to the side of the bed. When he stood up, he asked, “Can I put some clothes on first?”
The Ghost looked at Carl’s well defined body and smiled. His head went up and
down a few times, and then it stopped moving when his eyes reached Carl’s private parts.
He pressed his fingertips to his lips again and said, “There’s no time for that, Mr. Smite.
Don’t be shy.” He put his hands on his hips and said, “Now come over here and put your
arm through mine so we can get on with this.”
Carl stepped around the bed and crossed to where he was standing. The Ghost had
long red fingernails and he was wearing gold lame high-heeled sandals to show off his
red toenails. “I only had to touch the hands of the other ghosts,” Carl said. “I didn’t have
to walk arm in arm with them.”
The Ghost stomped his foot twice. “Well, as you can see, I’m not other ghosts, Mr.
Smite. Now take my arm and we’ll be off.”
Carl clenched his teeth and looped his arm through the Ghost’s arm. A moment
later, they were downstairs in front of Carl’s antiques shop. A fine mist of snow was
falling and the streets and sidewalks were already white. Carl’s eyes went back and forth;
nothing looked familiar anymore. All the shops around him were different, and the
passing cars were much smaller than any cars he’d ever seen. Carl pointed to the other
side of the street, “Where’s the tearoom? Why are all the shops different now?”
“This is what the street will look like, Mr. Smite, thirty years from now,” the
Ghost said. “The young woman who owned the tea room across the street is long out of business and gone. Everything is different now.” Then the Ghost pointed up to a sign
over the door of Carl’s shop.
Carl followed his thin arm. The sign over the door now read, “Able Anderson,
LTD.” It was larger than Carl’s old sign, and the gold letters were more brilliant. Carl
clenched his fists and shouted, “How did Able get
my
business?”
The Ghost titled his head slightly, then gave Carl one of his famous Quentin Crisp
half smiles. “He got it the same way you got the business, Mr. Smite. You left it to him
the same way that Mr. Keller left it to you: on your deathbed.”
Carl gaped at the sign and rubbed his jaw. “Well, I’m not going inside. If Able
now owns my business, I don’t want to see it.”
The Ghost stepped aside and smiled. “Nonsense, Mr. Smite. We’ve come a long
way to see this. And you might like what you see. You never know.” Then he motioned
toward the door with his left arm. “Now, Mr. Smite, if you would be so kind as to follow
me inside, we can get this over with faster.”
Suddenly, Carl was curious to see what Able had done to his business. All the
other shops on the street were decorated for Christmas with pine garland, red bows, and
Christmas trees. The new clothing store where the tearoom used to be had a large white
Christmas tree right in the front window. But Carl’s shop only had a small gangly wreath
hanging on the door. It looked as if Carl had hung it there himself. The front window
display had an antique bench that had been covered with a real leopard skin. Carl stared
at the animal skin and frowned. He knew Able hated animal skins, and he never would
have anticipated seeing one in a business owned by Able. So he extended his right arm
and said, “After you, Mr. Crisp.” The Ghost nodded and smiled. He stared at Carl’s crotch, rolled his eyes, and said,
“You’re a gentleman, Mr. Smite.” Then he crossed right through the door without
opening it.
When Carl stepped through the thick glass door, he lifted his head and looked
around the shop. There was nothing inside the shop that even hinted it was Christmastime.
And though the merchandise was all different, the general layout of the shop was exactly
the way Carl and Marty Keller had kept it. The walls were still dark red, and the floors
were still covered with dark brown carpet. On the far left wall, Able had a similar
elaborate display of oil paintings in heavy gold frames, just like Carl’s. On the far right
wall, Marty Keller’s old glass display cases were still filled with antique porcelain. Even
the desk where Carl had done all his business transactions was still in the back near the
storage room. Of course it was a different desk, but it was in the same place and tilted
slightly on the same angle.
Carl’s eyes darted back and forth. “I didn’t expect this,” he said.
The Ghost raised his chin. “You haven’t seen anything yet, Mr. Smite.”
A moment later, Able Anderson walked out of the storage room. He looked
almost the same, but there were lines on his face and streaks of silver in his hair. He was
wearing a black leather sport jacket, a white turtleneck sweater, and olive green slacks.
There was a long, woolen scarf around his neck just like Carl used to wear. He was
shuffling through a stack of papers on the desk. His eyebrows were down and his lips
were pressed together. When he couldn’t find what he was looking for, he closed his eyes,
clenched his fists, and shouted, “Leonard, get in here this minute, damn it! I can’t find the
papers for that antique quilt I just bought at that estate sale. It was the best bargain I’ve ever seen. I only paid that stupid widow fifty dollars for a quilt that can be sold to a
collector for more than fifty thousand. But I need the papers. Otherwise I’ll have to pay
another appraiser.”
Carl smiled at the Ghost. “Interesting,” he said. “Able took advantage of a poor
helpless widow? I didn’t think the poor bastard had it in him. I’d always thought he was
worthless as a businessman.”
The Ghost squared his shoulders and gazed into Carl’s eyes. “Ah well, Mr. Smite,
you taught young Able everything he knows. You taught him well, too.”
When an attractive young man with reddish-blond hair and tight jeans appeared
in the storage room doorway, Carl stopped smiling. The man was wearing a heavy coat
and gloves without fingertips. Evidently, Able didn’t turn up the heat either. He slowly
crossed to Able’s desk, leaned forward, and said, “Did you want something, Mr.
Anderson? I was polishing that pie crust table with the bird cage and I couldn’t hear you
clearly.”
Able lifted a thick book from the desk and slammed it down hard. The young man
jumped back and Able shouted, “I can’t find the fucking papers for that quilt. Do you
know where they are?”
The young man stepped back and crossed to a file cabinet behind the desk. He
opened the middle drawer, shuffled through a few files, and pulled out a few papers. He
handed them to Able and said, “Here they are, Mr. Anderson. You told me to file them in
a safe place, the other day.”
Able gave Leonard a nasty look and ripped the papers from his hands. He
skimmed over the writing and handed them back to him. “I was worried. Now put it back where you found it, Leonard.” Then he turned his back on Leonard and sat down behind
his desk.
After Leonard re-filed the papers, he folded his hands together and asked, “Do
you think I could get off early tonight, Mr. Anderson? It’s Christmas Eve and I promised
my grandmother I’d be home for dinner. She’s in the final stages of cancer and the doctor
says she only has a few weeks left to live. I wanted to be there with her for her last
Christmas Eve.”
Able didn’t look up at him. He stared at a stack of papers on his desk and said,
“Your grandmother will live until you get home, Leonard. Just because everyone else
gets so obsessed with Christmas doesn’t mean you have to. Christmas is just a waste of
time. You’ll get over it. I did. I learned that from my own boss, the former owner of this
shop, Mr. Carl Smite. He was a mean, horrid man, with little feeling for anything but
money, but he taught me the facts of life. And I’m glad I learned them at a young age.”
Able turned around and looked Leonard in the eye. “I’ve worked late every Christmas
Eve for the last thirty years, Leonard.”
Leonard frowned and stared down at his shoes. “But she’s dying, Mr. Anderson.
Just this once and I’ll make up the hours later this week. I promise I will. I’ll even come
in tomorrow, on Christmas Day, and work all afternoon it you like.”
Able shook his head no. “You’ll remain here and your grandmother will get over
it. You’ll thank me for this one day, Leonard. Now go back to the storage room and finish
that pie crust table. I want that table ready to be displayed in the front window by the
time we close tonight at eleven o’clock.”
Carl eyes bugged. “Did he say eleven o’clock?” The Ghost nodded. “Able believes he should keep the shop open even longer on
Christmas Eve, in case anyone is out shopping for a last minute gift. You see, one year
you sold a twenty-thousand-dollar chair on Christmas morning, and after that you started
keeping the shop open later and later each year. Selling the chair was just a rare fluke.
Nothing like that ever happened again. But you wanted to remain open just in case it
did.”
Carl sighed. “But the guy’s grandmother is dying. Surely Able can let him leave
early for that.”
“You wouldn’t let Able leave early to serve Christmas Eve dinner at the homeless
shelter, Mr. Smite,” the Ghost said.
“Come on,” Carl said, folding his arms across his chest, “that’s different. I
probably would have let him go if his grandmother had been dying.” He shook his fist at
Able and said, “If I were Leonard, I’d just quit and I’d leave. I’d tell old Able to go fuck
himself and get another job. Leonard has options. He can make his own choices in life.”
The Ghost lowered his voice and said, “Don’t be stupid, Mr. Smite. Leonard has a
full-time job here doing what he loves to do most. He’s an expert craftsman, and he’s
gifted at restoration and refinishing antiques. There aren’t many full-time jobs out there
for someone like Leonard. He’s a young man from a poor background with no education.
So he doesn’t have many choices or, as you were stupid enough to state, ‘options.’ How
smug of you. Unless he decides to go to work as a dishwasher in a restaurant, he’s willing
to put up with Able to keep his job. And Able knows this. Just like you knew it with Able,
Mr. Smite.” Carl turned to the window and stretched out his arm. “But the snow is piling up in
the street. There’s no one out there and no one’s coming in here to buy anything. Let the
poor guy go home. It only stands to reason.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you, Mr. Smite?” the Ghost said. “But Able’s only
concern today is making money. You taught him very well, indeed.”
Carl folded his arms across his chest and crossed to Able’s desk. When he looked
down, he saw Able was now counting change. He was packing nickels into small paper
wrappers, two at a time. He pressed his palm to his chest. He turned back to the Ghost
and asked, “How did I die?”
The Ghost laughed. “How do you think you died, Mr. Smite?” He crossed toward
him and lowered his voice. “You made eye contact on the street with one of those rough
trade guys you always loved so much in the bathhouses. He knew what you wanted. The
guy followed you to a dark alley, beat you to a bloody pulp, robbed your money, and left
you to die. By the time they found you, it was too late. You lingered in brutal, conscious
pain for a few days, which was enough time for you to leave everything you owned to
Able. You begged him to leave your name on the storefront just as Marty Keller had
asked you to leave his name.”
Carl took a quick breath and sighed. “And the sneaky son-of-a-bitch changed the
sign anyway and put his name up there.”
“He did it the day after you died,” the Ghost said. “He knew you were dying and
he had the sign made up ahead of time. But you can’t blame him, Mr. Smite. You did the
same thing to Mr. Keller.” Carl rubbed his jaw and smiled. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?” Then he looked down
again at Able counting the nickels. His stomach tightened and he felt a chill pass through
his entire body. “Can we leave now? I’ve seen enough. You’ve made your point.”
“But don’t you want to see how Able spends Christmas Eve?” the Ghost asked.
“He lives upstairs now, just the way you did. He’s even sleeping in your bed now, Mr.
Smite.”
Carl reached for the Ghost’s arm. He closed his eyes and said, “I already know
how he’s going to spend Christmas Eve. He’ll be completely alone.”
The Ghost shrugged his padded shoulders. “Very well, then, Mr. Smite.”
Chapter Twelve
