Throwback Thursday: ‘Ghost Walking’ by Mel Anastasiou

Seeing and Believing

Late in 2021 we published the first chapters of Mel Anastasiou’s Pretty Lies, an Orpheus tale set on Bowen Island BC in the 1970s.  It’s a story of young love, regrets, and second chances … and oh yes, ghosts.’ Enjoy this excerpt from Pulp Literature Issue 32, Autumn 2021, on sale now at the 20th century price of only $8 till March 15th!

Ghost Walking

by Mel Anastasiou

Howe Sound, Summer 1974

Chapter 1

The ferryboat rocked along sunlit Howe Sound waters on a course for Bowen Island. It carried a full load this afternoon in early July. On the car deck, doors slammed and children raced in and out among the vehicles. Up here on the Sunshine Deck, foot passengers milled about and craned at the shoreline and mountains, looking forward. Jenny Riley looked back. Her determined departure from university life, via this crowded ferryboat, was entirely different from the way Joey had left the world: in the rain, at night, slipping out of her arms while gasoline pooled through shattered windshield glass into the weeds by the road. 

A boy in a windbreaker ran up beside her and leaned too far out over the rail. He opened his fist and let go of a Sweet Marie candy wrapper so that the red-and-yellow paper swooped up and then fell into the ferryboat wake. It was a long way down the side of the ship.

Jenny caught his arm. “Don’t you want to live to grow up, litterbug boy? Don’t lean so far out.”

“You’re not the boss of me.” He pulled free, stuck his chocolate bar into his mouth like a fat cigar, and tore off down the stairs to the deck below.

Jenny leaned over the rail to watch the waves slap the ferry’s side. A light spray from the ferry’s bow brushed cold fingers against her cheek. Joey?

A man said, “Don’t lean so far over.” 

You’re not the boss of me. Jenny narrowed her eyes against the sun. Beside her a young BC Ferries officer rested his arms on the rail, sleeves rolled up above his elbows. His body cut the wind so that the full heat of the sun fell on her shoulders, and she shaded her eyes with her hand. He didn’t look much older than she was. How on earth did you get to be a ferry officer so young? She, now twenty-two, had no more idea than a puppy of what she wanted to do with her life. A seagull flapped overhead, a French fry hanging from its beak. It occurred to Jenny that it didn’t take much for a seagull to lead a happy existence.

She said, “Are you in charge? Those kids are tearing everywhere. It can’t be safe.”

“You know kids, they don’t listen. And I tell you what, it’s always been the same. In the old days, fellows used to jump off the dock pilings while the boat pulled away. The Union Steamships. Party ships full of drunks. Leaping fools.”

“Reckless. Why?” 

“Who knows? The reckless ones won’t tell you. And half the world is reckless.”

“What about the other half?” 

 “The other half tries to keep the reckless ones safe. I’m going to find those kids and burn their ears for them.”

“The other half thanks you.” Jenny looked more closely at the ferry officer. How had she thought this was a young man? He was in his sixties, with grizzled salt-and-pepper hair. Next to her arm on the railing, the back of his hand bulged with blue veins. He followed her gaze, let go of the rail, and moved away down the same steps the kid had. The truth was that, since the accident, she’d stopped believing her eyes. And the reason for that was the frequency with which she saw Joey on the street, walking briskly in jean cut-offs, shaggy blond head nodding; Joey framed in a bus window or tipping back a beer outside a liquor store.

Read the full story in Pulp Literature Issue 32, Autumn 2021, on sale till March 15th.

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