“Hey, man,” I said into the phone. “What are you up to?”

Rick laughed. “What am I always doing? Working. Why?”

“You switch careers or something?”

Rick paused.

“No.”

“Huh,” I said, sighing into the phone. “Weird. Well, alright, I’ll let you get back to it.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” Rick asked loudly. 

I didn’t say anything.

“Ben?”

“Oh, I was just confused is all. I’m over here doing some termite work on Larry’s old place. He’s trying to sell, you know.”

“Oh, really? How much he want?”

“I don’t know. I knew you were looking, though.”

“Is that why you called?” Rick asked.

“Nope.”

“Well?”

“I just saw you standing in the window is all.”

Rick was quiet.

“You wearing that ratty ol’ John Deere hat right now?” I asked. 

“Yeah,” Rick said, laughing.

“Yeah, this guy, too.” 

“You’ve got to be joking,” Rick said, still laughing.

“Nah, not joking. Come on over when you get off,” I said. “I’ll be here for a while.”

I loaded the truck with the last of the exterminator equipment, slamming the tailgate shut. Rick pulled into the driveway, a grin on his face. 

“Dragging your feet today,” he said. 

“Yeah, had a few last night. Been blinking a lot,” I laughed. 

The sun was setting low over the old town, and the pink clouds draped daintily over the bright full moon. 

“Kinda weird seeing you now,” I said. “You’ve been here all day.”

“You’re a different type of wacko,” he said, stepping out of his truck. 

“Come on inside,” I said, pulling the key Larry had lent me from out of my pocket.

We stepped inside the house, walking into the living room. The house was fairly new. Larry had built it for his wife just a few years ago, yet the whole place was stripped of any semblance of human presence. 

“Where’s Larry living nowadays?” Rick asked.

“The city. Trying real hard to get away from her,” I said.

“Yeah, I bet. She wasn’t worth half of the gossip she inspired.” 

I laughed, but was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps. 

I pointed to the ceiling. 

“Sounds like he’s still here,” Rick said, raising his eyebrows.

“He ain’t,” I said. “I’ve been here all day. He’s not here.”

I motioned to the stairs, and Rick followed me up to the second story.

We entered the first bedroom at the top of the stairs. Rick surveyed the room, his eyes settling on the identical figure standing at the window.

It was definitely him, and I could see that he now understood what I had been talking about. 

The second Rick stared out of the window, and we watched his back.

I lifted my hand, silently saying “What do you think?”

“Hey!” Rick yelled at fake Rick. “Hey!” 

He grabbed the tape measure that was clipped to his belt and threw it at the figure. The tape measure hit the window and bounced to the floor. Then, the second Rick disappeared immediately. 

“What in the–,” Rick began.

“No, I know. Weird, huh?”

Rick was quiet for a minute.

“I’m gonna call Larry tonight,” he said. “See what he wants for the place.”

“You’d live here?” I asked incredulously. “Ain’t it haunted?”

“Not so scary if you ask me,” Rick said, laughing.

Rick bought the house, and a few months later, he had moved in. I’d come over a few nights a week to drink a few beers and kick back around the barbeque, and sometimes Rick would be in the kitchen and in the bedroom at the same time. Sometimes they’d be in the same room. Sometimes it would just be Rick and sometimes it would just be ghost Rick. 

I don’t know why Rick didn’t care that he was living with his own ghost, and I certainly didn’t know how it made any sense at all, but when Rick found himself a girlfriend, the ghost disappeared.

“Where do you think he went?” I asked Rick. 

We were sitting in his front lawn on the Fourth of July. Some of the neighbor kids were setting fireworks off across the street, and me, Rick, and his new woman, Lindsey, were watching the chaos unfold.

“No clue,” Rick said, shrugging before he finished his beer. “Maybe it was just a sign that I was supposed to move in.”

I tilted my head, not sure that his explanation made a whole lot of sense. But, then again, none of it made a whole lot of sense. 

“Y’all are ridiculous with this ghost story. It has to be the dumbest thing anyone could ever make up. Seeing your own ghost?” Lindsay said, giggling. “At least try to make it believable!”

“You never saw it?” I asked, surprised.

“No! Now shut up about the whole thing.”

“Soon as she moved in,” Rick said. “Zilch.” He made a slicing motion over his neck. 

“I wonder what it all means,” I said, rubbing my chin.

Right then, the firework display went to hell in a handbasket. A dud went off, landing in the collection of unexploded fireworks, sending a hailstorm of fire straight into the neighbor’s front porch. People ran everywhere. Someone screamed that their eye had come out. Another had a bloody stump of a finger.

I sipped my beer thoughtfully.

“Well,” Rick said. “Having a ghost wasn’t so bad.”

A year later, Lindsey had skipped town. Not before inspiring her own brand of gossip around the small town. Rick seemed glad to be rid of her.

Rick and I sat in the front lawn, watching the slightly older kids blow themselves up again, having learned nothing from the year prior.

“You miss her?” I asked, sipping my beer.

“Nah, not so much,” Rick said, his eyes on his feet, not even trying to pay attention to the firework fountain in the street.

“Probably better off,” I ventured, eyeing him indirectly.

Rick didn’t say anything.

“Your ghost is back,” I said. “Say it yesterday, driving through.”

Rick sighed and nodded. 

We sipped our beer.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when Rick threw himself down the stairs. But I was surprised when his ghost didn’t hang around. 

I walked into the empty house on the day of the funeral.

“Well, Rick,” I said, my hands on my hips. “Where are you?”

The empty house didn’t answer, and I sat in the last piece of furniture left in the place, my lawn chair that I kept in the closet.

I reached into my ice chest and cracked a beer. 

By the time I had finished the contents of the cooler, the house had still not given any answers.

I folded my chair and put it back in the closet. 

“Wanted to get out, I suppose,” I said to no one. “Did your time already.”

I waited in the living room for a moment.

“Just don’t make much sense.”

I grabbed my cooler and walked out the door. As I started my truck, I looked through the upstairs window, hoping to see one last glimpse of my friend. Instead, a new figure stood in the window, staring down at me.

“It is a nice place,” I muttered.