Spooked

As a little girl...

(Yes, I realize a lot of my stories begin this way. But, I believe in history repeating, in patterns and themes and formative years, so please, bear with me.)

As a little girl, I was personally haunted. The ghosts in my house would follow me to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Fear of them, more than once, led to my peeing of the bed. The trap door to the attic was located in the ceiling directly outside my bedroom, and the threat this posed trumped even the security of having my parents' bedroom right across the hall.

Under my bed lived an arm attached to a horrible hand that would blindly sweep from the darkness to grab my ankles. My closet was prime habitat for a number of beasts and was host ongoing paranormal activities. My drafty window, from which I could watch the wind rock the fishing vessels tied to the dock, provided only a thin shield of warped glass from the spirits of those lost at sea. Past residents of the house had scratched their names into the glass, somehow managing smooth cursive letters, and I was certain they'd never left.

As an adult, I am still a little haunted. Late at night, sometimes I still get spooked, although I no longer pee the bed. I swear. These days I have a new set of ghosts that get me out of bed more often than they keep me in.

Are the curtains too close to the electric heaters? Is the door locked? What's that noise? Did I set the alarm properly? Did you turn the heat down? What is that shadow through the curtains? Are people fighting outside again?

In the middle of one night, not long ago, I had one of those feelings. Something wasn't quite right. Despite the city cacophony, I detected unfamiliar sounds, rustling and dull, hollow bumps-in-the-night. I pulled back the covers and moved from window to window to discreetly observe nocturnal urban dwellers under the glow of yellow streetlights from the darkness in my home.

I saw a junkie desperately digging through his bag, and scavenging the ground around him for something imagined or lost. Assured that this was the cause of my uneasiness, I walked back to my bedroom, outside of which there is a large second-story balcony. My reflection in the glass of the patio door was most unflattering, I mused.

Immediately following that thought, I realized it wasn't my image moving behind the blinds. I dropped to the floor not wanting this ghostly urban dweller to see me. I shook my significant other, who'd been snoring while I'd been ghost-hunting, to scare the trespasser away. While he rose in panicked confusion, I watched the man outside consider stealing a candle holder my sister gave me. Faced with the angry eyes of my elected protector, the trespasser dropped the item and jumped to the ground.

By the time we opened the window and ventured outside to take stock of what had happened, he was gone, and my heart was pounding. I didn't sleep well that night, which is unfortunate, because I had to get up early the next morning for work. I checked to make sure the alarm was set properly and tossed until daylight.

Feeling a little violated, a little less safe all day, I decided to treat myself to some comfort food on the way home. And, there he was. The ghost was sleeping on a bench in front of the cafe. The warm sun fell on his bronze, matted hair and further weathered his leathery skin. His pores were black and his clothes smelled of urine and alcohol. He was old. Seeing him so vulnerable, I realized I shouldn't be frightened of him. Instead I wondered how he managed to jump from such a height without hurting himself.

Nevertheless, I didn't want him trying it again, so I wrote him a note. Because he looked crazy, I thought it best to give the message a blasphemous higher-power slant (in both French and English of course, this is Quebec):

"I watched you last night my child. I know what you stole. You must repent and take your evil elsewhere, or I will never forgive you.

--Sincerely, God."

I taped the note to his chest, and walked a little lighter all the way home, glad to have the "exorcise".

Respite

On damp grey mornings, I feel as though the whole world is sleeping, and that I have been granted a respite from my duties---that no one will notice I am daydreaming about spring, and doing little else.

Unearthed

The clipping was yellowed, naturally. Fifty years had passed since it was first published, but the ink hadn't faded. Surely this clipping was, somewhere, preserved on microfilm and will outlast all those it mentions. It will outlast me.

My mother showed it to me, my grandmother's obituary. Her cousin had found it in his own late mother's scrapbook, my great-aunt, the sister of the victim. He brought this clipping and two bottles of white wine for dinner. My mother, who is turning sixty next year, laid her own mother to rest five decades ago.

The deceased was a stylish young mother of three, sister to several, wife to one and lover to another. She expired in a car accident with a man she may have loved, not my grandfather. The obituary said the driver of the car was unharmed, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

I thought about my mother as a child, hearing adults debate her own mother's death, and all their questions and suspicions. I think about my grandmother's life on public record. Her marriage, the birth of her children and her death, all dates without detail. And, I wonder why my mother's cousin brought the clipping. Is it because my mother had so little opportunity to share my grandmother's life that she must resort to preserving her death?

The driver who killed my grandmother, whether by accident or intention, is likely to still, every so often, think of her. I am sure he's thought of her, his young mistress. The mandolin player. The beauty. If he is guilty, I wonder if his failing memory has offered him peace in his final days.

I've heard he still drinks tea in the town we have all since left, the town with the public records of my family's births and deaths. The same files that have, or will, inevitably record his own.

Angst and the male model

When I think of my childhood bedroom, I don't think of my first one. Not the small one with the haunted closet. When I think of that room, I think of the terrifying attic hatch in the ceiling, just outside the door. I think of the Michael Jackson poster that came alive every night after Thriller was released - until my mom took it down because I was driving her crazy. I think of the face that surely hovered just outside my second story window. This was my first bedroom in the old, wooden sea captain's house my parents bought when we moved to the Maritimes.

When I think of my childhood bedroom, I think of the second. The one with baby blue and pink floral wallpaper and the white four-poster bed. The wallpaper I peeled from the walls, to paint them a deep burgundy red, and the bed was destined to be burnt in a house fire.

A stack of dog-eared teen magazines leaned against my night table. I flipped through the pages, imagining the lives models lived. I read articles about anorexia, and advertisements for feminine hygiene products. This was before I learned to resent the term, "feminine hygiene".

Most of my time, however, was spent pouring over relationship columns and sighing at pictures of young couples flirting and pillow-fighting in highly fashionable clothes.

"Would I ever have a boyfriend?" I asked myself every odd day, alternating with "Maybe I am a lesbian..." every other.

Either way, I was certain I would never land a mate like the dreamboat, bedroom pillow-fighter. I would never drive a jeep to the beach with my best girlfriend to pick up sun-kissed surfers for soda dates. I concluded that it just wasn't in the stars for me - though the magazine horoscopes continued to insist that it was.

By my sweet sixteen, I realized I wasn't a lost cause. That was right about the time I also realized that I had shapely legs. The same legs all the women in my family have - possibly the only thing we all have in common - which they'd referred to as "chicken legs". Male attention and its messengers came and drifted, and I finally felt deserving of the dreamboat of my destiny.

As it turned out, I waited another 8 years.

There he was, in a smoky bar, in a foreign city. His friend snatched me from the dance floor and introduced me. He offered to buy me a drink. I accepted, even though I didn't think he was good-looking or charismatic enough. I followed him to the bar to make sure he didn't add anything to my cocktail, because I didn't think he looked trustworthy enough either. Nevertheless, it was my first night in a strange city, and we enjoyed talking over the loud, and terrible, music. He gave me his cell number, and my friends giggled. He said he was a model. This did not work in his favour. My friends, however, insisted that I call him.

I didn't.

Several weeks later, I bumped into him at PS1, an arty party in NYC. I made a lame excuse about why I hadn't dialed him, and gave him my number, to take the edge off an uncomfortable interaction.

He called.
I didn't call him back.
He called again.
And, again.

Each message was sillier than the last. He was humble and persistent, and funny. If it wasn't the humour that finally suckered me in, it was his persistence.

We dated for a few weeks. Partied. After a while, he wasn't funny anymore. He was actually a little boring. He didn't clean up after himself. He wouldn't allow me to engage him in debates. He didn't read. I'm not saying he was illiterate, but there were no books in his house - just magazines.

But, he was hot. I discovered that not only was he not lying about being a model, he was actually quite successful for a stint. After weeks of my pestering, he showed me his portfolio, and the leather suitcase full with magazines bearing his pretty face. There were high fashion mags, par-for-the-course fashion mags, underwear shoots and...oh my gawd...oh my gawd....oh...my...gawd...teen magazines.

Teen magazines.

There he was, immortalized in a teen magazine, pillow-fighting with another model.

There, in a mediocre apartment in Spanish Harlem with a retired 20-something model, the destiny the teen magazines of my youth foretold, was fulfilled. My adolescent life flashed before me.

Had I known this truly was my destiny, countless embarassingly angsty poems would never have been composed. Had I known, I'd have been able to read YM magazine without 5 lbs (of self pity) to lose in a weekend.

He broke my thoughts with the question, "So, what do you think?"

I wasn't on his page. I didn't know what he was asking. So, I just stared at him.

He took the cue and popped the question, "I guess what I am asking is, do you mind dating someone who is not university educated?"

This was not a question I expected. I looked at the carpet of magazines that blanketed his livingroom floor. It was clear he'd spent much of his life looking pretty. This had not been my experience.

I thought, "Yes. I do. I know university isn't for everyone, but you could at least pretend to read the newspaper, or pick up a book. You could talk about something worth debating. You could maybe clean up the kitchen, it's disgusting. Can you just disagree with me sometimes? I'll like it. Gawd, being the smart one in the relationship is soooooo underwhelming."

I said, "Do you mind dating someone who isn't a model?"

There we sat. My horoscope, the photo spreads, they didn't tell me what would happen next. I looked to the cosmos for an answer. Nothing.

Then, I thought of Neil Armstrong. He realized his dream when he first stepped onto the moon. He knew he couldn't stay there forever, nor did he want to - it would surely kill him. He also knew that he'd never return. But, at least he can say he's been there. And now, so can I.

Lack-of-substance abuse

I don't chit-chat. Perhaps that has become obvious to you, my dear readers, through my long absences, punctuated by proportionately long essays. I'm a ponderer and a writer, not a chit-chatter.

It's not that I don't like to chitter, but my time for recreational thinking is scarce these days - and the only chitter I have is that from too much coffee, too late at night to be productive.

Wish me luck. I'll be back later this week to chatter. Promise.