2015TR

TUSCARORA REVIEW 2016

2016 TUSCARORA REVIEW

face is my father’s. It wears his long-brimmed hat and holds nothing but dreary

disappointment.

There is a lot of science to predicting weather and phenomena. When it will

rain, snow, mudslide, earthquake. It’s fucking bullshit from children who aren’t able

to admit they don’t know, looking for an answer to satiate curiosity. Ghosts are

the gale in the storm. Ellis thinks he got a chill from the wind. He doesn’t know

it was the ghost of an Aztec warrior passing through him. Somehow, modern

science has managed to ignore all the proofs from before Enlightenment. Spirit

shamans and wizards knew what they were doing. Probably.

They’re still on the horizon but when I look at the clouds I’ve had plenty of bad

ideas in my life. Ellis usually gets me through them. I usually get him through his

shenanigans too. Today it was my turn. I had to stop this.

“Ellis. You got any salt in the house?”

“Yeah, left of the oven, top cabinet. Wait, what the fuck is your deal with salt?”

I’m surprised he even noticed. “Uhhhh….”

“Enoch, I’ve seen you eat fries. You don’t eat fries with salt. You eat salt with

fries.” His eyes widen. “Are we going to use these rockets to cook?” There’s one

of his famous bad ideas. I guess he hasn’t noticed that salt is my ghost

pepper spray.

“What? No, I want to launch salt into the storm.” Ellis gets that stupid grin

again. I guess that works for him.

Twenty minutes later, our rig is ready to go. We have ten rockets encircling

a bucket full of Morton brand salt. If this works out I should stop the storm that

killed my father. My tactical IABM (Inter Acregal Bastard’s Missile) is my newest

bad idea and sits with spaced fuses in an attempt for a straight-shot launch to send

a fiery, salty boom to send souls merrily out of this world. The plan according

to Ellis is to make a big boom and catch salt on his tongue like a child in a

snowstorm. Ellis kneels to light the fuses himself. He’ll have it no other way.

“Ready to fire?” he asks. I look up into the bright flash of lightning and deep

rumble of my father’s voice. I nod.

“It’s time to do this.” A spark starts a fire and our weapon flies straight. A

swath of spirits swarms the bait in a lunge. Hundreds of them coming from behind

the cloud. Like an uppercut it hits his jaw. It goes into the cloud, my scream against

my father’s rumble. My glare against his leer.

That night I had another dream. My family was together again at the dinner

table, before my brother and father died in the crash. That’s how I knew it was

a dream.

“Grace,” my father said, breaking a silence. I knew it meant something. I didn’t

know what. A hole opened up in the floor and the table fell in. My baby brother’s

high seat teetered on the edge. My father leaped, tried to jump the gap but

slipped on the wet floor. They both fell into the abyss and my cries and shouting

meant nothing.

I woke from the nightmare sweating. That damned ghost was still nearby,

ruining my dreams. I get dressed and grab BLASTO. First I’ll deal with this. Then I’ll

try to find out if that duck ever got out of the fucking muck.

Jonathan Grackin,

Narrative

— Drawing