Ghosts on Drugs
By Robert E. Stahl
In “Ghosts on Drugs”, our protagonist is visited by some very disturbing ghosts. Photo courtesy of Unsplash.
Click immediately below for audio version, published by The No Sleep Podcast January 2020
You know the ghosts were in your apartment the minute you open the door, before you’ve even loosened the tie that’s been choking you all day. The stench of marijuana hits you in the face. The nerve of them, partying in your apartment while you were out selling cheap ass suits.
The evidence is everywhere. You see depressions on the couch—ghost butt prints, what a fright. There are roaches in the ashtray, little seeds in the carpet, bits of crinkly ash on the table. They drank all your schnapps, moved on to the mouthwash, got into your medicine cabinet. They even took the pills Kimber picked up for the dog.
Bastards.
It fucks your head, to tell the truth. It fucks it good, and you end up pacing the floor and chain-smoking all night. So you oversleep, yeah, miss the radio alarm that’s been set to the morning news. It’s set that way because, since the nag left with the dog, you need the second-most-irritating sound in the world to get you out of bed in the mornings. It’s not until you’re dreaming about a hurricane in Honduras that’s actually the big news story of the day that you realize the sun is too bright. You’ve overslept, again. So you get up, roll in to work three hours late.
Thanks for nothing, fucking ghosts.
Your boss is waiting, eager to write you up. He wants you to sign a slip. You reach for the pen in your pocket, but it’s gone. Stupid ghosts probably used it for meth or something. He hands you the pen from behind his ear, and you say, “Okay.” The pen is greasy from that shit in his hair, and you can’t get to the bathroom fast enough. You wash your hands in hot water, scrubbing and squeezing until they’re red and blistery, and then you feel like a dummy.
Blistered hands are not okay.
They’re making your life a mess, these ghosts. Nothing can stop them when they’re on a bender.
#
The fuckers got smart last night. They unplugged your alarm clock so you wouldn’t wake up and catch them.
You wake up anyway when you hear clanking in the living room. You almost surprise one too, but he vanishes into the walls, leaves behind a scorched glass pipe. There’s a smoky haze in the air, torn squares of foil everywhere, all grimy and smeared. There are smudges on the furniture, an aluminum can ripped open on the table, tiny drops of blood where one of them cut his finger. Ha ha, fuckers.
It’s almost noon, so you call work, tell them you’re on your way. Your boss tells you not to bother. “Take some time,” he says. “Decide if you really want to work here.”
You don’t, of course, but you don’t need him to know that. So you say, “Okay.”
#
It’s gotten worse.
They’ve been here every day this week. Your apartment, it’s a mess. Dirty dishes are piled everywhere, and the garbage is stuffed to overflowing. The air is muggy and dank, and the carpet smells like piss, and not just in the bathroom.
Then there are the oily spots. Transparent smears all over the apartment, so gross. Their jacked-up heartbeats make them ooze ghost grease on whatever they touch. The doorjambs. The table. The remotes.
Especially the remotes.
They like to watch your dirty movies.
You know this because DVD cases are everywhere. Skin rags flipped open on the couch, on the floor. Ripped pages all around. Random girl parts cut out with scissors, reassembled on the table. Composite girls with perfect tits, perfect asses, perfect smiles. You find Kleenex wads stuck to the carpet, crusty washcloths in the hamper.
Jesus, what to do, what to do?
#
You catch one finally, in the bathroom, when you turn on the light. He’s standing in front of you, a pasty ghoul with open sores and wild eyes glaring out from darkened sockets. Your heart flips, but when you look again, he’s gone. It’s just you, staring at the mirror.
Why are they here, you wonder?
Or are they here?
They’re making you miserable. You hope they don’t come tomorrow, okay.
#
These ghosts are going to be the death of you, possibly.
Maybe it’s time do something.
You look up therapy groups online and find one for depressed adults. Oh, joy. You stand in a room full of strangers and you talk about stupid shit—like the people you’ve wronged, the things you wished you hadn’t done but did, the things you wished you’d done differently. You go to two different meetings and you drink bad coffee and stare at your watch and think they’re all a bunch of idiots.
Then on your third visit, they ask you to talk.
And you’re like, ummm, shit. But then something breaks like an egg inside of you and all those tender pieces you’ve been ignoring spill out. So you tell them everything.
Everything.
To a room full of fucking strangers.
They listen.
And listen.
When it’s over, they’re on you like maggots on a piece of chicken. “It’s okay,” they say, all awkward hugs and cold coffee smiles. “You can change, if you want.” Slowly, you start to believe them.
So you go back to your apartment. It doesn’t take long to gather up the stuff—the pills, the weed, the booze—and throw it in the dumpster. You even wave to the garbage man when he hauls it all away. He just looks at you funny.
It’s not easy, nope, not at all. You get the shakes for three days straight. You scratch sores into your face with all your nervous energy. You cry yourself to sleep more than once. It’s tough, damn it, but you make it, somehow. Weather out the storm, so to speak.
And then, something amazing.
You stop feeling like crap all the time. Your skin clears up. You put weight back on.
But the best thing?
No more ghosts.
Which means you’re sleeping better. So the mornings don’t hurt like they used to. You do push ups in the living room just because it feels good. It’s not long before you work up the nerve to strut down to the store, talk your boss into giving you your job back.
Even Kimber’s back in the picture, sort of. Just phone calls, for now. But maybe more soon? Her voice doesn’t annoy you like it used to. If anything, you decide it’s got a musical quality, is actually kind of beautiful. She does silly stuff that makes you laugh. Like put the dog on the phone so you can talk to him. You make your voice real high and you do kissy noises and you say dumb things like who’s a good boy, but you’re pretty sure the dumb shit doesn’t get it. All he does is pant, pant, pant into the phone.
But you don’t mind it much, really.
You don’t mind it much at all.
#
Weeks later, your team hits a big sales quota at work. Your boss is a gorilla, all chest thumps and whoots. When the store closes, everyone is so pumped, you all decide to go out to a bar. The drinks help you all pretend to like each other. It’s beer-whisky-beer, whisky-beer-whisky, and then you’re feeling pretty damn good. Better than you’ve felt for months, probably. You drink until they all load into taxis like a bunch of clowns, and you wave good night, tell them the night air will do you some good. The moon is glowing like a meteor from another dimension, like it’s giving you powers or something, and you barely feel the sidewalk under your feet. Maybe you’re flying? All you know is you don’t want it to end.
It doesn’t have to, a voice inside of you says, so you reach for your pocket and pull out your phone.
#
Next, its hours later.
You’re standing at your front door, and you think, oh shit.
You’d recognize that smell anywhere.
Inside, it’s a raging ghost party. There’s got to be fifty of the fuckers here—deadheads and sluts, hipsters and rockers. The music is blaring and everybody’s talking loud and they’re laughing and they’re cussing. “Where you been?” one of the ghosts says, leading you inside.
They’re up to no good, fucking ghosts. They’re guzzling liquor out of paper cups, screwing on your furniture. There’s goddamn drugs everywhere. You see them in plastic baggies, in dirty foil wrappers, in fluffy piles on the table. They’re doing it in every way imaginable. Snorting it noisily through straws. Rubbing it on their lips. Smoking it in Pyrex pipes.
Someone shoves a bong in your face.
You think, fuck it, and take a long, slow drag. Why not? You figure. It’s just one night.
The buzz, it’s like, damn… Wait, what were we talking about, ha ha? Now your worries are slipping away. Soon, all you care about is the drinking, the smoking, the mother-fucking party, man. You’re at it all night with your new friends—I said all night, baby—until the sun comes up, shits all over everything. That’s when somebody passes around a bottle of pills, little tiny red ones, and you wolf down a handful. It’s not long until you’re drowsy and drift off to sleep.
And sleep.
And sleep.
Next thing you know someone’s pounding on the door. You’re too tired to give a fuck, though. Sleep, that’s what you need. Silence. That soothing deadness.
A key rattles in the door. You open your eyes to find—
Wait, what are you seeing? The perspective’s all wrong.
Kimber’s in your apartment, but it’s like you’re hovering above her, like the action is happening under your feet. She’s red-faced and bawling and hysterical, a mess. Damn, you’ve never seen the nag so upset. She’s kneeling over some sleeping dude and slapping his face and crying. She’s telling him to get up, get up, you piece of shit, goddammit. She’s got the dog with her. And a fucking policeman, too. Christ, almighty.
Then it hits you.
That dude.
He’s you.
There’s no time to dwell on it, because your new friends are here now—your ghost friends. Pretty soon there’s a beer in your hand, and the party's raging all over again. You all sit there and watch the scene with Kimber like it’s a goddamed TV show. When the paramedics show up to cart off your body, you’re making commentary like it’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 or something. It’s hysterical.
You think you’ll miss her a little, Kimber. The dog, maybe more.
But hey, it’s not like you’re going to be alone. You’ve got these awesome new friends. A whole apartment full of them. You’re going to be together for a long time. At a party that’ll last forever.
Maybe being dead isn’t such a bad thing, you think. At least you don’t have to sell cheap ass suits anymore, okay.
Copyright © 2020 Robert E. Stahl