my house is creaking

she says, "do you believe in ghosts?"

he tells her he likes the idea. that it is something that interests him, but something he sort of left in a box.

"in a box?"

"in a box. when i was in kindergarten i was convinced of ghosts. i had elaborate dreams about them. not so much looking like dead people, but how they would be in cartoons. floating sheets. sometimes they were good. sometimes they were completely evil. usually you could tell by the mouth, if it was frowning or smiling or had pointy teeth. those were vampires, i think. but often and a lot at the end, you couldn't tell a good ghost from an evil ghost. there were no longer any real distinguishing marks between good and evil. it was weird."

"so you're saying you don't believe in ghosts?"

"i'm saying it doesn't matter if it's real. i'm saying the thought is absorbing and fantastic. that i saw a painting once that was just the words 'to repel ghosts' in white, printed on black. that this was incredibly affecting. but that most of my convictions about this sit in a box somewhere in my parents house. with the enthusiasm award i got in kindergarten."

"i can't imagine you in kindergarten."

"i didn't have glasses and i remembered things better. short term things, anyway. i didn't have a habit of wandering into a room and forgetting why i was there."

"i believe in ghosts," she says. she looks straight ahead. or just off in the distance. somewhere near the windows.

in the bed, sitting up, the thunder crashes. he holds her to him. he feels her breasts through her shirt, rising and falling with her breath. they are just big enough to fit in the palm of his hand.

"i believe in ghosts," she says, this time letting her eyes close a bit. "in something. something involving physics, and a soul. there is obviously science behind it. there are no sheets involved."

"there should be, ada. there should be sheets."

"my ghosts are not the product of your childhood."

"i had a wonderful childhood."

"allen, when i woke up it was because i had this dream. about a camel. or, there was a camel. and it was trying to get out of this gate that i couldn't get open. and so it stretched its legs sideways, like a spider, because it had to get out. the grass was burning. it was an estate or something, and it had grass. i had been hiding in the house, and everyone i was hiding with just ran through the fire. because they were scared of something."

"were you scared, ada?"

"i don't know. i woke up so i could figure it out. but i still don't know." she pauses, and takes a deep breath. "once when i was driving at night, there was a storm. i was near a telephone pole, and i couldn't see through the rain, which was a curtain. and a deer jumped out, right into the windshield, and its head went through. sometimes i dream about this still."

"Ada," allen starts, "if you listen, you can hear everything moving. the rain outside and the clouds up ahead. the stars up above that are really so many low flying jets. the ice cubes turning into ice. the fact that i am still hungry. you can break these things down into smaller parts. and find out what is creaking."

"the creaking woke me up."

"i know."

"there could have been a porch swing. in the dream. it was an estate."

"this is a fair assumption, i think."

"you're just saying that to be supportive."

"yes."

"what were your ghosts really like?"

"round sheets. that floated in a black void. they smiled and frowned and had full sets of teeth or pointed teeth or no teeth."

"the longer you got to know them the harder it was to see which one was obviously good and which one was obviously evil?"

"i think."

"were they dead people?"

"they were just ghosts."

"Allen?" Ada goes, "I want to go to sleep."

they went to tell everybody but they could not get across

He’s watching a Korean movie about a sea monster in a mutated irradiated river full of run off and nobody can stop thinking about fishing in the Schuykill. She sends him a text message and he tells her he’s watching a movie but he’d be glad to bother her when it was done. She says sure. He tells her it won’t be done until late, and she tells him she doesn’t care. He can bother her whenever he wants, really. He grins his face off and everyone says “Well who’re you texting there???” He continues to grin and points at the screen so no one missed the monster slapping the guy who’s probably half retarded into a hole where he goes unconscious. Everyone is glad because he was an irresponsible father. Not a bad one. Just probably retarded. And a burden.

He walks home and everything is covered in frost. The streetlights throw shadows around and the trees have no leaves. Just branches that stretch, for different reasons. And the lights are yellow and the shadows are just dark, and all the buildings are made of bricks.

“It’s fucking cold out.”

“Jesus. Allen. What time is it?”

“2? 2:05? Probably. One of those.”

“Mm.”

“You were sleeping.”

“Sure. Maybe.”

“Well, since I’ve got you up.”

“How was the movie?” She closes her eyes, stretches her arms. Turns her head to the side.

“The end was great. Everyone was dead. The retarded guy wasn’t retarded anymore, and he and this kid he managed to save lived in a shack they built on the edge of the river, and it was winter, and they were warm. As the kid fell asleep, the dad, the guy who wasn’t really retarded anymore, he knelt by the window with a rifle, and watched. There was a deer somewhere. It was fucking beautiful.”

“You’re kind of a sap sometimes. You know that right?”

“Eat shit, it was still fucking beautiful. Fuck. It’s colder now than it was at 9.”

“I said that to you months ago.”

“It was good, so I kept it. I’m almost home. It is going to be warm. It will be great.”

“It’s cold in here. I have to use like three down comforters. And then I have to use a fan on my face. Or stick my feet out from under.”

“Aren’t you sleeping in like, the sunroom of your parents house.”

“Yes.”

“Because you like to go home on weekends.”

“Because I go home on weekends.”

“Fair enough.”

“It is.”

“Sure.”

“”

“So next week, let’s hang out.”

“Why? Because you think you can change my feelings about the male gender?”

“Because I think it’s cute that you like to refer to the male gender as the male gender. If you give me a minute, I am going to throw the phone down and take my pants off and get into bed, and then keep going.”

“Are you going to make sound effects when you take your pants off again?”

“Yes. They are my ninja sounds. They are adorable.”

“They’re fucking creepy Allen. It is creepy that you make sound effects when you take off your pants.”

“Hey so tell me about your first kiss.”

“Go make your fucking ninja sounds.”

“Fine.” He does.

“I am back.”

“His name was Namon. Which is a weird name, I guess. I don’t know. I never met anyone else named Namon. I was like 2. Or 3. We were probably infatuated with each other. We played Peter Pan a lot. I tried to fly off of his bed. Tinkerbell was not real and so I landed on the ground, in pain and shocked that it did not work. It was awful. He kissed me. Now he is fat and hairy. Like on his back. I saw it once.”

“My brother did that. He was like 4 maybe. He thought he was Superman. He jumped off a slide and he fell and broke his wrist. These are things Superman never would have done. I did a drawing of Superman telling him to get better when he got back from the hospital.”

“Allen, I am going to go to sleep.”

“Come hang out next weekend.”

“Sure. Maybe. I don’t know. Things with me and boys don’t work out always. Someone always gets weird. We’ll see.”

“Well. Still. Sweet dreams, Ada.”

“Goodnight, Allen.”

thunder like so many handclaps

They sat there in the darkness and watched the storm move on the television. Many things depended on this storm. The thunder clapped around them, and he jerked a little bit and didn’t notice; and she smiled at that a little bit, but all he noticed was the way the hair felt as it grew back in along his chin. What he felt most of all was where it didn’t grow. How he’d seen a movie the other day where the only soundtrack was the space between people, and he thought how this was the same thing we each of us hear every day, and that it is amazing.
The thunder clapped around them, and they sat there together on couches.
He asked her if she wanted to go out to the bar, and she would have said, “No.” She’d say, “Do you want to go to the bar?” He’d tell her, “No.” They’d just keep watching the storm.
They watched the storm until they were both so covered in hair they looked like Cousin It from the Addams Family. He got up to get and gets razors, scissors, and trimming devices. He worked until everything became as it was before.

here we go!

the storm machine is on the roof.

and although you would assume it would be some sort of antennae array, sending signals to the heavens, it isn't. you would be wrong if this is what you had assumed.

the storm machine operates on the principle of this conversation:

"ada, why aren't there more thunderstorms?"

after a period of silence where you feel tired, she keeps her eyes closed and says to the phone, "i don't know, allen. probably there aren't enough warm and cold fronts."

"you're saying the lack of friction is doing things in here."

"i don't know. i mean, i studied french. but, since you asked me, i'm going to say it's not enough warm and cold fronts."


months later and after they'd stopped speaking, allen looked up at the sky and felt something tugging in the silence. he looked up and it tugged some more and he went inside his apartment and it kept tugging, in his head in his gut on his hair in an upwards motion and he was tugged to the roof and sat down.

he looked out and around and saw them building the comcast building shining in the sun at 5 p.m. and city hall and but it was when he saw the ice cream truck on the roof next door that he remembered about the warm and the cold and the things that tension brings.

we talk when we don't or sometimes we say

he was sitting in a minivan with thom (soft t-h) when ada called to ask where they were. thom said huh oh we're well not there yet, and there was a silence that was the kind you can hear and feel.

so when ada tells him that she's been waiting for half an hour, told him when she would be getting in and had a fucking plane to catch and was only coming by to say hi because he'd needled her into it, when she tells him this thom really is not sure what to say. none of us are, really. this is a conversation you have because you feel obligated, and no one likes to feel obligated. we get them over with as quickly as possible and pass them to the right, and allen happens to be to the right so the phone is his.

a week later he's calling her up one morning to remind her to go pick up her medication, which is for her allergies or her bad back or her big ass or her pliable teeth or her stomach parasties if that's even what they are or her farts. or for that sharp point you hit when you have to make a decision that means one thing or another.

we dream of raised fists and spin moves. ice rinks and peanut butter.

In the dream, I am sitting there in my room. I hear a noise, at the window. There is a light and I do not like light or noise when I sleep, so I have to stop. I sit up. I am sitting up and, when I look over, I see my shadow on the wall, because of the light.
Yeah, well, and here's the thing - the shadow gets up and grabs a shadow knife. It makes its way to my parents’ room, where I am pretty sure they are having sex. I see my shadow pull back the covers and I can see it on the floor and going up to my parent’s room. Because my parents room is upstairs, and I can hear their bed hitting the wall, and it's my fucking dream so of course I know what's going on.
I hear voices in the living room, and all the boys I’ve ever kissed are just sitting there, as my shadow goes by killing all of their shadows, ,and I feel like I’ve lost control of the dream. Then I laugh, because there they all are, and now my shadow will never let them get into Never Never Land. There are no cars outside. We can never escape.

I start to forget this is a dream when I look out the window and realize there are no cars. I see my uncle there under a tree, completely inebriated and totally appropriate: his penis is out. He is peeing nutragrow on the lawn.
Then the dream changes. I’m in my car. I worry I’ve fallen asleep driving again, and that's when I see it. A deer. It's standing in the road, illuminated by my headlights like spotlights because they are on the front of my car to show me the things in the dark I cannot see, and I freeze, and I panic because this is a fucking deer. It is standing in my headlights. It is the only thing I can see because everything else is fucking black.

Then it jumps. Straight at me.

As I see its head go through the windshield, I know how it will break, the windshield. I know it is a girl deer and not a boy deer. Because of antlers. I know that they’re not there, and how this is probably somebody’s mother and how that is worse than somebody’s father. I know then that this is all clear even though my hands are covering my eyes and mouth because I forget how to close it, and I might be peeing a little.

When I wake up, it's more to remember that I was dreaming than anything else. I pick up my phone and send Allen a text message to see if he's up, because I’m not him and I don't call people at three in the morning, just because I’m lonely. I say I had a bad dream and now I can't sleep. I say, “foureyes.”

He calls. "So, wait, what happened?"

"I had a bad dream. I can't sleep now. I will soon though."

"Well, hey. I'm real proud. I am glad."

"Yeah? Why?"

"Because it's good. That you can overcome this terrible obstacle. That something bad happened and now I get to feel like I’m important."

"So this is about your vanity."

"This is always about my vanity. What was the dream, Ada?"

"Why do you care?"

"Was I in it? I was. You had to wake up and tell me you dreamed about me. It's ok."

"Oh yeah? Dreaming about you would be a bad dream."

"Which is what you would say to raise my concern."

"Mmm."

"So I expect to know when you dream about me."

"I won't dream about you."

"Ada, you had a bad dream and now you're talking to me. While it's true that I can
lull people to sleep, let's face it."

"Thought ends there?"

"Right there."

"Good."

"Yes. Hey. How's your bones?"

"Ache-y."

"At least you're consistent."

"Mmm. Allen, I'm going to sleep now."

"Sweet dreams, Ada."

And when he texts me the sound of a raspberry, I think it's cute. I don't know that I understand this.