Ghosted (4 page)

“No, it was no trouble….” Mason didn’t know how they’d got to this point. “I’m sorry.”

They stood looking at each other.

“Okay then …,” said the man.

“I’ve got to get back to my cart,” said Mason.

They nodded once and went their separate ways.

When Mason arrived home, Chaz was sitting on his couch drinking a beer.

“How you doing, daisy?” His mood had improved substantially.

“Just because you have a key doesn’t mean you can let yourself in. Only in case of emergency.” Mason tossed his jacket onto a chair. “It’s in the tenant’s act and everything.”

“It
was
an emergency.” Chaz gave the bottle a lift. “Insufferable thirst. And anyway, you haven’t paid any rent yet.”

Mason pulled out a wad of cash wrapped in an elastic band. He tossed it onto the couch.

“This before or after Fishy?”

“I don’t trust that guy.”

“That’s okay. He doesn’t trust you either.”

“But my name’s not Fishy.”

“No, Mr. Dubious, it ain’t. But you still gotta pay him.” He picked up the wad of cash. “Tell you what, let’s play for it.”

Chaz was a dealer who didn’t do drugs, a gangster who disliked violence, and except for Mason’s beer, he barely ever drank—but he liked the cards almost as much as Mason did. “Look at it as a bundle,” he said. “Like the cable companies offer you: rent, drugs, poker debts, all in one easy payment plan.” He grinned. “C’mon, dogboy. Don’t you want your spinach back?”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Mason. But the cards were already in his hands.

It was a warm day for the middle of April. Mason was strung out and pissed off after his bad night at cards. He’d lost it all and was starting from scratch with another fucking hotdog.

He could feel himself sweating, and his back ached in that way that seemed to come right from his heart and liver. He’d read somewhere that those were the only two organs with the ability to
regenerate completely—each cell reborn, if you could just find a way to make it happen. It gave him more hope than he probably deserved. He cracked open a bottle of water, his eyes closing as he glugged down half of it.

“I’ve got a lot of fears,” said a voice.

Mason opened his eyes.

“I am scared of heights,” said the large man with the sunglasses. “I’m scared of tunnels. Of public places, intimacy, spiders, germs. I’m scared of sunsets, dreadlocks, short people, odd numbers, the colour orange….”

“The colour orange?” said Mason.

“Actually, any colour that’s not primary disturbs me. But orange the most. I don’t like things mixing together. That’s why I threw out your hotdog.”

“Oh.”

“I had to tell you that.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“I’m sorry if this is awkward for you,” said the man, staring intently. “It’s difficult for me, too. I have a profound fear of speaking to strangers.”

“Then, well … Why are you?”

“It’s important for me to face my fears.”

And now Mason could see how much effort this was taking—how the man’s huge body appeared locked in place. “And also you seem like a nice guy.”

Mason, unaccustomed to people telling him such things, took a long drink of water. Then cleared his throat. “Why did you look?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“The hotdog. Before you took a bite … you looked in the bun. Is that what did it for you?”

The man nodded. “It’s a tricky balance. I like the way hotdogs taste.”

“Why don’t you give it another shot?”

Again the man nodded, more to himself than to Mason. “I could come back in the afternoon.”

“Sure.”

“When there aren’t any crowds. Okay then.” He held out his hand, steady and practised. “My name is Warren.”

A wave of nausea flooded Mason. He looked down at the counter until it passed. Warren’s arm was still outstretched.

“I’m sorry,” said Mason, taking off his plastic glove. “I used to have a horse by that name.” He shook Warren’s hand. “I’m Mason … He was a good horse.”

They looked at each other.

“Well, it’s good to meet you, Mason. I’ll come back after lunch.”

Then he walked away—Mason’s dead horse hanging in the air.

By his second week as the Dogfather, Mason felt he was getting a handle on things. He was burning fewer hotdogs, not drinking as much and doing less drugs. He’d looked into getting a gym membership and had even worked on the novel a bit.

The hotdog job wasn’t that bad—kind of like being an open-air, lunchtime bartender. People were in a fairly good mood and kind of dopey since the snow had melted, like they were still stretching after hibernation. They’d comment on the Dogfather thing, make a lame joke—often quite accurate
(You guys laundering money through this thing?)
—then hang around and whine good-naturedly about
their lives. Mason listened and sometimes offered advice. He watched the girls walk by and waited for Warren, who remained his most interesting customer.

They’d figured out a system so that Warren could eat his hotdog. Mason kept a bag of romaine lettuce in the cooler. He applied a line of ketchup to the dog, laid out four spears of onion, wrapped it all in lettuce then put it on the counter. All that was left for Warren was the mustard and the pickles. The lettuce leaf held the juices in. Then, on a whim, Warren added two slices of yellow banana pepper. He confessed to an unsettled feeling. But this time it was more butterflies than nausea. He took a bite.

“I was thinking about the colour orange,” said Mason, as Warren continued to eat. “You’re right—I don’t much like it either. It’s shrill, isn’t it? Caution signs, religious cults, convicts … and those guys—what are they called? Those guys who are always marching….”

Warren wiped his mouth. “The Orangemen?”

“Right.” Mason laughed. “The Orange Men.”

Warren nodded as he ate. He seemed appreciative of Mason’s willingness to turn someone’s irrational fear into rational theory. The hotdog finished, he crumpled up his napkin and dropped it into the garbage. “So Mason—you’re a writer. Where can I read your work?”

“I dunno …,” said Mason. It was an embarrassing thing to talk about, especially while serving hotdogs. “There’s probably some magazine stuff online…. I’m working on a novel.”

“What’s it about?”

He hated this question, mostly because he didn’t have a good answer. “A bunch of stuff….”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know: horses … memory … different kinds of freedom. It’s kind of complicated. And it’s about a room that moves.”

“Oh.”

“But actually I’m not sure about that now….”

“Oh?”

“And there’s all this stuff that happened in the past—there’s like three different time frames, and one of them is still unfolding. It’s kind of an adventure story. It’s hard to explain….”

Warren nodded. “What’s your last name again?”

Mason told him. Warren wrote it down. Then, as if in return for this information, he said, “I’ve fallen in love.”

“Really?”

Warren nodded. They looked at each other. Mason felt he had to say something more.

“What’s her name?” It was a lame question and he was thankful when Warren, instead of answering, asked for a bag of chips.

“What kind?” said Mason.

“Dill pickle.”

He handed them over.

“Thanks for the hotdog,” said Warren, then he headed back to work.

It was mid-afternoon on a blustery day. Fishy Berlin was watching him from the other side of the street, his fishy arm around a lamppost.

Warren walked up to the window. The wind blew his hair sideways.

“I Googled you,” he said. “Got some stories you wrote off the Internet … I hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh sure, that’s okay.”

“They were good.”

“Thanks … You want a hotdog?”

“Please.”

Mason put one on the grill.

“Why aren’t you writing any more?”

“What do you mean?”

“All those stories were old. And you’re—well, you’re selling hotdogs.”

“I told you,” said Mason. “I’m working on a novel.”

“How long have you been doing that?”

“I dunno. Five years.”

“How much have you been paid?”

“That’s not how it works. It’s not like you can just … What?”

“Here’s the thing.” Warren took a breath. “I think you should put the novel aside, just for now, and write something else.”

“Thanks for the advice.” He placed a bun on the upper rack.

“It’s not advice. It’s an offer: I want you to write something for me.”

Mason turned the wiener on the grill.

“I want you to write me a love letter.”

“Sorry, Warren, but I don’t really feel that way about you. Maybe with time …”

Warren stammered out a laugh. “No—for me to give to someone.”

Mason wrapped the hotdog in lettuce.

“I’ll pay you five thousand dollars.”

Mason turned the heat down on the grill. “You’re kidding.”

“It won’t be an easy sell,” said Warren. “I’m a strange person”

Mason put the hotdog on the counter. Warren pulled an envelope from his pocket and lined it up along the edge of the napkin.

“That’s a one-thousand-dollar advance, plus five dollars for the hotdog, and I’d like a Sprite too, please…. So actually you owe me a dollar.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s how it works. You’ll get the rest on receipt of an acceptable manuscript. You should know this stuff, Mason.” He reached for the mustard.

Mason put the Sprite on the counter, then opened the envelope. “This is crazy….”

Warren took off his sunglasses. He looked at Mason. His eyes were large, rimmed with pale, white skin. “Please listen to me,” he said. “This is between you and me, and it is not a joke. I need you to take it seriously. Are you able to do that?”

Mason nodded. At that moment a dark-skinned man in an orange sweater appeared. He asked for a veggie dog. Warren picked up his hotdog and Sprite, and the wind picked up his napkin.

“Wait!” said Mason, startling the vegetarian. “I … I still owe you a dollar.”

“Next time,” called Warren over his shoulder. “I trust you, buddy.”

People rarely told Mason they trusted him. It was the way to his heart.

Over the next four days Mason learned more about Warren than he ever wanted to know about anyone. The story of Warren’s life had a strange ebb and flow. What at first glance appeared a string of disturbing, seemingly unrelated events, took on a jagged sort of sense when seen through Warren’s fears—crippling hesitation followed by leaps of faith, sometimes panicked, sometimes brave.

He was born in 1957, he said, just outside of Boston—an unsure boy in a self-conscious suburb. He grew fast and large and always felt out of place.

In junior high he tried out for the basketball team with the express purpose of overcoming his worsening fears—of crowds, of kids, of echoing spaces. He was already tall, and that carried him through tryouts. He got rid of the ball as fast as possible and had the makings of a good guard. But then, in the first quarter of the first game, in that big bright gym, he freaked right out. Somebody passed him the ball, and he just held on to it, frozen and shaking, like Superman with a lump of orange kryptonite. He fell to the floor and the game was stopped.

After that he was a pariah. They came up with new names for him all the time: Weirdo Warren, Frankenballs. He fought back once. Two young men beat him to the ground and then everyone dog-piled on. A girl in stilettos (he was sure she didn’t mean to do it) stomped clumsily onto his groin. The left testicle burst—his freakishness complete.