The Almost Rock Star (A Ghost Story) (DRAFT)

The Almost Rock Star (A Ghost Story) 8, Fear and Rambo, My Indian Friend

Chapter Eight

Fear and Rambo, My Indian Friend

Florida has a pinkish tropical sunrise every morning. Every dawn looks like a Key West artist’s painting.

I had started walking on the street last night after talking to Mambo. He looked at me with what I decided was great sympathy. I was tired. I had almost gone to go change my sandals out for running shoes, then I remembered that my sandals didn’t seem to hurt me on the long walk back from the park. I tried to open the door. Even concentrating, my hands kept slipping through the door handle. I was getting really frustrated. 

I felt like just giving up and sitting on the sofa with Mambo. Then I got really angry. It wasn’t fair, dying so young. I hadn’t lived yet. I still wanted to do things. I hadn’t met my soul mate, the love of my life. I glared at the door. I didn’t want to get stuck in here. 

Maybe I was going at it wrong, I thought. Maybe it was because I was tired. I opened the door before. Then I remembered a movie I saw when I was a kid. 

Opening a door as a ghost was like learning how to use the force. Like in Star Wars. 

Except I wasn’t a huge Star Wars fan and I didn’t know how to use the force. I was never into that kind of stuff. Here I was, wishing Yoda, the little enlightened green guy with the pointy ears, would show up and give me a few lessons. Then I brightened. I was already getting the hang of all this. Maybe I could get really good. Maybe I could make a sword fly across the room into my hand. Or a brick the next time that goddess showed up. 

I thought about the idea of using a “force.” A force for good, or the force of evil. Heavy thoughts like that were never something I liked. I loved getting lost in music. Science fiction had always been like a geek fantasy to me. Interesting, maybe. Weird inspiration for a song? Maybe, someday.

As I walked across town, the burning pain on my soul got worse. By the time I got near CitiPlace, the pain was as bad as it had ever been. It was like the cooling water had worn off. Or drained out. I barely looked at the beautiful Tuscan style buildings in CitiPlace, a huge effort by some developers to clean up a slum area of West Palm Beach that had been next to the Kravis Center, where the symphony played. 

The house was down a little side street. I never noticed the name. Sarsaparilla or something. It was a two-story white building that looked like it was leaning, probably from the last two hurricanes. Some people never really rebuilt after hurricanes. They got huge estimates on the damage, fixed a few things and kept the rest of the money. So the poor and the middle class areas of Florida still showed the missing roofs, broken windows and busted plaster from multiple storms. Down in the Keys they fixed the bright yellow and pink bars and bed and breakfasts’. Here in West Palm Beach they patched the roof and sprayed sealer on it. 

Sometimes the plastic blue tarps sat up on the roofs for five years or more.

There was half a banyan tree next to the white building. Banyan trees just split off in pieces in hurricanes. These giant, 200 year old trees just grew and grew, sideways and upwards until they made giant green umbrellas of leaves. You would love these trees like I do if you ever walked up under one on a 105-degree day here. It was like 15 degrees cooler. Maybe more. 

I walked up a wooden staircase on the outside of the building. Mambo was right on my heels. He didn’t need a leash. He wasn’t about to let me out of his sight again. He followed me all the way from my house. 

I banged hard on the door. I concentrated all my strength. Bam! Bam!Bam!

I waited a few seconds. Then I hit the door again. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!