The Haunting of James Hastings by Christopher Ransom Read Free Book Online Page B

grinning man who weighed at least three hundred pounds and went by Salaucey or just Sal, leaned out the window and waved me forward.
     
    I stepped up to the window. We made small talk for a minute. Then they recognized the look on my face.
     
    Leaning across the Navi’s console, Hermes said, ‘Whatcha need, G?’
     
    I made my request. Hermes didn’t ask why and refused to accept my four hundred dollars.
     
    ‘You take good care of this block, Hastings. Shit, my house gone up sixty K, all the home improvement you done.’
     
    ‘You been looking at real estate comps?’ I said. ‘You can’t move out on me, Herm. Not now.’
     
    ‘Nah, man. I ain’t goin’ nowhere. This here my home. But I talk to the brokers same as everybody else. I know what I’m holdin’.’
     
    ‘So, what do I do now?’
     
    ‘Now you go home and chill. Give it an hour, then check your recycle bin. Come see me you run into any pro’lems.’
     
    ‘My recycling bin?’
     
    Hermes looked at me. ‘The big green bucket in your driveway.’
     
    Salaucey said, ‘The blue one’s for recycling, black is for trash, green is for grass and tree shit.’
     
    ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘So, you mean the grass bin?’
     
    ‘Yo, Herm,’ Salaucey said. ‘I use the green, we gonna get grass all up in dis boy’s gat.’
     
    ‘Blue then, mothuhfucka,’ Hermes said to Salaucey.
     
    ‘Blue,’ Salaucey said to me.
     
    Hermes pointed as if trying to tap me on the chest. ‘But don’t leave ’at shit for the garbage mens to pick up. ’Morrow’s trash day.’
     
    ‘Got it. Thanks, Herm.’
     
    I went home and waited. Nervous. Wired. Then bored. An hour passed and I dozed off on the couch.
     
    I jolted awake, looked at the clock. Five hours had passed. I went out the kitchen door, to the bins in my driveway. There was a rolled brown lunch bag in the blue container. I carried it inside and opened it in the kitchen. There was a box of .40 Smith & Wesson 165 grain cartridges, two nine-round clips and a Glock 27. I’d seen Ghost play with guns many times, of course. But when he and his boys started messing with hardware, I left the room. I was always worried one of them might mistake me for him. A beef erupts and I get wet while he gets away, like he always does.
     
    The clips were full. I inserted one, ready to rock and roll. Taped to the grip of the semi-auto was a folded note, in surprisingly clean cursive script. The note, which could have been one of Ghost’s lyrics, said -
    Remember,
Bitch on a psychological safety
Finger off trigger = safety on
Finger on trigger = safety off
Drop the Glock on the floor, relax
you aint gonna blow yo motherfucking
toes to kingdom come.
     
     
     
    Sunday morning. Stacey had been dead for a year.
     
    As I lay on the couch thinking today is the day , I realized that unless I was looking at a photo of her, I could no longer remember my wife’s face. The face I had seen in Mr Ennis’s house had been a blur, one I was trying hard to forget. I recalled her firm thighs and rounded calves. Her yard-tanned belly with the ruby stud in the navel. Her fingernails painted blue, green, black, never red. I was still able to summon her hair, the choppy white shelf of it. I knew that her eyes had been blue but could not recall the calming life in them. The set of her jaw, the line of her nose, the contours of her ears - all of these details eluded me, and thus their sum.
     
    For the first time in months I regretted putting away the photos. All I could see when I closed my eyes were the after-shots, the fractured doll, and today was no day for that.
     
    I spent the morning at Target, looking at waffle irons. Stacey had always wanted one and I never bought it for her, my argument being that a waffle iron is just another one of those appliances you use once and then realize it’s a pain in the ass to clean up. It goes into the cupboard until you have a garage sale fourteen years later. I decided I would make