Dad In Spirit, Chapters 10-11

Chapters 10-11 of Dad, in Spirit: Ebon Jones used to hate being the only normal member of an eccentric family, but now that he's dad has fallen into a coma and he believes he can see and hear his father, he'd like to go back to being just plain old Ebon Jones. Recommended for ages 8 and up.

Transcript

Hello,

This is Élafay of Sylvanosity,

And I'd like to read for you the next few chapters of Dead in Spirit.

Before we begin,

Allow me to invite you to take in a deep cleansing breath.

As we open this reading,

I'd like you to consider how you lend support to those around you.

It may be to someone you met casually in a store,

Or someone you know well.

How best can we support those in need?

Hmm,

That's a tough question,

Particularly if we're young and unsure.

And sometimes,

When we're too sure,

We make big mistakes.

But if we think on it,

Think about who they are,

And what they need,

And what they're going through,

And do it with a full and open heart.

We can do the most important thing,

Which is be there when they need us.

And sometimes,

That just means sitting in silence while they tell us how they feel.

And now,

To the chapter called Ripped Van Winkle Disease.

Do you remember who Ripped Van Winkle is?

I know I do.

It comes straight from the fellow who is sometimes regarded as the first,

Quote unquote,

American rider.

Hmm,

I wonder who that might be.

You'll have to check it out.

See what you might discover.

Let's see what there is to discover in this chapter.

That weekend,

We cuddled a lot,

And looked at family pictures,

Cried,

Played Monopoly,

Visited Dad,

And ate enough junk food to give a horse a heart attack.

Waiting with my family almost seemed bearable,

But going to school felt like being turned inside out.

Teachers told me how sorry they were to hear that my dad had fallen ill,

And piled on the homework until my book bag felt heavy enough to be filled with rocks.

My mind crowded up with instructions and due dates.

The other kids kept asking me stupid questions.

Is your dad okay?

What happened?

The dumbest story started.

One said Dad had gone hunting for distant relatives in the graveyard and got struck by lightning.

Gilbert Redding wanted to know if my dad had really been abducted by aliens,

Then deposited next to the cherry in the big spoon sculpture outside the Walker Art Center.

I hated all the questions and the stupid looks.

I wanted to go back to being plain old Evan Jones.

Not the mysterious Samuel Jones who could recite the J and K sections of the old Minneapolis white pages.

Not the artistic Joliet who could make a human being look like a tree with only felt,

Thread,

And a sewing machine.

Not Mom who could make a rock into a fire-spitting pointy dude who looked as though he'd pop up in any moment and use those crooked little wings she gave him to fly.

And certainly not Dad.

I'd never built a castle or designed an entire western town playset.

I could barely remember all 25 of my spelling words,

Let alone try to think up the names,

Dates of birth,

Terms of office,

And little known facts about each President of the United States and France.

I wouldn't know the first place to look if some author asked me to find out when jellybeans were invented.

No,

I was plain old Evan,

And it used to bother me a lot that I was a normal kid in a really odd family.

But when Dad fell asleep,

I became desperate for the old days when everybody ignored me.

Not everybody.

B.

J.

Never ignored me.

No,

B.

J.

Was space shuttle material.

Next to Dad,

She was the best friend I had in the world.

After school sometimes,

We'd run through our skateboard tricks on the playground.

We were working on our 360 kickflips that Monday.

If I didn't concentrate on my moves,

I'd end up with broken bones.

So I kept my mind on getting them down.

The mind-bending kept me from dwelling on Dad and those stupid thoughts.

I took a mean turn and landed square.

Waiting for my next spin,

I noticed Samuel hanging out at the other end of the steps playing hacky sack with his buddies.

I smiled and laughed.

What did Samuel have to laugh about,

I wondered.

I stepped closer to listen.

I heard one kid ask,

What's wrong with your Dad anyway?

Samuel said,

He's got Rip Van Winkle disease.

The others laughed.

But that crack put my rage into overdrive.

I ran at Samuel,

Full tilt.

I knocked Samuel to the ground.

Shaking him by the shoulders,

I shouted,

How could you say that?

Mr.

Hafner,

A crossing guard from down the block,

Pulled me off and dragged me into the office.

Mr.

Hafner went on and on about appropriate school yard behavior.

Samuel just sat there with his hands in his lap,

Like he'd never done anything wrong in his life.

Mrs.

Guilford came in and she said she'd call Mom and asked Mr.

Hafner to join her in the hall.

They stood under the clock,

Whispering and sputtering about Dad.

I wished for a volume control on life so I could just turn it up whenever someone tried to hide something from me by whispering.

Next thing I knew,

Mom arrived and dragged us off to a psychologist.

She said we needed to work through our emotions.

She accepted no excuses for being cruel to each other.

How about cruelty to Dad?

Samuel was being totally mean to Dad.

That little twerp needed a psychologist,

Not me.

Mom picked a total drip to be our shrink.

With a name like Dr.

Ventro,

He sounded like he walked straight out of a comic book,

Tall and thin.

He reminded me of Auntie M's hired hand before he turned into the Tin Woodsman in the Wizard of Oz movie.

He had breath that smelled like he'd been sucking on an air freshener,

And he always had little globs of spit in the corners of his mouth.

They never fell out,

So he hasn't literally dripped anything.

But he bugged me.

His office looked like the playground at McDonald's,

With a miniature jungle gym and piles of toys all over the place.

We sat in a ring of chairs on a stupid rug with the alphabet on it.

The shrink sat in a little kid's chair,

So his bony knees came up so high that he could have had a kneecap sandwich.

Samuel still hadn't stopped whining about the fact that I'd knocked him down.

The psychologist said Samuel would tell his whole stupid story.

Of course,

Samuel retoded word for word,

Including a description of body language just to show off.

At the end,

He said,

All I did was say Dad had Rip-Fem-Winkle disease.

Seeing Samuel shake as he told the story made me realize how totally out of control I'd been.

I could have really hurt the kid.

What a creep.

That's mean,

Not Samuel.

Dr.

Venture asked,

Why did Dad make you so angry,

Evan?

Samuel interrupted.

Dad told me that's what's wrong with him.

Dad didn't tell you anything.

Juliet snapped.

He did too.

Could Dad have spoken to him too?

All that time I'd been trying to shut out that voice in my head,

And I could have been talking with Dad.

Mom said,

Now Samuel,

You know your father can't talk.

That's all right,

Wynn,

Dr.

Ventro said as he got up and started walking around the tiny red chair he'd been sitting in.

Perhaps Samuel did hear his father speak to him.

Children in this type of situation frequently invent things that help them cope.

I didn't invent anything,

Samuel insisted.

Dad said it.

He said,

It's okay,

I just have a slight case of Rip-Bam-Winkle disease.

Dad sounded like Dad.

He would say that about himself.

I could see him sitting at the table,

At Kingston's fluttering his eyes saying,

It only hurts when I blink.

Juliet said,

That is so stupid.

Mom Juliet,

What's wrong with saying your father has Rip-Bam-Winkle disease?

The shrink asked as if Samuel had said Dad had cancer.

Mom giggled.

It was one of those,

I tried to hold it back types of giggles that sputters out.

Come on,

Julie,

You know Dad would think that was hilarious.

In that instant,

Dad's voice came back.

I thought it was gas.

I really could hear Dad speak.

No shrink could convince me otherwise.

I got up saying,

I have to go to the bathroom.

Right now,

Mom asked.

Remembering Dad's favorite line,

I said,

Sorry,

My bladder doesn't have a watch.

I heard Dad laugh.

Samuel started to giggle.

Did you hear that?

I mouthed to Samuel.

He leaned forward,

His eyes bulging.

Was he confused or shocked?

It's okay,

When Dr.

Ventro said,

Let him go.

Mom squeezed my hand as I went for the door.

Dr.

Ventro started talking about grief and I motioned for Samuel to follow me.

He popped up shouting,

Gotta whiz.

He ran for the door and I hurried out with him.

We rushed into the bathroom.

Crawling Samuel into a stall,

I said,

Did you hear Dad laughing just a minute ago?

He shrugged.

You just said you heard Dad.

I did.

He came into my dream last night.

Samuel had started to whine as if I'd scared him.

But not out loud.

What?

Do you think I'm nuts?

He laughed.

No,

I was apparently.

I'd done it again.

Made myself believe in magic tricks.

I sent Samuel back into Dr.

Ventro's office to tell Mom I'd gone home.

A ghost?

Yeah,

Let me go crazy.

What a great idea.

The Shrink's big solution to all our problems was to have a Dad ban.

We wouldn't go see him for the time being.

We were all supposed to pick up our daily routine.

Juliet would go back to her archery class.

Samuel would start up with the chess club again.

And I had to go back to piano lessons.

Time away from Dad would help us all calm down.

Or so Dr.

Ventro thought.

Mom said the hospital would call if anything changed.

And we would be at Dad's side faster than Superman in rush hour.

I pegged it all for a hoax.

Mom and the Shrink thought Dad would die.

They'd given up and wanted us to be without Dad for a while.

So we could get used to the idea of Dad being gone for good.

I knew their tricks and I wasn't going to fall for them.

By the next day I had a plan for sneaking into Dad's room through the window.

But Mom didn't let me go to school.

The stupid Shrink said I needed to sort through my feelings so I could talk about them without getting so mad.

I wanted to hurt people.

He even planned on coming to our house the next day because he thought talking in a home environment would be more comfortable for me.

Yeah,

Right.

What I really needed was to be with Dad.

Mom didn't agree.

She said that I needed some cooling off time.

Cooling off?

Who needed to cool off?

I wasn't a jet engine about to overheat.

I was a guy who needed to see his Dad.

But I guess they had it partly right.

I mean I did hear voices.

Relaxing might help me get rid of them.

I stared at the cracks in the ceiling until I dozed off.

When I woke up I thought I saw Dad standing at the top of my stairs in his floating toaster housecoat.

It hung open.

I could see his t-shirt and boxers.

He wore only one sock.

I sat up and he vanished.

I screamed.

Mom came running.

I'm going crazy.

She came to my bed and colored me close to her,

Whispering,

No you're not.

I saw Dad.

I really saw him.

I hurt him again yesterday too.

In the doctor's office.

He said,

He said,

He spoke to me.

Evan.

Dr.

Ventra says it's normal to see loved ones we miss and hear them too.

It's normal.

But he was here.

I'm sure you saw him Evan,

But he wasn't here.

I believed her for a while.

Exactly 14 hours.

Something woke me up at around one o'clock in the morning.

Listening,

I heard the door to the stairwell leading up to my attic close.

To be sure I wasn't going crazy,

I went downstairs.

Everything on the third floor was still except the water running in the toilet.

I walked through the shroom forest,

A reading area closed in by bookshelves with a ton of brown beanbag chairs.

Shrooms.

I wanted to snuggle down with Dad and a good book.

Going from England so he could do a British accent.

I peeked into Samuel's room.

He slept to the wrong end of the bed,

His cover strewn all over like a pile of dirty laundry.

Coated in mess,

His room would have been a challenge to Mary Poppins.

The least he could do was clean his room,

The little creep.

How could you just sleep like that?

I went down to the second floor,

Stood in the hallway and listened.

The toilet was running down there too.

Mom had her windows open.

I could hear the curtains blowing in the wind with a bunch of noisy birds chirping away.

But there was also a humming sound.

A low hum from a machine.

I would have thought it was a fish tank if we still had one.

But the iguana,

Fred,

Ate Samuel's fish.

I walked toward the sound.

Dad's office door hung open and I could see the blue-green glow of Dad's computer screen through the crack.

I gave the door a little push,

Expecting to see Mom working on something.

But no one was there.

I sat down in Dad's chair,

Wishing it were still warm,

The way it felt after he'd just gotten up.

I had to give the pedal underneath his seat a few kicks so I could reach the computer.

I thought I might give Dad a little help by doing some research.

He was probably really hungry for some juicy facts.

I could take them to the hospital and tell him everything I'd learned.

He might even wake up to ask a question or two.

I tried to think of something goofy to hunt for,

But nothing came to mind.

Then I saw the tower of Popcayons Dad had built up and decided to find out when Pop was invented.

Hooking into Dad's encyclopedia database,

I put POP in as a sutured word and a bunch of links for pop music came up.

I heard Dad's voice as smooth and calm as if he told me the answer to a math question.

He said,

Try soda.

I didn't hear that.

Or so I told myself.

Like Mom had said,

I only wanted to hear Dad.

He didn't actually say anything.

How could he?

But I put in soda anyway.

I remembered that my cousins from Oregon made fun of me when I said pop,

So I figured most people use the word soda.

I also put in history to refine the search.

A bunch of cough syrup sites came up.

Cough syrup?

I asked myself out loud.

That's right.

Pop flavoring with sweetened cough syrup.

Then they mixed it with soda water.

I didn't know enough about the history of pop even to imagine that connection.

Dad had to be speaking to me.

The sound of his voice came from behind me.

So I turned around.

Dad sat in the window seat.

The glow from the screen went right through him and shone on the window.

But it also lit him up like Bob Cratchit in the Scrooge movie.

I stumbled out of the chair.

Dad stood up.

His face looked so still and scary.

I started to run.

He ran so fast I felt sure he'd catch me.

I told myself not to look as I sped down the front steps,

Then out the door.

But I had to look to see if he had really been there.

Looking over my shoulder,

I caught a glimpse of Dad standing in the study window.

Still glowing,

His eyes all black,

His fingers long and white as they touched the glass.

Now as we end these chapters of Dad and Spirit,

I would like you to consider a few things.

Sometimes the things that happen to us and our family can be scary.

They can make us feel uncertain,

Unsure of ourselves,

And worried about the future.

It's okay to worry.

It's okay to be scared.

But when we are these things,

We need to work through those feelings,

To be able to talk to them,

Talk about them to those we love.

Or those feelings may become bigger than they really are and push us to do things we'll later regret.

Like when Eben pushes his brother Samuel.

When we act out an anger,

We often do things we later regret.

Anger can be a very overpowering and overwhelming emotion.

And it's not good to suppress anger because you try to put it in a box and it gets bigger than the box.

Instead,

You should find calming ways to explore that emotion.

Think about what makes you feel that way.

Think about what might make you calm down.

And the first step is always the same.

Listen to your feelings.

Allow yourself time to process them.

Allow yourself to dig deep down and find out what's at the root of them.

But most importantly,

Rely upon those you love and those who love you to support and guide you through the experience.

Because that's why you're together,

To support each other,

Love each other,

And guide each other through the most difficult parts of your life.

Because you know what comes after them?

Some of the most special,

Fun,

And wonderful times of your life.

So thank you for listening.

This has been A.

Le Fay of Sylvanosity.

And I hope we can get together again soon.

Bye for now.

Reviews

Excellent as usual, and appreciate your intro and concluding remarks. Especially helpful when one is sorting out challenging emotions ourselves

Wonderfully written, definitely going to buy a copy of this book. Thank you for reading to us, what a treat. Namaste Dear

I am really enjoying this story and am looking forward to hearing the rest of your book. Thank you. 🦋