Friday, August 3, 2012

Gossips and Bullies (a poem about all of us)

You ever notice that taming our tongue is something that most of us struggle with? We want to tell the secret, we want to gloat over something bad that happens.  We want to say "they deserve it?"  We want to, deep in the heart of us.  We are all just the same.  All pitifully human.   That's why we all desperately need a God who is Holy.  Because at the heart of us, we're all just gossips and bullies and hurt children who believe their lies.

This is my rant about the things we say and believe.



Our mothers always told us
"Sticks and stones"
"May break our bones."
"But words can never harm us."

They didn't tell us
that boo boos can be kissed away.

But words carry on,
they make scars you cannot see.
They speak  without tongues
in the dark parts of us.

Repeating.
Again and again
until we decide to believe them.

We are all guilty.
at one time or another.

Because we feel like less,
we make others less than we are. 

Problem is
Less than less isn't very much at all.

we turn everything around so it seems like it's not our fault.
It's everyone else who's wrong.

Not us.

That's how we look at ourselves in the mirror.
That's how we sleep at night.

We say "I only speak my mind."
"That's just the way I am."

We justify cruelty
by calling it "honesty".

We hurt people.

We look respectable but we're just what we were in elementary school.
A part of us never really outgrew that insecure child.

We sit in an office or or behind a desk
you see us on the street or next to you in a pew
and we act like we're okay.

But we can't control that impulse.
We can't curb our tongue.
We have to do it because
somewhere inside all of us
we're unhappy.

And unhappy people only find pleasure in making others unhappy too.

Misery loves company they say
and misery kicks others when they're down.

Because if there's someone lower than me,
then I must be okay.

They say there's honor among theives
but not among gossips and bullies.

 James 1:26
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues lest they deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.

The Madman of Thorne Hill House 3




I suppose during the five hour drive home I had envisioned sitting by Meemaw 's bed, holding her hand,  reading from her Bible, telling stories and listening to those Bill Gaither Homecoming Cds she loved so much. Little did I know that my mother and Meemaw already had plans for me.  Plans that didn't involve helping a crippled little lady to doctor visits.  When I arrived at my aunts house I was ambushed by my mother and her sister in law and ushered into Meemaw’s room,  given strict orders  'not to wake her she's sleeping' and then unceremoniously left to eavesdrop on the ensuing argument in the next room .

"Well what are we gonna do with it if we caint sell it?" My aunt whined and in my mind’s eye I could see her asking that question with her face all squinched up as if she was in some kind of terrible pain and ringing her hands dramatically. I sighed hard and blew my cheeks out as I sat down in a recliner by the bed.  It was one of those kinds of recliners that laid back and there was a Sudoku book on the end table next to it.  I knew my momma had spent some time in this chair recently.

"What if momma has to go to a home?" Uncle Luther growled entirely too loudly and was subsequently shushed by the other sisters.  "I'm just asking ' what if we can’t take care of her?" Poor man, he tried to whisper but his voice sounded like someone stirring a sack of pea gravels. Too many years of cigarettes and screaming at athletic events would do that to a man and Uncle Luther was proof. "We might need that money."

I could hear the clomping of his work boots as he paced on Jocelyn's hardwood floor. Tomorrow she'd have to scrub up all the scuff marks and the fingerprints we left behind. Uncle Luther's perpetually grease stained hands were touching all her spotless things.  Probably another reason she wouldn't make it through the night without a migraine.

I grimaced and looked over at Meemaw sleeping soundly- blissfully unaware that her fate was being decided in the next room.  I wished they wouldn't talk about her like she was a child - or worse - like she wasn't even here.

I know momma hated it too, but she'd never complain. To keep peace among the brother and sisters seemed to be her role in life. That was probably why I was banished into Meemaw's room. Apparently, I had too much of my father in me and was therefore too opinionated to participate in the discussion.  Or perhaps it was none of my business.  None of the other grandchildren were here were they?  Well, it was a fact that I was by several years the oldest.  My brother was second oldest and he was still in high school.  Perhaps that was why I was at least invited to attend this little soiree.

“Well.  What are we supposed to do?”  My mother offered at last.  “Move and it goes back to the Thornhill Estate.”

“Greedy Bastards.”  Uncle Luther growled.  “No way I’ll let our ancestral home go to those pigs!”  A few minutes earlier he had wanted to sell it.  I snorted as a response but didn’t dare say anything for fear that I‘d wake Meemaw.

Meemaw opened her eyes briefly and smiled.  I wondered if she was only pretending to be asleep. I watched her for a few seconds.  Probably. It was Peepaw’s favorite trick before he died.  Pretend to be asleep and no telling what you’ll overhear.  

The argument continued in the next room but I picked up a Janette Oak book by MeeMaws bed and flipped to the first page.  Meemaw loved these books.  Perhaps it reminded her of growing up back in the days before the depression- I don’t know.  I pretended to read.  Why not?  Meemaw was pretending to sleep.  

The argument in the next room continued as Uncle Luther had brought the volume up a notch.  He sounded like he was on the verge of giving himself an aneurism in the next room.  It seemed that he had quite convinced himself that Meemaws place being sold was his ticket to early retirement.  No matter how many times Momma had tried to explain it- he refused to believe her about the deed.   She had discovered about it after doing some genealogy research one summer when we visited Meemaw.  I remembered overhearing them talk about the house when we stayed there.  I’m sure she had explained it to Uncle Luther but apparently he didn’t believe her.  He had gone and found himself a lawyer in Savannah.  He had looked at the deed, told him the same thing as Momma and charged him 800 dollars.

Momma had explained it to me on our drive home.  The deed was only good as long as our family lived there for at least nine months of the year. (Nine months you might wonder?  Well I did and Momma said it was because back in the day people didn’t have air-conditioning and they would go somewhere cooler during the summer months. ) The property could not be sold.  If ever a member of our family ceased to live there then the property would again be absorbed into the Thornhill Estate.  Edward Thornhill had deeded the land to my grandmother Annalise.  Both parents worked for the Thornhill Estate but she was orphaned as a young lady.  We supposed at the time that Elizabeth Thornhill felt sorry for her or perhaps felt responsible for her and had her husband Edward deed the house and forty acres of land to her.  Elizabeth Fitzgerald Thornhill was from Philadelphia and had high and lofty ideas about women’s rights and suffrage.  She was secretly involved in women’s causes and my mother and I believed that it was because of her that the house and land which had once belonged to caretakers or the plantation foreman came into the possession of our family.  

Uncle Luther was right though.  Edward Thornhill was a shrewd businessman and one didn’t get as rich as he was by giving things away.  So as a stipulation in the deed the land could remain only in the hands of descendants of Annalise and could not be sold.  It could not be further developed besides repairs or additions to the house and even then there were stipulations as to how large the house could grow.  The house had to be an active household and had to be lived in continuously by a descendant of Annalise for at least nine months out of the year but the final straw- at least as far as Uncle Luther was concerned- was that the property could only be owned by and passed through a female descendent of Annalise Hawkins.  

I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall at that lawyer’s office when Uncle Luther learned the truth!  I could just imagine his reaction.  Somewhat akin to what was going on in the kitchen right now, I’d figure. 

“That’s the CRAZIEST THING I’VE EVER HEARD!!”  Luther exploded in the next room and I saw Meemaw wince, but apparently keep sleeping.  Again another ‘Ssshh” and Luther continued undaunted.  “That’s our land and those greedy bastards have done nothing but screw our family and I’m tired of it!”

It was momma’s turn to stand up.  “What have they done to us Luther?”  She demanded.  “Besides giving the female members of our family a rent free house for a hundred years?  Yes, there are some crazy conditions.  But I for one don’t blame the Thornhill Family for not wanting a timeshare built next door built next door to their property!”   

“But only women! That’s nuts!”  He hissed.  Sounded like someone was a little sexist.  

It was a strange condition but if the land belonged to you and you wanted to give it away- then I supposed you could put whatever stipulation on it you wanted. Edward Thornhill had fixed it to where the land would come back to him or his family at least.  After all, women tended to marry and move away- so he figured at some point or other the women of my family would tire of being tied to their island home. 
However I don’t think that Mr. Thornhill ever counted on the stubbornness and tenacity of our women. 
Typical male.

But as I considered it further I could see both sides of the issue.  If things did go badly with Meemaw then this land could take care of her.  On the other hand, it was family land and Meemaw being the last surviving female of her generation had a right to it.  But then again, if someone had been able to sell it previously- it would have sold already and it would have never come to Meemaw in the first place.  

There wasn’t any more land to be had on that island.  Only a small fraction belonged to private owners who lived on the North end of the Island and was therefore developable. The majority belonged to the Thornhill Estate, to the state as a wildlife refuge or to the descendants of former slaves who had been brought to the island.   Perhaps less than a third was owned by the latter – and they seemed to be tied there under the same auspicious agreement as my family had.  They could stay- as long as they wanted.  They couldn’t sell but they could pass the land to their descendants as long as they too lived on the island.  Otherwise they lost their land to the state.  

I reckoned that the state of Georgia and Edward Thornhill used the same lawyers because if we had owned the land outright—we’d be set.  Since the bridge had been built to the north end of the island and it was accessible by car—there had been a boom in building and commerce on the north end.  Even a scrap of developable land would go at a premium.  Meemaw owned 40 acres.  She was sitting on a gold mine- in Uncle Luther’s eyes anyway.  He figured as the oldest son he would inherit it.  

Or so he thought. Until that summer Daddy worked outage at the power plant and momma, Eric and I went to stay with Meemaw on the island.  That’s when momma did her snooping and found the documents upstairs in a trunk.  Uncle Luther’s gold mine had turned to fool’s gold and he wasn’t taking it well.  

Meemaw winced again as Uncle Luther’s voice rose again.  “So not only can we NOT sell it.  I can’t even live there!”  

“Meemaw could deed it to one of the twins then and you and Helen could live there.”  Momma tried to soothe him.  “Or Jocelyn .”

“I’d never live there.”  Jocelyn assured the rest of them.  “I hate it there.”  

It was true.  Jocelyn had always hated Meemaw’s cottage.  She didn’t even like going there for Christmas.  She liked her phone and SUV and cable TV and all the conveniences of living on the mainland.  

“They don’t even allow cars on that part of the island!”  Luther continued his tirade, oblivious to Jocelyn’s remark.  “What would I do for a living?  What about school for the girls?”  

“There’s a school on the island.”  Momma countered.  

“Oh, No, Luther.”  Helen’s voice held a warning tone. “Our girls are not going there!”

I could almost see her shudder.  The school on the island was small… teeny.  And it was populated mostly by children of shrimpers, hotel staff workers and the blacks who lived on the island.  The two blonde princesses would be outnumbered by their darker counterparts at least ten to one.  

Well Uncle Luther and Aunt Helen were out.  Who was next in line?

“I’d never move there.”  Jocelyn said again but nobody paid any attention to her.  

“Why can’t Eddie live there?”  Uncle Luther asked and I felt my face crumple at his suggestion.  Why couldn’t Eddie live there?  For the same reason Uncle Luther couldn’t make the house into his own private man cave.  I thought to myself.

“EDDIE’S A MAN, LUTHER!”   Momma’s voice rose for the first time, and I could tell her patience had reached it’s limit. “IT HAS TO BE A WOMAN!”

“HE’S GAY! ISN’T THAT THE SAME THING!” He howled and both sisters gasped.  I could hear it from the back room.  I hoped Meemaw was really asleep.  Or didn’t know what ‘gay’ meant.

I held my breath and watched for some sort of reaction from Meemaw.  There was nothing.  She didn’t even wince.   I let my breath out slowly.  Perhaps she really was asleep.  Or didn’t know what gay meant.
I wished they’d keep it down in the other room before she woke and I had to explain it.  I squirmed uncomfortably in my chair as I could hear both sisters cackling like chickens who had just discovered a fox in their hen house.  

“Luther Hawkins Walker!”  Jocelyn hissed.  “Eddie is NOT gay!”

“That was ugly, Luther.”  Aunt Helen scolded him.  

“He’s peculiar.”  Momma defended him.  “You shouldn’t talk like that about your brother.”

“What?”  Luther’s voice rose.  “He’s fifty five and never married.  He runs an antique store. What do you call that?”

“Peculiar!”  My momma screamed, at last done with Uncle Luther.  

“Well I call it a QUEEN!”  

I heard a sound which I imagined to be feet running and a lot of yelling from all three women at once.  I heard what I thought were a few threats like “You’d better not say anything like that again!” and “You’re going to need a place to live if you don’t straighten up!” and “Now I’ve about had it with you!” and such as that.  Uncle Luther said a couple words that I’m not allowed to repeat and they were pronounced rather hastily and he sounded like he was out of breath.  It sounded like the sisters had him on the run and I bounced up and down in my chair.  Oh, my goodness, I’d give anything to be able to watch the fight!  

The doorbell rang and probably saved his life.  

Enter Pamela and Jack to the Fray.

Pamela was Momma’s eldest sister and the oldest child of the Walker children.  I know by now you’re all confused.  Let me simplify it for you.  Meemaw’s children consist of (to my knowledge) Pamela, Luther, Eddie, Jocelyn and Momma – in that order.   Where as Luther was the obnoxious one and Eddie the peculiar one and Jocelyn the hypochondriac and momma was the peacemaker- Pamela was the quintessential oldest child.  

Meaning:
She was perfect. 

She had worked as a secretary for a lawyer’s office and had married a rich businessman and they had two point five kids and lived in a big house in the country club.  They didn’t have a ton of money but they definitely had a bigger house than all the rest of us, and almost every time we saw them… which was in reality probably only twice a year- they drove new cars.  

I heard a few pleasantries and chairs scrape out as they all sat down at the kitchen table.  

I heard Pamela say “Well, we’re all here.”  Which wasn’t exactly true.  Eddie wasn’t here. Momma said he had called to say that whatever they decided was good with him.  He had to take care of the store.  Antiques didn’t sell themselves.  That was his excuse. We all knew it was because he couldn’t stand to be around Uncle Luther.

Not that I could blame him.  Poor man.  

The voices were quieter now; I had to strain to hear them.  Nobody was going to show out with Jack here. I don’t know what it was about him but he had a calming effect on the family.  He had a… well… I don’t know any other way to describe it besides to say that he had an almost regal bearing and everyone minded their manners when Uncle Jack was around.  He knew people in the state legislature for goodness sakes! We all knew better than to act out when Pamela and Jack were visiting.  

Momma said that his family came from money and it seemed Jocelyn and Helen’s passion in life was to impress Pamela and Jack. Jocelyn scooted around serving them drinks like she was Martha Stewart and Helen gabbed on and on about some beauty pagent the twins were going to be in.  I shook my head at their charade. Like they all weren’t about to kill Uncle Luther a few minutes earlier.  I suppose that he should count his blessings because if Pam and Jack hadn’d arrived when they did there might be blood on the women’s hands.  Oh, well.  At least Luther wasn’t acting up anymore.  He kept his mouth shut when Jack came around too afraid the red would show.   

The voices continued quietly in the other room.  I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes.  I tried to make out what they said until I heard someone say something about someone not having a job and my head shot up.  I knew then that they were talking about me.  

Then came a soft knock at the door and Momma peeked inside and asked me to “Come on in here for a minute.”  

Momma, Jocelyn, Pamela, Helen, Jack and Luther looked at me expectantly.  Well, not Luther so much.  I was pretty sure he was still pouting.  But all the others looked at me with a sort of scared half smile on their faces.  It was the look that parents give their children when they tell them they’re moving and they’re half expecting a meltdown but want to put on a brave face.

They sat me down and started in on me like a bunch of buzzards picking over road kill.

You had said you’d help hadn’t you?  You don’t have a job right?  No one else can do it.  Uncle Luther can’t leave his job.  The twins aren’t even out of high school.  Momma, Helen and Jocelyn are going to be taking care of Meemaw.  Momma and Daddy have their farm and Eric’s only in the ninth grade.  Pamela and Jack live too far away.  Eddie… nobody mentioned Eddie.  He lived in Atlanta which might as well been across the world… They gave me sad eyes and pouting looks. You’re the only one that can do it you see?  Meemaw wanted you.  Do you understand?

What the hell?  I wondered.  Was I going to be donating a kidney?  “What?”  I hissed through my teeth.  A hint of my father showing up in me for a few minutes.  “What do you want me to do?”

My momma looked at me blankly.  I couldn’t read anything on her face.  This was the same look she gave me when the dog died.  

I felt my stomach tie up in knots.

“Meemaw wants you stay there.  In her house.”  Momma said.  

Oh… my… goodness… I felt my blood drain to my feet.  

“On the island.”  Jocelyn offered.  Thank you Jocelyn.  I thought you meant her other house…I thought to myself.

 “But… there’s nothing on that island.”  I felt myself say. “I just graduated college… I need to start a career.”

“Good luck.”  Luther snorted.  “Maybe you can teach at that island school. You could be their first white teacher.”  

Oh… I wanted to slap him silly….

I looked around and the only help I had was Uncle Jack who said very calmly.  “Its not forever.  Only until Grandma is better.  You know you’re the only person who can do it right now.”  

I swallowed and nodded.  

In one week I was island bound.  

If only I’d said no.  I’d avoided too many sunburns, a broken heart, several lacerations requiring stitches, attempted murder charges, a stint in a jail cell and discovery of a family secret that could have just as well stayed secret.

But I’d have missed out on him…






Thursday, August 2, 2012

You Don't Know Her. (a poem about looking beyond the outward)



Sort of Poetry.  For Xiomara.  Once someone told her she wasn't a true christian because she had tattoos and piercings.  It infuriated me.  I think it infuriated Jesus.  I felt him tugging at my heart- telling me that person who said that didn't know her but He did.  So this is one of my long poems.  I was irate and had to write it all out of my system.  Bear with me. I'm not a poet.  I rant.   I think it speaks to a lot of us.  


You don't know her.
You think you do
but you only know what you've allowed yourself to see.
You've never looked past the black clothes and the tattoos and the piercings
but you think you know her.

You don't know her.
Because you've never looked into her heart.
You've never seen how she loves.
You don't know how deeply run the waters of her compassion.
How she would fight for you
die for you
stand by you when everyone else leaves you.

I know that. 
You don't.

Because you don't know her.
You never felt her hurt or tasted the salt of her tears. 
You never knew that there could be so much pain inside
That the only solution was pain on the outside.

I've felt that pain.
You don't know how it feels to be pushed away. 
Because of how you look
 or where you come from
or what language you speak.

You don't know what it was like to be preached to or condemned
but then be pushed away.
By people like you.
You don't know what it's like to be preached to
by people with the right image
but the wrong heart.


You don't know what it's like to carry a burden.
And loaded burden
on top of burden.

Things that God never intended for her to bear
and you yourselves never lifted a finger to make it any better.
Then when she stumbled under the weight of it
you called her names and said she wasn’t truly a believer.

I've carried that burden.

Do you know how far she's wandered?
Do you know how far I have pursued her down that road
that people like you set her on?
Do you know how many miles she's walked to get where she is?
You don't know. 
  
Because you don't know her.

But I do.
I've walked there with her.

You don't know how long it's taken to mend her heart
that the world broke
and people like you crushed.

But I do.

You don't know her.

You weren't there when she came to me.
You don't know how much she's changed.

What she was,
what she is now,
What she will become.
And yet when she makes mistakes you fold your arms and say she doesn't belong to me?

How dare you do that and call yourself by my name?

You don't know her. 

But I do.

She is MY CHILD.

AND I LOVE HER.

But you don't know her. 

And the thing is...
though you claim to...
You don't know me either.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The Madman of Thorne Hill House ch 2

I will start with a little family history . Its a little boring but hang in there with me. I suppose my great great (I'm not sure how many greats back without counting on my fingers - which is rather hard to do while typing)  grandmother was the first of our family to come to the island.  Her name was Louisa Catherine McAlleese, and I have heard tell that she was uncommonly beautiful young Irish maiden who came to work for the Thornhill family as an indentured servant. The Thornhill Estate way back in England was a large Estate and Sir Richard had three sons but the English Estate went to the oldest son who inherited both titles and lands. The middle son received the land in the colonies- right around the Savannah area. The youngest son- well I had always heard he was a drunk and a ne'er do well. Nobody was quite sure what happened to him. Until I started snooping around that is. But that will come later.

The Thornhill holdings in the colonies included some land near the Savannah River and a small island just to the south off the coast.  The original house was inland but it burned during the revolutionary war and the family relocated to their island which they shared with a French family with aristocratic roots. Louisa arrived just after the war and worked with the family in the tabby house. The main house was a tabby structure that is little more than ruins but still can be seen to this day if you know where to look. The pirates attacked the year after she arrived and killed the French family who lived on the neighboring plantation but The Thornhill men were away and the children along with the household servants were spirited away by Big John Hawkins-  a half breed who lived there on the island with his family. It wasn't long after that that Louisa married her hero and family became more or less permanent residents of the island.

Fast forward to the 1900's- that is where my part of the story takes place.  Well not exactly - my part is a century later but my story starts a hundred hears before when Edward Thornhill deeded a sum of land and a two story farmhouse to my great grandmother Annalise. No one knows precisely why Mr. Thornhill deeded the land to our family nor why he placed such peculiar stipulations on the ownership but the place has belonged to the female descendants of Annalise ever since that time.  It had passed from her to her daughter to my great aunt who never married and lived there until she passed away and then to my grandparents.  Pawpaw Bill had been in the military as a young man and so he and Meemaw were thrilled to have a place to retire after so many years of moving from place to place. Peepaw died on the island and was buried in the cemetery right alongside Louisa Catherine, Big John and the rest of Meemaw's ancestors.

Meemaw has lived on "her island" for as long as I remember and we all spent our summers and holidays there.  Momma wanted her to move in with us after Peepaw died but Meemaw swore she would stay until she went to glory like my Peepaw did. My mother, uncle and aunts hated it but despite their protests Meemaw would not be dissuaded.  They would take turns calling her every few days and there were a few close neighbors that kept an eye out for her. Despite momma's fears Meemaw lived there without incident until after I graduated from college.

College graduation is supposed to be an exciting time but It was a particularly bad for me. I had graduated and unable to find work in journalism I had taken a job as an English teacher.  9th grade literature was not my preferred profession but it paid the bills and allowed me to stay in North Georgia- close to my boyfriend. I had taken the position as a long term substitute with the understanding that I would be considered for a permanent position opening at the end of the term.  Then about the time they gave me bad the news ("We thank you for your interest in our school system; but unfortunately the position you are seeking has been filled." Letter) I received a message from my boyfriend that went something like: "Our lives are going in two different directions...blah, blah,  blah... met someone... something something something... its not you its me...wish you the best...goodbye."

My head was still spinning from the pink slip and the informal breakup over the message machine when the phone rang.  They say things happen in threes, and I was afraid to answer. It was ten o'clock at night. Who calls that late unless it’s a wrong number or an emergency?  I had that feeling in the pit of my stomach that whatever was on the other end of that line was bad news.

Sure enough.

"Hello?"

Sniffle, sniffle. My mom's voice.  "You need to come on down here. Meemaw is in the hospital."

Crap. I was right. "Is she okay?" I readied myself for the worst news.

"She fell...sniffle, sniffle. Gonna need surgery.  We need your help."

"I'm on my way momma."

"No." Momma clarified.  "We NEED your help. Long term.  I know you like being close to Julian but we are gonna need you to help us ...sniffle sniffle...take care of Meemaw."

"No. Don't worry." I whispered. Was this an answer to a prayer ?  I hadn't even had time to pray about what I was going to do for rent...now this.  "I'll come. It will be fine." More than fine. The quicker I could get away from here the better.

"Oh won't Julian be upset?" Momma bellowed in the receiver and I winced,  but then felt my blood boil.

"Screw Julian." I shot back. "I can get another boyfriend. I only got one Meemaw." And I heard momma suck in her breath. I'm not sure if it was the phrase "screw Julian" or the " I can get another boyfriend " part. Could have been either. "I'll start moving back tomorrow." I said resolutely.  "It will probably take a couple days. Y'all gonna be ok till then?"

"Yes. She'll be in the hospital for a while."

When I hung up the phone I felt like cold water had just been poured all over me. I was so angry about the job and then Julian but now it felt like all the fight had been taken out of me.  Some people would have called this luck or karma or whatever to explain it away. But I was Baptist. And I had a Baptist Meemaw.  This was God.  It didn't matter that I hadn't been speaking with Him in two years. Meemaw had. I'm sure they talked a lot about me.

I spent a lot of time that night trying to talk to God, but it was as if I had forgotten how to pray.  My prayers seemed to go no further than my bedroom celling.  I wanted my Meemaw to be okay and I wanted forgiveness for all I'd done. How I'd lived apart from him for the last two years.  Once I was the kid who wouldn’t even say "Gosh.” because I was afraid it was taking the Lord's name in vain. I couldn't go to my friend's house and watch a movie with bad words without feeling scandalized. And I'd have to go down to the altar and confess come Sunday morning if I had said something ugly earlier that week.

So where did that girl go? I wondered as I lay in bed that night. I knew the answer. She went off to college. 400 miles from the watchful eyes of my family and my church who had put me on a pedestal and I found out I could act like the devil if I wanted and no one cared.

Back home-  I was the good one. I made good grades. I made good decisions. I never got in trouble.  Not like the twins whom by three years of age my mother and I secretly thought to be serial killers in the making, or like Phoebe who at nine had already run up a 300 dollar phone bill, or Dennis who liked to adopt small woodland creatures until his house smelled like a zoo.  When we would visit any of our cousins my momma would turn to me, give me a grave look and say "I'm so glad your my kid. I like you so much more than those other kids." Then she would pat me on the head and add “You're never any trouble.”

That always made me feel good.  But I wondered what momma would think of me if she knew the truth about these last two years.

I got up before dawn and started packing. It wasn't like I could sleep anyway.  I threw all the stuff that Julian had given me into the garbage bin behind my apartment.  There was nothing left for me in North Georgia. I was unemployed, dumped and angry and I did what any girl would do given the situation.

 I went home.

The Madman of Thorne Hill House Ch 1


Thorne Hill House
The name brings chills to me; now, knowing what I know about its dark history. There were nights I woke in a cold sweat, and times when I doubted I'd ever sleep through the night again.

Chances are, unless you grew up along the south Georgia coast or you're a ghost hunter or an unsolved mystery aficionado- you've probably never heard of it. But Thorn Hill House was a part of our family’s history for as long as any of us could remember. It was never exactly clear how our family histories became intertwined until that night. The night of the fire. The night that I lay covered in someone else's blood and held the hand of the man I loved as he uttered his last words and broke my heart.  It was then that he told me the secrets that had been hidden away for so long. He had to try to make it right, he said before he stood before a Holy God and so I became his confessor.

That night I learned that there were some things that only God should know; some deeds were better left in the shadows. Since then, that knowledge has haunted my dreams and the shadows have stalked the farthest corners of my consciousness.  The knowledge of it is always there, and no matter how far I run, it follows me.  It has chased me from one corner of this state to the other and yet I have found no peace; no consolation in my in my soul. I know there were promises that I made that night, and have yet to keep.

And so I return. To this island where I know that every place my foot will trod will fall upon some place where he has also been. Every thing I touch has probably also been touched by him.  A place where I know his memory is more real, more alive than anywhere, kept in place by whatever magic that still exists on this island. Every time I turn I feel I might see him- though not him- the ghost of him, perhaps, but not him. I know full well that the one I love is gone. He lives only in the aching memory of my heart. As close as my next breath but just beyond the thin veil that separates our world from the next.

I lie to my family. I say I am well. I say it was no big deal. He was my friend, but nothing more. How can I tell them that my heart is buried in this sandy soil under the sweeping arms of that live oak? I cannot. I can never explain it, no matter how hard I try, because they don’t believe. I only tell them I want to return. Though that is only half the truth. I dread it as much as I miss it; I hate it as much as I love it. It gnaws a hole in my stomach and yet I am compelled to return.

My time is over, they tell me. A month is not long enough. It is summer. The fireworks will be next week and Helen can bring the twins and stay for a little while. I can stay home where I belong. I tell them not to worry. Its my responsibility to take care of Meemaw 's place. Everybody has their places and this is mine.  They try to talk me out of it. They don't understand. Well, perhaps only Meemaw does. This place has captured me. I am cursed by it- as was so many women in my family. I cannot stay away. I am drawn. I have to come back.

I was not here for the funeral so despite the feeling of dread lying in the pit of my stomach I go to his grave. It’s been weeks since the funeral and the dirt still looks fresh. There is no marker, and I know from granddaddy's funeral that it could take several weeks to be placed there. I content myself with touching the little placard, running my fingers over his name.  I brought wildflowers gathered along the way and apologize for not coming to the funeral. I was not well, I lie to him. How can I tell him I was sitting in a jail cell when strangers were investigating his death? So I lie to a dead man because its so much easier than the truth. I don’t know if where he is now- if he knows the truth or if he's watching like they say. Nonetheless, I lie to him and tell him I was sick during the funeral but i know i would not have been allowed. His family blamed me at first, so Meemaw stood to represent our family and i grieved from afar. It was after that service that she returned with a leather bound book and handed me a pen accompanied by a warning that I should not lock it inside.

Thunder rumbles in the distance and I know I have to leave. The storm is approaching and fat drops of rain spatter the fresh grave causing little plumes of dust to rise up from the dry sand. I don’t want to leave. I want to lie on this mound of dirt and cry until there are no more tears. Only the tears renew each morning that he is not there. Reluctantly, I wipe tears and tell him goodbye. Lightning strikes overhead and I run madly for shelter. I make it back to Meemaw 's house before the deluge and collapse on her porch drawing in ragged burning breaths.  I lie there and listen to the rain, thinking back over the last year of my life.  I think of the book Meemaw gave me and I know its time. The story must be told and I am the only one that can tell it now. But it must be told here, to soothe the restless spirits that haunt this place. I need to get started. I open my eyes.  Determined to keep my promises but there is a flash of lighting and for the first time I notice the familiar figure standing only a couple feet from the porch in the driving rain. My blood freezes and my heart almost stops as for several seconds as I do not know if he is a mere figment of my overactive imagination and my broken heart or if I am looking at a ghost.

Why are you still here? I wonder. The curse is broken, so what are you? I want to scream above the torrent but my voice is frozen in my raw throat. Ghost? Vampire? Demon sent to torment me? I don't know which, nor at that minute do I care as I rush into the blinding rain and reach out for him...

The Ghost of Mahogany Lane

The Ghost of  Mahogany Lane- A Jesup Ghost Story

In Memory of Chance  - you loved this club so much and you and others like you are why I still do it.

When we moved to Jesup we rented a small little cracker box house on  Mahogany Lane.  It was just half a block off cherry street down where the original arch was situated many years before. Our neighbors said that then that was almost country, but now it’s more like the middle of town.  It was a cute little three bedroom house built in the 1940’s with wood floors and unique shelving built into the wall in the parlor room.  It was quite a charming little house, but it was small and had fallen into disrepair.  The yard was about as big as a postage stamp and it was littered with sandspurs.  I could barely walk to the mailbox without being assaulted by them.  I only tried to walk there barefoot once, when I first moved to South Georgia, and it was almost like walking through a minefield so I never considered it again.

My dog, Bear, however never quite learned that lesson.  He wanted to be a yard dog so badly but every time he went outside we spent fifteen minutes pulling sandspurs out from between his furry little toes.  Bear turned out to be strictly and indoor, maybe lay out on the carport or on the front porch kind of dog.  We had to walk him every morning and every night all around the neighborhood so he could have some exercise and wouldn’t go insane on us.

We started out going down the alley beside our house to the church and turning and walking back up Cherry Street.  Then we moved on to walking out the lane to Walnut street past the "Black Church" as it was called in our neighborhood. I always wanted to visit, because everytime I passed I could always hear preaching and singing.  It sounded fun and I would enjoy the music until we crossed the empty lot by the church and turned around and down back the alley home.   The empty lot by church was our turn around spot, I could let Bear off his leash and he would bounce through the tall grass looking for rabbits.  He would always find one.  I don’t know if there were that many rabbits living in that empty lot or if it was just the same stupid rabbit, but 9 times out of ten he’d chase it around and it would disappear in the shrubbery.

When the weather got cooler we decided to mix it up a bit and we began to branch out in new directions. In Jesup you can still walk around in most neighborhoods without fear of being mugged or molested.  I carried pepper spray just in case and though Bear was about the size of a very large house cat; he had the heart of an African lion.  He figured he was  the only dog we had and it was his responsibility to protect us from all harm.  In his little dog mind that was his job and he took it seriously.  Over time, I learned to trust his doggie senses.  If he waved his tail and smiled his little dog smile at someone they were probably okay but if he ever growled or raised his hackles, I knew I had to watch out.

Eventually we found our way to Wayne Street where people say that once upon a time, every body that was anybody built a house there.  I liked looking at the grand old houses that lined the road.  My momma said once that I looked at houses like some people look at babies.  I’m drawn to old houses.  They’re like time capsules- visitors from a bygone era.  Houses have personalities all of their own.  They tell stories if you’re careful enough to listen.   We had never owned a house of our own; we were just renters so I looked at those grand old ladies on Wayne and Cherry streets with a covetous eye.  One day, I promised myself, I’d own a house with some history. Maybe a creepy old one that people said was haunted.  It wouldn’t really be haunted of course, because I couldn’t stand that, but it would be okay if there were some kind of haint tale to go along with it.  Either that or there was a story about some sort of hidden treasure inside.  Any one of the two would do for me.

As we branched out from our 4- 6 block dog walking routine I made my way to the Cracker William’s park Area and found that a lady I knew from church lived in that area.  She first rented a small apartment across from the pool, but then moved a couple blocks away near the school in a large Victorian.  It was a beautiful white two story with a wide columned front porch and pretty red shutters and two red doors in the front.  Her husband was an immaculate landscaper and he always kept the yard in pristine condition.  It could have been on the cover of a southern living magazine. One day she saw me walking by as she was sitting on the front porch and she called out to me.

“I’ve seen you at my Church.”  She said as she bounced down the front steps.  “I’m Vicky.  You’re new in town, right?”

I told her we were and when I told her we were originally from Alabama she beamed a huge smile at me.
“I’m from Alabama too.  Slocomb- it’s down near Dothan.”

I had a faint recollection of Dothan from our first road trip to Panama City Beach. I couldn’t find it on a map but I did remember that it was in the vicinity of the Big Peach water tower.  Everybody loved the Big Peach- people stopped and took pictures of it.  Not because a town having a water tower shaped like a peach is such an unusual thing but because if you looked at it from the right spot on the interstate, it sort of resembled a butt and a crack.

 Finally she asked us up to sit a spell on her porch and get out of the heat.  That was how our friendship started.  We were new in town and we didn’t know many people and we started talking.  I told her that I lived on Mahogany.  I didn’t realize that Mahogany was a street and a lane.  Mahogany Street was one street over.  We lived on Mahogany Lane.  I just said Mahogany and left it at that assuming that she lived in Jesup longer than us, she would know the area.

One day I commented on how much I admired her house.

“It’s just a rental.  She confessed.  “The lady that owned it was a widow and she used to rent it out to single teachers. We needed a bigger house because my husband’s family often comes to visit and we need room for them.”

I told her it was a beautiful house, I loved old houses.

“It’s an old house.  Old houses do funny things.  They make weird noises.  Sometimes it sounds like footsteps upstairs when there’s no one there.  You can’t live in an old house if you’re too easily scared. There are too many strange noises.”

I cut my eyes at her and grinned.  “Are you saying your house is haunted?”  I teased.

She laughed.  “No. Not mine.  You live by the haunted house.”

I looked at her suspiciously.  She had gotten my attention.  “Which one?”

“The one on the Lane behind your street.”

There wasn’t a lane behind my house.

“Mahogany Lane?”  I asked.

She nodded. “Over close to the school.”

My heart seemed to skip a beat.  “The brick one.”  I finished for her, sure that was the one she was talking about.  It looked haunted.

“No, the little blue one.”

I felt like someone had just poured ice water all over my body.

“The little blue one with the white shutters?  Little crackerbox house with a postage stamp front yard?”  I asked just to be sure.

“You know it!” She cried happily.

Yep.  I knew it. I knew it well.  I lived in it. 

******

Well, I had to find out why she said it was haunted so I fought my first inclination to blab that that was my house and instead asked her to tell me about it.

“I’ve never heard that.”  I said.  “Who is it haunted by?”

She grinned at me over her glass of sweet tea.  “They say the lady who owned the house lost her husband in some sort of accident.  She stayed there for years until she was too old to care for herself. Her husband had built that house and they always kept it up.  She planted flowers in the front yard and the shrubs were always trimmed.  It was their perfect little cottage.  They had planned on having children but they never did. He was killed and she lived the rest of her life there alone.”

I shrugged.  “That’s it?”  I asked, somewhat disappointed.  I had expected a little more.

”Let me finish!”  She waved her hand at me.  “Mrs. Smith got sick one night and the ambulance came and took her away.  While she was in the hospital she kept saying that her husband was there alone and she needed to take care of him.  She got so agitated that one of the doctors called for the police to go check the place out.  The officer came in looked but everything was locked up and there was no one to be found.  He went next door and asked the neighbor who told him that the husband was killed a long time ago and she lived alone.”

“Wow.”  I commented.  It wasn’t much of a story.

“I still ain’t finished. “  She snapped.  “You want to hear this story or not?”

I guessed.  It was too hot to continue our walk, so I nodded for her to finish.

“Well, since they had no children and Mrs. Smith couldn’t care for her own self, then she was sent to a nursing home and the house was sold to pay for her expenses.  It’s a rental place now.”

Yep.  I knew that.

“I knew not the last people, but the lady before that who lived there.  She said you would hear footsteps and things would move around.  Every once in a while she saw shadows and heard voices.  She said it was spooky and it scared her sometimes but she didn’t feel threatened.  The people before her had had a bunch of German Shepherds in that house and they destroyed the house.  The rental place had to have it redone.”
It didn’t help.  I thought bleakly.

“But you know remodeling brings the ghosts out.  He must have liked my friend because he didn’t scare her too much.  The last family threw their stuff in their car and left in a hurry.  They said they wouldn’t stay there a minute longer.”

Hey!  The landlord told me that they were in the military and were transferred suddenly!  I’d been lied to!  I felt violated!

“I didn’t know them.  All I know was that it was a black family that left in a hurry.”  She finished her story and took a sip of her sweet tea.

Racist ghost?  I thought and raised my eyebrows.

I shrugged and told her I’d better be going and Bear and I continued on our walk.  We had lived there six months and we had never heard or seen a single thing.  The dog never let on and everybody knows that dogs are supposed to be able to see spirits.  Despite her story I wasn’t convinced.  The brick house next door was MUCH creepier than my little cracker box house.  What self respecting ghost would want to spend eternity in our house?  I was alive and didn’t want to stay there any longer than I had to.


When I got home that afternoon I told my husband that Vicky said that our house was haunted.  He laughed in my face and told me that Vicky was on crack.

That was when I started LOOKING for things.  I would hear noises which could very well be a ghost but it could just be squirrels in the attic. It wasn’t enough to convince me we were haunted.

Then the kid next door decided to ring the doorbell for about an hour straight one day and stuff started happening after that.  I don’t know if the two were related, but I blamed Daniel and the doorbell.
******

The kid next door was Daniel.  He was about eight years old, looked like Opie Taylor and  was about eighty pounds of nonstop noise.  I had just about decided that he had two settings on his voice- loud and so loud you went into convulsions.  He didn’t have an off switch for his voice either- if he was breathing he was talking and you hoped it was a loud day or otherwise you’d end up in the hospital.

Daniel rode to Awana with me on Wednesday night and on our first trip to church he discovered that if he rang the doorbell it would make the dog howl.  His game every Wednesday was to try to race over to my house and ring the doorbell as many times as possible before I could answer it just to hear Bear’s reaction.

The day of the doorbell incident I had to run a few errands before church.  When I arrived back home to get my Bible and Daniel, I found him on my steps furiously pushing the doorbell button.  He was so engrossed that he didn’t even notice when I pulled up behind him in the car.

Dingdongdingdongdingdongdingdong the doorbell sang out.

Inside the dog was having a conniption.

Outside, Daniel was laughing wickedly.

I screamed at him to stop and asked him what in the Sam Hill he thought he was doing.

He turned and gave me an angelic smile.  “Oh THERE you are!  I thought you were inside!”

I was furious.  Inside the dog was still howling.  He probably would never be able to hear a doorbell without going into some kind of spasm.

“I’m NOT inside!”  I snapped.  “Don’t you think I would have opened the door by now?”

“I thought you might have been asleep.” The angelic voice replied.

I turned and pointed at the empty garage which he had to walk through to get to the door.  “The car is gone Daniel!  How could I be asleep if I’m driving?”

His face said “Awww, busted!”  But he quickly recovered and gave me the same angelic smile and asked if it was time for Awana.

The dog slept between us that night.  He wasn’t normal for weeks.  Well, who am I kidding? He wasn’t normal for life.  From that day on, anytime a doorbell rang he would go into hysterics.  Even if the doorbell was on TV he would go nuts and start running through the house growling and howling.  Dominos commercials became the bane of his existence.

That was the night that things changed.  There was a whole different feeling in the house.  It felt—electric.  It was hard to explain.  The closest I can explain it was that it felt like there was someone with you- like you were being watched.

Then there were the shadows.  It usually happened to me while I was watching TV. It would look just like someone would walk across the dining room or down the hall.  It made my hair stand on end and then I’d get that electric feeling.  I didn’t like it but I came up with a simple solution. I commenced to leaving every light in the house on.  It’s kind of hard for shadows to hide when your living room is brighter than the surface of the sun.

No more shadows after that.


Fine with me.

It got to the point that Don decided I was just born without the light turning off gene.  I didn’t tell him our house was haunted and I was afraid of our ghost.  He would have laughed in my face and asked if I was on crack.   I just left the lights on.  It got so bad I would have left every light in the house on and then bought a sleeping mask to sleep in if my husband would have let me.  Don on the other hand is one of those got to turn off the light when you leave the room kind of people, even if you’re coming right back.  So he was constantly switching them off and I was constantly turning them back on.  Our neighbors thought we ran a disco with all the light flickering in our house at night.

It was easy to say that it was all in my mind until the dog started noticing it too.  I was watching TV and saw my husband walk down the hall to our bedroom.  Bear raised his head and gave it a disinterested look and then went back to sleep.  About half a second later, Don stepped into the living room with a Dr. Pepper in his hand.

I looked at him and then back up the hall. My first thought was, for a fat guy he sure could move fast, but then I reconsidered.  I KNEW he could not have gotten in the living room THAT quickly- unless I was having a matrix moment.

That’s when I started watching Bear very closely and I noticed that he would take a sudden keen interest in things that weren’t there.  In my mind I tried to say that he was looking at dust particles or watching a gnat.  That’s what I told myself to keep myself sane but more and more often I noticed that he would sit at the foot of the couch and stare up at nothing just like it was something… or more precisely someone.  And sometimes while he was watching nothing his ears perked up and his eyes danced like nothing was holding a dog treat.

That bothered me immensely.

Weird feelings and dogs staring at nothing- that was one thing. Those kinds of things you could put over in the corner of your mind and file under the heading of “things that make you go humm?”

When it said my name I was ready to burn the house down.


***********

I was at home alone.  It never bothered me when Don was there.  Maybe it just liked me.  I don’t know.  I had come home from school and went to the Library and got myself a book and had every intention of stretching out on the couch and reading until midnight.

I was totally engrossed in my novel.  Then I heard it.  Clear as day.

“Lillah.”

I jumped up and chills ran all over my body.  The logical part of my brain wanted to explain it away and the illogical part just wanted to run away.  It didn’t make sense.  I didn’t really believe in Ghosts.  If you’d asked me before that I’d have said ghost stories were bull hockey.  I believed in spirits.  I believed in angels and demons but the spirits of our departed went to either one of two places.  I found it hard to believe that Mr. Smith’s spirit was spending his eternity hanging out in my house creeping around in the shadows, entertaining the dog and whispering my name.  It bothered me to think that, but it bothered me worse to think that if it WASN’T Mr. Smith, then WHAT was it?

Several nights later- after I’d had enough time to talk myself into believing that I’d just dreamed the whole thing- I ended up on the couch in the middle of the night.  I was having trouble breathing, and I just couldn’t get comfortable so I drug my pillow and my blanket into the living room and crawled on the couch.  Bear followed me and lay at my feet.  It made me feel a little better, at least I wasn’t alone.   Perhaps if someone tried to break in on me he would bark or growl; especially if the hapless burglar tried to ring the doorbell.

I woke in the dark living room to the familiar electric feeling.  I had my back turned to the supposedly empty room, but I felt like someone was there with me. I could almost feel them sitting beside me on the coffee table.  I had the uncanny feeling that if I turned and looked he would be there and I would see him.  It felt like he wanted me to look, like he was waiting for me to look at him.  I was terrified, and I didn’t dare open my eyes even though my every natural inclination was to look.  It was like having an itch I wasn’t supposed to scratch.  No matter how much I wanted to turn and look, my fear would not let me move.  I lay there as quietly as I knew how and prayed for some sort of relief.  I probably would have stayed like that all night had the Lord not sent my husband to retrieve me.

He bent over me and asked me why I didn’t come back to bed.  I followed him obediently back into our bedroom and lay as close to him as I could.  Whatever it was didn’t come around when Don was there.  I didn’t know why, but that was the last night I spent on the couch until we moved to Screven.

But I had to be at home by myself.  I couldn’t just leave and not come back until Don showed up at seven thirty at night.  I fought back as best I could.  I blasted my rock and roll.  Mr. Smith didn’t seem to like my taste in music so I played it loudly.  As an added precaution, more for my benefit than anything else, I left all the lights on in the house and if I ever started to feel that electric feeling- well it was time to walk the dog or take a trip to Wal-Mart.

Sometimes it would be days or weeks between visits.  One such night I was cooking supper and I heard footsteps down the hall.  I wiped my hands on a towel and looked around the corner to see what Bear was up to.  He was on the couch with his head tilted as if to ask why I was bothering him. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end and I felt as though someone was standing behind me.  So I did what could do, I turned off the potatoes and told Bear it was time for a walk.

I took my cell phone and talked to Don who assured me he was on his way home from work.  I took an extra long walk that afternoon and then stopped by Mrs. Katherine’s house to play with her weenie dog, Buster.  Mrs. Katherine was working out in her little yard.  I looped Bear’s leash around a skinny little tree and put Buster on his leash.  I walked him around in the yard while I wasted time waiting for Don to come home. 

Finally, I had enough and put Buster back in his little pen and I sat down on the porch to talk to my neighbor.  Mrs. Katherine worked at the First Baptist Church too so she knew absolutely EVERYBODY in Jesup and she knew ALL the news that was worth talking about.  She turned out to be my main source of information on our “ghost”.

“I’m glad you’re trying to keep the place up.”  She commented as she worked in her flowers.  “You should have seen it when Mrs. Smith lived there.  It was always kept up; she had flowers in the yard.  She would just die if she could see it today.  Before they turned it into a rental it was really pretty.”

That made me feel bad.  Maybe our “friend” was visiting because he was angry over the condition of the house he had built.

I gently prodded Mrs. Katherine for more information.

“So… whatever happened to Mr. and Mrs. Smith anyway?”  I asked as if I hadn’t heard the story.

“Oh, she’s in the nursing home.  She has Alzheimer’s.  She thought her husband was still alive.  Poor thing.”

I wondered how much of the story Mrs. Katherine knew or would tell me.  I asked her how Mr. Smith died.

“Oh, he died on the train.”

“He worked on the railroad?”  I asked.

“No, the train de-railed.  He was the only one what was killed.  They were young and in love.  It was so sad, they never had children and Mrs. Smith never married again.  She lived there until they took her away and they made the place into a rental.  You know, one family had a bunch of ol’ dogs in there.  They destroyed that house. I wonder what Mr. Smith would say if he could see it now.”

I wanted to tell her he was probably hanging out in my living room if she wanted to go ask him, but I kept my mouth shut.

Don pulled into the carport and I waved at her.  “I gotta get going.”  I told her and retrieved Bear from her tree.   I had my first clue to the puzzle.

The Librarian gave me the next clue.  I was a history major in college and if I learned nothing else, it was how to research.  I camped out at the library after school that day and found the newspaper clippings in a big scrapbook.  It talked about how the train- Number Ninety Six had derailed just outside of Odum and Mr. Smith was the only one killed.  It mentioned that he was supposed to take an earlier train but he had been delayed on his business and he took Number Ninety Six instead.

I shook my head.  He wasn’t even supposed to be on that train!  It seemed like such a waste.

The feelings came more and more often as summer gave way into fall.  I don’t know if the cool weather brought our “friend” out or if I was in the Halloween mood and just started noticing things more.  I had finally gotten to the point where I could stand to be home by myself.  He had never tried to harm me after all.  All he’d ever done was make noises and entertain the dog.  Things moved from time to time but I couldn’t say that was his fault and not the fact that I am extremely scatterbrained.  I lost my keys every few days but I don’t know if he took them or I just toss them absentmindedly.

He also used to like to lock doors.  The front door in particular.  When we moved in one of the first things we noticed was that the front door had about six different locks on it.  My mother looked at me and said “You must be in a bad neighborhood.”  There was the original old lock, which was made into the oak door itself.  Then there was the doorknob lock and the deadbolt which we changed, another deadbolt and a slide lock.  Okay, that’s five.  It had five locks in all.  We changed everything out except the lock on the bottom, the original.  We just decided that since we didn’t have a key we wouldn’t lock it.

It didn’t matter, it locked itself.

Don asked me why I always locked the bottom lock and I told him I didn’t but he didn’t believe me.

Locks don’t lock themselves.

Except when they do, and it did a lot.

He never believed me until it locked itself of it’s own volition one night while we were sitting out on the front porch swing.  We had spent the afternoon at the beach and we came home and decided to relax outside on the porch.  It was fall and it was just getting cool enough to enjoy Jesup a little.  He told me not to close the door but it was too late.  We were sitting in the porch swing when we heard the lock turn.

I smiled smugly and Don gave me that “What the...?”  Look.  Finally!  Maybe now he would believe me.

I pulled on the door and it refused to open.  Bear peered out at us over the back of the couch and barked plaintively because we had left him inside.  We had to call a locksmith from Brunswick to come let us in.  He worked on the lock at the front door for thirty minutes and couldn’t get it to turn.  We took him around back and he was in at the back door in thirty seconds flat.

He shrugged as my husband doled out sixty dollars.  “I guess they don’t make ‘em like they used to huh?”

Don glared at me.  “No, I guess they don’t.”

That must have amused him because it soon became his favorite game.  I averaged locking myself out about once a month.  It would necessitate me sitting out on the porch and listening to the dog complain until Don arrived or having to walk to the rental agency to pick up the spare.

I tried teaching Bear to unlock the door but I was never successful.  He would sit on the couch and peek at me through the living room window and argue about why I had left him inside while I was quite obviously outside. Sometimes I felt like the two of them were in on it together and often wondered if Mr. Smith and Bear got bored and they would lock me out for fun.

It never was much fun for me though.  It was a ten minute walk to the Rental agency. The secretary finally got to the point where if she saw me coming she would go ahead and put the key up on the counter.  Finally I got smart, and anytime I wanted to go outside I either propped the door or took my keys.

I guess he could be opening doors in the middle of the night, so between the two I figured I’d rather have locking doors ghost rather than an unlocking doors ghost.  At least he was a safety conscious ghost and felt that if I could somehow talk him into unplugging the coffee maker when I left it on we’d get on quite well.

Eventually I got used to the noises and the locking and at last even the shadows didn’t bother me.

Then one day, when I thought I had seen and heard it all, I turned and found that wasn’t exactly true.

I hadn’t seen him yet.

I was cooking fried chicken and I looked up from the electric skillet expecting to see Don but instead I saw a stranger. For a half a second I thought we were being robbed but before I could even react he was gone.  I only saw him for a second.  I shrieked and threw the wooden spoon at him- or where he had been- anyway.  It went right through him, but it made me feel a little better.

Don was watching a football game in the living room.

“What?”  He yelled as he pounded into the room.

“I saw a roach!”  I lied looking down at the wooden spoon.  Was I supposed to tell him our ghost likes chicken?

He looked down at the wooden spoon and the spatter of grease on the floor.

“Did you get it?”  He wanted to know.

“No.  It got away.”  I replied, still shaken.

 “Musta been a big one!”  He observed and went back to the football game.

“Yeah, about six foot tall.” I told him and he laughed.

He thought I was exaggerating.

I wasn’t.  I’m not real observant but I got a good look at him in the two seconds that he was there.  It’s amazing how closely you’ll pay attention when something like that happens.  It’s been years now and I can still tell you what he looked like.

He was tall and blonde; he was wearing slacks, a white button up shirt, suspenders and a plain dark tie.    He did not look scary, like I imagined a ghost to look.

He looked… normal. 

I hadn’t expected normal.  I expected the prince of darkness or something.  I hadn’t expected him to be handsome, and to look almost as surprised to see me as I had to see him.

I was officially spooked.  Now that I had seen him with my own eyes, there was no arguing.  It made me cry.  I poured out my heart in my prayers that night.  We were too poor to move, and I couldn’t live like this.  The verse that came to my heart was the one that said “For I have not given you a spirit of fear…”  It’s your house, my heart told me.  Tell him he has to go away.

The next night was Friday.  I played on the computer until Don got finished with his TV watching and decided to call it a night.  I had banned him from our bedroom so I waited for him in the living room.  Around eleven o’clock I felt that familiar feeling and I looked up to see him standing in the dining room.

Again, there was an almost horrified expression on his face.

My expression must have been just as horrified, but I managed to speak.

“Mr. Smith. You’re not supposed to be here, you’re dead.  You died when the  Number Ninety Six derailed.  I’m sorry sir, but if you’d only not gotten on that train--”

He looked shocked and sad before he disappeared.  I wondered if he didn’t know he was dead and the thought made me so sad I couldn’t stand it.

I didn’t see him again after that.  The shadows stopped, the door never locked itself, and the dog stopped watching nothing.  That was the end of our ghost.   Or so I thought.

 It wasn’t quite over, not yet…

Eventually we found ourselves a house in Screven and we had to leave the little cracker box house on Mahogany lane.  Mrs. Katherine said she would miss us, and while we packed up I wondered whatever became of Mr. Smith.  Had he passed on to the other side or was he still here?

I took the key to the rental place on our last day.  The secretary told me they’d miss seeing us around and wished us luck with our move.

“I guess Mr. and Mrs. Smith can sell that house now.”  She said offhandedly as I started to walk out that door.

I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to look at her.

“Mrs. Smith?”  I asked.  “I thought she was in the nursing home.”

The secretary gave me a shocked look.  “Naw, I don’t reckon.  They live in Odum.”

“They?  I thought Mr. Smith was dead.”

“Naw.”  She said again.  “I don’t reckon.  They’re real old, but they’re not dead.  Whoever told you that?”

“The neighbors?”  I said uneasily.  “Said he was dead and she was in a nursing home.”

“You must ‘ha got your folks mixed up.”  She said.

“I reckon so. “ I told her and told her to have a nice day.  Inside I was furious!  The neighbors lied to me!  Were they all in on it?  Was this the kind of thing that passed for fun around this town?

We had to meet the people from the rental agency for a final inspection before we turned in our key.  I was still fuming when a car pulled up in the driveway but I threw myself into stuffing boxes into the back of the Explorer while Don and the man from the rental agency did the final walk through.

Mr. Jackson crossed the alley and stuck out his hand.  “It’s too bad ya’ll are moving.  We sure are gonna miss you.”

I thanked him and told him we’d miss him too.

“Don is doing the final inspection.”  I told him as I waited.

“I hear Mr. Smith is going to sell this house now.  I’m glad.  It needs someone to take care of it.”

I nodded.

“I don’t really know why he didn’t sell it when they moved to Odum.”  Mr. Jackson laughed and wiped his hand over his face.  “You know he claimed it was haunted!”

I looked up at him.  I’m not sure if he noticed the deadly stare I gave him.  If he did, it didn’t seem to bother him.

  “Do tell.”  I said flatly.

“You didn’t notice anything did you?”  He asked and I shook my head like I thought he was crazy.

“Yeah I thought so.”  He conceded.  “That one family did though.  You know they were black. Packed up and left in a hurry.  They were… peculiar…”

“Maybe it was a racist ghost.”  I growled and he laughed.  I wasn’t really joking.

“Aw... too many stories told.  You know.  Mr. Smith, he was adament that it was haunted.  Whenever he came he asked if anyone saw anything.  He claimed there were shadows and he heard noises and things moved around. Said the lights came on by themselves and he always complained that he couldn’t keep the doors locked.”He said.  "Said he saw a woman.  Which was funny 'cuz ain't no woman lived there before him.”

“A woman.”  I repeated.  He had to be kidding me.

“Yes ma’m.  Said she looked as scared of him as he was of her.”

I wondered if I wasn't seeing a ghost at all.  Could it be that we were... somehow... seeing each other?

“Said she spoke to him too-something about some number.”

That got my attention. I think my eyes got big as hubcaps. 

He rubbed his head like he was trying to think of something he’d forgotten a long time ago. “Aww… shoot… I can’t remember… Ninety Six.  You know he was really superstitious about that number?  He was supposed to ride a train once and he found out it had that number and he wouldn’t ride it?”  Mr Jackson laughed like he thought the whole thing was hogwash.  “He waited all night for the next one.”

I stared at him.

My mouth fell open.  I got a gnat in it and strained at it like I had swallowed a June bug.  Mr. Jackson shook his head.  They say that's how people know you're a transplant.  If you're born in Jesup the gnats don't bother you.  

He rubbed his chin  and continued his story.  “I don’t know… that was the train what derailed… Might have saved his life… I guess the Good Lord works in mysterious ways.”

Yeah, I guess He does.

Someone told me later that Mr. and Mrs. Smith live in Odum, not far from where the train derailed.  I returned to the library later and asked to see the clipping I had found earlier from the newspaper.  Try as we might, we couldn’t find it.  The Librarian shook her head and told me she didn’t know what I was talking about.  We did find one mention of the train derailing in Odum but there was nothing about anyone being hurt or killed.  You can go on over to the Wayne County Public Library and look for yourself if you want, but I’ll tell you right now you won’t find it.



L. T. Crane
Young Writer’s Club

10-20-2009