This Must Be The Place and Other Stories

Alfie Tells All

My entry to the Ghost profile's "Ghosts of the Past" contest, Nov-Dec 2020.

"There's no good way to do this, so I'm just gonna go ahead and do it. Please, don't scream," a man's voice behind me said. 

I stopped typing and looked around the cramped corner of my one-room studio apartment. Where had that voice come from? Maybe someone had just turned on a TV. The walls in the complex were toothpaste-thin. 

"Turn around. Slowly." 

Oh no. Not outside. 

In here. 

Right behind me.  

I raised my hands into the air and swivelled around, my discount office chair squeaking as I did.  A man with short dark hair stood in front of the packed bookshelves that took up the far wall. 

"I...I don't have a lot of valuables, but there's the...uh..." 

The man shook his head. "No, lady, look. I'm not here to rob you. I'm here on business."

I relaxed, but only a little. At least he wasn't carrying a weapon.  

"Okay," I said.

"You can put your hands down."

"Okay." I dropped my hands into my lap. 

"I was told you're a ghost writer," the man said, his gaze darting around the room from the window, to the dresser, to the kitchenette, to the little pot with African violets by my bed, then back to me, as if he was looking for something. 

There wasn't a lot to gawk at. Aspiring writers in LA didn't live the high life.

"That's right. I do self-"

"-and you're writing the book about The Little Rascals, right? The lady they've hired to do the whatchamacallit, the book that goes with the movie."

"The documentary tie-in, that's right. I'm writing the promo book for100 Years of The Little Rascals. Due out-"  

"Well, then I don't need to tell you who I am." A huge grin spread across his face and he opened his arms out wide.  

Uh oh. Was I supposed to know him?

When I didn't answer, the smile shrunk to a hard line and he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. 

"I think I'm insulted. Should I be insulted?" he asked the ceiling. Then he took a step forward and leaned down so that we were almost eye-to-eye. "Take a look. Take a good, long look and see if you still don't recognise me."  

Like a switch being flipped, I could see straight through him to the quivery, misty bookshelf beyond. I grabbed the edge of my desk, my full coffee mug wobbling dangerously.

Gradually, the man solidified again, this time into almost HD sharpness. 

The freckles, the snub nose, the eyes like shiny black pebbles. I suddenly knew exactly who he was. I'd just seen his boyhood face in photographs and in countless hours of old black and white film footage while doing research. But it was the adult version who was standing in front of me now.

"Carl Switzer," I gasped. 

The grin came back. "Call me Alfie." 

I nodded like a bobbing-head dog in the back of a station wagon. Switzer. Alfie. Alfalfa. The most famous of all the Rascals!

"What...what can I do for you, Mr. Switzer?"

"First, you can quit it with the Mister, I'm Alfie. And second. . ." his voice trailed off. I followed his gaze to the mock up of 100 Years of The Little Rascals.