Ghost Dog

I miss the ghosts in my neighborhood. Robert Dillard Ghost used to sit on the stoop 2 doors down always trying to get me to tell him what cold feels like. I couldn’t tell if he was messing with me by showing off of his ability to give me the shivers or if he really wanted to know because it had been so long since he had to wear a large coat outdoors. He can’t tell time anymore because his face goes in and out like a bad fluorescent light and those times that he is present he thinks he’s always been there. He gets excited when I get takeout, forgetting what dinner tastes like.
I’m glad I’m not you, Robert. You’re like a torpid spirit who’s memory is reflected off of five mirrors before you get to see what it was you thought you saw. I’m gonna get you a dog. A live one. Besides, I don’t know where to find a good dead one, except the veterinarian’s dumpster. Dogs see ghosts and real people. If a dog can trust a ghost long enough, the ghost can get inside the dog and see, albeit colorblind. You can tell a ghost dog right away. If you look in its eyes and feel despised then you’ve found a ghost dog.
Robert became a ghost dog and then all the other ghosts on my street became keen on the idea and now they’re gone, trotting along highways, sitting around White Castles and Luby’s Cafeterias, pretending to eat peanut butter.

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