My Visit To A Haunted House

I grew up in a cinderblock house built in the 60's. My dad was a carpenter and closed in the carport to make an extra room. I lived in that house for 19 years, with three brothers, a sister and a mom and dad. There were two pretty big bedrooms and a smaller bedroom my sister grew up in. Also, the aforementioned built in carport that served as a bedroom sometimes. I'm not good at this kind of estimation but I'd guess the house was about 1500 square feet.

As a child it felt as though I was born, youngest, into a pantheon of gods. My eldest brother was the god of wisdom, aloof with a booming voice. Next was Apollo with physical and musical talents. Third came kind and beautiful Baldur,  next, sister Venus and then me. It's hard to know which god you are, or if you're just an accidental creature who mistakenly found themselves birthed into the company of the higher beings. I've thought about it a lot. Maybe Hermes, who was a bit of a pain in the ass, but had connections in the Underworld.

Mother was the goddess of the hearth, and sometimes the club. It was a necessary dual role as my father could be described as what would've happened if Dionysus had ascended to the throne. Sometimes, I think he too was just a creature like myself, surrounded by these archetypal beings, both confused and in awe of them.

I remember the tiled floor which was eventually covered with a wall-to-wall, deep-pile, chocolate brown carpet. At one time there was a wrought iron room divider. My father had built a plywood bookshelf that stretched across the one large wall in our living room, floor to ceiling, with a space for the TV. I remember there was a pair of sliding doors next to it that went out onto a humble screened in patio. (Those glass doors were secured with a drilled hole and a ten penny nail which could be moved in or out, to lock or unlock.) Big jalousie windows in the living room faced the front yard and some of the doors had jalousie windows as well. Very 1960's Florida.

My father had concocted a lightweight, wooden sliding door at the mouth of the one hallway which mostly kept the cool air from the wall units trapped in the bedrooms. There was a tiny hall closet and one small bathroom connected to the air conditioned hallway.

The kitchen was small. I recall wallpaper with a simple, brightly colored fruit pattern, stoneware crocks and the refrigerator where the cat would sleep by the warm exhaust vent at it's base. One small window faced the front yard. The baker-lite phone hung on the wall with it's long coiled cord. Was it blue or green?

This is the space in which I appeared. From my foggy first memory, til the night my brother and I packed his truck up with everything we could, and removed ourselves from a dangerous and drunken father. In that house, I became me. I learned all the important and awkward lessons of childhood there. Every Christmas, every birthday, games around the table, how to draw, how to make music, how to dream, how to love, when to be afraid, and when to go. It was home, the only home I'd known. Incomparable, peopled by gods, every corner sacred and filled with memories. The memories that make you.

Our mother had already escaped a few days before my brother and I realized we needed to go. Our siblings had already moved into the big wide world. It was an easy decision but a momentous one.

Eventually, the house was abandoned and put up for sale. My dad had moved out and the verdant oasis in which I had thrived had become an empty, dark and truly haunted house.

One night, the curiosity got the better of myself and some friends. A morbid desire to go inside the old homestead came over me like the strange impulse to go see if that dead body in the woods is still there. Maybe give it a push with a long stick. I'd broken into that house many, many times, sometimes having been locked out or even just playing spy. Pulling out the door's jalousie panes and sliding an arm in was no problem.

We entered through the built in carport. The room had already dilapidated so much. The woodgrain paneling was disintegrating, revealing it's 2x4 skeleton in places. It was dark inside and had a strange smell. It seemed bizarre that it wasn't possible to turn a light on. Unnatural. I didn't expect to feel like I was trespassing in my own house, my Garden of Eden. I think I had been excited to see my old abode. Maybe I'd feel a jolt of joy from the myriad of happy memories from my youth, my life. But, it truly was a corpse, lifeless and somehow perverse.

We stepped into the kitchen, into the house proper, and I think the shock of it's profound emptiness juxtaposed with my fading memories ended the hopes for an enjoyable walk down memory lane.  My mind went a bit blank with overload from emotions I had never felt before. Creeping in to the tomb-like living room, we began to feel itchy. The old choclate brown carpet, that once felt like a the height of luxury, had become infested with fleas and they were helping themselves to our legs. That's as far in as we got! We rushed back to the door we had come through. The darker nether regions of the once golden land in which I sprouted and grew would remain undisturbed. I'm glad.

Camelot crumbled and life continued. The gods had moved on, and turns out they were just people.  Everyday, you struggle with the webs clinging and binding you to yesterday, but the webs are smoke. They're less than smoke. They're gone. You have the memories, as best as you can remember. The memories, the lessons, the mistakes, the fights, the fears, the laughs, the tears... They created you. They are still creating you.

I occasionally visit the house in my dreams.