The Haunted Traveler December 2017 Edition

I can’t imagine what she’d do now.
Honey, don’t you want to open the big present? There, right behind the tree.
Are you going to go to the corner and get the eggs or not? Christ, am I talking to the wall or what?
Another sip and another step into dull static, my ass falling deeper into the rat orange
recliner, tufts of brown and green speckling it, smelling like back sweat. I can see the
light reflect in my drink, a pale globe hanging on a chain and wire, a stain-glass shade
that I think I bought from an estate sale twenty-odd years ago, alternating red and white
and green and clear-ish.
Do I look like I’m made of money, Jennifer? In the main bedroom.
No, of course I’m not. That’s why I built half the stuff in this house. Including that
kitchen table we barely ever used. It was gorgeous, rough finish, lightly stained for a
more natural look. All the chairs matched except for Margaret’s highchair. That I put
together with scraps, but in a nice way. Like a mosaic. The first time she sat in it, it was
her birthday.
Don’t you like it, sweetie?
She flipped the cake and smeared icing all in the dovetails. I told Teri a hundred times,
I didn’t mean to yell.
Come on, that was a fair ball! What the hell, ump?
I need more whiskey. They were getting worse, too. It never used to bother me. I still
worked for a bit after Teri died and Margaret moved, but once I stopped going into the
shop, they were always here.
Then Margaret stopped answering my calls.
I can’t make a cake without eggs, so you either have to get off your ass and get some or there won’t
be one.
I called Teri’s sister, Debra, but she wouldn’t say what. Margaret never seemed to
be available at work. And that wasn’t it, either. Jerry started serving my watered-down
drinks, no matter what the bastard said. The grocery kid would give me the stink eye
like I was stuffing apples and lunch meat in my pockets. I’d wave at people, try to say
hi or something, and it was like I killed their best friend. Hell, I tried to get a dog—not
even a good one, one of those mutts at the kennel that were a week away from getting
the ax—and the woman at the desk, Tammy, told me I was fucking unfit. The fuck does
that mean?
Splash of water, two glugs of…okay, fine, five glugs of Famous Grouse. No ice
today. Heh, my old man always used to say Ice is for hockey and for women. Don’t know if
I ever quite agreed.
The voices mix up more, like they got caught in a blender. A little girl is shaming her
dolly for spilling tea on her little dress. A father is on the phone yelling at a teacher. A
woman is crying, but trying to keep quiet about it. Halfway through this drink, and all I
can really distinguish are the perennials. She needs eggs. The carpet is dirty. He’s mad.
She isn’t happy.
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