weeks before. She’d assumed the monthly payments and planned to keep the number until the contract ran out. When I asked if she knew where I could find him she’d laughed and said, “Dude, who ever knows where Caleb is? He’s like the wind, kid.” I asked her if he was all right. He’s fucking paranoid, she said. Thinks The Devil’s following him and spying on him, trying to destroy his life and listening in on his phone calls, watching his every move. She told me he thought he was being tracked and kept under surveillance by The Devil to make sure he kept his secrets to himself. What secrets? Who knows, she said. He’s fucking crazy, dude. I figured I had nothing to lose so I asked her to tell him to call me if or when she saw him again. It’s important, I told her. Sure, she said, groovy. No problem-o.
A week or so later my cell rang in the middle of the night. Caleb was on the line, calling collect from a payphone in New York City. I accepted the charges, and as the call connected, realized he’d already started talking and was halfway through whatever conversation he’d planned on having with me. I’d seen him do this before when he was high or drunk. He’d start talking then pick up a phone and dial, so by the time the person on the other end answered Caleb was already well into the conversation and they’d have no idea what the hell he was talking about. It took me a moment but I got the gist of his rant, something about evil and how it was stalking him, draining him and slowly destroying him. “I try to stay high,” he said, weeping suddenly. “I—I have to stay high, it—it’s the only way but I still see the fucker, I—he’s always there. I…”
“The Ragman’s not real, Caleb. He’s a myth, a nightmare, a story. That’s all.”
“I saved you,” he said through his tears. “Do you know that? I saved you.”
“Why don’t you let me send you a bus ticket? Come stay with me a while, I—”
“I can’t, you don’t understand.”
“Neither do you. I have some bad news to tell you, Jill and I—”
“I saved you,” he cried, slamming the phone down before I could respond.
I hadn’t spoken to him since, but those words still haunted me. Something in the way he said them chilled me to the bone, then and now, and although I wasn’t sure if they had actual meaning or if it was just another of his drugged-out tirades, my marriage was imploding; I couldn’t focus on Caleb’s problems. So I dismissed the entire thing as more of his usual dramatics and crawled back into my own despair.
But who was I to dismiss him or his problems, his fears, his pain and terror?
My heart was broken. He was dying.
The rain kept on, whispering its secrets through blurred glass, tapping them out in code as if on the other side of that black window the Ragman was drumming his bloody fingers against the pane.
Maybe he really was out there somewhere.
I headed back down to the bar. A few shots weren’t going to get it done.
Not tonight.
* * * *
Listen to that rain . Can you hear it?
I hear it, Grandpa.
Then tell me what you hear. Listen real good and you’ll hear it whispering to you.
The rain doesn’t whisper to people,
“Tell Louie I’ll see him soon. Tell him I love him.”
“He already knows.”
“You think he loves me back?”
“Yes, I do. And I think he always will.”
Before I could take things any further, she said goodnight, and with a quick and final click she was gone, swallowed back into the silence from which she’d come.
Not long after Jill and I split, when I finally dragged my ass out of that motel room chair, I called Caleb. His apartment number had been disconnected and his cell didn’t answer. I left a message. Two hours later some stoned-out hippie chick named Jane called me back to tell me it wasn’t Caleb’s phone anymore. He was hurting for money, she explained, and had sold it to her a few weeks before. She’d assumed the monthly payments and planned to keep the number until the contract ran out. When I asked if she knew where I could find him she’d laughed and said, “Dude, who ever knows where Caleb is? He’s like the wind, kid.” I asked her if he was all right. He’s fucking paranoid, she said. Thinks The Devil’s following him and spying on him, trying to destroy his life and listening in on his phone calls, watching his every move. She told me he thought he was being tracked and kept under surveillance by The Devil to make sure he kept his secrets to himself. What secrets? Who knows, she said. He’s fucking crazy, dude. I figured I had nothing to lose so I asked her to tell him to call me if or when she saw him again. It’s important, I told her. Sure, she said, groovy. No problem-o.
A week or so later my cell rang in the middle of the night. Caleb was on the line, calling collect from a payphone in New York City. I accepted the charges, and as the call connected, realized he’d already started talking and was halfway through whatever conversation he’d planned on having with me. I’d seen him do this before when he was high or drunk. He’d start talking then pick up a phone and dial, so by the time the person on the other end answered Caleb was already well into the conversation and they’d have no idea what the hell he was talking about. It took me a moment but I got the gist of his rant, something about evil and how it was stalking him, draining him and slowly destroying him. “I try to stay high,” he said, weeping suddenly. “I—I have to stay high, it—it’s the only way but I still see the fucker, I—he’s always there. I…”
“The Ragman’s not real, Caleb. He’s a myth, a nightmare, a story. That’s all.”
“I saved you,” he said through his tears. “Do you know that? I saved you.”
“Why don’t you let me send you a bus ticket? Come stay with me a while, I—”
“I can’t, you don’t understand.”
“Neither do you. I have some bad news to tell you, Jill and I—”
“I saved you,” he cried, slamming the phone down before I could respond.
I hadn’t spoken to him since, but those words still haunted me. Something in the way he said them chilled me to the bone, then and now, and although I wasn’t sure if they had actual meaning or if it was just another of his drugged-out tirades, my marriage was imploding; I couldn’t focus on Caleb’s problems. So I dismissed the entire thing as more of his usual dramatics and crawled back into my own despair.
But who was I to dismiss him or his problems, his fears, his pain and terror?
My heart was broken. He was dying.
The rain kept on, whispering its secrets through blurred glass, tapping them out in code as if on the other side of that black window the Ragman was drumming his bloody fingers against the pane.
Maybe he really was out there somewhere.
I headed back down to the bar. A few shots weren’t going to get it done.
Not tonight.
* * * *
Listen to that rain . Can you hear it?
I hear it, Grandpa.
Then tell me what you hear. Listen real good and you’ll hear it whispering to you.
The rain doesn’t whisper to people,
Similar Books
