Gary Neal sat in his condo and smiled. His team hadn’t won the game, but he didn’t really care about that. Team success was never as much fun as individual success, and Gary’s performance had been fairly good. However, what really put him in a pleasant mood was not anything related to basketball.
After several seasons of torment, the disgruntled soul of Stephen Jackson was no longer harassing him through supernatural means. He could turn on the TV to watch The Price is Right without having to worry about Stephen’s face replacing the image on the screen. He could microwave a frozen dinner without dreading whether Stephen’s disembodied head would be inside the glass.
Yes, just a normal, non-haunted night in the Neal household.
Noticing an unpleasant pressure in his bladder, Gary got up to use the little boy’s room. The lid of the toilet was perpetually in the “up” position and needed no action from the user. As soon as he started doing his duty, however, there was a surprised yell from within the toilet bowl.
“Yo, would you stop peeing on me?”
Gary looked down to find the face of Larry Sanders looking back at him. Being so used to such strange occurrences, his face didn’t register even a twinge of surprise. “Oh, so you gonna haunt me too? Hey everybody, let’s just haunt Gary Neal, he won’t care! Listen, I’m sorry for insinuating that you don’t earn yo money. The Bucks were a bad situation all around, and I was jus’ takin’ out my frustrations on the easiest target.”
“Haunting? What are you talking about? I’m just trying to fix the building’s damn plumbing.”
This made no sense to Gary. “But you a basketball player. Why you doin’ plumbin’ work in Charlotte?”
“I took your advice. I earn my money now,” Larry responded. “I gotta go. There’s a leak somewhere down here that I can’t find, and it’s wrecking your downstairs neighbor’s carpet. If you’re getting haunted, you might wanna get your head checked.” With that, Larry’s head vanished back down the pipe.
Gary rubbed his eyes, wondering if he had just dreamed the whole occurrence. Why was his life so weird?