He moved to the desk and poured out some powder. Next to it, he placed the hand. It was lifeless, rotting. It meant something to him. The champagne cork bobbed in the water, as if attached to a lure. He did a line, then growled and howled—a sound of ecstatic suffering that no one would ever hear.
He sat down to write.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My love and thanks to the best editors a guy could ask for: Bob Stall, Jacqui Bishop, Kate Greenaway and the amazing Anne Collins.
My deepest gratitude to Mike Wasko, Samantha Haywood, Marci Denesiuk, Paul Quarrington, Lee Gowan, Scott Sellers, John Fraser, Anna Luengo, Ernest Hillen, Anne Perdue, Lisa Norton, Avril Benoit, L. Arthur English, my sisters Cassidy and Reilley, my brother Josh, and This American Life.
Thanks also to Warren Zevon, Ibi Kaslik, Charlie Locke, Janine Kobylka, Saskia Wolsak, Nick Wasko, Louise Dennys, Carol Off, Linden MacIntyre, Josh Knelman, Bruce Springsteen, Max Lenderman, Kirk Makin, Jason Gladue, Kylie Barker, Ron Eckel, Michael McRobb, Peter Smith, Marc Olimpo, Mark Sumner, Jeff Warren, Dianne Lococo, Irene Spadafora, Pearl Richard, Audrey Hadfield, Lynda Murtha, Eden Arabella, Shaun Bradley, Don Sedgwick, Alex Snider, Mary-Lou Zeitoun, Derek Finkle, William Morassutti, Farah Sharif, Lisa Neidrauer, Paul T. Brooks, Robert Hough, John Greenaway, Nancy Greenaway, the Greeneri Clan, the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, the LCBO, Jennifer Connelly, CAMH, Big Steve, Dan and all the guys downstairs, the Bishops, the Stalls and, of course, the Bishop-Stalls.
SHAUGHNESSY BISHOP-STALL’s first book was an account of the year he spent in deep cover, living with the homeless in Toronto’s Tent City. Down to This: Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown was nominated for the 2005 Pearson Writers’ Trust of Canada Non-Fiction Prize, the Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize, the Trillium Award and the City of Toronto Book Award. The following year, Bishop-Stall was awarded the Knowlton Nash Journalism Fellowship at Massey College and also played the role of Jason—a bad-mannered, well-dressed journalist—on CBC-TV’s The Newsroom. He currently teaches writing at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. Ghosted is his first novel.
Copyright © 2010 Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2010 by Random House Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited.
www.randomhouse.ca
Random House Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders; in the event of an inadvertent ommission or error, please notify the publisher.
“Fire Lake” Written by Bob Seger, © 1980 Gear Publishing Company (ASCAP). Used By Permission.
“Atlantic City” by Bruce Springsteen, © 1982 Bruce Springsteen.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Bishop-Stall, Shaughnessy, 1974–
Ghosted / Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37418-9
I. Title.
PS8603.18645G46 2010 C813′.6 C2009-905250-4
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
That First Mistake
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
The Second
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
The Third
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
The Fourth
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
The Fifth
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
The Sixth
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
The Seventh
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
The Eighth
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
The Ninth
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
The Other Side
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
Ghosted Page 30