Two Dog Night

He asked his ghost with all the confidence in the world
"So what do you think about that, Jeff?"
That sly grin
I can only imagine that if Jeff was impressed, he tried not to show it.

The old man had walked into the barely florescent shelter of the bus stop
The uncompromising chill of that December night gathered us as strangers
Some of us wanderers were going home.
Some of us were sharing the night with ghosts instead.

He came too close and started smoking something comfortable.
Didn't notice me
or anyone else, for that matter.
I guess I wasn't so real to him and his world.
Just a shadow in a flickering florescent incandescence
That was fine with me.

But I noticed in the grey light
that the lines that defined his grinning face weren't so deep.
His wrinkles were almost flesh, but not quite. His voice
with all the tired cynicism of a sax whispering jazz,
was aged with his experience
but not the countless years it suggested.

I think that Jeff stood right where I was.
Joking and teasing and reminiscing
of the years he shared with his old friend.
The old man laughed.
The years when Jeff might have really stood right where I was.
The old man laughed.
He couldn't look his ghost in the eyes.

He continued to flaunt his success to his old friend.
"$25 bucks or what?"
He smiled and stared at his feet through the veined veil of a tired eye.

They weren't waiting for any bus.
After some time I suppose the ghost grew restless
and walked back out into the wind and snow.
The old man frowned.
It was going to be a much colder walk for him that it was for Jeff.
But he followed his friend, again.
They walked side by side into the two dog night.
Leaving the rest of us
strangers sharing a grey light.

I looked around at the masks and scarves
as if they might have known something that I didn't.
Judging by their faces
We had all been inconvenienced, somehow.