{"id":5215,"date":"2011-05-26T11:52:43","date_gmt":"2011-05-26T15:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/specialcollections\/?p=5215"},"modified":"2017-07-11T14:43:03","modified_gmt":"2017-07-11T18:43:03","slug":"ghosts-listen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/ghosts-listen\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghosts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Wesley McNair<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n\t<audio id=\"wp_mep_1\"      controls=\"controls\" preload=\"none\"  >\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t<source src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/files\/2010\/03\/Ghosts-edited-mp3.mp3\" type=\"audio\/mp3\" \/>\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t\r\n\t<\/audio>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\njQuery(document).ready(function($) {\r\n\t$('#wp_mep_1').mediaelementplayer({\r\n\t\tm:1\r\n\t\t\r\n\t\t,features: ['playpause','current','progress','duration','volume','tracks','fullscreen']\r\n\t\t,audioWidth:400,audioHeight:30\r\n\t});\r\n});\r\n<\/script>\r\n\n<h4><em>Ghosts<\/em><\/h4>\n<p>When we went there,<br \/>\nthe TV with the ghosts<br \/>\nwould be on, and the father<br \/>\ntalked and called out<br \/>\nevery now and then to him,<br \/>\n<em>Isn&#8217;t it June?<\/em> Or <em>Aren&#8217;t<\/em><br \/>\n<em>you, June?<\/em> And June<br \/>\nwould laugh like only his voice<br \/>\nwas doing it and he was somewhere<br \/>\nelse, so when the father<br \/>\nturned back to us like<br \/>\nhe was enjoying his son&#8217;s<br \/>\ncompany, we could tell<br \/>\nhe was on his way out,<br \/>\ntoo. Until at the end<br \/>\nhe just sat saying nothing<br \/>\nall day into the dark.<br \/>\nWalking by there after chores,<br \/>\nwe would see the blue light<br \/>\nfrom their TV, shifting<br \/>\nacross the road in the trees,<br \/>\nand inside, those two dark<br \/>\nheads which had forgot<br \/>\nby this time even the cows.<br \/>\nSo when the truck came<br \/>\nto take the manure-matted,<br \/>\nbellowing things to the slaughterhouse,<br \/>\nall we could say was, Thank God<br \/>\nfor Liz. Who else<br \/>\nwould have helped load them up,<br \/>\nthen gone right on living<br \/>\nwith that brother and father, dead<br \/>\nto the world in bib overalls,<br \/>\nwhile all around them<br \/>\nthe fields had begun<br \/>\nto forget they were fields?<br \/>\nWho else would have taken<br \/>\nthat town job, punching<br \/>\nshoelace holes all night<br \/>\ninto shoes? So now<br \/>\nwhen we went, there<br \/>\nwould be Junior and his father<br \/>\nin the front room of the farm<br \/>\nthey did not remember,<br \/>\nwearing brand-new shoes<br \/>\nthey did not even know<br \/>\nthey wore, watching the TV<br \/>\nwith the ghosts. And there<br \/>\nwould be Liz, with her apron on<br \/>\nover her pants, calling out<br \/>\nto them like they were only<br \/>\ndeaf,<em> Isn&#8217;t it?<\/em><br \/>\nor <em>Aren&#8217;t you?<\/em> and telling us<br \/>\nhow at last they could have<br \/>\nno worries and be free.<br \/>\nAnd the thing was<br \/>\nthat sometimes when we watched<br \/>\nthem, watching those faces<br \/>\nwhich could no longer concentrate<br \/>\non being faces, in the light<br \/>\nthat shifted from news to ads<br \/>\nto sports, we could almost see<br \/>\nwhat she meant. But what<br \/>\nwe didn&#8217;t see was<br \/>\nthat she also meant<br \/>\nherself. That the very<br \/>\nnewspapers we sat on<br \/>\neach time we brought her milk<br \/>\nor eggs were Liz&#8217;s own<br \/>\nslow way of forgetting all<br \/>\nthe couches and chairs. Until<br \/>\nthat last awful day<br \/>\nwe went there,<br \/>\nafter her father died,<br \/>\nand after the state car<br \/>\ncame to take June,<br \/>\nand we found just flour-<br \/>\nbags and newspapers and Liz,<br \/>\nwith her gray pigtail<br \/>\ncoming undone, and no idea why<br \/>\nwe&#8217;d left our rock-strewn fields<br \/>\nto come. Then all<br \/>\nwe could think to do<br \/>\nwas unplug that damned<br \/>\nTV, which by now didn&#8217;t<br \/>\nhave ghosts, only voices talking<br \/>\nbeyond the continuous snow.<br \/>\nAll we could do was<br \/>\ncall her to come back<br \/>\ninto her face and hands,<br \/>\nand Liz just watched<br \/>\nus, waving our arms,<br \/>\nlike we weren&#8217;t even there,<br \/>\nlike we were the ghosts.<\/p>\n<p><!--themify_builder_static--><!--\/themify_builder_static--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hear &#8220;Ghosts&#8221; read by Wesley McNair<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[659,577,302,226],"tags":[523,394,223],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5215"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5215"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12952,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5215\/revisions\/12952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}