Mother called her children together. We stood around the dining room table for the "family meeting," which is what Mother called it. I didn't know what to think but stood there silently as did my siblings, waiting for Mother to speak.
"The Coroner," she said, "ruled that your father died of internal injuries."
She needn't have told me what caused those injuries. I knew. So, too, did Byron Nelson and his son, Johnny, my blood brother. However, only I was aware of the horror in my life: Dad's ghost was now seeking its revenge. His specter chased after me in the dark, pushing an open coffin on that soundless, chrome contraption while I made my way home alone, returning from a baseball game or friend's house. During the winter months, darkness would come too early.
"I have to pee," I said. Besides that, I was chilled to the bone although it was almost summer and warm.
"Hurry up and go," warned Mother, her eyebrows inverted Capital V's.
They waited. And none too patiently. "Hurry up," cautioned James.
“”Yeah,” agreed Bill.
Finally, I returned.
"The Coroner also said the way your father's liver looked, he didn't have long to live, anyway." Clearing her throat, Mother paused yet again. Although her eyes were glossy, tears did not fall. I figured she was all cried out. I watched her Adams apple rise and fall in the awkward silence.
Finally, she continued. "Here's what I'm proposing to you: I believe we should leave the past in the past and not talk about your father." She stopped and then added, "Ever again. What do you kids think?"
"Yes," we cried out in an avalanche of soprano, contralto, and tenor voices. Why talk about Dad, anyway? He wasn't a bit like my friends' fathers. A wife beater and alcoholic, he stopped drinking not long ago and seemed to be a better husband and father—for a brief interval, that is. Too brief. Unfortunately, he returned to his worn but comforting path of harboring and drinking the contents of a whiskey bottle. Why else had Bill K. and Dick B. visited Dad the day I watched him shakily drink the elixir he had poured into a coffee cup?
In the dark, I whistled or hummed loudly, thinking the ghost would disappear. That didn't happen. Although I wouldn't or couldn't look behind me, I was certain the maddened, silent specter was gaining ground. I had to run faster, much faster. Faster still. Or else it would catch me. And kill me.
Certain the hideous and deformed freak looked like the horrible monsters in my brother Bill's Horror comic books, it had only two objectives: 1. To stuff me in that coffin and batten down the lid, making certain I couldn't get out; and 2. Bury me. Exactly six feet underground. No less. No more. Worms would soon enough play pinochle on my snout.
On two occasions, I stopped. Slowly, I turned around. I saw neither beast nor casket but felt their presence. It was there. its coffin was with it. Hiding, it was preparing its horrible, eventual ambush. It would grab me and toss me in that casket. That was the way my life would end. Nobody would be the wiser.
"Where is Gordon?"
Mother and siblings hunched their shoulders. "We don't know. He simply disappeared."
The two times I stopped, I was certain that beast and sarcophagus hid behind a row of bushes, nearby garage, huge tree, house, or four-door sedan, parked in a nearby driveway. It didn't show itself. It patiently waited, holding on to that coffin, prepared to give me chase. I turned around to head home. The chase was on, but with more intensity.
Once I'd get indoors, he'd stop. With the lights on, I'd be safe. For a while, anyway. On my bed, I hid under the covers and kept my flashlight on. I could hear him breathe in the basement as I kept asking, "Ghosts don't breathe, do they?" Eventually, I fell asleep.
When I'd seek fresh batteries, Mother demanded. "What do you do, Gordon, eat those batteries or do you leave your flashlight on all night?"
"I don't know why they burn out. They're batteries, and batteries burn out."
"Next time, you pay for them with your money, and not mine, understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
During daylight hours, the horrible beast remained in the basement, behind the hot water heater. Each time Mother told me to go to the basement and fetch a can or bottle of foodstuff purchased at the A&P, only I knew what waited down there, and it wanted me as dead as it was. I zoomed down those stairs, made a hard left at the furnace, followed by another hard left, running by washing machine and dryer, latching on to a bottle of catsup or a can of French style beans. Turning around in a nanosecond, I passed by dryer and washer, plowed a right at the furnace, twisted again, and flew up those stairs. I never saw it. But I felt it. I knew when the time came for it to finally end its horrid game, I'd likely die of fright.
Although I never saw its coffin, either, I was certain it was a shiny, steel affair, glossy rayon cloth, lining its steel interior with soft pillow for my eventual still, dead head. While it screwed down the lid tightly, roaring and cackling, I'd kick and scream. Dad's specter would bury me behind Mount Calvary Cemetery in that dreadful swamp. I was convinced it was justified: A life for a life.
Following that, the creature would transport my soul to its assigned place of eternal damnation. I wouldn't get to see Saint Peter at the Golden Gate. Straight to hell; that's where I'd go. The monster would tell the Prince of Darkness, "This is the boy who killed me."
"Thus, shall I assign him to stoking my furnaces," announced Lucifer. Tossing back his head, Beezlebub then bellowed, "That's where all my murderers go. Boy, did you hear me?"
"I didn't mean to kill him," I screamed. "I didn't mean it."
"But you killed him, anyway," retorted the hideously, grinning, fallen archangel, saliva hanging in columns between its upper and lower blood-red, shark-like teeth. "I find you guilty. Your fellow murderers await you. Begone, boy."
To protect myself from an imminent childhood death, I learned I must have friends accompany me to any event that occurred in darkness. I'd no longer venture alone in the dark. The specter was aware. It returned to our basement and waited. Undoubtedly, it would eventually catch me. It was not only a matter of time, the beast was positive I'd let my guard down.
"The Coroner," she said, "ruled that your father died of internal injuries."
She needn't have told me what caused those injuries. I knew. So, too, did Byron Nelson and his son, Johnny, my blood brother. However, only I was aware of the horror in my life: Dad's ghost was now seeking its revenge. His specter chased after me in the dark, pushing an open coffin on that soundless, chrome contraption while I made my way home alone, returning from a baseball game or friend's house. During the winter months, darkness would come too early.
"I have to pee," I said. Besides that, I was chilled to the bone although it was almost summer and warm.
"Hurry up and go," warned Mother, her eyebrows inverted Capital V's.
They waited. And none too patiently. "Hurry up," cautioned James.
“”Yeah,” agreed Bill.
Finally, I returned.
"The Coroner also said the way your father's liver looked, he didn't have long to live, anyway." Clearing her throat, Mother paused yet again. Although her eyes were glossy, tears did not fall. I figured she was all cried out. I watched her Adams apple rise and fall in the awkward silence.
Finally, she continued. "Here's what I'm proposing to you: I believe we should leave the past in the past and not talk about your father." She stopped and then added, "Ever again. What do you kids think?"
"Yes," we cried out in an avalanche of soprano, contralto, and tenor voices. Why talk about Dad, anyway? He wasn't a bit like my friends' fathers. A wife beater and alcoholic, he stopped drinking not long ago and seemed to be a better husband and father—for a brief interval, that is. Too brief. Unfortunately, he returned to his worn but comforting path of harboring and drinking the contents of a whiskey bottle. Why else had Bill K. and Dick B. visited Dad the day I watched him shakily drink the elixir he had poured into a coffee cup?
In the dark, I whistled or hummed loudly, thinking the ghost would disappear. That didn't happen. Although I wouldn't or couldn't look behind me, I was certain the maddened, silent specter was gaining ground. I had to run faster, much faster. Faster still. Or else it would catch me. And kill me.
Certain the hideous and deformed freak looked like the horrible monsters in my brother Bill's Horror comic books, it had only two objectives: 1. To stuff me in that coffin and batten down the lid, making certain I couldn't get out; and 2. Bury me. Exactly six feet underground. No less. No more. Worms would soon enough play pinochle on my snout.
On two occasions, I stopped. Slowly, I turned around. I saw neither beast nor casket but felt their presence. It was there. its coffin was with it. Hiding, it was preparing its horrible, eventual ambush. It would grab me and toss me in that casket. That was the way my life would end. Nobody would be the wiser.
"Where is Gordon?"
Mother and siblings hunched their shoulders. "We don't know. He simply disappeared."
The two times I stopped, I was certain that beast and sarcophagus hid behind a row of bushes, nearby garage, huge tree, house, or four-door sedan, parked in a nearby driveway. It didn't show itself. It patiently waited, holding on to that coffin, prepared to give me chase. I turned around to head home. The chase was on, but with more intensity.
Once I'd get indoors, he'd stop. With the lights on, I'd be safe. For a while, anyway. On my bed, I hid under the covers and kept my flashlight on. I could hear him breathe in the basement as I kept asking, "Ghosts don't breathe, do they?" Eventually, I fell asleep.
When I'd seek fresh batteries, Mother demanded. "What do you do, Gordon, eat those batteries or do you leave your flashlight on all night?"
"I don't know why they burn out. They're batteries, and batteries burn out."
"Next time, you pay for them with your money, and not mine, understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
During daylight hours, the horrible beast remained in the basement, behind the hot water heater. Each time Mother told me to go to the basement and fetch a can or bottle of foodstuff purchased at the A&P, only I knew what waited down there, and it wanted me as dead as it was. I zoomed down those stairs, made a hard left at the furnace, followed by another hard left, running by washing machine and dryer, latching on to a bottle of catsup or a can of French style beans. Turning around in a nanosecond, I passed by dryer and washer, plowed a right at the furnace, twisted again, and flew up those stairs. I never saw it. But I felt it. I knew when the time came for it to finally end its horrid game, I'd likely die of fright.
Although I never saw its coffin, either, I was certain it was a shiny, steel affair, glossy rayon cloth, lining its steel interior with soft pillow for my eventual still, dead head. While it screwed down the lid tightly, roaring and cackling, I'd kick and scream. Dad's specter would bury me behind Mount Calvary Cemetery in that dreadful swamp. I was convinced it was justified: A life for a life.
Following that, the creature would transport my soul to its assigned place of eternal damnation. I wouldn't get to see Saint Peter at the Golden Gate. Straight to hell; that's where I'd go. The monster would tell the Prince of Darkness, "This is the boy who killed me."
"Thus, shall I assign him to stoking my furnaces," announced Lucifer. Tossing back his head, Beezlebub then bellowed, "That's where all my murderers go. Boy, did you hear me?"
"I didn't mean to kill him," I screamed. "I didn't mean it."
"But you killed him, anyway," retorted the hideously, grinning, fallen archangel, saliva hanging in columns between its upper and lower blood-red, shark-like teeth. "I find you guilty. Your fellow murderers await you. Begone, boy."
To protect myself from an imminent childhood death, I learned I must have friends accompany me to any event that occurred in darkness. I'd no longer venture alone in the dark. The specter was aware. It returned to our basement and waited. Undoubtedly, it would eventually catch me. It was not only a matter of time, the beast was positive I'd let my guard down.