Titus Finnbar Mcginty: A Short Story

My name is Titus Finnbar McGinty and I see dead people. Wait… that phrase is probably, like, copyrighted or some shit, right? Well, it’s the truth. I can see and hear ghosts. I’m called chovihano or awenydd—death talker, medium, witch. I’m considered a Shaman among my people, the Romany—someone to be respected, but feared and held at arm’s length. I left that life behind years ago, but the souls…the ghosts…they followed. * * * * It was April in Charlotte, North Carolina, which meant that on any given day, it could be god-awful, surface-of-the-sun hot, or it’d be back to the winter coats again. It was always particularly erratic after an uncharacteristically cold winter, like we’d just had. Today, however, was a hoodie day. As I walked east
on North College Street toward the coffee shop I owned, Uptown Java, I eyed the saturated gray clouds that threatened to spill at any moment. ‘April showers’ indeed. At least if we got a sprinkle it would wash away the baked-on layer of pollen that covered every stationary surface. When the wind kicked up a notch, I tugged the hood of my sweatshirt up over my bulky headphones and reached into the kangaroo pouch to turn up my iPod. Now I wasn’t one of those douchey gu