Goodlow's Ghosts Read Free

or play the piano, although such abilities might have been far beyond them in life.
    Sam remembered his name. Sam Goodlow . He remembered his last mortal moments on earth, remembered flying high into the air above the Lincoln Town Car that had run him down. He remembered a grinning face in the front seat of the Town Car, too, and remembered thinking that there was no justice in the world because the beefy guy grinning at him from the driver's seat of the Town Car would probably get away with this murder. And he remembered that justice had little to do with anything that really mattered in the universe.
    It was the first time he had ever thought about the universe. In life his thoughts had been more mundane. Breakfast, shaving, getting laid. He had gotten laid often, not because he was disarmingly attractive. He wasn't. Or because he was rich. He wasn't. But because he was charming. He had always been charming. When he was a young man, his mother, his aunts and his uncles had told him a thousand times that he was going to be a "real lady-killer" when he grew up because he was so charming.
    He didn't remember being told that he'd be a lady-killer, and he didn't remember getting laid, either. He didn't remember if he had played the piano, or why the big guy in the Town car had run him down, or even what he—Sam Goodlow —looked like (so far, mirrors showed him only an elongated mist with hair), or what he had been , in life.
    But he thought it would all come back to him in time.
    He felt good, and it surprised him. He hadn't expected—flying ass-over-teacup above the Town Car—that he would feel bad . He had expected that he would feel nothing . Wasn't that what most people expected from death? Nothing . Not cold or hot or lukewarm. Not pain or comfort or joy. Nothing.
    He liked feeling good, of course. But he was distrustful of it, too. He thought that it meant he was being prepared for heaven. He remembered stories about heaven and remembered thinking that it was not a place he would like to spend much time. An eternity in the company of saints and angels and "good people" would surely be a bore.
    ~ * ~
    He felt as if he had eaten well and was very relaxed. He felt as if he had found exactly the right position for sleep.
    Oddly, he felt wet, too.
    ~ * ~
    He closed his eyes. He could still see the room he was in. This shocked him. Seeing through his eyelids was something he'd never been able to do in life. It was proof of his situation, proof that he was dead.
    He screamed.
    Nothing came out.
    He opened his eyes.
    The room lightened.
    He closed his eyes. The room darkened, as if he were seeing through sunglasses.
    He opened his eyes. The room lightened.
    He closed his eyes. The room darkened. He saw nothing at all.
    He smiled and decided that maybe he was alive, after all. It was possible.
    ~ * ~
    He remembered water.
    A telephone.
    He shivered. Someone is dancing on my grave , he thought.
    And he remembered that his father had died when he--Sam—was only three years old, although he didn't remember his father's face. Perhaps here, in this new existence, it would eventually come back to him.
    ~ * ~
    He realized that he had to pee. This shocked him. Did ghosts have bowels, kidneys, bladders? Were tales of the supernatural littered with accounts of toilets flushing in empty bathrooms? Maybe. What did he know? In life, he'd never been much interested in the occult, so maybe the world was filled with supernaturally flushing toilets.
    Or maybe the fact that he had to pee was further proof that he was, indeed, alive.
    He glanced about. Bathroom? he wondered. He thought he should know where the bathroom was. This place was so hauntingly familiar.
    An open door to his left. He went through it.
    It was a closet. There was a broom, a pail with mop, a dustpan, some old newspapers on a shelf. "Dammit!" he whispered. He couldn't pee in here.
    He heard a door open. He craned his head out the doorway, looked.
    A short woman with wavy,