Listen! Do You Smell Something?

(October 30, 2003)

My aunt Sharon and her boyfriend Greg got this used camper one summer, the kind that's flattish when you're towing it behind your car but when you get to wherever you're going, you pull a bunch of levers and it accordions up to a sort of tent on wheels. It was parked outside our house in Waterbury for a few days when Sharon and Greg stayed with us before they left, but I never got to see it unfolded. "It's a hassle," Greg said when I asked if he could show me. As I recall, they drove that camper to Florida and for most of my childhood, that's where they lived. I remember the eve of their road trip to their new Florida home-- my mother's parting gift to each of them was a big honkin' beach towel with different not-very-funny sayings.

They took off with the tatty camper behind their even tattier Volvo, which was unfortunately the cringeworthy color of dried blood. On their way down the eastern seaboard they stopped to visit friends, the most anticipated being their quirky clan of buddies in North Carolina.

When Sharon and Greg chugged into the driveway, their friend (let's call him Jack) looked surprised for a minute and then remembered...he was to have houseguests for a few days. Jack welcomed Sharon and Greg warmly but morosely-- he was a little distracted because, only the prior day, his best friend was killed. The house, a gorgeous but beat-up old manse on what was probably a former plantation, was full of friends and well-wishers. The dead friend (let's call him Fred) was known and loved by many. The whole clan was a sort of artist community, and most of them were bikers. Sharon described the motley group as eccentric and wild, but friendly and fiercely loyal to each other. Jack told Sharon and Greg that the funeral was to be tomorrow, and that they should make themselves at home and that he was sorry he wasn't going to be able to entertain them or spend much time with them on this visit, which they of course understood.

The southern way to deal with death is a sort of celebration-- the funeral was followed by a party, one that lasted all day and all night. The whole clan was off somewhere getting good and wasted and remembering Fred in their own way. Sharon and Greg had the whole big house and land to themselves, which they used to relax and enjoy their respite from the road.

Late that night, Sharon was up reading by lamplight in bed. The quiet was exquisite. Greg snoozed next to her. She got up to pee. She padded across the room, down the hall and into the bathroom.

In old houses like that one, the windows are long and low. As she sat on the toilet, sharon could look out the window. She gazed down into the yard, really just a big clearing in the secluded woods, and she saw a woman down there. The woman was less like a human person, more like a light, a faded spectre that illuminated the grass.

A ghost.

The woman was flitting around the clearing, kneeling down as if to pick flowers or look idly at a grass blade, then walking around. Sharon watched, worried that if she went to get Greg the woman would be gone when she got back.

As she watched, it became apparent that this woman was waiting for something, or someone. In a few minutes, Sharon found out for what, or whom, to be more specific. Out of the woods walked a tall man. Unlike the gentle vague light of the woman, this man was very bright and clear. His big smile indicated that he was very happy. He was also, oddly, wearing a rather dashing top hat.

The smiling man in the top hat walked toward the woman, who'd by now noticed him. She greeted him and they embraced, held hands and walked off into the woods in the other direction.

Sharon leapt up and went to wake Greg to tell him about the two ghosts. He was more interested in sleeping.

When they woke up late the next morning, the house was abuzz with the funeral-goers who'd returned from their marathon party in celebration of Fred. Some were asleep on various couches, others were making breakfast. Sharon went to find Jack. She wanted to express her condolences, but she also wanted to tell him what she saw...or as Greg was saying, what she "thought" she saw.

As she described the faded white-lit woman, her apparent flower picking action and "waiting" stance, and the brighter man, Jack listened with interest but not with disbelief or alarm. Apparently, in this region, living side by side with ghosts is no big deal. Jack accepted that Sharon had seen two ghosts in his backyard without a trace of doubt. He got up and went to the kitchen, came back with a box of stuff from Fred's funeral. He pulled out an 8 x 10 blown-up photo, considered it a minute and then turned it to show Sharon.

"Is this him?"

The man in the photo was smiling. He was tall. And he was wearing a rather dashing top hat.