I had every intention of finishing “Rules For When You Can See The Dead” tonight. I was really excited to write it. But then I went with Fern and her mom to the Do Tell Story Swap meeting. Fern even somehow talked me into telling a story (it was a variation on the first 31 Ghosts story with the cats and my dad’s ghost). But that wasn’t over until 9 and I knew I wasn’t going to have the time I wanted to finish it. So, I give you this in the meantime. Remember how Jack asked “Who the hell would haunt a frickin’ Applebee’s?” Well, this guy, that’s who…

“Holy shit, Dickie,” I said slapping Dickie on the shoulder. “That jamoke over there with the pretty girl can see us!”

“It’s Richard, Larry, for the millionth time,” Dickie rolled his eyes. “Why do you say that? He looks a little tipsy and like he’s striking out, but able to see ghosts…? I don’t know.”

“Nah, I can tell, Dickie. I can tell…” I stared daggers at him across the bar trying to catch his eye. But he never looked back. He just sat there and laughed that that girl being all alive and rubbing it in our dead faces. “Dickie, Dickie, he’s getting up!”

“Heading for the bathroom looks like.”

“I’m following him,” I said hurrying off the bar stool and inadvertently walking through that cute waitress, Julie. Total accident!

I walked through the door into the men’s room and there he was at the urinal. “Hey! Buddy! I know you can hear me.” He didn’t even flinch. “Yo, jamoke! Come on, quit yanking my chain. I know you can see me. I know you can hear me.” Nothing. This called for drastic action. I stood right next to him real close. Like real close. And I looked over his shoulder at his junk. “Huh,” I said. “I’ve seen better. She’s better off throwing this undersize fish back.”

“Alright, back off, asshole,” he bellowed, swatting an arm that went right through me. Oh, man, I staggered backwards laughing my ass off!

“I knew it!” I wheezed through laughter. “I knew you could see me.”

“I can see you, jerkface! I guess privacy is dead!”

“Yeah, I’m dead too. And I need your help.”

“Oh, you do? I’m shocked. I’m totally bowled over! You know, you’re the first ghost to tell me they’ve got some unfinished business among the living and they need my help!” He was really working himself into a full head of steam. “So, hey, since you’re breaking fresh paranormal ground here, please, enlighten me about how I might be so lucky to help you.”

“Jesus, buddy, you don’t have to be a jerk about it…” I told him.

“Me? Me?! I’m the jerk! You insult me mid-stream and I’m the jerk? You know what? Forget it,” he started for the door. “Happy frickin’ haunting.”

“Wait!” I called. “Stop, please.” He hesitated before opening the door. “I’m sorry. You’re right. That was kinda rude. But, man, you don’t know how rare it is someone like you comes along in a place like this.”

“In Applebee’s? I’m sure it’s more often than you think,” he said. Then added under his breath, “They’re probably just better than I am at hiding it…”

“Nah, that’s not true. I mean, you hid it well. My buddy Dickie owes me ten bucks because he didn’t believe you could see us. Well, he doesn’t know he owes me, but he does. No, it’s not you. It’s me. I’ve got a feeling for these things. I guess you could say I have a sixth sense about it,” I smiled and waggled my eyebrows.

“Really, you’re going there?”

“Look, you gotta help me…”

He let out a deep sigh and said, “Fine. How did you die?”

“I died right here. Well,” I looked around at the bathroom, “Okay, not right here. But at Applebee’s. I was arguing with the night manager – his name was Eliot at the time. He’s long gone.”

“Like,” he dragged a finger across his neck, “Gone?”

“What? No. No, he’s probably still alive. I meant he left Applebee’s. Maye transferred, got another job – look, doesn’t matter. Anyway, Eliot wouldn’t take my coupons and I was pissed, you know? Me, my wife, my boys, that shit adds up! I had four coupons and Eliot wouldn’t take ‘em. Kept talking about fine print and you couldn’t stack the coupons or some bullshit like that. I was pissed, you know? Got all up in his face. He had no right to charge me full price. None. And I wasn’t gonna back down but…”

“Heart attack?”

“Major coronary, yeah.” I held my hand vertical, gave a raspberry and tipped my hand horizontal. “Died immediately, right there. Can you imagine?”

“Well, you’re painting a pretty good picture.”

“And you know the worst part? The part that still really gets me?”

“Your kids were there to see it?”

“No, my wife paid full goddamn price! She even left a fucking tip! The nerve! The least they could have done was comp the damn meal! No, she adds insult to injury and drops twenty percent on top of the full bill before my corpse is even cold! Can you believe that?”

He looked at me for a long time without saying anything. Finally, he said, “No, I can’t. I really can’t.”

No shit he couldn’t!

“So, uh, why are you still here? If Eliot’s gone you can’t possibly fix that bill… What’s keeping the light from showing up for you?”

“The light? Oh, that’s there right outside the entrance. It’s like goddamn noon whether it’s day or night. Annoying as hell!”

“So, wait, you don’t need me to help you cross over?”

“Huh? No. Hell no. I ain’t going nowhere. I’m gonna haunt this place until they go belly up for overcharging hard working stiffs like me.”

He let out a laugh for some reason.

“It’s the principal of the thing, you know!”

“Fine, you’re principled. And dead. What do you want from me?”

“That really hot blonde, Julie?”

“Hot blonde?”

“Waitress. Killer figure? Come on,” I tried to nudge him with an elbow, “I know you noticed her. How could you not? The way the polyester pants covers that–“

“Okay, Julie, sure. I think she brought me my food. What about her?”

“Her husband’s cheating on her with Lindsey.”

“Who’s Lindsey?”

“Horse-face manager broad.”

“Horse-face? Whatever… Look, so what?”

“She’s a good girl.”

“Horse-face?”

“No, not horse-face, are you kidding? Julie! I just…. I don’t know… don’t want her to get hurt. I mean, more than, well, you know…”

He rolled his eyes. “Can you give me something, some detail that will corroborate it?”

I thought about it. “Yeah, yeah. Tell her that time she showed up for work and Todd was here already he wasn’t here for the all-you-can-eat boneless ribs, if you know what I mean.”

“Jesus Christ,” he rubbed his face with his hands. “If I do this will you leave me alone?”

“Absolutely. Scout’s honor.”

“Fine.”

I followed him out of the bathroom. He spotted Julie straight away. I mean, she’s really hard to miss with that polo shirt… sorry. He pulled her aside and told her what I said. She got pretty upset. He held up his hands and I think I even heard him say something about not shooting the messenger. Then she got all up in Horse-Face’s grill and I don’t know which one slapped first, but, holy shit, before you know it they were tossing Vodka Raspberry Lemonades at each other. It was goddamn bedlam. It was beautiful, beautiful.

“Look at that beautiful chaos, Dickie!”

“You really outdid yourself this time, Larry.”

“You’re goddamn right I did.”

That ghost whisperer guy barely avoided getting hit with a chicken wonton taco, hurriedly dropped a twenty on the counter. He ducked a ninja-star-like quesadilla, stared straight across the bar at me and mouthed, “Asshole”. Then hurried out.

Man, that was a great day!