“Look, Sugar, this is bigger than all of that, okay? He paid for the house with cash, and not only that—he doesn’t want to leave. The house is beautiful. You should see it.”
“I thought you said tonight was your first time goin’ inside?”
“It is.” She spotted the toolbox beside the couch and picked it up.
“Lyin’, I can tell. You been up in there already doing nasty things with that man, haven’t you? On ya back like ya had a heart attack!” Sugar snarled. “Ya mama’s blood run deep!”
Emerald rolled her eyes and shook her head, stifling a laugh. She placed the toolbox down onto the kitchen counter.
“No, but Sugar, if I had, I’m an adult and my choices are just that:
mine
.”
“I don’t care how old you are. God don’t put no age limit on fornication. You go on to God and tell Him how you’s grown now, den you bring yo’ fast ass on back to me and tell me what he say!”
Emerald turned and caught her reflection in a large, bulky silver mirror that separated the living room and kitchen area and shook her head.
“Sugar, I’m talking about based on the renovation photos he showed me on his phone. Tonight will be my first time inside the place. Anyway, back to what I was saying. He likes it here in Maxim and he likes the house, too. Why shouldn’t he try to see if something can be done before just running away?”
“The better question is
why
is it white people always stay in haunted houses, huh? He know what’s going on now and he
still
up in there! I don’t give a damn if he likes the house; he can get another one. It ain’t the only place to live in all of Maxim. What’s wrong with these folks? Every time you turn on the TV ’round Halloween time, you see all these documentaries showing white folk buyin’ houses and talking about some ghost threw a skillet at their head ’nd tried to kill them. The camera cuts, goes to commercial and they dumb ass is sitting there on the couch with their face wrapped in bandages, arms and shoulders all scratched up like Tic-Tac-Toe, talkin’ about they ain’t leaving because they bought the house fair and square. Never mind how they bein’ dragged out their bed every damn night by the ankles by the ghost of Christmas past, present and future and they kids screaming and hollerin’ about boogeymen in tha closet. Now that’s just stupid.”
“First of all, it’s just him living there. I told you his two children were grown and have their own places to live. Second, you’ve gone off into left field. That’s not even what’s going on here.”
“How you know? You ain’t known Andre the Giant very long as of yet!”
“Sugar, his name is Sloan and I happen to know a lot about him. We go out together, we talk all the time, we share things. You have no idea how hard it was for him to tell me about this in the first place.” Emerald plopped down on her couch and set her feet up onto the coffee table.
“You lent him your ear but you ain’t no authority on none of this. You got that from your father.” Emerald rolled her eyes and sighed. “I couldn’t stand that about my brother, thinkin’ he always knew what he was doin’ when half the time he didn’t. You ain’t the ghost whisperer! You gettin’ letters from the ghost himself? Is this apparition giving you the play-by-play of his daily activities and motivations? I ain’t think so!”
“Sugar, I’m tired… you exhaust me with these crazy ideas of yours sometimes and no matter how many times I tell myself that you—”
“You about to be on the news, you know that? Your friend is going to get you in a whole heap of trouble.”
“How, Sugar?”
“He wanna stand his ground, huh? Put up his dukes ’nd fight like he Muhammad Ali, may that man rest in peace. I doubt Sloan float like uh butterfly and sting like a bee! How you gonna beat something you can’t even see? White people always tryna war wit’ somebody and get over. You over there playin’ in the snow and bound to get frostbit.”
“Would you stop it, please?”
“Look at the history. Every time you turn around, if there’s some trouble, you’ll find a white man smack dab in the middle of it!”
“Sugar, now that’s enough. This is not about race! He is my friend, okay?”
“Yo’ friend? Well, you may not like what I gotta say but this is what he gets. Yo’ little friend brought this mess on himself and now he will have to pay the consequences.”
“No, it is not what he gets, Sugar. No one deserves to be tormented in their own home, okay? And besides, some of these stories are hearsay or legend. It’s pretty hard to tell which is which because not the best of records were kept but at least the paranormal group emailed him this afternoon and they’ve arranged to come.”
“And what they gone do after they get there, huh? Confirm what he already know and then he’ll be stuck with the damn thing floatin’ about and slamming doors still! ‘By the way, your house is haunted. Good luck.’ He already knew that shit before they brought their asses up in there!”
“Sugar, you might have taken your blood pressure medication today, but you are driving mine way up.”
“You got high blood pressure, Emerald?” The woman’s tone turned serious.
“No! But you’re giving it to me. Look, I’m going over for dinner. Nothing will probably even happen. You act like I’m arriving with a Ouija board, cursed tarot cards, or a book of black magic. He actually said when he brings people over, the activity seems to stop. He thought about it and realized that when his son stayed, nothing happened either, but that was earlier on so he didn’t pay attention to it as much. Still, when his best friend stayed, nothing happened at all.”
“Well, you better hope that trend continues ’cause white people always tryna get other folks roped into some mess and I’m not racist like you tried to accuse me of, either. This damn ghost might be prejudiced, too! I know some good white people.” Emerald rolled her eyes but remained quiet as she made her way back into the kitchen. “We all God’s children—White, Black, and Eskimos alike, but some of us like to hear what the Devil got to say and White people enjoy it
especially
. They call him right up and tell him what they want. I know you’ve heard of that scientology stuff, Skull ’nd Bones and the Illuminati.”
Emerald burst out laughing. Turning on her kitchen faucet, she filled a bucket with warm, sudsy water to soak her brushes and wash them clean once more.
“Sugar, I’ve come to an understanding,” she stated calmly as she worked her thumb nail into the bristles, pushing them apart so the clear water could flow through. “I have accepted the fact that there is no sense in trying to talk to you about this. You’ve made it clear that nothing I say about this will be heard by you today, tomorrow, or ever.”
“Oh, so I’m lyin’? And I hear you just fine but you need to face the facts. Too trusting, just like your Daddy. That’s how he got a hold of that pack of wolves!”
“Pack of wolves?”
“Ya Mama! She was the alpha, beta, and omega of whorish behavior!”
“Since she’s a woman, the proper term is alphess but on that note, Sugar, I’m hanging up.”
“Wait a minute now! Let me make this point before you go into the land of denial again. I know it’s your favorite place to be. Let’s look back in history to all the times we trusted White folk and how that all ended, all right? First, let’s take the slave ships and Christopher Columbus. The Indians ended up with diseases from blankets ’nd shit, and they told us, the Black folk, that we was goin’ on a three hour tour, Gilligan’s Island style.”
“What does that have to do with me going over to my boyfriend’s house for dinner?!”
“Let me finish! It was a tall tale and we shouldn’t have sat back and listened to it, not to the millionaire and his wife, the movie star, none of ’em.”
“Sugar, I’m not doing this with you.” She chuckled as she gave up, realizing there was no way out of this conversation without rudely hanging up. She sloshed the water around in an anticlockwise motion, then clockwise before plopping the brushes inside. “This has nothing to do with slavery, being bamboozled, Gilligan’s island, the Skipper, or anything like that. Now, I need to finish up what I’m doing, then jump in the shower and get ready. He’s expecting me for supper and I don’t want to be late.”
“That ghost gone come back home with you, you know that, right?”
“Don’t say things like that, Sugar. That’s not even funny.” She slammed her soap-covered hand on her kitchen counter, irritation mounting through the fibers of her being. Meanwhile, Maze came on the radio waves, singing “Happy Feelings,” as though mocking her.
“Ain’t nobody laughin’! You damn straight it ain’t funny. Things like that happen all the time, and for all you know, this might be some trap.”
On a long exhale, Emerald shook her head. “I don’t even want to ask,” she murmured. “But some trap for what, Sugar?”
“The oldest trick in the book. This man might be into some Devil magic, some spell work or tryna lure you in as a sacrifice, tryin’ to get that evil up off his property and stick you wit’ it, the ol’ bait ’nd switch. He coulda lied to you talkin’ about that ghost don’t bother nobody, tryin’ to make you feel comfortable and then, when you get over there, kabloom!”
“Sugar, I want you to stop going to those exorcism classes run by Pastor Kennedy.”
“He is well respected and every chance you get you try to talk bad about him! Satan done got a hold of you, Emerald.”
“The only person Satan has his claws in right now is Pastor Kennedy. He did not go to theology school; he does not know anything about exorcisms, either. He doesn’t have any formal training… nothing.”
“God don’t only call scholars to preach his word! Pastor Kennedy is anointed and he’s done a lot of good, not only in the church, but around the community.”
“Like what?”
“He helped with the food drive. Matter of fact, he planned it himself,” Sugar blurted after a few dry and stale seconds.
“You forgot about how he took most of the canned goods home for himself afterward.”
“He needed ’em for a bomb shelter he’s building for all of us, because the end of days might come sooner than you think.”
“Let me guess? You all drank purple Kool-Aid after that sermon, didn’t ya? Jim Jones spliced with David Koresh in… you guessed it! Good ol’ Waco Texas. That man is a new age charlatan sportin’ a James Brown perm!”
“Make fun if you want to, but you better prepare right here and right now, Emerald. Demonic possessions are happening all over the world, day and night.”
“At afternoon tea time, too…to go along with his English tea set he tried to swindle you all to buy him.” She chuckled, no longer caring about sparing her aunt’s feelings.
“You might be possessed right now and not even know it! Last time I saw you, you said you was goin’ natural.”
“What’s that got to do with this?”
“Your hair looked like you’d jammed a wet finger in an electric socket. I bet that was actual proof of your demonic possession! Thank God you saw the light and started doin’ yo’ hair again. My brother ain’t raised no child that grew up and looked like a deranged weasel!”
“I went back to the creamy crack because I could not handle my own damn hair, and that was
my
fault. I have no patience for it. There’s nothing wrong with being natural. I preferred how it looked, actually, and I might try again soon… But I’ve had it with all of this. One more ridiculous statement about demonic possessions, White folks ruining the world and all of that mess, and I’m calling that Pastor Kennedy and giving him a piece of my mind for putting this nonsense in your head.”
“Don’t bother, you ain’t got none to spare and them exorcism classes put me in the know.”
“Oh, did they now? I can’t tell.” Emerald dried her hands off on a paper towel.
“I know how these things work now, Emerald. I been had the inside scoop since I was child. Them demons like to jump from person to person, just like frogs on lily pads, and I bet you this Paul Jones person was—”
“Peter Jones…”
“Peter Jones was into some devilish shit, too! I bet he was a Satan worshipper.”
“Sugar, did you ever consider the obvious? Did you stop to think it was possible that he may have just been mentally ill? You’ve gone from A to Z with no stops in between. Why does everyone who does something you don’t understand have to be an idiot or out here capping for the Devil?”
“Because who in they right mind would just sit their ass down and just stop eatin’?”
“Exactly. You said, ‘who in their right mind?’… He wasn’t in his right mind, and it may not have been due to anything you’ve suggested.”
“Maybe it was some new fangled diet the Hollywood elite was tryin’ back then? You never know. I sure wish your great Aunt Thelma would’ve tried it, I tell ya that much. That man coulda taught her big school bus built ass a thang or two! I ain’t nevuh seen nobody eat that much in all my life, Emerald!”
“I don’t want to talk about this, Sugar.”
“And you know me,” The woman ignored her and kept right on. “I like a good home-cooked meal too, and I’m big boned and proud of it. I ain’t going to lie ’bout none of that, but my Aunt Thelma’s mouth only closed when she needed to swallow, and that was a struggle within itself. I think she even ate in her sleep. She ate air burgers and swallowed her own Zzzzz’s, mistakin’ them for zebra cakes or some shit.”
“I don’t want to discuss Aunt Thelma, who I never met but more than likely, based on your account, had an eating disorder that you are sitting here making fun of.”
“I ain’t sittin’ right now,” the woman noisily smacked her lips into the phone as if she were taking an apple to task. “I’m standing up at the kitchen sink washin’ these here grapes.”
“Fine, but unlike you, I’m going to keep focused. The bottom line is that Peter Jones might have been mentally ill, Sugar. Show some compassion. The evidence definitely points in that direction.”
“What type of mental illness?”
“Depression, and not just seasonal, either. The man was obviously suicidal and so, to me, this is an understandable conclusion.”
“But he was rich.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Emerald tossed the paper towel in the trash and daydreamed of pouring a glass of wine, then drowning in it.
“Everything! What in the hell did he have to be depressed about? These rich White folks kill me just standin’ around lookin’ for shit to cry about and then go off themselves with pills, crazy drug overdoses, jumpin’ out windows and thangs like that. If I had just an extra $200 lyin’ around, you’d best believe I’d live to spend it! I’ll show you depressed! Depressed is bein’ in Wal-Mart and having to put half yo’ shit back ’cause you ain’t got enough to get your groceries and deodorant. Depressed is lookin’ at yo’ gas tank and prayin’ that car can just run on fumes for the rest of the week. They ain’t got no real problems! I’ll show ’em real problems! That man was crazy, I’ll give you that. Just wastin’ away, day after day like some fool, and he had all that damn money.”