The Observer

I met the observer on the night of Tommy’s party, a brisk evening in October when it was already feeling haunted around the neighborhood. There was an orange tinge in the air. It smelled like hay and pumpkin spice as we passed by the local Starbucks. A person draped in a sheet passed us and saluted me with a swish of his index finger, like he knew me. I’m sure I didn’t know him. 

Tommy and his wife Anna live three blocks away, an easy walk, but we almost didn’t go because of our highly anticipated trip to Colorado the next morning. Sarah had a lot to pack and she’s very particular and organized when it comes to trips where there’s a tall onus to have a blast. If we don’t have everything figured out to the dime, we have to turn back, even if it means sacrificing hours of the trip. But somehow we had the suitcases jammed and zipped by 5 p.m., free from other obligations because it was Friday, and she said, “Let’s go to the party. I’m tired of worrying about tomorrow.” She always wants to go on our vacations, but the night before the journey, usually recounts aloud in our bed the thousand different things that might go wrong. Flat tire. Speeding tickets. Inclement weather. Head-on collision with a rogue semi-truck. Abduction at the hands of weed-smoking vagabonds usually makes it on the list, too. I always tried to resist her fears by suggesting we go for a walk around the park, or watch a TV show on the couch, etcetera, but tonight she beat me to it. To Tommy’s we’d go. 

I hadn’t told her about my own bouts of anxiety. The problem was it had nothing to do with the trip. It had nothing to do with anything, so far as I could tell. It’s hard to explain. It’s maybe something they’d call a “spiritual crisis” back in the day, but that might be a bit too dramatic. Today people call it low self-esteem, bad vibes, or mental dysfunction. Maybe what I’m going through has elements of all that. I haven’t been able to really put my finger on it, and every time Sarah has noticed me brooding over the dishes in the kitchen with the water still running, I told her I had just gone blank. Zoned out. Nothing going on upstairs. If I could articulate it point blank, though, it would be this: college was over, marriage was underway. Voila. Good job secured, plus benefits. Middle-aged parents within comfortable driving distance. And yet, I don’t know—it was like a specter in the sky was looking down to suggest that this was it. There wasn’t much beyond this nice little package, except repetitions of the same old patterns. You better get used to it. And then one day, you’ll die.

Tommy was my roommate in college who, like me, never fled the metro after graduation. Like me, he was a business major at OU. Like me, he married the girl he met at OU—Anna, Sarah’s longtime sorority sister—and like me, tended to sometimes wonder if we’d already topped the apex of our lives. We don’t talk about stuff like that, but every little party he throws, you can sort of feel it in the air. Tommy would be drinking beer and laughing across the room at some comment, but then turn slightly away with a subtle flash in his eyes that said: “Let me out of here.” 

We walked the three blocks to the house arm in arm. I carried the wine. Sarah carried a card game in her jacket pocket next to her phone. 

“How long is the drive tomorrow again?” 

“Ten hours. Not too bad. Why?” 

“I just need to get a Spotify playlist ready. Do you have any road trip music?” 

“Are you kidding? Babe, do you even know me? I am the king of the road trip jams.” 

“The fact that you said ‘jams’ strongly suggests otherwise.” 

“Bob Dylan. I’m in a Bob Dylan kind of mood.” 

“Who?” 

“Don’t even…”

The sunset shone down the street, painting everything orange. College kids walked down the sidewalks and older couples came in and out of different shops, peering through glass windows at rings and dressed up mannequins. I saw a window with a Christmas tree in it. 

Tommy and Anna were both night owls in college, so they’d prod us to stay until at least midnight. But no, Colorado called. We’d chosen the cutest Airbnb outside of a little mountain town called Basalt, an A-frame with a deck and a loft above the kitchen. A river flowed right next to it so close you could hear it flow at night. We felt like we needed this week in the mountains all to ourselves. Our honeymoon got cut short when Sarah’s dad had a stroke two days in and we had to fly back from Costa Rica. He ended up being okay, thank God, but we just didn’t know for a while whether he was going to make it. That was in January. Since then, I’ve worked at the office, she’s taught special needs kids, and the ten months have swept by without giving us a warning. 

We reached their little green one-story house a block removed from the street and rapped on the door. 

Frankenstein’s monster answered. Sarah yelped and I flinched, but immediately remembered with a pang of remorse that we’d been summoned to a Halloween party. With all the packing for Colorado, we up and forgot that little detail.  

“Hey, what’s the deal, buddy?” said Tommy. He had the bone thing fake sticking through his throat, the black eye shadow, and a wig on. I would have mistaken him for another person if not for his wide grin of perfect, white teeth. 

“Where’s your costume?” 

“Oh God.” Sarah was laughing now, doubled over. “You scared me.” 

“Sorry man, totally forgot that little detail. Plus, you know, not really a costume guy. Haha.” 

“Forgot? Bro, it’s October 29th! You didn’t think it would be spooky-themed?”  

We followed him into the foyer. I had to clear away some artificial cobwebs as we kicked off our shoes by the door. Anna met us at the helm of the living room dressed as…a vampire? I wasn’t quite sure with the blood streaks at the corners of her mouth, but the cape and collar made me think she was a vampire. Our crop of frat and sorority friends sat on the L-shaped couch in the living room while others poured drinks in the kitchen, all dressed as cats or pirates or barbies or Taylor Swifts, all replicates of their college selves. I recognized everybody after a round of hellos and handshakes and side hugs, all except for one. Someone wrapped in a sheet with holes cut for the eyes, a ghost, perched on the corner of the couch. He wore a pair of worn-out Hey Dudes and jeans underneath the sheet but didn’t move a muscle. 

Tommy clapped me on the shoulder. 

“Gonna get the game on! We’ll watch Hereditary later.” I took a couple steps forward holding my Coors light and bent my head to get a better look at the eye-holes of the ghost. There were eyes behind them, all right—little brown beads that stared right at me, unblinking but still believably human. I straightened up. Maybe it was some kind of joke. The ghost would disclaim his identity by and by and we would all get a big laugh out of it. But I’ll be honest. It was a little creepy because no one else seemed to notice he was there at all. 

Tommy put on the football game and sat on the couch next to Anna, leaving Sarah and me the little loveseat against the far wall, which faced our friendly Mr. Ghost.

“Who’s playing?” 

“It’s Bedlam, babe. OU and Oklahoma State.” 

OU was up by ten and driving against OSU’s thirty-yard line. I sipped the beer and put my arm around Sarah’s shoulder and tried to pay attention to the game as everyone else settled into their spots. I couldn’t help glancing back over at the ghost-dressed fellow on the arm of L-shaped couch, though. He, or she, or “it” still stared. The eyes were dark brown and opened wide. He seemed to have settled his hands on his lap. The feet were uncrossed and hanging just a couple inches above the floor. I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing or not. I turned back to the game. Interception. A pick six and OSU was right back in it. 

“Stupid!” 

“What just happened?” 

“The quarterback threw it away.” 

“Oh.” Sarah doesn’t care about football—a crime when it comes to Bedlam. But admittedly I wasn’t feeling so into the action either. I usually am. I got up to get chips, bean dip, and some orange-frosted sugar cookies, and sat back down. The sheet hadn’t moved during my exodus. Through my peripheral vision, I could tell he was still looking right at me. 

“Babe,” I whispered. 

“Yeah.” 

“That guy on the couch keeps…staring. Getting kind of weirded out.” 

“Huh?” 

“The guy on the couch, damn it!” 

“You don’t have to cuss at me.” 

“I’m sorry. But you see him. He’s sitting right there.” 

“Hon, what are you—are you talking about George? He’s dressed as a strawberry shortcake.” 

The buffest dude in the room was indeed donned as a piece of dessert, but that was the least of my concerns. 

“No, not George.” 

“Okay…a ghost? Babe, I don’t see a ghost.” 

“What do you mean you don’t see the ghost? He’s sitting right there, dressed in a sheet.” I was still whispering. Sarah leaned past me, scrunching her brows, and then stared quizzically at me as if it was high time I saw a neurologist. 

The room erupted in cheers and I spilled my beer. OU recovered a fumble and ran it for thirty-five yards to make it into the red zone. The guy under the sheet, though, didn’t lift a finger of excitement. 

At the next commercial break, I set down the beer and slipped into the restroom down the hall. There was a little blurred window in there, and the orange blob of the sun shone through its lower half, indicating dusk. As I sat on the can, tomorrow’s trip no longer felt like a mental priority. I pulled out my phone and checked my email for no reason and then scrolled through Twitter and YouTube, finally watching a #fail compilation video for the next three minutes. I probably would have stayed way longer than that if someone hadn’t tried to open the bathroom door. “I’ll be right out!” 

“That you, Jason?” 

“Yup.” It was George, the buff croissant. 

“What’re you doin’ in there?” 

I washed my hands and looked into the mirror, which was so clean that I wondered if Tommy, a notorious domestic slob, actually ever used it. George rattled the door. My forehead suddenly popped with sweat. I put my hand on my chest. My eyes are brown but looked kind of red around the edges right then. I rubbed them and clapped my cheeks as if trying to wake up from a dream. 

“You good, bro,” he asked once I came out. 

“Hey man, yeah, doin’ all right.” 

“I gotta take a major dump.” 

“Go crazy.” 

I paused for a moment in the hallway and looked at the pictures on the wall as I wiped my hands on my jeans. There were lots of wedding photos from the summer, including a few shots of the groomsmen. There I was, standing next to Tommy in a gray suit with a fresh haircut, a white smile, and every reason in the world to be happy. Sarah was in the bridal party. Her radiance came on me strongly there in the hallway, made me miss her. That was weird—missing someone who’s sitting twenty feet away and who I’m going to sleep next to tonight.. We are all so young. The gray suits and the bright blue dresses of the bridesmaids told me that we were all at the beginning of our lives, that there was so much still to look forward to, and to see, and to do, and to be. Maybe, though, all of us in these pictures were pining for something that had already passed, partying in Tommy’s living room as if this was just another semester to endure. College came and went in a flash. A portion of the crew made mad dashes to the east coast for big jobs. Others stammered after graduation and landed back with their parents, shamefaced. But a good few of us were there at Tommy’s that night, making it just fine, comfortable, rich, and full. 

I wiped my forehead again and returned to the living room. The ghost was still there, slumped against the wall, looking like a dead body wrapped in medical clothes. It could have been a sheet-covered scarecrow for all I knew. I snagged Tommy by the Fritos in the kitchen. “Who is that?” 

“Who’s who?” 

“Don’t mess with me, bro. The ghost on the couch.” 

Tommy chomped on some chips and thrust his hand in for more as he surveilled. “You mean Candace? She’s dressed as a sexy nurse. Not quite the same thing. She ghosts every guy she dates, though.” 

“Seriously, dude, don’t do that to me. You see him. C’mon now.” 

He hesitated, blinking at me with those doleful Frankenstein eyes. “Are you okay?” he said. 

“Is this a big joke that everybody else is in on? Did y’all start a group chat and orchestrate all this?” 

“Bro, what are you talking about? I legitimately don’t understand what you’re saying to me right now.” 

At a loss, I grabbed another beer from the carton and sat next to Sarah again, pale-faced. The ghost sat up now, still without blinking, and leaned forward with its eyes remaining trained on mine. 

“God, Sarah,” I whispered through my teeth. 

“Babe, what is wrong with you?” 

“I swear on my own grave, if you’re lying to me…if this is one of Tommy’s pranks…” 

“Lying about what?” 

I stood up and took a step or two forward so I stood in line with this unwelcome observer, poised to strike. The girls on the couch peered up at me and Tommy just stared from the kitchen. “Who are you?” I said. I got nothing in reply except for those blank, dark eyes, wide, though aimed fixedly at me all the same. “I don’t like it when people stare at me. Is that you, John? I thought I saw you in the group chat. You’re all playing a joke on me, yeah?” 

“Jason, hey, buddy, who’re you talkin’ to?” 

“Shut up, George.” 

“Damn, okay.” 

“I’m not kidding.” 

Without asking again, I shoved the ghost, and hard. It was a sudden move, and it was the first time I’d ever stoked a conflict. Sure, I’d been riled up before, and had wanted to hit someone once. More than hit him—but that’s another story. 

I shoved him, all right, but the gesture passed straight through the apparition as if he was made of mist, so I fell headfirst into the couch. My feet flew into the air and I caught myself on Claire Sully’s lap. Claire screamed and spilled some wine on my head while the others on the couch rolled away in instinctual defense. My shoes were Hey Dudes shoes and my pants were light denim jeans, and when I had toppled to the floor, OU had scored a field goal and there was no ghost on the arm of the couch. George got it all on camera. 

Just about everybody in the room, except for Sarah, started laughing as I toppled to the floor. I was known to do random stuff like that from time to time. Once, I face-planted on the carpet and did twenty pushups at a frat party in the basement. Another time I climbed into Tommy’s Christmas party through the window and threw hot chocolate packets at people. My first impulse now, though, was to stand up and scout out the ghost. I did. I peered over the edge of the couch. There was nothing there. I rushed into the kitchen and ducked underneath the table. Then I went back into the hallway and even opened the bedroom door until Tommy and Sarah grabbed me from behind. “Hey, hey, hey, brother, take it easy.” 

“Babe, what’s wrong?” 

“I saw him! You saw him, too! He was right there in front of you!” I tried to pull away from Tommy but caught a glance of Sarah’s eyes. She looked at me like she didn’t know who I was. I calmed down, tried to catch my breath and stabilize the stammer in my chest. “Sarah,” I whispered. “Can we go home?” 

We left a few minutes later after I crawled back into the bathroom to straighten up under the sorry excuse that I wasn’t feeling very well and hadn’t been for the last week or so. 

“Are you still going to Colorado?” Anna asked us on the way out. 

Neither one of us answered as we walked back into the orange air, trick or treaters emerging by the dozens from their hovels, including more than a few flailing little ghosts carrying plastic jack o’ lanterns. 

***

“I’ve been thinking a lot, Sarah,” I said the next morning. Sarah took the first leg of the drive and was frowning towards the Kansas border, sipping her coffee and staying quiet. “I’ve been thinking about how empty all those parties feel.” 

“That’s really interesting, hon.” I could feel her eyes on me even though I was laying my forehead against the glove compartment. “But right now, I’m just kind of worried you have schizophrenia.” 

“That’s not it.” 

“Well then I don’t know what to say.” 

“Can you pull over?” 

“What?” 

“Pull over?” 

“We’re on the interstate.” 

“Please.” 

She slowed down and veered to a stop on the shoulder of the highway, leaning her head back against the seat and closing her eyes after snapping the Corolla into park. I sat up and took a deep breath. “They feel empty because it always feels like someone’s watching. Waiting to spoil the whole thing.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Don’t you feel it, too?” 

She threw her hands up next to her head, fingers clenched. “You’re so cryptic! No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

I almost kept trying to explain what I was feeling, that inarticulable sense that everything was already over even though life had just started, but she was looking at me with her big brown eyes, brimming with tears, with all the early morning cars and trucks speeding by towards a ghost-pale horizon, and I just couldn’t say anything else. Maybe I didn’t see anything last night. Maybe it was a weird trick of the brain, the sum total of the angst I’d been feeling taking on a ghostly form. Maybe it was Death, dressed up like one of the boys. 

“Just don’t look away for a while,” I said. “Will you do that for me?” 

She started crying, then—the big teardrops kind of crying, splotches of saltwater dabbling on her cardigan. I held her hand. We looked at each other for a long time until I forgot about the ghost on the couch. I forgot about everything that was going to end someday.

“Don’t ever leave.” 

“I won’t.” 

We switched spots. Did I see the observer at the Kansas border, raising a dead hand to wave goodbye? It didn’t matter. I put the car into gear, turned on Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and we drove to the age-old mountains.