I wish I knew if you were happy or at least less unhappy.

Dear Dad,

I wish you would write back to me. Or I wish I could somehow know where you are, if you’re OK, if you’re happy, or at least less unhappy.

Today after English class, Mrs. Henry asked how I was doing. I said fine. She asked if I had any news from The Other. Then she kind of tilted her head to the side, like our new dog does when it hears a high-pitched noise. It almost made me laugh out loud. But then I thought about how much I wanted to talk about you and it almost made me spill my guts to her. It almost made me tell her all about our letters back and forth and the bargain you made with me when you took on my fear of Will Mudgett. I almost told her about the bloody boat and the woods and about how much I’m wondering where you are right now.

But I didn’t tell her anything. I just stood there looking at her, thinking all that stuff. Then I said, “No. No news.” Then I left, still thinking about it all.

It made me think about that day of the fight and it reminded me that I forgot to tell you about Gilman, that 8th grader who almost killed Mudgett and who I somehow managed to knock down. He doesn’t go to our school anymore. He never came back after Christmas. I’ve heard about a million stories about why he’s not here anymore. Donnie Joad says that Gilman was so ashamed by my kicking his butt that he asked his parents to let him go to another school. Mudgett said that his mom talked to the principal about how Gilman beat him up and they kicked Gilman out. Brian Haase said he heard that Jordan Sackett told someone that Gilman’s parents moved away.

I don’t really care why he’s gone, but I’m glad he’s gone. Sometimes things just work out.

You’re gone, too. How long should I keep writing these letters to you?

Your son,

Trevor

How about tomorrow? Behind the gym right after school.

Dear Dad,

I saw Mudgett today. Huh. It’s weird to even write it, because I feel so different about it now. I saw Mudgett today. Big deal. I even said hi to him. He gave me one of those dark-eyed stares of his. It made me frown, because I still don’t really get his beef with me.

“Wussy boy.” It was all he could think of to say.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Or what?”

“Why do you have to answer that way? Why can’t you just stop acting like a jerk?”

“Why can’t you stop being such a wussy boy. I’ll kick your butt all over this school.”

“No. You won’t.”

“Yeah. You’re such a wussy boy, you’ll probably keep running away from me.”

“I’m not running. Stop calling me that.”

“You ready to fight me then?”

“If that’s what it’s gonna take, then yes. How about tomorrow? Behind the gym right after school.”

I caught him off guard with that one. It’s hard for me to tell if it freaked him out or not, because Mudgett is really good at keeping that stare going. He said, “I’m taking taekwando, you know.”

“I know. So how about tomorrow?”

“You’re gonna get your ass kicked, wussy boy.”

“Whatever. As long as I get it over with.”

“What makes you think it’s gonna end?”

It wasn’t exactly a joy-filled conversation. I wasn’t afraid of him, but I don’t really want to fight him. I sure don’t want to lose, which is why I hit the heavy bag as soon as I got home, working on my combinations.

But I think the bargain thing might have worked. I didn’t really feel afraid of him. Stay tuned.

Your son,

Trevor

I’ve taken on your fear of Mudgett.

Dear Trevor,

Our bargain is done. I’ve taken on your fear of Mudgett. I could be mistaken, but I think I actually felt it come upon me, in a strange sort of way. I have no feeling of dread, just a slight acknowledgement of a new presence.

I don’t fear Mudgett any more than I did before. Why should I? He can’t do anything to me. This place I reside in may have a million drawbacks, but Mudgett’s presence is not one of them. And I believe I would relish a good dust-up with the little punk.

It makes sense, when you think about it. Just because I took on your fear of him doesn’t mean it should weigh as heavily on me as it weighed on you. He can do nothing to me. “Bear each other’s burdens.” Genius. It’s easy for me to bear your burden. That’s why God told us to do it. That old Bible really gets it right sometimes.

You may not yet agree with this, but I can’t wait for you to meet Mudgett again.

You asked what you owe me in return. I don’t know. For now, how about if you just file away an IOU? Once I figure out what you can do for me, I promise I’ll cash it in.

Keep me posted.

Dad

It feels a bit like witchcraft.

Dear Dad,

This seems like insanity to me. It feels a bit like witchcraft. No, that’s totally the wrong word. I don’t want anything evil-sounding mixed up in your proposal. But it sounds like magic.

But what the heck. I’ll try it. What have I got to lose? So here it goes: I pledge, with God as my witness, to let my dad, who happens to be dead as a doornail, take on my fear of Will Mudgett, the creepy, geeky, knife-carrying, taekwando-outfit-wearing kid who sits next to me in social studies. I don’t want the fear. And my dad asked to have it. So he can have it.

Should I say amen? Or abracadabra? I guess I’ll just stop there.

I think Mrs. Henry would approve. I’m not sure if God will, but I guess we’ll find out soon.

One question: If a bargain is an exchange of goods or services, don’t I need to give you something in return?

Your son,

Tom

With God as my witness, here is my bargain with you.

Dear Trevor,

A bargain. “An oath of The Other.” That’s what your Mrs. Henry called it. Let’s make a bargain, Trevor. Let’s do something that makes a difference in your life. Let’s solve this problem of Will Mudgett—of your fear of him. Is it possible? Is it mystical nonsense? Is it true religion or just wishful thinking on my own, impotent part? What the hell. Let’s find out.

With God as my witness, Trevor, here is my bargain with you. I will take your fear of Will Mudgett. I will bear the fear for you. With God as my witness, I am willing to be the bearer of your fear. When you next see Mudgett, I want you to remember that your fear of him is no longer your own. I’m taking on that fear, so you can’t have it. It is no longer your property or your burden. It is mine. I pledge this to you, Trevor, in clear view of God Almighty, should he actually prove to exist.

“Bear each other’s burdens,” Trevor. That’s what the Bible says, right? Let’s try it.

Dad

I’m starting to think Mrs. Henry is a nut.

Dear Dad,

I talked to Mrs. Henry again today, but I’m starting to think she is kind of a nut. Here’s a drawing of her I did in class when I should have been reading. I like it. I worked on it some more when I got home. Can you tell what I mean about her kind of ex-hippie style?

Mrs. Henry really believes this stuff about The Other and all her other kooky crap. I think she’s one of those people who probably thinks ghosts and angels and all that sort of thing are real.

Then again, who am I to talk? I’m writing letters to my dead dad.

I asked her if she’d tell me more about this idea of what she meant by a bargain. What kind of bargain could I make with a dead person that, like she said, God would honor?

“You’re a writer, aren’t you, Trevor?”

“Sort of.”

“You are. You’re someone who values words. Few people do, you know. We say, “God bless you” when someone sneezes without thinking what the words mean. Talk about taking the Lord’s name in vain. We pray at dinner. We say, “Bless this food to our bodies,” but if someone asked us what we meant, we wouldn’t know how to answer them. Our words might as well be grunts. But what if you made a real agreement—a verbal contract? What if you made an oath before God, say, to keep your room clean for a month? Would you do it?”

“I guess I would.”

“Would you or wouldn’t you?”

“I would.”

“Why?”

“Well, because I made a promise in front of God.”

“And God would hold you to it. God takes such oaths seriously. It is an oath of The Other. Such oaths transcend time and space. And such bargains are never to be entered into lightly.”

Mrs. Henry stared at me for a minute. I think she was wishing I would fall down in amazement at the brilliance of her words. I think teachers wish that a lot. I guess I was kind of amazed, though.

“But what do you mean by a bargain?”

“Oh, that part is simple. A bargain is simply an exchange of goods or services at a price. You get something in exchange for payment.

I still don’t really know what she meant, and Mrs. Henry wasn’t going to spell everything out for me. But there was something there. I could tell.

A little help here would be great, Dad. Any ideas?

Your son,

Tom

The only blood to be found in this place seems to be on the boat.

Dear Trevor,

Don’t worry about David Gilman and his “wussy boy” comment. He’s one of those guys who says whatever sounds cool that day. Tomorrow he’ll be making fun of his best friend if he hears someone doing that.

David Gilman is the stupidest kind of bully. He is not worth considering. Your Mrs. Henry, however, is a different matter. She is certainly worth a study.

I think I understand what she is saying with her theories. If God is more than bunk, than time and space and life and death have to be meaningless to him. Otherwise, what would the point be of praying for your brother to have a safe trip.  You’re praying that God will somehow go with him into the future, in another location, and impact the surface of the road he drives on and keep other cars from running into him. Would it be possible, Mrs. Henry is postulating, to pray for something that also happened in the past? Would it be possible to make an oath with someone, with God as your witness, who was on the other side of the world or even, dare I say it, dead? I have an idea or two on how we might test her theory, but it would be great to hear more from Mrs. Henry.

Boxing has become a bit of a hobby with Carl and me. We wrapped our fists in a couple of Sung-Hee’s dish cloths and punched a sack of beach sand and rags. It doesn’t have the heft of your heavy bag, but then again, either do my punches. I can’t seem to hit the bag hard enough to tire out my hands. Carl derides me for my weak arms, but his don’t seem to hit any harder.

We tried a little sparring as well. Carl slipped a hard jab through and hit me right in the nose. I expected blood to come out and kept touching my nostrils with my rag-wrapped hands, but no blood.

The only blood to be found in this place seems to be on the boat and its bloody woman captain. As far as I can recall, the boat hasn’t been here in a while, which means we should be seeing it any day. I long for and dread its appearance, as well as the appearance of newcomers. Believe me, any diversion is precious, but each newcomer who arrives and then leaves is another painful reminder that I am still here.

Dad

Gilman is a doofus, but man, is he ever big.

Dear Dad,

An eighth grader called me “wussy boy” today. Will Mudgett has successfully branded me as a wussy.

David Gilman, this big kid with spiky red hair bumped into me in the hallway when I was opening my locker. “Oops. Sorry, wussy boy,” he said, winking like a dork at his friend, Jordan Sackett. Gilman is a doofus, but man, is he ever big. He must weigh 250 pounds. He looks like a grown man, except for the doofus grin that’s always on his face. If you told Gilman that his whole family died in a plane crash, he’d just stand there looking at you, grinning. This time he was grinning at me.

Gilman is a jerk. He’s a defender on my soccer team, like me. He’s always trying to give the seventh graders titty twisters on the way to games. When Gilman called me a wussy boy, I should have one-two punched him right in his stupid grin.

I talked to Mrs. Henry after her class today. “So what do you know for sure?” I said.

“What?”

“What do you know for sure? You said there were only a few things you know for sure. What are they?”

Mrs. Henry looked really serious all of a sudden, by which I mean her smile lines went completely horizontal. But only for a second or two. Then they curved back into place.

“Humm. I know—I know for sure that Fisherman’s Friends throat lozenges are the best throat lozenges. I know for sure that the best meal I ever had was a loaf of crusty bread, a wedge of ripe brie and a bowl of Washington strawberries. And I know God for sure.”

I knew she’d sneak God in there somehow.

“There are different kinds of truths, Trevor. There’s the Fisherman’s-Friends truths and strawberries-are-good truths and two-plus-two-equals-four truths. The factual kind. That kind of truth is valuable and there’s less of it around than you may think. It reassures us. Gives us that pause, when we can exhale and get our feet back under ourselves.

“Then there’s the kind of truth you can know. The rarest of all truths. I mean that you can know it the same way you know me and I know you. You can relate to it. You can relationship with it. You can have it over for coffee, so to speak. That truth is called God. God is truth and you can know him. It’s not always a reassuring kind of truth. Sometimes it’s damn unsettling. But it’s truth. He’s truth.”

I just stared at her.

“You had another question for me the last time we talked,” Mrs. Henry said, “about whether people who are dead can help you.”

“Yeah?”

“Death, it seems to me, is a change in the physical state. The physical state does not have much to do with the state of The Other. God’s laws—the laws of The Other—don’t pay much attention to death, time or space.

“Let me pose a theory to you,” Mrs. Henry said, as she doodled on a scrap of paper with her well-chewed pencil. “First of all, let’s agree that God lives outside of what we think of as time and space. Let’s agree that God lives—or perhaps lives isn’t the right word. Let’s say he exists—on another plane where time and space are irrelevant. OK? If you made a bargain of The Other—an agreement that God would honor—then it wouldn’t matter to God if the bargain were made between two people standing together in the same room or if they were two people on opposite sides of the earth, right? Is it also possible that it wouldn’t matter if they lived 100 years apart? Is it possible that it wouldn’t matter if one was alive and one was dead?”

“What kind of bargain are you talking about?” I asked. But the bell rang. Mrs. Henry smiled and told me we’d have to talk another time.

Your son,

Trevor