THE LONG SPOOKY HALL

When I was a young kid under 10 years of age it seemed that a lot of things in life were played up by my imagination. I could image anything was something else, and amuse myself that way. It was not only material matters, but people too.

One of the things I would imagine in my mind’s eye was mysterious appearance of strange omens and signs that could appear if I wished them! My Grandmother’s house in particular held a strange fascination in the mysterious world I conjured up in my young mind, because of some of things in her house. She owned a two-story apartment building in Brooklyn on Fulton Street, and it had a storefront with her apartment in the back of it. Because of this store, there were two hallways, one short and dark, then a right, left quick turn around the corner to a longer lit hallway that ran the length of her apartment and took one to her kitchen.

When Grandpa Ralph died, my Grandmother closed the store and laid him out in the store front, Grandma wanting to lay him out there because the store had made him happy when he was alive, and she was too cheap for a funeral parlor. Prior to it being a usable store, it was vacant for a good many years, and had a spooky quality to it, although it was originally a workshop for a carpenter.

Another thing about my Grandmother’s house was her back bedroom; it was never used, except when someone slept over. It too was dark, with no windows and a door, which led to the store. On the dresser in this room was a picture of a dead person in his coffin that someone sent from Italy, and next to the picture was a lit red votive candle.

Every once in a while, I would go to Grandmas by myself since we only lived two blocks away. I would enter a small alcove, ring her doorbell, she or someone would ring me in and I would hurry through the short dark passageway and think of the picture of the dead person, my hair standing up in the back of my neck.

Every once in a while when Grandma had a lot of company, especially the old world types who spoke only Italian, the conversations would drone on, and I would go out into the hall to play with my toys by myself. At the end of the hall facing toward the front, right before the turn into the dark side, was a cellar door, a long, dark and filled with strange doors that surrounded a boiler and all kinds of things type of basement. As I gazed upon the cellar door, I could imagine a devilish weird animal like face that could suddenly appear from the grain of the wood, or the paintbrush pattern. There was only one light bulb, probably about 25 to 75 watts to light the whole windowless hallway. This face had horns and was something between a devil and a wolf!

I guess I realized that it was all in my imagination, because time after time I went out into that hallway alone and played, imagining the same thing over and over.

That hallway was a constant source of amusement to me, as I often would sit and watch the traffic of people that came by to visit and pay their respects to “Zia Francesa” as she was called. They would have to physically step over me and sometimes my sisters or cousins, as we played in the hallway, and as these poor people stepped over us, we would insult them if they couldn’t understand English, and would do it with a big smile, hoping to solicit a smile in response from some very nice unsuspecting, non-English speaking people.

I guess we were just rotten little bastards.

P.S. I wasn't hallucinating.