Ghost Dick
Ah, Ghost Dick… where do I begin explaining how this playful, phantom phallus first began to haunt my thoughts? Perhaps simply at the site of the crime: a ghost tour in St. John’s Newfoundland, one decade ago. While staring up at a decrepit old Victorian house, the site of an unsolved murder, he just appeared out of thin air, his impossibly silken scrotum-feet patting delicately about on my shoulder. Immediately, I could tell he had a strong mischievous streak. He looked at me and winked, and then was off like a flash to “question” his witnesses. He soundlessly darted in and out of windows left open in the oppressive summer heat, the giggling of widows and old maids confirming his presence. One dog barking a bit too much. I didn’t stay long enough to find out if he solved that particular crime, or how that might practically play out at the police station and in the court of law. But I like to think he at least helped move things along, and helped raise the widows’ spirits a bit.
I always daydreamed about him becoming the clumsily charming star of a hit television series and that I would revisit him in the future to help him rise to said stardom. But like all bad ideas masquerading as good, ghost dick never fully materialized. Was the world truly ready for a penis that was a ghost but also a detective? Was he the penis of a detective? Or did he only become a detective after he became a ghost? Was the detective also a ghost? How does a penis even become a ghost in the first place? Or a detective for that matter? I had no answers, so I put him away in an old shoebox in the back of my closet, as if he were just some stiff in a morgue awaiting a proper burial. But I could hear him rattling around in there once in a while. Not quite dead yet. It happens sometimes.
Sometimes, when I see a nice historic property that is clearly haunted and in which crimes have obviously been committed, Ghost Dick escapes from his shoebox just chomping at the bit to go solve some crime.
Reader, I will share with you some recent Montreal properties that made me nostalgically brush the dust off of Ghost Dick and rummage around to find his adorably tiny detective’s fedora. I hope you are as tickled as I was. They are by no means beautiful design houses, but their wood beams and fireplace hearths look like they are scenes from vintage mystery novels, and they make you wonder about the salacious scenes that transpired within their stone walls. Plus, one has a whole goddamned beach to itself, and another has views that make you feel like you are the Prince of Montreal, and the third like you are a hobbit living in the house from The Shining. So many mixed feelings brought up by haunted real estate.
Possibly the most mysterious thing about Ghost Dick is that, while I always thought he was an only child born from the simple mind of an immature adult, it turns out that he has a bastard dick brother out there. Having learned from the crushing disappointment of not being the first one to coin the term, “shartnado,” I decided to google my Ghost Dick idea, just in case. (I also quickly coined the term “snartnado,” just to preserve my delicate originality.) But it actually turns out some equally depraved guy named Peter Derk already beat me to it with a book entitled “Ghost Dick: Private Eye.” While it is more about a detective who solves paranormal crimes, the writing makes me want to commit penicide on my own Ghost Dick, it’s just so good. I’ve only read the first 10 pages so far so I’m not really sure if it ends in him trying to get the reader to join an MLM cult or something, but at this point I’m ready to buy whatever he’s selling. Perhaps he is selling historic Montreal properties. Enjoy! And please invite me over for a murder mystery party if you buy one.
