Lost No More (Ghost No More Series Book 2) Read online

  Lost No More

  a memoir

  by CeeCee James

  Prologue

  Everyone has a story. You may have read mine, in Ghost No More. Now, it’s my honor to share my beloved’s. This book is dedicated to him, and my thankfulness that our stories merged.

  Lost No More is based on true events, memories shared with me through the years by my husband, and a few brain storming nights where I interviewed him like crazy. Jim read it as I wrote, telling me what I needed to reword to give the most accurate portrayal of his life. Only the names and places have been changed out of respect for the people in the memoir.

  I did my best to reveal the true flavor of his life as he journeyed towards love. It’s a journey we’re all on. And, if you haven’t heard it recently, then let me tell you that you are worth your journey.

  Chapter 1

  “Get my mitt, Jimmy,” Dad yelled, his face pulled into a cocky grin. He tugged his red shirt down, then pulled the crease straight on his white pants.

  “Where is it, Dad?” I sat on the stairs watching him.

  “You’re four, you’re a big boy now. Go find it.”

  I jumped up and darted down the hall to the living room, spotting the well-worn glove on the buffet on the way. After scooping it up, I ran it over to him.

  He took it from my hand and tried it on, giving the creased palm a punch. “Thanks.”

  I wanted him to ruffle my hair. Instead he looked in the mirror and pulled his cap low on his brow.

  Then he yelled “Goodbye, Pearl,” and left me standing in the open doorway as he strutted towards his truck. At the truck door he looked back at me and winked. “See you later, alligator.”

  I wiggled inside and answered back, “After a while, crocodile.”

  I used to think he was famous. But then I found out the monogrammed “M” on his shirt stood for the local bar.

  Later, that afternoon, Mom packed me and my baby brother, David, up in the car and drove us down to Union Parkway. We reached the hot metal bleachers just as Dad swaggered up to the home plate. He gave a wolf whistle to the pitcher, who squinted at him and tried to sneer. Dad laughed. His confidence made me swell with pride. Dad tapped the plate and gave his twisted smile.

  The pitcher spit in his hand then wound up and let a curve ball fly.

  Crack!

  Dad smacked it past the outfielders like a rocket. My seat shook under me as the crowd jumped to their feet and screamed.

  I skipped off the bleachers and ran down to the chain fence. My fingers looped through the metal links as I pressed my face against it and shouted. “Go Dad! Go!” His cleats pounded up the dust as the ball chased him from base to base. My chest almost blew apart as he slid into home plate in a cloud of dirt.

  “Yeah! That’s my Dad!”

  They won 3-2.

  After the game, Dad didn’t look over at me. Instead, he rushed to his teammates and they jumped about and hugged each other. I smiled to see him laughing so hard.

  Dad hung around after the game and didn’t come home with the rest of us. As Mom made dinner I overheard her say to herself, “He’s going to come home a stumbling idiot,” with worried lines on her face.

  After we finished eating and had bath-time, I sat in a waste-paper basket in front of the TV. The plastic cupped my back while my legs, in dinosaur pajamas, hung over the edge. The living room was dark, but cozy, with a little light coming from the hanging kitchen lamp. The kids on the television jumped in the air. I beat my hands against the sides of the can and sang along. “Doo, do, do, do!”

  Mom was washing dishes in the kitchen when the back door crashed open. I flinched. Dad walked into the kitchen with big, stomping steps. I heard a pan slam, then loud voices.

  If I’m quiet and pretend I’m not here, they won’t notice me. Staring hard at the TV, I tried to concentrate on what the green puppet on the screen was saying. Bits of my parents’ words broke through my focus, as though the puppet were speaking their words.

  “You’re drunk! Like always!”

  “I had good reason to celebrate!”

  “Celebrate what? A bar win?”

  “I’m sick of your nagging, Woman!”

  A loud clatter rang out as a dish fell in the sink.

  And then another.

  I didn’t dare turn around. My bottom lip trembled. I took a deep breath. “I’m not here, you don’t see me,” I repeated over and over and concentrated on the TV.

  There was prickly silence.

  Then, a metallic clang and the light dimmed as Mom screamed.

  A gust of wind blew past me just before the TV exploded in bright light. I jerked back and toppled over out of the basket.

  The TV hissed with a flicker of sparks.

  Inside the broken screen, the ceiling light rocked to a stop. Dad had thrown the fixture with the speed of a fast ball at the TV.

  My world spun around me with shock, and I felt a wave of nausea. He’s mad at me! Why is he mad at me? What did I do wrong?

  Dad stomped into the living room. I shrank away from him.

  “Just look what you made me do!” His eyes and hair were wild as he wrenched the fixture out of the TV. I didn’t know who he was talking to. He swung the light to one side, where it rolled into the couch, fumbled for his keys, and stormed out the front door

  *****

  The next day Dad looked at the broken TV with a bemused expression.

  “Don’t you remember what happened?” Mom asked.

  “No, I really don’t,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll call Larry. He’ll be able to repair that. I’ve seen him take an entire set apart and put it back together.” He turned to me. “One handed! With his eyes closed!”

  I grinned.

  The phone rang, and Mom walked over to the table to answer it. She sounded cheery, and her head nodded, as though the speaker on the other end could see. After hanging up, her happy look faded away. “That was Ralph.” She looked at Dad sharply. “You didn’t tell me there’s a get together today.”

  “Well, we’ve got to celebrate our win!” Dad rubbed his hands together and then patted his pocket looking for his cigarettes.

  “But aren’t we going to church?”

  “Aww, why do I need to go, Pearl? I live by my motto; Look up.” He pointed towards the ceiling.

  “I seem to remember you did your celebrating last night.” Mom unbuckled the baby from the yellow bouncy seat sitting on the floor. She handed him to Dad. “You’d do better to spend more time looking up than looking at your drink.”

  “What?” he said, patting my brother on the back. “I already said I was sorry. I ain’t going to drink today.”

  I crossed my fingers and toes, hoping it would be that way.

  We piled in the car, and Dad drove us to Big Bend River Park. He turned into the dirt lot and pulled in next to his friend’s truck. The car had hardly come to a complete stop before Dad leapt out to help his friend carry an ice-chest across the grounds to the burn pit.

  Mom watched him leave, two angry lines appearing between her eyebrows. She sighed as she struggled to get the baby out of the car seat. I followed her, looping the heavy diaper bag across my shoulder. She wandered over the grass to the trees that edged the park until she found a flat spot in the shade.

  “This is good,” she said. I dumped the bag and ran to find Dad.

  “Get me a soda!” she called after me.

  He was standing by the smoking BBQ surrounded by a mob of people. I could hardly get close to him with everyone crowded around. They slapped his back and laughed at his jokes. Someone passed him a bottle of beer.

  I remembered Mom’s soda an
d grabbed one out of the ice-chest. Mom had spread a towel and rested, propped on her arms. My baby brother slept in a bundle next to her. Other moms had joined her with their own towels and babies.

  Mom took the soda from my hand and asked, “Have you eaten yet? You be sure to eat something, Jimmy.”

  I nodded. After grabbing a hotdog burned black from the grill I tried to weasel in through the group of men to get close to Dad so he’d notice me. His dark eyes snapped as he yelled out the punchline to a joke I didn’t understand. The men all laughed, bumping into me. I took a few steps back and shoved the end of the hotdog in my mouth.

  The men’s conversation changed to the Summer Day parade and the float that Maverick’s Tavern was building for its champion baseball team. That meant Dad would be on it, and a bubble of excitement squirmed inside my chest. The whole town would see him, and know what a great baseball player he was. I thought about the neighbor kid, Logan, whose dad worked at the grocery store every day wearing a brown apron. Logan made fun of me because Dad had lost his job. Logan would see what a great man Dad was.

  We were there until after dusk. The moon was coming up fat and bright over the mountain, and nearly everyone had already packed up and left the picnic. Just Dad and Jared were left by the fire drinking their last beer. Rocking the sleeping baby, Mom convinced Dad it was time to go.

  We weren’t home but a few minutes when I heard the hiss of Dad opening another beer. Mom froze for a moment before hustling me to my room. She put baby David in the crib across from my bed and fiddled with his blanket. Then she went to the drawer and brought out my favorite pajamas, the ones that had the spaceships all over them. I pulled them on and climbed into bed. She leaned down and tucked my blanket up to my chin.

  “Goodnight Jim.” She smiled at me before she kissed my forehead.

  She shut the door, but it hardly muffled her words to him. Angry words. He snapped back; Mom’s high droning interrupted by his sharp barks. There was a loud crash, and Mom yelled “Maybe you want to pull the cabinets down like you did the last time you were drunk?”

  Dad shouted, “Will you just shut up?”

  The front door slammed and, outside my window, Dad’s truck roared to life. I heard Mom sigh, and the soft noises of her cleaning up the mess. I rolled over in bed to watch my baby brother in his crib. His arm stretched across his face and his lip wiggled like when he was hungry. He never woke, no matter how loud they fought. I wrapped my blanket around me. My eyes burned, but I was four. I was too big to cry.

  *****

  Finally the day of the parade arrived. Grandma, Mom, and I hauled out our lawn chairs from the back of the car and dragged them to the road. I jumped up and down, knocking into people surrounding me.

  “Sit still, Jimmy!” Mom insisted.

  I tried, but the tapping of my feet against the ground bothered her, too. “Fine, get up and jump then,” she said with an eye roll.

  The streets were lined with people. About a quarter of the way down the block I saw Logan. He sat with his parents, his hair sharply parted and slicked to the side, with black rimmed glasses on his skinny nose just like his dad. They both turned and looked at me, wearing identical sweater vests. Logan doesn’t know what a cool Dad is. I snorted and looked away.

  Just then I heard the fire trucks. Every year, they started the parade with their lights flashing and horns whooping. I whooped too as one of the firemen threw some wax lips my way, then sprinted to get them, nearly getting knocked over by a bigger kid. I crammed them in my mouth, feeling my teeth dig into the wax. The cherry vampire teeth hid my grin.

  Confetti showered the air as the town’s unicycle squad went by. Cheerleaders, rah-rahing with their pom-poms, clowns twisted sommer-saults on both sides of the Big Tex Restaurant float, and 4-H horses were followed by a man with a shovel and wheel barrel.

  A banner held by two teenagers announced the High School marching band. Teens in white boots marched with high steps and pounded on drums. Cymbals clanged. One red-spotted boy tried to hang on to his hat while blowing into a tuba. I watched, fascinated, as the hat slipped side-ways held on only by the chin strap, the boy’s eyes bulging from both embarrassment and effort.

  We whistled and cheered. Then Mom called, “There they are.” I spun around to look. My heart deflated a little when I saw the worn flat-bed trailer that was hauled by a busted up truck. There were a few limp blue streamers taped to a construction paper sign. In scraggly hand-drawn letters it said, “Mavericks, Home of the Boot-filled Beer.”

  Dad was front and center on a hay bale. With his best grin on his face he waved to the crowd, a cigarette dangling from his lip. I jumped up and down as the excitement roared in my chest, “Look, town! Look, Logan! That’s my Dad!”

  By Dad’s foot was a dented bullhorn speaker. When his eyes caught mine he pulled the bullhorn to his mouth. I waved even harder. He notices me! He’s going to say something!

  Dad pointed at me and yelled out, “Jimmy likes to dance with a hole in his pants.”

  I stopped jumping. My face blushed red to the roots of my hair. I did not like to dance, and I never had holes in my pants. Mom made sure of that. Everyone turned to see who he was pointing at. There was laughter all around me. I grinned sheepishly and sat down.

  Chapter 2

  Sunday afternoon was chore day. With a bucket full of soap bubbles, I staggered away from the spigot and out to the front yard. I was only half-way there and already my arms ached.

  Dad waited in the driveway, wearing cut-off jeans trimmed so short the pockets hung out the bottom. He sprayed down his green Dodge Dart, catching a rainbow in the water droplets.

  Dad loved that car. Wherever we went, he’d park it in the back end of parking lots away from people. Last week, a blue El Camino pulled in next to the Dart, just before Dad and I got out. He opened his car door wide and smacked it into Dad’s door. The stranger didn’t say anything, just headed for the store.

  Dad leapt out of the car. He ran his hands down the paint and then called after the guy, “Excuse me! You just dinged my door!”

  I sat up a little straighter in my seat, a cold pit in my stomach. You don’t mess with Dad.

  The man spun back and shrugged his shoulders. “I wouldn’t worry about that little mark.”

  Dad stared at the guy. He tapped a cigarette out of a pack from his front pocket, then lit a match with a snap and held it to the end. Took a long drag. Then grabbed the car door and slammed it again and again into the other guy’s car.

  Bam!

  Bam!

  The crashing rang through the parking lot. When he finished Dad eyeballed the man and said, “Well, I wouldn’t worry about this mark either then.”

  The man’s mouth dropped open. But he saw the look in Dad’s eye and didn’t move.

  Dad climbed back into the Dart and the tires squealed as we squirreled out of the parking lot.

  We turned on to the straight-away. Just before Dad hit the gas hard, he said, “Ready for this? Some heads are going to roll.” I laughed as we got sucked back into our seats.

  *****

  In the fall of 1979 we moved out of the little house and up into a place tucked far back in the woods of Wildfire Rim. I was six. My little brother was four, a little snot-nosed kid who liked to follow me everywhere. At least that’s what I told him. Truth is, he was my best friend.

  Wildfire Rim was billed in the real estate brochures as a huge housing development, but the actual development was slow. In fact, all that had been built was a maze of dirt roads that swirled in and out of the green belt and led to nowhere. But, at the other end of the development was the queen mother of all fun places; a house nearly finished that begged to be explored.

  David went to sneak a couple of sodas out of our fridge while I held watch. We jammed them in the pockets of our carpenter pants. Mom always dressed us the same way, and it was a drag, but what could you do?

  “Good job getting ‘em,” I told David, then to cool him down, “But you
forgot the granola bars.”

  He wrinkled his nose and scuffed his toe in the dirt.

  “Aww that’s okay. I’m not hungry anyway.” I tousled his hair like I’d seen Dad do.

  He gave me a smile and I hollered, “Let’s go! Let’s be like scouts!” That was our code word to be super stealthy. I ran down the side of the road with David hot on my heels, prepared to jump in the bushes and hide if anyone should drive up. We dove just in time as a big truck rumbled past with rafters bundled into giant triangles on its flat bed. We watched it go by with our noses in the dirt. Then we followed in spy mode. My belly scratched against the dead grass as I crawled to the edge of the half-built house.

  The truck jerked to a stop and a construction guy in an orange vest directed the boom to lift the rafters off the bed. The rafters swayed in the air for a moment before the boom lowered them in the dirt yard of the house.

  David elbowed me in the ribs and waggled his eyebrows in a crazy way at the rafters.

  “I know!” I hissed. “Be quiet!”

  After it was unloaded, the construction guys jumped back into the white truck, and, with the exhaust burping grey smoke, headed back down the dirt road.

  David grinned at me, and we both dashed over the excavated yard to the rafters.

  “Get on up there.” I pointed.

  He looked at my foot pinning down one end and scrambled up the other side. Slowly, I rose up in the air. We took turns walking towards the middle of the rafter, like a giant teeter totter, until we had enough weight at the top end and it would come slamming down. Then we ran to the other side to do it again.

  After the third time it crashed down, I called out, “I’m done!” and jumped off just before he made it to the end, causing him to fall off.

  “Hey! I’m telling!”

  “Yeah, go tell Mom. She’ll be real interested in knowing you’re over here.”

  “Shut-up,” he muttered, suddenly absorbed with a pile of putty on the ground. He kicked at it with his shoe.