The Worthy; A Ghost's Story

by Will Clarke

• ISBN13: 9780743273152
• ISBN10: 074327315X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-06-27
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Summary

In this fratboy/ghost story, Conrad Sutton is dead at age 19 and seeks revenge against his murderer. The only problem is that Conrad needs a body to effect any real change in the "meat world," so he learns the dark art of possession.

Excerpts

Chapter One If you ignore what I have to say, it really won't surprise me. I've come to find that most people ignore the dead. If you do choose to hear me, listen closely, because what I have to tell you is a story of unholy proportions. Hopefully, if I can make you hear what I am supposed to tell you, I can finally break the ties that bind me to the secret letter society of Gamma Chi.But before we get started, let me tell you about myself. My name is Conrad Avery Sutton III, and I am dead at age nineteen. When I was alive, I won't lie, I had it pretty good -- the Porsche, the pretty girls, and a trust fund full of oil money. When I started as a freshman at Louisiana State University there was no question that I would rush. My daddy had been a Gamma Chi as well as his daddy and all the men in the Sutton clan. Well, there was one exception, my cousin Barrow, who got blackballed and now he's got one of those rainbow stickers on the back of his truck. God, my daddy and uncle were so embarrassed; they still don't talk about it.I went through Rush and I of course got a bid. I'll admit I thought I was the shit with my navy jersey and gold letters. Next to my Porsche, those letters got me laid more times than I can remember. Of course it was all fun and games in the beginning -- one endless keg of cold beer and blunts on command. But this mixture of chronic booze and blood oaths turned into a bitter, stinking mess.Busted lips and broken beer bottles were all part of my pledge training. I was cocky, and the brothers saw fit to divest me of this character flaw. So I scrubbed urinals with a toothbrush to the beat of someone punching my kidneys. I served meals to my brethren walking only on my bloody knees. And when a spit cup was not readily available for an active brother, I learned to offer my hand as a spittoon. I even learned the fine art of acting. I was given the starring role in Gamma Chi's video reenactment of the "Wasabi-up-the-Nose" scene fromJackass: The Movie.I never could smell right after that.By the end of my first semester, I had learned to be a good pledge. I could recite all fifteen hundred words of the pledge creed -- backward even. And for the amusement of the active chapter, I was asked to perform this dyslexic feat for their dinnertime entertainment. It's amazing how a knuckle upside the head can force you to learn even the most boring crap.So I find it almost poetic that this bright April morning, the brothers will dedicate their new library and scholarship fund to me. The Conrad Avery Sutton III Memorial Library is a beautiful addition to the big old Gamma Chi house. My new library is full of polished woods, brass lights, and leather-bound books. Daddy went all out for his dead son. It was his way of dealing with my death. He worked while others cried. It obviously paid off; the construction crew completed the job in less than two months. And that's no small task, considering how rainy South Louisiana gets in the early spring.You know, it's weird being dead. You're everywhere but nowhere all at once. You can sort of hear people talk before they speak, but you can't speak yourself. Or at least, you can't make people hear you when you speak. On rare occasions some folks have actually heard me. But most people are too busy with their own thoughts to pay any attention to mine. There is, however, one perk to being dead: The living are like open books that you can read without turning the pages of a conversation. Only thing is, most of the books in this stupid old house are full of blank pages and cheap porno. So I guess it's really not as cool as it sounds.I mostly find myself following around Ryan Hutchins. He lives on the third floor and he's the biggest coke-snorting asshole you'll ever meet -- and I'm not just saying that because he killed me.When he's not busy killing innocent people like myself, he's beating his beautiful girlfriend, Maggi