“Yeah, we have a ghost,” I told the woman at the bar. It was mid-day and she was the only one at the bar. Except for two guys at a booth, she was the only patron in the place.
“So, the bar is haunted?” she asked a second time.
“I mean, sure, yeah, I guess that means we’re a ‘haunted bar,’ but it’s just one ghost. I feel like you need to have a minimum number of ghosts to be ‘haunted.’ Like, at least two, right? One ghost is just… a ghost. More than two and you’re totally haunted.”
“Seems reasonable,” she said. “So, what’s it do?”
Suddenly “All Star” by Smash Mouth started playing from the jukebox. I put my hand over my face.
“Jesus Christ, who mentioned the ghost?!” Kiku, the other bartender, yelled from the far end of the bar where she was cutting limes.
“That’s me!” the woman at the bar said raising her hand. “How do you know that’s not just someone messing with you? Someone could have an abnormal affinity for the song.”
Kiku walked around the bar to the jukebox. She held up the plug-end of the cable leading to the jukebox as Steve Harwell sang about how all that glitters is gold and only shooting stars break the mold. “It’s unplugged.” She said.
“Yeah, we even removed all Smash Mouth songs from the jukebox,” I added.
The woman stared agog at the plug.
“We have to wait for the fucking song to finish,” Kiku explained.
“Yeah, that’s part of the reason we know it’s Eddie. He did like to mess with us by continually putting that song on the jukebox,” I explained.
“Well… holy shit,” she said. “A regular? Died here?”
“Regular, yes. Died here? No. Was hit by a car a few years ago. Hit and run.”
“Wow. That sucks.”
“Yeah, it was sad. But, for whatever reason, he’s still here.
“Huh,” She said. Then “I… I’ll take another G&T. What else does he do?”
“Moves all the goddamn bottles around,” Kiku said coming back behind the bar.
“She’s a little… particular about the bottle arrangement,” I gestured to the glass-shelves filled with varying bottles as I diligently set the Hendricks back in the gin section.
“Yeah, I’m OCD about that shit,” Kiku corrected. “I keep an organized bar. No thanks to Eddie.”
“You know he’s just going to play ‘All Star’ again, right?” I said to Kiku.
“Let him. This is a battle of wills.”
I rolled my eyes and passed the gin and tonic to the woman at the bar.
“Is that it?” she said taking an appreciative sip. “Plays ‘All Star’?”
“Nah,” I said. “Turns sinks on in the bathroom… he’ll slide glasses down the bar – not off the bar. He doesn’t break anything. Just, you know, slide it casually from one end to the other. Oh, he’ll put in orders for drinks during busy times – always the same, Jack and Coke, and have it sent to some random table.”
“How…?” she asked.
“Ordering computer,” I pointed down. There’s a terminal by the bussing station that the waitresses use. And, apparently Eddie does, too.
“Sounds like a fun ghost,” She smiled.
“He keeps things interesting,” I said.
“He moves the bottles knowing it pisses me off. He’s an asshole ghost!” Kiku added.
“Some of us find him more interesting than others,” I laughed. “One thing he doesn’t do, though, is take alcohol.”
“Oh? That’s a thing?”
“Yeah, bottles would go missing – not a lot, a bottle of mezcal here, a Scotch there. But enough that it screwed with our inventories. We were blaming it on Eddie. We figured he’d escalated from moving the bottles to piss of Kiku–”
“Asshole,” Kiku interjected.
“Escalated from moving bottles to, you know, taking them. Or at least disappearing them.”
“I suppose if he can summon Smash Mouth from an unplugged jukebox then anything is possible, right?” She said.
“Exactly,” I said. “Yeah, recently Eddy wanted to be clear that it wasn’t him.”
“How’d he do that?”
I grabbed the remote control from under the bar, turned on the TV on the far wall and changed the station to the feed from our CC TV system. Filling the big screen was a black and white image of a man going into the back room, looking at various bottles and walking out with a bottle of Del Maguey Mezcal Pechuga. The clip looped, showing the man coming in, looking at the various bottles and again walking out with the bottle of Mezcal. Superimposed over the black and white video was blinking red text proclaiming, “SEE? NOT ME!”
“Who’s that guy?”
“The owner’s husband. And the first one who blamed Eddie for the disappearing liquor.”
“Ha!” she laughed.
“Right?” I said. “You have to be careful when alleging spirit-on-spirit crime.”
Kiku threw a lime wedge at me.