Lost Among the Stars

by Paul Di Filippo

  The next few months were very frustrating, maddening even. I had no relief from the ghosts. They attended me around the clock, coming and going and returning without pattern, a swarm of inconsiderate hanger-on houseguests murmuring their idle complaints and observations and reminiscences, ignoring me and each other. I tried to tune out their presence, and often succeeded, when focused on one task or another. But then in a moment of failed mental discipline I would become aware of the lurking crowd again, and start to freak out. Sometimes I would awaken with a start in the night, flip on my bedlamp and see them standing patiently by my bed. (No, they didn’t glow in the dark!)

  My academic and social life started to go down the tubes. I certainly would have been driven truly insane if my relations with the ghosts hadn’t changed.

  And the change was all due to Corky.

  Corky was a girl ghost, about twelve years old. She looked like the quintessential tomboy out of some Beverly Cleary novel: pigtails, bib overalls, and high-top sneakers. She liked to talk about swimming and climbing trees and catching tadpoles and the teasing she endured from boys at school. She never mentioned technology or pop stars or shopping, so I knew she had to have lived a long time ago. In some strange way she reminded me of my own girlhood, even though my own youth had been so different, a blend of bad Eighties sitcom reruns and videogames, hair metal bands and BASIC programming. How did I know her name was Corky? She never uttered it, I realized after a while, but somehow I just knew. That was the first sign of some deeper bond between us not present with the other ghosts.

  So one day Corky strolled alongside me, occasionally hopping and skipping and prancing ahead of me, as I walked through the streets of Hoboken on some forgotten errand. No other ghosts chanced to be around.

  Suddenly desperate, I turned to the girl, not caring who was witnessing a crazy woman talking to no one, and said, “Corky, what do you want? How can I help you?”

  She didn’t seem to hear me, and her next words were an excited non-sequitur about building a tree fort.

  Just then I came abreast of a woman about my own age, stylishly dressed, standing in front of The Brass Rail on Washington Street, and I was nearly knocked down by a shock of recognition.

  I could sense this woman’s innate sadness, her disquiet and dissatisfaction and worry and angst, as plainly as if it were written on a sandwich board strapped across her shoulders.

  And somehow I knew that Corky could help her—was meant for her.

  Corky appeared to register something too. She ceased her chattering, and looked at the woman with interest.

  Was there a connection here? I had to be sure.

  So we began following the stranger.

  For the next six hours or so.

  I observed the woman have lunch, get a pedicure, shop, have dinner, watch a movie at the Clearview, all before she finally ended up back home, where I was left standing outside in the twilight.

  And that was when Corky began to directly address me.

  “I can see what she’s doing now. She has an old purse, and she’s looking through it. It was her mother’s. There’s a driver’s license, and some dried-up lipstick, a roll of mints and a brooch and a handkerchief with some initials embroidered on it.”

  “Corky—would you like to live with this person?”

  The ghost regarded me with adolescent ingenuousness. “Do you really think I could?”

  “I do! Go to her now!”

  Corky slid sidewise through a wall and vanished.

  And she never came back.

  After that, I could talk to any ghost and they’d hear me.

  So this is what I eventually pieced together.

  Ghosts are drawn to sadness.

  But they alleviate it! They don’t cause sadness or enhance it, they palliate it!

  Even though the people they “haunt” might never know they are haunted, the presence of a ghost in their lives adds a kind of reassuring spiritual dimension to their existence, and lightens their troubles.

  And the ghosts get some kind of satisfaction as well from such relationships.

  The ghosts who attended me were the untethered ones. They had lost their mortal counterparts through death of their living anchors and now drifted without companionship. I could sense their imploring subtext now.

  And I could match them up with new, ghostless hosts! That was my talent! (The ghosts themselves seemed unable to efficiently zero in on a new host, relying on chance and circumstance to meet one.) And every ghost I paired with a human would be one less to bother me.

  I dropped out of school almost immediately, and began my new career.

  What did I use for money? I certainly wasn’t rich before my change.

  Ghosts know some amazing things. You’d be surprised at how many buried coffee cans full of Seated Liberty Silver Dollars there are around, or unclaimed bank accounts. Accessing some of these resources bordered on the shady, so I had to adopt several different identities. Enter “Ilona Myfawny.” My Computational Science studies had not been in vain after all, when it came to hacking.

  Matchmaker to ghosts and mortals.

  What a way to make a living!

  * * *

  I often switched my practice from one Starbucks to another, on a random basis. A lot of what I did involved intuition. I would get a feeling that the mate for a certain ghost who had been urgently troubling me could be found in a certain neighborhood, and off I’d go. Curiously enough, the ghosts that utilized my services seemed always to end up with humans from the five boroughs. Only once did I have to travel even as far as Teaneck to make a connection.

  I had no explanation for these geographic quirks of my profession. I assumed that any particular ghost could attach itself satisfactorily to any member of a select subset of humanity, and that any individual human could host any ghost who shared certain qualities. In other words, I was facilitating connections between classes of beings, not between perfect unique soulmates. If those had been my parameters, my task would have been nigh impossible. Even as matters stood, vetting the human partner involved hours of tedious trailing and snooping, legwork and voyeurism.

  Still, I often speculated about trying to take one of my East Coast ghosts to California or Bombay or London—assuming they’d follow me so far—and seeing if I could conjure up a connection. Someday, maybe, when I wasn’t so busy dealing with the needs of these spirits. (And when, exactly, might that be? The supply of ghosts and sad people seemed endless. After five years of this, I could easily foresee weariness and burnout on the horizon.)

  Today I was trying to match up a ghost who scared me a little, and we were sitting in the Starbucks where Amsterdam crossed Broadway, a little below 71st Street.

  Billy Burdekin, I knew for a fact, had not been a pleasant or likable human being. But I had to leave his criminal rapsheet out of the mental equation if I were to do my job.

  He presented as pimply-faced young white guy of about twenty-five, affirming my knowledge of his youthful death. His invariant ghostly clothes consisted of a backwards ball cap, sports jersey, sag-assed shorts, and pricey kicks. His neck sported crude runic tattoos, a decorative body-mod that always creeped me out, raising images in my mind of brawny convicts with razor blades and a paper cup of graphite paste scraped off a pencil. Billy’s spectral badinage featured an F-bomb every other word.

  These qualities explained why I was devoting so much effort to getting him off my hands. I really didn’t want Billy Burdekin in my life anymore.

  Nursing my White Chocolate Mocha Latte, I anxiously awaited the arrival of someone to adopt Billy.

  “Fuck this shit,” said Billy, apropos of nothing special.

  “Yes, Mr. Burdekin, I too grow bored. But let us cultivate patience and civility.”

  “Suck my dick, bitch.”

  I sighed deeply, and slugged some more coffee.

  Night came calling, and December rain began to bucket down, more granular slurry than otherwise.

  A sodden h
omeless guy dripped into the shop, and I knew instantly. This was Billy’s host.

  The homeless man shook water off like a ragged dog, and dumped his string-tied, plastic-bag-wrapped parcels in a corner. The staff seemed used to him, and said nothing objectionable against him. He went to use the toilet.

  “Get ready to move out, Billy.”

  “Eat shit and die.”

  “You already did, Billy.”

  When Homeless Guy returned from the john, he did not immediately leave. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The weather continued miserable. Instead, he rummaged up enough change for a small house-blend coffee and took it to the corner table beneath which his possessions lay.

  For the next two hours, Homeless Guy maintained a thousand-yard-stare while sifting coffee a milliliter at a sip though his unkempt mustache.

  The slush storm abated finally, just as Homeless Guy drained the last smidgen of coffee from his cup. He stood like a boulder rolling over, picked up his burdens, and shuffled toward the door.

  Anxious to ditch Billy for good, I got to my feet right behind Homeless Guy’s departure and followed. Billy trailed behind without any smartmouth protest. I think beneath his uncaring disdain, Burdekin’s spirit chafed at his own untethered state. He wanted a new home as much as I wanted to be shut of him.

  I turned up my coat collar against the continuing mingy assault from the skies. Homeless Guy was heading toward 72nd Street. At that intersection, he turned west toward the river.

  A few blocks later, I was convinced he was heading to the greenspace along the Henry Hudson Parkway. He must camp there. Somehow that locale resonated with Billy’s nature and history, and I could feel growing certainty that I had made a valid hookup. Little metaphysical evidences in Homeless Guy’s gait and tics added up to further confirmation.

  At the corner of the park, where the 72nd Street dog run loomed utterly empty, Homeless Guy did indeed enter the winter-bare oasis. Eager to be shed of Billy Burdekin, I hastened after Homeless Guy.

  The park held no one but me and the ghost and my quarry. Homeless Guy was moving faster now, as if anxious to be back to his shelter.

  Then, suddenly, he vanished among a cluster of overgrown trees.

  Not wanting to lose him, I broke into a trot, and dashed among the darkened trees.

  A strong forearm clotheslined me across the throat, and I went down to the wet turf.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid! And sloppy! You could never let the follower know he was being followed!

  I dragged air painfully into my raw throat and struggled to get up.

  A foot connected with my gut. Homeless Guy was screaming abuse.

  “Bastards! Robbed me once! No more!”

  I tried to form some soothing words, but another kick made me swallow them. I thought it was time for a little rest, so I just stretched out in the nice cold slush. The sound of the traffic on the Henry Hudson Parkway formed a terminal lullaby.

  I waited for another kick or a punch or knife thrust even, but nothing came. With immense pain, I managed to shift slightly so I could look up.

  There stood Billy and the bum, but a third figure loomed in the shadows too. The new person had Homeless Guy gently restrained, using nothing more than a big hand on the wild bum’s shoulder.

  “That’s enough now. No one wants to hurt you. Billy, why don’t you go with this kind gentleman now?”

  “All right, sir,” said Billy Burdekin, mild as milk.

  Homeless Guy and Billy moved away then, down nighted paths, and the stranger turned his attention to me. He cupped me under the armpits with strong hands and lifted me up on my wobbly legs.

  “My name is Pim Torens, miss. Please allow me to help.”

  * * *

  I was going to see Pim today for the first time since I had broken up with him a month ago, and I was more than a little nervous.

  Exactly how, after an antsy, half-appreciated, half-anguished separation of four weeks, do you reconnect with a guy who saved your life, slept with you on the second date (third, if you count our nearly fatal first meeting), helped you in your weird business, and didn’t think you were crazy for seeing ghosts, because he could see them too?

  This reunion was not going to be easy or simple.

  We had arranged to meet—where else?—at a Starbucks: the branch at 1st Avenue and 75th Street. I was working at brokering a match for a ghost named Hannah Lessman, and had a gut hunch I’d find her human host in that neighborhood.

  Hannah joined me as I reached the sidewalk outside my apartment.

  If you took Mrs. Wilson from the Dennis the Menace comic strip, morphed her with Aunt Bea from the Andy Griffith Show, and then seasoned the result with Spidey’s Aunt May, you’d probably come fairly close to depicting Hannah Lessman. She was the kind of matronly pillow of a powder-scented, gingerbread-plump lady onto whose aproned lap you immediately wanted to rest your tired head for a soothing brow-stroking. In life she had probably smelled of vanilla extract, and in death she gave ghosts a good name. I’d be sad to lose her. But her welfare and that of her hypothetical host had to be my primary concern.

  “Oh, glory!” said Hannah when she saw me. Her tone was part nervousness over our consequential errand, part disapproval of my appearance. We had engaged in, well, spirited discussions about my style of dressing before.

  “What’s the matter, Hannah? Don’t you approve?”

  I wore simple jeggings partly covered by an old Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast t-shirt, topped by a denim jacket, all quite suitable for April, I thought.

  “Ladies in my day—” said Hannah, and let it go at that.

  Shortly thereafter, we were walking into the Starbucks rendezvous.

  When I saw Pim calmly waiting, like some visiting dignitary from a distant regal realm, all our short but intense history rushed back over me.

  That December night after my assault we had exited the park, me stumbling, soaked to the skin, supported by my strong and towering rescuer. Pim said nothing after his initial offer of aid, obviously sensing I needed time to compose myself.

  Out under the first streetlight, I took stock of Pim Torens.

  Well over six feet tall, he wore a leather jacket, black jeans and engineer boots. A mass of unruly tawny hair complemented a cheerful, concerned, craggy face and ruddy complexion. Despite the chill rain, he seemed utterly at ease.

  We paused. “You are doing okay now?” he asked.

  Pim Torens spoke English with a subtle accent I couldn’t place. “Yes—I think so. But only because you saved me.”

  “It was nothing. I saw the ghost with you, and became intrigued and concerned. Billy Burdekin plainly did not consort with your nature. He could not be your personal ghost, and yet there he was, following you. So I followed too. And it was well I did.”

  “I owe you everything,” I said, and began to cry.

  Pim politely let me finishing weeping, without seeming impatient or unnerved.

  “You have been doing this a long while?”

  “You mean crying in front of strangers?”

  He smiled. “No, I mean matchmaking with the spirits.”

  “About five years, more or less.”

  “And you have never encountered any troubles before tonight?”

  I stiffened up, feeling accused of incompetence. “No! I’ve always been very careful and managed just fine!”

  “I believe you. But there are dangers, from both mortal and spirit spheres. As I think you now realize.”

  “And how would you know?”

  “I have been more or less in the same line of work for a very long time.”

  I studied the man. He looked to be about ten or fifteen years older than me, tops.

  “You must have started young.”

  “It seems ages ago.”

  We resumed walking.

  “Let us go inside someplace warm, and I will buy you a hot drink.”

  “Anyplace but Starbucks!” I said, and we both started to laugh.

&
nbsp; The night of my rescue extended into the early morning hours, hours spilling over with talk while my clothes dried on me in a warm diner full of good smells and a large platter of midnight breakfast food for me. Pim claimed he wasn’t hungry. I told Pim everything about myself and he told me—well, enough to satisfy me for the moment.

  Pim Torens was Dutch by birth, had enough money to supply his modest needs without maintaining a day job, lived somewhere south of City Hall, and occupied his time as I did, bringing unaffiliated ghosts and despairing humans together for their mutual benefit.

  “I have found ours to be a demanding profession,” he said toward dawn, as he shepherded me back to my apartment. “Perhaps you could use some help.”

  I felt tired and giddy and unaccountably happy for someone who had been nearly throttled and kicked to death. I didn’t notice then that Pim had phrased his offer as a one-way street. “You suggesting a team-up? Go on patrol together, like Batman and Catwoman?”

  “These names are not familiar to me. But, yes, I think maybe we should try working together.”

  “All right! You Scooby, me Velma.”

  Pim grinned. “Again, I confess I am at a loss. But it makes me happy if you accept my offer. I will see you again soon.”

  When next we met, the occasion was non-professional, just hanging out at my suggestion, to become better acquainted. We visited the Cloisters, a suitably atmospheric place, I thought, for two spookhunters. Then we did a ghost brokering together, pairing up a wispy unassuming spirit named Henry Breeding, who had shown prize bulldogs in life, with a young woman we started following when she left Juilliard. Pim’s talents and mine clicked nicely, I thought, fitting together like lock and key—or maybe engine and supercharger. My intuitions and senses felt really amped up in Pim’s presence.

  Then came our second date, the lurid details of which I prefer to keep to myself, except to say, Wow!

  Lying in bed afterwards, Pim said something very touching and perceptive that had me quietly weeping again.

  “Ilona, I think maybe your job has made you too removed from humans. This is not good. You have not had a relationship in a long time, am I right?”