The Ghost Who Tried to Love Me

http://adamtervort.com

Copyright 2011 Adam Tervort

Smashwords Edition

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This story is part of the
Zodiac
Schmodiac
story cycle, a group of short stories based on the
Chinese Zodiac. Remember the paper placemats with zodiac animals
from your favorite Chinese buffet? The things it tells you are
wildly inaccurate and probably have no resemblance whatsoever to
your life or situation, but reading them is fun and writing these
stories was too.

“The Ghost Who Tried to Love Me” began as a
retelling of my favorite ghost story. I know a teacher in Taiwan
who resembles this story’s “Hank” quite closely, and he told me his
ghost experience one night during Ghost Festival. We had just
finished teaching our conversation classes for the evening and I
mentioned to him that some of the students thought he’d seen a
ghost before. He told me that it was true, he had seen a ghost, and
the story he told me stuck in my mind. His story scared me because
guys like us (non-Taoist, educated North Americans) aren’t supposed
to believe in ghosts much less see them. He didn’t have any
explanation for what he had been through, he only knew that it was
really creepy and that it happened. The details of this story
aren’t his, they are mine. His story was a great jumping off point,
but this story started to go in interesting directions almost as
soon as it got started. Any inaccuracies or strangeness here is
mine, not his.

So which zodiac sign does this story take?
The dragon. I know, it’s a stretch to relate ghosts to dragons, but
I figured since they are both “imaginary” that they fit well
together. The real Chinese explanation for why people see ghosts is
much more involved than what your zodiac sign is, it takes into
account you “8 life numbers” which is terribly complicated and way
over my head. I once had a Chinese fortune teller say that since I
am a foreigner and born on the wrong side of the globe my 8 numbers
don’t even work. (Maybe she could tell that I’m a cheapskate and
wouldn’t pay well so she decided to take the easy way out.) If your
8 numbers show that you have a light tie to this world then you are
more likely to see things from other worlds, like ghosts, which is
why I always try to stay a few pounds overweight so that I don’t
float away or see any ghosts.

Zodiac Schmodiac
Part 1 (the first
half of the story cycle) will hit the shelves of fine bookstores
(
Smashwords
,
Amazon
, etc.) at the end of
August 2011. If you enjoy this story you might consider purchasing
the full book. I appreciate your support and look forward to
hearing from you with your comments and reactions. (You can find my
contact info at the end of the book, or email me anytime, adam @
adamtervort . com)

What makes someone believe? I could ask you
if you believe in ghosts, but that is just a question. Most people
will roll their eyes and laugh. The answer they give isn't
important, that laugh tells you exactly what they think of your
question. Do you believe in snow? Another roll of the eyes. Ask a
Bedouin in the middle of the desert if he believes in snow and you
might get the same response as the one I got asking about ghosts.
(And vice-versa.) Just because you haven't seen it before doesn't
mean it doesn't exist, OK? Don't put a wall around your mind or
you'll be stuck all alone inside.

My name is Hank. Ghosts have become an
everyday part of my life, even though a few years ago I didn't
believe either. It might sound sappy or naive, but again, that's
because you haven't seen what I've seen. I grew up on a farm in New
York state and was going to go back and work with my family after
university, but my parents encouraged me to go and explore my roots
before I settled down to a life of tractors and seeds. Our family
is ethnically Chinese, which doesn't mean that we actually speak or
eat Chinese, but that we look Chinese. I had a distant cousin who
was working in Taiwan as an English teacher and my parents told me
I should go over and do the same thing for a few years. I suppose
they were hoping I could go to the other side of the world and sow
my wild oats so I could come back and farm for the rest of my life,
I don't know. Maybe they really wanted to learn about my heritage,
whatever that means. I went, though, and I'm still in Taiwan. It
turns out that teaching conversation classes is a lot easier than
harvesting grain or running cattle, and I like life here. My
Chinese has never taken off though. One of the hard things about
living in a Chinese country if you are an ABC (American-born
Chinese) is the prejudice. Oh, you're Chinese but you don't speak
any Chinese, how interesting. (Roll of the eyes.) Hope you enjoy
your vacation here. I usually don't want to spend the energy to
tell people I've been here for 15 years, they aren't interested in
a Chinese they don't consider to be Chinese.

No matter how "in touch" I get with my
"roots," I still act like an American. Want me to believe in your
silly traditions? Fat chance John Chinaman, show me the evidence
and I'll show you my belief. I'm a realist, like most Americans are
when it comes to folk traditions and strange customs. Taiwanese
people think they see ghosts everywhere, and maybe my doubt is what
got me a meeting with the creepy one in the first place. Every year
during the seventh month of the lunar calendar (sometime in late
August) Taiwanese celebrate ghost month. To them it is a chance to
offer sacrifices to ghosts so that the ghosts will leave them alone
for another year. To me it always seemed like a great chance to
sell lots of "gold paper" for burning as offerings. It's just a
racket set up by the traditional vendors to pick up their profits
during a slow time of the year, right? Ask your normal Taiwanese on
the street and they'll tell you they burn the gold papers and offer
food because they think they probably should, not because they
think it really does anything. Some really believe the customs work
but not most. But even though most people tell you the money and
the sacrifices don't do anything they still believe in ghosts.

I'd been teaching English for a few years
when I first talked to a student about this. We were having a
conversation class and I asked who believed in ghosts. Everyone
raised their hand. I laughed and asked if they were serious. They
laughed and seemed embarrassed, but the ones who would talk about
it said they believed in ghosts, they had a distant relative who
had seen one once, and then they would tell an urban legend. (At
least that's what it seemed like to me.) It made for a fun
conversation class, but I knew they couldn't be serious.

The next class I asked if anyone had
actually seen a ghost before. One girl in the back of the class
raised her hand, looking pretty timid. She told us that when she
was in university she lived in a small house with three other
students. They were classmates but came from different areas in
Taiwan. Not long after they started living together she would wake
in the night and hear the sound of running water. (She was a light
sleeper.) Every time it was the tap by the washing machine. She
just assumed one of her roommates had been washing clothes and
forgot to turn the faucet off. The next day she would mention it
but none of the girls admitted to washing clothes the night before.
No big deal, she’d say, just make sure you turn off the water next
time. A few months later she woke up in the night when the TV
turned on. They had a really old TV set with a dial to change
channels and a button that had to be pushed in hard to turn it on.
When she went out to see who was watching TV no one would be in the
room. Once or twice when this happened one of her roommates would
come out to see why the TV was on as well, but they never saw who
had turned it on.

The months passed and these kinds of things
would happen from time to time but never consistently or in any
kind of pattern. One night one of her classmates brought a boy to
the apartment after their date. They were sitting in her room with
the door closed when all the lights in the apartment started to
flicker and then went out. The boy helped them to find the fuse box
and change the master fuse, then left for the night. The next week
when he came back the same thing happened. Two weeks later when he
tried to kiss the girl in her room the light bulb exploded and a
glass shard cut his arm. All of the roommates were starting to get
scared and talking about ghosts. One of the girls said she had an
aunt who was a fortune teller and could see spirits, so they asked
her to come over and tell them what to do. After the aunt asked for
a fee (because the third eye needs some money to lubricate its
vision), she told them that as soon as she had walked into the
apartment she saw the ghost of a teenage girl. The girl watched
them all talk, and whenever one of them spoke about a boy the
ghost's fists would clench and she looked angry. The aunt told them
she would do some research and get back to them. She came back a
few days later and said that a girl had committed suicide in their
house 20 years earlier after her boyfriend had broken up with her.
The aunt's final advice? Don't bring any boys home and the ghost
would be happy to share the house with them. The rest of the time
my student was in university they didn't bring any boys into the
house and there were no more problems with the ghost.

What a lame story, right? Spurned ghost on
an eternal quest to keep female students chaste. Not exactly the
stuff of horror novels.

Some other students told stories of seeing
lights or waking up in the night and not being able to move. Most
stories ended with an appeal to Buddha and an eventual release. For
the most part they seemed like poorly strung together sets of
coincidences, but the students believed them.

Around that time I opened a small school. I
rented a spot in an office building and had a couple of classes of
elementary school children that would come and learn English after
school. It didn't take long before I had enough students that I
needed an assistant to help me with paperwork and coordinating with
parents. Brenda was recommended to me by a friend and we started to
go out to dinner a few times a week not long after.

I was living in a cheap apartment not far
from a hospital back then. When I told people how low the rent was
they always seemed amazed that I had found such a great deal and
asked me how much the roof leaked. (The roof was fine.) I wasn't
spending much time there because of my growing classes and my time
out with Brenda. We started to date seriously, going out every
night after class and spending weekends together at her place. (See
mom, sowing my wild oats!) Months went by and I was happy with the
relationship, happy with the classes and happy with the money we
were making. We started to talk about getting married, but weren't
in any rush.