Ghost Story #8

During my 2nd year in San Antonio, I turned 8 & jumped into the 3rd grade. I was allowed to walk the mile to school by myself. Half way, there was a white hand silhouette on a red background & taped inside of a house window to denote a safe place to go, should there be any trouble. Having come from NYC & seeing these colors of the Salvation Army, who tried to recruit me when I was only 6…I just didn’t trust the hands. But I thought about running to that house, when things got twisted at home. A weird image. Like when I placed my hand on the static charged tv in the dark.Ghost Hand. When I went back to NYC to visit my mom for summer break, they’d moved into an old rowhouse, which was 3 small floors in the single unit. A grand piano, painted pink, had been left behind & took up ½ of the 1st floor which had a run-on living-room-eat-in-kitchen. 2nd floor was the en suite bedroom for baby, mom & step-dad. 3rd floor was a study & storage.
But in the corner, a tiny room all mine, with a mutli-pane glass door. At some point a walk in closet. Aside from the bathroom & front door, it was the only other door, since each floor was one big 10’x25’ room. Being in the farther corner, on the top floor, I felt both trapped & exposed.
The open doorway to 2nd & 3rd floor was in the middle of the open landing. Sandwiched between other rowhouses. there were only windows on the front & back walls.
Also on the 2nd floor was a newly constructed steam room, which they used to store linens, since it was cedar lined. It had a full glass door. I hated going near it. Feeling ike someone was in there, ready to come out of there any second. Having to pass it on my way up or down the stairs, felt like I was being followed on the landing. It always sounded like someone was on another floor, even when we were all on the same floor together. My only time there, since they moved to DC the next year. To a newer, creepier, sprawling apartment complex that was once barracks. I just got a shiver thinking about the connected basements with sliding steel doors!

                                  photo by John Shown