No, I said. I went with my dad. My dad took me.
Did you ride the Bullet? I rode that fucker four times. Man! It goes right upside down! He looked at me and uttered another empty bark of laughter. The moonlight swam in his eyes, turning them into white circles, making them into the eyes of a statue. And I understood he was more than dead; he was crazy. Did you ride that, Alan?
I thought of telling him he had the wrong name, my name was Hector, but what was the use? We were coming to the end of it now.
Yeah, I whispered. Not a single light out there except for the moon. The trees rushed by, writhing like spontaneous dancers at a tent- show revival. The road rushed under us. I looked at the speedometer and saw he was up to eighty miles an hour. We were riding the bullet right now, he and I; the dead drive fast. Yeah, the Bullet. I rode it.
Nah, he said. He drew on his cigarette, and once again I watched the little trickles of smoke escape from the stitched incision on his neck. You never. Especially not with your father. You got into the line, all right, but you were with your ma. The line was long, the line for the Bullet always is, and she didn’t want to stand out there in the hot sun. She was fat even then, and the heat bothered her. But you pestered her all day, pestered pestered pestered, and here’s the joke of it, man when you finally got to the head of the line, you chickened. Didn’t you?
I said nothing. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth.
His hand stole out, the skin yellow in the light of the Mustang’s dashboard lights, the nails filthy, and gripped my locked hands. The strength went out of them when he did and they fell apart like a knot that magically unties itself at the touch of the magician’s wand. His skin was cold and somehow snaky.
Didn’t you? Yes, I said. I couldn’t get my voice much above a whisper. When we got close and I saw how high it was . . . how it turned over at the top and how they screamed inside when it did . . . I chickened out. She swatted me, and she wouldn’t talk to me all the way home. I never rode the Bullet. Until now, at least.
You should have, man. That’s the best one. That’s the one to ride. Nothin else is as good, at least not there. I stopped on the way home and got some beers at that store by the state line. I was gonna stop over my girlfriend’s house, give her the button as a joke. He tapped the button on his chest, then unrolled his window and flicked his cigarette out into the windy night. Only you probably know what happened.
Of course I knew. It was every ghost story you’d ever heard, wasn’t it? He crashed his Mustang and when the cops got there he’d been sitting dead in the crumpled remains with his body behind the wheel and his head in the backseat, his cap turned around backwards and his dead eyes staring up at the roof, and ever since you see him on Ridge Road when the moon is full and the wind is high, wheee- oooo, we will return after this brief word from our sponsor. I know something now that I didn’t before the worst stories are the ones you’ve heard your whole life. Those are the real nightmares.
Nothing like a funeral, he said, and laughed. Isn’t that what you said? You slipped there, Al. No doubt about it. Slipped, tripped, and fell.
Let me out, I whispered. Please. Well, he said, turning toward me, we have to talk about that, don’t we? Do you know who I am, Alan?
You’re a ghost, I said. He gave an impatient little snort, and in the glow of the speedometer the corners of his mouth turned down. Come on, man, you can do better than that. Fuckin Casper’s a ghost. Do I float in the air? Can you see through me? He held up one of his hands, opened and closed it in front of me. I could hear the dry, unlubricated sound of his tendons creaking.