A (Not) Ghost Story

The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts—ITALO CALVINO

In between graduating from High School and graduating from college I worked the graveyard shift. I did this for two and a half years—eleven o’clock at night to seven o’clock in the morning, five days a week. Though I frequently griped about it, I actually sought this schedule out. The reason being is: at night there is simply nothing going on and you don’t have to deal with people.

Working an overnight shift as a security guard in the lonely streets of downtown Kansas City was both horrific and wondrous. The big, vacant office buildings and rusty industrial complexes seemed ripped from Hollywood horror flicks—and yet the closest thing I have to a ghost story from this period of my life happened one morning after I’d gotten off work.

When the sun came up, I’d go home, say goodbye to my family as they left for work—eat a quick bite and then go to bed until later that afternoon. Then I’d get up and go back to work or I’d go to night school, depending on what day of the week it was.

My one “ghost story” occurred after a particularly rousing after-shift meal of microwaveable mini-cheese burgers (with spicy Chipotle mayo). Upon finishing my greasy breakfast, I decided to take a leak and hit the sack. Instead of pissing downstairs in the basement, where my bedroom/bathroom was, I decided to stagger upstairs and use the houses “common” bathroom shared by all.

Hanging over the toilet was a little wooden shelf/cabinet-thingy. It was here that my sisters kept their girly make-up and a variety of gaudy plastic hair clasps. Also, sitting on one of the shelves was a candle in a frosted glass jar and one of those special “long barrel” lighters. As I stood there peeing into the bowl, the lower shelf was about at eye level.

Now, after being up all night one does get a little “punch drunk,” and sometimes a person in this loopy condition will do or say things that even they themselves cannot fully explain. I didn’t set out to commit a mysterious act, or cause any trouble. It wasn’t a mischievous scheme that I’d concocted that night while I stared blankly up at the square metal roof of the security booth that I lived in at the edge of the empty parking lot that I guarded. There was no malice or forethought involved—all I did, I did because I was trying not to fall asleep while taking a piss.

What I did: I reached out with my free hand and picked up the lighter. I flicked the flame on a few times, and then I lit the candle. Without a second thought I zipped up and headed downstairs where my bed laying waiting.



Nine hours later I woke up and found my house embroiled in controversy.

My mother and my father were having a heated exchange. Though I was still groggy, I was able to make out that one of my sisters had done something bad. At least, that’s what my Mom thought.

“I don’t know which one of them did it,” she told my Dad—who was leaning against the counter with a look that told me he was patiently waiting for her to finish ranting.

“But one of those girls did it, and I’m going to figure it out…”

When she was done, my father calmly told her who he suspected had perpetrated the mysterious ill-deed: “I think it was the ghost.”

Sitting down at the dinner table, I prepared myself for the fireworks. My parents were on opposite ends when it came to our house’s “ghost.” Every since we’d moved, my Dad had harbored suspicion that whenever anything went missing it was “taken” by a mischievous spiritual entity that craved familial discord. All sorts of things went missing—shoes, keys, important documents, and things that one rarely used on a daily basis but would need at odd/unexpected moments. Of course, the reason we could never find these things was twofold:

1. My sisters and I were not big on putting things away exactly as we’d found them.

And

2. My father, a compulsive-cleaner, would often scoop things up and put them away without really heeding what went where.

My mother, a realist not prone to the same flights of fancy as my father, wasn’t convinced that our house was haunted. As I sat there, listening to them bicker, I became curious as to what had happened. My sister Amber showed up and loudly proclaimed her innocence in a way that suggested she’d done so many, many times that day.

“Ugh, I didn’t DO IT!”

“Do what?” I asked impishly, glad for once that I wasn’t the one that had caused any trouble.

“Well,” my mother said with a shrug, “maybe it was Lindsey?”

Lindsey? This was too good!

Lindsey, my younger sister, never did anything that got my parents so riled up (to this day, I’ve never heard her swear—even though I’ve offered her a LITERAL cash bribe to say “ass” or “shit”). I was literally bursting to find out what she’d done, but I decided to play it cool. Sometimes when my Mom or Dad noticed how excited I was when one of my sisters got in trouble, they would shift some of their anger my way.

I wasn’t keen on catching any of this heat—so I waited. Finally, when I could stand it no longer, I once again asked what had happened.

“When I got home this afternoon I found a candle burning in the hallway bathroom,” my mother told me.

“I’m telling you,” my Dad said. “It was the ghost…”

My heart skipped a beat. Wait a minute…candle? Hadn’t I lit the candle this morning, when I was taking a leak? At first, I nearly confessed to the crime, and then I thought about it. Leaving an open flame burning while I slept downstairs wasn’t just dangerous, it was downright stupid. Admitting that I’d lit a candle, and then passed out from exhaustion was like saying “I’m a total idiot.”

Besides, for some reason I wasn’t even being considered a suspect—which meant that all I had to do was keep my mouth shut and I’d get away scot-free! On top of that, the sheer amount of vitriol being bandied about by all parties—both the accused and the accusers—was downright frightening. More so than any spook or specter could ever hope to be!

I decided to admit nothing.

When asked if I knew anything about the mysterious candle, and rather than lie, I gave a non-committal shrug. My baby sister came inside from playing for the night and whined that she too was innocent.

My mother later confided in me that she thought it was her anyway, and that she was angry that Lindsey had “fibbed.” Hearing this made my insides churn and provided me with an interesting mix of guilt and indigestion, yet I kept my silence. When I’d awoke that evening I entered a strange, new world where my parents household was split, divided like in the Civil War—between those who thought a ghost had magically lit a candle…and those who were pretty sure it was Lindsey.

Or maybe Amber…Amber might had done it, too.

I waited a for a few years to pass, and for the controversy to subside before confessing that I had, in fact, left the candle burning. The first person I told was Amber, my closest confidant. I expected her to laugh or shrug it off like it was no big deal.

Instead she twisted her face into a mask of angered-shock.

“Nu-uh! It was you?” she shrieked. “I’m telling Mom…”

My confession did more than get my sisters off the hook, however—it also killed my father’s greatest proof that a ghost really was pestering our household. Luckily for me, the statute of limitations on impersonating the undead is only six months...