David J Ebner

Among Dead Friends

ONE

He said to start with a true statement.

The statement with the most truth would be that I loved her. I loved her curled red hair and her blue green eyes and her rounded pale cheeks when she laughed.

She loved as well, in her own definition of the word. It was a course and barbaric love, but it was all she knew. She was raised in the city by an absent mother and a recluse father. She saw love as the borrowed time between her mother’s dancing shifts and her father’s secretarial affairs. And she knew the cost of love. For her mother it was 6 dollars and a private room. For her father, the cost of an eight dollar bottle of Champaign and promises of a better life.

She brought this knowledge of love to University and spread it among the male student body. The young men that knew her in the most intimate were aware that her love was borrowed, but I was not. I was studying expatriate literature, more specifically I was helping a classmate edit an essay about Gertrude Stein’s secrete condemnation of male homosexuality when I saw her from across the library lobby. She was wearing a long scarf as she often did. This one was green and black and reminded me of a zebra that happened upon a field of clover. She wore brown suede boots lined with fur, although it was not snowy or inclement weather.

That first sighting was from twenty yards, she in the enjoining café, and I in the general collection with authors ending in “Bc” through “Bf”. She was teasing the end of her scarf and the young man taking her order, while I was among my many dead friends of literature. That was how it always seemed to be. She enjoyed living and I enjoyed reading about those who wrote about those who once lived.

She got her coffee and walked past our table on her way out of the library. Her gait was such that it caused the rest of her to bounce while she walked. It was not the type of bouncing that occurs after too many treats, but one of confidence and endowment. She moved with purpose, not poise. Her look proved her to be just enough of a lady to provoke the creativity of her admirers’ imagination.

She passed and did not take notice that my mind was provoked in such an exercise, but my study partner did.

“So what do you think,” she said. “Are you paying attention?”

“Of course… could we just go over that last part again?’

My study partner was Bernadette Cole and she fancied me. She never would admit it, but it was the only explanation of her actions during the previous year. I wrote my first short story for my very first fiction workshop. The story was decent, but by no means great. I was too close to it. It resembled my life far too much and revealed some of my worst fears. Nonetheless, my professor liked it and told me that I must submit it for a contest. The prize was a simple publication in a student literary magazine. I did submit it and it was selected. I was shocked, but Bernadette wasn’t. She was on the selection committee and the editor in chief. It was evident that my story getting selected was a direct result of her feelings toward me. Bernie also tried to sleep with me on multiple occasions.

Bernie looked down at her essay, dark type with red ink skewering her words like tiny heads upon pikes.

“She is a whore and everyone knows it.” She said in a low monotone.

I was slightly shocked. Until then I had not known that side of her. Bernadette was a classy woman in her dress and her speech. Even in her choice in company she proved to be of a conservative nature.

“I don’t even know her.”

“Then you’re the only one. I’m in here every day; she always gets a frapicino at the café and has yet to pay a dime. It’s not even the same barista each time.” She struck a line with her red pen on her paper. “Even the women…”

“Even the women?” I inquired with a hint of excitement. I looked over with a grin and she finally broke her downward glower.

“Please, she’s an American flag on September 12^th-Cheap, mounted and under whose spell smart men make stupid decisions.”

I remember thinking that that was a great line and I was going to use it in a story some day long after she had forgotten it. She was referring to the Patriot Act- a tirade of lambasting Bernadette enjoyed reciting. I quickly made up a reason to leave after scheduling another meeting for the next day to review an essay I was writing about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s death defying dance with alcoholism. My professor at the time was on a kick about how many great writers were alcoholics. I just assumed that it was the other way around. That the writers weren’t drinking so much as the drinkers were writing. I took a sarcastically benign stance to the subject. I thought that if he knew the hell that alcoholism brought to the world then he would not be glorifying those who perpetuated the weakness. A lesson I learned on many lonely nights as a teenager. But I wanted an “A” so I did not make a fuss.

I arrived at the library early and sat at the same table from the previous day. I chose the seat facing the café after removing all of the chairs from the table minus the one opposite from me. I made small talk with Bernie for quite a while until the game strutted past our table. Then I quickly slid Bernie my essay to occupy her eyes.

That day the game was in great form – wearing her same boots and a new scarf, one that draped her chest and frayed at the bare skin between her top and her shorts. She got her frapicino free of charge and walked toward our table once again. I was usually shy enough to break eye contact after only a few moments but that day I didn’t, I couldn’t. She caught me and slightly smiled as her lips wrapped her drink’s straw and she took a drag.

After she passed I quickly looked back at Bernadette who was on a rant about a mutual American Government professor. It did not seem like she noticed my lack of attention and my career as a writer was saved.

I remained impatiently at the library listening to my paper being uprooted by the always thorough Miss Cole. After ten minutes I made another hasty yet cautious excuse and left.

Sticks and Bones: Part 2

Darien grabbed once more at Aaron and was able to catch his shoulder.

The gun fired.

Hitting the dog in the hind parts did nothing more than startle him. He pulled free of his now loosened rope and leapt onto Georgie. Aaron gathered himself from the ground and stood up with anger in his blood and a knife in his hand. Darien turned to confront the boy that almost shot his brother. Aaron slashed the six inch blade of his father’s Buck knife in Darien’s direction, missing at first, he swiftly returned for another attempt. The blade sliced past his open jacket across his chest. Darien was stunned, as well as Mike and Aaron, once they realized where the brawl had taken them. Darien dropped to his knees in amazement, staring down at the wood and gold platted grip lying in the snow in front of his knees. His blood was visible on the blade, a dark maroon spilled onto the bleached snow.

Splash.

The boys turned in the direction of the noise. Where a smiling boy and a yellow Labrador once had cuddled, now came nothing but the sound of wading waters. Then a yelp.

Aaron and Mike took off, running to their houses with the speed of bad-deed-ridden children. Darien left the glistening knife next to the flaming lantern, and the black stocked BB-gun, all in a half buried bed of snow. He began to crawl, but progressed to a jog toward the water. When he came to the shore he saw Georgie trying to stand in the shallows of the canal, the current deterring his efforts. Mr. Scruffles was swimming to the other side, struggling as well.

“Darien, I can’t stand up.” Georgie began to struggle, but his legs gave in and he began to float carelessly with the current.

“Georgie!” Darien hurried down the embankment and dove at his brother.

He splashed his way to Georgie’s side, and then haphazardly pulled him to land by the sleeve of his coat.

“Keep moving,” Darien pushed him up the water’s edge, gasping in the burning coarseness of the icy air, “you can’t stop moving.” He turned and noticed the dog still fighting to prove the worthiness of his existence. The dog bobbed at a pace that slowed with each tread and his mouth steamed like the smokestack of a sinking ship. No mayday was heard by Darien as Mr. Scruffles went under.

“I’m sssso cooold.” Georgie muttered as he moved from the scene.

“I know, I know, me too.”

The boys hobbled along, Darien holding his left chest with his right hand. They dropped like falling leaves next to the lantern, their only source of heat for miles.

“You hold that lantern as tightly to your body as you can, okay?” Darien winced in pain.

“Darien, you’re bleeding.”

Darien looked down at his chest and saw that his wound was revealed through his exposed shirt.

“It’s okay, I’m fine,” he zipped his jacket closed; “we have to get inside.”

“Do you know where we are?” Georgie looked up in search of a distinguishable landmark, but found none.

“No, not really, but we have to get moving, it’s starting to get dark.”

Both boys rose and as they did it started to snow. Georgie picked up the lantern and Darien grabbed the knife that resting where it was left. They marched on through the worsening conditions of winter. They climbed over logs and crouched under branches, but were unable to decipher the pressed path from the wooded wilderness. They guessed once, and then once more until their guess became futile in a Tetris of trees. They used the branches and trunks of trees to propel themselves forward, but after two hours they were trudging deep in an unknown territory where the snow fell merciless on them.

“I’m tired.” Georgie had been dragging his feet for over a mile.

“We can’t stop Georgie,” Darien’s chest was starting to wear on his outer clothing

“I can’t go any farther.” Georgie collapsed onto the ground.

“Maybe just five minutes.” Darien fell as well.

The two huddled together in a small hole dug into the earth by some older boys that used the woods for paintballing in the warmer months. The hole’s depth was a few feet at its center, and wide enough for the two of them, shaped like a bowl. Darien scooped the snow out to his best ability and then held Georgie in his arms who still possessed the low-burning lantern.

“Darien?” The hole concealed Georgie’s quiet voice.

“Yea.” Darien started to drift.

“Do you think Mr. Scruffles is okay?”

Darien debated which lie would be the best to tell, “Sure, I saw him come out the other side.” The farthest from the truth was the best.

Two minutes passed with nothing but hard breaths being passed between the two.

“Why?” Georgie’s blond hair was now covered with snow in the front, and blood in the back.

“Why what?”

“Why did they do this?”

“I don’t know.”

“You always know.” A tear rolled down his face before freezing at his chin.

“I’m sorry Georgie, but this time I don’t.”

“I’m getting sleepy.” Georgie’s eyes began to glaze.

“Okay, you sleep for a little bit and I’ll stay awake.” Darien felt bad that he had no logical answer for his little brother, although he knew that sleeping was a bad idea.

“Darien?”

“Yea.”

“Will you sing for me?”

“Like Mom?”

“Yea, only better.”

Darien chuckled, “Okay. What do you want to hear?”

“Anything.”

“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas just like the ones I used to know...”

Georgie was sleeping within seconds. Darien sat with his brother in his arms and all he could think about was the knife in his pocket, so he took it out. He opened the knife that now had his own dried blood frosting the blade. He took his right glove off and scooped his pale blue hand into the snow, replacing it with the knife and covered it up. As Darien lost consciousness the snow continued to fall and just before he closed his eyes he saw the lantern flicker out.

For two day authorities searched for the boys to no avail, with only sorrow, pain, and layers of warm clothing. Mike and Aaron constructed a well-planned story to tell the concerned parties, stating that they never showed up after school.

On the morning of the third day a man hunting for white-tail deer walked onto a shallow depression in the snow and stepped on what he thought was a log.

Crack.

I have been having some odd dreams. I would not say that they are nightmares or even dreams necessarily. They all concern my father, who passed a little over three years ago from cancer. When he appears I am awe struck. I have noticed hugging him often and wishing to be near to him. The atmosphere always takes a dramatic turn when I conclude that he is dead. One of two outcomes occurs when I realize this; the first is that I notice he isn’t talking and/or can’t speak. I feel like this is a subconscious realization that the dead have no voice, a line I was told that Eugene O’Neil used often. The second is that he disappears instantly and all that is left are his cloths sitting, not in a pile, but laid out as if they were placed on the ground. When this happens I always feel like a fool, as if I had myself put them there and had been pretending all along. My guess is that this because I kept some of my father’s clothes when he died. One item that I wear often is his suit jacket. I commonly feel out of place when I am in a tie and jacket, as if I am pretending to be an important business man. This may have something to do with the dream, or maybe I am reaching and trying to explain something that needs no other explanation then that I miss my dad.

David J. Ebner

Part 1

Running is always more rewarding when home is the destination. Through the slush and snow-covered concrete the two brothers ran as if they were being chased. And they were, though not by a villainous creature or an overpowering tyrant, but by time. The ‘yellow Twinkie’, as they called it, was pulling away with screeching breaks, and the boys had but seventeen hours until its planned rendezvous. Darien and Georgie didn’t need to say words, their minds yelled in unison: Faster, faster.

Darien’s brown hair shook in conjunction with his back pack, and his eyes began to tear in the cold air. He and Georgie were more than brothers, they were partners. They had no other choice. Three years prior, when Darien was Georgie’s age, their father left. Their choices of reliance were their absent minded mother, or each other.

The house in which they slept was nothing more than a one-hundred-thousand-dollar fueling station where they consumed, excreted and recharged. It wasn’t much to look at, but the boys hardly did. It had grey aluminum siding that displayed a light shadow of mold on the bottom of each panel. The only sign of joy was a basketball hoop covered in snow just off the drive way. It sat in waiting for the sun to reclaim its purpose in the spring when the boys would laugh in joy as they assumed the personalities of their favorite NBA stars.

Darien and Georgie dropped their back packs in the foyer, grabbed a pop from the fridge, and exited through the garage. They ran once more down a sloping, curvy road to their friend’s house.

The boys had just moved to the neighborhood a year prior and were finally receiving some equality among their friends Mike and Aaron who had been neighbors since birth.

“Aaron, Aaron,” Darien shouted at a cream, ranch style house, “Aaron!”

A boy exited through a side door wearing half his coat and chewing on an apple. “Hey.” Aaron finished dressing. He was rough in appearance, a boy who associated himself with the outdoors and looked as though he did.

“Georgie, go get Mike.” Darien’s towheaded brother ran to his best abilities in his two-sizes-too-big winter clothes. He jumped and disappeared through the bushes dividing the two yards.

Aaron and Darien walked to the detached garage where they grabbed a homemade lantern and four paddles. The lantern was an ingenious invention of the fourteen year old mind; a coffee can with cardboard coiled tightly around a candle, and with the hot wax from a few other candles they filled in the airtight gaps in the cardboard. When the lantern was lighted it burned for hours.

“Here, take the paddles and lantern.” Aaron handed the items to Darien with one shove.

“What are you gonna carry?” He struggled with the objects.

“Dude, I’m eating.” Aaron climbed into the bed of his father’s 1984 F-150. He opened a rusting, mounted tool box and his eyes widened. “I’m carrying this.” He pulled a vintage Buck hunting knife from the box and held it in the air. He quickly closed and latched the box.

“Does your dad know?”

“Of course he knows. He always lets me take his knife. Come on.” Aaron leapt from the truck bed and continued eating his apple as he left the garage.

Georgie, now accompanied by Mike, met Darien and Aaron on the road leading to the bottom of the dead-end street. Darien redistributed the paddles and Aaron found a stick on which to carry the lantern that gave him a likeness to a mine worker, delving to the depths. Mike also carried an object not foreign to the boys on their daily excursions into the woods.

“Hey Mike, ya think I could shoot the BB-gun this time?” Georgie asked as he struggled to keep up.

“This gun’s for men only. You think you’re a man?” Mike looked down the sight.

“Sure...I guess so.”

“We’ll see.”

The road got narrow as the boys made their way to its dead end turnaround. They were now in a small valley, with the road winding down like a river, and houses perched on hills. Sporadically a clump of thick snow fell from the dead trees reminding the boys of their watchful eyes.

Every ten paces Georgie would find something on the ground that he felt compelled to prod, falling quickly behind.

“Move your ass.”Aaron chucked his apple at the roadside.

“Hurry up, Georgie.” Darien stopped to wait for his brother.

The rubbing of Georgie’s robust synthetic snow-pants was soothing to Darien in the silent, frigid air of December. The sound reminded him of playing in the snow a few years before, when he was young enough to do so, but most of all it reminded him of Christmas and cinnamon.

They reached the end of the road and Aaron lighted the lantern. Without saying a word they continued past the yellow barrier and the signs that read “No Dumping.”

“Be careful not to step in any puddles,” Darien said as he turned toward his brother, “you won’t like walking back to the house with wet shoes.”

“I know I know, I’ve done this a million times before.”

The quartet ventured into the woods almost every day after school. They had begun building a fort from the remains of dead trees in the later days of fall, and they were only a few more from finishing. The only speculation was the loosely enforced curfew at dark, established by their mothers.

The path was clean at first, carved and flattened by four-wheelers and dirt-bikes. Snow was the trekkers only obstruction until they reached the end of the path, then they had to hurdle logs and duck branches. Every step in the snow came with a crack at their feet. Aaron had told the boys on numerous occasions that they were stepping, not on sticks, but the bones of the recently murdered. He would testify that killers would come out to those same woods just before a snow storm and dump the bodies of the victims. By the time spring came, the bones would have been swallowed by the earth, leaving no trace. The boys always gave Aaron his due chuckle at the end of his tale, half out of courtesy, and half out of fear for the stillness that embodied his voice.

Darien noticed that Mike was leading the group in the wrong direction, “Mike?”

“What?”

“Where’re we goin’?” Darien hurried to Mike’s side.

“We have a surprise.”

“Yeah, a surprise.”Aaron added.

“Oh, kinda like a present?” Georgie could not resist.

“Sure, like a present.” Mike cocked the gun and, while walking fired at a bird in the tree tops above. He missed.

Before long they stumbled from the woods into a clearing. Darien’s breathing lightened when he heard the familiar sounds of what they called the canal- a strong stream that ran but twenty yards parallel to the Ohio-Erie Canal. The canal had a good current that made it great for rafting in the summer and kept it from freezing on the coldest of winter days. The boys burst into a run toward the canal, and didn’t stop until they came upon a dog, a yellow Labrador, tied at the embankment waging at the sight of humans.

Darien stopped short, “What’s this?” A look of confusing crossed his brow.

Mike and Aaron walked up behind him.

“It’s a mutt. What the hell do ya think?” Aaron set down the lantern.

“What is it doing here?” Darien turned around to face the two.

“Oh, a doggie!”Georgie ran up and embraced the Labrador. “I’m gonna name him Mr. Scruffles.” The dog licked Georgie’s face profusely.

“We caught him, and now were gonna have a little fun.” Mike grinned.

“What do you mean you caught him? How long has he been out here?” Darien demaned.

“Darien, look, he likes me.” Georgie was now dripping with dog saliva.

“It doesn’t matter; stop being such a freakin’ ‘tard.” Aaron pulled out the Buck knife.

Darien stepped back.

“Hey Georgie, come here,” Mike waved, “you still wanna shoot the gun?”

“Yea!” Georgie left Mr. Scruffles and hurried to Mike’s side.

“Now only real men can shoot a gun, and I’m not sure if you’re a real man yet.”

“I am, I am, I swear.”

“You’re gonna have to prove it.” Mike extended the stock of the gun in Georgie’s direction and they both held it.

“No.” Darien commanded from a few feet away.

“Shut up ‘tard, let him prove himself.” Aaron held up the knife.

“Yea, let me prove myself. I can do it.”

“I want you to shoot the dog,” Mike leaned down to Georgie’s height and, fixed on his eyes, he whispered, “I want you to shoot the dog in the head.”

“Why? No. I won’t!”Georgie retreated back toward the dog and held him whispering words of comfort into the dog’s ears.

“Then I will.” Mike wielded the rifle in the direction of the Labrador and removed the safety.

“Hey, don’t point that at my brother!” Darien grabbed the gun, and a three way tug-of-war began.

Mike, Darien and Aaron spun around in a frenzied circle, the riffle their pivot. A merry-go-round fueled by adrenaline, excitement and fear derailed to a rolling frenzy. Boots came sliding off and jackets furiously opened as they rolled flat the powdery surface.

“It’s okay Mr. Scruffles, I’ll save you.” Georgie started to untie the knot that imprisoned the dog.

Dear Followers,

Let me start by saying thank you and I am sorry. You have been a faithful reader and I am sure that you have been endlessly checking this site for updates. These efforts may have felt futile, but I assure you they are no longer. I am going to start a weekly post on Saturday nights. I am committed to this cause as long as there is at least one of you willing to read my rambles. I will begin with a re-post of a short story that I was lucky enough to get published as a Senior in College. I hope you enjoy.

David J. Ebner