“How come when we lean our heads way back our hair doesn’t fall off?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did God make the T-Rex with such tiny arms?
“I don’t know.”
“Are we going to Wal-Mart today?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are my soccer cleats?”
“I don’t know.”
As one-half of a marital union, the occasional, selective expediency of, “I don’t remember” comes in handy, too.
“How much did you spend when you were out yesterday?”
“I don’t remember.”
With the imminent arrival of Halloween, compounded by the rousing yard decorations that make October 31 almost as thrilling as Christmas, I have endured a deluge of questions from my children about the paranormal. Generally speaking, some of those can be answered simply, while others need a bit of blatant, motherly finesse.
“Are monsters real?”
“No.” (But just between us, I’ve bumped into one or two who might qualify by definition.)
“What about that skunk ape thing down in Florida?”
“What?”
“Are ghosts real?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you ever seen a ghost?”
“I’m… well…not sure?”
Like most folks, I’ve had a feeling here and there. It’s a pricking, hairy alertness you experience when you’re in an old house, an old church, or strolling through a historic cemetery, battleground, or suddenly wide awake at 3 a.m. in a dark and silent room. I’ve usually attributed these creepy moments to my sensitivity and appreciation toward all things nostalgic, mystical and imaginative. But there is one incident that stands out in my memory as worth noting.
Most every Sunday of my childhood, my parents and I would drive to LaGrange to visit my grandparents, who, for a time, lived an austere retirement in a shoebox-sized house on Roanoke Road. As best I can recall, it was the early 1970s, and I was probably in the first or second grade. My grandparents were sweet, unassuming people who did the best they could on a fixed income but consequently, their house wasn’t terribly interesting. There were no books or toys. There may have been a black and white television but this was before 24 hour cartoons and I amused myself elsewhere. What I remember best, besides the dreadful smell of coffee and the unfiltered Pall Malls my grandfather smoked, was a box of wooden spools my grandmother collected for me to play with. The magic that can be found in the most ordinary of objects is astonishing. I can’t glimpse wooden spools without thinking fondly of my grandmother.
One Sunday, I wandered outside and decided to play “horse” astride the silver propane tank behind the house. I wore a blue pinafore and long, navy knee socks. The sky, for the early fall, was beautifully and deceptively clear so I closed my eyes and galloped away to some place only an innocent child can find. When I opened them again, I saw a girl of about sixteen, standing several feet away. She wore faded coveralls and a worn, sleeveless checkered shirt. She had long black, braided hair, caramel skin, and beside her was a pony led by a single, frayed rope. She was not smiling, her face had an inscrutable stillness about it, but I was a kid dying to pet a real horse and I ran straight to her.
The moment I reached up to touch the pony, I was struck with an excruciating pain. I looked down and my shoes, my socks, my legs, were covered with fire ants. I ran, shrieking, back to the house where I was scooped up and put in the kitchen sink while my grandfather poured gasoline all over my legs. (He meant well, but don’t try that at home!) I made so much noise the neighbors came over to see what had happened but all I wanted was to get back outside and see the pony. Strangely, though, both the girl and her horse had vanished. Not even the neighbors who had watched me playing on the propane tank, had ever seen or even heard of such a person in that area.
Are ghosts real? When my children ask, I’ll always say, “I don’t know,” but I think about her, the pony girl of Roanoke Road, and wonder…
Happy Halloween!
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