so this post correlates directly to the one entitled "the shadow man lingers on" to help explain why the end was so meaningful. please note that i have no recollection of the early stories i'm about to relate, they've come to me via my parents' experience watching and listening to me...i'm sure much happened which they never saw or heard but, alas, it occurred before i was blessed with conscious memory. too bad. this is another doozie in length so settle in.
one summer afternoon when i was very young, about 2.5 years old, my aunt jodie visited. this aunt has long been an increasingly agoraphobic, reclusive hermit and has grown beyond accustomed to encounters with the paranormal. she regards the spirits living among her to be welcome guardians over her house and family, cheeky tricksters who tease her gently and when she moved away from her longtime farmhouse to a place a few miles away she invited her ghost of 15 years, george, to come with them. she is strange and wonderful in her own right and one of my favorite family members.
so aunt jodie was sitting in the living room which has an open air doorway to the kitchen where my mother was making lunch. the living room has sliding pocket doors on the wall adjacent to the kitchen wall which lead into the dining room. according to aunt jodie i slid open the doors from the dining room where i'd been playing with my brother and immediately looked to the corner next to kitchen doorway with a puzzled expression. "who's that?" i asked her, pointing. she glanced into the kitchen where my mother was and said, "that's your mom." "no," i said firmly, "who's THAT? who's that boy." aunt jodie was puzzled this time, "there is no boy, that's your MOM, she's making lunch." i was clearly exasperated, patience with stupidity has only recently become a virtue of mine. "NO. that BOY. that BIG BOY, right THERE. who's THAT?" "there isn't a boy, katie beth," she offered again. i became angry and indignant, another of my character flaws when confronted with being told i'm wrong when so clearly i am not. "yes there IS. he's right THERE," i pointed furiously, "he keeps saying 'hello' " (this said in a sing song, friendly tone, one which you would normally associate an adult using with a small child) now she understood. i was seeing and hearing something she wasn't and she happily realized that, finally, someone else in the family was going to be as strange as she. so began my first friendship, with the ghost whom i called Big Boy to both he and anyone who asked about him.
my mother did not share her enthusiasm. she was concerned that my imagination would produce an image, which upon questioning, was that of a grown man older than my father but younger than my grandfather, who was quite short and small by adult standards, perhaps 5'6" 140 lbs, with a dark mustache and a big smile he employed when speaking to me directly. he wore dark clothes not suited to the fashions of the early 80's and he was not interested in interacting with my brother, then only 4 years old. we spoke many times a day, usually when i was playing alone, when my mother would catch snippets of my side of our conversations. our talk was benign as far as she could tell so she endured it. often i would sleep with my parents and we would watch television in their upstairs bedroom before turning in. they would send me to shut the hall light off and i would stand in the hallway talking to Big Boy until they called me back.
many months later my mother, brother and i were all watching television. my folks had re-arranged the front rooms so the living room was now dining room and vice versa. it was the end of the summer, still quite warm during the day, and we had the front door open to let air in through the screen door. my father had gone golfing for the afternoon and out to have a few drinks with the boys afterward. the three of us fell asleep, my mother on the couch, us kids on the floor. when she woke it was very dark in the house, the only light coming from the small television. she sat up, instantly startled by the fact that she had left the door open for so many hours and was struck by the thought that anyone could have entered, could have harmed her children (she has always been the worrying kind). with this idea in her mind she caught movement out of the corner of her eye, coming from the far end of the dining room. she turned her head to face it and watched as a white figure walked out of the kitchen. she jumped to her feet, hands up by her shoulders, prepared to fight this predator. he turned sharply to face her. only then did she realize she could see only his head and shoulders, the lower half of his body fading into the blackness around him and how unnatural it was that he was all bathed in white, as if looking at an overexposed black and white photograph. they made eye contact briefly as she held her breath, waiting for him to make his attack. instead, he stepped backwards and disappeared into the wall.
needless to say my poor mother was terrified and my father returned to a positively blinding house lit up like christmas. she had turned on every switch connected to a bulb or screen. this was the beginning of the end for Big Boy. she was until that time perfectly happy with her notion that i was a child with a vivid imagination that missed her father who had both a full time job and a full time rock band. i had created a man to spend my time with in his absence. this fit into her idea of "safe and explainable". so when this figment entered her reality she had difficulty accepting it. she was also forced to face the fears that she and the rest of the family had harbored before and after my interactions with Big Boy commenced. i have forever been the only person in the family who feels safe and comfortable in the upper floor of the house, an attic converted into two rooms and a storage loft. my dad in particular would not spend time up there alone, citing he felt like something was watching him, i don't think he's set foot up there more than a dozen times in the last 20 years. my mother also felt strange up there but her most intense impressions were felt in the kitchen. when she stood at the sink or stove she said she constantly felt a presence standing directly behind her, looking over her shoulder at her hands. when my brother and i were older we took the upper rooms and my parents the lower floor. i don't think my brother slept in his room more than 5 times once he hit 13, preferring to sleep on the couch downstairs, next to our parents' bedroom. this began after he kept discovering that a framed picture he had was being flipped upside down on the floor across the room from where he kept it. the photo features our father, young and mischievous, flipping the camera off. it was as if someone threw it every time he left the room. i'm pretty sure Big Boy doesn't like my dad. i myself feel there is no place more comforting and warm than the upper level of our house, where my folks live to this day...but i digress.
so, many more months passed, and we were in the dead of winter now. my mother was increasingly unnerved by the presence so clearly felt in our home. she did not welcome my friendship with this unknown entity which she could not control. so one afternoon my dad had gone out somewhere and taken my brother with him. my mother was potty training me and we were in a bathroom downstairs, a small room sandwiched between the kitchen and the spare room...and right behind the stairwell where i spent the most time talking to Big Boy. the windows were all shut tight and there was no t.v. or radio on in the house. my mother was crouched in front of me, talking me through the process, when she heard a somehow far-away voice say, "kaaaay-teeeee" in a sing song way. she brushed it away immediately, thinking it must have come from a neighbor child outside. then i answered in exactly the same sing songy voice "whaaaaa-aaaat?". this was the last straw for her. she could not take it anymore, she feared this man, feared he would someday hurt one of us. she flew to the door of the stairwell, where she perceived the call came from, and screamed, "LEAVE HER ALONE! DON'T SPEAK TO HER EVER AGAIN! JUST GO AWAY!" and she slammed the door shut. this was the last time anyone ever heard me talk to him.
i like to think that wasn't the end of our relationship. that he secretly said goodbye to me at some point, like in the movie heart and souls. or that we rendezvoused unbeknownst to my family, for a time anyway...but i don't know because i don't remember any of this. and anyway, that wasn't quite the end of Big Boy, just the end of our friendship.
so my parents have regaled me with this story, which, astoundingly, over the years of his 'absence', grew into a quaint reminiscence for them, a wild anecdote to share with disbelieving friends of their increasingly strange and precocious child. i heard it so many times i developed a sort of safe harbor for Big Boy's existence...and eventually i developed a resentment toward my mother for ruining my own personal friendship, which i might still have if she hadn't interfered (again i reference the movie heart and souls, as well as drop dead fred). so when i was 15 i began to hold nightly vigils apologizing to him for her mad reaction and inviting him back into my life. he never came to me, but he did begin to tease my mother in the following ways.
she bought a new tube of mascara and placed it, still in the package, in the top compartment of her caboodle. when she went to use it the next morning it was gone. she searched high and low, took everything out of the caboodle twice and even accused me of taking it. when she went a third time to the caboodle she found it exactly where she put it, sitting on top of all the makeup she had taken out twice. shortly after that we were all sitting in the living room watching television. she was in her recliner chair, sitting upright with her limbs resting on the either arm of the chair. her wristwatch fell off her wrist onto the floor, a strange feat considering it was pressed flat against the chair. she picked it up and tried to put it on again. inexplicably the little metal prong which slides into the hole in the strap was flipped onto the other side of the buckle. it was very difficult to get it back on the correct side where it would function and clasp properly and my dad almost snapped it in two in the process. it would have been impossible for it to just flip itself to the other side. finally, about a week later my mother arrived home from work in the early afternoon. she was alone and went into her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, taking a moment to close her eyes in the quiet and still house after a long, tiring day at work. she heard a noise which she couldn't identify. it was a soft whirring. she looked around the room and saw an empty styrofoam cup on the edge of my dad's dresser SPINNING! it spun faster and faster until it tipped itself off the surface and onto the floor. she was stunned and afraid. she almost didn't tell us as she had begun to seriously question her sanity.
i decided i needed to ask Big Boy to stop tormenting her, that he was misinterpreting my intentions, and i stopped audibly resenting my mother for breaking up the friendship so he wouldn't pick up on that energy. and that was the end of it.
so, the whole reason i decided to share this story goes back to the post called the shadow man lingers on...i sincerely believe that the hands i felt on my back belonged to Big Boy, that he wanted to comfort and reassure me that so long as i was in his jurisdiction i would be safe from harm when i slept. i feel very grateful for his presence in my life and i maintain hope that someday he will show himself or speak to me. i'll keep you posted. please enjoy the photos of me and my mom and brother from approximately the time of the initial encounters.
