Joe Lansdale - Lost Echoes

“Yeah. I saw him.”

“How the hell did you see him?” Dad said.

“In my dreams.”

There was a long moment of silence, large enough and empty enough for an elephant to walk through.

“Dreams?” Dad said. “Son, you need some rest. You don’t dream people you ain’t never met. You seen that on some TV show or something, read about it in one of those crazy stories you’re always reading.”

“You just think you’ve dreamed it,” Mom said. “You’re seeing his face in the paper now, just now, and you’re thinking you’ve seen him before. Maybe he reminds you of someone.”

Harry shook his head. “No.”

He turned slowly and walked out of the room toward his bedroom. He turned on the little rotating fan and lay down on his bed and looked at the water spot on the ceiling, the one that looked like a bear’s head with its mouth open. There was another water spot not far away. It looked like a mouse. The mouse appeared to be running toward the bear’s mouth, and the bear, silent and waiting, was going to surprise him. Big-time.

His mother stood in the doorway.

“You okay, baby?”

“Yeah, Mom. Okay.”

“We shouldn’t have let you see that.”

“No. That’s all right. I always read the paper.”

And he did. He had started last year, because of a school class that was teaching them about current events. And it always depressed him. Someone was always killing or hurting or stealing or lying to someone else.

“It’s just someone reminds you of someone else,” she said.

“Yeah. Sure. It just sort of got to me.”

“You want some water?”

“No.”

“Got some Coca-Cola, you want it.”

“No. I’m fine.”

She reached out and touched his hand. She smiled at him. He tried to smile back.

“Well…okay. You call you need something. All right?”

“Sure.”

She went out and closed the door.

Night had fallen when his father came into the room. A big slice of darkness lay across the sheets. A bit of wind came through a couple of cracks in the wall, which in the summer was all right. During the winter, though, it was a bitch. Still, it was an all right room. At least he had his own space. Joey, he slept on the couch in a house worse than this, and over there no one even tried to make it a home.

“You sure are upset,” Dad said, and stretched out on the bed beside Harry, under the wedge of darkness, causing the old bed to dip. He could feel his father’s hand close to his. He didn’t look at it and he didn’t touch it, but he could feel the heat off of it, and he knew it was short fingered and thick like a catcher’s mitt, scarred all over from wrenches that slipped and slammed them into bolts and sharp-edged metal.

“I’m just not feeling well.”

Harry said this while looking at the ceiling, studying the bear-head water spot, which was hardly visible now. The mouse he couldn’t see at all.

There was some light coming from the hall, but the darkness was stronger. It shoved the light out.

“You sure you seen those people before? Ones in the newspaper?”

“Yes, sir. I guess. I don’t know, really.”

“Maybe you did. Maybe long ago you did. Then later, see, you dreamed about them, or thought you dreamed about them, when really you were just remembering seeing them. I don’t know about that kind of thing, but it could be like that. Down the hill there, you could have seen them, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re letting it get to you, this dream. No use in that.”

Harry thought, No, not for you. You handle things when they happen. You just go in and take hold and wrestle them to the floor and beat their ass.

“Well, you listen. After a good night’s sleep, you won’t be thinking about all that.”

“I know.”

“You gonna eat some dinner?”

“I guess.”

“Hey, tell you what, this once, what say I have Mom bring it in to you? You can eat in your room, lay back a bit. Just rest.”

“Sure, Dad, that would be great.”

“You got it,” he said, rolling off the bed, causing it to lift Harry up a full two inches.

Daddy turned the little rotating fan on higher. It screeched and pushed some wind Harry’s way. His father smiled. It was a lopsided smile, like maybe he didn’t really know how to do it.

“You’ll be all right,” he said, and went out.

It actually was kind of fun, eating in the room, being alone, taking his time, sitting by the window looking out at the night.

They had this thing, his family did, and it was about eating at the table. You always ate at the table, and you talked.

It was never heavy talk. Daddy mostly listened to Mom and him talk, and Harry liked to talk, when it was easy talk. About everyday forgettable stuff.

But there were things he couldn’t discuss.

Comics. Books, the writers who wrote them. Neither of his parents were readers of that sort of stuff. In fact, it was his father’s shame that he could hardly read at all. Went through school up to the junior year and dropped out. Got that far and couldn’t really read. Oh, he could read signs, and a few simple things. Enough to get by, especially if you were doing mechanic work and knew your work and could sign your name. So it wasn’t a noticeable problem. But Harry knew it embarrassed him, his inability to really read well. In everything else he was as confident as Superman, but the reading, that bothered him.

And his Mom…well, she was smart, appreciated his love of books. But discussing any of the science fiction he read would have been about as much fun as talking to a goat about barbecue sauce. She didn’t get it. Same with the handful of video games he played. She couldn’t see the point.

His parents watched TV. Sitcoms and news mostly, listened to country-and-western music on old vinyl records. They seldom went out. If they did, it was maybe for a hot dog or hamburger, picking it up at the drive-through window. Visited relatives from time to time. Didn’t really have any friends. Not real friends like he had. Joey and Kayla.

Well, Kayla anyway. Joey, he was hard to figure.

But Kayla, she was all right.

He thought about her all the time.

But his parents, they didn’t have any real friends, far as he knew. Didn’t even have a good friend who moved off. Someone they could remember.

They had each other.

And him.

Daddy had his work, and Mom had him to try and put knee pads and helmets on.

That was pretty much all they had.

But he loved them. Dearly. And they loved him back.

His dad, a real tough guy, but soft when he had to be. He was Harry’s hero. Said what he meant, meant what he said. Talked the talk and walked the walk. He wasn’t scared of much, that Harry could see.

He wished he could be just like him.

Because he was scared all the time, and here he sat, whining in his room with the leftovers of his dinner. Harry got up, went to the window, and looked out. Dark.

He pushed up the window and took a deep breath. The summer air was as thick as old tire smoke, and just as hard to breathe.

He went to his door and closed it softly. It blotted out the sound of the television and the light from the hallway, left him in darkness.

He turned on the light, got his magazine out from under the bed, the one with the naked women in it, looked at it, but it wasn’t doing much for him. He turned off the light, put the magazine back, and lay down on the bed with his hands behind his head.

He thought again about his dad, how he tackled things like this. He wouldn’t just lie here. He’d go and investigate. He’d find out.

While Harry was thinking on all this, he fell asleep.

When he awoke it was still dark in the room. He got up, stumbled over, and turned on the light. He looked at the windup clock on the nightstand. It was five A.M.