A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven Read online

  This book is dedicated as always to my family,

  who keep me focused and inspired on an almost infinite loop.

  Without them, I am ever the rambler.

  With them, I am always ready, willing, and aware.

  I love you all with every bit of my heart.

  Also, I dedicate this to Charles Bonnici,

  who taught me more about devotion, love,

  and what it means to be a man than

  any other living being on earth.

  I miss you, Dad.

  And I’ll do my best.

  Contents

  Cold House

  But First Let’s Meet Our Contestants

  The Mansion

  One Night in Farrar

  Paranormal Paralysis and Paranoid Parameters

  Foster Manor

  Wine and Spirits with Friends

  A Haunting in New York?

  Beyond the Fringe

  The Kids on the Circle

  You'll Have to Pay for Another Five Minutes

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  At first cock-crow the ghosts must go

  Back to their quiet graves below.

  —Theodosia Garrison

  There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world.

  —Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for

  His reputation if He didn’t.

  —Jules Renard

  What is this that stands before me?

  Figure in black which points at me.

  —John “Ozzy” Osbourne, “Black Sabbath,” Black Sabbath

  Cold House

  YOU SEE THEM EVERYWHERE THESE DAYS. You see them in movies and cartoons, advertisements and reality shows. Celebrities line up to tell their stories just so they have a good excuse to shiver and shake in their designer sports jackets. They are so common today that it is almost crazy to imagine a time when the very idea was disturbing. But there was indeed an era when the thought of ghosts was enough to send a tendril of chilly dread down your spine. I am not talking about the guy under the sheet with the eyeholes cut out or the “groovy” spooks that have been plaguing Scooby and the gang since 1969. I am talking about the footsteps right behind you, the padded shuffle on hardwood floors where there should be no noise at all. I am talking about the shadow in the corner of your eye when you are sitting at home alone. I am talking about moving objects and flying silverware and waking up with scratches you know for a fact were not there when you went to bed. There are spaces between spaces and doors that go nowhere. From orbs to shades, the spirit end of the paranormal pool is anything but shallow, but it is easy to find yourself drowning.

  When you are young, if you are anywhere near a group of same-aged folk and you want to freak each other out, you tell ghost stories. You gather up a blanket and you swap them like baseball cards at the expo, waiting with your breath held for your turn at the mike because, nine times out of ten, everyone in that room has a ghost story. They can be as vanilla as seeing your great grandfather in the cellar or they can be as mollifying as the dark shape that follows you to every town you have lived in since you were still taking naps in school. But in my experience almost everyone I know has a ghost story, and anyone who does not have one secretly and desperately wants one.

  People have been infatuated with the supernatural almost as long as they have been with religion. In fact, if religion were a lounge singer, then the paranormal would be a rock star. Unless you worship snakes or speak in tongues, most of the time your chosen faith is fairly banal. But the unexplained . . . shit, that is like your first leather jacket or your first French kiss. Taboo is always the more appealing possibility. Maybe it is the implied darkness or the fantasy side, but I do know ghost stories are more intriguing because no two are really the same. The Bible only really changes when someone new comes to power.

  And let’s face facts: people love being scared. It is the same reason I watch every damn shark movie that comes out, even though the mere sight of them makes me want to fill my pants with the brown sound—I love the feeling. You do not take a first date to a chick flick; you take her to something that is going to make her jump straight into your arms in terror, preferably at a drive-in. Nothing too gross and gory—something that is just intense enough to close the deal for you. Ghost stories are quite simply our early introduction into that fierce side of the world. It is bonding and sharing and fucking with people all rolled into one. It is delicious masochism.

  I am about to tell you a story that I have not recounted to anyone since I was fourteen years old. It is extraordinary, terrifying, and, at the risk of committing the sin of pun, very haunting. It is also true; some of the events are a bit loose, as this happened to me thirty years ago, but the pieces I remember are as vibrant today as the night they occurred, and the more I write it down, the more it is all coming back to me—stronger, clearer, and more defined. Doubt if you want. Scoff if you wish. It does not change the fact that it happened. And I was there. For better or worse, I was there.

  I was nine years old in the summer of 1983, “growing up” on the south side of Des Moines, Iowa, my hometown backdrop off and on for most of my life. Unbeknownst to me, I was a year away from moving to Florida and spending the better part of my teens on the move, forever giving up any semblance of roots in favor of a second-rate vagabond existence. But in ’83 I had been in Des Moines for three wonderful years and had managed to find some semblance of a real life, to feel like a real kid. I was a Cub Scout until an unfortunate brake failure caused me to ride my BMX through the screen door of my scoutmaster’s house. I played little league baseball and bowled on a kids’ league (on a team that was meant to be called “The Cannibals,” but some adult renamed us “The Cannon Ballers” . . .) at a beautiful old alley called Bowlerama, where my grandmother had bowled since before I was born. I lived in a basement apartment just a short walk away from the corner of South East 14th and Watrous Avenue, and from first to mid-fourth grade I attended Andrew Jackson Elementary School, which was only a few blocks away. You could follow Watrous right to Jackson’s front door if you wanted, wind around the corner-hook that finally t-boned at Indianola Avenue, then cross the school’s vast front yard. But there was another more direct and mysterious route that led you to the school, opening out onto its parking lot and the outside playground.

  Before the convenience store moved years later, the Quik-Trip gas station on 14th and Watrous was on the other side of the street. Perpendicular to the shop was nothing but forest, only really cut off by the houses that lined the way to school. But there was a path through the woods that was very nearly a straight line to Jackson Elementary. So my friends and I would sidestep the street, make our way through the trees, and head deep into what we called the South Side Woods. The path itself twisted and turned, providing a virtually crazy maze that we happily skipped on as the morning dew dried under a warm morning sun. But as we got closer to school, the woods took on a fairly sinister feeling.

  About halfway through the expanse, bizarre “traps” and gnarly rusted tripwires started popping up on the path. They were specifically designed to fuck with anyone on the path itself—the wires crossed it like someone was trying to catch us and hurt us. Knowing the trail as well as we did, we still had to watch where we were going. The strange thing was that every once in a while the wires and traps would move—someone was moving them. We never knew why. However, as dangerous as these hazards were for a bunch of kids, what lay up ahead was like something out of a Wes
Craven movie.

  In the middle of this forest, clearly removed from the community that surrounded it, stood a two-story abandoned house, gutted and decrepit, a tower of foreboding set against this suburban gothic landscape like a hangover from the Brothers Grimm’s seedier days. It was the essence of the color gray and defiant in the face of the elements; no one really knew how old it was, how long it had been there, or who had wanted to live there, seeing as it was not on any street nor did it have a driveway that connected it to the outside world. It was just a hulking mess that scared the ever-living shit out of us kids—terrifying messages had been scrawled on the outside walls, most likely by teenagers who hung out there. Thinking back now, it was really just a creepy house that creaked and shuddered, but to impressionable nine-year-olds, it was the vacation spot of the devil itself. Of course we were fascinated by it even as we avoided it like the plague. But none of us had the stones to go in. Even on a dare—which to a kid is like a binding contract you could take to court—we would not go near it. We hurried past as much to get away from it as we did to get to school on time. But even when we could not see it, we knew it was there, and we talked about it constantly, so much so that my friends and I started referring to it as Cold House.

  The summer of ’83 was a huge time in my life. I was beginning to think a lot like I do today, and I was starting to realize that kids liked spending time with me because I had no fear and was constantly entertaining. After Return of the Jedi came out, my friends and I would recreate the movie, and I was always voted Luke Skywalker, charging onto the field we usually played stickball on with my broken secondhand plastic red lightsaber to save the day. I rolled with a lot of neighborhood kids, some the same age and some a little older. You could find us at my house after school—watching G.I. Joe cartoons on WGN and videos on a newer station called MTV because we were one of the few families who actually had cable, albeit stolen. So I always had friends around, and during that summer there was always a sleepover at someone’s house.

  It was July when my friends and I decided to sneak out of my apartment and go explore Cold House.

  There were six of us: I was basically the ringleader, and then there was my first real best friend, Henry, along with Matt, Joe, Tina, and Brock. Henry and Matt lived a few blocks away and were the only ones technically staying overnight with me. Joe, Tina, and Brock lived in other buildings in the complex. The plan came together earlier that day while we were roaming around looking for shit to do. When kids are starving in the brain, their heads seek out mischievous fun. There is the old adage “idle hands are the devil’s playthings.” No truer words have ever been said: I almost got my family evicted from that apartment complex because I broke into one of the storage garages—and by “break in” I mean I went through the wall with a used iron bar.

  For a long time I had wanted to go into Cold House and see what was there. We had heard it was haunted since we had first started taking the trails to school. The thought of a potentially real haunted house not two blocks away from where I slept was too much for me to contemplate, and I was bound and determined to get inside and see what I could see. My cohorts were of course a bit more reticent than I was. Tina did not want to have anything to do with it; the others only wanted to go during the day. I wanted to go at night, possessed by the idea that the only time we would see anything was after midnight. No one had to go who did not wish to—this was “Join Us at Your Own Risk.” Finally we found ourselves on the same scary page and went to work.

  The plan was this: we would meet behind the work shed near my building at 12 a.m. Henry, Matt, and I would sneak out of my bedroom window, which I had done countless times before. The rest would find a way to get there, if they were indeed going to come along. Tina, Joe, and Brock still hummed and hawed at the idea, but at midnight, when my group was safely behind the shed, the other three soon met us and we were on our way. We had managed to smuggle four flashlights into our bedrooms that day. We walked down 14th, crossed at the lights, and, making sure to keep out of sight of adults who might try to send us back home, proceeded into the South Side Woods, waving the flashlights around like Jedis to keep the jitters at bay.

  Before we go any further, let me tell you first that, as always, I have changed my friends’ names out of respect to what happened and because, even though I have not seen them since shortly after this incident, they will forever be tied to me as friends and as people who got through this unscathed. I doubt they would even admit remembering this night if pressed. But my profession has a way of keeping youthful exuberance fresh and, therefore, my recollection of the following events are as vivid as yesterday. So this is my book, my obsession, and my quandary; to call them out would mean making them question shit from the past they have probably done their best to forget. Make no mistake though: these are actual events; I was not by myself, and I have the scars to prove it.

  The six of us found ourselves fairly jovial, even though we were traipsing through the darkness toward something that frightened us to death. Even when we tripped on the wires draped over the path, we laughed and helped each other up. We kept moving, each of us certain we were going to see something “so fucking cool!” Then, before we knew it and a lot sooner than we expected, we were there.

  I cannot tell you how much more terrifying Cold House looked in the dark. Years later, watching the end of Blair Witch Project, I experienced a horrendous and violent flashback. I felt petrified because it took me directly back to that night. It was like someone had been with us filming. Of course that was a movie designed to make you piss your pants and give you motion sickness—memory and reality can be so much more vicious.

  Casting our flashlights across its dilapidated façade, it had the appearance of a killer. It was like discovering an alligator in the water next to you. All of the windows were gone of course, targets for teens throwing rocks and those hard green things that smelled like Pine-Sol that fell from the trees everywhere. In fact, the trees around the house looked like ghoulish fingers, either holding it in place or pointing at us, the interlopers, seeming to tell us to keep away. The front door hung on one hinge at an awful angle, and the steps up onto the front porch looked so weak that even Indiana Jones would have found another way inside. We all stood there, kind of frozen in excitement and fear. Were we really going to fucking do this? It seemed like I was the only one ready and willing to make this happen. With a fire I still cannot describe or explain from whence it came, I left the path and took four steps toward the house—the closest I had ever come to going inside in my life. My legs were rubber and my heart was threatening to escape from my chest, but I moved even closer. The sound of feet sliding through tall grass let me know my comrades were following, although not too closely.

  I moved cautiously on the porch steps. Each one that took my weight complained loudly, and even though there was city noise not too far away, in the dark and silence of the woods, those creaking sounds were like needles sliding across your ears. We might as well have been in Romania—home seemed a million miles away. The porch itself was a little more stable, and we gathered there before I reached out with inactive fingers to move the front door and gain access to Cold House. One by one, we crossed its threshold.

  Then all our flashlights went dead.

  Studying the paranormal as I have over the years, I have read about spirits draining batteries and power sources for the energy to manifest. I found this to be true when, in 2003 and part of 2004, I experienced similar activity at the fabled mansion on Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles. But we will talk about that later. Back in 1983 I did not know about this phenomenon. I was just a nine-year-old kid suddenly plunged into pitch black in an abandoned house. We were shaking the flashlights, trying to get them to turn back on, wondering what the hell could have killed them all at once—I think Tina had even put fresh batteries in hers before leaving her apartment. That is when I noticed a sort of glow coming from the second floor. By that time my eyes had adjusted a bit, and I was vaguely abl
e to make out blobs and shapes in the dark, like the walls, a broken chair, and the stairs leading up to the floor above us, and it was there, on those stairs, that a hint of light was reflecting primitively for all to see. We shut up immediately. I took a step toward the staircase, but there was a hand on my arm. It was Henry—he whispered something like “Do not be stupid—where are you going?” but I kind of shuffled out of his grip and, with a deep breath, I placed one foot on the bottom step.

  Before I took another step, the glow had gotten brighter. So I turned my eyes to the top of the stairs. That is when I saw the shape.

  I assumed it was a man—it was definitely man looking. It was the craziest thing we had ever seen. Here was this silhouette of a giant man, backlit so you could not see his face, but apparently casting the very light it was silhouetted against. It was like a blue-white nightmare. I remember its hands clenching and unclenching. I remember it heaving like it was gasping for air. I remember the hands of my friends pulling on my clothing trying to get me to join their escape. I remember the sight of what looked like blood on the walls. The last thing I saw before I screamed was that thing, seemingly without moving a muscle, coming toward us.

  We almost killed each other running out of Cold House. The front door, now a hindrance, was finally torn from its last hinge by running children. I was the last one out of the house. As I took the porch steps, my left leg plunged through old wood, tearing into my shin. I looked behind me, and that thing was framed in the doorway—menacing, unnatural. I could feel its light on my face, understand? I was utterly shell-shocked and I could not move. For some reason I knew it wanted me. This had been my plan, my idea, and this thing knew it. And it was going to punish me. I closed my eyes.