Edgy People

by Barb Nobel

  When Al, and later Will, stayed overnight they didn’t notice anything. It’s always easy to attribute a small noise or movement to the person you’re with. Really, after so many years, I had just gotten used to the disturbances, if they could be called disturbances when, in fact, they no longer disturbed me.

  When I thought seriously about it, I realized that nothing malignant had ever happened. There was activity, but always low keyed, and never threatening.

  However, I unconsciously started to notice trends. Whatever ‘it’ was, was fairly quiet during the summer months, but became more active around September, and most active in the months leading up to Christmas. After Christmas, the activity lessened and was only occasional over the rest of the year, until September rolled around again.

  I only half believed there was some presence in my home until the summer a van stopped outside and a woman, who introduced herself as Nancy, asked if she could show her adult daughter the house they had lived in when her daughter was a small child. I invited them in, and Nancy and I had some general conversation about the neighbourhood, and the inconvenience of living in a house with only two closets. Nancy turned out to be a really practical woman, having raised two kids with little storage space, and offered some decent storage solutions. Then, to my surprise, she asked me if I had experienced any strange happenings in the front bedroom. I asked Nancy what she meant.

  “Well, the bed used to shake at night,” she said. “I would get out of the bed and put my hand on it, and it would still be shaking. “But, Gary, my husband, didn’t believe in that sort of thing, and nothing seemed to happen when he was home.”

  It was validating, knowing that someone else had experienced these ghostly visitations.

  Now, after fourteen years, I simply accepted the disruptions. And I loved my little house. I had put in some flowers, done some painting, replaced the knob and tube wiring, and had a little collection of my nicely framed travel pictures on the front room wall.

  But then an idea gradually occurred to me. I wondered if the spirit, or ghost, or phantom, or whatever it was, might be suffering. I questioned whether this being, this entity, was caught between worlds, between the world I lived in and whatever world waited on the other side.

  I checked online and called the Centre for the Study of the Paranormal. It was an interesting call, and the woman, Jean, was very helpful.

  “Well, talk to it,” Jean said.

  “Out loud?”

  “Yup. Speak out loud. Tell him, or her, that they have loved ones waiting on the other side, that they’ve been waiting a long time, and it’s time to cross over and join their loved ones.”

  “Okay,” I said doubtfully. “But I don’t mind if they stay. We’ve gotten along together for fourteen years now.”

  “So, tell them they can stay if they want to.”

  “Okay.”

  Frankly, I couldn’t imagine myself talking out loud to an empty room, but if the spirit needed help, I would try.

  A couple weeks later, near the end of December, I did just that. When I felt some presence in the room, I sat up in bed. I spoke to the empty room. I told the room that the year was 2008, that I didn’t know how long they had been in this house, but that people were waiting on the other side, people who loved them and wanted to be with them. I also said that if they wanted to stay, they were welcome to do so. They and I had lived here in harmony for fourteen years now, and could continue to live in harmony. They were welcome to stay.

  I can’t say I felt anything different. I can’t say that I thought anything, human or phantom, was listening.

  I can say I felt stupid talking to an empty room, especially since I repeated it all several times. I had no idea why I did that. Did I think the spirit was deaf, or stupid, or couldn’t understand English?

  For a few weeks after that I tried to be more aware of the level of activity, wondering if my strange conversation had reached anybody. I tried to figure out if there was less activity or more. I thought it might be somewhat less, but I really couldn’t decide.

  But then, something happened.

  Later, the police complimented me, saying I had put up a terrific fight. I couldn’t remember.

  This time the footsteps on the stairs were real. When I lifted my head from the pillow, there was someone standing there. A man.

  For a few seconds my brain didn’t register. Had I called up the spirit by talking to it, made it into a real person somehow? My brain couldn’t take in what my eyes were seeing.

  Then he was by the bed, and I knew he was real. He was talking to me, or to himself, in a low nasty voice, telling me I was a slut, I was going to get what I deserved, that I wanted it, to admit that I wanted it. In terror I pulled the blankets up over myself. It was the wrong thing to do. Instead of being upright I was already down. When I screamed he punched me in the face. I felt a tooth come loose and start to slide down my throat. Idiotically, I wondered if it was a real tooth or one of my expensive implants. That was my last thought.

  When I woke up, I was on a cot in a hospital hallway with the taste of blood in my mouth. I was disoriented, and the pain in my face was incredible. Later, I discovered my nose had been broken.

  A policewoman was by the bed, along with my sister, Donna, who was listed on my cell as my emergency contact. Donna stayed with me while the nurse did a physical exam, and started the rape kit. It turned out I hadn’t been raped. All my injuries were on my face; there was no other bruising anywhere. I didn’t understand that. Why didn’t he rape me when he had all the power?

  Eventually, I pieced together more information from the policewoman.

  My neighbour, when he went out to bring his trash can to the curb, had heard a huge commotion coming from my place. He immediately dialed 911, but even as he was dialing, a man burst out of my front door, running as if the devil were after him. He was staggering; he seemed to be injured.

  I was told that the police picked him up several blocks away. He was suffering from cuts to his hands and had a large gash across his face. His jeans were ripped along the thigh where he was bleeding.

  My neighbour, bless him, stayed with me until the police and ambulance arrived.

  In the hospital the policewoman congratulated me on putting up a successful defense.

  “You have to make a choice when you’re in this kind of terrible situation,” she said. “Sometimes fighting makes things worse, sometimes it saves you. But one thing we know is that women who defend themselves are better off emotionally than those who choose not to. And obviously, you made the right choice. We got the guy, and frankly, he looks worse than you do.”

  She grinned, and fist-bumped me.

  But, I knew I hadn’t defended myself: I knew that I had passed out when I’d been punched in the face. I told this to the policewoman, and she said that the mind has a way of blocking out trauma. She suggested that I get some counselling, and better locks on my doors.

  A few days later I returned home with my sister, who had called a locksmith to come and put extra locks on my house.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes when I opened the door. It looked like some kind of horror scene from a movie.

  Donna and I picked our way through a trail of wreckage and blood, beginning in my room and going down the stairs and out the front door. The heavy chair in my bedroom was lying on its side. My travel pictures had been torn from the walls and lay with the glass shattered on the rugs, my book case was overturned, the foot stool was tumbled by the front door. The damage was overwhelming.

  I wondered if my travel pictures could be saved and reframed. I wondered if the blood on the carpet could be cleaned. I wondered if I could live there anymore.

  “Oh my god,” Donna said, putting her arm around my shoulders. “I don’t believe it. It’s like you went mad.” She looked at me with some awe.“Shit. I’m never going to annoy you again. Listen, you can stay with me as long as you want, and I’ll go halves with you on gett
ing a professional to clean it up. I owe you, Sis, you’ve done a lot for me in the past. So just let me do this.”

  It took a lot of thinking, but eventually I figured it out. And then I knew it. I knew I had been right when I had spoken that night and said that the spirit was welcome to stay.

  There had been only two people in my home the night of the attack: myself and my attacker.

  And one unknown who had stuck around.

  Flash Fiction

  I CAN HEAR SOME GIRLS yakking away, coming along the path, and I get myself ready. Not that I’m ever not ready. But I’ve learned to be careful, and I wait, and it’s a good thing that I do, because there’s a man with these girls. A big man too, and if one of these girls belong to him it won’t go over well. So I smile and nod, and keep my hands in my jacket pocket and my pants zipped. I’ve cultivated a little beard lately. I see one of the two girls glance at me and away, and smile to herself.

  Too bad she wasn’t alone. The encounter would be a lot sweeter if she were. If she didn’t have a man to protect her she wouldn’t be walking around thinking she was Miss Queen Bee.

  But that’s okay. There’s a lot more girls in this park.

  The next girl I encounter on the pathway is not really a girl but an old woman. She must be in her early forties, at least, and I think about displaying, but decide it’s not worth it. Women that old don’t get scared; they get indignant, or outraged, and usually have their wits about them to call the police.

  So I just smile at her, and she smiles back, seeing a thirty something, well-dressed man taking a stroll after his busy work day. She’s probably thinking that I’m some poor, overworked husband, maybe with a toddler at home, and trying to take a break after a strenuous day. And she wouldn’t be far from the truth. I’m a financial advisor, making good money for my clients and better money for myself. It allows me a good life style, with a nice condo close to the park. No wife or babies though, and my mother keeps telling me how she had two kids in school by the time she was my age. I want to go “yeah, yeah, I know” when she goes on about it, but I just keep my mouth shut.

  I hear some girls coming along the path again, and as always, I wait till I know who is there. There was one time when I saw only girls, and then found out there was a man coming along behind them, and when the girls got hysterical the man came running up, playing the big hero. I had to make tracks fast that time, but in a way, it added to the thrill of it all. I got away, but after that I noticed there were some uniforms walking around the trails for a while. Well, they weren’t really in uniform, but you could tell by the size of them, really big men, and I didn’t like that. They could do me some serious damage.

  A few days later, I saw some home-made notices in the park that there was a flasher, and I laughed to myself. Pretty nice that I’m scaring girls when I’m not even in the park.

  Well, girls, I’m available today.

  That poster business didn’t last too long though. The police didn’t have the resources to look for a flasher when they have people with guns, and drive-by shootings to attend to. They probably thought it was pretty funny too. After all, the cops are men. Sure there’s some women now on traffic or on a desk, but it’s the men who do the real work.

  And the posters soon got rained on and disappeared.

  This time it’s good. Two girls, probably not yet twenty, walking, giggling, not paying attention. Two silly girls. I’m hard. I pull it out, and this time I do something different. I make a little jerky movement towards the girls, as if I’m going to run at them. It works well. The girls gasp, shriek, and take off, not even waiting to see if the other one is okay. If I were to grab one of them, the other one wouldn’t even know it until it was too late. Maybe next time.

  That felt pretty good.

  Girls today think they’re so smart becoming doctors and lawyers and even financial advisors. These two don’t feel so smart now.

  A couple of men are walking fast along the trail now and ask me if I heard some girls screaming. I tell them I heard a commotion, but I don’t know what it was, and I did see some old bum in the bushes a little further up. The two men thank me and walk on rapidly, looking now for some old bum.

  I’m the last person anyone would think to look for; a thirtyish man, dressed in business casual. People remember what they presume to be true. Flashers are dirty old men, not young, attractive men.

  I feel pretty good now and I’m heading toward home. I might or might not see more girls on this path, but one thing is sure: I scored one for the men today.

  There are now two more girls who know they really don’t have control. They know now that no matter what career they choose, no matter how important they become in the world, a man can always teach them that they have something to fear. It’s men who have power, and girls will only have what the men allow them to have. And I can teach them that.

  And maybe, someday, with an even better lesson than I did today.

  Introduction to Hunger:

  MY MOTHER, YVONNE, WAS BORN in 1916 and placed in an orphanage (Hospice de Levis), at the age of five, along with some of her brothers and sisters, when her mother died. When she was ten, Yvonne left this institution to live with a family who abused her physically and emotionally for the next seven years. She carried scars of the physical abuse all her life.

  She was able to leave that family when she was 17, and worked for another family, who treated her very kindly, until she was 21.

  Yvonne was homeless during the depression in Quebec and survived by doing whatever domestic work she could find, sleeping in churches when she couldn’t afford a bed.

  The following three stories are fiction based on her life. Mom died in July 2013 at the age of 96.

  Hunger One

  THE HOUSE SMELLS WONDERFUL, EVEN MY little room in the attic. I’ve been baking Christmas cookies for days, and even decorated some of them with red and green icing, and these are the ones that hang from the tree.

  Louise and Muriel made garlands with popcorn and pretty wooden beads for the tree, and Mrs. Lapointe even bought some of those glass ornaments. They cost ten cents each. Everyone was so careful putting them on the tree. And there’s a glass star on the top. It looks really beautiful.

  Mrs. Lapointe and Muriel went into St Michele De Bellechase and got their hair marcelled. Muriel looks more like her mom every day. They are both large women with broad faces and small eyes, and with their hair done the same it’s easy to see that they are mother and daughter. Louise doesn’t look like either her mother or her grandmother. I guess she looks like her father. I’ve never seen him.

  The guests are in the front room listening to Fibber McGee and Molly and laughing because Mr. McGee wants to have a white Christmas tree. He ruins the floor trying to paint the green tree with white paint. Mrs. Lapointe, Muriel and Louise are in there too.

  Mr. Lapointe is sitting by the wood stove, reading a paper, quiet as always. He’s a large man too, but not solid like his wife, just kind of soft all around.

  Yesterday, Louise was telling me about some of our Christmas traditions. She said that having a tree for Christmas was a German tradition and only became popular when Queen Victoria put one up as a gift to her husband, Prince Albert, who was German. That was such a kind thing for the Queen to do.

  Louise is nine now, and sometimes she tries to teach me to read, but we have to be careful because Mrs. Lapointe would be really mad if she found out. So would Muriel.

  On the radio Mr. McGee insults someone named Alice, and the guests laugh along with the radio audience. I smile.

  I take the bread pudding out of the oven and set it on a cutting board and pick a little piece off the edge. I’m just going to put it in my mouth when something hits me across the back of my head with such force that my forehead smashes into the cupboards in front of me.

  “Oh, geeze, Vera,” says Mr. Lapointe. “Don’t hit her like that.”

  “I’ll hit her however I wan
t,” says Mrs. Lapointe. She does. She’s been hitting me since I came here, and Mr. Lapointe keeps on telling her not to, but she still does.

  I can feel blood dripping into my eyes. Mr. Lapointe gets a clean rag, wets it and gives it to me.

  When Mother Superior told me I’d be leaving the orphanage, I hoped I would be with someone kind. But that didn’t happen.

  I remember sitting in the hallway when Mr. and Mrs. Lapointe came to get me, and I heard Mother Superior talking to them in her office. She told them I should go to school, because I was only ten years old, and needed to learn to read and write.

  Mrs. Lapointe said that of course they would send me to school. Mr. Lapointe didn’t say anything at all.

  Then they came out, and I went with them. It was a long ride to St Michele De Bellechase, and we stopped twice to rest the horse, but that was okay since it was summer and I got to look around. I had been in the orphanage since I was five years old, and I didn’t remember much before that, except when Mama died, and that was very sad. So everything I saw was interesting.

  When we came into town it was wonderful. There were cars in the streets and stores full of everything. We passed a building that said Holy Mother Mary School, and I got really excited because I figured that maybe this was the school I would go to. I got a little nervous because going to school in the orphanage just meant going down the stairs and lining up, and that was easy. I wondered how I would get to school here, and if I should wear the serge dress I had from the orphanage.

  I was kind of worried too, because I was behind in school. I hadn’t attended very much because I was sick a lot, and right then, sitting in that buggy, I made up my mind to pay lots of attention and learn to read and write and do arithmetic really well, so Mr. and Mrs. Lapointe would feel proud of me.