Chapter Seven: German Shepherd
He is awash in colors and shapes. His tiny, chubby hands fist in a crocheted carpet of muted baby blue and green yarn, pluck happily at the soft white frills of his knee-length bloomers. A beautiful hand reaches into his line of vision, holding a wooden ball on a stick. The hand shakes and it rattles, and he shrieks, reaching for it. He looks up into ethereal blue eyes, so familiar and warm.
"Little one," she cooes, voice like bells, again. Clear and sweet. "I love you, Jonah."
I love you too, he tries to respond, but it comes out in gurgles.
Matt awakes, still awash in this feeling of love, of wanting to reach out and express. A sleep-soft body is curled into his, Jonah's head and face crooked awkwardly under Matt's arm, almost buried in his armpit. Matt shifts slightly, and Jonah mutters fitfully, a small frown quirking his mouth. Matt shuffles the conduit's head up so his neck isn't crooked so oddly and smooths down his hair, settling back. The frown melts away, Jonah's mouth parting, expression slack. Matt thoughtfully ponders the dream, doing his best to memorize the woman's face. She'd had Jonah's eyes, of course, but also his snub nose, his fair complexion, his black hair, though long. Or rather, Jonah took after her. Matt wonders what features, if any, Jonah inherited from his father.
Matt drifts gently in and out of sleep, comforted by the heavy weight of Jonah's head on his chest. He floats mindlessly through memories. Grass, sharp and sweet smelling, bunched in a baby fist and tasting sharply of the color green. Bouncing gently on a knobby knee, rough tweed trousers. Water, lukewarm, a safe sea in a chipped porcelain washtub, the one in the kitchen. The heavy musk of a dog, fur pressed all along his side, black and rusty red. Slobber.
Jonah shifts, waking, rousing Matt in the process. Jonah's eyes crack open, sleep-hazed blues, staring unseeing at the underside of Matt's jaw. He shifts again, rubbing his cheek around as if burrowing. The string of saliva connecting his slack mouth to the impressive spit-wet spot on Matt's shirt breaks, accidentally rubbing his face into his own drool. This seems to wake him, his eyes focusing, disgust and embarrassment flickering on his tired face.
"Morning," Matt husks out, low and rough with sleep, and Jonah just nods, slowly but surely rising, sitting up, scrubbing his bleary eyes with his fists.
"G'mornin," he slurs out, scooting to the edge of the bed, standing on startled legs to shuffle out into the hall, to the bathroom. Matt listens to the water run, the faint sounds of Jonah brushing his teeth and washing his face, as he pulls on clothes. He passes Jonah as he goes into the bathroom, Jonah going to his room. After completing the same ablutions, Matt leaves the bathroom to go downstairs, catching a glimpse of Jonah through his bedroom door, unsteadily stepping into brown slacks, chest still bare. Feeling warm and weighted, Matt descends the stairs and puts on coffee. He frowns as his stomach growls, shuffling out onto the back porch to fish his cigarettes from the messenger bag. He's smoking on the back porch step when Jonah emerges from the house, pausing to also fish for his cigarettes. They smoke together, wordlessly, staring contentedly into the morning fog clinging low to the wet grass.
"Your mother," Matt states, "she was absolutely beautiful."
"Mhm, she was." Jonah replies, simply.
"You look like her."
"Hmm," Jonah nods thoughtfully, "does that make me beautiful too?"
Matt thinks for a moment before nodding.
"Yes," he states, decidedly.
Jonah makes them breakfast, moving slowly but surely, french toast and sausages. He ponders the Mrs. Butterworth bottle again, the kitchen quiet, the radio playing faintly in the background. Some modern sound. Jonah asks about it, and Matthew says its classical rock, which Jonah thinks sounds like an oxymoron.
"I think I have a hash hangover," Jonah tells Matthew, not really expecting an answer. Matthew laughs, a rough sound followed by a smoker's cough. The man leaves and comes back in a moment, handing Jonah two pills. Jonah swallows them without question with hot black coffee.
They seem to help, and Jonah feels even better after eating. Matthew says he's got to go to the store, again, though he's going to pick up plaster while he's out. Jonah tells him he'll miss Matthew, this time. Matthew laughs again and says,
"Miss you too, bud."
Though what Matt wants to say is love you, love you. I love you, Jonah.
Liminal spaces have always given Matt the feeling of being absorbed. It's the homogeneity of it, he thinks, a bag of plaster crooked in his arm. The whiteness. Porous sponge offset by cold metal and concrete and concrete and the bright beautiful colors of branding. Lots of red and yellow. And then these here, blinking in the stillness. The asters by checkout had caught Matt off guard. They look odd though, almost blue. As if they always had been, like everything else. It's probably the lights, floressents, neon, and their buzzing, all pervasive.
It completely masks his cell phone buzzing in his pocket, and the light from them suddenly feels too bright, austere and uncaring as Matt's stomach drops at the number on the screen, listed as home in his contacts. Hell House.
"Matthew?" Jonah asks on the first ring, voice quiet, pitched higher than usual. He sounds scared, and the sick feeling in Matt's stomach worsens.
"Jonah? What's wrong, everything okay?"
"Uh," his pause and deep sigh crackle through the receiver, sounding awfully close. The breath catches as Matt distantly hears a bang. An almost nonexistent voice.
"What was that? Is there someone with you?"
A sigh again. The banging and yelling starts up again.
"Well, uh, Matthew… I think it's your father."
Matt's startled laugh crackles through and Jonah winces, pressing the receiver closer, drawing his knees closer. He arches his head up, pushing forward just a bit to get a better view out of the front door window. Yes sir, that just has to be Peter Campbell.
"What the fuck are you talking about kid?"
"No really, I swear he's a ringer, kinda dirty blond hair—"
"Are you really telling me my dad is outside the house and he won't go away? He's angry?"
"Yes, Matthew!" His voice raises. "Peter, I think? Campbell! Had a predilection for alcohol that your mother, Sarah, didn't care for—"
"I can hear you in there!"
Matt's blood runs cold as the man's voice on the other end, distant but clear as a bell, carries all of the markers of his dad yelling.
"Jonah, just—"
A loud clatter echoes, the sound of fabric, the handling of the receiver, then Jonah's frantic whisper.
"Get here now."
Jarring into a quick stop outside the house, his dad's truck is unmistakable. Even more alarming is that his dad is not on the porch, the inner door to the house swung wide, Matt able to see down the hallway through the screen door. As he jogs closer, bags in hand, he stops short passing the dining room window. His dad and Jonah sit across from each other at the dining room table. His dad is talking, Jonah is nodding. And then he laughs, a faint bell, head thrown back, and Peter smiles.
What the fuck?
He lets himself inside, quietly shutting the screen door behind him. Matt can smell the coffee, spy the small cups on china saucers. Jonah's brown, real-leather boots look unnatural accross from his dad's fucked up newbalances. His dad, in a t-shirt and jeans, looks out of place in this formal picture. Matt's anxiety grows.
He just can't fucking believe that Jonah would let him in and fucking host.
"And he would literally chase the bus down the street every morning after Matt got on, and he'd spend the whole day whining, and then he'd damn near knock him over when he got back from school."
Jonah laughs again, leaning forward in a way Matt's never seen before. A soft and amicable expression arranged on his smooth face, a charismatic sparkle in his eye that draws one in. To Matt, it's noticeable how that gaze purposely flits away after a few seconds, making sure not to look at someone too deep, too long, lest he unsettle his topic of interest.
Matt realizes he's never seen something so mundane and intimate as Jonah interacting with another person.
"Dogs are loyal, and big dogs," Jonah's voice, measured and brooding, always quiet enough in a way that feels conspiratorial. Matt wonders if his dad picks up on the strangeness in that voice, the way his vowels are held a little too long, pleasant and homogenous in tone in a way that would later be immortalized in black and white films. "big dogs never seem to realize how big they are. Like bulls in a china market." He laughs again. "I've always preferred big dogs."
"I just spent a solid five minutes on Duper, what were yours like?"
"My parents and I had two, creatively named by my father as Bruno and Dierdrich, but we'd just call him Dick," Jonah rubs a hand across his face, humming to himself, shaking his head. "I don't remember what they're called," he states, "they were like such a prize when he got them."
"You don't remember what kind of dogs they were?"
Matt hates that his dad's laugh sounds a little condescending.
"Oh, you know, you have to fix their ears? My mother made a point to, when they were puppies, you know, like—"
Jonah's slim hands lift to his glossy black head, mimicking the pointed, alert ears of a German Shepherd. And Peter's laugh is genuine this time, the smile too, and Matt marvels again at how quickly his dad has been charmed.
"Oh! They were German Shepherds, Jesus, no wonder, with names like that."
"My father wasn't a creative man,"
Matt finally clears his throat, and both heads swivel, Peter immediately standing.
"Matt! Have you forgotten how to answer a phone?"
"Sorry, Dad, moving was a whole thing—"
"Yeah, about that,"
"Uh, Dad, one second," he lifts his arms, laden with bags, "let me put these away."
He gestures his head in the direction of the kitchen, Jonah catching his eye and standing too, going to the kitchen, Matt coming up fast behind, all but verbally summoning each other into a different room.
Matt is doing his damndest to whisper, lest Peter overhear.
"What the fuck did you tell him? Why the fuck did you let him inside?"
"What was I supposed to do?" Jonah hisses, "He literally spotted me by the telephone through an open window!"
"But what did you even—"
Jonah holds his hands up, stopping Matt in his tracks, going into debriefing mode.
"I answered the door, asked who he was, I said you weren't here and that you were at the store. I said my name was Joseph—Jo for short—and that I had been your teaching assistant at the university."
Clever, Matt can't help but think. He sighs. "Okay, fine. That's good, kid."
A throat clears in the doorway, Peter looming there, watching the two of them whisper with an eyebrow raised.
"I need to talk to you, son."
Jonah watches anxiety flit across Matthew's face, and excuses himself, mumbling something about student papers that need reading. He all but flees the room, leaving Matt to stand face to face with his father, who's arms are crossed over his broad chest.
Matt and his dad sit on the back porch and talk together. After expressing disgust at Matt's chain smoking, especially considering his son literally defeated cancer only to do the one thing proven to give it to him in the future, Peter gets into it.
"So, why in the hell did you have to buy Hell House, of all houses? What could you possibly gain from moving back to this shithole, Matt? Is this another layer of your fucked-up paranormal bullshit?"
Matt sighs in exasperation, annoyed at his dad's absolute dismissal of Matt's freedom as an adult, and his disrespect in calling Hell House a shithole.
"Not really Dad. I just couldn't bear to sit by and watch this house sit and fucking rot. Plus, it was cheap, cheaper than you could even imagine, and I like living in Goatswood—"
"No, Matt, I can imagine it, because no one in their right mind would live in this cursed house!"
"It's not cursed, Dad—"
"Not cursed," Peter scoffs, "you of all people should understand why living here is a bad idea, son. This house damn near killed you."
"I was already dying, Dad, and, if you remember, this house also saved my fucking life. It cured my fucking cancer, for fuck's sake."
"Huh, see, I remember you swearing up and down it was that ghost kid that cured your cancer, not the literal demons you also swore up and down were infesting this place."
Matt freezes at the mention of Jonah, but tries to brush it off.
"Yes, he technically did, and this house isn't infested with demons anymore. Look Dad, I know you think it's a crock of shit, but I've scoped out the house, done all sorts of 'witch shit', as you usually refer to it, and haven't detected the slightest hints of ghosts or demons or whatever."
It's only a half lie, or a half truth. There are no ghosts in the house, after all, not now. Now there are only two boys, both technically alive.
"I just don't understand, Matt. Why this house? Are you even aware of the publicity? It's all over the news."
"Really?" Matt asks snidely, "I wasn't aware." He actually hadn't been. He doesn't like watching the news.
"Yes, Matt, and you fucking know about it! Your mother is worried sick…she's worried this is some sort of crazy mid-life crisis you're going through."
"Huh. Well, it might be. Regardless, I've never been happier. I thought you'd be happy. I bought and paid off a house, and I'm not full time teaching anymore."
Peter just sighs, scrubbing his face with his hands. He certainly looks older, tireder.
"It's paid off already? Wow. You're in deep."
Matt just shrugs, snubbing out his cigarette, doing his best not to let the anger roiling under his skin show on his face.
"And what about that kid, your 'teaching assistant'. He's awful young to be, isn't he? What was his name..Joe?"
"Jo is my teaching assistant, Dad. It's his freshman year, he graduated young." Matt lies easily, accepting the karma of it readily. If there was one thing that absolutely could not happen, it would be Peter, or anyone in his family, finding out who Jonah actually is. What Matt had done to have him here.
Peter scoffs. "His first year of college, and he's studying ghost shit. Is he studying witch shit too?"
Matt just nods, too exhausted with the conversation already to feed into it.
"Well, that's just sick."
"Fuck, Dad. Did you drive all the way here, almost two full days, just to bitch and moan about my life choices? It's too late to change them now."
"Matthew James Campbell, you better watch your fucking mouth. I came here cause your mother fucking begged me to. We're worried, son, we wanted to talk you out of living in this damned place."
"Well," Matt stands suddenly, having abruptly decided that this conversation needed to end, and his Dad needed to leave, now. This argument is going nowhere. "This is my home now, Dad. Bought and paid for. Love it here. Love my life. If all you're going to be is combative, you can step on out."
"I didn't watch you recover from the trauma of this place just to move back in, Matt!" Peter yells, standing and getting into Matt's face, their chests almost touching. "Do you remember how many times we uprooted this fucking family? Twice of those moves where to get as far away from this fucking house as we could!"
"Yeah, well," Matt seethes, "that's before I could make my own decisions. I'm halfway to fucking forty, Dad, let me live my fucking life how I want to!"
Seemingly at a loss for words, almost purple in the face, Peter turns and goes back into the house, taking long great strides through the hallway all the way to the front door. On his way, he almost runs Jonah over, who was in the middle of scurrying from the study to the kitchen, had been hoping to spy on the conversation once he heard all the yelling. Happy to find another target, Peter crowds Jonah against the wall, trapping him in.
"Fucking faggot," Peter hisses into Jonah's face, so close the medium can feel the flying spittle, "you're gonna die in this cursed fucking house. Get out of here, and away from Matt, as soon as you can."
With that, he storms out of the front door, leaving Jonah to shakely cross to the stairs, sitting heavily on the bottom-most step. He takes big, deep breaths, his head in his hands and his eyes shut tightly, trying to calm down, trying to fight off images of his own Father. Unfortunately, this is the same moment Matthew decides to retaliate. He's right on his Dad's heels, following him out, positively screaming at Peter's retreating form.
"Dad, what the fuck! What did you just fucking call him? You're sick old man, you're at the very least an intolerant piece of shit! I don't know how Mom stands your shit!"
Peter doesn't even bother replying, slamming the door of his truck and starting it, immediately backing out of the driveway at full speed, screeching down the street. Matt storms back into the house.
"Fuck, fuck!" Matt yells, suddenly punching a wall, his expression twisted in rage. He releases an exasperated wail, shaking his head roughly from side to side, punching the wall again, wincing as the pain finally registers, and he covers his face with his hands.
He stands like this, stockstill except for his shaking shoulders. A small pained sound leaves him, almost a whimper.
"Matthew?" A whisper, a voice, as clear and soft and cool as a summer breeze. A shaky hand reaches out to gently touch one of Matt's hands, almost a poke. The darting, scared motion of a child trying to sooth a growling dog. All bared teeth.
Matt finally moves his hands and finds Jonah standing right in front of him, his hand outstretched. The boy's face is pale and his eyes are wide, refracted in fear. Shiny with tears. Matthew finally breaks, a sob wrenching free, and Jonah immediately steps forward to wrap his arms around the taller man, holding him tight and close. It only seems to make Matthew cry harder, his chest heaving with great, wracking cries, but he responds to the embrace with a crushing hug, fisting his hands in the back of Jonah's sweater, burying his wet face in Jonah's soft black hair. They stand like this forever, Jonah whispering sweet, meaningless platitudes into Matthew's chest, rubbing firm circles into Matthew's back and shoulders, slowly shifting their weight from side to side until they establish a rhythmic rocking motion. Matthew's tears eventually slow and subside, quiet and complacent in Jonah's grip. Jonah continues the soothing motions regardless, unwilling to let Matthew go. He steps forward unsteadily as Matthew pulls gently from his grasp, stepping back to scrub his tear-streaked face with his hands. Jonah watches silently, waiting.
"I'm so, so fucking sorry, Jonah," Matthew mumbles, his voice wrecked from all the screaming and crying.
"It's okay, Matthew," Jonah replies. "None of that was you, none of that was your fault."
Matt just shakes his head, breath hitching. He hides his face again.
"No," it comes out sounding almost like a whine, "I fell for his bait. I stepped up, I stooped to his level—"
"No," Jonah insists, flatly, "your father's just a jake, Matthew."
This garners a shuddering laugh from Matthew, amused at Jonah's old-timey voice calling someone a jake, whatever that means, and Jonah thinks they might finally be getting somewhere. He gently takes Matthew's hand, leading him to the kitchen.
Jonah deposits the man in a kitchen chair and busies himself making tea. While the water boils, he lights one of Matthew's cigarettes and offers it to him. The tired man accepts it gratefully, taking a long drag. Too long, and he coughs miserably. He looks up at Jonah with bloodshot eyes, red-ringed and empty. Jonah nudges Matthew's hand, the one with his cigarette, and Matthew brings it back to his mouth, as if remembering it. Jonah has never, ever seen Matthew like this, not even in the throes of cancer. The man looks lost, devastated, hollowed out. Gutted.
"We haven't fought like that in years," he mumbles. Jonah simply nods in response, mhming. He places a cup of tea in front of Matthew, guiding the man's other hand to the cup. Matthew's eyes seem to refocus slightly with every sip, and soon he can meet Jonah's eyes again, sighing. He gives the boy a small smile.
"Thank you."
"Of course," Jonah states, all business and all manners, sitting down across from Matt with his own cup of tea.
Jonah's nerves feel frayed, too, and a massive headache has taken roost behind his eyes. They sit in silence together for a long while, slowly sipping tea and chain smoking. The light slowly seems to return to Matthew's eyes. Conversely, Jonah feels like he's getting more tired by the second, heavy and exhausted. He waits till the professor has finished his tea and is looking mostly back to normal, before stating that he's going to go to bed. He says nothing as Matthew immediately stands to follow him.
The two men strip to their underclothes with their backs to one another. They get into bed together without a word, the space between them a palpable, breathing something.