I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive by Steve Earle Read Free Book Online

every time they got off. But Doc's curse was that it was in that place that Hank's voice grew loudest and clearest.

    "
She sure is a pretty thing, Doc.
"
    Doc's out of his chair in an instant but it takes him a second or two to bring the ghost into focus. Hank's on the foot of the bed, one bony leg crossed over the other and a spiderlike hand reaching toward Graciela's thigh. Doc lunges on unsteady legs.
    "
Get away from her, goddamn you to hell! She's just a child, for chrissake!
"
    Whoosh! Did Hank leap across the bed or simply collapse out of his grasp like smoke and rematerialize on the other side? Doc isn't certain. He rounds the foot of the bed in an attempt to shield Graciela, but the ghost stretches himself like a rubber band, elongating his already impossibly angular frame and leering over Doc's shoulder.
    "
Yeah, like you wouldn't fuck her.
"
    Still a little wobbly from the dope, Doc drops back down on the edge of the bed, and Graciela stirs but, mercifully, doesn't wake. The ghost shrinks to life-size or perhaps a little smaller and settles in a chair by the door.
    "
You ain't got nothin' to worry about, Doc. I can't touch her no how. You know that." The ghost takes off his Stetson and hangs his balding, transparent head and sighs. "I just wanted to talk is all. Seems like here lately you been too busy to bother with Ol' Hank.
"
    Doc sighs, checks to make sure that Graciela's still sleeping, and then picks up his chair, lifts and carries it as quietly as he can manage across the room, and sets it down opposite Hank's.
    "
Okay, Hank. You want to talk? Let's talk. But quietly, and with a minimum of, uh, theatrics, if that's possible. You're going to wake the whole goddamn house up.
"
    The ghost leans forward and cranes his neck until his face is only inches from Doc's and whispers, his breath cold and vaguely foul, like a deep freeze full of out-of-date meat.
    "
Them dykes can't hear me neither, Doc. You know that. They just hear you when you holler back at me and they think that you're losin' your mind.
"
    "
Who says that I'm not?" Doc shrugs. "Who says I'm even talking to you right now? I mean, at the moment I am high enough to hunt ducks with a rake.
"
    "
You don't believe that, Doc." Hank pouts, pivoting noiselessly in his chair and very nearly disappearing altogether as he presents an almost one-dimensional profile, head back with his nose in the air like a wounded schoolgirl.
    "
What I don't believe," Doc qualifies, feeling a little guilty for hurting Hank's feelings, "is that there's any such thing as ghosts. Hell, Hank, I'm an educated man. A medical doctor.
"
    "
Ex-doctor!" Hank challenges.
"
You said so yourself.
"
    "
All right, ex-doctor, but my legal difficulties with the State of Louisiana notwithstanding, I simply don't believe that you exist, and what's more, I never have! If I were ignorant enough to believe that the spirits of the dead walked the earth seeking revenge or whatever, I'd be shaking in my boots about now, and I'm not, and there's the proof right there, Hank. I'm not scared of you and I never have been. Not since the first time I
thought
I heard you calling my name, back in Louisiana. So either I
am
crazy, or you're just as pitiful an excuse for a ghost as you were for a human being.
"
    Doc knows immediately that he's gone too far and braces for some sort of paranormal conniption, but instead the ghost stands up, head bowed, lower lip protruding like a dejected child's, and dissolves through the wall.

    With each passing day Graciela grew a little stronger and soon it was all her unlikely caregivers could do to keep her lying down. Doc tried to convince her that she still needed rest but the truth was that he put off issuing her a clean bill of health only because he knew that she had nowhere to go. Marge had never been thrilled with Graciela's presence under her roof in the first place. Though she had found it financially expedient in recent years to abandon her father's "No Meskins"