The ghosts filtered by in the background, their forms barely outlined against the rain grayed sky. As the first drops fell the young children dashed about, their laughter falling from their lips in time with the rain. One young boy sat silent though, refusing to move from his doorstep. His drawn up knees brushed the backs of hands that held his round young face, angles just starting to sculpt it. His dark hair fell into his eyes, the feathery ends quickly becoming plastered to his pale forehead. His mother, a young woman who was fading as quickly as her worn dresses, opened the door to the old row home. Her voice was drowned out by the thumping of the rain on the concrete as she called for her son to come in. She worried her lip as she fretted over stepping into the rain herself or letting her silent son be. She had her hair in curls and her face made up, painstakingly put on one brush stroke at a time, a masterpiece only meant for one, seen by whole world, and yet noticed by none. The boy’s mother sighed, a puffed out huff from lips the shade of the rose petals but as dusty and dry as the tops of the shelves she couldn’t be bothered to clean.

“Come in when you’re finished, you’ll catch a cold if you stay out here much longer”, she told her son distractedly as she watched out for the headlights belonging to this evening’s audience. The boy didn’t respond but glanced at her too late, finding nothing behind him but the scent of the rain washing away the sickly sweet perfume of his mother from the air. Looking ahead he could only make out the clicking of her heels and the swish of the tires pulling the man’s car up to the curb. He looked around him once more, the lights shining in the windows, the door slightly ajar and there, in the sliver of shadow between the worn edge of the door and the stoop light, the ghost he had been waiting for.

This ghost’s name was Chester Farran, a gaunt young man who had once had been pale from days spent indoors and now was just a dusty grey, like he was made of smoke. His trench coat still hung from him open, belt hanging limp in the back, exposing a three piece suit that was sculpted to his lanky frame. He was a well-dressed scarecrow for a field of dreams coming up through the concrete; his purpose was to scare away the bad times and reap the revelry of a night out. His fingers were long like the cigarette holders of the girls he used to spend his evenings with. They itched for a pencil to be wrapped around, to feel the keys of a typewriter hit against the tips once more, instead of just passing through them. He felt as dry as a used up ink ribbon, no longer able to leave a mark on this world.

“You’re late, Chess.” the boy stated, voice cutting through the beating of the rain, as he unfolded himself and pulled his body up and around in an almost fluid motion.

“Hey, you’ve been practicing. You’ll be gliding through walls in no time, no joke” Chester said with a smile, ignoring his tardiness. Or maybe he wasn’t late, maybe he’d been waiting there between the door and the light, waiting for the shadows to creep around him and give him form.

“Except I’m not dead Chess” the youth retorted.

“So…who’s the lucky guy this month?” the specter asked.

“This week, Mr. Booker from the bank” the boy said with a shiver, maybe he actually was going to get a cold he thought as he squeezed into the hall, flicking the lights off and turning on the table lamp. Chester gave off a steady chill as he followed soundlessly behind him.

“What happened to the mechanic?”

“He didn’t pick her up for dates, made her walk or pay for a cab.”


“Ah…” the man nodded his head and walked a little ways down the hall, his feet never touching the runner. He lingered at the door to the living room, like an attendant waiting to be summoned by the bell to pour a fresh cup of tea or clear away the plates. The boy went up the creaking stairs to throw his now soaked sweater in his room. He pivoted on the landing and taking the steps down two at a time went into the living room, brushing through the specter and turning on the two lamps on either side of the sofa.

“That’s one lamp too many Jimmy.” He said.

“You’ve been around long enough to know that’s not my name.” The boy huffed as he flicked off the lamp with the stained shade and brown and gold base, a gaudy piece his grandmother called an “antique”.

“I know that. You’re too young to go by James, kiddo, that’s an old name. It’s not like you’re at a university or something. Like some young hotshot trying to puff himself up. You know with a tweed blazer and a tie and your hair all slicked back and combed to one side. Someone who gives impromptu lectures in the middle of the quad about…hell I don’t know, anything. The greats, maybe just some nice poetry, or politics even. Now that’s a subject! Politics and poets.” He sighed wistfully and scratched his neck, ducking his head to his chest. Then, stretching his whole body up, he turned his face up to the darkened ceiling as if he were still out in the rain, making out the first few drops as they fell. He was a wisp of smoke searching for an exit, but lingering about just for the hell of it.

James looked over at him from his spot on the couch, his internal debate of turning on the television silenced. Instead he thought about this grey man and what little he actually knew about him. His name was Chester Farran, or “Chess if you like” he said with a curled smile; and he died on his front steps, James’ front steps. He liked women who didn’t wear too much make up or fused with their hair and who didn’t chatter but could hold a “real” conversation. Chester didn’t really get what the television was or why people liked rock and roll, he liked his big band and jazz better than anything else and was perfectly happy to sit by the radio all night. He had a comment for just about anything and occasionally would offer a bit of advice, which he pulled out of thin air. Or maybe since he was thin air, right from himself or where ever it was he existed. Sometimes he made James get him books and flip the pages for him, or read them out loud while he sprawled on the sofa with a cigarette burning in the ash tray.

“Jimmy, I think tonight we’ll have a party, a real good time. Everyone will have a cigarette between their fingers, a drink in their hand, a woman on his arm with whispers in his ears, and conversation all around him like he was in one of those Fitzgerald novels. And the music, oh! Jimmy the music will be flowing through the air like the booze from the bottles. It’ll all be real sweet and dry, crooning in time with the rain. Wow, just listen to that rain, like a twenty-five piece band playing right at our window. The big drum solo’s coming up kid, can’t you just feel it?” Chester spun around in the shadows of the room, trench coat spinning around him and a smile spreading across his face. His hair, forever swept to the side, had its curls at the end slightly bouncing. He floated around the furniture as smoothly as he talked, satisfaction just oozing from him, seeping into the clustered space like the water from James sweater onto the floor of his room.

James sighed, tonight wasn’t going to be easy, he had a few hours or maybe, if he was lucky, his mother would be staying the night with Mr. Booker. Of course Chess never liked to make things easy on him, he was selfish, but pleasing him was better than having to stand his moping. James pushed off the coach and trudged back up the stairs. Chess called out for him, asking where he was off to then laughing as he continued his monologue about the best party the city would ever see. James toed at his sodden sweater before kicking it into his closet then he kneeled down on the bare wood floors. He lifted up the area carpet; something his mother insisted would “brighten” the room with its myriad of colors but instead made it look he was hiding the scratched wood floors instead. He hooked his fingers underneath the loose board and pulled up, exposing Chester’s cache, a time capsule at first glance, a shrine to his memory and a grave in what had once been his office. James pulled out the cigarettes he had stolen from the store down the street and he debated about which book Chester would want this evening, he settled on The Great Gatsby, Chester could never turn away from “Gatsby and Nick” as he affectionately referred to the book in question. He even was so thoughtful as to take out the flask and tumbler he stored in there too. Chess couldn’t drink but he liked how it looked sitting next to his cigarette smoke and radio, an offering to the gods of the man stuck in his own time, his own past, reliving his greatest hits, but like him just their spirits, the little details that stuck.

Placing the floorboard and rug back, James grabbed a blanket and tip toed back downstairs. He held his breath, it was these small moments between Chester being let back in and James pulling the past into the present for him that exposed what being dead and a ghost was all about. Not everyone stayed as a ghost, some went “above” and some went “below” as Chess liked to put, James wasn’t so sure if this was the truth or not. All he knew for certain was that some people were cut out of their life in the present and pasted onto the running track that was time. They moved through into the future, that became the present, and all they were was a newspaper clipping from an issue whose headlines were being yelled on street corners 30 years ago. Sometimes Chester would still be talking; sometimes he would be sitting in quiet thought, folding his fluid and lanky frame into the extra dining table chair in the corner that had the little needle point cushion on it. It would seem as if this was an ordinary night for one Chester Farran, the eccentric, lively, good natured and sharp tongued bachelor who had been spared from the war, who had a bright future ahead of him, where ever that had been. On occasion however he was just a shadow in the corner of James Abner’s living room, created by the thinly covered light bulb in the gaudy old lamp. That Chester Farran was a blood stain washed away by years of rain and scuffed out by too many steps to ever count. All that really remained of him was his ashes, and their location was unknown, he could be in a landfill for all he knew.

Tonight was one of those nights, the ones where he was just the chip in the wall from when he first moved in and had thrown the crystal tumbler his old flame had gotten him, when he had slumped down in the corner and cried more tears that there was scotch left in his decanter, and then all that remained was the lone glass, and what good was one when there had once been a set?

“James, come here would you? I got something important to ask you” Chester called out, soft and tired, with a weight pulling the words down from where they attempted to float on an ocean of calm, as Chess himself floated the foot to the couch and settle into the corner. So James set down his handful of the past and sat on the couch next to the man who was as grey and pale as a winter morning, when snow is threatening to blanket the dirty streets in a pristine white.

“James, do you have a father? I mean a guy who comes around and takes you to baseball games and will tell you about girls and how you should hold their hand at the movies. A man who buys your mother flowers just because he saw carnations that match the dress she wore on their first date” he asked.

“Yeah,” James said kicking his foot out against the already beat up coffee table.

“Where is he? It’s just I noticed you got these photographs here, I don’t think I’ve ever noticed ‘em before. Funny how you never notice the people who are missing ‘till you see them with the people who are still here, still kicking about.”

“My dad’s not dead, he’s in the army,” James said, pressing his chin down to his chest and folding his arms. “And that’s not just a lie my mom told me or anything. He’s a…a…I forget but he’s in the army. He’s gonna come home soon, ‘least that’s what his letters say. My mom though, she doesn’t think so, I mean I think she doesn’t think so. I think she’s practicing for when she has to start dating again after my dad’s killed, so I’ll have a dad.” James finished as he shifted in his seat and tugged at the blanket draped around his shoulders. He felt a chill through his tee shirt, a slightly damp feeling that was just a little warm, rain in the summer that started when the street lamps had been on for a bit and made everything smell clean. The rain that baptized the world and promised tomorrow would be the best day ever. James preferred to stay just like this, he didn’t want to see the look of pity in Chester’s eyes, or how it was his hand that was trying to provide comfort but couldn’t be the warm embrace he longed to be.

James turned to him as he heard Chester begin to sing under his breath one of his songs.

“Gonna take a sentimental journey. Gonna set my heart at ease. Gonna make a sentimental journey. To renew old memories.”

James sighed and leaned into the attempted comfort provided by Chess, still damp as warm rain but comforting all the same. Of course his mother wasn’t seeing different men for his sake, that was a lie that she knew was more thinly covered than her face. He knew her wedding ring lay in her jewelry chest and wouldn’t be taken out, polished, and worn as if it had never left her finger until his father came home on a plane, whether he stepped off himself or was carried out in a box was another matter. James didn’t think it should matter, but the world was strange, the world existed in shadows and words shimmied about underneath gauzy veils of colored emotion.

Here sat a grey man and a green boy. The man was not old and the boy was not as naïve as he looked. They sat side by side in the present, neither concerned about the future, and both more interested in the past for their own personal, and private, reasons. Neither required their own words, because they knew those words were clouded and hard to hear through the drumming rain. That rain had by now died down to a drizzle, like the heavens had run out of water. The man turned to the boy and asked him to light a cigarette. The boy in turn told him it wasn’t healthy for him. The man laughed and said he was already dead, the boy replied that he still was alive. A tumbler of scotch was poured from the flask and the cigarette was begrudgingly lit. The lamp was flicked off and only the burning end of the cigarette and light from the hall illuminated the room. Two shadows sat side by side, their dark outlines mingling with all the world around them.