Chapter 15: 1293! - 6$ Street - The Haunted House

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Fiction

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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S.E. Saunders asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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Authors Note:

While the assertion above states the stories found in this book are fictional, I will include notes where the stories aren't fiction. The following is based on events from my life.

When I moved in with Dad, I discovered his area was normal regardless of some of the lowbrow locales that were within walking distance, quite different from how I had viewed it at the tender age of eleven. What I find strange, and cathartic is so many memories are attached to this location.

The house itself was creepy as all hell, built circa 1900's. A large three-story home with a partial cement basement contained a dirt crawl space, a water ampule you had to fill to get the heating to come on and a small cold storage space.

The stairs leading into the basement were rickety, old, and narrow. The bathroom was downstairs, and at 2:30 a.m., if you'd read any horror, you were certain some demonic entity was going to crawl out of the darkness and drag you back to his lair and flay you alive. That's if you got past the empty room with the large psychedelic painting on the wall, done by one of the landlord's children. That room could have led to a whole other dimension.

The front porch had a lovely veranda you could sit on, and my dad had put out an old, abused sofa rather than throw it away. You might imagine my surprise when an inebriated man passed out there one morning. I slipped out the front door, past him and carried on. I figured he'd wake up and take off.

Lynn and Beryl Turner owned the house, and they were an amazing couple. I can and will dedicate a separate story to them because they were part of the circle of people who caused me to be a better version of who I am. My Dad and Mom were their friends, as to how they became friends, I'm uncertain.

The house had a musty smell as if the hellish basement weren't enough. It could have been from the bodies of numerous cats (maybe upwards of 20) that were found throughout its walls, all in states of petrification. Dad had done a lot of fixing on the place to make it livable. I think one of the reasons the previous owner had so many cats was because there were a comparable number of mice.

When I lived there, one zoomed out of a set of newly built cupboards and straight out at my face when I opened one of the doors. Another I found circling an old metallic garbage bin. Having faced rats in the trail in my childhood, this seemed perfectly normal. I suppose I should get to the point where this story lives up to its title. See, I didn't know this house was thought of as a haunted house. Until I started going to a school called North Edmonton Elementary. It might have been one of my friends that said:

"You live there?!?"

"Yeah? Why?" I thought initially it was because the house was pretty run down.

"Um, because that's the haunted house!" I laughed at her.

"No. It's not."

Even though I wasn't entirely certain that was the case. It was in this house I discovered several key things about biology. Namely plants. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a bit of an odd duck. I proudly wore the name geek, and I wouldn't have batted an eyelash if you called me a nerd.

While attending North Ed, I remember playing on the playground, looking up in a window, and seeing some plants growing on the windowsill. My Granddad Walter had a wide selection of tropical plants, which is likely why I took note of them. Somehow, I caught the attention of the person who owned the plants and much to my surprise it was the principal.

I don't recall his name, but I do recall the fact that he was kind and gave me slips of herbs sitting on the sill. Sage, oregano, and mint if I recall. I remember cradling it like it was the most precious thing on the planet. In many ways, it was because I was rarely given a gift that meant so much to me. I realize what it was now in writing this. The principal 'saw me' unlike so many others I interacted with.

In many ways, this house became the house where I connected with and had an honest-to-goodness father-daughter relationship with my dad. I got to know him as a grouchy but solid human being. I saw him work hard in his garage, helped him rebuild cars/trucks from scratch, learned how to change my own tire there and thought I was going to get the one car he had rebuilt there.

We worked on a 69' Chevelle from start to finish. We'd chosen a metal flake green for the new coat of paint, bondoed the doors, hammered out dings and restored a muscle car. I should for the record remind you I'm a woman.

I burned my bum cheeks there, trying to tan them in the backyard. We weathered the Tornado of July 31, 1987, there. Dad wasn't home, and I was babysitting five kids. I wore a roaster pan on my head to brave the hail and go outside to collect the dog that decided she was going to give birth at that same time.

I remember looking outside wondering why Snowball wouldn't go back into her doghouse. I wandered out to see what was going on and found her with two puppies under her. I scooped them up and then picked her up (she was a large white husky) under her front legs. I think about it now, and I sweat a little. She could have bitten my face off what with her giving birth, and the weather which would have scared her.

Dad had left her chained to the doghouse to protect the backyard. He'd throw her scraps and scream at her when she'd do what she guarded the yard. Still, I brought her into the house and didn't care if I caught hell for it.

I grew my first garden there. Hammy, my hamster went missing there. I figure he joined forces with the mice. I hid a friend of mine named Chancely in my closet because he had been kicked out of his house, had my first love there, and got pregnant at the ripe old age of fifteen. I skipped school and hung out at the arcade there.

I saw my dad meet his second wife there. Got in trouble for sneaking out of the house there. Learned to play crib with Carol and Doug (Shakey) there. I discovered I loved Nazareth's music there.

In many ways, I realize why this house is etched so firmly in my mind. I continued the transition from a child to a woman in this house, and my frame of reference expanded. It also became my home as a grown woman in my twenties. My first husband and I lived there. I got pregnant with my third child there.

My young son whom I got pregnant with turned five there and was so scared of the basement he wouldn't go to the bathroom downstairs there.

I've also come to the realization that the house isn't a haunted house. It's a time machine. If I can locate the other end of that psychedelic wall, I'm sure I could step straight back into 1987 and begin again.

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