It’s all well and good to use ghosts as metaphors, they do not mind one way or the other, and it has become such a hackneyed practice that my doing it or not doing it has an insignificant impact on the balance either way. Dallow, however, moves through life on a plane which is downright rife with specters and shadows, each entity an echo of a person from his past—all women, mind you—who has slid down and out of the mortal coil as she toed in and then back out of his aura. There are some natural assumptions about ghosts which are, on the face of it, reasonable enough, though each is somewhat debunked by Dallow’s ghosts. I take it he would rather at least a few of these precepts be more strictly held to, but they are, after all, ghosts, and have little time for Dallow’s, mine, or your strictures or presuppositions.
First, ghosts haunt, it is simply what they do. Haunting implies perseverance in the face of some sort of resistance, whether active or passive. That is, goths, seers, and the acutely lonely aside, one generally does not seek to be haunted. Even when Shane MacGowan suggests he wants to be haunted by the ghost, he is most assuredly speaking metaphorically. His ghost is an old flame who is likely very much alive, and even if not, it would not be haunting, in the common parlance, after which he sought. So there ought to be a cold breath on one’s neck, or doors inexplicably slamming, floorboards creaking, perhaps household objects floating, whispered, disembodied voices, and so forth. Dallows ghosts truly seem not to. Haunt, that is. They simply are, as if their ghostliness were reason enough to exist. They neither seem to require anything of him in particular, nor are they even actively observing him in any noticeable manner, though I say “noticeable” as, in this age especially, it is nearly impossible to know if someone is observing you in some way. Best, and with this, I am certain Dallow would concur, to assume that they are observing you and be proven wrong later. Paranoia has, like so many other concepts, been ostensibly mooted, and perhaps that’s fine. People tended to either over- or under-respect paranoiacs in previous ages.
On a related though not identical note, ghosts really do generally seem to have a grander purpose of some variety, which, once fulfilled, often results in some change of status. When they don’t, they are generally tied to one location or one individual or family. Admittedly, these are Dallow’s ghosts, but any tying seems as much from his end as theirs, and, as mentioned above, the ghosts don’t generally want anything from him. There are, of course, exceptions. He may have lent them money, or vice versa. He may have taken too many of their drugs, or the other way around. He may have started a Balkan orchestra with them which still has pending engagements, or he may have made some absurd anniversary plan with them (“I shall see you again five years from today. Wear sensible footwear!”), or he and the ghost may be in some loose way legally indentured to one another. But still, and acknowledging the sheer range of permutations through which Dallow may have chanced across his ghosts to begin with, no depiction of his, nor any of my firsthand interactions with them, suggests that there is anything to be accomplished which would by default change much of anything for the ghosts. So, if we are keeping score: no haunting, no discernible purpose.
Next, what are ghosts, exactly? Our immediate conception is a phenomenally sensible one for a number of reasons. Ghosts are any individual manifestation of someone who is dead, generally not bound by strict laws of matter. This is a sensible idea because while death links us to all other life, our sense of self-conception and attachment to life is such that it is very difficult to comprehend. But that makes sense too, as it would be far stranger if our living, conscious selves could imagine a state where all imagination, and every other positive, negative, or neutral sensation we either have experienced or can imagine has ceased. We have a fairly acute sense of the actual breakdown of our organic matter, as well as the relatively swift irreversibility thereof, and so ghosts act as one of few substitutes for the journey lasting no more than a century, and likely a bit or more less. Dallow’s ghosts are not dead, or at least do not let on if they are. They look like you and me, and appear to breathe, blink, and swallow as do we. I realize this is the moment when you feel you must levy an accusation that you already know I find quite distasteful. You have to suggest that these ghosts of Dallow’s, clad in t-shirts featuring kittens and spaceships or dresses which are the femme equivalent of Dallow’s own natty wardrobe, are ghostly in metaphor alone. But this is simply untrue. The worst I could be accused of is misusing the term ghost, so different do these entities seem to be, but it is Dallow’s own word, and I trust him, for reasons I will enter into now.
The ghosts do have abilities outside of the typical range of living human beings. I mentioned their breathing, but I have reason to believe that it may simply be for effect that their chests rise and fall, and Dallow clued me into it, suggesting that I place my phone under one of the ghost’s noses during a conversation we had in front of a stylish café in Baltimore. He said Poe had collapsed in the gutter directly in front of the place, and been unconscious with his eyes open for minutes before anyone bothered rousing him. When his companions noticed him missing, they rushed out of the café, or whatever it was before it was this café, which does not appear more than thirty years old, and placed a mirror beneath his nostrils for a matter of thirty seconds, or however long one holds mirrors under nostrils without checking for a pulse, one of many holes in this story. Dallow is actually quite a tight storyteller, natural questions are anticipated in the course of the narrative, and there is always a moral of some variety, dubious though it may be. You are never left with that deadliest of questions on your tongue: why did he just tell me that? Regardless, in this instance, Poe of course leaps to his feet after the companions walk away, and they are so frustrated that one of them knocks him back over, this time requiring hospitalization and whatever manner of care a concussed alcoholic may have received in that era. I have every possible reason to doubt the veracity of this tale, but as a pretense, it was splendid, and the ghost was in a humor not to demur from some good-natured fun, and so I held the reflective phone screen up for what had to have been two full minutes, as Dallow would not allow me to miss the full effect of the demonstration. Indeed, the phone did not fog in the least, and the ghost dutifully pursed her smirking lips through the entire ordeal. After this feat, I began observing more carefully for the inevitable intervals during which the ghosts would cease the respiratory charade, perhaps coinciding when they felt comfortable enough in company. So they weren’t alive, these ghosts, or at least not according to the usual signs. I desperately hoped he would ask me to hold one of their wrists for a spell, but the offer was never extended and I found it untoward to request.
There is, of course, the self-contradictory notion of someone being “dead to me,” but that, too, was inaccurate in this instance. If anyone was “dead to” anyone else, it was surely Dallow to the ghosts and not the other way around.
These ghosts had other powers, and did, in fact, haunt Dallow, in a secondary manner. These ghosts crowded his memory, seeming to appear upon suggestion and receding just as they achieved full corporeality. I only got to witness it once, and it was a beautiful and, should the two ever be truly separable, tragic event. I will close my musings on Dallow’s spectral community here as I worry his ghosts threaten to slip through my fingers, and that I will lose my nerve and any certainty I possess as to their existence. But this I saw.
Dallow had talked about this ghost a bit, which was a consistent element of the summoning thereof. But it was less about her and more about what he did that she liked, and I hate to use the word “bait,” so let’s leave it at “enticement.” Dallow had certain enticements which could draw the ghosts, and though most had to do with wit and a small arsenal of dance steps, in this instance it was his undeniable hand at the button box. You have of course heard the “Mazurka for Two Dead Men,” a ditty which commemorates the future ghosts of those recently fallen. But in the hands of a fine adaptor, it easily becomes the grandiose, tongue-in-cheek “Mazurka for One Live Women,” and it was just this piece which was designed and destined to bring about the sought after ghost. Dallow would put on a fresh vest, his coat of armor, if you like, and ascend to the darkened balcony, working through the increasingly, though quite gradually, ornamented riffs into the form of a kind of Iberian reel. I could not observe all corners of the room at once, but we were the only two in it, at least at first. She appeared along the back wall, and I cursed under my breath that I had not been more scientific about the matter, thus being able to say with some certainty that the ghost had not been there all along, or else slunk out from some obscured side entrance or room. But I was by this point so piqued that I trust my own distinct sense of there being two of us, then three. Or, better, two and a half, so indistinct was this ghost, seated along the wall in an out-of-time dress and flowing locks. She did not smile as she looked at me, but continued to as she got up and walked to the opposite corner, where Dallow edged towards the staircase, presumably to meet her. He raised his eyebrows at me in a manner appropriate for he, and perhaps Groucho Marx, alone. I felt certain he would refer to her as “doll,” and though I do not love that endearment it very much fit the entire…aesthetic…of the situation here. But he would not have that opportunity, or at least not immediately, as he continued to play his way down the stairs, and she continued her trajectory through the front door of the place. I say through, though I am deeply, deeply concerned about slipping into cliché, but you realize from having read the previous paragraphs that this vignette hardly needs any further supernatural elements. If you prefer to imagine this ghost was simply extremely adept at opening, slipping through, and reclosing doors, neither I nor the story will be offended (though Dallow may take some umbrage at your incredulity). If instead you buy the notion that this ghost had not attained full corporeality and passed through the door with the gentlest thud in closing, that would better match my apprehension of the situation. Dallow and I exchanged glances, and he swept the mazurka into high gear, as if playing faster might hasten his route to follow. It was clear to me, standing alone at one of the most serene and romantic vantages—the darkened, empty stage—that my man had engaged in such pursuits before, and that time was of the essence. I soaked in the last reverberations of the minor seventh chord, Dallow having laid the keyboard by the door, waited what I thought to be an appropriate duration, and followed them out. I was greeted by a beautiful scene, Dallow dipping the ghost and kissing her and being kissed by her, holding her and appearing to be held back, and I was greeted by a tragic scene, the ghost dematerializing before my shocked and his weary eyes, he releasing her and she releasing him, wisping around the corner and away, returning to their community, receding back into Dallow’s imagination and a story for the next day.
