Chapter 9 - Hungry Ghosts?

In the days following Gus’ visit, Brian had made a lot of progress on his many projects.

He’d been working on his book every single morning without fail. He was proud of how diligent he’d been, sticking to his working schedule and hacking through the sticky spots of his plot. The novel seemed to be progressing nicely. He had several chapters almost finalized and was extremely happy with how the story was shaping up. If he kept this up, he thought he might be ready to shop it around to some publishers early in the new year.

In the afternoons, Brian would work on his house. He’d managed to pretty much finish the demolition work on the main floor and was already starting to work on the framing and other tasks needed to rebuild what he’d just torn apart. The entire place was a mess, of course, but that was to be expected when you were doing this kind of project. When he needed someplace less torn up to go, he could always retreat to his bedroom or the kitchen, the two rooms he was mostly going to leave alone until all the rest was pretty much finished. But he really thought the place was going to be nice when it was all done. It was a shame, actually, that he was planning on reselling the place.

In the evenings, Brian played. At least a couple nights a week, he would head into Pittsburgh to hang out with his friends, visit his favorite bars and clubs, or sometimes, when the need hit, to make a trip to the baths. The rest of the week he made due with Grinder hookups, cybersex or, if all else failed, his good right hand and a porn flick.

However, because he always had to drive so far to get home, he wasn’t drinking nearly as much these days when he did go out. And, without any of the job stress or drama of being constantly surrounded by his Liberty Avenue family, he didn’t seem to need to drink at home either. He felt like he was sort of living in this idyllic other universe where he was insulated from a lot of the stressors of his previous life. Altogether, it was a good, workable, routine and he found himself more rested, less worn out feeling and fitter than he’d ever been before in his life.

Brian had also fallen into a bit of a routine with his phantom housemate. For the most part, he had gotten used to the occasional item disappearing and just didn’t sweat it anymore. Most of the time the missing things would eventually turn up again and the things that disappeared for good were usually things he either didn’t really need or could easily replace. He’d also gotten used to the odd noises that echoed through the old house after he’d gone to bed at night. The footsteps in the downstairs hall, the opening and closing of unseen doors and the rattling of pipes taking water to nowhere had become almost comforting. He liked feeling like he wasn't really alone out here in the middle of nowhere in this big, rambling house. Other than that, his spectral resident was pretty easy to live with. He didn’t make messes or take up Brian’s time. All in all, Brian was happy with the strange arrangement and with his quiet country life.

The afternoon he’d finished installing all the new windows on the main floor - with the help of Sue Ann’s oldest grandson, Ian - he was just waving goodbye to his helper when another car turned into the driveway. He shouldn’t have been surprised to see Michael showing up out of the blue, intent on checking out the progress Brian had made. Brian was so proud of the way everything was coming along that he’d been bragging on his handywork quite a bit whenever he saw the gang. They were all clamoring for him to let them come see it. Mikey obviously couldn’t wait for an official invitation.

“Hey, Brian,” Michael gushed as he jumped out of the beat up old Chevy Nova that he and Debbie shared. "Wow. It already looks better. I can't believe you got all that crap moved out of the garage already. I figured you'd be working on it until sometime next year.”

“No way did I want to live with that mess for another six months,” Brian chided his old friend, stepping over to greet the man with their usual hug and smooch.

“Well, knowing you and your OCD tendencies, that probably wouldn't work out well," Michael teased his friend. "So are you going to give me the updated tour or what? I'm dying to see this fabulous mansion that you're putting together.”

“Of course. The Fifty-Cent tour starts right over here," Brian gestured towards the front door.

Brian escorted his guest inside, and began to elaborate on the changes seen within. He pointed out all the walls he’d removed, explained how the open floor plan would be arranged, showed him the kitchen island he was just starting to build and explained why he was framing in a much larger guest bath on the main floor. The tour finished up with Brian showing off all the brand new windows he'd just installed and how they increased the amount of natural light into the newly formed Greatroom. Michael was rightfully impressed.

“Shit Brian, I didn't know you were so good with tools. This place looks amazing.”

“Now, now, Mikey, that's not true. I know you've watched me wielding my most powerful tool on a regular basis,” Brian winked at his buddy and grabbed his crotch to emphasize his joke.

“Ha ha. I meant power tools - you know, the kind we usually rely on the lesbians to operate,” Michael shot back, not to be outdone in the joking department.

Brian offered up a laugh for his friend and then went on to show Michael his next task, which was to install the wall of ‘hidden’ storage cabinets along one wall of the Greatroom. He needed to get that part done before the electrician, who was going to install all new light fixtures throughout the house, could do her thing. Brian couldn't complete the drywalling and other finish work until the wiring was done, and before that happened, he had to finish the framing and put in the cabinets, and etc, etc, etc. It was quite the undertaking, and sounded complicated to Michael, but Brian seemed to be enjoying himself.

When Brian was all bragged out and Michael’s tour came to an end, the guest surprised Brian with a take out lunch he'd brought from Brian's favorite Thai place back in town.The Jade Garden was probably the one thing Brian missed more than anything else since he'd moved out of the city, so he was thrilled with Michael's surprise. They brought everything up from the car, laid out the feast on Brian's kitchen table and sat down to eat the ambrosial offerings. Michael had brought at least three times what the two of them could eat in one sitting, which caused Brian, to complain about how bad this was going to ruin his diet. Of course he still ate like a pig, not sure when he'd get his favorite take out again.

Michael laughed at his old friend. “You know, Brian, I don't think you've ever looked better in your life - not that you ever looked bad, of course. But I really think this country living agrees with you. I guess I was wrong about this move. I was sure you'd hate every minute of it, once the novelty wore off. But you seem really happy and you look great too. Probably because of all the time you spend doing manual labor instead of sitting behind a desk all day every day arguing with your old clients.”

“Thanks, Mikey. I am enjoying myself a lot more these days. I mean, I do miss some things.” Brian held up the Jade Garden take out carton full of Pad Thai he was eating out of as an example. “And it was a bit of an adjustment. But now that I'm here and mostly settled in, it's not too bad.” Brian picked up his beer and held it out to toast with Michael. “Here's to good, clean, country living!” They clinked their bottles together.

“Besides, now that we've got Grindr, I can live anywhere and the tricks just come to me. You'd be amazed at the number of queers living out here in the wilds of West Virginia, Mikey. Seriously. You should have seen the guy I had over here last night. He must have been six-five, hung like a fucking horse, and man could he suck . . .”

“Shit, Brian. Leave it to you to find every gay guy in a twenty mile radius, even out here in the middle of Bible-Belt America.”

“Yep. Thanks to modern technology, I'll never be lonely again,” Brian bragged.

At which point, the conversation devolved into yet another round of the familiar ‘Guess Who I Fucked Last’ game that the two of them had been playing for most of the past fifteen years.

When they'd finally had enough Thai, gossip and boasting, they cleared away the leftovers - which Brian was looking forward to having for breakfast the next day. Then Brian asked Michael to help him set up the new weight bench and treadmill that had just been delivered the day before, so he could work off the junk food after his friend left. The two of them headed down to the basement where they spent the next hour or so moving the heavy pieces from the garage to the basement proper and assembling the equipment.

“So, what are you going to do down here,” Mikey questioned, looking around the big empty space as they finished wiping down the new equipment.

“Well, I plan to leave the basement till the very last, so I don’t have to figure out exactly what I’m going to do with it for a while yet. But I was thinking, maybe, I’d blow out the wall to the crawl space,” he pointed to the back wall covered in rough wood panelling, “and make a big rec room, gym, home theater area.”

Michael loved that idea and proposed some of his own suggestions for the perfect home theater setup, complete with a freestanding popcorn maker, a wet bar with a mini-fridge and individual leather recliners. Brian chuckled to himself about the fact that this was the first part of his entire remodeling project that Mikey had had any opinion on. Leave it to the movie buff to care about that part of the house more than anything. He did have to admit that Michael had some good points, though, and planned to take his friend shopping with him when he was ready to furnish the room.

As they gathered up all the used packaging from the exercise equipment and started to truck it back through the garage to the dumpster outside, Michael passed by the old freezer that was now the only thing left in there except for a few tools and some lumber Brian planned to use upstairs.

“Where’d you get this?” Michael asked, going over to the large white appliance and running his hand appreciatively over the top.

“It came with the house. I found it hidden underneath all the boxes that had been down here,” Brian explained, eyeing the contraption warily and not going any closer to what he perceived as likely to be just a big electric coffin.

“Good save, Brian. Freezers like this are expensive. Does it still work?” Michael asked reaching for the handle and opening the large top right up.

“What the . . .?” Brian approached warily. “How did you get it open. I thought it was locked.”

“The key’s right here in the lock, Brian,” Michael observed, pointing to the little silver key sitting in the lock just like he’d said.

Brian approached the freezer warily, eying the key that certainly had NOT been there before with distrust as he cautiously looked over the edge into the depths of the icy interior, afraid of what he might find.

“Well, it looks like it’s working just fine. It’s plenty cold enough in here. But you’re going to have to clean it out before you can use it. What is all this crap in here anyway?” Michael queried, poking at whatever the contents were.

To Brian’s relief, the ‘crap’ Michael was referring to was not a dismembered body after all. There were no severed heads or any other gory remains at all. In fact, the freezer was mostly empty, except for a pile of frozen dinner entree boxes and scraps of what looked like butcher-paper meat wrappings. It seemed that, at one time, there had been a lot of food in the thing, but it was empty now except for the trash.

Brian was so grateful that he hadn’t actually found Justin Taylor’s dead body inside, that he didn’t even care about the extra work it would take to clean the thing out. He smiled at the miraculously returned key, silently thanking his ghostboy for locating it and saving him the cost of calling in a locksmith. And for reassuring him that his mangled corpse really wasn’t hiding inside. Now that the freezer was unlocked, Brian could ask around among his neighbors about stocking it for the future. He had some vague idea that he should be able to buy meat from a local farmer or something. Wasn’t that what you did when you had a big old chest freezer and lived out in the country with cows and pigs and stuff all around you? Penny would know shit about that, right?

When they finally made it back upstairs, Michael proposed they have another beer and dig into the brownies he’d brought for dessert before Brian tried out his new exercise equipment for real. Brian rolled his eyes, wondering how the hell Mikey managed not to weigh three hundred pounds with an appetite like that, but didn’t object, because . . .  well, brownies. Instead, he compliantly followed Michael back into the kitchen.

“Damn it. Where the fuck did the brownies disappear to?” Michael complained, looking at the kitchen counter where the small bag full of brownies had been with dismay. “I was really looking forward to those, too. I even made an extra stop on the way out here at the bakery just to get them.”

Brian laughed at the hang dog look on his oldest friend’s face. “Sorry, Mikey. But you, of all people, should be prepared for shit to disappear around here.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think ‘Casper’ would take our food. I mean, ghosts don’t need to eat, right? So why would he steal our dessert?” Michael was still searching around under the detritus from their previous meal as if he thought the missing brownies would be found hiding somewhere in the trash or something.

Brian, meanwhile, was so surprised by Mikey’s comment that he froze in place as he thought through the implications it raised. The image of the freezer in the basement full of food waste popped into his mind, along with memories of all the times he’d thought he was missing a beer or two, some canned foodstuffs or the occasional apple. He usually didn’t keep track of that stuff too well, but now that he thought about it, it seemed possible that his ‘ghost’ was taking food as well as borrowing his tools and other personal items. Which was, to say the least, curious.

“Hmmm . . . That’s true. Ghosts don’t need food, do they?”

“Damn it. I was still hungry,” Michael groused, finally giving up on his search and plopping down in one of the kitchen chairs with a pout.

Brian snapped out of his reverie and shook his head at the man who was doing a good imitation of a petulant preschooler.

“Come on, Mikey,” Brian interrupted before his friend could get too into his pouting. “Let’s head into town. I’ll show you around the local market, introduce you to my new girlfriend and buy you a replacement dessert.” Brian clapped his friend on the shoulder amiably as he guided him towards the front door. “I think I need to pick up some more groceries anyway, so this is a good excuse to hit the store.”

“Okay,” Michael agreed, jumping to his feet, immediately placated by the promise that he would indeed get his treat. “But, um, what’s this about a ‘girlfriend’? Is there something you want to tell me, Brian?”

Brian laughed. He knew that would get his friend’s attention. “Yep. Her name is Sue Ann. She’s a hoot. You’ll love her. In fact, she reminds me a lot of your mother, only if Deb was constantly hitting on me.”

Michael looked worried, which only caused Brian to laugh harder, as the two men made their way out to the car. Brian was rather looking forward to introducing Michael to Sue Ann. She’d scare the pants off him. Which was good for a laugh, at least.

That night, after he got home and unloaded all the groceries he’d purchased, including several of those cardboardy frozen dinners, as an experiment, Brian actually counted all the beers in his fridge. Unsurprisingly, there were two missing the next morning. One of those frozen dinners was also gone. So when he went to take out the kitchen garbage later in the afternoon, and saw two empties in the recycling bin alongside a broken down paperboard dinner entree carton, he knew he’d figured out at least part of the mystery about his ‘ghost’ housemate at last.

What he was going to do about it, well, that was still a puzzle.