Ghosts Book 1 Part 11

I remember Tommy. I remember him very well. Tommy was my first friend and perhaps he was the best friend I ever had. Tommy died before I was born.

I was raised on a half-ass farm in a semi-rural area of Nebraska. My father was an elementary school teacher, but took farming as a very serious hobby, much to my dismay. It’s funny, now that I have seen the stress put on children in China to excel at education at all costs, foregoing any sort of natural childhood pleasures that one ought to endure during his or her youth to study, study, and study. Still, at the time, my mortal classmates had much more free time to be themselves, find themselves, and do something other than farm chores. I had time too, my parents were not work Nazis. I just had a lot less time than others.

There was a quasi-suburban area of Plattsmouth that housed most of my classmates. As a result, I was a little off and different due to the fact that lived in more of a farming area. Due to mere geographical location, I was already different. Ironically, my parents probably made more money than theirs did, but that doesn’t always matter as far as shallow class systems seem to develop out of idiocy. That was when the living began to ostracize me and it only got worse as I aged.

Pulling ugly, green, and fat tomato worms off of the produce after which they were named, filling up a five gallon bucket full of rocks removed from planting soil, cleaning chicken shit out of chicken coops, picking and husking corn, and incessantly ploughing up the soil all became things that I grew accustomed to doing. These are things I remember when I thought my life was to go the same way as everyone else’s life seems to go.

My mother had the same work ethic as my father, which is something akin to not resting much. I remember when we moved into that particular house. My mother was just as diligent inside the house as my father was outside of the house. They bought quite the fixer-upper. I have vivid memories of my mother ripping up shitty Formica countertops to clean up an infestation of maggots from the limited spaces underneath, only to replace it with nice, clean, and off-white tiles. I had slightly less, but still time-consuming chores inside of the house such as helping my mother can jelly, jam, and vegetables, not to mention the monotonous chores of sweeping the floors and helping wash the dishes that many children experience.

Still, those experiences might have given me a sense of conscientiousness if I was not to end up being me. I cannot say that they were bad parents as they were both kind and loving, and I was allowed to have some time with friends that I was too busy to make. I would often spend my free time examining flowers or just enjoying the appearance of the land I had just worked on. I often wandered around the neighborhood in which I was living, as my parents only owned an acre of land, as did their neighbors, who mostly let the weeds swallow up their tiny, potential mini-farms.

I would often watch other children playing football, or basketball, or many other things. I would only pause for a short time to watch how humans were supposed to interact with one another. This bonding thing that most people seem to have the ability to achieve was and still is usually lost on me. I would often only pause for a short period of time, maybe hoping that I would be asked to join, before I moved on. Still, I was sometimes noticed, the strange outsider, looking in at something he could not have. Most times I was just laughed at by those inside. Occasionally insults were thrown at me. That was all I knew at the time. I was already me, and other people were not similar to me in their thinking.

With all that, my growing work ethic, the lack of friends, the isolation, I still have vivid memories of the green countryside in the spring, lush with vegetation and growth. Most summer days, in my memory were mild, and I would fly kites in the backyard, enjoying the sunshine and the warm summer breezes that would occasionally lap at my body, giving me a sense of being at peace with all things natural. When it would snow on the farm, I can remember being in awe how a sheet of white could transform the small farm from something mundane into something extraordinarily beautiful.

I had previously seen ghosts, but it was lost on me at the time that they were ghosts. Even the horrific apparitions with grotesque and gaping wounds almost seemed normal to me at the time, maybe fascinating, but sort of normal. I was never one to ask questions, but one to see if I could just witness answers myself. I still doubt my parents knew much about all I could see. They must have just thought Tommy was an imaginary friend.

Arthur, I ought to attempt to regain some sort of contact with your grandparents, but I feel I do not know how. They were strict, but merciful parents to me. I understand why they did everything they did, both punishment and reward. They were far better parents than I will ever be, but as is my typical excuse, they do not see the things I see. They do not understand, nor I think, could they fathom what has become of me.

Tommy first appeared to me on a corn-picking day. I remember it being an extremely hot day, as we can get those in summer in Nebraska, occasionally a sweltering and disgusting rise in temperature beyond one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The slightest breeze, however morbidly hot would almost relieve the burn, but only really tease at doing so, and only for a brief moment in time. It was late summer, as that was when the corn was ripe, and I remember wondering how the corn could survive the constant heat that I only had to endure for a day or two with rest breaks and shelter to escape the temperature.

“Hello, friend,” he said.

“Uh…hi,” I replied. I was slightly startled by the sudden appearance of another person when I was not expecting anyone to be there.

“Would you like to be my friend?” The boy was close to my own age. He had dark hair and eyes, a hat that I was not familiar with people in my time wearing as it was similar to what a cowboy might wear, only it was not as neatly folded up top, but more rough and flat. He wore some ugly brow overalls over what appeared to be a nicely-pressed, white dress shirt.

“Maybe. I don’t know. Who are you?”

“My name is Tommy,” he said with a sheepish grin. He seemed to suddenly get shy. He put his right index finger to his lips and almost giggled.

“I’m Ulie…Ulysses. I was named after some sort of ancient hero, my father says.”

“I was named after my granddad.”

“Where do you live?” I inquired.

“I live here, same as you. Only…Ulie…I have lived here longer.”