�Do you believe in ghosts?�

I had to be careful how I answered that. When you�re trying to get in with a girl you hardly know, a question like that can make all the difference. The fact is, for the most part, I don�t believe in ghosts, but I knew that would be the wrong thing to say.

�I guess it depends. It depends on when you ask me.�

There are times I�m up for three days straight and the paranoid delusions start coming on, and there are muffled, disembodied voices coming from every which way. At times like those, I�m ready to believe in anything.

�I believe in them. Would you like me to tell you a ghost story?�

That was the time I was living in this big house with lots of other people. I�d just broken up with my girlfriend. She was living there, too. Her name was Elizabeth. I can�t remember the name of the girl with the ghost story. There was a party going on in the house that night. I�d only just met that girl, but I invited her back to my room. She came because I had speed. I always had speed. Sometimes when I�m on it, I could swear it's the only time I really feel alive.

It was a tiny room. I stood behind my desk, cutting lines, and she sat in a chair right beside me. She had a beautiful but unusual face. She looked a little bit like an elf, if you can imagine one with a lot of sex appeal. I told her I would love to hear a ghost story.

�I was living in a apartment east of downtown. A bad neighborhood, obviously. My roommate had just moved out earlier that week--she wanted to go live with her boyfriend. We�d only been living there...not even a month. Anyway, I didn�t know what I was going to do. Besides not being able to afford it by myself, I really hate living alone. I can�t stand it.

�So it was the middle of the night, and I�d just woken up because I heard something...well, it sounded like gunshots. It could�ve been a car backfiring, I guess. Whatever, the point is, I couldn�t get back to sleep. So I was laying there, crying and thinking about how much I hated where I was living. I got up to go to the bathroom. The apartment had a long hallway stretching from my room to the living room, and the bathroom was about halfway down the hall. I�d just about made it when I saw a ghost down at the end of the hallway. Plain as day, staring right at me.�

�What did it look like?�

�I couldn�t tell if it was a man or woman, or what kind of clothes it was wearing. But it had a human form. It was translucent, with a greenish tinted glow. I didn�t take a very long look at it. I absolutely freaked out. I ran in the bathroom, and sat with my back against the door, I had my eyes closed and my hands over my ears. I ran the water in the bathtub...I was sobbing hysterically, but I was trying to sing, so I wouldn�t be able to hear anything.�

�What did you think you�d hear?�

�I don�t know.�

�What were you singing?�

She laughed.

�Um...you know that Bob Marley song? �Jammin��? You know, �hope you like jammin� too-oo�? I was at a frat party earlier that evening and it was the first song I could think of.�

�I would think spirits must hear enough of that in hell."

She stayed in the chair while I got down on my knees, and we both did our lines. The half-muted techno beats of the party outside could be heard through my door, and I felt my heartrate racing to catch up with them. It was the sound of a 7-inch being switched from 33 and 1/3 back to 45 rpms. I leaned in to kiss her and my phone rang, unusual for one in the morning. It was my mom. She was crying and she told me my uncle just died. The techno music just kept going. I listened to her the way I would listen to a song. I was on the phone for I don't know how long. When I finally hung up, the girl was gone. I hadn't even noticed her leave. She just vanished.

********

I was alone and wide awake, so I paced back and forth trying to figure out what to do. My room was really small and difficult to pace in. I must have resembled a dog chasing its tail. I decided I'd stop by Elizabeth's room.

Elizabeth had been off heroin for almost a year, until two weeks ago. There was this PSA on TV about how you should never try heroin, and it was filled with shadowy figures and ominous music, and that's what made her decide to get back on the needle. She said that for the last year her life had been a Burger King commercial, or maybe K-Mart, and she wanted it to go back to being a heroin PSA.

That was the day I came home to find her on the phone, holding a sheet of paper filled with numbers. Some of them were crossed out, most of them weren't. I asked what she was doing.

"I can't remember Ivan's fucking phone number." Ivan used to be her dealer. "I know it begins with a 6."

"So you're calling every possible combination?" That's what happens when the phone company gives unlimited local calls to junkies with a lot of time on their hands. "Have you gotten any Ivans yet?"

"37, but none were the right one."

"Don't you remember what his address was?"

"I've never been to his apartment. We used to meet at Carl�s Jr. I thought about going door-to-door, but this way I don't have to leave the house."

"That part of the city's a different area code now. It has been for months."

She yanked the phone out of the wall and threw it at me.

A couple days after that she started going with Julius. He was a hardcore junkie, and she knew she could get smack from him. I guess it was for the best--our relationship couldn't have lasted. A speedfreak and a junkie, that's like the modern day Jack Spratt story. Except you don't lick any plates clean, you just piss each other off.

********

When I got to her room, the door was open and there were five guys standing in a circle, staring at the ground. They looked befuddled and serious. I peered over Julius's shoulder to get a better look. It was Elizabeth, passed out on the floor. She seemed really purple.

"She won't wake up, man." That was Julius's assessment.

"Is she dead?"

"She's breathing," said Sean, one of the five. "She'll be OK."

"Did you call an ambulance?"

"Look," Sean seemed strangely pissed, "she'll be OK. Do you want her to get arrested?"

"It's just that she's purple."

"Do you want her parents to find out? Do you want them to pull her out of school?"

I didn't want any of those things to happen. "How much did you give her?"

"She did the same amount that I did," said Julius.

"She hadn't done any for a year."

"I didn't know that," said Julius. "It was a speedball."

A speedball is a combination of heroin and cocaine. The thinking is, the cocaine keeps you awake so you can do more heroin. I got down on the floor. I tried shaking her. Her flesh was amazingly toneless. My fingers sank right into her skin. I yelled into her ear.

"Elizabeth!"

No response. I just stared at her face while the gentlemen of the circle debated our next course of action. Julius was worried and Sean was pissed. The rest were noncommittal. I noticed how her eyes didn't quite shut all the way. There were slivers of white staring back at me. Julius and I eventually carried her into the bathroom and stood in the shower with her. Half of me was getting very wet. I felt like I should really have a cigarette in my mouth. I looked over to the mirror on the wall to imagine what I would look like with a cigarette, and was distracted momentarily by the sight of my own face. It was hideous, all red and blotchy. I knew it was just that I was looking at it too closely. I was mesmerized. If you put our faces side by side, Elizabeth's and mine, I wonder if anyone would be able to tell which of us was half-dead. It was my ability to stand on my own that gave it away.

The shower didn't work so I pulled her out of there. I was trying to get her to walk around, but it was really just me with my arms around her waist, dragging her side to side. It wasn�t like "Weekend at Bernie's.� We wouldn't have fooled anybody.

A crowd of partygoers had gathered to witness this. They were screaming at me, things like, "You've got to get her to a hospital." Someone else who lived in the house appeared in the doorway and asked, "Should I call 911?" Everyone looked at me. I was the one standing, so it was my responsibility. I couldn't tell you why to this day, but for whatever reason, I said "Yeah." There was no thought process involved. It was the first word to pop into my head.

Sean started yelling at me, so I told him to run after that other guy and tell him not to call. I only said that to get rid of him, and it worked. The crowd had mostly gone back to their business. A dead girl in a shower can only hold your interest for so long. It wouldn't even make a good music video.

I slumped down against the wall with Elizabeth propped up on my lap, and thought about couples who really love each other and spend their whole lives together. What must it be like to grow old together, to watch each other die? I marveled at the insane amount of bravery it takes to care for something so deeply. I could never be so brave.

I heard something. She was making a sound.

"Elizabeth? Elizabeth?"

I shook her and she mumbled incoherently. I pressed my face into her tangled, matted hair and smelled her.

"How are you feeling?"

"Where am I?"

"You're at a party."

********

That guy came back to inform us that an ambulance was on its way.

"We don't need an ambulance," I said, but once you call 911, you can't cancel your order.

"Come on, Elizabeth. We have to go."

"Where are we going?"

"The police are coming so we have to leave."

"I have to get my shoes on."

"Well, you'd better hurry up."

She didn't. She moved in slow-motion, but she still ended up putting them on the wrong feet. The toes were pointing outward. She looked down at the finished project, sensing that something was wrong without quite being able to put her finger on it, but we had no time to correct things. We were told that the police were at the front door. The good news was that it was a big party and it would take them awhile to find us, but the bad news was there was no way out other than the front entrance. She put her arm around my neck and I had an arm supporting her at her hip, but she was still barely more mobile than when she was unconscious. Acting as naturally as possible, I dragged this purple, semi-comatose, duck-toed freak past three police cars. We got into my car and drove off. We were free.

********

As I was driving, all I could think was, "I can't believe I'm this fucked up and I can still drive a car." I kept staring at the white lines that marked off my lane, and there I was, my car right in between them. "Look at me go! Such precision."

I drove up a nearby hill and parked the car. We could see the house from there. More police cars had shown up, but still no ambulance. If Elizabeth had died, they would have had more than enough manpower to arrest the corpse.

"Why are those policemen at our party?" Elizabeth wanted to know.

"They're there to see you. We called them."

"That was a stupid thing to do."

"We thought you were dying."

"You should have asked me first."

"You wouldn't answer."

"I can take care of myself."

"You were purple."

"You've always got to do things your way."

She was right about that. Part of me got off on playing the hero in regards to her. It felt nice to have at least one life I was actually in control of.

"My Uncle Peter died."

"Oh, honey. I'm sorry."

"I wasn't all that close to him."

"Still."

"It's just strange..." I trailed off, not knowing how to finish that thought. Some of the police were leaving the party now, and I traced the paths of their cars up and down the streets of the city. Human activity seemed so different when observed from this distance. I couldn't decide if it looked more random or more mechanical, and I don't know which of those would be worse anyway.

"How did things work out with that girl? Do you like her?"

"She told me a ghost story. Say, I don't think I've ever asked you. Have you ever seen a ghost?"

"There was this time when I was really young. I can't even remember how old or whether it was a dream or really happened. But I think it was real. I was staying at my grandparents' house and I woke up in the middle of the night. It was an old house, spooky in a quaint sort of way. I went to get a glass of water, and as I approached the kitchen, I heard voices coming from there. Whispers, but I couldn't understand what they were saying. So I peeked around the corner of the oven, and there was a ghost standing in front of the refrigerator. It was an old man, and he looked terribly sad. He caught me peeking, though. He was staring right at me."

"Were you scared?"

"No. Not at all. I wanted to talk to him, but I was shy."

"Would you be afraid if you saw one now?"

"That's stupid. That's all we are, ghosts walking around inside of flesh. If I saw a ghost, it would be proof that we have spirits, that's there's something more to the world than the crap our current lives consist of. If I saw a ghost, that would be the most wonderful thing."