Giant Men and Violent Women

Ghosts

PRESLEY ANN

I am going to sleep with this man, okay? I just cannot reach the end of my life, lie on my deathbed, and wish Ashley was lying butt naked beside me. No. I can't let that happen.

I stand on my front porch and watch him. The sound of reggae-folk guitar and bongos seems closer. Ashley looks in the direction of the music. He's a mountain boy. He loves reggae-folk.

"They sound good," I hear Ashley say to his great-grandmother, Minnie.

"Not better than Rusty and the Boys did in my day," Minnie counters.

New Hampshire and their reggae-folk. It amazes me how a single art form can unite generations of people. That's the power of art.

It's October 29, a chilly autumn morning. The road is a silky black, and the grass is a fading green. The working farms around me and down the road are filled with workers milking, herding, picking, and planting. Crop and animal farms are Darling's bread and butter. Here, life is ever moving, always growing. The sun is bright, but the clouds drifting in from the Atlantic tell me that this will change soon. The fog is coming.

Ashley is helping his great-grandmother out of his truck. His back is turned to me, and his shoulders nearly span the doorway of the doorframe. He has his standard uniform on-slacks, oxfords, a dark plaid shirt, a sports coat, black glasses. If he weren't a New Hampshirite, he'd be a California professor teaching some liberal major with more gusto than warranted.

His great-grandmother, Minnie, the wife of Judge Bragg, comes out of the truck with long kitten-gray hair that's parted in the middle and a fiesta looking dress on-earthy, patterned, flowy. A chunky eggplant-purple necklace and bangles complete her look. If she weren't the wife of the most respected government official in New Hampshire, she'd be considered a Woodstock survivor. Her lips are a bright blood red, as usual, and of course, they match her nails. She is not at all decrepit, as Ashley is making her appear now while he fusses over her.

"Good-bye, Ashley," she says, swatting him away.

"I, madam, am keeping you alive," he says to her as he holds onto her arm.

"You're fussing."

Ashley looks up and sees me standing on the porch. He tries to break my heart with a smile. The small lines in his cheeks always bear the resemblance of dimples to me. He's perfect.

"Look who it is, Gram," he says to Minnie. "Prettiest girl in New Hampshire."

"New Hampshire?" I say to him. "That's all?"

"If I said the world, you'd think I was heartbreaking. When I say New Hampshire, you know I'm telling the truth."

"I don't believe a word you say, Attorney Bragg."

"Oh...a dagger in the heart, Bad Luck."

"Morning, Minnie," I say as I roll my eyes at Ashley.

"Morning, shug," Minnie says. "Has Rachel's son came back from the dead and spoken to her yet?" she asks of Great Aunt. "Not yet."

"Well, are the muffins ready?"

"They are."

"Good. Yesterday, they weren't. Threw my whole day off by fifteen minutes."

"Come on in, Minnie!" Great Aunt hollers from inside. "I already got one buttered for you!"

"Finally, a little respect. I am the wife of The Judge of New Hampshire," Minnie says, referencing the honorary title given to her husband by New Hampshirites who love him for his audacity.