Saving Elijah

Barrier Reef was the only living thing on earth you could see from the moon, as if there on that spot, God placed a fingertip on the surface of the ocean, fifteen hundred miles long, and said, "Here! Here is where I will build My city!"
    My eyes flew open.
    The ghost was sneering. "I'd say your God is reminding you how great and powerful He is. He's telling you He holds the power of life and death over your son."
    "How?"
    He sighed. "Why go to the trouble to show you His own coral city, which is so much more beautiful than any city created by mankind? Why show you this if not to remind you of your insignificance? That's benevolence? From the One who's trying to comfort you? In my humble opinion, it's downright petty."
    I felt a current inside me, like a volt of electricity.
    "Anyway, I was just giving you a little insider information before. I'm well aware you named your son after Grandpa Eli. A man of great, shall we say, appetites." He spoke the word "appetites" with a rumble from the back of his throat. "Business, and food. Am I right?"
    It was true. The first time I met Grandpa Eli I was seven, and he was already very fat.
    "And women, too," the ghost said. "The women just loved him. Am I right?"
    "I don't really know." How did he know?
    "Well, sure you do. Some guys got it, and some guys don't." He jumped out of his seat again, parting the air in his wake. He began to gyrate his pelvis.
    "Stop that," I said.
    He sat down, moved his mouth and black lips into an expression that seemed like a pout. Then he looked around himself and began swatting at the air, as if he were surrounded by a swarm of insects that I could not see. He kept on whacking at the air for a while, even smacked himself once or twice, then just ceased, and looked back at me, as if nothing had happened.
    "Well, I know Grandpa Eli was a great phil-an-thro-pist!" He pronounced the word with great drama. "He gave large sums of his money away. Thirty-thousand, thirty-one thousand, thirty-two thousand, thirty-four, thirty-six, thirty-eight, forty, one, two three four five six seven eight nine ten—"
    "Hel-lo." It seemed he would have gone on with that infernal counting forever if I hadn't interrupted him.
    "Well, Grandpa Eli did give his money to Jewish causes. Right?"
    "What's wrong with that?"
    "Ho, hum. If he thought of himself as such a great Jew, and loved his people so much, how come he changed his name to Blake from Aaronov?"
    "It was the South, in the thirties. What do you expect?"
    "Well, well, how tolerant of you. Not so your mother, though. Right? Didn't she always say that her father thought women were only good for two things? Well, three, if you counted taking care of the house?"
    I'd heard her say that once or twice. My mother left Atlanta when she was nineteen because Eli had promised handsome positions for his sons in his carpet mills, but excluded her. Still, after he died, Charlotte seemed to have no recollection that she used to call her father "the Bull." Suddenly, she claimed undying love for him. Even asked me to honor him by naming my second son after him.
    "How do you know so much about me and my family?" I asked.
    With an air of indignation, he said, "Do you think I just showed up here without some sort of preparation?"
    "Preparation for what?"
    "It takes some doing for a ghost and a mortal human to have a conversation, you know. This doesn't happen every day." He patted the place next to him, and his hand seemed to mix into the plastic fabric. "Sit, babe."
    I sat down. Babe.'' Who had called me that?
    Oh, the stench of him, of moist earth and rot, of dankness and loam.
    "You stink," I said.
    He bent toward me. "I knooooow. It's just terrible, isn't it? But this was the best I could do. The best, the top, the max! I already told you that."
    "So what if you told me already?"
    "Well," he said with a shrug, "we're never going to get anywhere if I have to keep repeating myself."
    "Where do you think we're going?"
    He raised an eyebrow. "Where would you like to go?"
    "Your singing soothed me," I said, ignoring his insinuating tone. "You have a beautiful voice."
    He swelled and puffed out as big as a bloated pink moon. "People have told me that." His smile turned sly. "You've told me that."
    What was he talking about? I certainly would have remembered it if I'd ever met a ghost.
    I stared at what purported to be his face. The air shimmered all around him, then he disappeared and materialized on the other side of me.
    "What kind of