Another Dead Day in Gainesboro

My name is Pete Jones.

Probably.

It’s not the name I was born with. At least I don’t think it is.

The problem with being dead is that nobody gives you an instruction manual. You just wake up one day—or night, I suppose—and discover that you’re dead, you don’t know why you’re dead, and you can walk through the wall of the Jackson County Courthouse but you can’t walk ten feet past a certain invisible line outside of Gainesboro.

Believe me.

I’ve tried.

A lot.

The first time I hit the invisible wall, I was walking out of town.

I don’t remember why.

Maybe I was looking for answers.

Maybe I was looking for someplace more interesting.

Maybe I was just tired of Gainesboro.

Whatever the reason, I marched toward the edge of town with all the determination a dead man can muster.

Then—

WHAM.

Now, you’re probably wondering how a ghost can hit an invisible wall when he can walk through regular walls.

Excellent question.

I have no idea.

I can walk straight through brick.

I can walk through glass.

I once walked through a refrigerator just to see what was inside.

Mostly leftovers.

But there is some invisible force surrounding Gainesboro that I absolutely cannot cross.

I’ve tested it in every direction.

Same result.

The strange thing is, hitting the wall doesn’t exactly hurt.

I’m dead.

I’m pretty sure pain isn’t part of the deal anymore.

But it feels embarrassing.

Especially when another ghost sees you do it.

Which happened once.

Her name is Margaret.

At least she says it is.

She watched me walk full speed into the barrier, fall backward onto my backside, and sit there staring at nothing.

She didn’t say anything.

She just shook her head and walked away.

Ghosts are surprisingly judgmental.

There are several of us around Gainesboro.

How many?

No idea.

We don’t have meetings.

There’s no Gainesboro Association of the Deceased.

Nobody sends out newsletters.

Ghosts mostly avoid each other.

I think it’s because when you’ve been dead long enough, the last thing you want to do is spend eternity listening to somebody else complain about being dead.

There’s the fisherman, for example.

I don’t know his name.

Nobody does.

He sits near the dock almost every day holding a fishing pole.

That’s it.

That’s his entire afterlife.

He sits.

He fishes.

I have never seen him catch anything.

I have never even seen him get a bite.

I pointed this out once.

He looked at me and said, “Got plenty of time.”

Then he went back to staring at the water.

I didn’t talk to him again for almost three years.

Or maybe it was three months.

Time gets weird when you’re dead.

That’s another problem.

I don’t know how long I’ve been a ghost.

I remember things changing.

I remember when hardly anybody had cell phones.

Then suddenly everybody had cell phones.

Then the phones got smaller.

Then they got bigger again.

For a while everybody walked around saying—

“WAZZZZUUUP!”

Constantly.

Everywhere.

“WAZZZZUUUP!”

People answered telephones with it.

People yelled it across parking lots.

One guy leaned out the window of a pickup truck and screamed it at somebody walking down the sidewalk.

I remember thinking civilization was probably nearing its end.

Unfortunately, it continued.

That’s about as close as I can get to figuring out how long I’ve been dead.

I remember the WAZZZZUUUP era.

So I’ve been dead at least that long.

I think.

My memories before becoming a ghost are mostly gone.

Every once in a while I get flashes.

A smell.

A face.

A song.

Sometimes I’ll see an old car and think, I rode in one of those.

Then the thought disappears before I can grab hold of it.

I don’t remember my real name.

That bothered me for a long time.

Eventually I decided I needed one.

Calling myself “Hey, You” seemed undignified.

One night I walked through somebody’s living room while they were watching a movie. There were a bunch of young people in it, and somebody called one of the guys Pete Jones.

I liked it.

Pete Jones.

Simple.

Easy to remember.

So that became my name.

I’ve been Pete ever since.

Nobody objected.

Being a ghost isn’t nearly as exciting as movies make it look.

For starters, I cannot fly.

This is my biggest complaint.

Every ghost in every movie floats around like gravity is optional.

Not me.

I walk.

I walk everywhere.

Dead for however many years and I still have to use sidewalks.

I can pass through walls, which sounds impressive until you realize how little practical use that actually has.

Walking through a wall gets boring pretty quickly.

Sometimes there’s insulation inside.

Sometimes pipes.

Sometimes bugs.

You really don’t want to know how many bugs live inside walls.

Trust me.

I have seen things.

My normal day starts whenever I feel like starting it.

I don’t sleep.

At least I don’t think I sleep.

Sometimes I just sort of stand somewhere for a while and then realize several hours have passed.

Maybe that’s ghost sleeping.

This morning I became aware of myself standing behind the courthouse.

I had no idea how I got there.

The sun was coming up.

A truck rolled past.

A dog in the passenger seat saw me.

Dogs can see ghosts.

Not all of them, but enough.

This one stared directly at me.

I waved.

He started barking like I was trying to murder his entire family.

The driver told him to shut up.

I stuck my tongue out at the dog.

One of the advantages of being dead is maturity becomes optional.

I headed toward downtown.

I like downtown in the mornings.

People are going places.

Cars are pulling in.

People are carrying coffee.

Everybody looks like they have something important to do.

Meanwhile, I have absolutely nothing to do.

It’s strangely relaxing.

My first goal of the day was to cause an incident.

I try to cause at least one incident every day.

Nothing dangerous.

I’m not a monster.

I’m just bored.

There is a tremendous difference between evil and bored.

Today I picked a man sitting in his parked truck.

He had a cup of coffee sitting in the cup holder.

Perfect.

Moving things is difficult for ghosts.

I can walk through a concrete wall without trying, but moving a Styrofoam cup requires the concentration of a brain surgeon.

I reached toward the cup.

My fingers passed through it.

I tried again.

Nothing.

I concentrated.

The cup trembled.

Yes!

I concentrated harder.

The cup moved approximately half an inch.

The man looked down.

I pushed again.

The cup tipped.

Coffee spilled onto the passenger seat.

The man stared at it.

I waited for screaming.

Cursing.

Fear.

Anything.

He sighed.

“Dang cup.”

That was it.

Dang cup.

Twenty minutes of supernatural effort and my haunting was blamed on poor cup design.

I followed him for another block out of spite.

After that I headed toward the vintage clothing store.

This is one of my regular stops.

Now, before you judge me, I would like to point out that I am a lonely deceased man with no television, no internet access, no ability to drive, and very limited entertainment options.

There’s a changing room in there.

Occasionally an attractive woman uses it.

Occasionally.

Unfortunately, most of the time it’s either somebody trying on clothes who is far outside my preferred age range or a parent dealing with kids.

If I hear a kid in there, I leave immediately.

Even ghosts have standards.

Most days I just wind up wandering around looking at old jackets.

Today I walked through the front door.

Literally.

The little bell above it didn’t ring because I didn’t actually open anything.

A woman behind the counter was sorting clothes.

She couldn’t see me.

Most people can’t.

I walked toward the back.

Voices came from the changing room.

Female voice.

Promising.

I leaned closer.

“I don’t know, Mildred. I think it makes my hips look big.”

Another voice answered.

“You’re eighty-two. Nobody cares.”

I turned around.

Sometimes the universe makes decisions for you.

I spent the next few minutes attempting to knock a hat off a mannequin.

I managed to turn it slightly sideways.

I considered that a victory.

Then a little girl standing near her grandmother looked directly at me.

Kids can see ghosts sometimes too.

She pointed.

“There’s a man.”

Her grandmother looked behind her.

“There’s nobody there.”

“Yes there is.”

“No there isn’t.”

“He’s standing by the funny hat.”

I froze.

The grandmother looked straight through me.

The girl kept staring.

I slowly raised one finger to my lips.

She smiled.

Then she shouted, “HE SAYS BE QUIET!”

I left.

Kids cannot be trusted.

I walked down the sidewalk wondering what to do next.

This is the biggest problem with immortality.

Eventually you run out of errands.

Living people complain about never having enough time.

Try having unlimited time.

You’ll be amazed how quickly you start pushing coffee cups over for entertainment.

I stopped outside a building and watched two men argue about where one of them had parked.

I knew where the truck was.

I considered helping.

Then I remembered they couldn’t hear me.

So I followed them around for ten minutes.

It was surprisingly entertaining.

One of them insisted the truck had been stolen.

The other insisted they had parked on the other side of the building.

The second man was correct.

I respected him.

After lunch—which I don’t eat, obviously—I decided to visit the edge.

Every few months I test the barrier.

I know it’s stupid.

But imagine being locked inside a room and finding a door that never opens.

Eventually you’re going to jiggle the handle again.

Just in case.

I walked toward the invisible boundary.

Cars passed right through it.

Birds flew through it.

People crossed without noticing anything.

I approached slowly.

I extended my hand.

My fingers stopped.

Nothing visible stood in front of me.

I pushed harder.

No movement.

I walked ten feet to the left.

Same thing.

Twenty feet right.

Same thing.

I stepped backward, took a running start, and slammed into it.

Again, I don’t know why.

Ghost science is mostly experimentation.

I bounced backward.

And heard laughter.

Margaret.

Of course.

She was standing about thirty feet away.

“You ever gonna learn?” she asked.

“One day it might work.”

“No.”

“You don’t know that.”

“It hasn’t worked the last hundred times.”

“You’ve been counting?”

“No.”

She disappeared through the side of a nearby building.

I hate Margaret.

Not really.

But a little.

I walked back toward town.

That’s what we ghosts do.

We wander around.

We watch people.

We remember pieces of lives we can no longer reach.

Sometimes I’ll see a family walking together and wonder whether I had one.

A wife.

Kids.

Brothers.

Sisters.

Maybe somebody once missed me.

Maybe somebody still does.

Then the feeling passes.

That’s one thing about being dead.

Sadness doesn’t stick around like it used to.

Neither does happiness.

Everything just sort of floats through you.

Like walls.

By late afternoon, I was bored enough to visit the fisherman.

He was exactly where he always was.

Dock.

Pole.

Water.

Nothing happening.

I stood beside him.

“Catch anything?”

“Nope.”

“You ever catch anything?”

“Once.”

I stared at him.

This was new information.

“When?”

He shrugged.

“Don’t remember.”

“What was it?”

“Fish.”

I waited.

That was apparently the entire story.

“What kind?”

He looked at me.

“The wet kind.”

I nodded.

Fair enough.

We stood silently for a while.

A living fisherman farther down the dock suddenly pulled his line from the water.

Something decent-sized was fighting him.

The ghost fisherman leaned forward.

For the first time in years, I saw genuine excitement on his face.

The living man reeled.

The fish jumped.

The line snapped.

The fish disappeared.

The ghost fisherman leaned back.

“Yep.”

“Yep what?”

“That happens.”

I left him there.

As evening approached, I decided to make one final attempt at haunting.

There’s a house I visit occasionally because the family living there is fun to mess with.

Nothing serious.

A cabinet door opening.

A light flickering.

A noise upstairs.

Classic ghost material.

I walked through the front wall.

The father was on the couch staring at his phone.

The mother was watching television.

A teenage boy was playing some game with headphones on.

Perfect.

I went into the kitchen.

Cabinet.

I concentrated.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing.

Again.

The cabinet opened about two inches.

Yes.

I pushed harder.

It opened completely.

The mother looked toward the kitchen.

I slammed it shut.

Or tried.

It moved about half an inch.

Then stopped.

She got up.

I concentrated with everything I had.

MOVE.

The cabinet trembled.

She walked into the kitchen.

The door moved another inch.

Her eyes widened.

Finally.

This was it.

My moment.

Fear.

Terror.

Proof of the supernatural.

She stared at the cabinet.

I gave it one final push.

The door swung open.

She looked inside.

Then she shouted toward the living room.

“Did you loosen this hinge again?”

Her husband yelled back.

“No!”

“Well, it’s doing that thing again!”

“I’ll fix it tomorrow!”

She closed the cabinet.

I stood there in disbelief.

A hinge?

I’m an eternal spirit trapped between the worlds of the living and dead.

Reduced to faulty hardware.

I walked into the living room.

The teenage boy suddenly looked up.

He stared in my direction.

For a second, I wondered if he could see me.

His eyes narrowed.

I waved.

He took off his headphones.

“Did somebody just walk through here?”

His father never looked up from his phone.

“No.”

“I swear somebody walked by.”

The boy kept looking.

Finally.

Vindication.

I stepped closer.

Then the family dog came charging into the room barking.

At me.

The boy jumped.

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

The dog barked harder.

I ran.

I don’t know why.

The dog couldn’t hurt me.

It could run through me.

But instincts are instincts.

Being dead doesn’t erase everything.

I went straight through the front door and back onto the street.

The dog slammed into the door behind me.

I laughed.

That was probably the most successful haunting I’d had all week.

Night settled over Gainesboro.

Lights came on.

Cars became fewer.

The town got quieter.

That’s my favorite time.

Not because it feels spooky.

It doesn’t.

Not to me.

Darkness doesn’t mean much when you’re already dead.

I just like the quiet.

I walked around for a while.

Past places I had walked past thousands of times.

Past buildings I had walked through hundreds of times.

Past people who couldn’t see me.

Somewhere nearby, Margaret was probably doing whatever Margaret does.

The fisherman was probably still fishing.

There are other ghosts too.

A man who walks the same stretch of road.

A woman who sometimes stands in an upstairs window even though the building has been remodeled twice since I first noticed her.

Another fellow I occasionally see downtown who refuses to acknowledge me at all.

I waved at him once.

He walked through a wall.

Rude.

Maybe we’re all stuck here.

Maybe Gainesboro has some kind of invisible fence for dead people.

Maybe there’s a reason.

Maybe something happened here.

Maybe something happened to me.

I’ve spent years trying to remember.

Nothing.

Eventually you stop worrying about it.

Mostly.

I stopped beneath a streetlight.

A car passed.

Someone inside was laughing.

I watched it disappear down the road.

For a moment I wondered what would happen if the barrier disappeared.

Where would I go?

Cookeville?

Nashville?

Florida?

I’ve heard people talk about Florida.

Maybe I’m better off dead in Gainesboro.

I headed back toward the courthouse.

On the way, I passed the vintage clothing store.

Closed.

Dark.

I briefly considered walking inside.

Then decided against it.

A man has to maintain some dignity.

Even a dead one.

When I reached the courthouse, I spotted Margaret across the street.

She raised a hand.

I raised mine.

That’s about as friendly as ghosts get.

Then she disappeared into a building.

I kept walking.

Eventually I reached the dock.

The fisherman was still there.

Of course.

I sat beside him.

Or at least I went through the motions.

Ghost sitting is strange.

“Catch anything?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Good day?”

“Pretty good.”

I nodded.

“Me too.”

We watched the water.

Tomorrow I might try knocking something off a shelf.

Maybe I’ll flicker some lights.

Maybe I’ll make somebody think they lost their keys.

Maybe an attractive woman will finally use that changing room.

You never know.

That’s the thing about being dead.

There’s always tomorrow.

Unfortunately.

My name is Pete Jones.

Probably.

I’m dead.

Definitely.

And I’m stuck in Gainesboro.

Could be worse.

At least I’m not the fisherman.