I had every intention of finishing “Rules For When You Can See The Dead” tonight. I was really excited to write it. But then I went with Fern and her mom to the Do Tell Story Swap meeting. Fern even somehow talked me into telling a story (it was a variation on the first 31 Ghosts story with the cats and my dad’s ghost). But that wasn’t over until 9 and I knew I wasn’t going to have the time I wanted to finish it. So, I give you this in the meantime. Remember how Jack asked “Who the hell would haunt a frickin’ Applebee’s?” Well, this guy, that’s who…

“Holy shit, Dickie,” I said slapping Dickie on the shoulder. “That jamoke over there with the pretty girl can see us!”

“It’s Richard, Larry, for the millionth time,” Dickie rolled his eyes. “Why do you say that? He looks a little tipsy and like he’s striking out, but able to see ghosts…? I don’t know.”

“Nah, I can tell, Dickie. I can tell…” I stared daggers at him across the bar trying to catch his eye. But he never looked back. He just sat there and laughed that that girl being all alive and rubbing it in our dead faces. “Dickie, Dickie, he’s getting up!”

“Heading for the bathroom looks like.”

“I’m following him,” I said hurrying off the bar stool and inadvertently walking through that cute waitress, Julie. Total accident!

I walked through the door into the men’s room and there he was at the urinal. “Hey! Buddy! I know you can hear me.” He didn’t even flinch. “Yo, jamoke! Come on, quit yanking my chain. I know you can see me. I know you can hear me.” Nothing. This called for drastic action. I stood right next to him real close. Like real close. And I looked over his shoulder at his junk. “Huh,” I said. “I’ve seen better. She’s better off throwing this undersize fish back.”

“Alright, back off, asshole,” he bellowed, swatting an arm that went right through me. Oh, man, I staggered backwards laughing my ass off!

“I knew it!” I wheezed through laughter. “I knew you could see me.”

“I can see you, jerkface! I guess privacy is dead!”

“Yeah, I’m dead too. And I need your help.”

“Oh, you do? I’m shocked. I’m totally bowled over! You know, you’re the first ghost to tell me they’ve got some unfinished business among the living and they need my help!” He was really working himself into a full head of steam. “So, hey, since you’re breaking fresh paranormal ground here, please, enlighten me about how I might be so lucky to help you.”

“Jesus, buddy, you don’t have to be a jerk about it…” I told him.

“Me? Me?! I’m the jerk! You insult me mid-stream and I’m the jerk? You know what? Forget it,” he started for the door. “Happy frickin’ haunting.”

“Wait!” I called. “Stop, please.” He hesitated before opening the door. “I’m sorry. You’re right. That was kinda rude. But, man, you don’t know how rare it is someone like you comes along in a place like this.”

“In Applebee’s? I’m sure it’s more often than you think,” he said. Then added under his breath, “They’re probably just better than I am at hiding it…”

“Nah, that’s not true. I mean, you hid it well. My buddy Dickie owes me ten bucks because he didn’t believe you could see us. Well, he doesn’t know he owes me, but he does. No, it’s not you. It’s me. I’ve got a feeling for these things. I guess you could say I have a sixth sense about it,” I smiled and waggled my eyebrows.

“Really, you’re going there?”

“Look, you gotta help me…”

He let out a deep sigh and said, “Fine. How did you die?”

“I died right here. Well,” I looked around at the bathroom, “Okay, not right here. But at Applebee’s. I was arguing with the night manager – his name was Eliot at the time. He’s long gone.”

“Like,” he dragged a finger across his neck, “Gone?”

“What? No. No, he’s probably still alive. I meant he left Applebee’s. Maye transferred, got another job – look, doesn’t matter. Anyway, Eliot wouldn’t take my coupons and I was pissed, you know? Me, my wife, my boys, that shit adds up! I had four coupons and Eliot wouldn’t take ‘em. Kept talking about fine print and you couldn’t stack the coupons or some bullshit like that. I was pissed, you know? Got all up in his face. He had no right to charge me full price. None. And I wasn’t gonna back down but…”

“Heart attack?”

“Major coronary, yeah.” I held my hand vertical, gave a raspberry and tipped my hand horizontal. “Died immediately, right there. Can you imagine?”

“Well, you’re painting a pretty good picture.”

“And you know the worst part? The part that still really gets me?”

“Your kids were there to see it?”

“No, my wife paid full goddamn price! She even left a fucking tip! The nerve! The least they could have done was comp the damn meal! No, she adds insult to injury and drops twenty percent on top of the full bill before my corpse is even cold! Can you believe that?”

He looked at me for a long time without saying anything. Finally, he said, “No, I can’t. I really can’t.”

No shit he couldn’t!

“So, uh, why are you still here? If Eliot’s gone you can’t possibly fix that bill… What’s keeping the light from showing up for you?”

“The light? Oh, that’s there right outside the entrance. It’s like goddamn noon whether it’s day or night. Annoying as hell!”

“So, wait, you don’t need me to help you cross over?”

“Huh? No. Hell no. I ain’t going nowhere. I’m gonna haunt this place until they go belly up for overcharging hard working stiffs like me.”

He let out a laugh for some reason.

“It’s the principal of the thing, you know!”

“Fine, you’re principled. And dead. What do you want from me?”

“That really hot blonde, Julie?”

“Hot blonde?”

“Waitress. Killer figure? Come on,” I tried to nudge him with an elbow, “I know you noticed her. How could you not? The way the polyester pants covers that–“

“Okay, Julie, sure. I think she brought me my food. What about her?”

“Her husband’s cheating on her with Lindsey.”

“Who’s Lindsey?”

“Horse-face manager broad.”

“Horse-face? Whatever… Look, so what?”

“She’s a good girl.”

“Horse-face?”

“No, not horse-face, are you kidding? Julie! I just…. I don’t know… don’t want her to get hurt. I mean, more than, well, you know…”

He rolled his eyes. “Can you give me something, some detail that will corroborate it?”

I thought about it. “Yeah, yeah. Tell her that time she showed up for work and Todd was here already he wasn’t here for the all-you-can-eat boneless ribs, if you know what I mean.”

“Jesus Christ,” he rubbed his face with his hands. “If I do this will you leave me alone?”

“Absolutely. Scout’s honor.”

“Fine.”

I followed him out of the bathroom. He spotted Julie straight away. I mean, she’s really hard to miss with that polo shirt… sorry. He pulled her aside and told her what I said. She got pretty upset. He held up his hands and I think I even heard him say something about not shooting the messenger. Then she got all up in Horse-Face’s grill and I don’t know which one slapped first, but, holy shit, before you know it they were tossing Vodka Raspberry Lemonades at each other. It was goddamn bedlam. It was beautiful, beautiful.

“Look at that beautiful chaos, Dickie!”

“You really outdid yourself this time, Larry.”

“You’re goddamn right I did.”

That ghost whisperer guy barely avoided getting hit with a chicken wonton taco, hurriedly dropped a twenty on the counter. He ducked a ninja-star-like quesadilla, stared straight across the bar at me and mouthed, “Asshole”. Then hurried out.

Man, that was a great day!

Okay, you’ve seen that movie “Zombieland,” right? Wait, what? Seriously? No, no, no, it’s not super gory – it’s a comedy. Okay, it might be a gory comedy, but – wait, I can’t believe you’ve never seen “Zombieland”!

Fine, look, the main character – a pre-“Social Network” but post “Adventureland” Jesse Eisenberg – has these rules for surviving the zombie apocalypse like “Beware of Bathrooms” and “Wear seat belts”. There’s like 33 of them in all. It makes a lot more sense in context – and you’ll appreciate this more, probably, when you see the movie. I mean, okay, I don’t live in a zombie apocalypse – yet, am I right? – but I have my own problems.

I see dead people.

No, really. I know that line is so 1999 (twenty years old! Can you believe that?), but try living it. It’s not all Haley Joel Osment and post-Die Hard Bruce Willis. Nor is it all Jennifer Love Hewitt in nightgowns or Patrick Swayze helping your ceramic skills. It’s, honestly, a pain in the ass.

“Ally said you can see dead people,” said the girl with the pixie haircut and the lip ring. I don’t remember her name – I don’t know if she ever even said her name. She led with that! “Ally said you can see dead people.”

Rule #4: Keep It To Yourself

Yes, I have had the worst crush on Ally since we bonded over watered down margaritas at the company picnic last year. Yes, I was trying to impress her. No, it didn’t work. See, that’s the thing… it’s like if you tell someone you’re a comedian and they ask you to tell them a joke, or you tell them you’re a writer and they ask what your favorite book is. “Can you see any ghosts right now?” Ally asked during happy hour at Applebee’s down the street from work after I told her. I could. Jesus, I spotted like half a dozen – who the hell would haunt a frickin’ Applebee’s. But they’re there!

I knew I’d made a mistake as soon as the words came out of my mouth but you can’t exactly recall something like that, right? How do you explain away “I can see ghosts”? You can’t. So, you know, lie. “No, no ghosts around here,” I scanned the bar too quickly to see the living much less the dead. “Nope. No one dead here. Nope. I mean, geez, who’d want to haunt an Applebee’s right? Hahaha” – see that right there? “hahaha”? That’s literally what I did, a little pathetic “I’m lying” laugh. She bat her lashes in that way she does that just slays me as she took a drink of her Appletini and changed the subject. I figured she bought the lie but I knew she totally didn’t.

“Ally said you can see dead people,” Pixie Lip Ring said.

“What? No, she must have heard wrong. I mean, that’s weird. Who sees dead people? I mean, like Haley Joel Osment in–“

“I need you to talk to my someone,” she interrupted.

“You’re, uh, friend? Like Ally? She’s a friend, right?”

“Ally? No, Ally’s alive.”

“Totally. That’s why I’d love to talk to her. I think she’s outside by the pool. I’m going to see what she’s up to..”

“No, geez, my sister. She’s dead. She killed herself. She’s haunting me.”

I knew that. The second Pixie Lip Ring walked up I caught the slightly taller, tawny-haired version of turquoise-haired Pixie Lip Ring a few steps behind her.

Rule #1: Don’t Make Eye Contact

Ghosts are watching you. Well, not you personally. Okay, well, they probably are. I mean, not right this second, but… okay, probably right this second. But they’re watching to see if you see them. If you give them one glance that tells them you see them and they will bug the shit out of you until you help them.

Even though Pixie Lip Ring’s sister had clearly heard Ally tell her I told her I could see dead people there’s a really good chance she thought I was full of shit. Ghosts are like that – they’re cynical. And who could blame them? I mean, a) they’re dead, and b) they can see all the BS! They see all the people cheating and all liars for what they are.  So, I knew Pixie Lip Ring’s sister assumed I was lying to impress Ally. And that’s okay! One less ghost to sort out.

Oh, but how’d I know she was a ghost if I didn’t make eye contact? First, the way she was dressed. Jake from marketing was throwing a barbeque and we were all dressed for, well, a barbeque – tshirts, shorts, maybe the odd dad jeans or sundress. But not a floor-length midnight blue velvet gown, silver Jimmy Choos, pearl tear drop earrings beneath a perfectly coiffed updo and flawless makeup. Not exactly Tommy Bahama, you know? And, my god, it’s hard not to make eye contact when all you want to do is stare!

Rule #3: Check your mirrors

Maybe Pixie Lip Ring’s shadow wasn’t her dead sister, right? Maybe she was just an unacknowledged eccentric friend standing close behind her – happens all the time.

Jake’s place has exactly seven mirrors: First one on the wall next to the door to check yourself before you leave (he’s married – so for her to check herself, not him – you don’t know Jake). Mirrors two, three, four, and five are arranged on the far wall in the living room; long rectangular strips arranged artfully on the wall to make their thirteen-hundred square feet look like sixteen-hundred. Mirror six is in the guest half-bath by the kitchen (natch), and mirror number seven might be a stretch, but they have one of those under-the-cabinet microwaves in the kitchen and when you’re getting another helping of guacamole the opaque glass makes for a decent surface to see a pixie-haired woman with a lip ring wearing a leather-fringed halter top and cut off jeans coming up behind you, but notably not the statuesque over-dressed woman you clock in your peripheral vision when you do make eye contact – eye contact, boys, don’t be pigs! – with Pixie Lip Ring who says “Ally said you can see dead people”.

Wait, we were past that…

“My sister. She’s dead. She killed herself. She’s haunting me.”

Right, that’s where we were.

“Look, even if I could see the dead – which I can’t – what am I supposed to do?”

“Why would you tell her you could if you couldn’t?”

“I’m a jerk. It’s a personality flaw.”

“And a liar.”

“Well, that’s part of the whole ‘jerk’ schtick. Lying, cheating, carrying on. Did I mention I gamble recklessly, drink without abandon, and regularly perform Sisqo’s ‘Thong Song’ at karaoke unironically?”

“No, you’re a liar about not seeing ghosts.”

“Wishful thinking. I’m afraid I was just trying to score points by flaunting a weird talent after one too many Brewtuses of IPA at Applebee’s happy hour. If I had known she’d talk about my made up skill I would have gone with juggling kittens because I’m guessing you wouldn’t be asking me to toss around a sack full of tabbies.”

You and I know I can see dead people. You now also know that I’m not bad at wielding logorrhea in self defense, because somewhere between mentally cringing at the idea of my Sisquo impersonation (no, I don’t really do that) and how I could even manage to get the kittens in the sack in the first place, Pixie Lip Ring became mentally vapor locked for just a second which was all I needed to gracefully pirouette around her and through her sister, dodge the accounting clique around the kitchen table, set my chips and guac plate on a bookshelf and slipped into the aforementioned half-bath while catching the door with my trailing foot and securing the lock.

I sighed and leaned my head against the locked door in the cool darkness. Hit the lights, lifted the lid, and started to relieve myself.

“You’re a first-rate bullshitter,” the voice next to me said as I peed.

Rule #7: Privacy is Dead

“I am,” I said evenly. “What of it?”

“You’re not going to help me?”

I shook off and buttoned up my shorts before now looking the elegant woman in velvet in the eyes – the jig was up now, right? – and said, “No.” Lid down, I flushed the toilet and walked through her again – ghosts hate that in the first place, but ghosts that know you know they’re there really hate it – and started washing my hands.

I could feel the frustration, the anger, the rage, the fury roiling in her. She’s a ghost, sure, but she was a living human and that’s all still there if just not, well, corporeal. I expected her to let loose an unholy stream of vitriol, but she surprised me with just one word: “Why?”

The word cut. It wasn’t the word exactly, but the way she said it. That anger, fury, yada yada yada? Absent. The way the syllable slipped from her perfect coral-colored lips was more statement than question.

“Why?”

Like, all my excuses were laid bare. She could see all my short comings. All the times I’ve avoided helping ghosts – for really good, valid reasons! I mean, if I helped every ghost that needed something I’d be endlessly finding lost lockets and hidden last wills and testaments, and declaring it was Miss Scarlet in the hall with a revolver. I’m not dead, damnit. And I want a life that’s my own. I didn’t ask to be able to see ghosts. That wasn’t something I wanted and it’s not something I would wish on my worst enemy. These rules aren’t because I’m a bastard – well, I mean, I literally am a bastard, but that’s some psychotherapy ish for another time – they’re self-preservation. Living is for the alive.

Those soft brown eyes that matched her hair peered into the depths of my soul, poured the question in, swirled it around, held it up and inhaled to check the nose. “Why?”

“I…” I had nothing. I stared down at the velvet blue hem in front of me “I don’t know. I’ve got reasons.”

“Jack,” did she hear my name from Ally? “I didn’t kill myself. I was murdered. I need you to help me find peace.”

I didn’t say anything.

She knelt down slowly until her face was in my field of view, like I was a sullen child. Right then I was a sullen child. “Jack?” her words were tranquil, sweet, salve. “You can help me. I need you. Will you help me?”

She straightened up slowly. My eyes, locked on hers, followed her face. I didn’t have a choice. There wasn’t anything else I could say – trust me, my brain tried really hard. It didn’t get any purchase.

As if sensing my inner turmoil, she uttered one word that served as the coup de grace: “Please?”

“I’ll help.”

Rule #5: Don’t Make Promises.

To be continued…

I heard that the haunted Toys R Us in Sunnyvale where I worked for a short time had closed and then this month transformed into something more apropos of the ghosts…

I don’t pay much attention to the living, but even for me the signs were pretty obvious.

When this building opened in 1970, I couldn’t have been happier. Well, truth be told, I couldn’t be much before that. See, I died in 1851. Consumption. I was 8. Just wasted away. I remember being sick…  I remember my mom and dad and how worried they were. And then I closed my eyes and… nothing for a long time. Until the Toys R Us, really. I opened my eyes and I was surrounded by aisle upon aisle of stuffed animals and toys. You can’t imagine how excited I was!

Then the living came in and… well, they weren’t much fun. In fact, their presence reminded me that I wasn’t alive. After closing the energy of the living flowed out of the building and I could play. The stuffed animals were my favorite and I’d play with them all night long. When the employees showed up in the morning, they were pretty surprised by all the stuffed animals in the aisles. But it took a lot of energy to get those things down – I wasn’t about to expend energy to put them back. Leave that for the living!

I thought we’d gotten into a good rhythm of things and the morning employees eventually got used to one more pre-opening chore. But soon enough I noticed people coming into the store whispering “ghost…” and I knew they were looking for me. I wasn’t the only ghost in the place, but the others I encountered never stuck around much. I don’t know how to explain it, really, but they would show up and fade away after a few days or weeks. Some would see me, and we would talk – some worked on my family’s land here. Most I’d never seen before. Others clearly came from a different time – there were Indians, the occasional prospector, and Mexican men and women. A little boy who said he was from the Ramaytush Ohlone tribe that lived here long before I did. We played together for… I don’t even know. Months? Years? I was sad when he left. He just stopped appearing at night as suddenly as when he showed up.

Then the mediums showed up with TV cameras. I didn’t pay them any mind. I had no interest in communicating with the living. Some of the other ghosts played along, though. This one man, James, made up all these crazy details he told to one of the lady psychics who came a few times. James didn’t hang around for too long, either – no one does. Just me.

You’re probably wondering why I’m here. I wish I could tell you, but I don’t know. I’ve thought maybe it’s because I died when I was young maybe the energy of kids in the toy store brought me back into being when the store opened. That’s the best idea I came up with.

But like I said, over time I could see there weren’t as many living passing through the store. And then one day they put up a big “Going out of business” sign and the store got really busy for a little while. I didn’t like that, though, because all my toys got bought and weren’t being restocked. Every single one of my stuffed animals left one by one by one. Eventually it came down to just the bare fixtures – and even those got bought. The day came when the manager walked through the store for the last time. He turned out the lights and made his way to the exit. I walked next to him talking to him. “What’s going to happen? What’s next? Who am I going to play with?” But he couldn’t hear me. I knew that. But… I was scared. He turned around looking right through me, then locked the door for the last time.

And then I was alone.

With no more living coming in, I wandered day and night. But there wasn’t much to do. None of the other ghosts showed up. It was really lonely. I tried to sleep – tried to close my eyes and hoped I wouldn’t wake up, you know? Because maybe without the toys, without the ebb and flow of the living, maybe I would be like one of those transient ghosts and just disappear for real this time. But I didn’t. I woke up time and time again without any idea how long I slept.

But I fell asleep one day and I must have been asleep for a while because when I woke up I was surrounded not by toys but by ghosts! Okay, ghost costumes, and witches, and monsters, and everything spooky. The sign no longer read “Toys R Us” but instead, “Spirit Halloween” I was so excited! The living poured into the store again. Their energy brought the transient ghosts at night again and I wasn’t alone anymore.

I’ve been paying attention to the living more. I can hear them talk about how this isn’t a permanent thing. About how it’s going be closed again after Halloween. That’s not long off. But I’m going to enjoy playing with the costumes and fake tombstones and skeleton animals until they empty the place out again. And then? Maybe I’ll sleep for a long time again.