I Tried to Commune with the Spirit of my Late Mother, and now Rutherford Hayes' Ghost Won't Leave Me Alone

So it’s basically like I said up there, I was trying to commune with the spirit of my late mother, but instead of getting closure on that relationship, now I’ve got Rutherford B. Hayes’ ghost on my shit all the time. I’ve never really been the type of guy who went in for any of that afterlife baloney, but my mom and I were never really close, and when she died, it really messed me up. All of her friends at the wake would tell me these stories about how funny she was, and what a good listener and friend she had always been, and I couldn’t picture that. All I could picture was her sitting in that easy chair, watching NCIS and making tiny noises whenever Rocky Carroll came on screen. It just felt like I had missed out on knowing a wonderful person, mainly because NCIS is on like all the time.

The medium I contacted came highly recommended, although I don’t even know how one vets a medium recommendation. Like I said, I’ve never really believed in ghosts or spirits, but I kept getting all that stimulus money. I didn’t even lose my job and it kept coming! I’m not complaining, mind you. But it felt stupid that I even got it, so I thought I should spend it on something stupid.

Can we talk about patchouli? No? All right.

The medium’s place smelled like you-know-what, but other than that I was immediately disappointed. I was hoping for scarves and jangly bracelets, but she came to the table in a faded, ratty Rutger’s football sweatshirt, and she had Billy Joel playing somewhere in the background. No complaints, guy’s a genius. Can you think of a singer with a more varied catalog? But it was just like, hey, this is supposed to be solemn, y’know. Solemn and mystical. This lady’s trying to convince me my dead mother’s spirit is in the room, and meanwhile “I Go to Extremes” is blasting from a back room somewhere. Totally unprofessional.

So I pay her and I leave. She tried to convince me that my mother had been there but had been unable to get through, and I was like, “Yeah, get through all the fucking Billy Joel,” but I didn’t, and I’ll admit I was humming “Allentown” all the way home. It was an experience, I told myself.

It was only after I got back to my place that I first noticed him. A bearded, gray ghost just kind of timidly hovering near me.

I don’t think you need me to tell you that ghosts don’t like, talk with their mouths. And you really don’t need to talk to them with yours. It’s like you just think at each other, so anyways, the ghost just thinks at me, “I’m Rutherford B. Hayes.”

I was never the best history student, but I know that that was a president, although like most folks, I can name the first couple, then blank out until Lincoln, then blank out again until like Hoover. So, all I knew was Hayes was president either before or after Lincoln, but before Hoover. So basically anytime during the 1800s except the Civil War.

I tried to ask him when he’d been president and he just got all cranky and thought at me, “I don’t really want to talk about it.” Could you imagine being president of the US and getting all huffy if somebody asked you about it? The most I could get out of him was that he was a lawyer.

He doesn’t know about Wikipedia so I just kind of dipped in there for a bit to see if I could get the skinny on him, so I could solve his problem and he could go back to the afterlife. Because that’s ghosts’ whole deal, right? Unfinished business or whatever?

Let me tell you, Wikipedia is a fucking miracle. They’ve got everything there. Do you know that NCIS has been on for like eighteen years? No wonder they had reruns on all the time. Also, Hayes didn’t even really win the presidency. It was like a fix or something. I’m not really political or anything, but it was some shady shit. So I asked him about it. Y’know, with my mind.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” was all he’d say.

Y’know what he did want to ask about, all he’d want to ask about? You’re probably like, “the Gold Standard,” or “the Railroad Strike,” but nope and nope. All the dude wants to know about, all he would ask me about was CRACKER JACKS. Yeah, the popcorn snack. He was just all burning up in heaven or wherever wondering what it tastes like.

Thanks to Wikipedia I knew it was around before he died, so I was kind of like, “Why didn’t you try it while you were still alive?” and he was just like, “I was busy.” Oh, yeah, with what? Civil Service Reform?

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Then he was quiet for a real long time. For a while, I figured he might be gone. But then I’d catch his astral form just floating somewhere in the room, looking all sad. After like a day or so I was finally like, “What do you want to know?”

“What did it taste like?”

Have you ever thought about how you’d describe caramel popcorn and peanuts to somebody who couldn’t taste anything? It was infuriating. He kept at me, like my description was no good. I mean, it wasn’t. But I don’t care if you’re our nineteenth president, you should have some self-respect. A guy tries to make peace with his mom and you get sucked into a vortex or something by mistake, okay, sure it’s not your fault. But carry yourself with some spectral dignity. I’m sure you can get hungry in limbo, but leave the living alone. I’m MOURNING.

Or at least don’t be so uppity about your record as president. People want to know that shit. Enough with the false humility.

Anyways, that was about two months ago, and we’re kind of at a stalemate. I can’t give him a satisfactory summation of the culinary wonder that is Cracker Jacks, and he can’t leave my apartment. He can’t even check in on my mom because his policy is to leave other ghosts alone. “They leave me alone, I leave them alone,” he says, and I’m all like, “Like when you agreed to pull out troops from the south and end Reconstruction if the Democrats let you win the Electoral College?” Which is a pretty good burn if you’ve read Wikipedia. But he just floats there, looking miffed.

So we just hang in my apartment, and occasionally he goes to sleep, or I go to sleep. But mainly we just sit around watching television and he just doesn’t say anything. Like it would kill him to ask anything about me.

Anyway, AITA?

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GILT #3