1 The Bank of the River by Michael Richan Read Free Book Online

dad had felt that lonely. He suddenly
felt guilty for not visiting him more.
    “But,” Roy continued,
“I didn’t because I knew even if she could talk to me she never would that way,
out of her hatred of it. She’d be too busy staring endlessly into the eyes of Jesus
to bother and talk with me. Hell, I don’t think we said a dozen words to each
other that last year she was alive anyway. But I did miss her.”
    They sat in
silence for a moment. Steven knew his mother’s extreme religiousness was a big
reason why he was such a rationalist now. It was pure rebellion, a one-eighty
from what she hoped he would be. He hadn’t considered his father also held
beliefs he found just as unpalatable but were never expressed.
    Roy stood
and refilled his coffee mug. “Listen, I think you made your point. You’re not
crazy, there’s no brain tumor. Something’s going on here and it’s taking a toll
on you. Like I told you, you look like shit.”
    “It’s
because of sleep,” Steven replied. “The knocking, every night.”
    “Fuck the
knocking,” Roy replied. “The knocking is just the appetizer. You got a real
problem here. The knocking is just to wake you up so they can scare the shit
out of you. And it’s working, because they know you can’t accept what you’re
seeing. Nothing more horrible than a brain tumor.”
    “They?”
Steven asked. “Who is ‘they’?”
    Roy sat back
down. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”
    “How?”
    “Not sure
just yet,” Roy replied. “But I have some ideas. Drive me home. There’s some
things I need to do.”
    The early
colors of dawn were just appearing in the sky. Steven sat down his coffee and
went to look for his car keys.

Chapter Six
     
     
     
    “This seems pointless,
Dad,” Steven said as he picked up his father once again at his house and drove
him back to Steven’s to spend another night. Steven had taken his father home
earlier that morning and dropped him off. Later that afternoon he had received
a call from Roy asking him to come and pick him up at 9 p.m., that he wanted to
spend the night again. He told him that he wanted to hold a “trance” at the
house, with his help. Steven felt it was a useless exercise.
    “Tell me
what this is and why we’re doing it,” Steven insisted.
    “Your tone
could use a little softening, considering I’m helping you here,” Roy replied.
    “Sorry, I
don’t mean to be rude, I just want to know what the plan is, and why you think
it will matter.”
    “The plan,”
Roy said, “is a trance. I did a little studying up at home. There’s a book I
have, that I’ve had for years, since I was a teenager, that I always kept
hidden from your mother. It’s been invaluable to me over the years.”
    “What book?
What’s the title?” Steven asked.
    “I didn’t
think you were interested in such things,” Roy said. “I’m sure it’d all be a
bunch of gobbledygook to you, or you’d just pick at it, ‘cause that’s what you
do. So just trust me for now.”
    Steven
wanted to object, but he knew Roy was right. He would pick at it, trying
to discredit it. Probably not the “energy” Roy wanted right now.
    “So you
learned what we should do from this book?” Steven asked instead.
    “Well, it
gave me an idea,” Roy replied, “to turn the tables, so to speak. So far, this
has all been a one-way communication, it trying to talk to you. Or to scare
you. But always initiated by it. This time we’re going to initiate
things. That sends a different signal. We’ll see what happens.”
    “So you’re
not sure what’s going to happen?”
    “No, not
really,” Roy replied.
    “So, we’re
just stirring things up then? Stirring the shit? That seems like a bad idea to
me.”
    “This isn’t
my first time at the rodeo, kid,” Roy said. “Give me a little bit of credit.”
    “What are
you going to do, exactly?”
    “A trance.
It’s like jumping in the river. But I’m in charge this time, I’m controlling