everyday is halloween

a ghost story

my family & i were living with ben who owned a house in the rough working-class neighborhood of del paso heights.  i don't know the precise details of why we were living with ben in his house.  my grandmother had her house just down the street & around the block.  ben & grandma were once a thing but that was in the past.  my school was around the corner & there was a church right down the street.

the heights, as the neighborhood was called, was fairly rural with nearby rice & corn fields.  it was not uncommon to see bi-plane crop-dusters in the air.  the house we shared with ben was modest with a decent sized backyard.  in the backyard was an old tool shed & two small houses.  those two small houses, doll house-like, situated in the backyard like two old sentinels keeping guard of any thing that might trample thru the brambles & brush of the property.

i was fascinated by the two houses & the tool shed.  each structure carried forth a mystery of being.  each building was painted yellow, fading & coming off in strips.

it was the early 1970s.  i remember the adults talking in hushed excited whispers about the scariest movie ever made, the exorcist.  the news was full of stories of people passing out from fright in the theaters.  i listened to these stories by the adults & the TV news.  terrified & excited by the rush of ancient wonder.  fear of demonic possession paralyzed me.  & quickened my nerves in utter wonder too.

i shared a bedroom with my two brothers.  me being the oldest i had my choice of bunk.  i chose the top bunk of course.  our bedroom was ordinary.  four walls, hardwood floor, a large window that faced the backyard, & an extra bathroom.  often ben would take a midnight pee run.  sometimes he'd wake me with the light & sounds of the flushing toilet.  most often i would sleep thru armageddon. 

but sometimes i would stare out the window & look at the silhouettes of the two small houses standing stiff in the very back of the backyard.  i was an imaginative boy.  i'd make up stories about the houses.  what were they for?  i was told that my grandmother liked to keep pets in them, but haven't had pets for many years.  i would think they were bivouacs for small soldiers, or snake houses like the kind i'd see at the zoo.  sometimes, these houses were my own fortress of solitude as the stiff formality of our own shared lodgings would become nearly unbearable.

it was on one of those nights nearly halloween, my favorite season, that i fell asleep looking at the darkened shadows of those two houses.  i awoke.  there were no noises.  the room was familiar & sane.  i looked out the window & saw the same ordinary backyard with the two houses & the tool shed.  i don't remember if there was any moonlight.  & yet i could see the details of the bedroom.  the light switch.  the opened bathroom door.  my & my brothers' toys scattered on the hardwood floor.  we were playing superheroes.  i was spiderman.  my very favorite superhero.

suddenly & silently there was dark movement in the doorway.  something walked in.  that something walked in on all fours.  it was about three feet tall & robust.  it moved to the center of the room.  i could see it.  i could clearly see it.  it had dark fur.  it stood up on its hind legs as if stretching for a jog.  it looked directly at me & held my eyes for at least minute.  then it rolled forward.  & backward.  doing somersaults.  every third or fourth rotation it stood on its back legs.  it was at play.  on the hardwood floor.  playing by itself like it lived in that room.  then it turned back to the door & walked out on all fours.

i didn't dream it.  i knew i was awake.  because a minute or two later ben came in for his midnight pee & left the bathroom light on.

in the morning the bathroom door was left ajar.  the light was still on.

many years later i told my mother about what i saw that night.  her eyes got wide.  she told me that those two houses in the backyard were for two small monkeys my grandma kept as pets.  a third monkey, about three feet tall & robust, was allowed free range of the house & lived in that bedroom as if it were another son.  that monkey died in that room.

boo