Seeing Dead People
by Richard Froude

Vivien Leigh, July 7th

There are things I try to gloss over. As unhealthy as it sounds, my situation requires a generous measure of denial. I justify this in the following ways:

1) Please present me with a situation that does not. I will then gladly withdraw this justification.
2) How healthy does one need to be among expired companions, all of whom, having succumbed to earthly degenerations, are immune to disease both physical and mental?
3) I am unaware of any contagious psychological condition.
4) Even if my “condition” were contagious, and I were surrounded by fellows with a chance of contracting the said “condition,” I do not believe that a few well-placed lies of omission directed at oneself constitutes a “condition.”

I am aware that my fourth justification may be seen to utilize a possible symptom of my “condition.” That I justify with a few well-placed expletives directed at my own disposure to second guess myself.

In any case, standing before locker 327, I do not dwell on absurdity. In fact, I proclaim it, admittedly as a whisper, into the halls of Union Station: “Vivien Leigh is one my best friends.”

And she is. She really is. As awkward as it often is to be friends with a member of the opposite sex who possesses such impossible good looks, Vivien and I get along...it would be cheap to say “famously.” In the beginning, it may have been easier for her. (My own good looks fall into the category of only improbable.) But not discounting my hopeless desire to make small talk about the thread count of her bed sheets, we have shared many a moment of laughter, understanding, and as you, my reader, may expect from the accounts I have, for you, previously provided, moments of soft poignancy.

Re: my own disposure to second guess myself, I have at times wondered whether these moments of laughter, and my whispered proclamation of bosom buddyship with Vivien, are merely a result of my aforementioned desire to “know” her on a more carnal level. No. Of course not. After all, I am an escort. And for the escort, carnal desire is a one-way street. I must always be the object, never the subject of such weaknesses.

My propensity for denial does have certain limits. It is impossible for me to ignore the fact that I am terribly attracted to Vivien, but in all honesty this attraction has grown from something more esoteric than my own animal urges.

Esoteric, you say? This improbably handsome young man is disguising his motives with conceptual claptrap!

Well, yes, that may indeed be the case, but it is precisely my penchant for the stern and conceptual that is the foundation of my friendship with Ms. Leigh: I like Vivien because she is serious. I enjoy humor as much as the next lady or gentleman, but at my most natural and comfortable, I am a solemn creature.

So, as I meet her as usual at the bar of the station brasserie, I will not bring up the matter of the photograph I am carrying in my breast pocket. In fact, I will not mention any aspect of my brief meeting with Mr. Jack “Tin Man” Haley. Such anxieties are not the meat of my parley with Vivien. We shall discuss the dimensions of time, or dwell upon the intricacies of the outer spectrum. We’ll take a drink and amaze each other with ideas, the conceptual, or simply by turn of phrase, because, ladies and gentlemen, and I cannot deny it, Vivien Leigh is one of my best friends.