I suppose most of what happened was my fault. It started with an argument at a party. Martha Henrickson was my girlfriend. I’d planned on falling head over heels in love with her but hadn’t got around to it yet. It was her dad’s fifty-sixth birthday party and I was pretty drunk already by the time we arrived.
‘Doodle Bug,’ said Martha’s dad as he hugged her. He turned to me and I tried to high-five him but missed, shoving him in the chest.
‘Jesus, I could’ve killed you,’ I said. He looked pretty pissed off.
Things seemed to go downhill after that. I went to the kitchen and pushed my face into the birthday cake. It was covered in candles, I could’ve lost an eye. I broke a cup, spilled red wine on a couch, and told his new girlfriend she had a good face for radio. She started crying so I hid in the downstairs toilet. It smelled like bad lemons and feet in there, but I didn’t really mind it.
‘Where the hell have you been,’ said Martha.
‘The downstairs toilet,’ I said.
‘There isn’t a downstairs toilet.’
I suppose I was making a scene. It was one of my bad habits.
It was the next day when things really went bad. Martha was yelling at me again.
‘You told my dad he was a big dumb bitch!’
It’s true I had probably stepped over the line there. But he told me he’d never heard a single Cannibal Corpse song. Obvious bad faith bullshittery.
‘Do you want eggs? Bacon?’ I asked. The hangover was kicking my arse, I needed the grease.
‘Are you going to say sorry?’
‘Being in love means never having to say you’re sorry.’
‘You’re not in love with me,’ she said.
‘I think I have some sausages in here, too,’ I said, pushing my head into the fridge. The fridge contained a lot of expired food and questionable smelling milk. I liked to keep food for a while, even after it went off. I think it gives a fridge a certain ambience. Others would disagree, no doubt. Say it was a bad habit. I had a lot of bad habits, I liked to own that. I was a twenty cigarette a day man, but I only smoked in bed. I always wore sandals, regardless of the weather. I went out of my way to avoid learning the names of European capital cities.
‘What the actual fuck is actually wrong with you?’ said Martha.
‘I actually don’t have any sausages in here. I thought I did,’ I said.
Martha came from money. Her family owned the Upgrade Facility. It was sort of like a plastic surgeon’s office, only instead of nose jobs and face lifts they grafted additional body parts onto you. It was a pretty good racket. I’d recently started working there as a cleaner. I found the work demeaning, which appealed to me.
‘We can’t go on like this,’ said Martha. She looked stressed. She was sitting on the couch, rubbing her temples.
‘I’ll speak to your dad; I’ll smooth this whole thing over.’
‘He said if he ever sees you again, he’s going to kick your nuts into your guts.’
Martha left. Said we were totally through. I asked her if she wanted to meet up to watch bad movies later. She let out a strangled scream and slammed the door behind her.
*
I was late to Mum’s funeral. They were already lowering her into the dirt when I got there, tramping across the manicured grass towards the small huddle of mourners. I suppose I was a little drunk already, but I had a good excuse.
‘You’re late,’ said Dad.
‘I know,’ I said.
‘It’s basically over,’ he said.
‘I know,’ I said.
My brother wouldn’t catch my eye, he was too busy frowning and crying. I recognised a few of the others. Aunts and Uncles. Some of my parents’ friends. It was all pretty depressing, the kind that makes you want to giggle. I fought the urge to jump onto the coffin and ride it into the ground.
‘Did I mention what a disappointment to me you are?’ said Dad.
‘I think it was the main gist of your last email,’ I said.
‘Good,’ he said.
The wake took place in The Mutton, a pub at the end of my parent’s street. There wasn’t a free bar, which I told Dad was bullshit. He told me to watch my mouth. I told him to point me to a mirror. I was pretty happy with that.
*
The next day I tried to call Martha. I wanted to smooth things over and get back to a good place. I really did want a grown-up relationship. Plus she was loaded. My calls kept going to voicemail. I sent messages all day, but I could see they all went unread. I started to worry. I went to her place to make sure she was fine. Her flatmate, Mindy, opened the door.
‘Fuck you want, fuck-face,’ she said. There’d always been a tension between us. Probably sexual. It was pretty clear she was into me, erotically. Mindy was taller than me and built like a brick shit house.
‘I’m here to see Martha,’ I said, squeezing past her and into the flat’s innards. ‘I’m going to smooth things over.’
‘She told me what you did, you know,’ she said.
‘Which bit?’
‘You’re such a loser, you’re lucky you’re handsome.’
I agreed, it was lucky. Genetically, things had been stacked against me. Nobody in my family was physically attractive. Dad especially was bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. A real uggo. Dead Mum hadn’t been much to write home about, either. But somehow I was tall, dark, and handsome. It really pissed off my big brother, Fallon, who shared our parents’ awful faces.
‘Where’s Martha?’ I said.
‘She’s not here,’ said Mindy.
‘Where is she?’ I said.
‘Elsewhere,’ said Mindy. ‘Did you walk dog shit in here?’
I liked to step on things that squished. It was one of my bad habits.
Mindy began to scream at me, so I tuned her out. I ran into Martha’s bedroom, but she wasn’t there. Mindy said she was calling the police. I said the police don’t deal with dog shit stompers, they’ve got bigger fish to fry. She called me fuck-face again and hit me over the head with something. I came too outside Martha’s building. A homeless woman was going through my pockets.
‘I’m keeping this,’ she said, taking the cash out of my wallet.
*
I went to a cafe for lunch. I ordered a sausage sandwich and chips and onion rings and pancakes with fruit and bacon and maple syrup and two large coffees. I poured a little bourbon into the first coffee, kept the second coffee straight.
‘You have blood on your face,’ said the waitress.
‘I’m a prize-fighter,’ I said.
‘A bad one, by the looks of it,’ she said.
‘She was bigger than me,’ I said.
The waitress snorted and left. I think she was attracted to me.
As I ate, I contemplated the bad situation I’d found myself in. I was an orphan if you didn’t count Dad. I was also romantically adrift. I needed to smooth things over with Martha, that much was clear. She’d promised to help cover next month’s rent, too. That was probably off the cards if we weren’t together.
‘Excuse me.’
I looked up, there was a hairless woman sitting opposite me in my booth.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I’m a prize-fighter.’
‘No, you are a cleaner. You are twenty-four years old and from an ugly family. Also, you recently stood in dog shit, but I don’t need my psychic powers to know that one.’
The hairless woman was a psychic. A pretty good one. I offered her an onion ring. She said no.
‘I once dated a psychic,’ I said. It wasn’t true, but I was trying to make small talk.
‘No you didn’t,’ said the psychic.
‘Touché,’ I said, and smiled. A day could never really be called bad when you had the opportunity to use a word like that.
‘I have a message for you.’
‘Oh?’ I said.
‘It’s about your girlfriend.’
‘Oh?’ I said.
‘She’s not ignoring you after your latest epic fuck-up.’
‘I’m going to smooth things over,’ I said.
‘She’s missing.’
*
I had a late shift at the Upgrade Facility. I was in the women’s bathroom scraping a toilet bowl with a toothbrush when I was called into the manager’s office. My manager’s name was Lance Henrickson, rumour was he had two dicks. He was Martha’s uncle.
‘I heard about what happened at my brother’s party,’ said Lance.
‘Why weren’t you there?’
‘I don’t go to birthday parties, I’m not twelve.’
‘Touché,’ I said.
It struck me that Martha actually looked a lot like her uncle. She didn’t have two vaginas or anything. Just the standard number. I wondered if Lance was attracted to me, erotically.
‘I’m letting you go,’ he said.
‘Where to?’ I asked.
‘I mean I’m firing you,’ he said.
‘I know, I was just joking to ease the tension.’ Mum was dead, Martha was missing, and now I was out of work. I needed to try and pull things back on track. Smooth everything over. ‘If you fire me, I’ll sue you.’
‘God, you’re an idiot.’
I felt bad about threatening Lance, he was basically a good guy, I think.
‘You’re an awful cleaner,’ he said.
‘I have my own methods,’ I said.
‘I only employed you because Martha asked me to give you a job.’
‘You said I aced the interview.’
‘You were wearing a T-Shirt with the slogan “Nuns Fuck” across the front.’
‘Statistically, some of them must,’ I said.
Lance’s nose wrinkled. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘I think you must have stepped in dog shit,’ I said.
*
The next few days were bad.
My calls to Martha continued to go unanswered, and I could see she still wasn’t reading my messages. Maybe she really was missing, like the hairless psychic said. I decided to be proactive and staked out her building. I wore a black baseball cap and some pink sunglasses I found in my building’s entrance hall by way of a disguise. I’d planned to stay across the street for as long as it took. But it became boring fast, so I went to a shop and bought a bottle of cheap red wine.
Someone kicked me awake.
‘Hey Mindy,’ I said. ‘Can you please stop kicking me.’
Mindy kicked me one last time and then dropped down onto her haunches to eyeball me.
‘What are you doing, you sick pervo,’ said Mindy.
‘What have you done with my girlfriend,’ I asked.
‘She’s not your girlfriend, fuck face.’
‘We were in a really serious relationship,’ I said.
‘You only dated for, like, six weeks.’
‘And every one of those weeks chewed you up inside.’
I tried to stand but fell over. Mindy stood and stared down at me, hands on hips. I was pretty sure she was into me,
‘Get it through your dumb prick head: Martha wants nothing to do with you.’
‘I think I’m lying in something wet,’ I said.
*
I felt I had little choice but to talk to Martha’s Dad. Martha’s dad was called Frank Henrickson. Unlike his brother, my ex-boss, there were no rumours circulating about his genitalia.
‘Evening, Frank. Mr Martha. Mr Henrickson,’ I said.
‘You’re drunk again,’ said Frank.
I swung a fist at him, connecting with his shoulder. I felt something snap in my hand.
‘Shit,’ I said, holding my broken hand. ‘I could sue you for that,’ I said.
‘Go away,’ he said.
‘Touché.’
Frank started to close the front door on me, clearly he had something to hide.
‘Where’s Martha,’ I said. He opened the door again.
‘None of your business anymore, bucko.’
‘A hairless psychic told me she was missing.’ I studied his reaction to see if he was hiding anything. It was difficult to tell as he’d gone all blurry. A pretty good tactic, I had to admit.
‘You need help,’ said Frank.
‘Yes. Wait, no, she needs help. She’s missing.’
‘You smell like piss,’ said Frank.
‘Touché,’ I said. I tried to hit him again, this time with my left hand. Things went a bit black after that.
*
I had to stay overnight at the hospital. I suppose Martha’s dad must have got a few lucky punches in.
‘We burned your clothes and your sandals,’ said a woman. She might have worked at the hospital. Maybe she was a patient. Things were very unclear for me at that point.
‘Why,’ I said. My voice sounded like it was coming from the other room.
‘Because of all the piss and shit and vomit. There was so much of all three.’ Then she either disappeared or I blacked out again.
I think I saw Martha in the middle of the night, when I was woozy on pain drugs.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘you’re missing, but I’ll find you.’
‘Missing? What the fuck are you even talking about?’
‘A hairless psychic told me. I think she was erotically attracted to me.’
‘You need to stay the fuck out of my life, fucko. No more phone calls. No more texts. Stop bothering my friends and family, or next time Dad will do more than beat your ass, understand?’
‘Are you dead? Are you a ghost?’
‘No I’m not a ghost, you moron.’
I really think she was a ghost.
‘I’m sorry you died,’ I said. ‘I think I miss you. It doesn’t feel good.’
*
I saw Martha at a bar a few months later. She was drinking and laughing with a new man. I had no idea ghosts dated.