GHOSTS CAN DANCE

THEY DO, SAYS SUZANNE.

          This story is dedicated to

                   CFarley982

in thanks for his help in my blind navigation of Wattpad intricacies.  I do not know if CFarley982 is a fan of ghost stories, but he is a sensible man and he may be intrigued by this disjointed deconstruction of disbelief:  Can ghosts rage or dance, travel, even overseas?  Ask him, he hangs out at 'Joe's Bar and Grill,' a place where they may well serve more stories than half-pints...

                    __________________

          Who says they can't dance?  Some poor soul hallucinating at the scratch of a mouse and a glare at the side of his glasses?   A writer short of booze and seeking easy sales with teenagers anxious for a bit of frisson?  Come on, why would ghosts free to roam anywhere hang out in dark attics with the bats, or damp cellars with the cockroaches?  True, better talents of yesteryears have given it a shot.  Dickens stepped into the gloom of Britain's drizzle with his ghost of Christmas past, Disney has oh-hum-Casper, but Melville planted his Doctor Long Ghost amidst Pacific Islands crawling with naked savages doing the cannibal fandango.  True, the good doctor wasn't a ghost, but let's not quibble about details.   I say ghosts can dance, I know, I am one and I hope to show you a goodtime.  Let's start with Gail, my niece.  She isn't a ghost, but she qualifies, she is an airhead.

           DUNHAM PRISON'S BLUES

            In a few hours, or a few days, I'll call Emil.  The paperwork is in the pipeline.  The warden just told me he will miss my typing skills, but I shouldn't be here anyhow.   I think he's partial to potheads.  Like Grandma.

            Gail," she'd say, "the peoples in this town, they're drinkers, dopers, or Christians.  Drinkers have nothing but booze on their mind.  I suppose I could put up with a Bible thumper, but I'd much rather have a hippie for a neighbor.  More fun to talk to."

            Here, I haven't had that much choice, Christians are scarce in a minimum-security prison for women and my fellow-criminals are mostly DUI cases doing their ninety days.   Middle-aged broads aching for a drink, strung out on coffee and Coke.   Repeat offenders, sad stories.  Then there are the cashiers and the bank tellers who kept their fingers in the till a little too long, the shoplifters too broke to hire themselves a shrink, and the drug dealers' girlfriends, pretty much all of them a Cosmopolitan cover-girl-wanabe doing her best in orange and green overalls.   Add a granola marijuana farmer, probably turned in by her Christian neighbors.  Wait a few months and you'll see most of them back at the mall on Saturdays, some pushing baby carriages.

            When the guards dumped me here, I had already a letter from my mom, waiting.   The Elvis Presley stamp was the best part, the rest was a set of instructions on how to deal with bulldykes.  She wouldn't believe the crowd in here.  Wimps. Boring wimps. L.A. County Jail this ain't.  That's too bad in a way, I could have used a little excitement over the long nights while listening to the sobbing and the yakking.  Did you know that there's nothing of any worth in this world, but cutesy children, wicked husbands, and super-stud boyfriends? Lordy lordy, can't these women ever shut up?   It's allright, in a few hours, or a few days, I'll be out of here.   The warden needs bunk space for the next crop of scofflaws sentenced at the Superior Court session.  Lock 'em up and take 'em away from the temptations of our rural counties.   They can have my set of overalls, I have paid my debt to society.

           Just before I got busted at the dinner, the gas man stopped at the booth to ask if my grandmother was using much cat shit for fuel these days.   I laughed.  It had been years, but he was still blown away by one of Grandma's lesser known tricks, her way of getting rid of the offerings from a pair of kittens not yet ready to throw outside.  Easier than carrying the stuff out to a snowbound compost pile.