9 Tales Told in the Dark 20

by 9 Tales Told in the Dark

  “I’m always being silly,” she said aloud.

  She rinsed the glasses and dropped ice cubes in them. The noise from the clanging of the glass distracted her from her anxious thoughts. The distraction was welcomed. It’d been a while since she spent time with an adult, and it was invigorating. She poured the liquor. The kitchen was dark, so she opened the blinds.

  “Oh God!” Donna stumbled backward and caught a hold of the wall. “What do you want?”

  The woman Donna noticed talking to herself when she’d first moved in stared through the kitchen window over the sink. Her face was riddled with legions. Her thin lips were cracked, and her skin deathly pale. She spoke softly through rotting teeth. A large herpes bump lay in the middle of her tongue.

  “I can’t hear you. Say it again,” Donna shouted angrily through the window.

  “Only God can save you. Give your soul to Him. He is the answer!”

  “Get out of my yard, lady!”

  “Beware of the lady with the black dress.”

  That last statement by the woman grabbed Donna’s attention. “What did you say?” The woman turned and began walking away. “Hey! Wait a minute. I want to talk to you.” Donna opened the back door to confront the woman, but she vanished. She was confused. Where could she have gone that quickly? Music was coming from the living room. Elroy must have put another album on. She took the drinks and bottle to the front. A jazzy ballad with a woman singing about her multiple lovers played on the record player.

  “I like this “Sweetwater.” What album is this?”

  “Oh, baby I don’t know. I thought you put it on.” Elroy was shuffling the cards. A cigarette dangled from his mouth. He looked up and saw the glass of whiskey. He said, “Donna, love you really got to come out to the club. Those long creamy legs of yours might catch some fish down there, if you know what I mean?”

  “Mr. Johnson!”

  “Ha, you young women are all the same. When ole “Sweetwater” talks like a man it’s, ‘Mr. Johnson.’ Honey, I know I’m old. Besides, I’m not pushing up on you. I want you to have some fun.”

  “What’s wrong with me that you aren’t pushing up on me?”

  Elroy laughed and said, “That’s the spirit. Make an old geezer feel young again. Come on let’s play.” Donna and Elroy played pinochle and drank the whole bottle of Jack before he left for Brown Sugar’s.

  It was dusk when Betty came in from playing basketball. She was filthy, but her gap toothed grin was wide. “These Milwaukee kids are soft, mom. They tried to bully me down low, but I broke their ankles and beat them to the block like Derrick Rose does.”

  “That’s good, Betty-Boop. Now go scrub the stinky off,” Donna pointed upstairs. A shadow passed by her and went into the kitchen so quickly she questioned whether she saw a shadow or blinked and caught a glimpse of her eyelids.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Someone knocked on the front door. Donna peeped out of the curtain. It was one of the boys that were playing with Betty. “Yes,” she answered.

  “Mrs. Legato?”

  “Yes, and you are?”

  “Terrell, ma’am I just wanted to give this to Betty.” He handed her a DVD. “It’s classic basketball games. Lakers and Celtics, Bulls versus Pistons, Jordan, and Larry, stuff like that. She seemed like a basketball buff. I figured she’d like to watch it.”

  “That was very kind of you Terrell. She’ll love it. Thank you.”

  “Good night Mrs. Legato.”

  “Good night.” He waved, but not to Donna. She looked behind her expecting to see Betty, but didn’t see anyone. Donna glanced at the DVD and then over to the grandfather clock resting in the corner of the living room. It was only eight o’clock. The day had gone so well she didn’t want it to end. She decided to take “Sweetwater” up on his offer. She asked Harold to come over and watch Betty for the night. She wanted a taste of Brown Sugar’s.

  The club was jumping. A live band played atop a stage set behind cocktail tables. Its 1,000 standing capacity was being challenged that night. The chatter in the room mixed with clinking glasses filled with ice and spirits. Elroy sat on a stool in the middle of the stage plucking his guitar and moaning about his lover; another man’s wife.

  I went into the big city one day to see my baby

  She say she got some shuga waitin fo me

  I whip my Caddy in the drive and knock on the door

  Her old man had a .44 he say, ‘She don’t live her no mo’

  Francine, Francine, why’d you have to go . . .

  Donna consumed a mixed drink as she enjoyed the music. There were a few guys hawking her as she sat cross-legged at one of the tables.

  “Ladies and gentleman give it up for my uncle, “Sweetwater Roy”,” the emcee said as Elroy stepped down, and a young white dude with tattoos and long black hair took his place. He immediately started strumming a blues chord. The ladies in the club were fully focused and swayed to his version of “Cool Hand Luke.” Elroy waved to Donna and came to her table.

  “I’m glad you made it, Donna,” Elroy said.

  “He’s got nothing on you, “Sweetwater,” Donna smiled.

  “Thank you, dear. I wanted to talk to you about something anyway. Where’s Betty?”

  “She’s at home with my brother. There watching old basketball games.”

  “Let’s step out back. I want to smoke,” Elroy said. He directed her past the bathrooms and into the kitchen. Workers with fishnets on their heads danced to hip hop music coming from an Emerson boom box.

  “Hey, “Sweetwater!” the kitchen crew acknowledged. Elroy and Donna stepped outside.

  The alley was dark beyond the backdoor’s light. Alley cats yowled by the dumpster as they squared up to rumble. Steam rose from the manhole at the end of the alley. The smell of trash and grease filled the air. Elroy offered Donna a cigarette. She waved it off.

  “Donna love, listen to me,” he said before lighting up.

  “What is it “Sweetwater”? You look like something’s wrong.”

  “We live in a strange world. There are things we don’t understand—spiritual things.” He honed in on Donna’s gaze. His eyes widened. His pupils dilated. “I knew the original owner of your house. She used to play this very club a long time ago.”

  “Cool. Maybe that explains the constant humming I hear throughout the house.”

  “So, you’ve heard her! Have you seen her?” Elroy had a frightened look, like a child convinced of the monster in his closet.

  “What? No, Mr. John . . . “Sweetwater,” you’re scaring me,” Donna said. “Have you had more to drink since you’ve been here?”

  “Now, hold on baby girl. I’m not drunk, and I’m certainly not nutty. To tell you the truth: I don’t care if you think I am. I know what I know, and your house is occupied by a cursed soul.”

  Donna was tipsy from the liquor she consumed. She tucked her chin in her chest and tried to conceal her chuckle.

  “Didn’t you say you keep hearing humming in the house?”

  “Yes, but I’m pretty sure it’s this vagrant who walks up and down the block all day. I don’t think she’s harmful; a little out there maybe?”

  “She ain’t out there. She’s lost. She got the blues and can’t shake the Devil’s grip. The world is full of folk filled with the blues and can’t let it out, or can’t free their selves from it.” Elroy flicked his cigarette into the wind and lit another. He pulled down a plastic crate from its pile and handed it to Donna. “Sit down,” he said, “and listen to what I got to tell you.”

  Donna complied. She shuddered as she thought about the possibility of a ghost haunting her home. It seemed impossible; a folk tale adapted by a superstitious man from the south, but she couldn’t deny the strange feeling that she and Betty weren’t the only ones there. Were the shadows that seemed to sneak away from the corner of her eye really a ghost, or a mere distortion of perception?

  Elroy pushed down on his cane and leaned against the brick wall. H
e looked in Donna’s direction, but not directly at her; rather through her, as if peering into a distant past.

  “After I got my kicks on Route 66 I decided to take an old flame up on her offer. Her name was Lolita Bowles. She was an editor for the Milwaukee Community Journal. I’d met her at a club on South Park Way; that’s Dr. Martin Luther King Drive now down in Chicago. We had a blast for a while, but she was ready to be serious. Why with a Bluesman? I don’t know, but I told her it would be hard. I told her I wasn’t getting a regular gig either. The blues was my job. She said okay, and plugged me in with the owner at Brown Sugar’s. That’s where I met Lynette Dupree.

  “You see, ole Lolita thought she could tame me, but she couldn’t. I’ve always been a ladies’ man, and let me tell you Lynette was a sho’ nuff fox. We became an item shortly after I started giggin at Brown Sugar’s. I was a traveling musician with no real destination. I’ve been from Spokane, Washington to Havana, Cuba and back up to Harlem, but I spent my money on cars, clothes, and the lifestyle. Lynette cut albums. I did too, but her albums sold all over the world. Josephine Baker invited her for a party in France back in 66. She had it all, so I thought.

  The house you living in now, she bought back then. I don’t know 1966, 67? I was impressed. I wanted a pad like she had, so I persuaded Lolita to purchase the house I have now down the street from you. Back then, the neighborhood was posh. I had a little left over from a bank job I did with an old pal in Beaufort, South Carolina. I chipped in with . . .”

  “You robbed a bank, “Sweetwater?”” Donna asked surprised.

  “Shucks, woman. I don’t just sing the blues—I live it,” Elroy said. “That’s when I was a young man. Let me finish, hear?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “So, one night I take Lynette home. That particular evening she seemed more morose than usual. I asked her what was wrong. She says, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore, “Sweetwater.”’ I say, ‘Look baby girl, I got an ole lady. I’m not trying to move in.’ She says, ‘I owe a big debt “Sweet”; one of those life altering debts.’ After I try to reassure her that everything will be alright, she tells me. Money is no issue.

  ‘What is it then?’ I asked. She starts crying and going on. I say, ‘Come on now, woman spit it out.’

  “What was it?” Donna asked. She grew increasingly intrigued.

  “She looks me dead in the eye, and says, ‘I sold my soul to Madame Giselle Larue at her brothel in Waukegan.’ I says, ‘Okay, it’s time for me to go.’ My momma warned me about women that messed around in the spirits. I wasn’t one to test the waters, but she begged me stay. She says, ‘I need to confess. I need to let my soul free.’ We talked, and she told me the story about how she met this slick woman down in the Delta. She called her the Devil’s handmaiden. She told me how she introduced her to Madame Larue, and how Larue promised her riches, and success if Lynette signed a contract written in blood.

  I asked her why in the world she would sign a contract with her blood. She responded by saying, ‘I didn’t have anything to lose.’

  “You believed her?” Donna’s face fixed into a cynical grin.

  “See, you’re from a different time. When Lynette and I were growing up, we didn’t have cell phones, and electronic pen pal video games. She was from Mississippi, set down in the marshes of American hatred. I grew up in North Carolina, where a poor black man was worth as much tobacco as he could pick. All we had were the blues, and the blues was like church for us. We confess through song. The liquor satiated the demons, and the guitar coaxed the aching heart to go on. I swear I seen the back of God’s head walking out of my mama’s funeral. I know it was him, because he had my momma in his arms, and she had a smile on her face looking up at him.”

  “You believe my house is haunted, because Lynette said she sold her soul to a Madame in Waukegan?” Donna shook her head in disbelief. “No disrespect, “Sweetwater”, but I just don’t believe in ghost.”

  “She shot herself in the head with a pistol.” Elroy put his shades on to conceal the water in his eyes. “I was fixing her a nightcap. I just wanted her to go to sleep, and rest her troubled mind. She snuck away. Lynette took that pistol and swallowed the bullet. I actually had a nervous breakdown. I couldn’t move. I had what fellas experienced in the war—shell shock!

  “The police came out. Of course, I was a suspect at first, but one of the detectives working the case knew Lynette. He knew she was depressed and rather than trying to fry me to make a quick bust, he investigated. What he found turned all of West Meinecke upside down.”

  “What did he find?”

  “MPD found her diary describing murders she committed, and by each name there was a number subtracted from a larger one under the name of, Madame Giselle Larue.”

  “Oh, my God,” Donna gasped.

  “They found dozens of bodies buried in the back yard. They even found rats chomping on a corpse down in the basement.”

  “My dad didn’t tell me about this. It must be in public records. I’ll look it up tomorrow,” Donna said.

  “Also look up the man who was murdered there six years ago. He was renting the house. They say he was strangled to death, but no witnesses, and no suspects. The case has never been solved. I know who did it. It was the ghost of Lynette Dupree.”

  ***

  When Donna came home from Brown Sugar’s she saw Harold’s truck in the driveway. After Elroy’s story, his presence was especially welcomed. The television blared. A preacher was shouting about something she didn’t care to hear. Donna turned it off. She went upstairs and checked on Betty. She was sound asleep. Donna figured Harold had crashed in one of the rooms. She was tired herself and went to bed.

  That same morning Donna was awakened by the clinging of pots and pans. Harold’s making breakfast. Yes! I’m starved. The thought of a hot meal was delightful. Her elation was replaced by fear, as she recollected Elroy’s tale of the killer songstress. She arose from the comforts of her bed and brushed her teeth. She spat into the sink and rinsed her mouth. Donna heard the sound of her voice shout something from downstairs. She paused and stared at herself in the mirror. She laughed. I have to be losing my mind.

  “Betty, come downstairs and lick the bowl. I’m making your favorite, German chocolate cake.”

  Betty started downstairs. She felt a tight grip on her arm. She turned to see her mother holding her arm.

  “I heard that too,” her mother stood wide eyed with her finger to her lips in the universal “be quiet” gesture.

  A woman hummed a tune downstairs. Her voice mimicked Donna’s. “Betty,” the voice called again from downstairs, “honey, come on before I eat it myself.” Donna led Betty into the bedroom quietly as possible, shut the door behind them and locked it. She placed her ear on the door and held her breath. For a while, it was quiet. The steps creaked faintly. The hairs on her neck stood up. The creaks graduated into stodgy footsteps. The footsteps ceased. It was difficult to hear anything past her breathing. It wasn’t her breathing she was listening to.

  The doorknob turned slowly to the right. It turned slowly to the left. Donna cried out, “What do you want?”

  The doorknob jiggled furiously. Momma, let me in!

  Donna looked behind her. Betty was gone. Donna went to unlock the door.

  “No momma!” Betty yelled and popped her head out from under the bed.

  Donna went to her and held her tight. There were vociferous raps on the door. It sounded like a dozen maniacs trying to bust in. A salty-metallic smell filled the room. Donna felt something dripping from the ceiling. She looked up. The walls were bleeding. The raps on the door stopped. Donna watched the lock on the doorknob go to an unlocked position. The door swung open so violently it broke the doorstop and the knob plunged into the wall. A picture of Donna and David together on the lake crashed to the floor cracking the glass on the frame. Blood soaked Donna and Betty’s clothes. A gnarled hand gripped the side of the wall.

  I have to pay Madame Larue.
I pay Madame Larue I can go home—home to momma. Momma waits for me under the pecan tree. I don’t want to sing the blues any more.

  The apparition entered the room. Donna got a look at that withered pale face. The hair on her head was like sludge from a car’s engine. The smell of stale cigarettes blended with the increasing odor of blood. It was the malodorous stench of murder and the blues life that followed Lynette to the other side. Donna’s palpitations were deafening in Betty’s ear as her mother held her tightly. The ghost inched toward them with her arms extended.

  “Harold!” Donna screamed.

  The red demented eyes of the ghost drew nearer. Her pupils were golden. They shined with an awesome glow. She opened her mouth. It was a tunnel of darkness that released the tortured screams of dozens of souls. Betty covered her ears. Lynette’s ghost kneeled to face the petrified woman and her daughter. She sang. Her voice was as beautiful as it was in life.

  Momma say, baby don’t be mad at me

  This life got me beat. I just can’t breath

  You just too young to see

  I’m a go rest by the pecan tree

  When your soul rest come see bout me

  “You’re sad, because your mother killed herself didn’t she?” Donna questioned; hoping somehow to reason with a spirit just hours ago she didn’t believe in. “How can I help you? Let me help you!”

  I have to pay the Madam, so I can go home—go home to momma.

  Lynette’s ghost reached for Donna’s arm. It was teeth chattering cold in the room.

  “It’s okay Netty. “ Sweetwater” come to love you baby,” Elroy said from the bedroom’s doorway.

  I missed you so much Elroy. Lynette turned and moved toward him.

  “You girls go on now,” Elroy directed. “Netty won’t hurt you. Will you Netty?”