IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT

Samuel Clemens, ghost, here.

So there I was, regaling Roland with my wit in my ghost chair

while he was muttering on his air mattress

something about 3 O'Clock in the morning.

"Why, so it," I laughed. "We ghosts are at our best this time of night, don't you know?"

"That makes one of us," Roland sighed.

"I hate a man who goes to sleep at once; there is a sort of indefinable something about it which is not exactly an insult,

and yet is an insolence. I get to feeling very lonely, with no company but an undigested dinner.

"Ghosts can't eat, sir."

"But I remember some fine meals, son.

Why you are frittering your life away just sleeping like a log. I don't mean a brisk, fresh, green log, but an old dead, soggy rotten one, that never turns over or gives a yelp."

"I was a happy, soggy log."

"You know, young fella, there are reams of culture-starved souls who would kill to get the gems of wisdom I am heaping upon you here.

Why, I bet you didn't get onto Chandler about his "the meaning of words" article he wrote for you!"

"He let me sleep."

"I am wounded I say. Wounded! Ah, hi there, Gertrude."

I whispered down to Roland. "Mind your P's and Q's. Gerdy is always a mite raw-boned on the anniversary of her death."

To prove my point, she glared at me. "That is MISS Stein to you, buffoon."

"That's Mr. Buffon to you, gal."

She just upped and ignored me, pinning poor Roland to the carpet with those steely blues of hers.

"I read Chandler's drivel of last night."

She wiped her mouth as if the memory tasted bad. "Clarity is of no importance because nobody listens

and nobody knows what you mean no matter what you mean, nor how clearly you mean what you mean.

But if you have vitality enough of knowing enough of what you mean, somebody and sometime and sometimes a great many will have to realize that you know what you mean

and so they will agree that you mean what you know, what you know you mean, which is as near as anybody can come to understanding any one."

I looked at Roland with a raised eyebrow, "Suddenly, I am very afraid, son."

"Why?," he asked.

"I actually understood that."
***