Dump Him
by Louise Yeiser
I didn’t believe in ghosts, so I ignored the signs. During his first steamy weekend visit, the plugs for the floor fans, the only things cooling my dogs, were pulled from their sockets. The cords were stretched across the floor in parallel lines like railroad tracks. I found the dogs in their crates, panting heavily, their sides heaving, their bedding soaked with drool.
“He’s jealous of your dogs,” best friend, Annie said. “He snuck in there and did it!” She had never liked him.
Then it happened on his second visit—the same plugs in the same room, laid across the floor in the same way—and I was certain, with the same certainty, that I was the only one who had been in that part of the house.
On his third visit, we were having our first fight, when two policemen rang my doorbell.
“Are you alright, ma’am?” one of them asked. The other stood a step or two behind him, studying my face.
“I’m fine,” I said, hoping they didn’t notice my swollen, splotchy cheeks. I had no make-up on, and was still in my bathrobe. “Why are you here?”
“Someone dialed 911,” the officer replied.
“That’s impossible,” I said. “The phones aren’t working. The phone company’s coming tomorrow.”
“Ma’am, is your phone number 412-471-0917?”
“Yes, but all I get is static.”
“This is 412 Beech Street,” the second officer said, gazing at the numbers on the side of the house.
“Yes, but there’s no dial tone. The phone company’s coming tomorrow.”
“Someone from this house called 911.”
I insisted they come in to see for themselves. He was sitting on the couch. The smokers’ circles under his eyes that I tried so hard to ignore jumped at me. This morning they were even darker than usual. His salt-and-pepper hair was tousled.
“Morning,” he said to the officers as we walked by. He did not get up.
I walked to the phone and lifted the receiver. “Here, Officer,” I said.
He listened and handed the phone to the other policeman, who shook his head. “I don’t hear anything but static,” he said.
“Told you,” I said.
“Someone from this house dialed 911, ma’am.”
“If you say so,” I replied.
They didn’t know what to do. Neither did I; but I should have broken up with him right then and there. Spirits never lie.
Louise Yeiser, who writes a blog for fun (http://sneakpeeks.typepad.com/), has been published in various and sundry places, is a grad student at Carlow University and lives in a somewhat haunted house in Pennsylvania with three mastiffs and a cat. Contact Louise.
