A Haunted Man

A Haunted Man

By Matthew McNabb

It was a medium layover in an airport I didn’t know. I was a younger man then. Just starting out in the world of journalism and thought I knew it all of course. I was brash and cocky. Traits I have found far less appealing with maturity.

It was just a normal airport bar. One nearly always the same as the others. I had the time and the inclination for a brandy as I worked on a particularly complex assignment for work. I chose what appeared to be quiet part of the bar although at the time of day it was fairly empty as was.

“The greatest love stories in the world are always ghost stories.” I can still hear them echoing in my mind today. Those simple words coming from a whiskey voice. Glancing up and catching the man who had uttered them. His tobacco-stained hands and worn work shirt belying the wisdom he had just shared. I knew on some level what he had just shared was revelatory.

“I don’t understand.” Yet I knew I wanted to.

He turned towards me and finally his bloodshot eyes met mine. All great love stories are ghost stories. Because love haunts us if it is true and it is lost. The happy memories as well as the sad play out endlessly in our soul.”

I was astounded at this barstool poet and his way of seeing things thru a different lens then any poet I had ever studied in college. “I take it sir you have your own ghosts?”

“I’ve never believed my cemetery to be bigger then most. Though I suppose it does grow with age. But that’s why I said the love must be true. Most minor heartaches fade away into time. It’s the ones that haunt us eternal I speak of. In my case one ghost.”

“We met on a Wednesday. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. I fell in love instantly. I brought her flowers. Something no man had ever done for her. It was just a small chain steakhouse but to me it felt like the finest bistro in Paris. She kissed me and I suddenly forgot where I left my car.” His eye were alight with the memory of the feelings I knew he kept locked away tightly.

“We grew close quickly. Within a month I had moved in. Then there was the little girl. Eight years old and equally parts sweet and fiery just like her mother. We had a golf cart from the grandfather and we would drive across the pasture. Flying thru the grass with her squealing with delight.” His face took on a pained look. “I wish I could remember the sound exactly of her laughter. The last ride we took I wish I could remember every second with vivid detail.”

“I would have done anything for them. My little family meant everything. I had been married before but I was a terrible husband. And Id never been a father. But I was trying my hardest to figure it out. Sometimes that’s all we can do.”

I hated to ask him to relive it but I wanted to know so badly. “What happened?”

I could tell by his face his mind faded into the past for a moment. He took a deep sip of his whiskey. “Life happened. Tragedy struck our young family. She was robbed of someone very close to her. I remember the day it happened passing by the bathroom and hearing her screaming in the tub. I turned the tv up so the little one wouldn’t hear. It was brutal what life threw at her. I knew that and I wanted to help.”

I assumed part of the liquid leaking from his eye was not because they were blood-shot. He signaled the barkeep for another whiskey and drowned his current one in one mighty swig. “In the end I was not enough. She grew distant. Weeks would go by without her even kissing me or showing any affection. I tried everything I knew to show her how special she was to me. But as plan after plan failed. I turned here more then I should have which didn’t help.” He gestured at the whiskey laying on the bar.

“Its funny you know. Something that led to me being without her is the one thing that gets me thru being without her. It’s a vicious cycle. A chain from which I wake up thinking everyday that today is the day I will quit. Then the ghost began to speak to show me memories of ones now dead to me and I find myself back in this seat.”

I found myself near tears at his admission of addiction and the terrible toll it played upon his life. “Did you ever see her again?”

“Oh I looked her up of course. Remarried and doing well. There was memory I had. We took a vacation to the beach. One night we walked along the sand and she kissed under the stars while fireworks exploded literally and figuratively. It was one of the last happy memories I had of her and I. And the picture of her and her new husband I saw was on the same beach. And I knew she would remain forever my ghost story. And That I never was truly hers.”

“Your story is incredible. You have such a wisdom I am in awe of.”

“I am not wise or I wouldn’t have lost her. I am just a man haunted by memories of the greatest love story I never knew I was in until was over. It is not the happy endings that haunt you. It is the beauty in tragedy that stays with us.”

Before I knew it they were calling for my flight. His words have echoed in my life from the day I heard them. I sometimes think Id like to know how his story turned out. Did he quit drinking and find redemption? Did she get a divorce and they find their way back to each other? Did he find a new love that didn’t haunt him? I know more then likely he wound up drinking himself to death and was found in some back alley. But a haunted man once told me to see the beauty in the tragedy and his words have haunted me since.