Ghost Story #5

When I was 5, we lived on the 1st floor of a lower West, 3-story Victorian building in NYC.

It had a bedroom with French-doors in front. My dad built a sheet-rock wall so I had my own sliver of a room with a tiny loft bed & the gated windows to the street. An art studio with front door to the hallway, living room with big loft & office space underneath, kitchen with back door & then the huge bathroom. Out back was a tiny cinderblock courtyard where I played a lot & where my dad made theatre backdrop paintings. Or where cast party guests would make art, smoke on the steps. 

One eve, I saw a small woman walk past the open French-doors & through the wall. 

I asked my parents who she was, where’d that door lead to, what’s she doing in there? 

They responded with who, what door, where? There’s no lady, no door.

I insisted there were both. Standing in front of where I saw her go through their bedroom wall,

indeed, there was an outline of a doorjamb, long ago plastered over, under countless layers of paint. The wood floor had an edging detail that clearly defined a once used passageway.

During one of the parties, I sat on the floor, facing my mom & her friend, who had their backs to the open front door. I saw my friend (I’ll call her Lillian) got up to greet her & took her to my room to play. The ladies said that they both felt something brush past their legs at the same time.

My mother later saw a ghost of a grinning jockey ride by. (but not the horse)

Though she never saw my friend, from time to time ‘Lillian’ was heard crying,

“Why did you leave me this way? Why did you leave me like this?”

    photo by John Shown