REAL GHOSTS REACT is a youtube horror/humor “documentary” series hosted by medium-cum-influencer Paul Logan. In each episode, Logan confronts historical ghosts with modern pop culture artifacts and films their response. Logan took up residence at The Last Estate following a controversy surrounding a misbegotten viral video “reunion” stunt involving the illegally disinterred remains of Gabby Petito and her boyfriend/alleged-killer Brian Laundrie resulted in the loss of multiple sponsors, including the live service mobile game Raid: Shadow Legends and male hygiene tool line Manscaped. 

 

In the episode transcribed below, Logan interviews the spirits of Amos Freeman and Felix [no surname], two black Civil War soldiers, one Union and one Confederate, who were killed in a minor skirmish late in the war and unceremoniously buried in the same shallow grave in a root cellar below what is now the Estate’s breakfast nook. Cursed to haunt the dilapidated plantation house until their souls find rest, the pair have not wandered beyond the house’s kitchen walls for well over a century.

 

Logan: Hey kiddos, it’s P. L. here with another sensational, spooky episode of “REAL GHOSTS REACT.” Today:  [Logan holds Nintendo Power Issue #1 up, shows it to the camera first, then offers it to Felix and Freeman.] Check. It. Out. Nin. Ten. Do. POWER. Issue. One. Just look at this cutie. Fuck, I’m eight again. Here. Touch it. Feel it. Flip those glossy pages—Oh. Right. Well, shit, what do you think of the cover? “It’s-a me, Mario!”

 

Felix: I see what you sayin’. They used to have posters looked just like that hung up ’round the plantation to warn us bout hungry Irishmen that sneaks into the barns at night to steal turnips. Looking at it now, gives me those same warm childhood feelings. Never saw an Irishman myself, though. Well, some of the yanks I killed was Irish, I bet. Lots of them up North.

 

Freeman: You numbskull, he’s clearly Italian. Skin’s too dark and shiny to be Irish. Also no Irishman can grow a mustache like that. Would be all red and patchy and half down his neck. You wouldn’t know no better though, because you’re a dumb hick who ain’t never seen New York. Italians everywhere in New York. Irish too. It’s a wonder. Real cosmopolitan. Lincoln even let the Irish and Italians fight together in the same units, I heard.

 

Felix: Ol’ enlightened Abe didn’t let you serve in no paddy-wop unit though, I bet.

 

Freeman: No, but you’re missing the point, you dumb—

 

Logan: Woah! Hold on! We’re getting a little off topic here, boys and girls. We’re talking about video games, remember? Nintendo Power! Issue One!

 

Felix:  [Felix’s eyes get wide.] I don’t know what Nin-ten-dough is, but it sho’ do make a nasty-ass, gangrene-lookin’ cake!  I seen soldiers legs all shot up finna look better’an that.  Little man with the carrot look like he havin’ a conniption.  He look possessed!

 

Freeman:  Since you’ve actually been possessed yourself, I’ll trust your judgment, Felix.

 

Felix:  Haw, haw.  You real funny, negro.  Hey, you know, speaking of the fact, you know what issue number one is for you federals?

 

Freeman:   Let this boy talk, Felix.  He’s telling us about his magazine, you ig’nant tar-baby.

 

Felix:  —Issue one is yer yella … and yankee blue all mixed up with it.  Once the matter’s all settled, nigga, you as green as this cake.  Ha!  

 

Freeman:   Okay.  Alright.  You can try your last-ditch efforts to get one up on me, but I actually want to-

 

Felix:  Last ditch I was in was the same as you, yank.  Ooh, and we was awful close.  Mighty dead, too, yank.

 

Freeman:  Can we get past this, please?

 

Felix:  [Felix snorts and chortles.] —was what your yankee lieutenant said to God while he pissin’ hisself, starin’ at them big batteries on that hill, finna run maybe.  Finna catch some shrapnel maybe.  Finna be in a letter home maybe.  Ha!  Finna be in a night-night prayer maybe!

 

Freeman:  [Freeman lets out a pfff, reclines in his chair with a knowing smile, then shrugs and holds his hands up.] I’m just wanting to hear about these games, is all.

 

Logan: Oh my god, look here.  They call Toad the “Mushroom Retainer!” Can you believe it? I’m losing it. I don’t know about you guys, but I always keep my mushroom retainer on speed dial. You know what I’m saying?

 

Felix:  Once my li’l niece snuck away from her mother while they was out scavengin’ for mushrooms. She ate one ah the wrong kind and started retainin’ water. Terrible tragic. Old lady who live out in the bayou come down to see us, and my sister is crying and screaming and saying her baby’s gon’ die, but this old lady takes the biggest damn toad I ever seed out her pack and rubs it up and down on my niece belly and jus’ like that, she starts laughing and pisses herself—and she better! This little man you’s pointing at looks like an Arabian though? Don’t look like a toad. Well, might a bit.

 

Freeman:  Arabian?  You ever seen an a-rab?  That boy look like he a ward of the state, “touched” as you Southern folk say.  Wish marching through bayous was as easy as this toad make it look.

 

Felix:  Maybe you blue-backed bastards shoulda hopped instead then. Jumped right over Jackson and into the god damned gulf. [Felix claps his ethereal palm down on the table without making a sound and makes it bounce along the tabletop.] Ribbit, ribbit.

Logan: Yoooooo.  Wait, wait, check out this little rat dude [Logan points enthusiastically at the magazine, snickering heavily.]  COME AHHHHHNNNN!  His shooooes. Check out his kicks! Are those Vans?  Broooooo.  Dude.  COME ON!

 

Freeman:  I must say. Don’t mean any offense, but I simply do not get the humor here. Rats are damn serious. Lost a man, might as well have been a brother of mine, down round Corinth, cause he didn’t check his boots when he woke and there was a mother rat had crawled inside one of them to give birth, guess she figured it was safe and dry in there. When he slid his foot in, she took a chunk out his big toe size of a sweet corn kernel. Whole foot was gangrenous two days later. Wouldn’t let the sawbones take it off! Said his grandpops had used both his two feet running out of this Mississippi hellhole and he wasn’t bout to lose one of his down here. Didn’t figure, I guess, that the alternative was both feet and the rest of him being buried deep down in the Deep South for good. Felix, now, don’t you see what sacrifices your brothers (under Abe and God, at least) went through to liberate a dense, ungrateful negro like you? Kicks is right. I oughta give your dumb ass a couple swift ones.

 

Logan: Shit! This is getting REAL! [Logan mugs for the camera.] Hey Felix, what are you going to say to that, dawg?

 

Felix:  Shit boy.  I’m finna go across the ether, go grab that fast-daguerreotype maker outta this white boy’s hands (and would you ‘scuse me, boss), then go upside your nappy head with it.  I ain’t see no rat here but you, yankee.  Don’t you worry none about this old Lincolnite, son, buckdancin’ for his dead president.  Forget about Freeman.  ‘Bout to grab some “give a damn” from this-here carpet bag.  [Felix reaches behind him and places a large bag on the table, then slowly reaches inside of it.]  Oh wait.  It’s empty, boss!  [Felix cracks up laughing.]

 

Logan: Ah shit, check it: Classified Information! This was my fave growing up. My jam! All the cheats and shit. The Konami Code! Up, up, down, down, spin your body round and round. [Logan shakes his hips and does a fist bump before breaking down laughing at his own non-joke.] Why play fair when you can cheat? (Sorry Cassie! Still love you babe!) Come on, you know I’m right. [Logan tries to nudge Felix knowingly but his elbow goes right through the ghost.] Damn, that’s cold.

 

Freeman: Used to be they’d hang a man for disclosing classified information, and here they’re printing it in what looks to be a children’s magazine, just like that? Boy, the way things changed, sometimes I’m glad I’m dead and don’t have to reckon with any of this treasonous nonsense.

 

Logan: Hold. the. fuck. up. I have to interject here. There’s some serious misinformation shit going on. Nintendo’s not just for children, OK? Lots of adults play video games. Really! It’s a hobby like any other! No, it’s a career! I got my first ten thousand subscribers streaming kaizo Mario Maker levels. Now look at me. I’m a business, man. Anyway, public service announcement OVER. Back to Classified Information—

 

Felix: Speaking of classy-fied, one time, I did some runnin’ for old man Lee.  Put some good messages in his gray mits, I did.  They said they was finna have me do it, cause I got the tightest lips.  [Felix makes a zipped-lips motion.]  Said I had the right ment-al-ity for it too!  That’s yo boy Felix, a spy… a gray ghost… a…

 

Freeman:  … A spook?

 

Felix: A … yeah!  I, ehh, hey!  Caught me there, yank.  Nigga, you just jealous you never ran nothin’ heavy as me.  Dun ran from some husky-ass Northern girls though, I bet.

 

Freeman:  Felix …

 

Felix: [cracking up] Dun ran from some heavy ass Southern steel and shot, I bet!  Ha …

 

Freeman:  Now hold on, now.

 

Felix: [between laughing and sneering] Dun ran, scatterbrained, ‘round some Northern city-maze, in yo dandy-ass blues, I be-

 

Freeman:  What is that old Konami code, anyhow?

 

Felix: What’s that?  Whatchu want?

 

Freeman:  What’s the code?

 

Felix: Boy I don’t know what that white boy said, it’s all boogywoogy to me.  Nintendo-pretendo, pshhh.  

 

Freeman:  You the spy.  Why don’t you read it, gray ghost?

 

Felix: Come again, yank?

 

Freeman:  Read the code.  Off the page.

 

Felix: [squints at the magazine] I, well, I … Where that code at again?

 

Freeman: [guffaws] Well, well, gray ghost, just as I thought. You can’t—

 

Logan: [hastily interrupts, laughing nervously] Alright, so, I, just, uh, for the audience, you know, I don’t want to reinforce any negative stereotypes here. Like, listen, boys and girls, I don’t want to sound like a fucking TEACHER, but, uh, during this time, you know IN HISTORY, illiteracy was … Lots of people couldn’t read is what I’m saying … White dudes, black dudes, hell, even Asian dudes! You’d be surprised how many Asian dudes couldn’t read back then! I bet it was like … half of China … or something—

 

Freeman: What are you on about? I’m not calling him a dumb, illiterate negro. I’m saying he’s just god damn dumb, period. He can’t read because massa wouldn’t teach him, and it’s a point of pride for this ignorant, black—

 

Logan: [interrupting] Oh dude, check it out: It’s Contra! Dude in the drawing looks just like Stallone. Where’s Ah-nold?

 

Felix: White boy, who you sayin’ is contraband?  I ain’t no runaway, and that man in the picture ain’t no darkie.

 

Freeman: Boy, he ain’t talking about contrabands.  He’s saying something about this game shit.

 

Logan: [shaking with joy] Yeah man, Contra!  Weapons!  Pickups!  Ducking bullets!  Infiltrating forts and shit!  That one boss with the whip and fire!

 

Felix: [blinks] 

 

Freeman: [blinks]

 

Freeman: Well, Christ in the clouds.  Now I don’t know if he’s talking about contrabands or the damn game either.

 

Logan: Oh man, check out what’s in the next issue: Simon’s Quest! Bionic Commando! Bayou Billy! [Logan snickers.] Did either of you serve with a Bayou Billy?

 

Felix: God damn it boy, will you shut the shit up? I’m tired of you talkin’ down to us in your sniggerin’ ass tone and winkin’ and peakin’ between your manicured sodomite fingers like the joke’s on us. I could give a god damn less ’bout Billy or Simon or Ironic Commando. I’m jus’ ’bout done with all of this—

 

Freeman: Hell yes, Felix! Give him some!

 

Logan: Yo, hold on! Where are you going with this? I don’t think—

 

Felix: Hey Amos, can I ask you a real, honest-to-Jesus, question?

 

Freeman: You can ask, but understand that I’m under no obligation to answer you, tobacco bug.

 

Felix: You served Lincoln, loyal-like, right? Believed in the cause, emancipation and all that, right up to the end? Didn’t commit no treason? Didn’t take your lord Abe’s name in vain?

 

Freeman: I sure as shit, did, son. Loyal to the grave.

 

Felix:  And I stayed loyal to my massa too. Even after one of you yank bastards tore his entrails out with a bayonet ’round Vicksburg, I put on his coat and his trousers and I took up his gun, and even though the Confederacy and Jefferson Davis says I had no right to do it, I killed least thirty eight of you cocksuckers before they buried me ontoppa you. And, shit, the whole time, I stayed loyal to my other Massa too, you know which one I’m talkin’ ’bout, far as I can figure. I believed in all of it. Still do, I suppose. And you still say what you fought and went belly up for was just too, I’m guessing.

 

Freeman: I don’t say so, you coonskin illiterate, history does. Hell, Jesus does too. Maybe if your master had taught you to read, you’d be able to look in scripture and see it with your own buck eyes, peabrain.

 

Logan: Woah! Hey! I caught that! [Logan chuckles nervously.] You’re gonna get me demonetized here.

 

Felix: Alright, Alright then. So it figure, given the diamentricality of our causes and all, that one of us must’ve been righteous and the other wrong, right? So why ain’t one of us up there with Abe or President Davis or whoever it was our Lord God Almighty actually favored? Why ain’t one of us in Heaven and the other in Hell, assumin’ this isn’t that, then? And if we’re both wrong and there ain’t no god, then why’s we still putterin’ round here in the kitchen like a spare coffee pot, like I’s the fork and you’s the spoon?

 

Logan: Guess that makes me the knife!  Cuttin’ stuff apart.  [Logan slices around furiously with his hand.]  You run faster with the knife.

 

Freeman:  [mockingly adopts a Foghorn Leghorn-esque Southern accent] Whatchu finna do in Heaven anyway, boy?  Or … Hell, you wanna spend all eternity servin’ someone?  Honestly, I dunno.  A fella could get comfortable here in this little breakfast nook.  Mmhmm.  Yes-suh.

 

Felix: At least in Hell when the fire’s goin’, you can feel it.

 

Logan: [visibly cringing] Yikes … Well, that’ll do it for this one, gang. Don’t forget to SMASH like and subscribe. I’ll be back next week with more HAUNTED CONTENT. Ooooooooh. Spooky, right? Alright, you know my motto: make love, not ghosts. Peace.