I wake up, sweaty and tightly wrapped in my blanket, as if I’ve been performing a death roll in my dreams. I live in a single room in a rundown building on the outskirts of Chicago. It’s called “The Northside Manor” but the sign is missing the “N”. Sometimes I call it “The Orthside Manor,” but never in front of people. My apartment is on the third floor, just warm enough to be uncomfortable during the day, a little too cold during the night. I look around my room, it’s a mess, and standing in the middle of it is Gregor.
I don’t believe in ghosts, and I’m not crazy, but my apartment is definitely haunted. I was here first, Gregor moved in a few weeks after I did. Sometimes he is only sound, but when he wants to be seen, he is a leather-clad punk rock looking guy. He shoots me a shit-eating grin, and combs a green mohawk. I ignore him, I hate punk rock.
Lately he’s begun to follow me outside of the apartment. It puts me on edge. People see me yelling at him and they think I’m crazy, which is stupid. I tried to talk to my landlord about doing something about it, but he doesn’t believe me. Apparently, exorcisms aren’t covered in my rental agreement.
I walk right through Gregor’s body and sort through the clothes that he had strewn about the place overnight. He hates when I ignore him, and vanishes in a huff. I can feel him perch on my neck and he whispers into my ear, “Your teeth are shifting.”
My thumbnail instinctively moves to my front teeth. The left tooth is slowly overtaking the right one. My nail clicks against the overhang with a futile effort to fix the deformity.
“You’re not going to fix it like that,” says Gregor. He brandishes a pair of phantom pliers. I wish I hadn’t lost my retainer.
Eventually he’ll get tired of hassling me and go back to flinging my clothes about. I grab my bright blue polo shirt with the Shell gas station logo on it, and pull my black slacks out from under my blanket. I head to the door and Gregor makes a point to fling himself wildly against it. His tantrum is echoing down the hall. I’m sure I’ll get a note from my neighbors about this, but there’s no way to explain these things without sounding crazy so I keep my silence.
I walk the three blocks to the gas station with Gregor creeping behind me. He whispers things while we walk, I try not to notice. “Crack, crack. Step, step on a crack break your mother’s back, step on a crack. Crack.” He’s not funny, but he thinks he is.
When I finally get to the gas station, I relieve Phil from the night shift. Phil is an older guy, I don’t know much about him for sure. He has a younger daughter that hates him, he writes a lot of Xena fan-fiction, and the owner of the gas station, Imran, tells me that he got a Math degree from Harvard. But I think he just says that to justify not firing Phil yet.
I always smile around Phil, I guess because he’s always so depressed. I’ve seen him take meds before. I’ve seen him not take them too. I don’t know which Phil I like more. Gregor loves Phil, he says that they’re kindred spirits. I’m not sure what that means, but I don’t want to ask.
Anyways, I take over the cash register. We count up all the money together and complete our shift changing duties. Gregor whispers numbers in my ear while I count. He doesn’t want to be ignored today.
Phil always stays about twenty minutes after his shift to complain about everything that happened that previous night. I used to ignore Phil when he complained, but a couple weeks ago a guy died in the bathroom on his shift. Since then, I’ve been trying to be better about listening.
The dead guy was a heroin addict. He didn’t overdose or anything. Phil said he just got really high and hit his head, then had his girlfriend stop at the gas station on the way to the hospital so he could take a shit. He passed out on the toilet and died there. Brain aneurysm, or something. Gregor joked that he must have pushed too hard. I think it messed Phil up pretty bad, he cleaned up the mess. The cops told him that he shouldn’t have, because they usually do that kind of thing, but Phil did it anyway. He is kind of OCD like that.As soon as Phil leaves, Eva sneaks over from the coffee shop across the street. She doesn’t like Phil. She says he makes her feel empathetic. Eva hates empathy. She’s a really nice girl, really, but she says she doesn’t like feeling other people’s feelings. I’ll admit she’s a bit odd, but she always brings me free coffee and sits with me during slow hours. She’s very pretty. She has a lazy eye, but you wouldn’t notice unless she told you.
“It’s a screen door kind of day, isn’t it?” says Eva. I nod. She isn’t expecting a reply. Most of our conversations are like that. I guess I’m just not as good at words as she is. I like to listen to her talk, she doesn’t talk much around other people, just me. That makes it valuable.
Gregor floats listlessly about the counter while we talk. When there is a lull in the conversation he makes fun of me. “Man, I can’t believe she’s still talking to you. She must feel really bad for you, dude. It’s probably your teeth.”
My thumbnail clicks against my teeth until Eva seems to notice. I stop abruptly and she smiles, but I can’t tell whether it’s because I stopped or because I was doing it in the first place.
She continues to talk, absentmindedly folding a piece of paper. “Today’s Tuesday. It’s called that because of the god Tyr, from Norse mythology. They say he got his hand bitten off by a giant wolf. That’s why they call the wrist your wolf joint. Have you ever heard someone call a wrist a wolf joint?”
I shake my head, no. Gregor is making obscene gestures from behind Eva. I really don’t know what’s gotten into him today. My face flushes with embarrassment, but Eva doesn’t notice and continues talking.
“Yeah, I don’t think I have either. I wonder where people say things like that.” She stops talking for a moment, and makes a concerned face at her folded paper. “They say you can only fold a piece of paper seven times, but I’m stuck at six.”
Eva has long red hair, and lots of freckles. She likes bees and wants to be a beekeeper, or a lavender farmer. I’m not sure what lavender smells like, but she says it smells good. I think I had lavender scented soap once.
Things start to get busy around noon and Eva has to leave, but she asks me to go to a party at her apartment. I say I’ll go. I’m not a people person, but I like to be around them. People help me tune Gregor out.
The rest of the day goes by pretty fast. There are consistently people in the store with me, and Gregor behaves himself for the most part. He passes time by slinking around, shifting into different animals, and knocking candy off the shelves. I follow along and straighten everything out. I actually don’t mind, it gives me something to do.
A middle aged woman comes in and buys three miniature wine bottles. She seems kind of embarrassed about it. She comes back two hours later with a drunken squint and her blouse unbuttoned so that her cleavage is showing. She flirts with me a bit before leaving with another three miniature wine bottles. I’m not that great at flirting, I don’t think I’m supposed to flirt on the job anyways.
I see the woman again at about five. She has put on a coat, and her make-up is smeared as if she has been crying. She doesn’t look me in the eye this time, and leaves with two miniature wine bottles. I feel empathy toward her, Eva would hate it.
I hear that some people are more likely to be addicts than others, some special molecule in their brain makes it happen. I think the wine lady has that molecule. The heroin guy probably did too, but I bet that one is a different molecule. I really hope I don’t have a molecule.
“I’m your molecule,” hisses Gregor. I ignore him but the thought lingers.
Phil comes in at about twenty past seven. He complains about his daughter, and I listen. I always feel bad for his daughter. She never seems to do anything wrong, but she and Phil don’t get along. I wonder what happened to her mother. I wonder if there’s a depression molecule. There probably is.
I go straight back to the apartment after work, and Gregor begins tearing the place up enthusiastically. He is in his punk rock outfit again, stage diving off my bed into the pile of clothes on my floor. He must know that I’m not staying for long, he seems agitated. He hisses angrily as I change into my only clean pair of jeans and my favorite jacket, which I notice that he had torn in his fit. I yell at him for a while, and he seems to quiet down. I hate yelling at him. It makes me feel crazy. I think my neighbors are scared of me. I hate that too.
I sit on my bed and flip through the phone book. Gregor sits directly in front of me and half-heartedly flips the pages back. I tell him that if he was real I would’ve killed him by now. I always say that. I say it like a joke, but I’ve never meant anything more in my life.
As it turns out, Eva only lives a couple blocks away from me. I leave a little bit late for the party. It is very cold outside, and dark. The inside of my nostrils sting. I ring the doorbell, but nobody opens the door. Maybe they can’t hear me. They are having a party, after all.
I ring the doorbell again. The door seal cracks as someone pushes it open, just enough to send a sliver of light across my sneakers. I walk in to see Eva glide back down the hallway in wool socks, her long red hair accented against a blue floral dress.
I add my shoes to the pile by the door, mostly leather dress shoes and high heels. Noise from the living room echoes against the white stucco walls of the small apartment, and I reluctantly walk towards it. I regret not wearing thicker socks; my feet are already going numb against the cold hardwood floor.
The living room is square. Three couches line the walls, filled with well-dressed young people drinking wine. I don’t know anyone, so I quickly take a seat next to Eva. She doesn’t introduce me to anyone. I’m thankful for that, I guess. Someone hands me a drink. The conversation seems intellectual, and I am too tired to do anything except feel self-conscious about wearing jeans and a torn jacket to what I didn’t know was a formal event.
I quietly survey my surroundings. There are half-deflated balloons taped to the ceiling, each one has a name written on it. “What are those for?” I ask.
Everyone laughs, except for Eva. She smiles and looks down at her feet. A large guy on my left leans toward me, a little too far, and says, “Eva got bored over the summer so she made a balloon for every one of her friends. Now they’re all deflated but she still won’t take them down.”
“Well, they’re all still my friends,” says Eva, “The people, not the balloons.” Everyone laughs again. Someone hands me another drink.
Eva places her warm, wool-clad left foot over my right foot and applies pressure. Someone asks me a question. I can’t think of an answer, so I just smile. Eva doesn’t really ever say anything, but everyone seems to talk directly to her. She occasionally lets out a chirping laugh, or deadpans an absurd thought. Something about bumblebees. Everyone laughs when she speaks. More drinks.
I let myself relax into the hum of conversation, smiling, feeling a little too drunk. I realize how long it’s been since I’ve seen Gregor. He must have gotten lost on the way here. That’s how I know he’s a ghost. If he was a molecule in my head, he probably wouldn’t go away. I can feel the gentle pressure of Eva against my shoulder.
“MOLECULE”
I almost jump out of my seat, spilling my drink on the sleeve of my jacket.
“Who said that?”
The room goes quiet and everyone looks at me.
“Said what?” asks Eva. I let out a forced laugh and try not to look crazy.
“Oh, um, nevermind.” A few people laugh, I act like I’m not still hearing things.
“Molecule. Your molecule.”
Gregor peeks around the corner, wearing a crooked party hat next to his mohawk. “You thought you got rid of me? Maybe you really are crazy.”
The talking starts back up, drowning him out. I thumb my teeth.
Hours pass and all of the guests leave. Eva asks if I would like to stay the night and I say yes. We walk back down the cold hallway to her room. She apologizes for putting her foot over mine and pressing down, but says that she thought it would be comforting. I suppose it was. I sit on her bed and stare at her tapestry covered walls while she takes a shower. Gregor sits next to me. I ask him to please leave me alone. He shrugs and vanishes.
The room smells like some sort of herbal something. Probably lavender. She comes back wearing nothing but a towel. I take a shower next.
Apparently the shower was where Gregor was hiding out. “You just couldn’t live without me could you?” I hope he wasn’t there while Eva was showering.
When I get back to Eva’s room, she is laying on her bed, naked except for her wool-knit socks. Her body is lean, but muscular. Her nudity doesn’t surprise me, she seems more comfortable, and the comfort makes me feel more confident. She asks if I want to have sex, and we do.
After we finish, we both crawl into her bed. Her pillow cases are old t-shirts, damp and smelling clean like her hair. We stay up late talking. She tells me that her lazy eye gives her hallucinations because it doesn’t sync up with her other eye. She says that for the last year, she has thought that she might be dead. She says she feels that she watches other people’s lives, but doesn’t actually live. She says that occasionally her hallucinations cause her to lose track of time and where she is. She says that she hasn’t told anyone this before.
I tell her that I don’t know what to say, she laughs because she doesn’t either. I think that she’s self-conscious now, because I’ve been quiet. I’m trying to decide if she has a molecule. “Do you think I’m crazy?” she asks.
I take a deep breath. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
She looks as me funny.
“I mean, I don’t, but I think I’m being haunted because there’s this ghost, and his name is Gregor, and he lives in my apartment, and he follows me around, but nobody else can see him.”
She just stares, her mouth open a little. “Are you making fun of me?”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look that way. She pulls away from me and a vacuum of cold air fills the void. I pull her close and try to kiss her but she doesn’t kiss back. The comfort is gone.
“I think you should go home.” She says. I try to think of a way to reason with her, but decide she is too good with words.
I quickly dress and leave Eva’s apartment. I shiver, half from the cold, and half from an empty creeping fear. Something doesn’t seem right. I feel like I’m too drunk, the Earth is rolling towards me as I walk. I can hear Gregor laughing behind me. “I can’t believe you blew it!”
I start to run, leaving Gregor behind. I run past my apartment and all the way to the gas station. The drunken lady from earlier is slumped on the sidewalk a few feet from the entrance, weeping and surrounded in vomit. I walk past, and into the gas station. Phil isn’t at the register.
I wander into the back room, and find Phil hunched over on a stool, head in his hands. He looks up at me with watery bloodshot eyes and gets embarrassed, rubbing his face with his hands and clearing his throat.
“What are you doing here? It’s only four.”
I tell him about the woman in front of the store.
“Yeah I know. She tried to buy more booze and I had to kick her out. That’s my problem. This is my shift. Why are you even here? Why don’t you go somewhere else?”
I shrug.
He laughs, stops, knocks over a box of potato chips and collapses back down onto the stool. “That’s your problem. Your generation is too messed up. You can’t care about anyone. Nobody cares about anyone anymore.”
I stand there, not sure of what to do, my thumb clicking against my teeth. His head is in his hands again but I can still tell he’s crying. I look back into the store and see Gregor standing at the register. He waves.
I slowly make my exit from the back room, from behind me Phil mutters, “I could just disappear and no one would notice.”
Gregor thumbs through yesterday’s newspaper. I grab the mop bucket and wheel it outside. The woman is gone, I start mopping up her mess. Maybe her addiction molecules are in there somewhere. Maybe she got lucky and her body finally rejected them onto the sidewalk. I kind of doubt it, mostly looks like macaroni.
Phil walks out to his car. He opens the door to his driver’s seat and waits for me to look at him.
“I’m going home. If you see Imran, tell him I’m not coming back.”
He waits for a moment. I can tell he wants me to say something. I thumb my teeth.
“Hey, Phil?”
He sighs heavy, expectantly. “Yeah?”
“If you, get to choose, to be a ghost or not…”
Phil takes a quick two steps towards me and punches me in the face. Right on the cheekbone. It’s already bleeding on my shirt. I hold my face in shock for a moment before finishing, “…Don’t be a ghost.”
