Your True
Tales
November 2003 –
Page
40
East Village Ghost
by Bplgeus
It was a cold winter night in 1994 about 3:00 a.m. and I had just left the home of my friend Carolyn in the East Village, Manhattan. I had just rounded the corner of 1st Street and Ave A and was walking quickly to catch the F train.
A brisk wind had swept the streets clean of garbage and Clubers alike and was hurrying me along too. I had just passed the East Indian Deli and was walking past the parking lots of the high rises when I saw a young man approaching me.
He was staggering and really not dressed for the weather now, though earlier his attire would have been enough. I remember thinking to myself about him, "You'll not make it through this night if you continue going the direction you are, staggering like that. Why not just put a sign on your neck saying 'Mug me... Easy prey.'" To my surprise, the youth staggered toward me and stopped.
"You won't believe this," he slurred, "but I have walked all the way down from Broadway trying to bum subway fare. No one will give me even a quarter."
I looked at him and was startled by how much he looked like the ex-boyfriend of a mutual friend of Carolyn's and mine named Rob. It was just that he was at least 10 years younger, but damned near a twin of him. He apologized several times to me for being in the condition he was and said he should have known better, but he spent every dime he had on a girl and a good time, and that they both ran out at the same time. I laughed and gave him a quarter and started to walk, for it was cold.
"Great," he said. "All I need now is another dollar." I thought all he needed was a quarter by what he had said earlier and called him back and said, "Look, you need to get your ass off these cold streets. Give me back the quarter and I'll give you a token."
Wobbling, he put out his hand and I took the quarter from it and pushed the token into his palm because I was afraid he would drop it; all I had was two tokens and a quarter. "Now you need to get on the subway," I said and started to walk toward the station.
"Ok," he said, but walked the other way. I turned to call him... but he had vanished.
I walked up the block and called Carolyn to tell her what happened and that he looked like a young twin of Rob. After a long pause, she told me how when Rob was a young kid, he had been stabbed and died on a subway. He was later brought back to life in the hospital. Was it young Rob's ghost I saw?
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