Commodore, A Halloween Ghost Story

Commodore, A Halloween Story

Every year around this time, I get sick. Not your average cold, mind you. The kind of sickness that gives you chest pains and takes away your ability to breathe. I sometimes cough so hard, my vision temporarily shuts down. I can’t sleep at night, for the coughing. The doctor says I should have a narcotic cough suppressant, but times are tough, and prescriptions are so expensive. I manage to afford two bottles of generic cough medicine a month, and I try to make these last. It helps a little, but sometimes in the late fall, when the wind whips through the trees like a dead woman’s fingers strumming a guitar, I still don’t catch sleep.

Those are the nights I lie awake, watching the branches make horrific designs on my wall through my window, when I swear I can hear something scratching in the wall, when I am half awake, and I sometimes see Commodore standing at the foot of my bed.

I am in my seventies, and have been a widow for some time now. My Husband, Commodore, died from emphysema in late nineteen-fifty-five. I never re-married. Commodore was a very controlling man. He would never stand for me having another man. I tried dating in the mid eighties, but strangely, these relationships never lasted. One very charming man that I dated, Tim, got ran over by a train one late November night. Tim never walked at night. That’s what made his death so strange.

I grieved for a brief while, then I met George. George played piano at a local night club. We dated for a couple months before we became engaged, and that is when things got very strange. George started coming home later and later each night. He never reeked of whiskey or perfume, and I never saw evidence that there was another woman in his life. At breakfast, he would look disheveled and confused. He even started smelling different, kind of like rotten eggs. I couldn’t stand sleeping next to him. One morning, it was the strangest thing, a maggot fell off his left ear and landed in his oatmeal. He only chuckled and plucked the wriggling larvae out of the cereal and said “Now how did THAT get in there?” I left the table and threw up violently in the bathroom down the hall.

Two days later I got a call from the police. They told me George had been found dead in a gutter just east of the Matthews Brewery. They asked me how long he had been missing. I said, “As far as I know, he went to work this morning!” there was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Ma’am?” the police chief said, “your fiancé has been dead for at least two weeks.” I let the phone drop and stood there. I couldn’t remember much after that, but I woke up a couple days later in the local hospital. They said I had a heart attack, though I felt fine.

It took me a while, and I swore I would never love again after that; men I dated had a tendency to turn up dead. I tried to avoid Larry as long as I could. He was a humble man, a self employed millionaire who worked as a bag boy because he liked working. I admired him so, and I tried hard not to, but I found myself falling in love with him. More so than Tim or George. He asked me out on several occasions. I would jokingly tell him “Going out with me will be dangerous to your health!”

He would tell me, “To go out with someone as beautiful as you, I would take that risk.”

We started dating, and things went well for two years. I would catch myself holding my breath each time he would leave me, wondering if I would ever see him again. He became very precious to me, as precious as Commodore, almost. One night he came home, a dozen roses in his hand, and a full bag of Chinese take-out. We had a wonderful dinner by candlelight, and when I got up to scrape off the dishes he asked me to sit back down. He came beside my chair, took out a small box, and opened it. It was a beautiful ring. The most exquisite, perfect round diamond I had ever seen. It must have been at least four carats.

I knew what was coming next, and tried to tune it out. Everyone I even got close to loving had died, and I tried my best not to hear his proposal. It managed to sneak through my defenses. I said yes.

That night, a middle-aged couple with a belly full of Chinese food made love like teenagers. That night all my worries were gone. That night I slept in the arms of the man I loved, the man that smelled like Mennen Skin Bracer and Old Spice deodorant, the man with the perfect stocky body, big smile and fuzzy chest.

I awoke next to him in a very silent room. I was afraid to roll over, the room was too quiet. I waited for a while, the silence mocking me like a bully child. I was afraid to touch him, or to even look at him. No sound. Minutes passing, I can hear dogs barking outside, and kids playing.

The phone rang.

I didn’t answer it.

I lay there paralyzed with fear.

I told myself I had to face it sooner or later and I turned over.

The lump under the covers beside me wasn’t moving. There was no steady rise and fall of the chest, no indication that the form under the covers was alive in any way. I reached for the edge of the coverlet and slowly peeled it back.

Larry burst through the bedroom door with a tray full of breakfast in his hands.

“Good morning beautiful!” he shouted, in his luxurious baritone.

I came to about an hour later.

When I returned to consciousness, he was beside me, holding me. He knew how things had gone in my past, and he knew how skittish I could be at times. I don’t know why I didn’t hear him knocking around in the kitchen, and I never did figure out what that Larry-sized lump under the covers was…

Some things are just better left unimagined.

I wish I could tell you this story has a happy ending; but I would be lying to you. Just as I was beginning to trust Larry would always be there, he was taken from me. Not suddenly like Tim was, or George seemed to be, but slow and torturously.

He came home from work one day with a look on his face. I knew that handsome face well, and could tell that something was terribly wrong.

“Okay, spill it. What happened?” I started to cry.

“I was bagging a large order today, when my back gave out. I just crumpled to the ground and couldn’t get up.” Larry took a deep breath. “I finally did, and tried to keep working, but the manager insisted I go to the doctor.”

“AND?” I practically yelled, shaking with fear.

Larry took another deep breath. “The x-rays show there is a grapefruit-sized lump at the base of my spine. They suspect it’s cancer. They want to do exploratory surgery Monday.”

We held each other and cried for what seemed hours. I held his hand while he got his spinal and had a small surgical scope inserted at the base of his spine. I was there when the malignant diagnosis came through.

We shared each other for two beautiful, terrifying months of chemo, radiation and hospice. Then he was gone. My Larry had left me. Once again I swore to never do that to another human being. I have kept my promise.

I lie here, the four quilts pulled up to my chin. The cold October rain pelts my window. Tomorrow will be Halloween. I hate the night before Halloween, Devil's Night. There are so many little punks in the neighborhood, and they love to throw things at the house. It seems they prey on this house. I can hear the little devils now, laughing as they throw something on my porch, or toilet paper my tree. Last year, one of them killed a cat and put it on my front porch. I think I had a mild heart attack then, but I couldn’t afford an emergency visit. I am still alive, so perhaps it wasn’t a heart attack.

I cough again. Phlegm rises and plugs my airway. I sit up in panic and wait a minute, until a reflexive lung jerk causes me to finally expel the yellow demon into a Kleenex. I really should get to the doctor. Really I should.

I finally drift to sleep somewhere around two o’clock in the morning. As usual, my sleep is plagued by nightmares. The nightmares have been relentless ever since Larry died.

Tomorrow, All Hallows Eve, will be the fiftieth anniversary of Commodore’s death. I can’t help but think that his control is what kept me from having a normal relationship. If only I had gotten married, then I could afford to go to the doctor. But no; Commodore wouldn’t even let me go to the grocery store without a specific list, and if I bought any thing extra, I would get a punishment. Sometimes he would just slap my face, sometimes he would assault me until I couldn’t walk. Commodore had damaged me so much down there, I could never have children. The bastard. He made sure I would die alone.

Sometimes I would rather die than feel so sick.

It’s Halloween morning and I step out on my front porch to assess the Devil’s night damage. Not too bad, a few rolls of toilet paper spattering the trees, some eggshells on the side of the house. A carton of eggs in the front lawn? Something must have scared one of those little buggers last night! I pad out to the apple tree and pick up the carton, still dewy from the morning. There are seven whole, unbroken eggs there. I don’t care how old they are, Free breakfast is free breakfast!

When I get to my front porch, I see something I didn’t notice before. There is a pair of men’s boots outside my door, and they still have fresh mud on them. Strange. It is late October, and there is no mud to be found. The ground is solid as a rock. I could swear those boots weren’t there before.

Nonetheless, my stomach is rumbling, and the boots are probably just another punk prank. I open my screen door and hurry to the kitchen.

Someone is already making breakfast.

The kitchen doesn’t smell like breakfast.

He stands with his back to me, the gas flame burning under my old iron skillet. I can tell there has been no oil put in the skillet. It is just sitting on the stove, the acrid odor of dry iron ore scorching my nostrils. Tendrils of smoke rise over and around the skillet, yet the thing in front of the stove doesn’t seem to care.

The smoke is burning my lungs. Some other odor is burning my lungs. It is vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite grasp the memory that this smell conceives.

The thing at the stove turns around to face me

“I see you bought some extra eggs.” he says.

Commodore is coming toward me now, and as he raises his hand to strike me, my mind goes blessedly blank.