Ghost Boys

The apartment is packed. Ma’s sisters, Uncle Manny, my cousins. Reverend Thornton. The kitchen table is covered with food-my favorites, potato salad, lemon meringue pie, pork chops. If everyone wasn’t so sad-faced, I’d swear it was a party.

I reach for a cornbread square and my hand passes through it. Weird, but it’s okay. I’m not hungry. I guess I’ll never be hungry again.

I move, circling the living room.

People don’t pass through me. It’s like they sense I’m taking up space. Even though they can’t see me, they shift, lean away. I’m glad about that. It’s enough being dead without folks entering and leaving me like in Ghostbusters.

Ma is in my bedroom, lying on my bed with orange basketball sheets. A poster of Stephen Curry shooting a ball is taped on the wall.

Ma’s eyes are swollen. Grandma holds her hand like she’s a little girl.

I don’t feel much-like I’m air touching the furniture or Ma’s hand. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re dead? But seeing Ma crying makes me want to crush, slam something into the ground. Inside me hurts; outside me feels nothing. I try to touch her-nothing-just like the cornbread. Ma shivers and it makes me sad that I can’t comfort her.

I turn toward the doorway. Kim is reading a book. She does that when gunshots are fired outside, when our upstairs neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Lyon, are fighting, yelling. For now, I know she’s okay. Reading makes her feel better.

I stand in the doorway, shocked how my room is filled with family, how it isn’t my room anymore. Isn’t my place where I imagine, dream I’m playing college ball. Or in the army, diving out of airplanes. Or rapping on the radio. Or being president.

To my right, Pop leans into the corner. Like he wants to collapse into the space and disappear. His eyes are closed and his arms are folded across his chest. Who will he shoot hoops with? Or eat hot dogs with while cheering the Chicago Bears?

“I’m here. I’m still here,” I rasp.

Ma, on my bed, curls on her side; Pop’s lips tighten. Grandma looks up, searching.

“I’m still here, Grandma.”

Her face is a wrinkled mess. I didn’t realize it before, but Grandma is really old. She looks up and through me. Her eyes glimmer; she nods. Does she see? Does she see me?

Reverend Thornton moves past me. He doesn’t realize he’s tucking his stomach in and entering the room sideways. Grandma notices. Nobody else thinks it’s strange.

“We should pray,” he says.

“What for?” asks Pop. “Jerome’s not coming back.”

Ma gasps, sits up. “James. We don’t know God’s will.”

“It’s man’s will-it’s a policeman acting a fool. Murdering my boy.” Pop’s fist slams the wall. The drywall cracks. I’ve never seen Pop violent.

“He’s in a better place,” says Reverend. “Jerome’s in a better place.”

Am I?

Ma rocks, her arms crossed over her stomach.

“Every goodbye ain’t gone,” says Grandma.

“Mom, hush with that nonsense,” complains Ma.

“Every black person in the South knows it’s true. Dead, living, no matter. Both worlds are close. Spirits aren’t gone.”

“Superstition,” scoffs Reverend. “This is Chicago. Jerome’s soul is already gone.”

I kneel. “I’m still here, Ma. I’m still here.”

“We’ll bury him tomorrow,” cries Ma and I want to cry,too, though my eyes don’t make tears anymore.

“Sue, I’m going to sue,” says Pop. “No sense why my boy’s dead and those white men are walking around alive. Free.”

“Emmett. Just like Emmett Till,” says Grandma. “He was a Chicago boy, too.”

“This isn’t 1955,” says Reverend, calming.

“Tamir Rice, then,” shouts Pop. “2014. He died in Cleveland. Another boy shot just because he’s black.”

Grandma looks at the space where I’m standing. Her head is cocked sideways; she’s breathing soft.

“No justice. No peace,” says Pop. “Since slavery, white men been killing blacks.” Then, he starts to cry. Ma hugs him and they hold tight to each other like they’re both going to drown.

My heart shatters. Nothing hurt this much, not even the bullets searing my back.

My alarm clock clicks: 12:00 a.m. Nine hours ago I was playing in Green Acres.

Now it’s a new day. I’m here but not here.

Where’s my body? Where do they keep it until it’s laid in the ground?

“Time to wake up.”

I spin around. Who said that?

I leave the bedroom, wandering through the apartment, past eating, crying, praying people, searching for who spoke to me.

In the kitchen, by the window, I see a brown boy like me. His eyes are black velvet. He’s tall as me; his hair, short like mine. He stares and stares as if the world has made him so sorry, so sad.

Scared, I step backwards. He nods, like he expected it;then, disappears.

He’s not in the kitchen. My hands pass through the glass pane. I see the starry night sky, the darkened road, streetlamps attracting bugs.

Across the street, I see him. Wispy like soft rain. A ghost?

Like me?