Chapter 47: Do you believe in ghosts? Have you ever encountered one?
Originally written November 10, 2021
As I explained in a previous chapter here, ghosts are something of a family legacy.
My grandmother, who was agnostic concerning religion, was a firm believer in ghosts, claimin that she’d once seen the ghost of her own mother.
And for a short time, in the mid 1960s when I was in junior high, my brother Jack and I played around a lot a a Ouija board, communicating with “spirits of the dead.”
We got the idea from Nana and Mom, who told us about a fun little party they went to while vacationing in Santa Fe (a few years before we moved here) where a family friend led a fun-sounding Ouija board session.
Jack and I bought a brand new Ouija board down at the hobby store and went to town.
Spooky Town!
One of the stray spirits we encountered was named “Michael” who spelled out cryptic Ouija dispatches. The main one I remember was “Death is a dark place.”
This seemed profound at the time.
I soon became fairly skeptical though, suspecting it was my brother who was guiding the little finger board. He still denies it.
But maybe he suspects it was me manipulating the ominous words of “Michael.”
Now let’s skip ahead about 20 years, long after my Ouija years.
In the fall of 1986, after my Ouija-loving, ghost-believing Nana died. For several days, I thought I could hear her words in my head.
One case was when I was at the funeral home making arrangements for her cremation, she yelled “No!” as I was about to sign the papers.
I knew it wasn’t because she was opposed to cremation. In fact ever since I was a kid Nana always let me know that she wanted to be cremated and wanted to have no funeral.
At the time following her death, I felt she just didn’t want to saddle me with having to pay hundreds of dollars for the cremation. In my mind, I told her that someone had to pay for it and at least I wasn’t paying for a the goddamn funeral that she didn’t want.
A few nights, while sitting at home after work, I had a waking vision of Nana in the cosmos in a blue robe and hood boarding what looked like a Viking ship.
O.K. I’ll admit this scene in my head probably was inspired by Marvel Comics.
As the ship set sail into the Great Beyond, Nana told me, “I’ll always be here whenever you need me.”
I’m sure I made up this little mystical drama as a way of reassuring myself, helping bring closure (Christ, I hate such psycho-babble!) to my grief.
I’ve never seen Nana’s ghost, but often her words of advice come back to me when I need it.
Skip ahead to 1992, around the time my son Anton was born, his mother and I were renting this little house on Agua Fria Street.
Ever so often at night, I sometimes would feel a “presence” in the kitchen and a couple of times I thought I caught, in the corner of my eye, a glimpse of a shadow moving in the kitchen.
But other than this weird “feeling,” nothing truly spooky ever happened in that house while we were there — no screams in the night (except baby Anton crying), no blood dripping from the walls, no sinister twins saying “Come play with us.”
Cartoon break: I remember seeing this spooky “Scrappy” story on tv when I was a kid. It was first released nearly 20 years before I was born. Skip ahead to the 1:50 mark for the song, which stuck with me well into adulthood.
So no, I can’t honestly say I’ve ever seen a ghost. And though for years I stayed open to the idea, these days I still can’t honestly say I believe in ghosts.
But I did make up what I think was a heck of a ghost story I used to entertain and terrify both of my children.
When I first broke up with Molly’s mother in 1984, I moved in for about a month with my pal Alec. I didn’t have a car at the time (I’d left the car I had with my soon-to-be ex-wife), so I’d often have to walk down Cerrillos Road from the Journal North office downtown to Alec’s place in Casa Alegre.
About halfway between is the old Fairview Cemetery.
So far all of that is true.
But now for the good part:
One full-moon night while walking past the graveyard I thought I heard music. It seemed to be a banjo someone was plunking. And then I heard singing.
I looked over at one of the tombstones and there sat a skeleton playing a banjo.
(At this point, while telling the story to whatever creeped-out wide-eyed child was listening, I began singing the old Rev. Gary Davis song: “Death Don’t Have No Mercy in This Land …”)
Just like this …
I then noticed that there were other skeletons, swaying, dancing and singing along.
“… I said Death don’t have no mercy in this land …”
And then the skeletons noticed me and started moving toward me. Luckily I was able to outrun them.
Yeah, in retrospect the ending’s not that artful. Maybe I should have been captured by these spooks then rescued by a friendly werewolf or something.
But when both Molly and Anton were small, this story petrified them like a good ghost story should.
I’m not a complete sadist. I never wanted to give them nightmares. I usually told it when we were driving by the cemetery during daylight hours.
But still, sometimes when I’m driving by that graveyard by myself at night, I think of this silly tale and sometimes I’ll even sing a verse of that song as I drive on.
Or occasionally I’ll sing this Roky Erickson classic: