Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
S cratch leaned against the wall near the door, watching Flip, who sat on the edge of the bed. It was dark outside; the only light inside the room came from a pair of lanterns that flanked the door. The flickering flames sent shadows dancing on the walls, and although the shadows looked disconcertingly like people, they didn’t frighten Flip. Nor did Scratch, in the same suit as last night but with a different tie and pocket square.
“What are you doing on that little computer of yours?” Scratch asked.
“Writing a novel.”
Scratch whistled. “We got us a writer. Nice. I like the click-clack of typewriters better, though. They’re like music.” He spread his hands and moved his fingers as if typing—or playing a piano—and hummed a tune that Flip didn’t recognize.
“I’m not musical. ”
“Nah, everyone’s got music in them somewhere. You just haven’t found yours, is all.” Scratch tilted his hat at a more rakish angle and winked.
“I don’t need music. I need my luggage.” Flip sighed dramatically and fell back onto the bed. The dream’s ceiling was festooned with dusty spiderwebs, certainly not true in real life, and the shadows were especially lively up there. They looked like human figures moving around, but he couldn’t make out what they were doing.
The mattress dipped slightly as Scratch sat beside him. “Back, oh, ’bout a hundred and fifty years ago, this was a tenement house. A whole family would live in this one room. Hot summer nights, they’d sleep out on the gallery, getting sucked dry by mosquitoes while hoping for a cooling breeze.”
Maybe Flip had read this somewhere about his building, or maybe his subconscious had created the story out of whole cloth. “I’m going to be gone from here before it gets too hot.”
“Where will you go?”
“No fucking idea.” Flip decided it was stupid to spend a dream lying flat, so he sat up and turned to look at Scratch. “Honestly, it’s kinda weird, not knowing what I’m going to do. I used to have plans.”
Looking wistful, Scratch removed his hat and moved it around in his hands. His soft brown curls were cut short and oiled into place. “I did too,” he said softly .
“What were they?” Flip was curious to see what his dreaming mind would come up with.
“Well, they weren’t very specific plans. But… a little more fun. And I was saving money from my job—I was a piano player at a house in Storyville, and sometimes I worked at my cousin’s coffeehouse too, only there I poured liquor. I figured someday soon I’d buy myself a little Creole cottage. Maybe even marry some nice girl and have some kids.”
Interesting. Flip hadn’t realized his subconscious harbored picket-fence hopes. “And did your plans come true?”
Scratch gave him a level look. “Nah, man. But look, it ain’t too late for you. You can?—”
“It’s not too late for you either.”
That brought wry laughter. “It’s hard to start a family when you’re dead.”
Flip blinked at him.
The shadows on the ceiling stopped moving, as if they were listening to the conversation, and the room filled with the cloying scent of flowers. Flip shivered, wrapped his arms around himself, and chewed his lip. There was a truth in this dream, if only he could grasp it.
“I’m a ghost.” Scratch’s voice was matter-of-fact but his eyes held a deep sorrow.
“I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Doesn’t matter whether you believe—we’re here. More of us than living folks. People have been dying in this place for hundreds of years, and not all of us pass on.”
Flip had never had much interest in spiritual or supernatural matters. The books he read and the books he wrote were solidly grounded in reality, which he figured was plenty damned weird enough. It must have been today’s encounter with Miss Amelie that got him thinking about the uncanny.
“But most do pass on?” he asked.
“Sure. Don’t ask me where they go, ’cause I don’t know. Ain’t been there myself.”
In response to Flip’s stare, Scratch snorted, stood, and crossed to the French doors. He pushed one of the curtains aside, swung the door open, and gestured for Flip to join him. After a moment’s hesitation, Flip obeyed, and they stood side by side on the gallery, looking down at the empty street. It was no longer raining, although the pavement was still wet. Faint voices carried from somewhere in the distance.
But then Flip realized that the street wasn’t empty at all. People were on the move, some on foot, some in horse-drawn wagons. A few pushed carts. There were cars as well, including a Model T Ford and a tail-finned Chevy, and somehow they weren’t running over the slower-moving people and vehicles. The people wore a huge variety of clothing, including decorated skins and robes, multilayer outfits that during the wearers’ lives must have felt sweltering, crinoline-supported skirts, and punk regalia.
Aside from the mishmash of time, there was nothing remarkable about the scene. The passersby were simply going about their everyday lives. Or… non-lives, as the case might be.
“I thought being a ghost would be more exciting,” Flip said as he watched a young man in bell-bottom jeans crouch to tie his shoe.
Scratch shrugged. “It can be, sometimes.”
“So how old were you when you died?”
“A week past my thirtieth birthday. Too old to be tomcattin’ around, my mama said.” He was almost breathtakingly handsome when he grinned like that.
“And how did you die?”
“Murdered. Right here in this room.”
Flip glanced into the apartment, as if he might glimpse a gory scene, but there was no sign of a corpse. “You don’t sound very upset about it.”
“I’ve gotten past the grief—it was over a hundred years ago. Anyway, I sort of had it coming. Man caught me in bed with his wife. Which I guess he might have dealt with less violently, except a few nights earlier I’d been in bed with him .” There was that smile again. “In my defense, I didn’t know they were married to each other. If I had, I’d have suggested something cozy for all three of us.”
Great. Bisexual polyamorous ghosts. What the hell was going on in Flip’s brain?
He wandered back inside and sat on the bed. He was tired, which was nonsensical since he was asleep. But he’d never had a dream like this before, one that went on for so long with such depth of detail and logical clarity. One that felt so real.
After a few minutes, Scratch returned and sat beside him. “I miss getting drunk,” Scratch said. “Booze led me to a lot of wrong places, but I sure did enjoy the ride.”
“I’m not much of a drinker.” Flip had seen early in life what alcohol did to his parents, and he very much wanted to avoid the same fate.
“Fair enough.” Scratch sighed. “And I miss… being touched. Being a ghost is a lonely thing.”
Well, he was handsome, and he seemed sad, and this was all imaginary anyhow, so what the hell. Flip settled a hand on Scratch’s knee. They both looked at it, the skin pale against the dark fabric.
“Ah,” said Scratch in a honeyed tone, “so you’re inclined that way. That’s a stroke of luck for me.” He tossed his hat to the floor and twisted to face Flip, and goddamn, he was beautiful.
So Flip kissed him.
Scratch gasped and drew back, eyes wide. “You can kiss me!”
“I, uh… yeah. You didn’t want me to?” Flip wasn’t sure how consent worked with dream figments; maybe he should have asked first.
“No, I want. Nobody’s been able to do that before. Not in any of the dreams I’ve visited. I can flirt, sometimes they flirt back, but….” Hesitantly, he brushed his fingers over Flip’s mouth, sending pleasant shivers down Flip’s spine .
This time Scratch initiated the kiss. He was somehow both tender and ravenous, cradling Flip’s face in his palms and pressing their lips together, easing his tongue in, stealing all of Flip’s oxygen. Scratch tasted of cigarettes and bourbon, a flavor that Flip found unexpectedly delicious. All of Scratch was delicious: his warm lips, his strong hands, the delighted little moans he made. Even his oiled hair felt good between Flip’s fingers.
“Whoo!” said Scratch after they’d separated to catch their breath. “That was something. I don’t remember kissing being that good.”
“Me either.” Maybe kisses never had been that good in real life. Certainly none of them had ever made his head swim the way it did now, or made his cock so achingly hard.
Scratch stared solemnly at him, then licked his own lips. “I could taste you. Mint.”
“Toothpaste.”
“Y’know, most of the time I don’t mind too much being a ghost. I can still listen to music and watch people doing their things. I get gossip from other ghosts, so I know what’s going on around town. I don’t feel sorry for myself. But another person’s touch—that’s one of the things that makes a body feel alive, ain’t it? Kissing, petting, fucking… I liked doing those things a lot ’cause when I did, I felt so strong, so vital. A taste of immortality.” He gave a soft laugh. “But just a taste. And now you’ve given me that again. Thank you.” He lifted one of Flip’s hands and kissed the back of it.
Then he stood, put on his hat, and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.
Flip expected to wake up then, but he didn’t. Instead he lay back on the bed, chasing the lingering flavors on his tongue as he watched the shadows. Outside, hooves clip-clopped on the pavement, although it was too late for the tourist carriages to be out. Occasional voices wafted in, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. If he strained his ears, he could hear a piano playing a tune he didn’t recognize—something old-fashioned, like in a saloon in a Western movie.
He lay there and thought about plans left unfulfilled.
In the morning, his AirTag tracker said his suitcase was in Atlanta, although the airline rep insisted that it was on the way to New Orleans. He hoped the damned thing was having a fun adventure.
He had beignets for breakfast, just like a tourist, but not at Café du Monde because, as usual, the line was ridiculously long. He called a cab and rode to the nearest Target, on the other side of the river, to buy socks, underwear, and T-shirts, along with a few household goods. He was still going to need a couple pairs of jeans and a shirt or two, but those could wait for another excursion. Maybe some thrift store visits would be a good idea if he hoped to stretch his budget.
When he returned to St. Philip Street, Miss Amelie was sitting in her usual spot. She waved at him.
“Morning,” he called. He couldn’t wave because his hands were full of bags.
“Smart move, goin’ shoppin’. You ain’t gonna see your suitcase again soon.”
“Did you see that in the cards?”
“Nah, I just know airlines.” She cackled and then coughed. “But if you go see my friend Marie-Louise over on Mandeville Street, she could make you a gris-gris. A charm. Might help. Couldn’t hurt.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.” He would have rather had a voodoo doll of the airline CEO, but asking for that was probably culturally insensitive.
He wrote about a thousand words and, feeling accomplished, ate a sandwich and decided to take a walk. He couldn’t afford to join a gym and he hated jogging, so walking and going up and down his apartment stairs were going to be his best forms of exercise.
But he’d traveled only a couple of blocks before pausing in front of a mansion.
Bergeron-Catanzaro House
Tours Available on the Hour
A glance at his watch told him it was five minutes before two. Well, why not? He walked through the front door and into a long, wide hallway with ornate rugs and a trio of chandeliers.
A young woman inside the first room on the left was spreading a cloth onto a long folding table. “Oh, hello,” she said brightly. “Are you here for a tour?”
“Yes, please.”
“Hang on just a sec.” She poked at her phone. “Tony’ll be right here. Sorry—I usually do the tours, but I need to finish setting up here. Tomorrow we have the St. Joseph altar.”
He nodded as if he knew what that meant.
Flip returned to the hallway, which could have qualified as a substantial room on its own. At the far end, opposite where he had entered the house, a transom-topped door led outside. Large paintings of sailing ships and craggy mountains hung on the side walls and, below them, a few narrow tables held vases, brochures, and knickknacks. There were several doorways along either side of the hall, some with open doors, others closed.
When a figure stepped out from the farthest room on the right, Flip nearly cried out.
The man looked like Scratch.