Ahh.. Midnight at the Darkside Tavern. We have gathered around the table the few that have come, not knowing what to expect, a nice crowd of revelers are out in the main room, and we can hear muffled sounds of merriment, and the faint tinkling of glass lightly touching each other, along with members of the opening night crowd a couple of curious bloggers have come to join us at the table. To my left Cuddle sits with his drink in hand waiting patiently, while a gathering of who’s who in the Blogstream family begins to take their seats, Prank and Six to my right, Whit who was also here last night has graced us with his presence. Rosie and Zappa Fan and everyone’s favorite Puppy has taken their seats. A round of whatever suits you I tell them, across from me My lovely partner in crime Miss Sherry sits and waits patiently to tell us her story, we all draw a breath and hold it, each collecting their own thoughts.. Its true story night at The Darkside Tavern, and all you need to bring with you is the truth.
SHERRY.
Thy Will Be Done..
It's just an old farm house, sitting on the side of a hill. The driveway was cut down to road level so there was quite a climb up the steps to the main living level. At the top of the steps, one path led to the front door, and the second branch of the path led to the kitchen. The kitchen was the only part of the house that was a single story. That was a common practice when this particular house was built. A third branch of the path led up back to the two chicken coops and to a big red barn. Farming hadn't happened there in years, but the barn and chicken coops were well maintained and painted...Barn Red...what else? There were a few fruit trees, mostly apple planted in the yard. On the other side of the "orchard" there was a road that the tractor would use to get from the meadow across the road up to the barn. This being farm country, you couldn't see your neighbors house, or his barns, just the fields and little dots off in the distance that you knew belonged to your "closest" neighbor. It was 1965 and my best friends father had purchased the house. They were a military family, and he decided to retire in the area. I don't know the story of the dynamics between Sue's Mom and Dad. I just know that a few months after moving in he vanished. My friend was devastated, there was no contact between John and any of his children and the kids were heartbroken, but life went on. I spent a lot of time in that house, Sue's Mom would pick me up on Saturdays and I'd get to spend the day up there. Being a different town from the city I lived in, Sue and I no longer attended the same schools, but when we graduated we did so the same year and we had our Graduation Party together, courtesy of Sue's Mom.
In 1967 when we both graduated we were younger but more mature than some of our friends. We both were from broken homes and that added emotional age to our 17 years. Sue had a younger brother and a much younger sister. She had been born shortly before the disappearance of their father, and both Sue and I spent a great deal of time seeing to it that they were taken care of. During our summer vacation that year, I spent weeks at a time with Sue and her family. We took care of the kids while her Mom was working and had established that we were trustworthy young ladies. When Sue's grandfather became ill, her Mom needed to travel to Kansas City, Missouri to pay her last respects. There was not enough money to take the whole family, so she went by herself and we were left in charge. Two weeks, two 17 year olds in charge, one 10 year old male and a 2 year old female. Just the four of us. The mood was light hearted and gay. We were unsupervised and while mature still had a sense of fun. The world was our oyster. We were young and full of ourselves, with no adult to tell us we couldn't do something if we wanted to do it. We took care of business and rewarded ourselves with whatever we thought was fun to do. We had boys in during the day, but never at night. We took trips in Sue's boyfriends red T-Bird convertible to the beach and the amusement parks in the area. Had picnics and just enjoyed a lot of innocent fun. Then the headaches and nightmares started, the mood darkened and was no longer as much fun.
Petunia was the first to wake screaming in the middle of the night. She was feverish, crying as if her little heart would break. Bed clothes wrapped around her and most of the time she was actually sleeping while screaming that "the man" was trying to take her with him. It was very difficult to wake her up, and when we did she would not let any of us leave her alone. We would have to turn the light on and sit with her until she fell back to sleep. She would clutch at us and with such a look of wide eyed terror on her face, that we were afraid she was ill. Then her brother started having them. Same dream, same time every night. Sue and I tried to take turns staying up with them, but when that didn't work we moved them into our bedrooms. Petunia into hers and Bobby into mine. We had to leave the light on, and neither of us could sleep with the light, so we took turns sleeping during the heat of the day. Three days later, we were tired, irritable, both suffering unrelenting headaches and still the kids were scared when it became dark out. With both of us exhausted and in pain from the headaches, supper became a later and later affair. Sometimes not until 9 or so at night. I remember it was a Wednesday, and supper had been later than normal so it was around 9:30 when Sue decided to do the dishes. The window of the kitchen sink faced out to the road and the path down to the driveway was visible because we had taken to keeping the floodlights on all night. The young ones and I were watching the little TV sitting at the kitchen table when there was a crash behind us and Sue started screaming. I don't remember her exact words. Although she was of Spanish decent, she spoke only a little of the language. She was screaming that her Grandfather was coming up the path.
I looked out the window and I saw this very short, older Latino male standing half way up the steps, just looking at the house. He just stood there watching and she kept screaming over and over that it was her grandfather, and suddenly she stopped. She quietly started speaking in fluent Spanish and as I stood there listening he began to fade away. The phone rang, breaking the spell. It was Sue's Mom calling to tell us that her Father had died just a few moments ago. She was calling from the hospital to say that she would not be home at the time she planned because she would stay for the funeral. There were no nightmares that night. We all slept and for the first time in days did not have headaches when we woke up. Life returned to normal except I didn't believe that we actually saw anything. I was positive that what I saw was a figment of an overtired imagination. Sue finally got tired of arguing with me and got out the photo album. She found a picture of her Grandfather and showed it to me the next time we were alone. She didn't want to upset the younger ones, because their nightmares had stopped. The man in the photo was the man I saw standing half way up the path. He had apparently tried to see his grandchildren to say goodbye before he died.
Hmmmm…. Sounds like Grand dad had long since decided that come Hell or high water he was going to see those kids.. And not even death itself could stop him.. The mood has changed here from that of wonderment to that of a more guarded one, as each person rises to exchange pleasantries with each other before retiring to the crowd. Across the table I raise my glass of orange juice to Sherry and she offers a smile in return, we both slowly look around the room, soon the lights will be out in this room and stories will fall silent until the next gathering, until then the dead and their ghost’s will sleep in peace here at the Darkside..
