So This Time I Really DID Mean to Go "All Paranormal" On You!

Halloween is almost here, and I’m looking forward to pilfering the good chocolates from my daughters’ “trick or treat” stashes.  It’s the best part of the holiday, really.  But I also look forward to ghost stories.  I dig the paranormal.  Maybe it comes from childhood sleepovers where we’d scare each other silly with goofy whispered tales about men with hooks for hands, or maybe it has to do with Edgar Allen Poe and the dang bird that wouldn’t shut up.  Whatever the cause, I do rather relish stories about “ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night.”   I suppose that’s why the very first book I wrote a few years ago involved the supernatural.  So, here is the first chapter from my first attempt at writing a novel.  It’s a “young adult” novel, but since I’m the one who wrote it, it’s tame compared to a lot of what’s out there.  No horny teenage vampires or children killing each other for sport.  Sorry.  J

 

NO GHOSTS ALLOWED

By:  Rebecca Bischoff

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

A Former Tenant Has Refused to Leave

My name is Harley.  Harley Davidson Colburn. I was named after a motorcycle.  (Thanks Mom.  Really).  Most people don’t look twice at me. I’m fourteen years old, in the ninth grade, and average in everything:  grades, height, and looks.   I’m the kid who flies under the radar, the middle of the road one who teachers mainly ignore because I’m not brilliant, but I don’t need extra help, either.

So, most people don’t look twice at me, but that’s because they don’t know anything about me.  Like my motorcycle name, for instance.  I’m honestly happy to keep that little secret.  But there’s also the fact that sometimes I know when things are going to happen.  I have premonitions.  And what’s the most unusual thing about me?  I see ghosts.  Well, so far, only one ghost.  This is new.

I first saw the ghost the day my family moved into our new/old house.  Until about a month before that, I never even knew we owned a house.  My parents never talked about it.  It’s an old house Brian inherited, and he rented it out for a little money.  That was, until things changed and we needed a place to live.  My mother, brother and I, that is. 

Our house is eighty years old and looks like it.  And smells like it.  It’s a plain white box made out of rotting wood, with a rickety porch stuck onto the front.  It crouches on a corner lot, at the edge of a busy street, with a narrow triangle-shaped yard, surrounded by a sagging chain link fence.  Not my idea of a great place to live.

It hadn’t taken us long to unpack.  Most people have moving trucks full of furniture and boxes when they relocate.  But we’d moved twice already over the past few months, and we’d already sold a lot of stuff.   We’d ‘downsized’ our lives, like my Mom, Stephanie, kept saying.  Parent-speak for: ‘We’re broke, so we’re selling the big screen TV, the good furniture and the Wii.  Get used to it.’

A group of four teenage boys had watched us from the porch of a house down the street as we unloaded our pathetic belongings.  I recognized one of my brother’s friends from school.  The one with the weird new-agey name.  Zen, that’s it.  Ha.  He yelled ‘hey’ to my little brother and my brother waved back.  Not one of the boys offered to help.

Cigarette smoke floated in our direction on the icy wind, along with occasional shouts and a lot of laughter.  I heard one of the boys take bets on whether or not my mother would make it inside; or if she would drop the heavy, ancient computer monitor she carried.  I’ll admit that at first, I decided it would serve her right if she did drop it, since she’d kept that antique piece of crap and sold the big, and I might add, light-weight, flat screen monitor.  But the moment that thought flashed to my mind I also felt terrible for having thought it in the first place.  Anyway, my mother is pretty strong.  She struggled into the house without dropping anything.  The smoker boys were disappointed.

So it took us all of twenty minutes to unload the miniature U-Haul attached to our dented 1993 Mercury.  The winter sun was low in the sky, and soon it was hidden behind some charcoal clouds.  Our new street got dark.  Most neighborhoods in Twin Falls have street lights.  Not mine. 

The smoker boys went inside their house to find someone else to annoy, and I fished the last box out of the U-Haul and lugged it up the creaking porch steps. I had to kick off my shoes inside the front door; since my mother had steam-cleaned the carpets and they were still drying.  Once inside, it didn’t take long to get to the back of the house.  It’s easy to navigate through empty rooms.  Of course, since I am a tiny bit clumsy, it was also easy to bump into the one obstacle in the otherwise empty hallway.

 “Oops, sorry Steph—Mom,” I said.   Uh oh.  Another slip-up.  But this time, all I got was an evil-eyed stare and Steph just stalked down the hall to her room.  I’ve been thinking of my mother by her given name for a while now.  Why?  I’m not totally sure, although I know the mental shift started a while ago, after Brian died.  Steph hates when I don’t call her “Mom.”  I have to be careful. 

Oh well, off the hook this time.  I shuffled past the two bedrooms along the narrow hallway.  Stephanie was in the biggest one.  Her door was open and I peeked inside.  She sat cross-legged on the floor with a humongous pile of envelopes in her lap.  A mail carrier had brought them the moment we’d arrived, in a huge plastic bin.  I think the lady was waiting for us.  She seemed glad to get rid of all those letters.  Well, bills, actually.  I recognized the “official-looking” white envelopes.  Hospital bills.  I figure this is why we’ve moved so much lately.  Maybe Steph thinks that if we move enough, the bills will stop following us. 

Steph stared down at the stack of bills, with deep lines between her eyes.  I know what she’s thinking, and I agree.  It isn’t fair.  It seems like when the patient dies, you shouldn’t have to pay the hospital.  I mean, they didn’t do their job.  They didn’t keep their patient alive.

I moved away before my mother saw me and continued down the hall.   My brother, Jax, got the next bedroom.  The second biggest.   He’d claimed it before I could.  He was already inside his room, too.  The door was closed, but I heard him finger his electric guitar and run through the chorus of a song he’d written.   I continued on through the kitchen and the little laundry room.  My arms were about to fall off, but I finally made it to the door of my bedroom.  Yes, my room is in the back of the house, and to get to it, I have to go through the laundry room. 

Aching arms finally gave way and the heavy box I’d been carrying began to slip from my grasp.  Something hard flew out of the box and landed on my foot.   I yelped and dropped the entire box, which landed on the same foot, so I plopped down onto the carpet to rub my throbbing toes.  The hard object at fault was a small metal wrench that somehow ended up in my box of books.  It was the wrench Brian gave me for my tenth birthday.  I should just throw it away.  Rubbing toes and blinking back tears, I kicked the wrench away with my uninjured foot.  Suddenly I had two injured feet.   I forgot I’d taken off my shoes thanks to the damp carpet.

I blinked away my pain-caused tears and looked around the tiny rectangle of a room.  It was so much worse from what I had remembered seeing the other day, when I’d taken a quick peak from the outside through the grimy window.   There were faded curtains that covered the row of four small windows that lined up along the outer wall.  The curtains had roosters on them.  My room was decorated with farm animals.  I made a mental note to redecorate.

Despite its recent cleaning, the still-stained carpet looked like a bacteria farm.   I felt something rough under my left foot and scooted back.  The spiky patch of carpet I’d felt looked like something sticky had been poured onto that spot but never cleaned, so that it had  hardened into this greenish mass of petrified carpet fibers.   I jumped to my feet and backed away. 

How was I supposed to sleep in this grungy room?  I took a deep breath to make myself calm down, but smells flooded my nose and I wanted to puke.    The odor was a bizarre mixture of dust, mildewy wet carpet and rotting vegetation, but with a tiny hint of something sweet, like a bouquet of flowers in the middle of a garbage dump.  My stomach clenched and my heart pounded.  The smell scared me.  The combination of rot with sweet.  It reminded me of things I didn’t want to think about. It reminded me of funerals and goodbyes.   It reminded me of Brian.

“Mom?  Mom!”

No answer.  I rolled my eyes.  Of course, no one would hear me back here.  Certainly not Stephanie.  My mother wasn’t deaf, but I’d swear she pretended she was.  Maybe it was easier that way. 

“Why are you screeching like that, Harl?”  My brother’s voice was loud in my ear and I yelped. 

Jax’s head and shoulders poked through the inside wall of my room.  He looked like a creepy hunting trophy mounted onto the cracked wall.  I had to laugh.  I’d forgotten about the open window that joined my room to my brother’s.

“Ouch!  There’s glass down here!”  Jax scooted back and fingered the bottom edge of the open window.  At one time, the square hole in the wall had been a window to the outside, but at some point a previous owner had decided to add another room.  Hence, my closet-sized bedroom.  They stuck this tiny rectangle onto the house, but left the window in the wall.  And, apparently left some glass stuck in the bottom of the frame. 

 “Did you cut yourself?”  I asked.

“Aw, so nice for you to be concerned.”  Jax’s amber eyes sparkled and he grinned his Cheshire cat, toothy watermelon-slice smile that girls at school seem to go crazy over. 

“But no worries.  I like it.  This will be my ‘no trespassing’ warning to a certain person on the other side who might be a little too nosy for her own good.”   He wiggled his eyebrows.

“Right, like I’d ever want to go in your room.  It probably stinks.”

“Can’t smell as bad as your room does.  What is that stench, anyway?”  Jax asked with a wrinkled nose.

“You smell it, too?”  I asked. 

 “This house is heinous,” Jax said.  “It smells like old people.”  He laughed and I had to join in.  Jax did that to me.  He could make me laugh even when I was ready to scream at the world. 

“I don’t know how I’m going to sleep in here.  The smell is horrible, and I don’t even have my bed put together yet,” I said.  “I can’t believe Stephanie is making us go to school tomorrow.”

“Come on, I’ll help you.”  Jax said.  He does stuff like that.  Jax is pretty decent for a little brother.  At least he doesn’t mind when I use his nickname.  Only our mother calls him “Jackson,” his full name.

He dove forward, caught himself with his hands and made a clean somersault before landing on his feet in my room.  I don’t know how he manages to do things like that.  I would have impaled myself on the shards of broken glass or ended up on my head.

  We’d gotten most of the bed frame together, but were missing a couple of pieces.  That’s how we ended up rummaging through piles of clothing, tangles of computer cables and boxes of kitchen utensils in the front room.  And that’s when I first realized that someone else was in the house.

It started with a feeling.  Not an emotion or a thought like:  ‘oh my, I sense a presence from the other side,’ or anything lame like that.  It was like static electricity, a series of tiny shocks that I first felt on my arms.  I dropped the plastic measuring cups I’d fished out of a box and stared down at my arms.  Each tiny hair stood on end, and my fear rose at the sight.  The prickly sensations surged from my arms and climbed down my spine. Then, I felt the electric buzz over my entire body.  And, I understood.  The thought came to my brain and in an instant it was knowledge, not simply an idea.  I just knew.   I mentioned my premonitions before, didn’t I?  Someone, aside from my mother and brother, had entered the house.  I started to shiver.  What was worse:  I also knew that this someone was waiting for me.  I gulped.

The electric feeling intensified until it was painful.  I reached with a shaky hand for my brother and grabbed his arm. 

 “Jax?”

“Yeah?” 

“Don’t you feel that?”  I said with an embarrassing tremble in my voice.

“What, your death grip?  Geez, Harl, let go, you’re cutting off my circulation,” Jax said.  He didn’t even look at me.  He wrenched his arm away and turned back to the box in front of him. 

“Sweet, my favorite shirt!” he said, holding it up.

 I read the words:  “Celebrate the radness of me,” printed in blood red letters on the black t-shirt.  From behind, I heard someone laugh.  It wasn’t Stephanie’s voice, and it certainly wasn’t mine.

I whirled around.  No one else was in the room, but from the doorway of the kitchen an intense, silvery light spilled out and glowed so strong that I had to squint. 

Before I could decide what to do, my mother lurched into to the front room carrying the heavy old computer monitor. 

“Time to set up the computer.  Help me out, guys,” she said.  She puffed and panted and lugged the monitor toward the kitchen. 

“Stop!  There’s someone in there!”  I shouted.

Stephanie stopped so fast she stumbled and nearly dropped the monitor. At the same time, Jax jumped to his feet.   

“What are you talking about, Harley?”  My mother’s earrings jangled when she turned her head toward the kitchen.

“Hello,” she called out.  “Anybody in there?”

The silvery light still sparkled in the kitchen, but the laughter had stopped. 

Stephanie turned back to me and smiled in the way she does when she’s annoyed, with her lips pressed into a thin line.  I get that smile a lot. 

“Not funny, Harley.  It’s been a long day, give me a break,” she said.

“Hey, maybe the crack-heads are back!  We can call the cops,” Jax said.  He seemed excited at the prospect.

“If anyone’s here, it’s probably the cable guy,” Mom said.  “Our former tenants are long gone, thank goodness.”  She shuffled again toward the kitchen.

“Mom, no!  Someone’s here!”  I shouted.

Stephanie ignored me, and my brother laughed.  “Lame-o, Harl.  You can come up with something better than that,” he said.

“I’m serious!  Don’t you see that light?”  I shouted so loud my voice cracked.

“Come on, Mom, if there’s an intruder, let’s call the cops!  They’ll get here fast, cops are always cruising around this neighborhood,” Jax said.  He bounced on his heels like a little kid and smiled at the prospect of getting the law enforcement involved. 

“I’m not calling anyone,” Stephanie said.  At least, that’s what it sounded like she said.  I wasn’t sure because she spoke with her teeth clenched together, like her jaw was wired shut.  I was also seriously distracted by the bizarre light shooting from the kitchen, and the fact that I felt like I’d stepped on a live wire.  My body was about to fry.

“I’m going to Zen’s house, maybe he’ll let me use his phone,” Jax said.   He bolted to the door.  

“Jackson, stay here!  Don’t—”

The door slammed shut.

My mother glared at me.  “Thanks a lot, Harley.  Cut it out and please help me with this, okay?”  She hefted the monitor higher and stumbled into the kitchen.  The silver light swallowed her.

“Uh, Mom?”  I managed to say.  My voice was only a hoarse whisper.

“Come on, Harley, I could use some help here,” my mother called from the weirdly glowing kitchen.

I had to go in there.  There wasn’t any other choice.  I picked up the first thing I could reach and clutched it tight.  I guess I thought I needed something to hold on to.   So, with an orange coffee cup gripped in my hands, I started to walk, or really, shuffle forward on the damp carpet.  I stopped right before the kitchen entryway and felt my head spin.  I’d forgotten to breathe.  I took a shaky breath, closed my eyes and scooted forward a few final inches.   When I stepped onto the green linoleum floor, the electric feeling was even stronger.  I felt as if every frizzled hair on my head had to be standing on end, so my Medusa waves would look like stiff needles.  The bright silver light pierced my closed eyelids.  I opened my eyes and dropped the cup.

 A woman, or what seemed to be the form of a woman, sat at the scuffed wooden table with a magazine open before her under the yellow light of the lamp.  She hummed to herself as she looked at the pictures.  Her body shimmered, or wavered, almost like I was seeing her underwater.  She had that weird light all around her, the silvery, sparkling glow I saw coming from the kitchen.  I had been absolutely right.  There was somebody inside my house.  And that somebody was a ghost. 

This particular ghost seemed to have dark hair.  Long smudges of darkness flowed down her back and some of the dark smudges hung along one side of her face.   Something about the clothing she wore seemed strange, but at first I didn’t understand why.  I was focused on something else that caught and held my eye.  This shimmery ghost sat with her chin in her hand, and I could clearly see a large silver ring with blue stones in the shape of a flower that nearly covered half of her ring finger.  The ring freaked me out.  Why could I see it clearly?  It sparkled, almost glowing with its own light, standing out in sharp, vivid contrast to the rest of the blurry ghost.

 “Pick that up!” my mother said.  “You’re lucky it didn’t break.”  She didn’t look up at me but kept fooling with the cables that connected the monitor to the computer tower.  She was practically right next to the ghost, inches away.  She seemed totally oblivious to the sparkling spirit-person next to her.

 The ghost woman at the table raised her head and looked at me.  At least, I think she looked at me, but I couldn’t be sure.  Her face was a blur, smeared like a child’s finger painting.  Her features were unrecognizable.  Then, she smiled.  Or, I think she smiled.  I opened my mouth to speak.  I squeaked.

The ghost looked back down at her magazine.  At that moment, I realized why her clothing had seemed strange to me.  She wore overalls. Long dark hair, silver turquoise ring, overalls.  What?   It didn’t compute.                   

 “Harley, pick up that cup you dropped!”  My mother, again. 

“Uh, Mom.”  I gulped and tried to breathe.   I could not believe my mother didn’t see the ghost.  She had to.  “Who is that?” I asked.  I dropped my eyes and pointed directly at the ghost.  Was it still rude to point, even if the person you were pointing at was dead?   My hand and voice shook.  Then I looked back at the ghost and gasped.   The woman was gone.  Her chair was empty. 

I saw a flash of movement and light from the corner of my eye and turned just in time to see the ghost woman walk out through the back door.  Her bright silver light moved with her, glinting off the square window in the the door as she passed.  She didn’t float through the door, or glide like you might think a ghost would; she opened the door and walked out like those of us who are still alive.  The door closed behind her with a soft click.  I felt the cloud of frigid winter air that invaded the kitchen.  A faint, silver light glowed for a brief moment from the other side of the window in the kitchen door before it flared out.  The electric feeling in the room was abruptly gone, as if a switch had been turned off. 

“Who is….where did that draft come from?” my mother said.  She finally looked up from her computer.  Then she walked over to the back door and grabbed the handle.  “Hey, this door was left unlocked,” she said.  She glanced back in my direction and pushed in the tiny button.  “We all need to remember to keep the doors locked.  Especially in this neighborhood.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said.  I didn’t believe it.  Stephanie hadn’t seen the freaky light or the creepy ghost woman.  Only me.

“Come on, pick up the cup you dropped,” Stephanie said.  She turned back to her computer.  “Jax should be home by now.  I swear, you’ll both be the death of me,” she muttered.

I grabbed the cup from the floor and plopped it onto the table. The magazine still lay open where the ghost had left it.  Fluttery from head to toe, I glanced at the picture.  It was a photograph of an elderly man standing by the doorway of a low adobe building.   His copper skin glowed in the sunshine.  His long graying hair was pulled into a pony tail behind his head, and he wore a cowboy hat, a faded red Western-style shirt, jeans and boots.  The scent of sagebrush floated into my nose for a second, but was gone as soon as I was aware of it.  I read the caption below the picture, and learned that the man was Navajo.  The immediate feeling that this was important seized me.  It was as if the ghost had wanted me to see that picture.

 “Harl, go get me the printer.  It’s in the front room,” Stephanie said.

I grabbed the printer from the floor of the front room, set it onto the kitchen table next to my mother, blurted:  “I have to finish unpacking, Mom,” and ran to my room. 

I closed the dusty rooster curtains against the darkness and the possibility of silvery ghosts outside, and then I dug through my box of books and found what I needed.  Whenever I have to think, I write.  I grabbed my journal and my pen.  Then, I turned back to the book box.  Underneath the top layer of books was my stash box, carefully labeled as “school supplies.”  Whenever I really have to think, I eat chocolate. 

With a Milky Way sticking out of my mouth like a big chocolate cigar, I picked up my pen.  While I wrote, I gripped the pen too tightly and my hand shook.  It made my handwriting look like someone else’s; like some alien force had taken over my body. 

Journal Entry:  January 11

I saw a ghost in my kitchen!  She was wearing overalls.  Overalls?  And she had this silver ring I could see clearly, even though the rest of her was blurry.  She was sitting at the table and looking at a magazine.  I didn’t know ghosts liked to read. 

 

I don't know how they did it...

I've been thinking lately of all the people I know who have lived and continue to live through impossibly hard things.  Cancer.  The loss of a child.  Dying marriages, families breaking apart, the death of a spouse, economic hardships.  Recently I wrote another short story prompted by my friend's wonderful blog, "Write Now Anyway," and again today I've decided to post this one.  The story of a neighbor's ancestor came to my mind when writing it.  That ancestor was part of the Mormon migration that headed west during the mid 1800's.  The woman, whose name I've forgotten, made the journey alone, as her husband was called away to serve as a missionary in Europe.  While traveling, this woman endured giving birth in a covered wagon.  As in my story, her child did no survive.  This woman, like countless others throughout history, had to bury her baby, then walk away. 

As I have thought so many times before in my life, I wondered:  "how?"  How do people deal with such horrendous things and then go on with their lives?  So, this story was my attempt to understand that.  All I could really come up with was that "moving on," to use a popular phrase, begins with a single step, and a lot of faith.  Faith that things will get better, that we can endure the hard things, because we have to.  And that life is still beautiful.

A happy note:  my neighbor's ancestor made it to her destination, the Salt Lake Valley.  When her husband finally arrived a couple of years later, having finished his missionary work, she met him at the train station driving her own buggy pulled by her own horses.  She drove her husband to the little house which she'd had built.  She'd earned the money that paid for it all by teaching piano lessons. I'd like to think that the Anna in my story had a future like that.   And that the midwife in my story was captured by centaurs and carried away in the Forbidden Forest.   :-)

 

 

A Single Step

Anna didn’t know how she would do it. 

She was still weak.  Weak from the long, weary walk from Illinois that stretched across the state of Iowa; from breathing in the dust of the journey as she stumbled along, growing heavier each day with the child who was to be born without a home.  And she was weak from the frightening, lonely hours filled with pain as her child had struggled to come into the world; while she longed for Ephram’s strong hands to hold hers and to hear his voice, telling her all would be well.  But her husband was gone; called to sail away on a ship to England so that he could preach his new faith to the people there.  He’d left before the frenzied mob had forced them all to abandon their beautiful city and begin their journey, as best they could, with hardly more than the clothing on their backs on a freezing February day.

Anna shivered and pulled her tattered shawl more closely about her.  The early April wind tore at her soul.  It was still so cold!  How could she leave him?  She barely registered the light touch of a hand on her shoulder.

“Sister, it’s time.  We must go,” a gentle voice murmured.  Anna heard the slight tremor in the voice of the woman who spoke.  It was soft-spoken, kind Sister Humphreys, who had run nearly five miles to the nearby town to fetch a doctor.  All she had been able to find was the sour, sullen woman with stone-grey hair and chips of ice in her eyes, who came resentfully to the Mormon encampment to assist with a difficult labor.

Blood.  Blood and terror and pain; and the hard countenance of the woman who helped birth her child were what Anna recalled most.  Last night was a timeless mixture of images and sensations.  There were hours of frightening pain, and the fruitless pushing, but finally, mercifully, a sudden tearing; excruciating but brief.  Then the tiny form was placed in her arms.  Gratefully, Anna had sunk down, cradling him close.  She recalled hearing a single whimper, the merest of sounds, then, nothing more from the child.

“How you gonna pay me?” the grey woman had muttered.  Anna had looked up in shock, still reeling with pain and fear, and the wonder of giving birth to her first child.

Sister Humphreys had pled, as she wrapped the quilt about Anna and her son, that they had no money, but would find something.  Somehow, they would repay her.  “Only let me go ask the others,” Sister Humphreys begged.

“I’ll take that quilt,” the woman retorted, whisking it away from Anna and her son even as she spoke the words. 

“No,” Anna had breathed. 

“It don’t matter, no how,” the woman had said as she’d climbed down from the bed of the wagon, clutching the quilt in her arms.  “You and that brat will both be dead by morning.”  And then, she was gone.

 Anna had wept.  The quilt, a red and white Bethlehem star, was her only link to her former life.  Her mother’s wedding gift.  At night, alone in the cold wagon, she ran her hands along the soft fabric and felt her mother’s love in every tiny stitch.  And now, it was gone. 

And, it was all she had to protect herself and her child from the cold.

Sister Humphreys had found something to cover her and wrap the baby in.  She worked to stop Anna’s bleeding.  She always found a way to help. 

But the cruel woman’s prediction came true; at least in part.  The baby didn’t survive the night.

“Anna?”  Sister Humphreys said once more.

Anna closed her eyes.  Sharp air, smelling of campfires and damp soil tore at her clothing.  She felt as if the wind echoed inside her hollow, empty body.  She was a shell, a dried husk.  Nothing was left.  Ephram was across the ocean.  Who knew when she would see him again?  Her home, her family, her only child…gone.  She felt as if a single step would cause her fragile body to crumble to dust. 

Have faith, Anna.  Our God will never abandon us, Ephram always said. 

Faith? 

Anna breathed in.  She spoke the word aloud.

“Faith.”  She believed in God.  She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t.  What’s more, she knew that God believed in her. 

One step, Anna told herself.  Begin with one step.  She trembled all over.  Grief, fatigue and the loss of blood took their toll.  But she would do it. 

“I’m ready,” Anna whispered.  Taking one more look at the tiny grave at her feet, she dropped the twig sprouting a few green leaves she had found.  A poor memorial for her son.

Until we meet again, she promised her child. 

Then, she turned her back.  And she walked away.

 

John Wayne Used to Live at My Grandparents' House

Okay, so the actual man didn't live there.  It was just a life-sized poster, but still…it was rather startling to see him looming there in a doorway as you rounded the corner on your way to the bathroom.  Maybe it was that memory that popped into my head the other night that prompted me to look up John Wayne movies.  Perhaps it was boredom.   Whatever the reason, my husband and I watched an old John Wayne Western from the sixties.  It’s one of the two or three John Wayne movies that the gorgeous and talented Maureen O’Hara stars in as well.  If you don’t know who she is, think red hair and red lipstick but classier than Lucille Ball.  Do not, under any circumstances, confuse her with Maureen McCormick, aka Marsha Brady.  (I especially advise you not to tell your sister she looks like Ms. O’Hara, when you meant to say Ms. McCormick.  She was not thrilled to be compared to an actress who was in her eighties at the time).  J

So back to Mr. Wayne.  The film was fun and I enjoyed it overall, but a couple of things raised my eyebrows.  First of all, a group of so-called Comanche warriors greeted John Wayne’s character with a word that sounded like:  “ya ta hey.”  (Spelling surely incorrect).  Now, I’m no expert in Native American languages, but I thought that word was Navajo, not Comanche.  What the hey?  Hmm…also, the entire movie seemed to have one particular theme:  if you’re a man, it’s okay and even expected that you will push your girl around, and administer physical punishment in the form of spanking.  There are two spanking scenes in this movie.  First, the young, pretty college-age daughter is spanked by her love interest.  After that, she falls desperately in love with him and agrees to marry him.  The second spanking occurs after Maureen’s character first has her dress ruined so she goes inside to change.  Her husband confronts her while she’s wearing nothing more than her circa late 1800’s corset and white petticoat and chases her around the quaint western town with the entire population watching.  He finally catches her, thought not before her petticoat rips off and she’s running around in her bloomers and corset.  Then, he throws her over his lap so he can spank her in front of everyone, while they all laugh and cheer.  The result?  The two, separated for years, happily reunite.  Huh?

I’m not a huge Western movie expert, nor even a fan.  Okay, I must admit to having really, really liked “Young Guns” in the eighties.  And to have rather enjoyed watching Johnny Depp in “The Lone Ranger.”  But I digress.  Not only did John Wayne live at my grandparents’ house in New Mexico, but they had a lovely leather-bound collection of Louis L’Amour’s books.  Having forgotten to bring my own books one summer when I visited, I was forced to make do with what I found at hand.  At first, I was disappointed.  I mean, there were lots of “strong, silent type” cool guys who were a faster draw than anyone else, but where were the chicks?  I found a love interest in one of the books, but she was killed off in the very next book.  Sheesh.

Then, I found a lovely little gem, in the form of the only book L’Amour wrote where the protagonist was a woman.  Mary Breydon, a widow with a young daughter is the new station master at a remote stop along “The Cherokee Trail,” conveniently a place name and the title of the book.  Mary is feminine and pretty, and knows how to handle a bullwhip.  So far, she’s the only woman to merit her own book by Mr. L’Amour.  The story appealed to me for many reasons.  Mary stands up to bullies in the form of crude, drunken men who don’t think she can handle her job, and bullies like the smooth talking, wannabe governor with secrets to hide.  The book is worth a read.  In fact, I’ve always been disappointed that “The Cherokee Trail” is so short.  Happily, Mr.  L’Amour also created a few other good female characters.  “The Lonesome Gods” is another Western I enjoyed.  Thought there isn’t a sole female protagonist, there are two women who figure prominently in the story and merit quite a few pages of their own.  Another fun book with a good female character is L’Amour’s only attempt at sci-fi: “The Haunted Mesa.”  Okay, so the main guy, Mike, is still the “strong silent type” who’s smarter and faster than anyone else, but Kawasi, the woman in the book, is a leader among her people, strong-willed and intelligent.  Way to go, Louis! 

Back to John Wayne.  I admire him.  I think he was a good actor and has many, many fans.  But that spanking thing?  Come on!  I’ll take L’Amour’s female characters over the goofy, giggly, secretly-wanting to be pushed around and spanked females in John Wayne’s movies any day. 

By the way:  the word I heard spoken by the Comanches in the movie was “ya at eeh,” and it is Navajo.  The Comanche word for a friendly greeting is:  “maruawe.”  Too bad they didn’t have Wikipedia back then.  Or Johnny Depp.

 

 

The Egypt I’ll Always Love Exists Only In My Head

I have a little house near Luxor.  It’s tiny, really, a diminutive whitewashed house with only a few rooms.   But it’s cool in the heat of day, and blood red roses climb the walls.  The Valley of the Kings is within walking distance.  What more do I need in life?  As a pretend archeologist, more specifically, a pretend Egyptologist, the location of my little home suits me perfectly.  I spend most winters in Egypt.  I’ve had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with a rather interesting family of Egyptologists who live close by:  the Emersons. 

I could spend so much time discussing them all; but will have to be satisfied with only describing the matriarch of the family:  Amelia Peabody Emerson.   Amelia has black hair and steel-grey eyes.  Instead of a long, floor-length skirt, as most nineteenth century women are accustomed to wearing; she often dons a split skirt, practically the equivalent of trousers.  To complete her ensemble she adds sturdy boots, a helmet, and a customized belt that allows her to carry various instruments she considers important, such as tools for picking a lock.  These tools come in handy more often than not.  Amelia has a penchant for trouble, just as much as she has a knack of discovering unheard-of treasures beneath the Egyptian sand.

Amelia is so much fun to be with that I follow her everywhere:  from the streets of Luxor and Cairo to the Valley of the Kings, from dark tombs filled with the stench of bat guano to the luxurious ballroom of Shepheard's.  Amelia is rather witty, and she never lets me down.  Here are a few reasons why I enjoy spending time with her.  I quote:

"Five years of marriage have taught me that even if one is unamused by the (presumed) wit of one's spouse, one does not say so."

"There is nothing like continued proximity to strip away the veils of romance."

"I always say there is nothing more comfortable or commodious than a tomb."

"A woman's instinct, I always feel, supersedes logic."

"No woman really wants a man to carry her off; she only wants him to want to do it."

"Though I had slept only a few hours, I felt quite fresh and full of ambition. Righteous indignation has that effect on my character."

"When one is striding bravely into the future one cannot watch one's footing."

"All is fair in love, war and journalism."

"When I am in one of my philosophical moods, I am inclined to wonder whether all families are as difficult as mine."

 

In my imaginary Egypt, I’ve followed Amelia for the past several years, and enjoyed her wry and often pithy comments.  I’ve learned much about the history of ancient Egypt and the state of the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  More than ever, I wish to be able to go in person to Egypt to see the things that I’ve only read about, but judging by the current state of affairs, that’s not what I consider to be a Very Good Idea.  So, for now, I will continue to enjoy the friendship of the amazing Amelia, brainchild of Elizabeth Peters, (aka Barbara Mertz, PhD in Egyptology and a fantastic writer), and go on living in the Egypt that exists only in my head.  :-)

 

 

 

Who's Your Literary Boyfriend?

I like to tease my sister.  In a very sweet, sisterly way, I assure you.  So, if anyone read last week’s blog, they might have noticed my not-so-subtle dig at a certain Mr. Rochester.  They also might have seen my sister’s response, where she valiantly and vehemently defended the poor man.  I smiled when I read her response, but then I got to thinking.

Any teenage girl you meet on the street immediately understands when asked:  “Team Edward or Team Jacob?  Team Peeta or Team Gale?”    Most know who Heathcliff is, even if they haven’t read the book.  Who doesn’t recognize the name:  “Mr. Darcy?” 

We girls love imaginary guys, don’t we?  The funny thing to me about it all is that “imaginary” is exactly what they are.  Fake people.  Guys who are nothing more than ideas hatched from the brains of the individuals who wrote the books.  And yet, we love and defend our literary heroes.  Swoon over them.  Secretly long for them.  At least, teenagers do.  Well, apparently more than a few middle-agers do too, if you remember anything about the recent “Twilight” trend. 

I’m not going to try to psycho-analyze in depth this whole “Fake Book Guy Thing.”  I think it’s pretty obvious why we girls love our imaginary boyfriends. 

Drum roll please: 

They never disappoint us. 

That’s pretty much it, isn’t it?  Heck, let’s say you’re dying over Heathcliff.  For some reason, this guy is always seen as a romantic hero.  In my opinion, he tops the list of the biggest Literary Losers, but here’s the great thing about imaginary boyfriends:  it doesn’t matter.  Why?  Because you can redeem him in your mind, and continue the story!

Try this:  Heathcliff doesn’t die, but wanders the moor, desolate over the loss of Cathy.  He languishes under some stupid tree, practically starving to death while black crows peck at his filthy hair, until one day a lovely young woman who happens to wear your face stumbles upon him.  He looks at her; she looks at him, blah blah blah.  They live happily ever after, move to London and open a tattoo parlor/tea room that caters to brooding, literary heroes. 

Browsing online, I found a little quiz:  “Who is your literary boyfriend?”

I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I took the quiz.  Trust me, in Real Life I’m “Team Dave,” all the way, but I still took the quiz.  The result:  Jay Gatsby.  Seriously?  Sadly for me, thanks to Hollywood, when I think of The Great Gatsby I picture Leonardo DiCaprio’s face.  I don’t mean to be snarky, but that’s not a pleasant experience for me. 

I don’t even know who else was in the list of possibilities for literary boyfriends, here.  At least my answer wasn’t Heathcliff.  Or Edward.

So who is your literary boyfriend?

Forget Mr. Darcy---I'm swooning over Barney Snaith!

I read somewhere that Mark Twain referred to Anne Shirley as “the dearest and most loveable child in fiction since the immortal Alice.”  Have you ever read “Anne of Green Gables?”  How about any of L. M. Montgomery’s other books featuring Anne Shirley, maybe eight in total?  Ever seen the fantastic movies made in the Eighties, starring Megan Follows as Anne?  (Anne will always have Megan’s face in my mind).  If you’ve read at least the first book and/or seen the movies, you might remember scenes such as Anne breaking her slate over Gilbert Blythe’s head, Anne getting her friend Diana drunk with “raspberry cordial,” and Anne’s many wild and imaginative schemes.  Good stuff, I’m telling you!

Now, forget all the “butterflies, lollipops and rainbows.”  Anne of Green Gables is full of sad undertones.  Anne is orphaned and sent to live with a kindly but somewhat emotionally distanced older couple who must grow, over time, to love her. She never gets any “breaks,” but creates them herself.  Through courage, wit and her continued use of imagination and sheer determination, she succeeds in creating a happy life for herself.  This is one of the many reasons I love L.M. Montgomery’s books.

Now:  forget Anne!  Ever hear of Valancy?

A dear book-loving friend introduced us twenty years ago, and I’m forever indebted.  Thanks, Barbara!  One of L.M. Montgomery’s lesser-known books is entitled “The Blue Castle,” and all I can say is, it rocks!!!  (No apt Victorian equivalents of this expression came to mind.  Do forgive me!)  It’s the early 1900’s, and Valancy is an “old maid,” living with an unfeeling mother and supremely annoying aunt, and the description of her colorless life is chilling. Yes, chilling!  Then, one day, Valancy is shocked to learn that she has only a year to live.  What she decides to do with her final year on earth is fantastic, and results in some of the funniest scenes I’ve ever read.  Yes, the book is around a century old, so some passages and dialogue might seem wordy and stilted-sounding to modern ears.  Not quite as much as when reading Jane Austen, mind you. J

Anyway, I adore Valancy, and I also love another character.  He’s s a man who, in my mind, rivals even the famed Mr. Darcy.  The man is named Barney Snaith.

Barney??  Yes, it’s a horrible name for a romantic hero, but Barney Snaith he is, and he is a true hero!  The love story that occurs between Barney and Valancy is truly one of the sweetest, most genuine love stories I’ve ever read.  "The Blue Castle" also provides the reader with many, many examples of L.M. Montgomery’s wit and perfect ability to describe a character with a few, choice words:

·         “Mrs. Frederick (Valancy’s mother) had been a Wansbarra and the Wansbarra smile was not an asset.”

·         “She (Valancy) had always liked the old sinner (a man named Roaring Abel).  He was such a jolly, picturesque, unashamed reprobate and stood out against the drab respectability of Deerwood and its customs like a flame-red flag of revolt and protest.”

·         “[Cousin Gladys] had neuritis—or what she called neuritis.  It jumped about from one part of her body to another.  It was a convenient thing…always if any mental effort was required she could have neuritis in her head.  You can’t think with neuritis in your head, my dear.”

·         “Uncle James.  Handsome, black, with his sarcastic, trap-like mouth and iron-grey side-burns, whose favorite amusement was to write controversial letters to the Christian Times, attacking Modernism.  Valancy always wondered if he looked as solemn when he was asleep as he did when awake.  No wonder his wife had died young.”

·         Valancy describes herself in this way:  “…apart from her eyes she was neither pretty nor ugly—just insignificant-looking.” 

·         She thinks of Barney like this:  “He was not a great talker.  He told a great deal in a few-well-chosen words…and he had a knack of saying things without opening his mouth at all.  ‘I like a man whose eyes say more than his lips,’ thought Valancy.”

The requisite happy ending is reached by the end of the book, not without a few twists and turns.  Should you read this book?  If you’re a guy, maybe not.  But, if you’re a girl, yes!  If you swoon over Mr. Darcy (whose first name is Fitzwilliam, and who is not a self-made man), or drool over Mr. Rochester (a liar who is willing to commit bigamy) then you must give Barney a chance!  You must, I tell you!  Tip:  You can buy the paperback online for .99, plus shipping.  No, you can’t borrow my book.  I read it so many times it fell apart.

Cheers to Ms. Montgomery, and happy reading!