The next few years, we gave each other wide berth. I didn't step on her toes and she stayed off mine. I never played the sad orphan, and she never played overwrought mom. We didn't bother each other, didn't judge each other. We cared, but it was a "lazy-fair" relationship. That suited the both of us.

There is only one grudge I carry. Clay Pevely. That's mom's boyfriend. Actually he's her lover. This irks me. No. She's his lover, and this irks me more. Yeah, that's the way it is, 'cause he's still married, so that makes mom his lover, not the other way around.

They've been "seeing" each other for little over a year. I don't delve into their affairs, but I've made out the basics of their situation: he's a corporate big dog that lives in a large house in Connecticut with wife Carol and two kids. Boys, I think. He has a dog also. This big money man limos into New York every morning and sometimes stays in the city overnight to avoid the commute. Company apartment, you know. That's what he tells Carol. Actually, we put him up most of those long, hard-work weeknights.

Mom met him in a bar. Probably both drunk on the happy hour specials. Him on the company's expense account, circled around by his executive chums -- those who lift grails of beer, pressing up against the secretary types at the bar. Very cute. Very masculine. The lads, they talk, too. About that pitch earlier in the day, falling markets and tight skirts revealing tighter asses. All in a day's work. And one such day, Clay Pevely eye-spied my own mother, and decided to keep her. Does he laugh about her in the executive washroom? I'll kill him if he does.

Everybody likes Clay. What's not to like? Charming when friendly. He's all promises, I'm sure, when in the middle of sex. I try not to imagine the talk they talk in bed. My cold mother so hot. The windows fogged. Quiet, you know. So close to each other and spoken in tender tones, whether the subject is the electric bill (which Clay is generous enough to foot) or that rare spoken day when Clay will up and leave Carol, kids, and Connecticut. These are the promises he makes. The electric bill is the only one he keeps. Oh, I don't doubt that he donates much to our cause. I know he stuffs mom's bank account on occasion. He's taken her on business trips to Saint Somewhere-or-other. Maybe she's happy. Happy she be. At the very least, she understands and accepts. She doesn't complain, so why should I? I'm certain Clay will never wed my mother. I think she knows this, too.

Clay has sleepy eyes, forever half-open (or half-closed). They are set deep, making no secret of his basic instincts. He always has the expression of just waking up or of holding back sleep. He is tall, well built, and has no hair on his chest or back. Clay has the body of a stupid man: bulked up by his regimen of lifting dumbbells. Repetition after repetition as if to say "quantity not quality," with frequent breaks at the mirror to gloat over his vastly swollen form. No fat. Strong legs. He is too vain for the speed at which his hair is receding. I understand why my mother is attached to him: she is comfortable with her simple Simian. My father's dedication to her must have been suffocating, threatening. Clay has his carnality to give her. Earthbound affection to offer.

I cannot tell a lie. Even an orphan's got pride. I loathe the mornings when I hear soft talk from behind mom's door, and share the bathroom minutes later with Mr. Pevely. He wears pajamas. A corporate exec wearing pajamas. He simply bothers me. Lately, he's tried being chummy. He talks to me about baseball (a sport I hate) and my "love life." Pokes me in the ribs and asks about girls. Got a girlfriend? Bet you do. Pass the corn flakes.

Is that how he thinks? Fuck, to feed, to fight, to flee? He thinks he's got swagger and style. What he's got flops around like a separate limb when he trots through our place. Obscene. Put more clothes on. He brandishes that soft dick of his as if it rules over us, my mom and me. Clay feels at home here. He favors this arrangement. It suits him good. It is clear to me that he will not wed my mother. He has no reason to. Clay is not going to leave his pretty life to champion any cause, least of all love for my mother. The brute doesn't know what love is. He seeks satisfaction.

I've had these dreams lately. Not really dreams, but like daydreams. On two occasions I'm taking a half nap, you know, stretched on the couch: ears awake, eyes shut, nearly conscious, and a swelling begins to grow within my head. This makes no sense. A swelling from the inside. I feel the pressure, only in my head, building to a danger point. No control. My brain is bloating. Like that movie of The Elephant Man. My head isn't larger. It's the same size, but with this tremendous pressure. The tension isn't painful, otherwise I'd get up. What should I do? I know it's coming like supernova. Veins and vessels in my head set to burst. And then I feel my eyes roll... and it pops! My head pops! Like a bomb going off in my face. And I been wondering. What does it mean? Is this the way I'm gonna go? Is my head going to explode? Pop? Like a brain hemorrhage?

Then I think: Yeah. I've been wondering what it's like to put a pistol in your mouth and pull the trigger. Blow your top off. Full head of steam. Does the pressure build and eventually explode? What is left after your head blows apart? A ringing in the ears, I'll bet. Other than that, just nothing.

Mom's gotten fatter. Not unattractive, but not better. It hasn't stopped Clay from coming. Her breasts are bigger. Don't ask me how I know. I know. After all, there is nothing sacred about this relationship, mother to son. It is determined and ruled by values. Not my values, but someone else's. When it comes down to it, we are just two animals that know each other well. This isn't shocking.

So, she got bigger breasts somehow. Clay seems proud, like he broke in a colt; got her seeing things his way. I think they came to an agreement a few days ago. A few days ago I think it was. I try not to hear these things, not my business and all. What I got was that she and Clay are clear on roles. Positions have been defined. It's all cut and dry. Clay has come clean. He admits that he cannot leave his family, but says he's still devoted to my mother. Now how does that figure unless you're some kind of goddamn sheik or Mormon? Clay makes the Lecher Hall of Fame with this one. He can't part from mom. Now it's all understood. Mom cries a little here and there, although not in front of me. She mopes a bit. And in a quick weekend, she's hammered it out alright. What a trooper. That's when she started to gain a bit. Maybe she's on the pill. I've heard it'll make your tits grow. I wish I could be touched by her cowlike devotion to Clay.

Exploding bombs in my head. My head: one exploding bomb. Now my half-naps cloud with phantoms. I've seen crazy things, divergent objects all rupturing and blasting apart. Volcanoes vomiting; planets shattering; melons splattering; my father's skull fragmenting; my mother's breasts erupting. Erupting. "From hour to hour we ripe and ripe and rot and rot." How does that go?

Maybe I'm a lunatic. I can't think straight. I think crooked. I don't look at her anymore; not directly at her. I am afraid I will pop. I certainly don't look at Clay. I dislike him, even more than before. Maybe I hate him. I never thought that it's possible to love someone. Least of all a woman, a wife. Impossible. Love? But, this must be hate I have. I hate Clay. If I can hate, can't I love? Some revelation.

I'm a clumsy oaf. Tonight I jumped straight out of the beginnings of sleep, deep REM sleep. It was my daydream. This time with pain. I was afraid. I jumped quickly, unskillfully from my bed. My closed door struck me hard as if to say, "get back in bed." Now a throbbing hand and a fearful head.

Silent for a moment. For a time. I shut out thinking, talking, images. It was quiet. Dark from my own voice. I was empty. Then I abruptly had the sensation of barely touching something, gently holding onto it with my fingertips, but not yet grasping. I wasn't sure it was there. Like rain at night. Touching the roof. Sweetly. Delicately. Is it really raining outside? Am I asleep? Then I hear my father. Far away, but distinct. Are you here? Talking to me? He speaks in bursts. Repeating some Asian phrase from a distance. Dad. Quietly.

"Maya neds sbern neg hut."

Dad. I can hear you. Shhhhhh. Quietly.

"Maya neds sbern neg hut."

Dad, I can't see you (but I can tell that he is struggling to speak). Slurring, like he's had a stroke. He's so far away. His head is tilted, his forehead is wrinkled with concern, eyebrows pointed up. I know him but cannot see him. Shhhhh. Dad. Say it to me. Slowly. Softly. Whisper.

"Maya," Dad pauses. Is it so difficult? Hold my breath. Don't lose you now. Are you talking from the dead? Are you fiction?

"Maya neds, kam bull." Shhhhhhh, Dad. I know that one. Kam bull. That's me. And he says it over and over again, now that I know. He says it faintly. So very softly, that I cry. I cry soft.

"Kambull, Kambul, Kembul, Kembul, Kembul, Kimbul, Kimbul, Kimbal., Kimbal...Kimbal." A little louder now; he's breaking the quiet. I can breathe again. Now he wants to speak. I am listening for him, and I know that my eyes are closed, but my God, I can feel him now! Not talking soft anymore, purring no longer! He's not in front of me. Louder. Faster. Closer.

"Kimball! Wake up buddy. You're sleep-walking." It is Clay.

He asks me if I'm alright. Such concern, this man of Clay. Molehill from mountain. How can mom love you so? Yeah I'm fine. Boy would I like to kick your ass. Boy would I like to tell you so. Now mom's into the room. What's wrong, what's wrong? Mom asks. I won't tell. Bed of blood. Dad is dead, right? I'm thinking: I just saw him, and he was trying like hell to tell me something when your stable boy here busted it up. I don't say this. I don't want them thinking I'm crazy. I say, I'm alright. I say, good night. Good night.

I was with my father moments ago. I can't dispute this. I heard his voice. I'd forgotten his voice, but it was him. I know it was. And I recognized him. His figure, in the shadows but the same lines and curves. The same shy, innocent motions. I cannot mistake my own father's face. It was his face. Though he is dead. If I'd had a few more moments, I might have touched him. Held his hand.

He said, "maya neds sbern neg hut." What is it? Wait....I know...hands. His hands, he was telling me. No hidden meanings, no cryptic message. "My hands burning hot." He was telling me his hands were still burning. He's still burning. My God....he's still burning.

Who can say that there's no such thing as ghosts? Fire used to be magic to primitive man. Now we've defined it. Broken it down. But isn't it still really magic? Only, now labeled, not really explained. You've gotta be pretty arrogant to presume that there's no such thing as ghosts. Maybe a thousand years from now, the science books will have some simple, accepted definition for ghosts. Explained as part of our natural world. Ghosts will be as elementary and acceptable as television waves. How many people understand them? What are ghosts? Where do they come from? Where do ghosts exist? They don't inhabit some supernatural world. On the contrary, they are with us. Hamlet. His father. The holy ghost. My father. If they exist in dreams or in other people's heads, it doesn't make them any less real. Any less ghosts.

My father's ghost is not residue. Not the leftovers of his being, waiting only to fade away. I can be very logical. Rational is a better word. Before that evening, I would have said that life was like dreaming. Without meanings. Dreams are the scattered remnants and images of your day haphazardly strung together by your subconscious into a story form. That's the only way your brain can make sense of it all. To assign some deeper, greater meaning to a dream is less than stupid, it's primitive, ranking somewhere slightly above throwing stones at the moon. I thought of life in the same way. Life has no lessons. No meanings. There is no prize and there are no penalties. It isn't like some novel with foreshadowing and symbolism and poetic devices and morals and justice. Justice, after all, is an archaic, obsolete religion. There are no rewards for living a good life, and there is nothing as awkward as destiny, otherwise some gypsy bitch could tell you everything you need to know with leftover tea leaves. There is only myth.

But my dad came back for some reason. Do ghosts exist to even the score, and only then to recede from view, from memory? Did their lives reflect some eventual meaning, some eventual return? Do they seek justice? I could've been wrong before. I just didn't know it. There is a rub to this. Maybe fate can't be ruled out any more. My father's fate. My fate. I have to be rational enough to admit and accept these dreams: that the wrinkles in my palms hold secrets, and the wind whispers in a long lost ancient language.