The Ghost Visitor

by Sherri A.

The four of us were fast friends in high school and beyond, we three girls and our buddy, Mark (aka "Mezgo"), --who accompanied us to events, acting as escort, driver, and all around good pal. We were together so often in pairs, in triplicate, or in our fearsome foursome that people often thought that he was dating all three of us at once...Time passed, and as usual, there came the time that the group went it separate ways. Lin and Mar went to Florida, and I headed out west to Nevada...leaving Mezgo behind in our sleepy southern Indiana town.

Mezgo had taken a job with the local ship building establishment, a place known for almost yearly contract stikes, and lay-offs, but otherwise the best paying job in town for a new graduate. So when I left he promised that as soon as he got the chance--when they went on strike, when he got a vacation, or when he was laid off--he would come out to Nevada to visit.

Time passed. Mar called from Florida to say that she was coming out to Nevada to live and would be there in a couple of days. The next day I had the day off from work, and after running a few errands, I sat down on my couch to rest and read for a few minutes...feeling sleepy, I stretched out on the couch and napped a bit....until I heard the sound of someone walking up the steel and concrete steps to the apartment and knocking on the door. I opened the door and found Mezgo standing there with that big dumb grin on his face, that stupid hat turned sideways on his head, and that worn out blue-jean jacket on, as usual. He said "I was just in the neighborhood and thought that I would check out your crib"--just exactly what he would say if he had travelled a 1000 miles to visit!

He came in, we started chattering over each other excitedly as I sat back down on the couch and he sat in the chair near the door. "How've you been?" "What's new" "Have you heard from the others" etc etc...Then there came the sound of footsteps on the stairs again, and I said to Mezgo "That must be my roommate, Jackie, and her boyfriend"--the door opened, and it was indeed Jackie and her gentleman friend. I greeted them and started to introduce them to.....

....the empty chair. Huh?

I really was was sitting up on the end of the couch when Jackie and her boyfriend came in the door. Not asleep, as far as they could tell. I was facing the chair that Mezgo had just been sitting in, and according to Jackie, she had heard me talking to someone when she was still outside the door. I told Jackie & co about the "dream" that I had just had about Mezgo being there to visit, and how it had seemed so real. We figured that having heard the news that Mar was coming, it was only natural to dream about another one of the fearsome foursome.

Mar got there the next day, and called her mother to tell her that she had arrived safely. Mom had bad news...

Mezgo had been at work at the ship yard, and had been complaining of a terrible headache. He fell suddenly, and they took him to the hospital, where he lasped into a coma because of an aneurism in his brain that had suddenly burst. He died without waking again...

But not before keeping a promise to an old friend?