Do I believe it’s true?  Well, let’s see.  On the one hand, it is impossible for a dead man to tell tales.  Right?  Yes.  However, on the other hand, I do believe in life after death to a certain extent.  You know, spirits, ghosts, hauntings, things like that.  So if life after death is indeed real, then I suppose it could be possible for a dead man to tell a tale.  Even now, after having time to examine both sides very closely, I guess my childhood nostalgia just takes over because I truly believe my father and grandfather had it right.

            I was born and raised in a small town known as Grayson, Louisiana.  I actually lived there until I was sixteen years old.  I suppose most people consider it to be rural area, but we always referred to it as the country; God’s country to be more precise.  My parents owned a farm, a very prosperous farm for where it was located.  We were never exactly rich, but my father always made sure that my mother and me had everything we ever needed.  Looking back, things were great then.  They got even better when my father’s habit of buying a weekly lottery ticket finally paid off, and he hit it big.  He won the jackpot.

            Dad sold the farm.  He said simply that he had worked hard his entire life, and it was about time that he was able to take a break.  He went on to say that it was time for a change, that other than farming, Grayson didn’t really have anything prosperous for us as a family.  He and my mother explained to me that it was time for a change of scenery.  They were planning on uprooting our lives and moving, in other words.  We moved out of the state of Louisiana, bypassed the rest of the southern states which I never, in a million years, would have thought my dad would do.  He was southern proud, and up until then, he had referred to any northerner as a damn yankee.  He never had anything even remotely nice to say about anyone from up north.  However, that did not stop him from moving us all the way up to New York.  Dad did not put much thought into the move before he decided to do it.  In fact, we barely had any heads-up whatsoever and because of that were unable to find a house.  So we had to settle for an apartment in what some considered being slums in Manhattan.  Yeah, Dad could have easily gotten us something better once we got there, but for some reason or another, he chose not to.  He kept saying that there was no point in upgrading to a better apartment or even shacking up in a hotel when it was only going to be a matter of time before he bought us a big beautiful house in the suburbs somewhere.  This was something else that I never would have imagined he would say.

            I had never been outside the state of Louisiana for more than a couple hours and only when we were taking a heifer to an auction or picking one up until that day we left for good.  So unfortunately, I had no idea of anything about a big city.  I had no friends outside of Caldwell Parish.  Mom and Dad were constantly gone:  running errands, searching for insignificant jobs for some type of disposable income, hunting for houses, and checking out some of the best high schools in the surrounding neighborhoods.  I missed the small town life very much.  I missed my friends.  I missed the rest of my family.  I missed everything about the state of Louisiana.

            Anyways, I awoke one day around noon.  Having no responsibilities for the first time in my life, I could stay up as late as I wanted and sleep for as long as I wanted. Those were two of the very few perks of selling the farm.  I wandered into the kitchen in search of my parents, licking my lips at the thought of what that afternoon’s meal would be.  I was disappointed, though.  I discovered only a note attached to the refrigerator:

            I took a quick shower, grabbed the money, and left.  I was not really hungry at the time.  Well, not hungry for any of the things around the neighborhood.  Hot dog stands and cheesesteaks paled in comparison to the great food back home.  I just needed to get out of that cramped, little apartment.  I felt smothered when I was there.

            Our building was actually owned by an infamous slum lord.  The place was horrible, although it was said to be his best building.  Still to this day, I would hate to see some of the other ones that he owned.  On the stoop leading into the building, there always sat some of the neighborhood kids.  My parents thought they were gang members. They forbid me to even talk to them.  So I didn’t.  I was afraid to talk to them anyways because I, too, had conformed the same opinion of them that my parents had.  After all, every one of them dressed in nothing but blue everyday.  They were covered in tattoos, and some even carried guns.

            There were five of them on this particular day.  Once again, their clothes were all blue.  One was shirtless with navy blue cargo shorts, one wore a blue tank top, one had a blue bandana wrapped around his head, one had a blue baseball cap turned around backwards, and one had on a blue jersey of some sort.  They were very intimidating even when they were just sitting there joking around as they were on this day.  So, I took my parent’s advice and steered clear of them.  The only problem was that on this day they didn’t steer clear of me.  When I reached the bottom of the stoop, one of them spoke.  This was a first.  I had never seen them talk to anyone outside of their little group.

            “Where you goin’, white boy,” the guy in the bandana blurted out.  He was the biggest of all them and looked the meanest.  He also appeared to be their leader.  What confused me most of all was the fact that he was also white.  They all were.

            I tried my hardest to ignore them but could not.  The guy in the tank top hopped off the side of the stoop and stood up in front of me blocking my path.

            “The man asked you a question, white boy.  I suggest you answer him real quick,” he demanded.

            “Uhhh… I’m just going to get something to eat,” I managed to stammer out.  “Please, I don’t want any trouble.”

            “There’s no trouble to worry ‘bout here, man,” the guy in the bandana said calmly.  “I was just hopin’ that you could front me five dollars ‘til I get paid Friday.”

            “I would, but I don’t have any money on me,” I lied.  Why did I ever lie?

            “So how you gonna get food if you have no money?” the guy in the jersey blurted out.

            “I am going to meet my parents for lunch,” I lied again.

            “Okay, white boy,” the guy in the bandana says.  “You’re free to go.”

            The guy standing in front of me calmly took his place back on the stoop.

            I felt so relieved as I walked down the sidewalk.  The more space I put between myself and them, the better I felt.  I didn’t want to look back.  For some reason though, I just could not help myself.  I took a quick glance back.  They were all gone.  Well, two of them were now coming down the sidewalk behind me.  The other three had disappeared.  I wasn’t really sure if they were actually following me, but I assumed they probably knew I was lying to them and that I had gotten off very easily.  I was petrified.  I didn’t know exactly what to do.  So I jogged into the alley on the side of the building.  I was hoping to make it around the back and just go up the stairs back to our apartment and wait for my parents to return home.

            I sprinted through the alley and finally made it to the back.  The stairs leading up were at the other end of the building.  I had time.  Since I was running short of breath, I decided to slow down and walk the rest of the way hoping not to draw any extra attention to myself.  Surprisingly, the three guys that had disappeared were now waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.  I turned to head back the other way, back towards the alley, but the other two guys were now behind me.

            I shut my eyes, hoping to wake up.  I couldn’t.  This was no dream.  It was a nightmare came true.

            “I think you lied to me a minute ago, white boy,” the guy in the bandana yelled.

            My stomach dropped.  I feared for my life.

            “Empty your pockets, white boy,” he spoke again as all five of them began rapidly approaching me.  His voice was full of anger; rage.

            I emptied both back pockets first, revealing only my empty wallet.  I emptied my front right pocket next revealing only my small pocket knife.  One of them, still to this day I’m not sure which, ripped it from my hand and shoved it into his own pocket.

            “Now the other,” Bandana demanded.

            I pulled out my cigarette lighter first.  I was now praying that I had kept running and maybe screaming to draw some attention, any kind of attention.  I was praying that someone was watching and would stop them.  But I knew better.  I could only hope that something would happen to prevent me from pulling out the money that my parents had left.

            Unfortunately, nothing out of the ordinary happened.  No one showed up.  The gangsters didn’t just up and decide to leave and leave me alone.  Yeah, my mind wandered to some pretty unrealistic probabilities, but I couldn’t help it.  I just wanted out of the situation.  Having no other choice, I dug deep down into the bottom of my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the twenty dollar bill.  I thought of just balling my fist up around it, concealing it, and hoping for the best.  Who was I kidding though? They still would have eventually found it, and that probably would have just made it worse when they did.  No, I just pulled it out and threw it to the ground at Bandana’s feet.

            “There.  Are ya’ll happy now?” I said.  I tried my hardest to sound angry, but fear continued to thrive in my voice.  “I swear that’s all I have.  Now, can I please just go?”  Did I really expect begging to get me out of this?  Yes.  I guess I did.

            “You know what, white boy?” Bandana asked.  No fear there whatsoever, just anger and rage.  I could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice, see it in his body language.  I knew something bad was about to happen.  “I hate it when people lie to me.  Too bad for you, it seems that you just lied to me.”

            He reached inside his coat pocket.  Now, as I have said before, I knew nothing of the city life, but there was no doubt in my mind about what he was hiding in that pocket.  There was a gun.  It had to be.  I had seen one too many gangster movies not to know what was going to happen next.

            There was no more begging or pleading.  It was simply time that I took the consequences for my actions.  I shut my eyes once more.  This time I was not trying to wake up from a horrendous nightmare.  No, I knew this was real.  I was simply dwelling on the finer things in my life.  I envisioned that I was back on that beautiful farm in north Louisiana.  It was unbelievable.  Everything looked so vivid.  It felt so real.  It was almost like I was having some sort of out of body experience.  I hoped that when I reopened my eyes that the guys had just scooped up the twenty and left.  I was hoping that I would be alone.

            Of course, that did not happen.

            I didn’t open my eyes for quite some time after that.  In fact, when I finally did, it was seven hours later.  I was no longer in the alley behind my apartment.  I was lying in a hospital bed looking up at my sorrow-filled parents.  My mind was blank after I shut my eyes.

            My doctor would later fill me in on what happened.  It turned out that my knowledge of movies had been right.  Bandana did have a gun.  He did pull it out as well. He fired two shots at close range, and then they all left me for dead.  Both bullets hit me in the chest.  One punctured my right lung.  It collapsed shortly after taking the bullet in.  The other stopped just short of reaching my left lung.  The doctor said that there was no way on Earth that I would have survived if that second bullet would have reached my other lung.

            The doctor also advised me happily that they were able to remove both bullets without harming me any further.  He also said that I would be back to normal within in a month or two.  Despite the situation, I was happy.  My parents were not.  My dad decided right then and there that city life wasn’t for us.  He told me and my mother that as I soon as I got better we would be leaving.  We would go back to Louisiana.  This made me even happier.

            So, I ask again, is the expression, “A dead man tells no tales” true?  I guess it depends on the situation.  I was pronounced dead three different times en route to the hospital on that day.  A fourth time while lying on the hospital bed in the midst of surgery.  So in my case, I guess it would be false.  After all, I lived to tell my tale.

            Three days, later something went horribly wrong.  I’m still unsure as to what exactly happened, but I guess the doctor lied to me.  It turns out that a small fragment of the second bullet had broken off and failed to be extracted.  It worked its way into my left lung over the course of three days creating a small puncture.  I know it doesn’t seem like much, but keep in mind that it had only been three days since the accident.  My right lung was still not at 100 percent, but they had chosen to let me breathe on my own. They said it would make my recovery that much quicker.  When the fragment reached my left lung, my body was still so weak that it collapsed nearly instantaneously.  My right lung couldn’t maintain proper functioning under the added pressure.  I flat lined so suddenly that there was nothing the doctors or nursing staff could do.  This time, I would not be revived.  Surgery could no longer help me.

            So I ask you a final time.  Is the saying true?  My answer:  absolutely not.  In some since, I am still here, searching for what to do next.  I wander the streets aimlessly. I am so lost, yet I have never felt so alive.  I spent years doing absolutely nothing after I flat lined that final time.

            Finally, one day I got to thinking, and yes, I can still think.  My father used to tell me ghost stories.  They always ended with me asking were ghosts real.  He would always tell me the same exact thing.  “Yes.  They are real.  A ghost is simply an extension of a person.  If a person dies with unfinished business, whether it be revenge or just simply an important message, they cannot rest in peace until their duty has been carried out.”  I grew up believing this, believing that ghosts all had purposes.

            So I ask you this, could this be false as well?  I would like to think not.  After all, I am still here.  Now I don’t know what my purpose is.  I have no message to forward on, but I thought this to be an interesting story, an important story, therefore I have relayed it to you.  Revenge?  Maybe.  I have sought my revenge on three of my five attackers.  I have haunted them, broke them down, hurt them, and left them for dead.  Two more to go.  Just two more.