Favorite Haunts
by Jeff Baker
“Okay, keep your eyes closed.” Gus said.
“They’re closed but since I’m invisible and insubstantial it doesn’t do a lot of good.” Bernie said.
“Don’t look then,” Gus said. “It’s a surprise.”
“I’m not looking.” Bertie said. “I mean I’m looking at the ground.”
Gus and Bertram (“Bertie”) had been a happily-ensconced couple in his family house nearby decades before that was cool or accepted. They had been happily-ensconced ghosts for longer. The Rowley cousins and their families who had lived happily in Peregrine House never knew it was haunted because Gus Rowley and Bertie Menzies usually kept a low profile. But not tonight.
“Okay.” Gus said. “Open your eyes…or look, I mean.”
Bertie looked up. The little row of one story brick buildings sandwiched together on the side street had big darkened windows except the one on the end. It had a glowing Jack O’Lantern on the front porch, a glowing “OPEN” sign in the window and a carved wooden sign “MacDowell’s Place” lit by a floodlight hanging over the door.
“Oh, my gosh!” Bertie said. “The Corner Inn! I thought it was closed decades ago! Last I heard they were going to tear it down!”
“Nope!” Gus said. “Somebody found a reason for it to be historic. Building nearly a hundred years old and a few generations of college kids got their beer here.”
“So did we, and we weren’t college kids.” Bertie said. He laughed suddenly. “Remember Halloween, 19…what? 53? We went in here for a beer and stayed and you got snockered?”
“Oh, God! I barely remember!” Gus said.
“It was a Halloween party and you were drunk and were talking to that guy dressed as a pirate?” Bernie asked.
“So help me, I thought he was you!” Gus said.
“You said you were Gay but you were so sloshed he thought you said you were ‘Gage?’”
Gus laughed again.
“And I wasn’t even dressed like a pirate!” Bertie said.
“So, you want to go in?” Gus said. “For old time’s sake.”
“Got no money.” Bertie said. “Our nephews inherited it.”
“So, we go in, see what’s going on and leave.” Gus said. “Call it a nostalgia trip.”
“To our favorite old haunt.” Bertie chuckled.
“Yeah.” Gus said.
“We better get visible.” Bertie said. “Let’s get behind those bushes.”
“The usual outfits?” Gus said.
“Sure.” Bertie said. “Fits perfectly.”
A couple of minutes later, Gus Rowley and Bertie Menzies opened the door of MacDowell’s Place and stepped in. It was small but cozy. Bar area and an area with tables to the side. Glowing pumpkins and cutout witches hanging behind the bar on the mirror. Plastic pumpkin on the bar with a sign saying: “Tips! (Ghosts Need Love Too!)”
“Love the sign,” Gus said to the bartender pointing to the pumpkin.
“Thanks, guys!” The bartender, a lean young man with a reddish face and nice biceps (Bertie and Gus surely noticed) grinned at them and said. “Whaddy’ll have?”
“Uh, we just dropped in for old times sake.” Bertie said. “We filled up the tank and are fresh out of cash.”
“Card?” the bartender said.
“Don’t have them anymore.” Gus said with a shrug.
“Hey, it’s on me.” That was from a man sitting at the end of the bar. Stubbly beard and scraggly hair. The pair would have guessed he was in his thirties. He was wearing a long jacket, a floppy hat and a long, multicolored scarf.
“Thaks!” Bertie and Gus said.
“Uh, we’ll have…” Bertie looked at Gus. “Two beers.”
The bartender nodded and started pouring the beers.
“Thanks a lot,” Bertie said to the man.
“You’re welcome.” The man said. “Hey, I love your costumes.”
“Thanks!” Gus said, glancing at their outfits that would have been in fashion about 1953. “We’re going as ghosts.”
“Like the TV show?” the man said.
“Yeah.” Bertie said. “We used to love Topper.”
The man looked at them quizzically as the bartender set their beers down on coasters.
“Cheers!” Bertie said as they toasted the man. They sipped the beers and wandered around the room. Several customers, a few in costumes. And on one wall, under glass was a collage of pictures taken at various times in the bar’s history. The exterior, the interior when it had been cleared out and ready for demolition and one taken at the grand re-opening.
“Take a look at that one…” Gus said, pointing to a corner.
Barely visible, sticking out from behind annother picture was a black and white of the bar in an earlier era. In the picture, grinning ear-to-ear, were Gus and Bertie looking young and alive.
“Wow.” Bertie said.
They finished their beers and Gus looked behind them. “Uh oh,” he said.
There was a trail of beer on the floor behind them. It had gone right through them.
“We weren’t concentrating.” Bertie said.
They walked up to the bar and handed the glasses back.
“Got a mop?” Gus said. “Sorry, but one of those glasses was leaking.”
“It wasn’t us!” Bertie said.
The bartender stared quizzically and turned, putting the glasses to the side.
“Wanna meet me outside?” the man who’d bought their beer said.
Then he vanished.
Bertie and Gus stared. The bartender turned around and stared at the empty chair. He glanced around.
“Hey, he didn’t pay!” The bartender said. “Listen you two, pay up.”
Bertie and Gus looked at each other, then vanished too.
Outside, they found the other customer fully visible and in the bushes.
“How did you know?” Bertie asked as they appeared beside him.
“I saw the beer leak out of your shoes.” the man said. “I can tell.”
“What’ll they think?” Gus said with a smile.
“Nothing. It’s Halloween.” Bertie said. “They’ll get a good story out of it.”
“So whadya want to do?” the man said.
“I don’t know.” Gus said. “You?”
“There’s a pool hall near here I haunt sometimes.” The man said. “Lots of fun.”
“Okay! Let’s go!” Bertie said. “Mister…?”
“Oh,” the man said, wiggling his scarf. “Just call me Doc.”
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Happily-ensconced mid-century ghosts Bertie and Gus usually show up here around Halloween. Here’s one of their other capers. https://authorjeffbaker.com/2025/10/31/tweet-o-ween-friday-flash-fics-for-halloween-from-jeff-baker-october-31-2025/
AND Get ready for “Sidetracked.” My serialized sci-fi adventure novel (as by “Mike Mayak”) begins posting in weekly installments on this blog beginning January 1st, 2027! New Year’s Day! More info to come!
—jeff
