Free Everybody Loves You by Ethan Mordden Page A

tot-tal-ly haunted!”
    But, for the unquiet heart and brain
    A use in measured language lies;
    The sad mechanic exercise,
    Like dull narcotics numbing pain.
    â€”Alfred Tennyson,
In Memoriam, 1850
    Lionel and Bert refused to go back upstairs that night, so I stayed with them, talking till all three of us fell asleep. The rest of the house was up early, and they found us strewn about the living room like dummies in the set of a war movie. So there was giggling and poking till Lionel spilled his story. Then Carlo chimed in with his sighting; and now the ghost became the house topic.
    Dennis Savage, like me a fervent unbeliever, scoffed. But Little Kiwi immediately organized himself and Bauhaus into the Ghost Patrol and went around the house all day wearing a clove of garlic, a cross, and his Polaroid. He even made up business cards to hand out. “Remember our motto,” he’d add:
    Ghost Patrol will come and so
    All the ghosts just have to go.
    â€œYou can start in my room,” Lionel told him.
    â€œAnyone who believes in this rubbish,” Dennis Savage announced from the kitchen, “gets no breakfast.”
    â€œCarlo,” said Little Kiwi, “did you really see a ghost?”
    â€œWell, I truly hell saw something.”
    The weather had cleared nicely, and from overhead came the noises of Tom Adverse, hammering and whistling as he patched the leaky roof.
    â€œRillly,” observed Bert. “Why don’t you get The Twisted Macho Man to like măybê for exam-mple scare it a– way? ”
    â€œTom?” I said. “He’s sort of a ghost himself.”
    â€œOooh, bark me into the ca- loset. ”
    â€œDon’t worry,” said Little Kiwi, adjusting his garlic. “The Ghost Patrol will exterminate this house. Remember our motto—”
    â€œIf you don’t stop that,” Dennis Savage began; but Little Kiwi put a finger on Dennis Savage’s lips and made him blush.
    â€œI play him,” Little Kiwi told us, “like a stereo.”
    After breakfast, while Lionel considered completing the weekend in some quieter establishment and Dennis Savage accused him of giving way to bad dreams and California brain meltdown (“Oooh, gag me,” said Bert), I went outside to check up on Tom.
    â€œHow’re we doing?” I called up to Tom, happily ensconced on high amid the symbols of his calling, the affable eructations of the toolbox.
    â€œAlmost done here. I’m taking it easy awhile.”
    â€œHow’d you get up there without a ladder?”
    â€œClimbed up,” he said, holding out a hand to me.
    If he can, I can, I told myself, pushing off the front-deck railing to join him.
    â€œIt’s great up here,” he told me. “You can see clear to five counties.” He laughed. Another thing about Tom is that while he has a sense of humor, it’s invariably the wrong one. I think he tells those atrocious racist jokes not because he believes they’re funny but because he wants to see how you’ll react to his having made you listen to them. Denounce his morals and he’ll go Uh-huh. But if you sell out a little and forgive him with a doubting smile as you shake your head, he’ll put a hand on your shoulder or chest very lightly, one of those almost meaninglessly nuanced demonstrations straights make with each other.
    I think they’re all starved for fun.
    â€œJust let me finish up here,” Tom said, taking a swallow of the beer he chugs while he’s working, “and you’ll be dry for life.”
    â€œYou know, the rest of the house has been seeing what you saw. The ghost. It’s … uncanny. I’ve known people who believed in ghosts, but I never knew anyone who claimed to have seen one.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œTom?”
    â€œYeah?” Smearing the tar, casing out a shingle, lining it up.
    â€œWhat do you think we should do about this? I mean, some of