20th Century Ghosts [S.S. Col.] by Hill Joe

Author:Hill, Joe [Hill, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Horror, Short Stories, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780061804762
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2005-01-01T02:00:00+00:00

THE CAPE

We were little.

I was the Red Bolt and I went up the dead elm in the corner of our yard to get away from my brother, who wasn’t anyone, just himself. He had friends coming over and he wanted me not to exist, but I couldn’t help it: I existed.

I had his mask and I said when his friends got there I was going to reveal his secret identity. He said I was lunch meat, and stood below, chucking stones at me, but he threw like a girl, and I quickly climbed out of range.

He was too old to play superheroes. It had happened all of a sudden, with no warning. He had spent whole days leading up to Halloween dressed as The Streak, who was so fast the ground melted under his feet as he ran. Then Halloween was over and he didn’t want to be a hero anymore. More than that, he wanted everyone to forget he had ever been one, wanted to forget himself, only I wouldn’t let him, because I was up in a tree with his mask, and his friends were coming over.

The elm had been dead for years. Whenever it was windy, the gusts sheared off branches and flung them across the lawn. The scaly bark splintered and snapped away under the toes of my sneakers. My brother wasn’t inclined to follow—beneath his dignity—and it was intoxicating to escape from him.

At first I climbed without thought, scrambling higher than I ever had before. I went into a kind of tree-climbing trance, getting off on altitude and my own seven-year-old agility. Then I heard my brother shout up that he was ignoring me (sure proof that he wasn’t) and I remembered what had sent me up the elm in the first place. I set my eye on a long, horizontal branch, a place where I could sit, dangle my feet, and taunt my brother into a frenzy without fear of repercussions. I swept the cape back over my shoulders and climbed on, with a purpose.

The cape had started life as my lucky blue blanket and had kept me company since I was two. Over the years, the color had faded from a deep, lustrous blue to a tired pigeon gray. My mother had cut it down to cape size and stitched a red felt lightning bolt in the center of it. Also sewn to it was a Marine’s patch, one of my father’s. It showed the number 9, speared through by a lightning bolt. It had come home from Vietnam in his foot locker. He hadn’t come with it. My mother flew the black P.O.W. flag from the front porch, but even then I knew no one was holding my father prisoner.

I put the cape on as soon as I came home from school, sucked on the sateen hem while I watched TV, wiped my mouth with it at the dinner table, and most nights, fell asleep wrapped in it. It pained me to take it off.

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