Raw Sugar

The year that I died a lot of really great stuff happened. The Beatles had their last public appearance; I think it was on some record companies’ rooftop. Things are hazy now. John Lennon and Yoko Ono got married, although I’m not sure how cool that was. The Who did a rock opera that year called Tommy. In June Hee Haw started showing in TV’s all over America and the first men walked on the moon, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, his nick name was Buzz, I have no idea why.


I remember watching the moment on a tiny little black and white television with all of my friends. We were drinkin beer and yelling like it was the god damn world series. I couldn’t believe we were walking on the moon. I’ve been there several times myself. It’s actually a lonely desolate place, but on that day it was a miraculous wonderland.

Ten days later, at five pm on a Tuesday night on July 29th 1969 I was dead. I was pretty pissed at the time, mostly because I had plans to go to Woodstock. My bags were packed it was less than a month away and I was looking forward to it more than I had been looking forward to that monumental moon landing. I went anyway, but it just wasn’t the same.

I’d only been dead for a little more than fifteen days and had no idea how to navigate. Invariably, just as a great song would start I’d be home looking at my wife sleeping in our bed or standing in my kids doorway. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it would be. Two days later a hurricane hit my home town in Mississippi and killed my mom and dad. I saw them for a moment before they were gone and it was okay I guess. There’s not a lot of emotion here, it’s much more cerebral. They left, I stayed. A lot of people stayed from the hurricane. So when Becky and the kids moved I was glad. Crowds make me nervous.

It’s 2010 now and I have been dead for forty one year’s. My kids are grown and have kids of their own. My wife is dead. She died in 1985 of ovarian cancer. I watched that travesty up close and personal. I held her hand and I knew she was aware. When she died she looked at me and said “I knew, this whole time I knew.” And then she was gone.

I really didn’t understand that one. I thought she would stick around for a talk or something, but nope she just vanished. By the way, there is no bright light, no group of loved ones hanging around, well for me there wasn’t. I guess for Becky I was there, but anyway it’s not like the crap the feed you growing up. It’s hollow and sad. You can’t communicate with anyone because it’s as if we are all speaking a different language or on a different sound wave. I don’t exactly feel lonely. Like I said, it’s not about the emotions of it.

The day my first grandchild was born I was pleased, but I missed the feelings I knew I would have felt had I been alive. I wonder why I’m still here. My wife is dead and gone. My kids are all safe, my grandkids seem okay and really I don’t feel any solid connection to them.

In forty years I have seen just about everything. Don’t misunderstand, I had no control for quite some time. The crazy way time seemed to jump drove me a little haywire, the first ten years or so, but after that was all ironed out I did some traveling. I was aware that I would always bounce back to my old home, I still do sometimes, but back then I couldn’t get more than a state or two away without the inevitable doorway stalking of my wife and kiddos. Boy was I glad when that stopped.

In 1979 I met John Wayne, he hung about for a while and for fun I followed him around when I could. He spoke to me but I never understood him. He was young when I met him. Not like he was when he was alive. I met a lot of famous people after that but I’ll never forget John Wayne.

In 1987 I was sitting in the living room of an old friend and I saw a television show called the Simpsons. My friend was excited about it and as he sucked down his beer it reminded me of that night long ago when we had watched a grainy screen as two men stepped foot on the moon. My friend died six months later. He would be happy to know that show is still playing and folks around the world love it as much as he did. I never saw him again. I was hanging out in a movie theatre the day he vamoosed. I was watching Lethal Weapon, good movie. That was a good year for movies Steakout, RoboCop and The Untouchables were a few other great ones I caught in ’87.

Over the next twenty years I polished my look, traveled the planet and beyond and learned a few languages. After all, an eternity has to produce a few kernels of knowledge and mine were piling up. I learned early on that how you look is based on how you see yourself. In the beginning every time I looked in a mirror I saw myself with dark circles under bloodshot eyes. Yes, to answer the most obvious question, I can see my reflection, although if I were standing next to you, you would see only you. Occasionally, I have caught people in public bathrooms taking a quick second glance, like they think they see. But I haven’t been caught yet. That would be interesting.

I like TV; I watch it whenever I can. I especially like the ghost shows, there are quite a few of them right now. They have everything wrong; still they are fun to watch.

The thing about me is, I was a normal guy. I liked baseball, but not so much that I ignored the wife. I loved that broad and when she popped out those beautiful babies, I loved her more. We went dancing once a week and when her mom or mine couldn’t watch the kids I would put on the Frankie records and twirl her around the living room till she was dizzy with my love.

I cooked, a fact that we kept secret from my buddies. Becky was always good about keeping my less manly qualities a secret. Today I would be considered metro sexual. Back then they would have labeled me queer, beat the shit out of me on principal and chucked me in a ditch. That was then. The thing was, she cared more about that stuff than I did.

I cried once at an old movie, not the kind of cry baby cryin guys do now, but a tear came outta the corner of my eye. Becky started coughing like she was chokin to death, to distract. My buddies were playin poker in the same room and I chose to sit with my lady and watch the movie. Anyway that was Becky. She was made for back then, I guess I wasn’t. Sometimes I think that is the reason I’m still here, to let time catch up to me. Sometimes I forget to think about it.

The thing that frustrates me more and more as time passes is the fact that I cannot remember how I died. In the beginning when I was bent out of shape over Woodstock and checking on the kids every five seconds I was mostly just pissed and confused. As time passed, it occurred to me that I could remember everything about that day, until I stood up to turn off the television. I remember that part perfectly. Becky asleep on my shoulder, lifting her sweet face to plant a kiss on her perfect cheek. I rose to turn off the television and then …nothing.

I began to wonder sometime around 1991 if that was the issue. Coming to grips with my death could be the reason I was still hanging onto the mortal coil. Problem was, I couldn’t get any information. Anyone who knew me was dead or way past the time where they would chat casually about my death. Essentially I was S.O.L.

This was my mental state when I glided into my favorite coffee shop to see what was going on in the world today. As soon as wireless internet and coffeehouses united, I had a resource for all things educational. I could hang around for hours listening to music or read files. I could literally slip into their virtual world and play inside their games. They still couldn’t see me, but I could see it all as clear and real as I could interact with this would, which let’s face it, isn’t that great.

I would notice that if I spent too long in a system I had a hard time coming out. Also, it’s important to realize that if a system is shutting down, I have to get out or I’m stuck until the computer comes alive again. I know the entire proper vernacular for this stuff, booting up, hard drives, system failure, I just liked the me from before, so I still talk like him as much as I can. So I say the computer sleeps and comes alive instead of boots up and shuts down.

It’s the tiny things that keep you connected. Like carrying a pack of smokes rolled up in your tee-shirt sleeve. I don’t do that anymore, I did for a long time after I missed the smoking. One day I just noticed they were gone. I still miss me sometimes and when I’m fighting the boredom by cruising around on a make believe dragon, I consider my life with Becky and I think about the sadness that should bring me. The fact that I have very little connection to my feelings, I can’t speak to specter or human and I don’t remember how I died, were all things looming just under the surface when Sugar Darlin walked into Special Grounds.

Her name really is Sugar Darlin. Her mamma was a Texan and her daddy a New Orleans riverboat captain. Mostly showing the tourist what their missing by not living in the crime ridden, mosquito infested south. Those two crazy lovebirds fell in love on that river boat and Sugars mamma never left. According to Sugar, her mamma still rides shotgun on her daddy’s tours. ‘Ride with the Darlin of New Orleans’. That was the slogan. And I suppose they did well ‘cause when Sugar left town to head north, she sure didn’t leave empty handed.

The day I met Sugar I was listening to a band called Death Cab for Cutie. A terrible name, still good tunes all the same. I was wrist deep in a young girl’s laptop when the door opened and I smelled cotton candy. Strong, as if there was a stand twirling the stuff up right in front of me. I followed the smell with my eyes and there she was with barely any clothes covering her bronzed skin and heels that made her calf muscles look like hardened steel underneath silk.

Her hair was ironically, the exact color of raw sugar and hung shoulder length in sassy pig tales. I could not take my eyes off of this beautiful creature and when she looked at me with huge, startled, blazing green eyes it took me a moment to realize she was actually seeing me. For the first time in forty one years I was being seen and suddenly I was very worried about my appearance.

I knew I must be changing between ages, outfits and features, because her eyes actually got wider and she stood with a hand reaching out as if she were waiting for someone to take her by it and lead her to the nearest loony bin. I finally settled on a look, my usual short hair, clean cut, jeans and tee-shirt, about the same time she seemed to get control over her emotions. I was a fairly good looking guy before I died, so except for smoothing out my crow’s feet, I did very little to actually change my appearance.

Over the years I had tried brown eyes and blonde hair, blonde hair with my own blue eyes. I’d made my eyes darker my hair darker, longer, even did a buzz cut once. Nothing ever felt as right as my own light blue eyes and drab brown hair. So that’s what Sugar saw as I finally settled into me. I did however give myself a boost in the body department and had she not been so shocked, she told me later, she would have giggled as she watched my chest and biceps enlarge like a Popeye cartoon.

An interesting side note to my life these days; I have lost a few senses. One of the ones I miss the most is smell. I haven’t smelled anything in over four decades. And now, the first thing I smell is cotton candy. This is the devils joke on man. My other lost sense is taste and all I want in this moment is to run to this girl and lick her skin to see if she tastes anything like she smells.

I visualize this. Years of solitude have given me patience and a kind of thoughtfulness I never had in life. I see myself run to her, grab her, because surely if I can smell her, I can touch her. Sure she’ll be scared, but do I care? And what if she tastes like cotton candy? Oh my god in sweet heaven! What if she does? So I lick her or bite her or fuck it all, I just eat her up. Could I? Would she have the consistency of cotton candy? What if I get carried away and bite her and it’s all muscle and blood and skin. Yuck. I don’t think I could handle eating a cotton candy flavored girl. Plus, I’m really not hungry so why risk it. Or am I?

Amidst all of my mind prattle, Sugar has managed to remove herself from blocking the door and has taken several steps in my direction, clearly misreading my expressions, she is not aware I am considering eating her.

She says in a clear voice so southern I expect chimes to ring and a colored woman to start yelling that suppa is ready. “What ARE you doing?” There is a distinct rise in pitch with the word are and I smile at the natural accusation it causes the sentence to take on.

The girl whose computer I’m fondling hears it too and responds with equal snark. “I’m listening to music, what’s it to you?”

Sugar shook her head in dismissal of the girl and waved me toward her. I dislodged my hand, left from Death Cab, and headed toward the cutie. Sometimes I can make myself laugh.

*

I immediately began considering ramifications if this girl really could see me. Not for me really so much, but most definitely for her. What would it be like to see a ghost hanging out in a coffee shop? If you did, could you manage to talk to that ghost without ending up in a strait jacket or bouncing around some rubber walled room in a Belleview like sanitarium? These were the thoughts rattling around my nonexistent skull as I followed the long legged, tan beauty to the back of the crowded shop.

Before I could calculate a plan she had taken matters into her own hands and swiveled into a small chair facing the back wall. The little nook was next to a large bookcase overstocked with board games and paperback novels. Her back to the door, she waited her legs crossed at the ankles, as I scootched around obstacles and stood facing her and the rest of the bustling room.

I know it seems odd that I should avoid objects that I can simply pass through. The reason is simple. Passing through things does not feel great. In fact it sucks. If you can imagine a baseball bat slipping though your skull, you can imagine this. It’s not painful like that would be I suppose, but it certainly leaves an impression. It also takes me a second to shake it off.

I think I mentioned earlier how the TV shows get it all wrong. Well in this case it’s a massive pooch screw. Running through doors and walls would be like listening to nails on a chalk board in surround sound. So this is why I was very careful not to come into contact with anything as I took the place she had allotted me with her gaze.

She smiled, her green eyes snapped with humor as she said “Well sweetie, you sure are a cutie pie. My names Sugar, it’s nice to meet you.” She held out her hand, realized her mistake and dropped it, the smile never leaving her face. The smell of cotton candy was so strong now, I felt myself actually salivate.

All of the new sensations were proving a bit huge for me so I simply said. “Names Buck.”

I leaned toward her and sniffed, she giggled. When she did I was struck by the sound enough to realize I was far too close for her comfort and I moved back in an instant. I don’t mean I stepped back or jumped. I just though myself away from her and I was, that quick. Her eyes widened, but not so much this time and I could tell she was already getting accustomed to me and my strangeness. Weird considering she had just laid eyes on me thirty seconds ago, give or take a few.

“Well hi Buck.” She said showing me her pretty smile again.

“Hi” I hadn’t talked to anyone in so long I felt as if I had forgotten how. Back when John was around I talked all the time, but he didn’t understand a word. Maybe if he had I would have been as tongue tied as I was now.

“Monosyllabic, huh?”

“I‘m not a cave man I’m a ghost.” I said stupidly.

“I figured. What are you doing here?” She asked me and I realized, surprised, that she was talking in a completely normal voice.

So I asked her “Why aren’t you afraid to talk to me? Don’t you care that someone may hear you and wonder why you’re talking to yourself?”

Sugar looked at me and seemed to consider my question. As I watched and waited she asked again.

“Why are you here?”

I realized we were both doing the same thing. Sometimes when a person doesn’t know an answer to a question they just ask another question. Already tired of the game, I decided to just say I don’t know and see how it would go over.

“What do you mean? You gotta know.” She pouted and as I watched her face actually became more beautiful. This was the most exciting thing to happen to me in forever and I was acting like a doof. I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

“Well I don’t.” I shrugged

“Huh.” She muttered “You look like you’ve been here for a while.”

I was suddenly embarrassed to tell her how long I’d been dead , maybe because that would make me fifty or sixty years older than her. It seemed important for me to keep that quiet. There were a few things that I never wanted to be considered, pedophile was certainly at the top of that list.

So I focused on the obvious “How come you can see me?” This time I was playing the question game as a diversionary tactic. It worked.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think I would have known any different if you didn’t have your hand inside that laptop. What were you doing?” she asked

“Listening to music.” I said simply.

“You can listen to music with your hand?”

Trying to explain abilities associated with this existence would be like trying to explain to a god how to live in a duplex. I decided it wasn’t worth it and just nodded. I was much more focused on the fact that this girl could see me. I wanted to know what made her different.

“Have you had anything like this happen before?” Even as I asked this question I knew the answer, of course she had. She must be one of those people. Why else would she be so calm and focused? Boy, was I ever wrong.

“Nope, not ever.” She said as casually as she was saying everything else. “But I always knew something was up.”

At this point I was flabbergasted. I felt like one of those people on that silly show where they played jokes on some celebrity and at the end, just before the poor sucker was about to commit felony murder, they would say, ha! ha! it was just a joke. I didn’t really steal your car and rape your dog. Isn’t that funny that I made you believe that for a whole day? They don’t show the guy later that night, waking up in a cold sweat or the doctors bills for the anti anxiety meds he had to shove down his throat twice a day, because some asshole decided to bring up the idea that really bad shit could and probably would happen.

While I was considering the possibility that there was a ghostly version of this show, she was telling me about her life. Sugar told me she was a waitress and that she always felt like she was being watched and how her mother had always felt the same way. She said her skin itched when something weird was about to happen and she always knew when it was gonna rain. Not like a bone aching knowing, like you sometimes hear old cranky people say, ‘oh my ass bones creakin today, guess it’s gonna rain.’

“Not like that” she said, she just knew and she’d say “it’s going to rain” and within minutes the sky would open up and it would rain. I found this hard to believe.

All of her talk was getting through to me in smaller ways than it should have because the entire time I was considering that TV show and smelling that damn cotton candy. It wasn’t until her voice rose to something akin to a yell that I became fully attentive.

“Well if you know anything about the world you know things are never the way they seem, so I expect to learn something miraculous almost every day. Most days I am disappointed, but not today. Today Jackpot!” She was looking at me as if I were buried treasure she had just dug up by mistake.

I could smell her breath as she spoke; absurdly it was the same as the rest of her. “Are you made of cotton candy?” I asked and thought myself close to her again.

She laughed, reached out and slapped me on the thigh. I felt the sting of her palm and heard the smack. Her laugh stopped as sudden as it started. I stared at this girl in a sort of shocked haze and I saw the same expression reflected back from her. There were implications to be considered, but that was for later. Now was for exploration.

If I had been alive I would have done things very differently. But I’m not alive and I haven’t been for so long that I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed her hand, pulled her to her feet and wrapped my arms around her, burying my face into the warmth of her neck. She squeaked. A small part of me considered how odd she must look standing in the back of this room with her head tilted to the side, seeming to stare at the back wall. But only a small part, the rest of me was touching, smelling, feeling, as if I had never done any of these things before.

I knew I was mumbling something, but I can’t tell you what it was. I can only express how deep and tangible it felt to have such a tactile experience. At that very moment I cared little how Sugar felt about my groping exploration and the fact that she hadn’t screamed and kicked me in my dick made me hope that it would go on forever. It didn’t. Eventually, god knows how long after the initial contact, she started talking to me quietly, coxing me to let her go, because people were going to notice. She said this several times before I let my grip on her relax and removed my lips from her soft skin.

As I leaned back enough to look into her face, tears were streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes, greener than before, now flecked with yellow, pooled, overflowed and refilled as I watched. Sugar Darlin was the prettiest crier I had ever seen. Her skin remained softly tan, without the blotchy redness that usually comes with the act. Her face was reflective not pinched and her mouth was open as if at the apex of a long sigh.

I thought myself away from her so quickly that I slipped inside the book shelf, its molecules immediately began to fight with mine and the chalkboard scratching began. I extricated myself as quickly as possible and in my hast, slammed into Sugars back as she was scurrying to the door. She stumbled forward a few steps almost doing the same for an older gentleman holding the door for his lady friend. He held the door open a moment longer for Sugar and then slipped in between us, letting go. I jumped back, not wanting to become one with the glass and metal structure and watched as Sugar stepped onto the sidewalk, thanked the man for holding the door for her and stared at me through the thick paned window.

She seemed to instinctively realize that I didn’t want to go through that glass. I watched as she stood looking at me, tears drying on her quizzical expression. Sugar was scared. I could tell it wasn’t me she was scared of, it was her. She was thinking things now, considering the options just as I was. Right at that very moment she was asking herself some very pointed questions. I watched as the answers passed over her countenance in waves of grief stricken terror. I knew I had to get to her quick, to help somehow. If what she was considering were true, and let me tell you I hoped it was, she might need me. So I moved and as I did so did she, taking it upon herself to answer the question that hadn’t been asked yet. She reached out and wrapped her hands around the wrist of a passing woman and yanked hard. The woman let out an angry yelp and turned on Sugar, fist balled in a ready to throw down right hook.

Sugar screamed in happiness, “You can see me!?”

“Yeah and now I’m gonna ring your crazy bell bitch.” The fist hooked and as I watched amazed, Sugar ducked under the woman’s arm, grabbed her by wrist and elbow, pivoted in a wide arc sending the woman stumbling in the opposite direction.

Sugar snapped her head in my direction and said “Come on!” And started running. I realized I was on the sidewalk now and I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there. No irritating noise hummed in my head and I didn’t feel drained. That last was especially good because even in those high heels Sugar Darlin could run, and I mean fast. She ducked into an alley and slipped into a door. I was nervous for her knowing she was alive now and quite sure I couldn’t do anything to help if she found herself in danger. But then I remembered that right hook and how she side stepped it so nicely.

I can honestly say I have never seen anything like that in real life. In the movies everybody knows some kung fu. Even little old ladies and babies can kick your ass if you look at them wrong. In real life, fights just look like long squirmy hugs with at least one person getting their hair pulled. If there ever is a punch thrown it usually lands solid and causes some crying and blood. A pretty girl in high heels sidestepping a right hook and throwing another woman away like she was no threat at all was simply unheard of.

I felt a feeling in my gut that I hadn’t felt in years and I liked it. I was excited. I felt alive. I have to admit that I was a tad disappointed that she was corporeal. I have admitted this to Sugar already and she forgave me pretty quick for wishing her dead. She said it was only natural and after all, I hadn’t really known her then. It’s true when I was standing outside of that coffee shop watching her prove her own physical existence I didn’t know her at all. Had I, I would have been crying right alongside her.

I realized we were in the back room of a butchers shop and I watched and followed in awe as she slipped by the workers saying hi and swishing her hips without a worry in the world. When we entered the main shop the line of people obscured the view of the street and Sugar slipped into the crowd of people, got herself a paper number, and smirked at me while slipping into the line.

“Do you need meat?” I asked inanely and she raised an eyebrow at me.

I got the point and waited. I couldn’t help but wonder what was happening on the street outside. Had that lady simply decided to move on and let the moment pass or had she given chase and was wondering around in that alley now, trying to decide how to find the crazy chickadee who had so deftly escaped her wrath? As I stood beside Sugar in the long line I decided that the latter was the most absurd. In the mere matter of seconds it took for the non fight to go down surely both parties realized who had the upper hand. So why would a person chase after someone just to get their ass handed to them? It didn’t make sense. My deduction made us standing there in that line seem to make less sense by the second, unless Sugar really did need meat. So I asked again

“Do you need meat?” I knew she couldn’t answer so I went on to explain. “‘Cause if you don’t need meat, we should go somewhere that we can talk. That lady is long gone and ….”
 
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