Chris Green - Only the Good Die Young

I heard his essence humming near the back of the bar, where he’d obviously gone first. He was in the front room now.

Oh, screw it.

I showed myself, smiling, hoping he wouldn’t ghost-jump me.

Even in the dimness, I could see every bit of him because of his gray electric glow. He was swaying like an inebriated sailor. In fact, he was a sailor, dressed in one of those white uniforms with a flap for a collar and a Popeye hat dipping off his head. He was also a kid, probably just old enough to have joined the navy the minute he was eligible.

When he saw me, he perked up, his dark eyes widening in a face that… Okay, let’s be honest. He looked like someone’s nerdy younger brother.

“Hey, doll!” he said.

Doll? I was going to guess he wasn’t a modern ghost. But at least he seemed cool.

“Hi. Sorry for barging in like this, but—”

“You’re not bargin’ in.” His voice broke like Peter Brady’s every so often, and he had a thick Southern accent.

He floated to a stool and patted the bar next to him. It didn’t make a sound. “Come join Petty Officer Randy Randall fer a drink.”

His name was beyond fun.

“Ghosts can’t drink.” I knew this because I’d already tried it. Same with eating, and frankly, it’s pretty crappy to be able to smell pizza on the wind and not be able to scarf it down.

Sailor Randy Randall gave me that wide-eyed stare again and then fell into a fit of laughter, silently pounding the bar. When he finished, he slurred, “I can see you’re a new kid, ain’t ya? Welcome to Boo World.”

I sensed that I was going to get an education tonight that Amanda Lee might not approve of. Maybe she’d kept me away from other ghosts so that I would be her little specter slave while not knowing there were other ways to exist.

I moved to a seat close to Randy, but not right next to him. He laughed at that, too.

“New ’n’ careful,” he said with exaggeration in his tone. “I like ya new ghosts. You’re a real gas.”

Now that I was nearer to him, his essence tickled me. I could also get a better gander at his features: wavy light hair under his cap, a tilted-up nose, crooked teeth. He winked at me, knowing I was checking him out.

Then he zinged upward and flew toward the liquor shelf, knocking down a bottle. It hit the ledge below, breaking open and spilling whiskey.

“Oh,” I said.

“Don’t worry. The ownersh know the bar has ‘activity’ every once in a while.”

Ownersh?

“And you’re the activity,” I said.

“Smart new ghost, too.” Still slurring most of those s ’s.

He bent down—he wasn’t a big guy to begin with—and caught falling whiskey drops in his mouth. The liquid ran right through him, leaving a sparky trail, and splattered to the floor.

“Why bother doing that?” I asked.

“Why bother drinkin’ it when you’re alive? Because it’s there.” He gave me a goofy grin. “Plus, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m in a perpet… perpetial…”

“Perpetual?”

“Thass it. Perpetial state of drunkenness.”

“Because that’s how you…” I was about to say, “Because that’s how you died?” But that might be rude.

He didn’t seem to care. “Yup. I died completely soused.”

Whoa. So that’s why I was a spaz who just wanted to go-go-go—because I’d been slightly hopped up on Mello Yello when I’d died. I guess if I’d been toking with my friends in the forest that night—and I would’ve if I hadn’t been on driving duty—I would’ve come out on the other side as a wasted ghost.

Randy said, “Here I am, still a drunken bum. My girlfriend told me that once, in a letter. Jus’ before I was supposed to ship out to the South Pacific.”

World War II. Was he that old?

After another “drink,” he stood back up. “Haven’t met other ghosts, have ya?”

I thought about fake Dean, but decided he wasn’t so much my and Randy’s kind. “No.”

“I can tell. Ya look at me funny. Also, ya don’t know ghost etiquette.”

“Sorry.”

“Forget it, doll. All of us start somewheres.”

And here’s where my education would begin. Hopefully. “What am I supposed to do when I meet a fellow ghost?”

“Oh, it’s not so much what you’re supposed to do. It’s what you’re ’spected to do. Tell your story. Here, I’ll go first.” He was making a lot of hand gestures. “It happened seaside. I always loved the ocean. And one night, near downtown, I was standin’ on a bank of rocks with my girlfriend’s last letter in my hand. I was mooning over her when… Oops. Lost my footing on them rocks.”

“You… drowned?” That’s what’d happened to my parents in the boating accident.

“Nah.” He knocked on his head. “Slammed the ol’ noggin. Bled right out. The worst part is that I let go of Magnolia’s letter when I fell, and I’ve been trying to find it ever since. Then again, we all have our tether.”

Amanda Lee had mentioned that last word to me—it was what she thought kept us tied to the earth, unable to move on.

Randy was watching me like he was expecting me to reveal my tether. But I had a question for him first, ghost etiquette or not.

“What if you never find that letter?” Because he wouldn’t. By now, the paper would’ve disintegrated, right?

He didn’t seem very concerned. “That bothered me at first, I must admit. But ya know what? I haven’t lost hope that I’m gonna find it. I will one day.”

Okay. I dropped the subject. No use in upsetting him with the truth.

“So, it’s my turn?” I asked.

“Ya never hear a ghost’s story without telling him your own. It’s terrible form. Terrible.”

“All right. But it’s not pretty.”

“Toots, if you’re roaming this plane after your death, chances are ya got a sad tale. I’ve been around, and I’ve heard it all. Try me.”

I laid it on him—Elfin Forest, partying with my friends, nineteen eighties, going missing in the woods. He’d been around Boo World for so long that he even knew things, like how “dope” in my era didn’t mean what it did in his, as in “You got the dope on the shindig tonight?” I told him that I didn’t remember my death, and he actually understood perfectly.

“Thass why you’re still here,” he said. “Because you’ll search and search until ya find out how ya died. It could take aeons.”

I didn’t mention how Amanda Lee told me she was going to help me solve my murder. I wasn’t sure how that’d work out anymore. Besides, I didn’t feel like talking about her much.

Randy kind of jumped and then arched over the bar, landing in the seat next to me, my essence going staticky and sensing his cool temperature as I shifted.

“So why’d ya follow me in here tonight?” he asked with a tilted grin. “Bored?”

“I… Not really. I wanted to meet someone who was like me.”

“Right. Besides, you’re too new to be bored yet. But I’m gonna tell ya—watch out for boredom, toots… .”

“Jensen. You can call me Jensen or Jen.”

“I like that. Jen. I know ’nother ghost from the nineteen ’eighties.” He waggled an unsteady finger. “You’re not like her. She’s got hair thass all these colors, and she wears petticoats as skirts, too. They didn’t even do that in the dance halls.”

Sounded like a total Valley Girl to me.

Randy touched his wrist. “She’s got black bandy things on her arms, too. They’re ’cause of Madonna.”

He seemed very proud to name-drop someone from the ’eighties.

“Very good, Randy.” But I wasn’t happy that I had been wearing those same bracelets before I died. I’d lost them at the forest party, so they weren’t a permanent part of my ghost wardrobe. I’d had a total love-hate thing with Madonna: liking that she sassed all the boys while not liking her mainstreamness. I was more an Oingo Boingo SoCal girl.