The Ghost of Pompeii

By Erin Lewis

Erin Lewiss Bio
For The Ghosts of Pompeii.

Erin Lewis has lived in a dozen different towns in the last ten years. He spends most of his time in the Pacific Northwest. He resigned his commission in the Oregon National Guard in 2006. He mistrusts the government.

Summary

Larry has a gift. But, hes not sure how to use it. He wants to do whats right, but when youre a kid, its hard to know exactly what that is.
Larry will have a rendezvous with Midas, and an unknown force, in a long forgotten city.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479727889

Erin Lewis

Erin Lewis is a Family Constellation Facilitator and yoga instructor who is passionate about helping release what stands between you and lovephysically, mentally, and emotionally. She brings light-hearted wisdom and insight to readers in The Love Revolution.

Book preview

The Ghosts of Pompeii

Erin Lewis

Copyright © 2012 by Erin Lewis.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4797-2787-2

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4797-2788-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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121510

Larry stared out of the dirty window in his dirty room. He could see the outline of another building a few hundred feet distant. The shape of the building was obscured by some dead, scraggy bushes, and the dirt and grease on his window. Larry wondered if there were any people like him in there. He didn’t think so, but it would have been nice to know there were more like him nearby.

Larry walked over to his refrigerator and pulled out a beer. He popped the top and took a drink, which was all he needed. One drink and the can was empty. Once, long ago, Larry could remember he didn’t like beer. He didn’t like it now, but he drank it because it was all there was.

Larry opened one of the kitchen cabinets and grabbed a bag of potato chips. He opened the bag as he walked toward the couch, spilling half the bag on the carpet. His fat, lumbering feet then ground the chips into the already putrid carpet. He didn’t even notice. He filled his maw with a hand full and began to chew on them, crumbs falling onto his stubble covered chin and grimy t-shirt. Larry had developed the ability to get a lot of stuff in his mouth in a very short time. Larry sat down on the couch and turned on the TV. He flipped through the channels for a while, not really seeing anything, just random images, sound, color, and then the next channel.

Larry reached around him for one of the many cans which decorated his living room. His hand grasped a likely subject and he pulled it to his nose to sniff it. Smells okay, thought Larry. He swished it around a few times in the can and felt the coolness of the liquid moving inside. Seemed to be semi-cold and no noticeable lumps. Larry guessed that it had only been sitting in the living room since the day before and took a tentative sip. Not bad, not too old, not too warm, thought Larry. So, he polished the rest off, burped loud, and sank deeper into the couch.

Larry sat and stared at the TV while he considered his next move. He didn’t have one, so he went through the pile of trash that was in his house and looked for something else to stuff in his mouth. He had left food and beer in every place he could think of inside his human terrarium as he thought of it. Not that he wasn’t kept well supplied; his cupboards and fridge bulged with crap. Crap and lots of it. Beer and greasy carbohydrates, and fat. Everything that was needed: fat, salt, sugar, and beer. Larry stopped and thought of his enormous bulk and winced. Once, very long ago, Larry had been at least average. Not fat, not this beast that held his soul. But that had been before, before Larry came here.

Once, maybe, Larry had a mom. He could remember something like that. She had been this sort of mousey, selfish woman. Not bad, just overwhelmed by life. She had wanted more than life had given her and had been strapped with a kid when she was too young. Larry had never met the man that had been his father, and his mom never talked about him. She just said he’d died in some war, but the year Larry was born there hadn’t been a war for over ten years. As Larry got older he just figured that it was his mom’s way of protecting him, or her. So, as Larry grew up, he got used to his mom not being honest. She wasn’t real dishonest, just kinda stretched the truth, a lot. But she always had food for Larry and new clothes when he needed them. So, life had not been terrible. Larry lived in a dingy apartment with his mom; his mom worked at various bars, getting fired or quitting every so often. But always finding another job and bringing home food.

Most of the time Larry was left alone in the apartment, with the TV, and a strict directive to never open the door, never go near the window, or answer the phone. Larry’s mom explained that this was to keep Larry safe. Later on Larry had figured it was because his mom couldn’t afford child care, but Larry got used to it. He got used to sitting and watching TV and eating cold cereal, and after a while, he started to roam the house and look for stuff to get into, because that’s what you do when you’re four. Larry soon found that there was very little to get into, because there was very little in the house. No secrets to be found in his mom’s dresser, just care worn underwear and holey socks. Nothing in the hall closet, a few towels and a barely functioning vacuum. Larry liked to play with the vacuum. He would run it around the tread worn carpet for hours at a time. His mom would call him Mr. Clean when she got home. This really pleased Larry and he sought other ways to get his mother’s approval. He took to washing the dishes, cleaning counters, and seeking out dirt and grime in every corner of the house. And in this way kept his mind occupied and contributed more than other children of his age. By the time he was six, he had house cleaning down better than even the most skilled charwoman. Even though the apartment was old and worn, it was spotless; not a speck of dust to be found. Larry felt very proud of his work, and his mom was glad because it was one thing she wouldn’t have done, anyway.

This was a happy time as Larry remembered: food, mom, and him sitting and watching TV, and time to clean the house while his mom was at work. But it all came to an end when Larry was old enough to go to school.

School was a bad idea. Not that Larry or his mom knew that at the time, but it would become apparent fast enough.

Mom took Larry to the school and signed him up for first grade. The school wanted to know why Larry hadn’t been in kindergarten. His mom said he had been sick and other lame excuses, but really she just hadn’t had any way to watch him for the half day he wasn’t in the school.

So Larry showed up one fall at the front door of the school, alone, and walked in. He looked for kids about his size, in the hall, and followed them to where they seemed to be going. He looked at the kids that had mothers taking them to the classrooms. It seemed strange, his mom was at work. Larry noticed that some kids looked at papers outside the classroom and then pointed excitedly to something on them. Larry went up to the paper on one room and looked at it. He couldn’t read, so it made no difference. This room had bigger kids going in, so he went to one with smaller kids going in. He stood looking at the paper trying to guess what it might say, when a kid and his mom pushed Larry aside to see the paper. Larry didn’t like being pushed, but he had no experience with people, so he just took it in stride. Larry would get pushed a lot and learned to ignore it. He stood there as the woman ran her finger down the paper and moved her lips reading the names. She finally came to the name of the unhappy boy she had in tow and whined, There it is, there’s your name, Chaddy. She began to drag the boy into the room, but he resisted. He had been to school before, hadn’t had any fun, and did not want anymore school. No, no, no mom, he screamed I don’t want to go. They’re mean, and the teachers are mean, and the kids are mean, and I hate school, sobbed Chaddy. Larry stood and watched, confused. He wanted to go to school. He liked home, but school would be fun, he thought. Chaddy’s mom was having none of it; she grabbed the boy by the arm and dragged him, as he tried to pull away, into the classroom. Larry followed into the room after them and stood looking. The boy and his mother walked toward a big desk at the front of the room, with a big woman sitting behind it. She was not a nice looking lady, thought Larry. She was fat, ugly, and looked mean. Larry was developing a knack for reading people.

Chaddy’s mom dragged him, crying and sniveling to the glaring golem at the desk. Larry followed behind. Chaddy’s mom stood in front of the desk of the teacher and announced that her son Chad was in the class. Chad was still sniffing and tears ran down his cheeks, but seemed to have resigned himself to his fate. The thing behind the desk mimicked a smile and pointed to a desk with a name on it. He goes right there, said the woman. Larry didn’t like the way the woman talked. It sounded like she wanted to be mean, but was holding it in. Awful woman thought Larry. He watched Chaddy and his mom go over to the pointed at desk and then looked at the woman behind the desk. She had got her eyes all scrunched down and her mouth all turned round so that she looked like she had eaten something really bad. Larry stopped for a second, swallowed, and said in the bravest voice he could muster, Ma’am, my name is Larry Anderson, where do I sit? The beast just pointed and without even moving her lips hissed, there. Larry felt a real chill go up his spine as he followed the direction the lumpy finger indicated and saw his desk. It was over in the far right corner, near the window. Larry approached the desk with a feeling of dread, but took his place, and stared at the front of the room. Most of the seats were full already, some held children whom seemed to be happy to be there; smiles on their faces. Other seats contained sad-faced-looking children. Everyone seemed to be looking around. Some looking at the walls which were covered with slogans about learning, although Larry couldn’t read them, he figured that they said something about school. Some were looking at the other children, some making points of recognition, some looking lost and searching. Larry decided that he would look at the teacher. She was just sitting behind her big wooden desk, a grimace on her face. She stared at the door, waiting for the last child to walk in, while she made her face a large pucker.

The last child walked in, looked at the teacher, saw where she pointed, and dutifully took his seat. The teacher came from behind her desk and spoke, My name is Mrs. Jacobs. I’ll be your teacher for the first grade. Larry let this sink in. He didn’t think that would be too bad. She didn’t seem like she would be that bad. I expect you all to behave, so I won’t tolerate any shenanigans. There will be no talking in class, no giggling, or fidgeting, and you will keep your hands to yourself. Larry thought that would be easy enough, he didn’t do any of that stuff. This was pretty much the best part of school for Larry, after this it got less and less fun.

The teacher began the first learning with the ABC’s. She said that everyone should already know them for kindergarten. She pulled out a pointer and pointed to a letter above the chalk board. She instructed the class to tell her what letter it was. There was a unanimous A from the class. This was followed by a B, and so on until the alphabet had been completed. The boy followed along with the class, waiting for the answer and then repeating. He made sure he wasn’t too loud because he didn’t want the other kids to know he didn’t know the letters. It went ok, no one noticed, and Larry was able to catch on pretty quick.

The next order of the day was drawing pictures. The teacher instructed that they were to draw a picture of the house they lived in and then put their name on top. Larry thought about this for a while. He didn’t live in a house, he lived in an apartment. So he sat and thought while paper and crayons were being passed out. He noticed that the other kids were getting right down to business, colors and lines going onto the paper. Larry figured the best he could do was draw the outside of the apartment he lived in. He knew it was brown and made of bricks, so he picked out a brown crayon and drew a brick. One brick was good, so he drew another. This was going to take a long time if he only drew one brick at a time, thought Larry. So, he started to draw the outside and then color it brown. By the time he was done he had a large brown box. It didn’t have windows or a door, because Larry had been concentrating on getting the bricks right. Larry looked at it for sometime and then added a black line that was supposed to be the split between the two floors. Larry thought it looked pretty good since he had never drawn before. Larry was thinking about adding some more details when the teacher called for the papers to be passed forward. Larry passed his up like he saw the other kids do and sat waiting. School was not so bad, Larry thought. You draw with crayons, and he kind of knew the letters above the board.

Suddenly, Larry noticed a squawk coming from the front of the room. Who drew this, demanded the teacher. She had