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; “Tore up your latest performance piece, huh?”

“Like piranhas on a quarter-pounder. ” Someone less egomaniacal might have sighed at this point, but Jamie was indignant, and he snorted instead. “There’s just no explaining to this batch of six-toed inbreds that some poems are meant to be heard. It’s not the same if you simply read them. Mere words on mere paper have no soul. They have no fire. ”

“They have no you,” I clarified. “But you can’t force a roomful of academics to become your own personal audience, you know. ”

“Says who?” he grumbled, stalking to the passenger side of my car and waiting for me to pop the locks.

I opened my door and hit the button to let him in. “Says them, apparently. You’re going to fail the class if you can’t play nice. Maybe you should try a little harder to…I don’t know. Be less antagonistic. Fit in or something. ”

“Because I don’t care—and I am too brilliant to fit in. This whole thing is ridiculous. I have more artistic genius in my right nut then they’ve got in that whole circle of posing wannabes. I shouldn’t have to have a degree to validate my creativity. I don’t need a piece of paper to prove that I’m great. ”

“Sounds like you don’t need any humility, either. ”

“Who needs humility when you’ve got talent?”

“People who need jobs. ”

“Bitch,” he spit.

“Bitch? That’s all you’ve got? You must be losing your edge. ”

He nattered fussily at me all the way downtown, which wasn’t very far, thank heaven. We took the sidewalk around to the front of the flatiron-shaped restaurant and bar. It’s built on the end of an old city block that once housed—what else?—a hotel. The hotel is long gone, and the space has been parceled out to several other businesses, including the Pickle Barrel.

The Barrel is an eclectic little joint. It’s not big enough to serve as host to a party of any size, but that never stops anyone from holding them there. The place is a local landmark, and half the city would be inconsolable if it were to close.

The first floor is all dim yellow lights, beat-to-hell hardwoods, and badly scratched windows. None of the tables are the same size, and they’ve all been lovingly carved with the same slogans you find spray-painted on overpasses. Most of these tables wobble, and all of them are warped to some state other than flat. By the time evening comes around, there are rarely enough chairs to go around, so some patrons always wind up sitting on benches that were once padded but now leak foam stuffing onto the ground.

Up by the bar a colorful jukebox lists a number of diverse titles, but every time I’ve ever been inside, Dire Straits has been playing. If it’s not the Romeo and Juliet song, it’s “Money for Nothing. ”

Behind the jukebox, a circular, ironwork staircase of narrow width and dubious stability leads to the roof. Parties usually begin upstairs, because there’s more room to spread out. Also, the rickety metal stairs serve as a good litmus test to determine who’s sober enough to leave. If you can make it down that treacherous spiral without breaking your neck, you’re probably okay to drive.

We skipped the popular (yet uncomfortable) corner seat and made for the stairs. Already we could hear familiar voices up on the roof. Our heads crested the second floor in time to see a waitress arrive with a fresh round of drinks, sparking a happy holler from the birthday boy.

I didn’t know Chris well, but his brother Mike used to date the daughter of a friend of Lu’s. Jamie didn’t know Chris or any of his near relations, and he wasn’t particularly well liked among some members of the group; but he had a longstanding interest in Mike’s best friend’s sister—who might be in attendance.

In this city, that’s plenty enough connection to crash a shindig.

About thirty people had camped upstairs, sprawling amoeba-style around most of the round metal tables. I knew most of the attendees in that vaguely acquainted sort of way in which most people here know everyone else in their age group—which is to say, I’d seen them around either the coffee shop or the university.

Jamie and I pulled up chairs and snagged the waitress while we had the chance. I put in an order for a fully loaded cheeseburger and a Coke, and Jamie ordered a half-carafe of wine.

It wasn’t until the waitress had made her tired way down the stairs that I realized the topic of the conversation we’d wandered into.

“I heard it from Dave. He quit his job out there on Thursday,” my friend Benny, a thin guy with glasses, announced without his eyes ever leaving his sketchbook. I wondered how he could see well enough to draw, but he seemed to be doing fine with a ray or two cast by the nearby streetlamp.

“Which Dave?” Jamie asked.

Ben tapped his pencil against the sketchbook’s spiral. “Dave Young. Katie’s ex-boyfriend—you’d know him if you saw him. He’s Josh’s cousin, the one who used to be in the army. ”

Nods of recognition went round the tables. Chris, the spectacularly drunk birthday boy, sloshed beer over his wrists and added his own two cents. “You mean the one who works out at the battlefield?”

“Yes, baby. ” His girlfriend, Angie, dabbed at the patch of beer now freshly decorating her knee. “That’s the one. What did he say about it, Benny? Is it true about the ghosts?”

Our resident artist squinted down at his paper. “Dave said they were talking about closing down the park for a while. ”

“They can’t close the park!” Chris’s equally inebriated sibling Mike gasped what we all were thinking. “That park’s been open for two hundred years!”

“Well, a hundred and fifteen. Since almost thirty years after the war,” Ben corrected him. “But they’re saying that they need to keep people out of it until they find out what’s going on. They don’t want to get sued because someone has a wreck in the park or a heart attack from seeing a ghost. ”