Help! I keep having dinner with dead people and I cant help it! Every night this week I’ve been having dinner with dead people! A few nights ago, my old aquantice, Steve picked me up, and asked me if I wanted to have dinner. I said yes and we ate at a new orleans style restaurant. The dinner was great! We had corn bread with hot sauce poured on it. We ate gumbo for a starter, and had craw daddys for the main course. The only problem is Steve has been dead for over two years, he died of AIDS.

Steve was a friend of my friends sister that lived in Chicago. We went up there about three times because my friend had a boyfriend up there that was friends with her sisters boyfriend. I went with her for something to do since I had no boyfriend at the time and just came out of a disatorous marriage that only lasted six months. I was 22 at the time. Eight years ago.

Steve was who they set me up with as an “escort” if you will. He told me about this one Cuban girl he was in love with that looked like a super model. The only problem was she dated a lot of other men and wouldn’t give him the time of day. This only made him want her more, of course. I told him to keep trying to get her attention and to be persistant. Years later, after Im married and I have a little baby boy, my friend calls me one day. She asks, “did you ever do anything with Steve?” “No”, I reply, “when would I have a chance to do anything with Steve?” (my friend and her sister was always around) “well, he’s been diagnosed with AIDS” she says. ” He was dating this Cuban girl and it turns out she has it, too” I was shocked I couldn’t believe it. A year later he was dead. Two years later were sharing corn bread again in a Louisiana restaurant.

Image via Wikipedia

The next evening I pulled up to a shopping center that had a small chinese restaurant in it. It was next to a K-Mart and there was a line waiting outside, when I came up to the hostess podem to put my name on the list,  the hostess tells me that my aunt Charlotte already has a table waiting for me. I go through the overly decorated in chinese garb restaurant to find my aunt 20 years younger, how I remember her as a child, sitting at this huge round table. She smiles brightly showing her teeth and asks me how I’m doing. “fine” I tell her, but she looks more deeply into me and tells me to “slow down”. She points to a folder that magically appears on the table and says”look, you even brought your work with you”. I look into her eyes and say “okay, I will”.

I wake up, sweating.

My aunt was really sick for several years before she took a tumble down the stairs. She had lived through a 45 year abusive and loveless marriage that was riddled with infidelity from my uncle. When she had fallen she was in intensive care for two weeks before the doctors found her brain dead and my uncle took her off the macines keeping her alive. When this happened I felt at peace, and was relieved because I knew he could no longer hurt her anymore.

Another day has come to pass and night fall is here again, it makes me wonder while I drift off to sleep, “who will I have dinner with tonight?”