The River
JMBlondin
“What do you mean you can feel them?” Alexie turned from staring out the
window to look me straight in the eye, one hand still on the sink edge in the
other she’s holding the towel she was drying dishes with. We’re just finishing
a quick breakfast before leaving for work.
“If you’re referring to what I said
last night after that movie about the dead kids, I mean I can feel them,” I
said, “I can’t see them, well mostly never seen anything but I can feel them.
Sometimes they are so close to this side that I can almost touch them.” I
shrugged. “Not all of them thank God. And don’t get me wrong, but the ones that
want me to know something.”
I’ve
hinted around from time to Alexie about some of my past that I had not shared.
Whenever we would watch a scary movie that had anything to do with people on
the other side I would make some vague reference to people ON the other side.
Just feeling her out on a subject that I have intimate knowledge of but had yet
to share with her.
I’ve
known that one day I will have to open up and tell her about what sometimes
happens to me. Usually without my permission but admittedly sometimes I do ask
for it. I’ve shared ever bit of my past with her except this. Most things that
you tell someone, things that have happened or that you have experienced in
life can be related to by the person you’re telling. In most cases the listener
can say that they have also gone through that or something like it. “I had a
friend that had that happen” is another response offered and in so saying they
understand.
Religion
is another reason I do not speak out to just anyone. This is not the case with
Alexie because her religious beliefs are compatible with mine. With most people
talking about the “other side” is like walking on egg shells mixed with broken
glass, you cannot step lightly enough to not get cut.
The
secret that I keep from her is not one that most people can relate to. It’s
more like something they have seen in a movie, something that they “know” is
made up in the mind of the writer and brought to life by the director, actors
and crew. The reality is made by the editing not life. In my case it is
something that I have lived, more than once.
I’m
not trying to hide anything from her really, rather I am waiting for the right
time and maybe for a way to present so that she will not just scoff and tell me
“bullshit, you’re making this up!” Alexie trust me fully but what I have to say
is, for most, way out of the realm of reality. My biggest fear is that I will
have an incident when she is with me and she will be caught off guard which
would be bad in and of itself. But what would be worse would being me trying to explain what just happened
after the fact and why I never told her it could happen in the first place.
It
would be easier I think to tell your wife that you’re a perverted pink tutu
dressing beach comber that collects tubular shaped shells on Tuesday then to
try to explain what I have to explain. What I have to explain instills more
fear in most than collecting shells even dressed in pink tutu.
The opportunity arose, the situation was finally right
and I finally felt comfortable stepping into the explanation. We had just
finished watching a movie about a little boy that could see dead people. We had
both been sipping wine throughout. Alexie said, “I wonder if something like
that has ever really happened?” to which I simply said, “Yes.” The comment just hung in the air for a
moment, she did not react and I just waited for the reaction. She just looked
at me. Different emotions playing across her face, humor followed by confusion
then replace with a tilt of her head and “what?”
Swirling her half full glass causing the dark red fluid
to climb the sides of the glass then taking a sip her she continued. “How would
you know that?” Heart thumping I leaned forward and started. “Honey, there’s something
that I have not told you about, about me.” I said. Looking at her face I
quickly added, “Nothing bad...not like am a closeted weirdo or something. It’s
just something that happens to me from time to time. I don’t think about it
much but lately it has been on my mind a lot.”
Alexie leans back without a word and indicates by her
body language for me to continue. “Several times in my life I’ve had encounters
with kids from the other side.” She looks at me and starts to ask, “What…” I
hold up my hand to stop her and quickly continue. “Meaning kids that have died
but have not for whatever reason moved on. This is not something that I have a
lot of control over although I can most times shut it out…..most times.” Taking
a sip I wait to see if she has anything to say.
Alexie sits quietly looking at me intently, her glass
half raised. She offers neither a comment nor question so I continue. “These
encounters are sometimes benevolent and other times somewhat overwhelming.”
That’s an understatement I think to myself. Looking very serious Alexie leans
forward and sets her glass down on the coffee table.
“Tell me” she says. All traces of confusion on her face
gone replaced with an open trusting questioning look. “Why haven’t you told me
before?” she says. “Let me tell you then you I think will understand and if not
then I will explain further, OK?” Leaning back on the couch she crosses those
lovely legs and for a moment I become distracted.
One
of the strongest was a little boy that was killed in a hit and run by a place called The Blood Bucket Bar. The bar or nightclub
and hotel, or…whatever it was, I don’t really know for sure. The building was a
two story wood frame structure that had many different rooms having been
converted into apartments several years before. Balconies along the second
floor units and concrete patios along the lower apartments on the parking area
side of the building, twenty-one people lived there then including my friend Dan
and his family.”
I still recall the smells of cooking
food as well as the strong smell of burning wood. The smell of grease and gasoline
from all the cars being worked on and depending where you were, outside or in,
you could also smell a strong musty odor like that of an old blanket. That distinct
smell came from the old building itself. The place was tucked up under and
among very large maple and oak trees at the top of the hill. I remember a lot
of shade and not a lot of sunlight reaching the ground or the building.
Taking a sip and closing my eyes to picturing
the place I continue, “Inside the building the hallways were narrow and made
from plywood sheeting that was roughly painted, brush marks still visible and
in some areas you could see the bare wood where the painter had missed painting
completely. There were dark streaks on the walls as well as hand prints of all
sizes stuck here and there where hands had touch over the years. Hand height by
the door handles were dark smudges from contact of dirty hands. Years of
accumulated dirt and grime coated everything. Some of the apartment entrances
were clean and one as I remember was even painted with flowers around the door
that matched the door mat.
Walking down the halls your footfalls
made a hollow almost booming sound with each step. The hallways were not plumb
looking more like someone decided to “throw up a wall” wherever they want.
Dan’s
mom like most of the moms that lived there cooked with butter and that smell
was prevalent throughout the building. Whenever I smell burning butter it takes
me back. Burnt butter mixed with the smell of uncollected garbage, human sweat,
urine and all the other odors that are present when many poor people lived
together in a closed space.
The building itself sits atop of a hill
located on the main road between the county line to the west and the town of Riversbend
and points beyond going east. Not far, perhaps five or six miles or so from
where I grew up. Once I started riding the bus to school, which is located in
Riversbend, I went by the old Blood Bucket every school day. It was not called
that then but it is still the same place. I think, but I don’t remember for
sure, there was a bus stop either there or very near to there. Anyone wanting to get from the east side of
the state to the west had to use that road in those days.
The apartment building and the entrance
is at the crest of the hill with the dirt parking lot to the right side. At
night even if you’re driving the speed limit there would be very little time to
react to something or someone in the road. Way out there it’s very dark at
night. There are no streetlights and no other houses close, nothing but trees
for a very long way in either direction.
Witnesses said that on the night the
little boy was killed there was no moon. The kids were playing in the driveway and
for some reason one boy ran out into the road,” shaking my head slowly and taking
a deep breath I continue.
“I often wonder why but no one will ever know.
The car that hit him was traveling way over the speed limit as it crested the
hill. The driver never hit the brakes, never slowed. If he or she was drunk
they may not have even realized they had hit a small child. They may have
thought it was one of the numerous potholes in the road.
The night we were all there was about a week
after it happened. Several of us were drinking and just hanging out, the
weather warm and muggy on that summers evening. Whenever the infrequent car
would pass we all stopped talking and looked to the road as if we were
expecting something.
The topic of the mostly hushed
conversation was the kid and his death. Many of the parents were drinking and
gathered around a bonfire at the edge of the parking area. Every now and again
one of the women would cry aloud or a man would raise his voice in alcohol-fueled
anger. Others would murmur their agreement or concern and then they all would
quiet down for a while.
We all knew the kid in one way or the
other, me, only because my friend lived there, to me he was just one of the
many little kids there. The death did not mean the same to us as it did the
parents around us. Sure we understood what death was but the depths of our
feelings were nothing like all the parents gathered around the fire.
I’ve had spirit type contacts with little kids
from the other side on a few occasions in my short life but up to this point he
was the strongest by far that I have ever felt, maybe because his death was so
new. He’d used me as a conduit to get his message out, “”FIND MY KILLER!”” and
he played hell with me that night.” Getting up and putting her cup into the
sink Alexie said, “I want to believe you but you know how hard that is? Why
haven’t you told me about this before?” Looking at her I kind of surged, “It
never came up before. It’s not one of those things you just blurt out. It’s one
of those things that you keep tucked deep inside and try to forget about.”
She leaned in and kissed me quickly,
turned and headed out the door. Over her shoulder she said, “We’ll talk about
this more later tonight; I want to call a friend after work. I should be home
about the same time as usual, bye.”
Thinking back I recall another time and
place where a child and his mother took me for an unforgettable ride….. I would
have to tell Alexie about this one as well in due time.
******
I was tired from working outside on that fine spring day so
after I sipped on a cold beer I felt like taking a nap so I laid down and the
couch, fixed the pillow under my head and one under my knees. Glancing at the
kitchen wall clock I note the time and with a contented sigh closed my eyes, a
short nap I think.
There was a pop that I felt more than heard and a flash of light
and I was no longer on the couch but instead I was floating above what looked
like a prairie or maybe grasslands. It was beautiful, green as far as I could
see. The grass was moving in small waves following the direction of the light
wind; the air was warm as it moved across me mussing my hair. The time of day
seemed to be around noon because the sun was high in the sky. There wasn’t anything
close to me to throw a shadow and I wasn’t creating a shadow below me either so
I could not be sure of the time.
Floating there about a hundred feet
above ground apparently unaffected by the wind. Just hanging there like I was
standing but there’s nothing beneath me except sweet smelling air. I turned my
head both left and right looking as far as I could, then back over my shoulder;
there was nothing to break the sameness of the grass. I was feeling no fear,
nothing but tranquility, where I was seemed to be somehow….. normal, if not
normal at least OK. The only sound to be heard was the gentle breeze as it
moved through the grass below me.
After a while, time meaning nothing
here it seems, I realized that I was moving. I don’t recall starting to move or
feeling like I was moving but rather realizing that I was. I was moving towards
a small spot on the horizon that I could now see, a smudge really, and at this
distance I couldn’t make out what it was. I didn’t feel the speed but I could
tell that I was moving quickly as I looked down seeing the grass flash by.
There’s no resistance of the air even though I was not moving with the wind but
across it. That I could tell by the way the grass waved in the breeze. There’s
no longer any sound wind or otherwise. Not a deafening silence but more just a
lack of sound.
Soon I realized that the
smudge that I was flying, if you can call it flying, towards is a magnificent
oak tree standing alone in the middle of all this grass. The tree had to be
very old I thought, it was huge, towering up from the grass below; spreading
out for hundreds of feet in all direction without a brown leaf or dead branch
that I could see anywhere. The trunk was many, many feet across and it looked
knurled but strong, the leaves and branches dark green and uniform. Even as
high as I am the tree is still higher. I’m in awe at the magnificents of this
tree and I felt drawn to it in other ways beside the fact that I am rapidly
flying towards it.
As I get closer there is a very
small figure moving about in a bare patch of ground near the base of the tree.
The ground was grass-less there, in an irregular circle not much wider than the
child’s footsteps with grass in the middle. It reminded me of an odd donut
shape, green being the center hole surrounded by the brown ring then grass
again. Getting closer and slowing I could tell that the moving figure within
was a tousled haired little boy of about ten. As I watched he walked around
within the circle, obviously that’s why there’s no grass there.
As I descended without volition of
my own, I can hear him crying, sobbing really. He would suck in breath as a
small child does and then wail again. The wail was plaintive, a call of
Mommmmm. He would lift up his face to the sky when he called her, and then
lower it again to sob all the while walking non-stop inside that small circle,
around and around. The sound was heart wrenching and made me want rush over and
to gather him in my arms rocking him slowly until he stopped crying. Having no
control over my movements and my feet were not touching the ground all I could
do is hover there and watch.
He’s warring worn and tattered pants
with the pants legs unevenly cut off below the knees; one longer than the
other, the pants were dirty and torn.
His shoes were laced but untied and badly worn. I could see toes in one
of the large holes. The laces flopping as he walked. He wore a faded blue shirt
buttoned in the wrong holes causing it to hang cockeyed. Part of the collar’s
torn; it flopped in time with the shoe laces as he walked. His hair was blonde
and was badly in need of cutting. Through his long hair I could see his face as
he raised his head to wail. It was dirty, tanned and tear streaked. His eyes
were strikingly blue.
I settled down on the grass in front
of him; he took no notice of me, just continued with what he was doing when I
first saw him; sobbing and calling for his mother, walking around within the
circle. The slight breeze did not seem to have any effect on him, not moving
his hair or clothing, almost like he was here but not here. Looking at him as
he moved he is as real as the tree he circles below.
I spoke to him, called to him and
tried to get his attention but he never wavered, never slowed or responded to
me in any way. He did not know that I was there. Even though my feet were on
the soft grass I could not walk nor move from where I rested. Movement it seems
is not within my control.
Standing there looking at him I all
of a sudden knew, realization came to me in a flash like a stroke of
lightening, with that knowing also came wrenching fear and profound
loneliness. Tears leaped into my eyes
and my heart felt broken. I knew why he was here and why he was doing what he
was doing. I knew that he had been here for a very, very long time. I also knew
that he had wandered away from his home and had become lost. I knew that this
little boy had died alone with fear and loneliness as his only companions. That
he had cried for his mother until his cries were stilled by death and even in
death, he was alone.
I also knew that his mother was waiting for him but he didn’t
know how to get home, as she did not know how to find him. They were both lost
and trapped in this place. I knew that she too would wait until the end of time
and beyond for his return. Somehow, somehow I also knew that I had the power to
fix this, to reunite this lost child with his mother.
As this realization sunk in I found
myself once again flying, flying away from the tree very fast even though again
I couldn’t feel the speed. I was traveling away and along a different
route from the one I first flew and as I did the scene below began changing.
Gone was the green grass of uniform height, gone was the blue sky and the warm
air, gone was the tree when I looked back over my shoulder.
Below me now were wild grass, green,
and brown, mostly brown. The grasses were much higher and no longer uniform in
height as the green I had over flown before. Some areas were laid flat
obviously swirled by the wind but in other areas flattened and torn by
something else, what I do not know.
The sky is darkly patched in thick clouds with the sun breaking
through in places throwing shafts of brilliant light to the ground. Not far off
the belly of huge thunder storms passed over the land throwing lances of light
and sheets of dark rain at the ground below, the air is cooler but not
uncomfortably so. There’s a deeper brown area ahead that I soon could tell were
bison, a dark patch at first but soon resolved into individual animals as I
flew over them, millions of them. There was eerily silent, no sounds reached me
from the myriad of animals below me as they peacefully grazed oblivious of my
passage. The ground seemingly to ebb and flow with their movement. I’m flying
fast and whatever was controlling this flight has a destination in mind that I
don’t know nor can control, I am but a passenger on this journey.
Very soon I felt that I’m losing
altitude and slowing down, passing over a little stream and coming to a small
sod covered house perched on a small hill I stopped moving, once again hovering
just above the ground. There was one lone straggly wind bent tree beside the
house. At its base leaned a broken wooden wagon wheel, some of the wheel
surfaces gone leaving spokes like uneven teeth sticking up from the hub. A rope
of some kind runs from the corner of the house to the tree and on it hangs a
few pieces of laundry moving in the wind. A small boy’s shirt, some woman
things and a large pare of brown trousers.
Off to the side of the
house is a small but well-kept garden. It was cordoned off with bits of wire
fencing and what looked like limbs taken from the tree made into fence posts. There’re
bits of cloth tied to the top line of wire. They too were moving in the breeze.
There’s a dirt path from the front dooryard that ended at a gate made of
rough-cut wood planks. There is a loop of wire at the top of the gate to the
first post holding the gate in place and on the other side are what looks like
leather strips made into hinges.
The house is small, somewhat square and built from sod stacked
one upon another to form the walls. The roof too is several layers of sod that
seemed to be laid upon some type of log cross members, their ends sticking out
at odd intervals on both sides of the small house. The small black chimney has
a wisps of blue gray smoke twisting as it comes out and caught by the breeze. I
can see brown dead tuffs of grass at the edges of the sod as well as the dry
crumbling edges where the layers are. There’s a uniformity about the walls but
they were neither straight nor even. There’s one small dark window beside the
front door.
The front door like the garden gate
are made from wood planks, rough-hewn, grey in color and set together with
cross members. There are gaps in the boards that would surely let the wind in.
I can see a metal latch and the edge of what appears to be rusty metal hinges. Rust
has made streaks down the unfinished wood at all three metal pieces. As I
looked at the door and then back to the gate I can tell they are most likely
made from a disassembled wagon hence the lonely wheels. The door was partly
open and moving slightly back and forth in the wind. There are two intact
wooden wagon wheels leaning against the wall, weeds growing up through the
spokes. Just past the house stands a small structure, probably the outhouse.
Once I stop moving just like I did
at the tree, hovering just inches above the earth the front door quickly pushes
open and a women hurries out. She stops just a few feet outside the door.
Standing on the bare ground her
hands tightly clutched at her breast, her light brown hair in an unkempt bun with
a few loose hairs sticking out. She’s dressed in a long faded gingham dress. She
looks out across the grass with tear filled blue eyes. The dress looks clean
and well worn, frayed at the hem, a few spots looked threadbare where the color
is all but gone. I can see some small patches lower down on the dress, the
patches don’t quite match the rest of the dress. Obviously they were sown in by
hand from the looks of the stitching.
Her blouse I am sure use to be white but looks more gray now has
stains at the armpits and is also clean but worn, coming apart a bit at the
gathers under the breast and on her shoulder, a few threads sticking out like
white whiskers on an old man’s chin. Her face is streaked with tear lines and
she has a look of profound loss. Standing there sadness rolls off her pushing
at me like waves at the beach would.
If the fit of her clothing is any indication, she is very small.
Small of hips and small of breast, standing about five foot and a few inches,
she is shorter than I am. She is wearing some kind of laced up boots, brown in
color and much worn. There are knots in the lacings where they had broken and
been retied. There’s some dark dirt stuck to the sides of one of them.
The small yard that she stands in is bare dirt with a few clumps
of grass and weeds sprouting up here and there, some green but mostly dead
brown. She is saying nothing just looking out into the grass, glancing left and
then right, left and then again right. There is a sense of waiting, of anticipation
in her stance. She is listening.
I hovered before her for a moment,
just a couple feet away as she looks past me, through me really like I’m not
here. I know this is the woman had lost her son, I can feel that and that the
boy beneath the towering oak is he. For the second time I‘m flooded with fear,
loss and wanting but this time from the woman. Once again my heart was torn and
I felt the loss that only a mother can feel. The gapingly empty hole in her
heart that her son use to inhabit.
I also knew that I could bring them back together this mother
with her lost child. I knew that she had waited here for many years for him to
run out of the grass. She would scold him for being gone so long and then with
her small brown hand on his head herd him into the house where dinner awaited.
How many times has she run from the house to stand in the yard
looking for him? How many years had the same play played out only to end in the
same feelings of loss and worry? How many times has she returned to the house
only to wait for the next sound or feeling that causes her to again run out
hopping? Only to have those hopes dashed again. These thought rip through my
soul as I look at her.
She swings her head back again and midway stops with a start,
she can now see me, knows I’m there. She says nothing but without hesitation
stepping forward reaching out one hand towards me imploring me to help her.
There is a look of pleading hope on her face replacing the hopelessness that
was there but seconds before; she knows that I could help her, that I would
help her.
I reached out and took her offered
hand and in that instant we were at the tree. We didn’t fly nor travel in any
sense of the word. There was no sense of movement or anything to indicate we
moved all those miles. One second were standing in front of the sod house,
hands outstretched and the next at the towering oak.
As she released my hand she spins
around and moves to the boy and the boy runs to her running out of his circle for
the first time since his long journey around began. He throws his arms around
her legs and crushed her in a hug, his face all but covered by the ballooning
of her skirt. She bends over holding on to him, kissing the top of his head.
Kneeling she brushing his hair from
his face with her hands, and kissed him again then crushes him against her
breast. Not a sound is to be heard except the soft rustle of the leaves above
us. She turns her face to me and smiles a sunburst smile, tears running freely.
She is beautiful in that moment.
Standing her and the boy face me, he still does not see me, he
has eyes only for her. She tightly holds his hand as she looks to me as a small
green leaf falls from the canopy and lands on their clutch hands.
I awake on the couch feeling
incredibly joy and peace. There are tears in my eyes as blinking I realize I am
back home. Looking up to the clock on the kitchen wall I can see that I have
been lying here only for a few minutes. Sitting up and swinging my legs over to
the floor I am filled with such a feeling of wonder at what just happened. It
felt so real, the joy feels so real, the tears are so real and the smile on my
face is real.
Years
later, another time, another place.
It’s somewhere near eight in the evening, I
had just gone to the bathroom and when I came back to the living room she was
standing there. She looks as she did before, time has passed for me but it does
not show on her, she is nearly as she was.
I noticed there is a simple but striking beauty about her now, a
radiance that she did not have before. She’s projecting a feeling of
comfortable love unlike the pain of before. Now it’s like that of a mother with
her child and I can now feel her radiating calm and contentment.
I know her and she does not cause me
to feel any concern about her standing there uninvited in my living room. There
was peacefulness about her and I didn’t question her presents. I am sure that I
know why she is here even though I have not seen her in many years.
After a few seconds she started to
turn right and as she does she keeps her smiling eyes on me. Stepping forward
she walked through the couch and into the wall without stopping, as if my world
was not her world and my things were not there. I spin and moved a few feet
over looking towards the short hall that led to the bathroom and bedrooms
knowing that if she held the direction she left in she would come out in the
hall, which a moment later she did.
She stopped there, her head still turned
towards me, this time she smiles that sunburst smile. I fell instantly in love
with her again at that moment. There was so much warmth in that smile that I
momentarily forgot that she had just walked through my couch and wall never
disturbing the picture hanging there. She reached out her hand from her side and
a small blonde boy stepped out of the other wall and up to her side looking up
at her. He was no longer crying, his face was clean and dry and there was a
loving smile on his face. She looked back the way she was heading, placed her
hand on the child’s head, and without word or gesture they walked away, through
another wall.
I have often wondered
who she was and why she came to be in my living room that night years after I
saw her the first time; even though I think I know. I never felt fear or any
terror even when she passed through things as if they were not there, in her
world they were most likely not. I think that in her time, time did not exist
and she was coming to thank me. That is how it felt anyway. I have never seen
her again but I will never forget her.
******
Some friends and I were
at the apartment house that night, how the child kept coming up beside me,
invading me, and causing me to do strange things, things that I don’t remember
but was told I did. I may not remember what I did but oh how I do remember the
feelings of that night, those I will never forget. He would only be “in” for a
second but that was enough, enough time to cause havoc. There was so much power
in that little five year old, so much anger.
In one instance I was
sitting on the hood of Dan’s car, my friend who would die in a fire that would
level that place within a year, and the boy popped up beside me. It’s like he
stepped through a doorway, one moment he wasn’t there and the next he was
standing beside me. No one saw him and no one knew he was there except me, but
my friends knew something was very, very wrong.
At first there was the
feeling of sheer terror then I felt like I was grabbed or hugged by the kid. He
covered me completely unlike a hug which is just with your arms. More like a very cold very wet woolen blanket.
My skin went to goose flesh and there was a taste like copper in my mouth. I
felt the need to run but I never got the chance.
The next thing I know I
am being held tightly in Dan’s arms, he is yelling my name. I think he knew
that I was back because he relaxed and let me down. “You screamed like a wild
thing” he said, “then just fell off the car. You started rolling uphill towards
the road, uphill man!” his voice was filled with disbelief, slurred a bit
because of the beer. “That is when I grabbed you.” I listened as I brushed the
dirt from my face and hair my beer buzz gone completely.
“I’ve had enough of this tonight man. I
need to get the hell out of here.” I said in a very shaky voice. Somehow I left
there; somehow I got out of there on my own I think because I don’t remember
how I got home that night.
Dan is a couple years
older than I am. He could buy beer and he had a car. He used to take me with
him as if I was his likeable little brother even though he had a little brother.
We would go fishing and spend the night sleeping under the stars. He even
brought a girl with him one night and after the car stopped bouncing he came
out grinning doing up his pants and said tilting his head toward the open door,
“You want to try that?” I declined even
though she also offered herself with a smile. I remember feeling embarrassed
looking into the car as I responded to her question. It was dark out but in the
dim light from the cars dome light I could see enough to know what was what.
She is laid out on the seat feet towards me her knees up, legs open smiling at
me, and I am looking at my first naked woman. I’m not ready for that just yet I
had thought.
Dan and I use to talk a lot on those
nights. Many of the subjects were about life and death. Why we’re here and what
happens after we’re gone. We made a pact on one of those warm summer nights.
Whichever of us died first would look out for the other. I think over the years
he did that, I really do……
There was a time years later. I was in
the Navy and stationed on a ship out of San Francisco California. The ship was
in dry-dock undergoing repairs at the time. The shift that I worked in the
shore side communications station then was 12 hours on, 12 off then 12 on again
and then 72 hours off. I had met and become friends with two reservists
when I was in communications school in San Diego. They now lived in San Jose
and one or the other of them would drive the hour to the Hunters Point Naval Shipyards
and pick me up. We would go back to San Jose where I would spend the time I had
off at their singles apartment.
My job, if you want to call it that,
was to be the house bitch, which in those days meant that I cleaned, cooked,
and stayed there rent-free as well as had transportation to and from the
shipyards. If I needed to get supplies for the apartment I would take one of
them to work and have a car for the day. It was great for me.
I was almost 20, single and living in a
singles building in sunny California. Single meant that no married couples
lived there, couples yes, but not married, and it also meant that there were
some awesome parties going on nearly every weekend.
The building was designed with four
entrances to the block of apartments. The building being square it had one
entrance on each side. There were two floors and all second floor apartments
like we were in had balconies to the inside as well as the outside. The entrances were designed in the shape of a
zig zag so that anyone standing at the gates, the locked gates, could not see
into the center of the complex.
In the center was one large pool and
two smaller hot tub like pools. The public could not see in so clothing was
optional most of the time. The smell of cooking mixed with the smell of
marijuana was always present. Most weekends there was a party going on in the
center with most of the women topless or completely naked. The guys were also
nude I guess but I don’t think I noticed.
People having sex was not uncommon although not
the regular form of entertainment. People that were making love usually did
that after dark although it was never really dark there. All of the walkways
and around the pool were small lights on post. There was the usual smattering
of chairs and lounges spread out among the tropical plants and small trees. The
sounds of people having sex echoed off the walls of the center court sometimes
at night.
Our apartment was close to the pool with an
outstanding view of the show below. The guys had great parties in the apartment
too that sometimes spilled over to the pool area. I hardly knew anyone there so
I very willingly went along for the ride.
One afternoon I was heading out with Bill
in his Fiat Spider, a blue convertible as I remember. We were heading to the
store or some such place. As we were sitting waiting for a chance to enter the
very busy, four lane main road this feeling overcame me. I realized that I was
thinking of Dan all of a sudden. As we pulled forward to enter the roadway I
felt fear clutch at my heart as every muscle stiffened, I “knew” that we were
about to be ‘T’ boned. I was really scared.
Without really thinking I reached over
and I grabbed the gearshift and jerked it out of gear, the engine roared as Bill
hit the gas and the transmission ground as I pulled the stick too far back. We
rolled back a few feet before he took his foot off the gas. Before Bill could
utter a word a large truck swerved, changed lanes as it hit the rear corner of
a car stopping in front of it then plowed into the lane we would have been
pulling into.
We
were in a little sports car, a two seater and we didn’t wear seat belts in
those days. That truck would have cut the car in half probably killing us both.
I felt… no…. I heard Dan’s nervous laughter. The same as he did anytime we had
a narrow escape.
Bill
asked me how I knew that was going to happen. How could I explain to him that
my dead friend just saved our asses? We
laughed it off as a close one and went on about our business, driving around
the wreck. I
know that Danny was there that day, as with a few other times that his
intervention saved me from doing something that would have most likely turned
out very badly.
I drove by that place where the boy died many times without a problem until one
night a few years later I was taking a girlfriend home. She lived on the
outskirts of Riversbend. I was getting her home late as usual so we were in a
hurry. I was not really paying attention to anything except her, what we had
been doing a little while ago and driving.
As I got nearer to the hill I started feel
that familiar tingling, that something is not quite right, something that I hadn’t
felt since that night just after the boy had died. It took a few minutes or
maybe seconds, for me to realize what was happening. I finally had to pull off
the road and stop; I couldn’t get any closer, fear was overwhelming me. I could
feel the child, feel like he was reaching for me but I was just not quite close
enough for him to grab me.
The main road is nothing but a two-lane
country road, and not easily bypassed but I found a way that night using dirt
roads that ran parallel to the main road. In most cases going far out of my way
just to avoid getting to close. I had to stop and back track any time that our
route even got close to the location of the hit and run. The boys need reach
far and I had to find roads that stayed well away from him
Throughout that trip the girl was very
aware of what was happening; she said that she could feel the fear coming off
me as if it was a tangible thing. She said that the hair on her arms was doing
the same as mine; standing up and that I had a white knuckled death grip on the
steering wheel. I finally got her home and I got home later by a very circuitous
route.
I left soon after that, moving to
another state. Years later when I moved back I drove up to and passed
the place where I had to deal with a very angry dead child and the place where
my friend died later in a fire, without feeling the kid. On one such trip I
pulled off and parked. I got out and stood there looking at the remaining
foundation that after all these years still showed through the weeds. I didn’t
have any problems with the trip, never had a problem with that child again.
“How was your day” I
asked Alexie as I swooped in for a hug and kiss. I had gotten home a bit before
her today. “I got the stuff started for dinner” I said as we walked into the
kitchen. I handed her a glass of white wine and grabbed my mug of beer taking a
large drink. “So shall we continue the conversation from this morning” I asked
busying myself with dinner.
I had been thinking
about what she had said this morning on and off all day. She had left the
subject hanging and I knew there was still something on her mind about it.
“I called a friend today”
she said after taking a large sip of wine. “Humm…. perfect,” She moved over to the
counter and took over cutting up the vegetables that I had started just before
she got home.
“Her name is Cecile and I remembered
something that she had told me years ago, something that I had all but
forgotten until you reminded me with what you told me this morning. I wanted to
make sure that I’d remembered all the details right.”
“Ok…. And what is that?” I paused while
salting the water for the elbow macaroni. I had started the fixings for goulash,
one of our favorites.
“I don’t want to give you too many
details, she didn’t give me many, but you and I are going to meet her tomorrow
night after six at the Rats Tail Bar outside Riversbend. She will tell you what
she wants you to know then,” she replied sliding the cut up vegetables off the
board and into a bowl.
That
was all the information I got that night. I would have to just wait until
tomorrow night. After dinner that night I told Alexie about the boy at the
tree. She said little but I know she believed me. I also explained to her that
there had been others, little brushes here and there but nothing as strong or
as memorable as those two.
I was so busy the next day that I
didn’t even stop for lunch instead I grabbed a burger on the way home. Alexie
and I got home about the same time, jumped into the shower together, had a
little fun, and managed to get clean at the same time. I dressed in jeans, a
loose tee and my slip on shoes. Alexie put on jeans and a cute white pull over
with her pink tennis shoes; I am thinking while watching her dress that she
would look good even dressed in a garbage bag. We got to the Rats Tail just
before six.
Standing just inside
the door waiting for our eyes to adjust I heard someone holler out Alexie’s
name. Looking towards the sound there’s a strikingly tall woman of about fortyish
dressed in a blue pantsuit standing beside a table. Her blonde hair was loosely
tied up into a ponytail. She’s waving us over.
“Honey, this is Cecile, Cecile this is
my husband Raymond” Alexie says when we reach the table. I shook her offered
hand and said, “Call me Ray, everybody does.” Her hands warm and her grip firm
for a woman. She didn’t shake like a man does but just held my hand for a
moment. Her earrings catch the light causing them to sparkle. As she grips my
hand she brushes back a lose strand of hair with her other hand, I noticed that
she doesn’t have a wedding ring on. She has a beautiful smile with very even white
teeth. Her eyes are a very light brown with what looks like small flecks of
green.
The place wasn’t noisy, just filled with the
low murmur of conversation mixed with the clink of glasses from the bar; the
sound picking back up now that people are turning back to their drinks and
chatter. The lighting in here is subdued but not dark. I can clearly see the
faces of the people turned to look at us as we came in the door. The jukebox in
the corner with its flashing lights and spinning disks across the front was lit
but nothing was playing. There were about a dozen people in the place, more men
than women all sitting in the booths along the wall and a couple tables spread
out in the center area. There’s a small
stage against the other wall on it sets a drum set and some empty guitar
stands, a lonely microphone on its post near the front. One man sitting alone
at the bar looking deeply into the mirrored reflection in front of him. No one
was sitting close to our table.
“Sit down, sit down” she said, turning
and waving at the barkeeper. Cecile already had a half full glass of white wine
in front of her. The barkeeper came over,
Alexie ordered wine, and I ordered a draft,
“Whatever is on special, I’m not fussy
as long as it’s wet and cold” I told him. We all sat there for a moment saying
nothing waiting for someone to break the silence. The bartender returned with
the drinks, set down white napkins with some emblem on them then placed the
drinks on them. Fancy I thought for a local bar. A long stemmed glass of wine
for Alexie and a frosted mug for me. Picking up my beer the napkin stuck to it.
I peeled it off and as I took a drink I read the writing over my glass. “Call Joe Miller for all your Air Condition
and Heating needs” followed by his phone number and a smiling AC unit.
The
bartender left without a word although he did take a long look at Alexie and
me. “Ok C” Alexie said, “What is it that you want to do?’’ Smiling inside I
thought, “Yup that’s my girl…. the bulldog when she wants to know something.” Cecile
took a long sip of her wine all the time looking at me over the rim of the
glass. Those eyes were no longer smiling. I felt more like a bug under glass at
this moment. Without looking away she set down her glass and started.
“There’s this family story about
something that happened in a house that we use to live in. The house is near
the river; well the backyard ends at the river.” She looks to Alexie. “We use
to play in the water in the summer, in the shallows along the river’s edge. We
fished there as well. The water was always a dark color, like strong tea or
weak coffee and it had a strong kind of a dead smell in the heat of summer. Dad
said it was because of all the rotting leaves and stuff. The river ran through
miles and miles of woods, farm land, and then passed the house twisting its way
on through town.”
Lifting her glass she
stopped talking, staring off into space frozen in a time lost to the past, her
wine glass half way to her mouth. There was a lull in the conversation from the
bar patrons, not planned I ‘m sure but it seemed like everyone in the bar was
holding their collective breath waiting for Cecile to continue. Glancing around
I saw that no one was looking at us so it was just perception on my part.
Alexie leaned forward
and touched Cecile’s arm jolting her back to the present, causing her to nearly
drop her glass.
“So what is it that you want us to do” Alexie
asked Cecile as she looked over to me with a questioning look.
“Yes, what can we do?” I added then
taking a long hit off my beer nearly finishing it.
Cecile lifted her glass
and drained it. Without answering she turned towards the bar calling out, “Sam,
can I get another one of these,” holding up her empty glass. She looked at Alexie’s
glass and then mine, “And a refill for my friends too please.” Sam nodded as he
bent and busied himself getting our drinks.
Nothing was said while
we waited for Sam’s delivery. Cecile slowly spun her glass between her fingers
by its stem looking off into the space between Alexie and me, seeing something
that is not there for us. Alexie looked to me and gave a little shrug as if to
say, I have no idea where we are going here. I flash a quick grin back with a
shrug.
Sam came around the end
of the bar with a little brown high-rimmed tray bearing our drinks. Someone off
to the other end of the bar spoke up. “Sam, I need a refill too.” To which Sam
looked over and nodded he understood. Sam placed all of our drinks on the table
and gathered up the empties. As he started to turn away he placed his big hand
on Cecile’s shoulder. When she looked up he smiled and gave her a squeeze. Something
passed between them that I didn’t understand, Alexie saw it too, and gave me a
slight roll of her eyes and a tilt of her eyebrows. Cecile turned back to us
now back and raised her glass in a salute.
“Here’s to old memories, some good and
some painful.” We all clinked glasses and took a drink. She looked first to
Alexie and then to me. Taking a deep breath she said.
“What I would like is for you two to
join me when I go to the old house this weekend; that’ll be Saturday evening I
think, if you agree.” Looking first at me then at Alexie. “I haven’t been there
in many years, but mom said that the house is now up for sale and it may be my
last chance to see it. She told me the house is almost the same way it was when
I was little although most of the furniture is now gone.”
Neither Alexie nor I
said anything. I was OK with the idea but I waited for Alexie’s comment first
before I piped in. After all she knew Cecile and I don’t.
“C” Alexie said, a bit of a confused
tone in her voice. “I guess I’m missing something, but why do you want us to
go? I mean it is OK and we have nothing planned,” turning to me she asked, “Right?”
“Right, nothing just hanging out.” I
said with a shrug. Cecile continued, “Alexie, on the phone you shared with me
about some of the things that happened to Ray. There are stories about the old
house, and I want to see if they’re true and I thought that Ray might be able
to… you know…. Maybe feel something? Then he could verify it for me if whether the
stories are true or not. I have asked family members about the stories”, she
looks toward me, “but I can’t get any straight answers, nobody wants to talk
about it.” Looking back to Alexie she said, “It’s OK if you guys don’t want to
but I just thought I’d ask.”
Alexie looks to me, “What do you think?
It’s your call; you’ll be the one putting yourself out there if anything
happens.” Smiling my happy go lucky smile I shrugged and with palms raised said,
“Sure, sounds like an adventure.” Leaning forward toward Cecile wrapping both
hands around my glass I asked quietly, “So I take it that the stories are about
a haunting, care to fill us in on that?”
“Until we do this,” she
said leaning back as if I had invaded her space, “I would rather not say much,
I don’t want to influence anything you might feel or give you preconceived
notions about anything based on what I say. I will confirm that the stories are
about a ghost but that is as far as I will go,” with a slight tilt of her head
she added, “still in?” Glancing at Alexie I said, “Hell yes, how about you
babe?” With a nod of her head she agreed. We made some plans to meet at the old
house that Saturday night.
For the next hour the
girls played catch up talking about people and places that I didn’t know.
Occasionally they would try to drag me into the conversation but with a nod or an
”ah huh” I managed to weasel out; it was mostly girl talk anyway.
Instead of talking or
listening for that matter I spent my time looking around the bar. I hadn’t ever
been in here before. It’s not a bad place, not large, more like a hole in the
wall place. Six tables, four chairs at each and eight booths along the two
walls. From the looks of the pictures,
posters and other things hanging on the walls this place has been open for a
long time. But not unlike many such bars in small towns I’ve been in. most of
the tables have four un-cushioned chairs around them. The booths are like any
you might picture in a bar or ice cream parlor. They’re an old dark red color.
The one closest to us has fresh grey duct tape along the outer seam.
The
owner probably grew up here. It seems that the patrons all know each other and
were sitting in small groups except for the lone drinker at the bar who by now
is head hung drunk or nearly asleep. Either that or has found something
floating in his beer and is examining it very closely. The noise level rises
and falls with conversation but never overwhelming. No one seems inclined to
put money in the jute box. There was an occasional bark of laugher or a loud
voice raised trying to prove a point.
The door behind me opens and like
everyone else I look to see who it is, not that I would know anyone here but
just because the door opened. An older couple enters. He is guiding her with
his hand in her lower back. Like Alexie and I they stop just inside the door to
let their eyes adjust. From across the room a deep male voice rings out, “Hey
Jerry. We’re over here!” Jerry waves and leaning in and says something to the
lady with him. She smiles and waves. They move past us and over to the booth on
the back wall. Jerry grabs a chair and slides it up to the side of the table as
his lady companion slide in next to the other woman already seated.
I can detect a faint smell of stale
beer and bleach, some kind of cleaning soap smell wafted from the bar as Sam
washes glasses, none of it strong or bad. Sam kept this place pretty clean.
Sam comes back over and
checked on our drinks. We each have one more. As I get up to go to the bathroom
I tell the girls, “I’ll be right back, sandbox run.” Alexie nods as I step away from the table. Stopping
at the bar I ask Sam where it is.
“Way back there in the back, around the end of
the bar.” he says as he points. As I turn to leave Sam leans towards me.
“Hey let me ask you something” he says
in a low voice as he looks over towards our table. Stopping I turn back and
leaning forward so as to hear him better I put both hands on the edge of the
bar. “I‘ve known Cecile for many years,
knew her mom and dad as well. Hell I grew up just down the street from them,
played at the house once,” lowering his voice looking at me intently, “only
once.” Looking back towards the table he asks, “Is she ok, I mean it’s not my
business and all but … is she?” concern obvious in his voice.
“Yeah, as far as I know” I answer with
a shrug. “I don’t really know her, she’s a friend of my wife. She just asked us
to go with her Saturday night to the house she grew up in and ………”
Sam jerks back as if I
had just slapped him. His face, his whole demeanor changed. In an instant he
went from being concerned about a friend to a very angry man. Pointing down the
bar he said coldly, “THE bathroom is down there.” With that he turned away and
got busy with something on the back of the bar. In the mirror on the back wall
I could see his face reflected between the shelved bottles sitting on glass
shelves all the way along the back of the bar; he was looking down at his hand.
He had picked up a large silver cross. As he looked at it he was rubbing it
between his thumb and finger. Looking back up to his face in the reflection I
think that what I saw on his face was fear.
Thinking back to what Cecile had said…”
I will confirm that the stories are about a ghost but that is as far as I will
go,” I wonder as I head towards the bathroom, what have I gotten myself into
here?”
When I finished in the
bathroom I walked back to the end of the bar where Sam was busily washing
glasses. Slowing as I passed the lone drinker who now was resting his chin on
the edge of his glass. In the back mirror I could see that his eyes were closed
and rimmed with tears, he smelled like an old person that had not showered in a
long time. Sam looked up from whatever he was doing behind the bar as I
approached.
Nodding over my
shoulder back towards the lone drinker I said, “He ok?” “Yeah that’s old
Charley. He’s here most every night, drinks until he cannot hardly walk, cries
in his beer for a bit then staggers out to walk home.” Shaking his head sadly
he continues, “Ole Charley lost his wife a year ago and is not handling it very
well. I know that I should cut him off but he doesn’t drive so I figure what
the hell.” Every one in town knows him
and we all kinda look out for him, make sure he gets home, eats… that kind of
thing ya know.” Looking back to me he says, “Need another beer?”
“No” I replied, “but I would like to
pay the bill for all of us.” I peeled off three twenties and handed them to
him. “Will that cover it?” “Yeah” he
says as he turns to the old fashioned register sitting on the back counter, “let
me get you some change.”
“Keep it” I said as I waved towards the
girls. “I think we’re done for tonight.” He was friendly and acted as if the
conversation we just had before I hit the men’s room never happened. Now that
was just weird I’m thinking as I headed back to the table. Behind me I hear the
sound of an old cash register cycling through and the drawer banging open then
close with a soft bang.
Sitting down both girls
look up. I asked Cecile, “Do you know Sam?” she looks at me, questions in her
eyes, “He was asking about you.” I was wondering considering his reaction about
Saturday but I didn’t say that to her. I wanted to see what she would say.
Shifting my gauze to Alexie I give a slight nod in response to her questioning
look.
“Yes” Cecile said guardedly, “He grew
up down the street from me, went to the same school and all that. Why, did he
say something?” Glancing towards where Sam was chatting as he put drinks on a
table across the room.
“No, just thought maybe he knew you
when he brought our drinks the first time.” I said testing her. “So you kids
all played at your house and theirs?” I ask continuing the line of questions. She
looked at me for a long moment not answering. Looking to Alexie then back to me
she said, “Sam came to the house one night. He was only there for a little
while then he quickly left, like most kids back then he would never come back.
He never said why, none of them ever did. They would come over to play in the
yard but not in the house, especially at night.”
Alexie and I left
shortly after that. As I held the door for Alexie I glanced back in the
direction of our table. Cecile was heading towards the bar her half-filled
glass still on the table. Sam was watching her with a look of apprehension. Now
I know there was something between them.
Living out in the country at the far
end of the county and working in another city we hardly ever come into Riversbend
anymore. It is a quaint little town; its main street is lined with brick
buildings set back a bit from the street making the sidewalks wider than normal.
There are all the normal businesses, there’s the Ben Franklin and the Woolworths,
Jacobs Five and Dime and Laurie Lynn’s Flower shop. All of this to be seen as
we slowly drive through.
Many mom and pop places like the ice
cream store with the green awning over the little tables and chairs on the
sidewalk. Above which hangs a simple sign. Bill’s Ice Cream. Pointing it out I
tell Alexie that we should stop there on the way out of town if it is still
open. Sitting at the table on the sidewalk having an ice cream would be nice I
told her. She nods murmuring yes without looking up, intent on the map on her
lap and her co-piloting.
There’s a newer looking post office
declaring Riversbend with the name and zip code in large brass lettering
attached to the red brick. The town has an old feel about it. Old but not worn
out; there is very little traffic but most of the street side parking is full
on this Saturday evening.
Between
the parked cars, midway on the block and at both ends are little islands along
the sidewalk jutting out into the road. These little oases of green are a nice looking
way to bring the countryside into the city and sacrifice only a couple parking
places per block.
There is a nice mix of
older and young people, some holding hands, moving up and down the sidewalks on
both sides. Most of the store windows are lit showing their goods, signs
declaring a sale for this or that. There are two kids totally wrapped around
each other in a darken area between two stores, that not only makes me smile
but brings back some sweet memories. I look over to Alexie but she is intent on
her map.
The street lighting mixes nicely with
the green spaces. The street lamps are black poles with three round globe lamps
on each closely spaced along the walkway, very old timey looking. The light is
soft, non-glaring but enough to see by. This place still has a nice hometown
feel. We might just come back into town one evening just to see what’s going on
I think.
Riversbend
has not changed much since I was a kid. Might be nice to walk down the sidewalk
one evening hand in hand with my best girl, peeking into stores and maybe finding
something to take home that we didn’t know we needed. Maybe stop in a dark area
between stores; the thought makes me smile all over again.
Alexie is tracing our
route on the map that is spread across her lap and partly up the door. “Ok” she
says looking up and around pointing, “There’s Maple Street… so we go two more
blocks passing Elm and turn on Oak.”
“Right or left” I ask stopping for a
light. Consulting the map again she says, “Right, you can only turn right.”
Oak Street lives up to
its name. It’s like looking down a green tunnel when we turn onto it. Huge
trees line the street nearly blocking what little sun is left shining at this
time in the evening. It is almost dark enough along here to warrant my turning
on the headlights. In some areas street lamps are lit, the ones in deep shadows
but the rest have not come on yet.
The houses lining the
street are from another era. Beautiful older homes probably dating back to when
Riversbend was new and upcoming. Some
with porches across the front, huge sweeping stairways leading up from the
sidewalks and standing white triangular shaped pillars at the corners as well
as the center. Others with small roofed over walk-ups. Sweeping single story
with the little copula windows and large chimneys. Others that looked like two boxes placed one
on top of the other, their windows perfectly aligned, doors centered. Most have
manicured lawns and flowerbeds. Newer houses mixed in with the older ones. There
are just a few cars parked on the street. Porch lights on here and there and
soft yellow glowing windows on others.
Alexie is reading mailboxes
and house numbers as we go along. It seems that the further along we get the
older the homes become. I don’t want to call them cheaper but I would say less
expensive, more boxes and less ramblers. A couple have lamp post in the yard
near the end of the sidewalks leading up to the house. The homes along this
part of the street look like they were built long after the oldest ones prior
but they were still old, maybe this area was rebuilt later on.
“We’re looking for 58741”
she says as we top a bit of a rise and head downhill. “I think we’re heading down towards the river”
I point out.
The street is getting narrower and the
overall look of the place is more worn out as we continue downhill; poorer may
be a better word. These homes have not been taken care of like the ones at the
beginning of the street, closer to the main street downtown area. There are
places on this block that are boarded up, others with the yards looking like
they need a bailer instead of a mower. Here and there is a place that stands
out only because the lawn is cut, flowers and bushes planted and taken care of.
These houses sport new paint or siding. They have a look of being loved where
the others have an abandoned feel.
Glancing down a side street that we cross, I
can see that homes along that section look much newer. Street lamps are closer
together and there aren’t as many trees.
“We must be in the oldest part of town
here. Did you see how the houses changed when we crossed over the rise’’ I
asked her. She nodded as she too looked down the cross street.
“Down that way” she indicated to the
right with her head, “The houses look new.” “Yeah, this side as well” I
responded.
Most
of the homes now do not have numbers that we could see; some don’t even have mailboxes.
“How are we going to……,” I start to say. “There’s Cecile” said Alexie pointing
to my side of the street. “There…. four houses down. one your side”
I could see her waving as I pulled to
the left side and eased along until we’re in front of the house. I stop behind
what I assume is Cecile’s car, a dusty blue compact. The house is a gray
two-story box upon box structure. There’s a small walk up porch with a roof
supported by what looks like two four by four post. The first step seemed to be
broken on the right side creating more of a ramp to the right than a step. The
sidewalk is cracked and buckled in places. There is a large oak tree between
the sidewalk and the street just down from where we parked. That’s probably
what is breaking up the sidewalk I think as I get out of the car.
The place looks gloomy, wore out and
un-loved. Even in the near dark that it is now I can see sections of the lap
siding are broken, some totally missing. Part of the soffit is gone leaving a
gaping hole and near the corner at the roof level there is a board hanging
loosely, attached only at one end. Sometime ago creepers have attached
themselves to the siding climbed up and died leaving a brown stim remaining
like a rust stain on the splotched gray wood. There’s a section of downspout
that leans away from the house, still attached at the bottom. I can see why it
has not sold as yet. This place really looks its age.
The grass is dead as far as I can tell
and there’s a tilted and badly faded For
Sale sign on a single “7” shaped post in the yard. It has a smaller sign
hanging below it on one chain that said Price
Reduced for Quick Sale. Under that in larger print bears the name of the
realtor with her barely discernable picture. There’s a light on inside that
glowed dimly through very dirty and streaked windows on each side of the front
door.
Looking up I see light in the second
floor windows as well. Those windows are just as dirty and streaked as the
first floor making the windows dimly glow instead of showing light as a clean window
would. The other houses around here are dark except for one that we had passed
on the right back up the street about a half a block. It is very quiet out here
except for the croak of a few frogs and the buzz of some insects. There is the
smell of the river, the unmistakable smell of tannin filled water on the warm
night air.
Cecile
was wearing jeans and a dark blouse. I could not tell what she had on her feet
due to the weeds she was standing in. Her hair was still pulled back but much
tighter this time, very severe and she was smiling a seemingly forced smile.
“Hey
you guys, glad you could make it.” She said. Giving Alexie a quick hug. “Come
on” she says as she turns and leads us around the side of the house down a dirt
driveway that was nothing more than bare dirt lines where tires ran. It reminds
me of the drive at my grandparents that lead to the lean to garage beside
grandpa’s work shop. The center area was filled with dead weeds. No car had
been on this drive in a very, very long time.
“We’re going to go around to this side
and enter through the kitchen” Cecile said walking in front of us. “The front
door is locked and I don’t have the key” She says in way of explanation as she
leads the way. There’s a shaft of light from an open door shining on the
driveway near the back of the house. It’s giving off enough light so we can see
our way.
“How long has it been since anyone has
lived here” I asked. I reached out and steady Alexie when she trips on
something in the weed filled middle of the drive. In the dim light I see what
it is she has tripped on. There is what’s left of a toy truck partly buried in
the dirt, a bit of red still showing on the side. There’s some writing on it
but I can’t read it.
“Oh I am not sure,” said Cecile, “I think mom
said that my aunt lived here for a little while after she, mom I mean, moved
out. The house is owned by the whole family, they did that after dad died. I
guess that either no one wanted it or they couldn’t settle on who was going to
take it. I am not sure why they’re selling it now.”
“Your dad has passed?” Alexie asked, “I
didn’t know that, I’m sorry.” Cecile stopped and turned reaching out and
touching Alexie’s arm. “That’s ok Alexie, it happened a very long time ago. My
sister and I came home from shopping with mom and found him dead on the floor
in the upstairs room. There was some kind of ah….thing I guess you would call
it, that the family hinted at. I have no idea what it was. I heard the doctor
say that dad suffered a massive heart attack even though there was nothing
wrong with his heart. I was very young and do not remember much about it.”
There are three concrete steps leading
up to the kitchen door which is standing open. Attached to the wall by the door
and curving down is a single metal pipe made into a handrail. It’s attached to
the bottom step. A large piece of the second steps corner is missing. In the
light from the doorway it looks like the steps were at one time painted but the
middle where people walks is now raw worn concrete.
The dim light is coming from the
overhead fixture in the kitchen ceiling and it’s throwing a rectangular shaft
of light out on the driveway and into the side yard. Looking around I can see at
the edge of the lights reach an old fence leaning sideways at a crazy angle. There
is a dim glow out of the back of the house partially eliminating the yard.
There must be a window back there I think. Cecile takes the first step and is
holding the metal pipe handrail as she stops and turns back toward us.
“So here we are. As I said before the house is
mostly empty, I’ve turned on the lights, all three of them” she says with a
slight laugh. Her voice a bit higher than last night and she is talking fast, “I’m
sorry about that; I just didn’t know there weren’t any others.” Taking a deep
breath she continues. “What I would like to do is to take a walk through, show
you around.” Looking at me with that same forced smile she says, “Raymond, if
you feel anything, anything at all just sing out please and if you guys want to
leave just say the word and we’re out of here, no hard feelings.”
Entering behind Cecile I stop at the
door stepping aside so Alexie can move past me. The first thing I see as I
entered the kitchen is yellow. Yellow counter back splash, yellow daisies on white
cupboard doors trimmed in yellow, a yellow kitchen table wrapped in shiny
metal. The metal showed its age where it’s pitted and rusting. There are two
chairs with the yellow plastic coated back and seat cushions also covered in
daises. The chairs were at opposite ends of the table and all the cushions are
tore to some degree, white fluffy stuffing peeking out in places. One chair’s
leg is dented and slightly bent a bit causing the chair to sit front corner
down.
The counter top which is covered in small
square tiles is also yellow. The grout is a dirty off white and stained almost
black in places. On the counter sits a very old dull looking toaster; stainless
steel shine long gone. Its cloth cord badly worn with wires showing through is still
plugged into the socket. Beside it is the bottom half of what I assumed because
of its shape a glass butter dish, there’s also an old metal dish drainer, most
of its plastic coating gone, sitting at an angle beside the sink. One of its
plastic legs over the edge of the sink. On the yellow tile there are round rust
stained spots with tails like word balloons in cartoons under the drainer
leading towards the sink.
On the four burner stove sits a small saucepan,
half of the handle missing and a large dent on one side. Centered in the back
of the stove top below the knobs is what appears to be a crystalline salt shaker, still white but I bet
the salt was as hard as a brick. One of the metal circular burners is pointed
into the air as if someone had been cleaning under it and left before they were
finished.
Beside
the stove is an empty hole where the refrigerator once stood and above that are
two empty cupboards without doors. The shelf liner curled with age and brittle
looking. Just past that is the doorway to the rest of the house. Looking the
other way there is the single bottom sink, a bent knife and a fork lying beside
it, two tin containers, dented and rusty, one says Sugar and the other Tea.
Above the sink is a window without any curtains but the bent curtain rod still crosses
between the sides. There is an empty light socket in the ceiling over the sink with
a pull string still hanging from it. A little further on is the door that we
entered through. Above the counter top the cupboards are all closed, doors mostly
straight, and mostly faded white except for the painted daises.
As
I slowly turn I see that both Alexie and Cecile are watching me closely. I
shrug and smile, “Nothing yet.” Looking up because of a slight rustling sound I
see two large moths fluttering around the celling light.
Turning and moving towards the door
heading into the house with the girls in tow we enter the next room. This room
is a small dining room living room combo. There’s no furniture in the room. The
glow that I saw from the street is the kitchen light shining through the two
sash type living room windows. To my left is a stairway heading up, ahead just
the empty room except for a piece of a rug in the middle of the floor. It looks
like the round rag rugs that my mom use to have but this one has seem many
better days. On the walls some of the wallpaper has come loose curled outward at
the seams, and the top by the front window has come loose and is sagging
towards the floor like a large wave moving down the wall.
On the other side of the living room is
a doorway to a room with a light on, its door partly open. I turn to Cecile
pointing, “Where does that go?” “That’s the master bedroom; there are three
more upstairs.” She said. “The bathroom for the whole house is just to the left
of the bedroom there.” She points to the left of the bedroom door, just out of
my sight past the stairway. There’s a small door, part ajar, in the wall of the
stairway. Probably a closet I think as I move across the room.
I walk over to the bathroom door and
look in. There’s just enough light from the bedroom for me to see. The toilet bowl
is stained brown and it has a broken seat, the broken half lying on the counter
top beside the sink. The shower/tub combination is pinkish in the feeble glow
of the bedroom light, and the vinyl floor squares are upturned at the corners.
The entire floor looks like a plowed field. I cannot discern any color on the
tiles except black.
Stepping
out of the bathroom and to the bedroom door, I see an empty room, the closet doors
open, and there is one lonely metal hangar on the bar. A small curtain-less window is in the back
wall. I step to the center of the room and slowly turn around. Looking back I
can see my own footprints in the dust. Both girls are framed in the doorway
watching me.
I’m trying to keep an open mind. I am
getting nothing, nothing except an old musty dusty house long since abandoned
by those that once loved it. I walk back out to the living room and tell the
girls with a shake of my head, “Nothing.” I say looking to Cecile, “How we
doing so far” I ask. She shakes her head looking around. “The stories all say
the same thing,” is all that she offers. “Let’s go upstairs….OK?” she says
pointing towards the stairs.
We head up the stairs;
again I am in the lead. There is a fixture with a single bright bulb hanging
from a wire at the top of the stairs. There’s the third light I think as we
climb. As best as I can figure from working construction for so many years these
stairs are mounted on the back wall of the house so we will end up above the
master bedroom. I am trying to get the layout in my head just in case we have
to run, square box upon box, ok got it. At the top we come out into a large
room. This one is empty like most of the rest have been. The light is bright
here and I can see a doorway leading to another bedroom.
“This room was like a
play room” Cecile said. “Mom and dad would put up a folding bed in here when we
had company. It was somewhat weird then, when we had company I mean, we would
have to go through this room to get downstairs to the bathroom, pointing back
the way we just came. They always told us to “pee good before you go to bed, we
do not want to see you again tonight.” If there were too many adults then we
all slept in sleeping bags in here and the adults took our rooms. Mine was that
one on the right.” She nods in that direction.
I
walked straight through the doorway into a small room. There was a single bed against
the wall, just the mattress and frame. Straight ahead is another doorway.
“That
was my room” Cecile said, indicating the door, “It’s smaller than this one. Dad
put up a wall on that side,” she pointed to the far side, “And that was used
for storage, like an attic.”
I
stood there for a moment just feeling, slowly relaxing, and letting my guard
down a bit at a time. There was something, something I could feel just at the
very edge; I couldn’t tell if it was “something” or just me in an old house
expecting to find something based on what little I had been told. Cecile went
over and sat down on the bed, pulled her legs up putting her feet on the edge
of the bed and hugged her knees. Alexie was still standing by the door that we
came in at the head of the stairs, arms crossed leaning against the door frame
watching.
I
turned around slowly like I did downstairs then walked to the center of
Cecile’s room, and stood there in the shaft of light from the stairway. The air
is old and close in here. There was something.
My skin was beginning to crawl as I
slowly turned towards the attic spaces. The little hairs on the back of my neck
moving, the skin on my skull tensing. My whole body tensing up with goose bumps
climbing up my arms. My sphincter tightened and my nuts were pulling up in fear
but of what I didn’t yet know.
“Guys” I said over my shoulder my voice a bit
strained, “there’s something here, someone here.” I backed up towards the
doorway my hands outstretched behind me feeling for the frame unwilling to take
my eyes off the attic wall. The air in this room was getting thicker by the
second.
“What…. What’s here!?” said Alexie
stepping to the center of the stairs doorway. “What are you feeling?’ Her voice
cracked with tension. Cecile had not spoken.
As
I got back to the doorway between the rooms the feelings eased off a little. I
turned and looked to Cecile still on the bed, knees clinched in her arms.
“There is a little boy in there” I said
with conviction, “deep into the corner. He’s hiding himself, holding himself in,
that’s why I couldn’t feel him before. He’s scared shitless…. alone. It’s like
he is sitting with knees drawn up, like you are right now but he’s back in that
corner.” I tilt my head over my right shoulder. Cecile isn’t saying anything,
she is just staring at me wide eyed, and the color has drained from her face.
Alexie is still standing in the doorway
to the stairs. I can feel her building fear radiating out as I turn again to
face the attic.
The tension within me is rapidly
climbing; all of my skin is now cover in goose flesh, now the hair on the back
of my neck and arms is standing up. The very air coming out of that room is
ripe with tension.
“Cecile, tell me what the hell is going
on,” I say in a low voice all the while watching the door to the attic. “What
the fuck am I dealing with here?!” All of a sudden coming here doesn’t seem
like such a good idea. The adventure has gotten very serious really fast.
As I start to turn
towards Cecile the question barely out of my mouth the child flies from the
attic, through me and into Cecile. I am nearly knocked to my knees, for an
instant I cannot breathe and my mouth feels like it is filled with muddy water;
I can smell the water as it burns my nose, I’m drowning. I can see the dim
light above me. My eyes are burning as I reach out but I cannot get to it. I am
cold as the water pulls me down. I can feel the current dragging me sideways as
I try to swim up fighting the pull of the river until my feet become entangled
in something. I am fighting to get free but I cannot, I cannot hold my breath
any longer and I suck in the muddy water. It is cold and choking but I do not
cough……
I stagger against the doorframe trying
to hold myself upright. Through watering eyes I see Cecile throw herself
backwards on the bed, her feet slam to the floor with a bang throwing up dust.
She is making a strangling sound as she claws at her mouth with both hands, her
eyes unbelievably wide open. I gasp and suck in air, sweet air instead of river
water. Pulling myself upright leaning into the doorframe I once again feel the
child pass through me as he retreats to the attic, again I feel him. This time
is it his loneliness and hopelessness and anger for all the years that he has
hidden in the attic alone waiting for someone to come back home.
With tears streaming
down my face a sob escapes me and I stumble towards Cecile reaching her about
the same time as Alexie. Cecile is babbling something that I cannot understand
and Alexie is holding on to me asking if I am OK.
“I think so’’ I say to her with a shaky
voice. “Son of a bitch that kid is strong!” We both help Cecile up upon wobbly legs.
The look on her face is frightening.
“WHAT …. JUST.... HAPPENED?” she screams her
voice breaking with fear. Lowering her voice as if she is afraid he will hear
she whispers, “Is he still here?” while she looks over my shoulder towards the
doorway. When I don’t answer she screams, “IS HE STILL HERE?”
“No…. NO he is not here,” I pant, “He
went back into the attic, he is still there…. just sitting there. I can still
feel him!” Turning to Alexie I say in a hoarse whisper. “Honey we need to get the hell out of here
before he comes out again. I am not sure that I can take another one of those!”
Without another word we force Cecile to
turn and we each grab an arm and half-walk half-drag her to the top of the
stairs. Alexie goes down first pulling on to Cecile’s hand easing her down. I
am behind Cecile with my hand on her back making sure she keeps moving. All the
while Cecile is crying openly but quietly.
My back feels like there is a target
painted on it and that little boy is the bullet. The skin is so tight with the
fear of being hit from behind that a bullet would’ve bounce off. I cannot move
fast enough to satisfy my need to run.
When
we reach the bottom of the stairs Alexie pulls on Cecile’s arm guiding her into
the kitchen and around the tipsy kitchen chair. Cecile’s hip collides with the
chair as she passes causing it to fall over with a crash. Alexie fumbles with
the door knob and pushes it open, the door that I had left open when we left the
kitchen on our tour. Pulling on Cecile’s arm she all but drags her out, “Come on C… Come on,” she says repeatedly in a
soft voice fill with urgency. “We have to get out… Come on Cecile.. We got you.”
As Alexie backs down the stairs and
Cecile is in the doorway the boy comes back…. hard. I can feel him coming but I
can’t do anything to stop him. He hits me in the back like the bullet I feared
upstairs and I slam into the wall beside the door. The contact is real and
physical. My skin burns where he hit me. My out stretched arm hits Cecile in
the back as I slam into the wall forcing her the rest of the way out the door. She stumbles down the steps pulled by Alexie.
I hear myself scream in a high pitched child’s voice ”NOOOOOOOO”.
Somehow I have managed to remain
upright but my legs will no longer move. I am standing in the kitchen doorway
looking out at Cecile and Alexie framed in the kitchens light. I can see my
shadow as it falls over them and there is another shadow merging with mine
above my head and a bit to the right, the boy is behind and above me. I can
hear two soft thuds as the moth’s die and fall to the kitchen floor. The air is
foul with the smell of the river.
Alexie lets go of Cecile’s hand and she
turns looking up at me. Both of the girls standing side by side at the bottom
of the steps. She has her hand to her mouth as she looks up to and above me,
she is screaming one long loud tone. Alexie is reaching for me but I can’t
reach out to her. My arms are frozen on the doorframe and my legs are entangled,
they have become part of the floor.
Robert, that’s his name, I know it now,
he does not want me to leave, does not want us to leave but the girls are out
of his reach now, outside. I am his captive here in the doorway. I feel his
fear and overwhelming loneliness, his unbounded rage at being left alone for so
long. I can again taste the river and feels its pull but my legs are entangled,
held in Robert’s grip.
Alexie leaps up to the second step from
the ground, missing the first one all together as she lunges towards me. She is
yelling, “HE… IS… MINE, YOU CAN’T HAVE HIM!”
As she grabs my belt with both hands she throws herself backwards off
the steps. For the first second Roberts hold is relentless but as her one
hundred and ten pounds pulls me I break free of the house and I land on the
ground partly on top of her; we are lying in the dirt of the driveway at
Cecile’s feet.
I can’t do anything but breathe in
great gulps trying to get in air to force out the water that isn’t there. Spit
is running out of my mouth and nose, I can hardly see out my tear-filled eyes and
my back is on fire.
I can feel Alexie squirming to get out from
under me so I push up with my arms. My legs are tingling but I can move them, I
control them again. We help each other get up and we turn toward the house, the
door is open, the light is on, and there is nothing there.
Cecile has stopped
screaming. She is standing beside Alexie just staring at the house as I am. Her
hands still up at her mouth. It is deadly quiet; I can near nothing except for
the ragged breathing of the two women, even the frogs and insects have gone
quiet. I am still dragging in deep lungs full of air, the taste of the river still
sharp on my tongue.
One of my slip on shoes is laying half
in and half out of the door. As we watch, it slides slowly back into the house pushing
aside the dead moths and comes to rest just inside of the doorframe, its
Roberts now. None of us move to shut the door. I half turn to the girls, “I don’t care about that door or the
lights” my voice ragged. “I don’t care about my goddamn shoe. You are not going
up there to shut it and I am not going to touch that house in any way. We need
to get the hell away from here...NOW!”
I
know that if I even so much as touched that house Robert would have me again
and I am just as sure that if that happened nothing that my loving wife could
do would save me the second time.
We quickly moved to our cars, Alexie
pulling Cecile. She is moving as if she has no idea what is happening. If
Alexie let go of her she would stop and just stand there. As we got close Alexie
took a hold of Cecile by both arms shaking her gently. “C…. C.. look at me… You
are not going to try to drive, you are coming with us.’’ She nods that she
understands even though she is unwilling to move on her own. Alexie leads
Cecile to the back door of our car and gets her in; all the while I am standing
on the sidewalk unable to focus having turned back and staring at the house.
I want to go back in and be with Robert, he
wants me to come play in the river with him. We could play together for a long
time. As I start to step back towards the driveway Alexie runs in front of me,
pushes me hard in the chest forcing me backwards toward the car. “NO GODDAMNIT YOU ARE NOT GOING BACK IN
THERE!” she screams at me.
She pushes me against
the car hard and my head hits the roof edge causing me enough pain to refocus
my badly shaken brain. Alexie can see I understand so she grabs my arm and pulls
me around the hood to the passenger side, opening the door she pushes me into
the passenger seat. Without attaching the seatbelt she slams the door, runs
back to the driver’s side, slides in behind the wheel, and reaches for the key.
“Ray.. RAY.. Where are THE KEYS?” her
voice rising in fear and panic. She does not wait for me to answer but leans
over, sliding her hand along my belt to my right side where I hang my keys. She
fumbles with the clasp and unable to unhook them says, “Shit shit SHIT” and
jerks the keys tearing off the belt loop.
Jamming the key in she starts the car
and before it is hardly running she slams it into drive and floors it. Cranking
the wheel hard to the right, tires smoking she does a 180 just missing the back
of Cecile’s car and we race off away from the house.
Looking back to check on Cecile I see
the second floor window over her shoulder through the rear window as we race away.
I swear I can see the outline of a small child standing in front of that
window. His arms raised like he is saying why.
An hour later we are sitting in a
brightly lit all night coffee shop sipping strong black coffee with shaky hands.
Cecile has dark circles under her eyes and her makeup is streaked; pony tail
partly undone. Alexie is disheveled and has dirt on her blouse. There is a
streak of dirt or a bruise on her cheek and
I know that I look like hell. I am missing one shoe and my shirt is dirty and
the shoulder is torn. When we stumbled into the dinner the waiter must have
thought we had been out drinking all night. We grabbed a booth in the back away
from people and where I could see the front door.
Alexie is sitting beside me so tightly
that a sheet of paper couldn’t have been forced in between us; as if we shared
one hip. Very little had been said during the drive to this well-lit place of
safety. Alexie slowed down once we were over the hill and moving past the nicer
homes. She kept looking over to me as she drove and I keep telling her that I’m
OK. I turned several times and checked on Cecile in the back seat. She’s just
sitting there rigid, saying nothing, doing nothing, looking at nothing. After
about twenty minutes she spoke up, “Oh my God” she said in a horse whisper, “I
am so sorry… so sorry,” then she broke into wrenching sobs.
I did not ask if she meant sorry to us
for what happened or sorry for Robert. I would never ask her about that.
Leaning forward I reach across the
table and touch Cecile’s hand, speaking as gently as I can. “Cecile, can you
tell us what that was all about, or should I tell you what I know and you can
then fill in the blanks?” She shakes her head, stopped and then nodded.
“You start.” She said not looking at me
or Alexie but unfocused into dead space. Looking around to make sure we would
not be over heard I said, “His name is Robert and he drowned in the river. His
feet became entangled in something, probably tree branches or whatever. He
could no longer hold his breath and he sucked in river water. He died, well his
body died. He has been in that house for a very long time and was content with
living there with the family but the family left and he was stuck there alone”
I felt Alexie slip her hand on my leg she was
squeezing hard. I looked at her with a tired smile, leaned over and wiped the
dirt from her face, kissed her cheek and with a slight nod I looked back to
Cecile. “I don’t know who he is or how he is
attached to the family but.... “
“My mom’s little brother, he’s my mom’s
little brother” Cecile said. “He drowned when he was nine; he was playing along
the edge of the river like they all did. Mom use to get so mad at us, she would
yell at us to not play along the river, now I know why. She never spoke of
Robert when we were little. She told me some about him when I was older and we no
longer lived in the house.” She looked at us each in turn.
“I think that somehow we knew he was
there, my sister and me. I don’t know if dad ever knew or not, he never spoke
of it. Dad died when I was young.” her voice slowed, her eyes became unfocused
again. She is once again looking at the past. I am thinking that she had
forgotten that she told us about her dad already. Knowing what we just went through
I am now wondering if Robert had anything to do with it. Alexie started to say,
“You told us about…” With a look I stopped her, let her talk I mouthed to her.
“I remember dreams,” she started again,
“nightmares really that me and my little
sister use to have sometimes. We would dream that someone, a little boy would
be standing by the bed looking at us. Even though we slept in separate rooms we
had the same dreams usually on the same nights. Now I know who that was, it was
Robert” tears welling up again. Grabbing a couple of napkins from the holder
beside me I hand them to Cecile.
“Mom would hold us when that happened and
tell us that it OK. She would say, IT will not hurt you. I know now what she meant;
she meant Robert, that Robert wouldn’t hurt us.” Looking back at us she smiles
a very small tired smile. Picking up more napkins from the table she wipes at
her eyes again.
Cecile does not say anything for a long
time, nor do we. We all just sit there lost in our own terrified world reliving
what happened just a short time ago. Each time the door opens or there is a
louder than normal sound from the counter we all jump. I also keep looking
fearfully out the window beside us. I just know that Robert will come flying
through the window and attempt to claim what he thinks is his, namely me. I
wonder how long it will be before I will ever feel safe again.
Cecile takes a deep breath and asks, “Can
you take me to mom’s house please; she lives on the other side of Riversbend. I
will talk to her tonight; tell her what happened at the house. I’ll get her to
go back with me and close up the house.” She takes a couple deep breaths. “And
get my car. I don’t think that Robert
will stop her.” Looking to us she continues, “She is right you know, mom’s
right.” Alexie and I looked at each other then back to Cecile, “Mom said that
Robert wouldn’t hurt us. He made you feel like you were drowning Ray, made you
relive what he went through but you know what I felt when he was in me?” Alexie
and I said in unison, “What?” again she is squeezing my leg. “All I felt was loneness and then love; at
first I could not breathe but then it was OK, he loves me and wanted me to come
back. Remember I grew up in that room right beside him for all those years.”
We take Cecile to her
mom’s place. I hugged her on the sidewalk in front of the house and stayed
back, leaning on the car. Her mom stands on the step under the porch light
watching us. Her arms tightly crossed her narrow chest. She is wrapped in an
old yellow robe tied tightly around the middle with the collar turned up
against the cool night air, she is wearing old yellow slippers her black gray
hair cut short and framing her face. Both Alexie and I were with Cecile when
she called from the counter phone. She did not tell her what happened, just
that we were coming over to drop her off, that she needed to talk to her. Somehow
Cecil’s mom knows what had happened, I do not know how but I know she knows.
Alexie walked up to the bottom step with
Cecile and they hugged for a long time. Words are exchanged that I couldn’t
hear then Alexie stepped back reached up and touches Cecile’s face; then turned
and comes back to me. I put my arm around my savior and walked her around the
car and helped her get in. I drive us slowly back home.
We never saw Cecile
again. Alexie tried to call her a few times but the calls were never returned. A year or so later we were once again in
Riversbend and decided to go down that tree-lined street, this time in broad
daylight. I drove slower and slower as we approached the house. When we get
there the house was gone and in its place stands a new two-story home with a
wide porch and kids playing in the yard. I looked at my wife and smile. ”He is
not here any longer” I said to her, “I can’t feel him, he’s gone.”
We drive on past and turned around in a
new parking lot at the edge of a newly built park on the riverfront. As I
backed up Alexie touched my arm.
“Ray, look” she says pointing to a
green and white sign off to the edge of the drive. It said ROBERTS MEMORIAL
PARK. I look back to Alexie with tears in my eyes, she too was crying. “Let’s
go home.” She whispered as she patted her big tummy. “Robert has finally gone
home.”
After years of trying we had finally
gotten pregnant. We found out a short time after the night at the house.
5/16/15
J.M.Blondin
