Joe Lansdale - Lost Echoes

When they got down the hill, near the honky-tonk, they paused to catch their breath.

“My daddy finds out I slipped off,” Joey said, “he’s gonna give me a worse beating than I got last week.”

Joey was talking about his eye. His father had punched him in the eye. Joey often had a black eye or a fat lip or a lump on his jaw or a bump on his head.

Harry had seen Joey’s father slap him alongside the head once. For hardly nothing, leaving a drawer open, something like that.

Harry’s father said James Barnhouse was a bitter old bastard. Mad because his leg had gone bad in high school. Football injury. Too many big guys on top of his kneecap. Before that he was hot shit, gonna go pro. After that he was lucky he got a caddy job, toting rich dudes’ golf clubs, living on a little wage and a few good tips. Reading crime magazines and old sex-and-bondage magazines, beating his boys if they found them and read them. Hitting his wife once in a while just to keep his arm loose and stay in practice.

Coasting. That’s what Mr. Barnhouse was doing, Harry’s dad said. Coasting. Feeling sorry for himself.

Joey’s old man didn’t scare Joey enough, though. He was always willing to take a chance and stand a beating. But he was nervous; Harry could tell that.

“I’ll get grounded,” Kayla said. “No TV. No phone. Nothing.”

“It ain’t the same as a punch in the eye,” Joey said.

“I’d rather get hit than be grounded,” Kayla said.

“That’s the way it sounds till you get hit,” Joey said. “Till my old man hits you; then you’d rather get grounded. You can trust me on that. Harry, here, he’d just get a talking-to, wouldn’t you, Harry? No grounding. No punch in the eye.”

“My parents aren’t much into spanking,” Harry said. “And they don’t do punching. But I could get grounded.”

“Yeah,” Joey said, “like when?”

“Grounding or no grounding,” Harry said, “I don’t want to get caught.”

“Your parents don’t punish you for anything,” Joey said.

This was pretty true. Since he got bad sick as a child, since the ear infection, his mother had been as protective as a hockey goalie. Worrying about asthma, which he didn’t have, allergies, which he might have, falling down, which he did a lot—just about everything. He and his dad went outside to play ball, she insisted on knee pads under his pants, wanted him to wear a bicycle helmet.

A bicycle helmet to play ball. Now that beat all. The idea of it—him out there in knee pads and a bicycle helmet to toss the ball around with his dad—well, that just wasn’t done.

Bad form, as he heard an English actor say on TV.

He was glad Dad had talked her out of it, ’cause if he did stuff like that, might as well have had a sign painted on his back that said: I’M THE BIGGEST PUSSY THAT EVER LIVED. PLEASE KICK AND HIT ME UNTIL MY BRAINS FALL OUT.

They stood for a while at the base of the hill, looking at the back of the dark, abandoned honky-tonk. Across the way the drive-in screen could be seen. Kung fu personnel were leaping about the big white square, mouths wide open, yelling silence.

“We come to see a ghost or not?” Kayla said.

“Yeah, sure we did,” Harry said.

“I don’t really think there’s any ghost,” Kayla said. “My daddy says there aren’t any such things, and he’s a policeman.”

“My brother says there are,” Joey said. “A policeman, he might know handcuffs and doughnuts, but he ain’t nothin’ more than anyone else when it comes to ghosts.”

“Since when do you care what your brother says?” Kayla said. “He told us you could get a girl pregnant by putting your little finger in her butt. So what’s he know?”

“He was just kidding.”

“I don’t think so. I think he’s that dumb.”

“Maybe it was the truth,” Joey said. “You want to bend over and let me try it?”

“I do that, it won’t be your finger; I know that. Just stay your distance.”

“You two are too nasty,” Harry said.

“It isn’t me,” Kayla said. “He’s the one’s got the stupid brother.”

They went on like this for a while, then eased up to the honky-tonk on the dark side. Joey grabbed at the window and pushed. It didn’t budge.

“We got to knock it out,” Joey said.

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “That wasn’t my idea, breaking nothing.”

“You want to see a ghost or not?” Joey said. “That was your idea, man. The ghost. I’m gonna get punched, I think I ought to go all the way, see what’s inside.”

“Just don’t think we should break anything.”

And no sooner had Harry finished saying it than he looked at Kayla. She was in shadow, and he couldn’t see much of her, but he could see her shape, and in some way that was more exciting than if he could see all of her. He wanted very much for her to think he was brave. He swallowed, said, “Sure, we can do that.”

“Maybe we ought not,” Kayla said. “It’s okay, you don’t want to, Harry.”

“Nah,” Joey said, “it’s all right. He’s all right. He don’t mind. Ain’t nobody using this place nohow.”

Joey picked up a rock, snapped it against a pane of glass. The glass shattered. Joey reached through the hole, got hold of the window lock, moved it. He pushed the window up easily and climbed inside.

Kayla came next. Harry linked his fingers together so she could step into the web of his hands and mount the window frame.

“Watch for glass,” he said.

Kayla smiled at him. She was out of the deep shadow now, and he could see her smile. It made him feel ten feet tall.

She stepped into his hands and through the window. He glanced at the drive-in screen before he clambered after her. It was a bloody death scene. A kung fu master with a sharp sword was beheading a warrior woman.

Inside the shadows were thick, and so was the dust. It choked them, and Harry began to cough. Kayla pulled a small flashlight from her back pocket, clicked it on.

There were tables and a long counter and against the wall a jukebox. The smell was strange. It gathered on them and clung like a cobweb.

“Stinks in here,” Harry said.

“Ghosts have a smell,” Kayla said. “I read that.”

“Do they smell like shit?” Joey said. “Shine the light over there.”

They caught a cat in the light, pooled him briefly in yellow. The cat bolted, disappeared behind the bar.

“Must be a hole in the wall somewhere,” Harry said.

“Let’s get it,” Joey said. “Let’s get the cat.”

“No,” Kayla said.

“What for?” Harry said. “Leave the cat alone.”

“I don’t like cats,” Joey said.

“Don’t you hurt a cat,” Kayla said. “You hurt a cat, I’ll never speak to you again.”

Joey processed this information for a long moment, studying Kayla, standing defiant behind the small beam of light. He turned away from where the cat had gone, said, “That stink. It’s cat shit. Watch where you step.”

“That won’t be easy,” Harry said. “We just got the one light.”

“And I have it,” Kayla said.

Harry and Joey eased up close to Kayla. Harry could smell Kayla’s hair. It smelled like some kind of flowery shampoo. And she had on a heavy dose of perfume. She always wore too much, but he liked it. He felt funny all over. He wanted to put his arm around her, but didn’t.

“Shine it on the jukebox,” Joey said.

Kayla did. The records were still beneath the glass. In fact, one was cocked up on the spindle, ready to drop.

“I heard she got killed right there,” Joey said. “By the jukebox.”

“You don’t know that,” Harry said.

Kayla said, “It was in all the papers, Harry. My daddy told me about it. He talked to the cops were here, down at the station. She was found lying against the jukebox. Everybody knows that.”