by Jack Cady
Difficult memories, these. It is also difficult to separate feelings about WWII, from those of localized wars that have happened since. America would lose 33,529 of her people in Korea, above 60,000 in Vietnam; but in this war 406,000 were lost; and that in a nation of 100 million (today we are 267 million.)
In that small town, Halloween usually progressed with boring predictability. Kids went costumed, soaped windows, and youths sixteen years and up, tipped over outhouses (yes, many people still had outhouses.) Occasionally, while stealing pumpkins to smash on porches, a miscreant would run into a farmer who carried a shotgun filled with rock salt. The blast tore the salt to dust, and the dust bored beneath skin so that the unlucky target “scratched where it didn’t itch” for weeks. But all of that, as I say, was “ordinarily”.
On this Halloween there were sixteen-year-olds, but few eighteen-year-olds, and almost no twenties. Those not in the Army were in the Navy, or the Army Air Corps; and it is with the Air Corps, and a piano, and a witch, that this story begins:
My family’s across-the-street-neighbor-lady lives in memory as The Widow, for her last name is lost. She was only a little dumpy, wore plain house dresses, and had become reclusive.
She had a son, Darrell, age eighteen, and a daughter, Janine. When he was alive, Darrell made model airplanes that really flew. During my growing-up, and because of the airplanes, he was one of my heroes. He went to war; an early casualty, his bomber blown to bits with no survivors.
To a ten-year-old, Janine seemed ancient, but I now know she could not have been more than twenty. Even in that small town, where — if anybody thought about art they felt threatened — it was known that Janine was a musical prodigy. On soft summer nights, with windows open, she would play ballads instead of classical exercises. Neighbors gathered on porches, watched lightning bugs, and listened to the best musical renditions that most of them would ever hear. After Darrell was killed there were no more ballads, and the music became subdued.
The witch was Mrs. Lydia Kale. She was, it was rumored, nothing but a fearful old country woman moved to town shortly after WWI; angry and bitter from a life spent in a places so small that people walked to church. No one knew why she came. No one cared.
To a ten-year-old she meant fright. Most people, I believe, remember at least one “mean lady” from their childhoods, but Mrs. Lydia Kale really was mean. She would grab a child, shake and mutter. She would even send curses when a kid passed on the sidewalk. She insulted preachers (no one else dared), and she intimidated adults.
She remains a crazed figure, dressed as dark as night wings. Her hair did not flow in the wind; nothing like that. Her hair was as white as her clothes were black, and her hair was worn in a tight knot at the back of her head. No one knew what she hated most.
These, then, were the players in that Halloween when, dressed in an old bed sheet and wearing a “funny face” (our name for mask) I embarked after a warning:
“Do not,” my mother said, “go to any house with a gold star.” She was adamant.
During that war, families with sons in the service hung small flags in their windows. A silver star on a blue field meant a man still serving. A gold star meant a man dead. Some houses had both kinds.
What does a ten-year-old know? More, I think, than I believed when I sat down to write this small tale. I remember stepping into a wind-blown, leaf-blown night — 7 p.m. but midnight dark — with dry leaves scurrying.
Something was wrong with the night. Other kids trotted past, laughing and whooping. Older kids hid in shadows, soaping windows, or suddenly appearing as they tried to scare each other. A normal Halloween, but something was wrong with the night.
I could not get in motion. I sat on a step at the side of the house feeling “wrong.” An adult would say that he felt depressed, perhaps beleaguered. Children did not then know such words.
I finally understood that it was Darrell. He moved out there in the night, standing in his own yard amidst gusts of wind, flying airplanes. I could, but vaguely, see him. I could feel him. I could even feel the balsa wings fight the wind, rise, and rise higher.
And what the hell did I know about death? All I knew was that Darrell would not hurt me. But he was supposed to be gone. Lost, somewhere in the South Pacific.
There came music in the wind, but only gradually. Janine, when at that keyboard, found comfort beyond religion, beyond philosophy. The music began as light finger exercises and light runs, the kind of practice that lifts wings.
They were, brother and older sister, somehow together. I don’t know, and never will, if Janine knew what was happening. I do know that for what seemed a long time I sat waiting. The planes rose into the wind, the rubber bands that drove them somehow never unwinding. They flew and flew. Music lifted them; and Darrell was no more than a moving shadow.
I hope Janine knew. I think Janine knew. Because of what happened.
There was music in the wind, a ghost in the wind, and so who needed a witch? And besides, Mrs. Lydia Kale was a daytime witch who never stepped outdoors at night.
Her clothes were black. Only her white hair was a trace of her slow movement through the wind. It came to me that Mrs. Lydia Kale must be very, very old. Music, or Darrell, pulled her forward. Wind, only strong enough to scatter leaves, seemed to press her back. She had to walk a short block, and yet it took awhile.
Twenty-five years before, back in WWI, our nation had lost 116,000 sons. Tales of that war still covered the town. And, Mrs. Lydia Kale walked slow.
It was a night of shadows. On the darkened back porch, and facing the yard where Darrell flew his planes, The Widow appeared. She moved timidly. The Widow was but a dumpy form, a darker shadow among shadows. The music did not crescendo, but began to rise. Some sort of fury, or anger, or sorrow propelled the music; but Janine was already a master. She had it under control.
The shadows came together, but gradually. Mrs. Lydia Kale walked along the sidewalk, while in the yard the planes rose. I think she saw nothing. I think she wanted to see nothing. The Widow stepped from the back porch, moving slowly to the sidewalk. In that dark night the two forms came together. I could only see the white hair of Mrs. Lydia Kale. It seemed, to a child, that there was but one person out there, white-haired.
I do not know why Darrell appeared, and can’t say exactly when he left. Mystery lived in the night, and the two women who seemed to have become only one woman, stood silent. From the house the music became, for a few moments, tender. That must be when Darrell left.
And then the music began to weep. It filtered through the night, through wind, and across the street to ten-year-old ears. The three women held the night, or pressed it back. The young woman wept above her keyboard, wept with her keyboard. The two older women simply held each other and wept.
ON WRITING THE GHOST STORY
Approach the Cathedral from the south and walk around it three times. On the third time, stop before the second gargoyle from the southwest corner. Spin around seven times very slowly while repeating ‘aroint ye, aroint ye, aroint ye,’ and your warts will disappear.
And, wouldn’t you know, that ancient man followed instructions and his warts dried up. The happy results might have caused him to figure that time and expense going into cathedral construction was money well spent. He probably said as much to his neighbors. Word probably got back to the local priest, and the priest had to deal with it; just as we do, today.
The priest would have said, “Miracle,” or at least, “Blessing.” He would be quick to point out that it was Faith, or the presence of the cathedral that caused disappearing warts. It was not the gargoyle. Or, maybe he would have said something else. After all, it was a long time ago.
Today, we might say “coincidence,” or “the placebo effect.” We might say, “Quaint story, and isn’t it wonderful how even the ancients could spread a certain amount of bull.”
Having said that, we could dismiss the story and turn away. We could, in fact, make the same mistake tha
t many have made since the rise of science and rationality in the 18th century. The mistake is best termed “denial of evidence.” In its way, it is quite as serious as previous mistakes that denied all rationality and/or science. The universe, I fear, is rather more complicated than we might wish.
For that reason (complication) and because unseen matters sometimes compel me, I wish to spend a few moments giving a definition, and making distinctions. There are reasons to write what I call The Fantastic, and they have nothing to do with notoriety, fame, or money.
Definition: The Fantastic deals in those elements of human experience unexplainable by logic or reason. Such elements may exist within the human mind, or they may exist beyond it.
As we approach distinctions, let us first acknowledge that just because we name something doesn’t mean we understand it. We generally understand bull, but not always, because it’s an easy excuse for not thinking. We feel that we almost understand coincidence, but coincidence sometimes gets stretched to the breaking point. It gets just too blamed coincidental. If miracles occur, we understand either “faith” or “gee-whiz,” and that’s about it.
We haven’t the foggiest notion about the placebo effect. Physicians know it exists, and physicians use it as standard medical doctrine, but they can’t explain it. Nor can they define or explain death, although they can generally tell when it happens. They cannot define life, though science struggles mightily to create it; and, when successful, still won’t be able to explain it: only how they made it come to pass. We give names to things, partly, it seems, so we can live comfortably beside matters beyond understanding.
At the same time, it would be the height of stupidity to deny the values of science and rationality. Science helps our understanding. Rationality helps. Logic helps. I stand amazed, sometimes, at the complexities that science reveals about the natural world, and about genetics, physics, astronomy. The trick is to understand that science and rationality are not geared to deal with every problem.
There’s a problem of matters that exist “beyond all understanding,” a religious phrase describing religious peace. If the phrase didn’t go beyond religion, we could categorize it and feel comfortable. To our discomfort, though, “matters beyond all understanding” do not reduce to a single category. Some people have proclaimed this for a long time.
For example, back in the 19th century a social philosopher named Herbert Spencer claimed that we live with The Known, The Unknown, and the Unknowable. Spencer was often a pain-in-the-intellect. He was conceited beyond belief 1 but at least he acknowledged something that the 20th century, and now the 21st, seem to deny. Some things are unknowable, and we live with a little less comfort when we accept that notion.
On the other hand, I here aver that too much comfort is dangerous, anyway, and that is one reason why I explore and write The Fantastic. My other reason has to do with history, a subject to turn to, later.
I first propose my discomfort. I do not know why a secondary power station in San Jose holds, for me, a sense of evil and dread. It’s not the invisible strength that comes from the transfer of electricity, because no other power station causes such sensations. I do not know why I feel surrounded by peace and enormous power when entering a Tlingit cemetery in Sitka. I do not know why the late night roads through mountains or beside rivers offer sights more slippery than hallucinations; because hallucinations are positive things. I don’t know why the voice of a father or brother suddenly sounds from the inner part of my mind, and saves me from being hit by a drunken driver. And, intuition remains a mystery, though I use it successfully in writing and in other forms of living.
I do know that intuition can be trained. In other days when I drove truck long distance, my intuition rose to the task as thousands and thousands of miles piled up. There came a time when, while pulling up the back side of a hill, I knew that trouble lay ahead: a wreck, a cop car, a washed bridge, a tree in the road… and I didn’t “think” it or “feel” it. I knew it. This, despite the absence of clues. There were no lights in the sky, no sounds, and nothing unusual about the road.
I also know of an invisible world that some folks try to explain. The explainers speak of parallel universes, or past lives, or spirits. Perhaps one or more of their notions is correct. Perhaps all three are a crock, because plenty of flummery surrounds these notions. Phony mystics sell cheap tricks to the gullible: séances, mysterious rappings on tables, or flying saucer rings in hayfields. There’s no end to the clap-trap.
And yet… there is evidence, centuries of it. Things Unknowable go on in the universe, but they also go on in the human mind. When rationality is applied to that Something, rationality generally ends up sounding silly.
For example, some who have had a near-death experience report seeing a tunnel of light. The rational explanation for this is offered as: “Your endorphins were kicking in. No wonder you felt wonderful.”
It’s a questionable analysis, and probably silly. When a person is dying, there’s no evolutionary survival-reason for endorphins. That is especially true if one is dying without pain. As explanation, the use of endorphins seems an assertion of faith about biological fact. It is no better than tripe purveyed by the average faith healer.
There are at least four fields of evidence that rise among humans: religious, observational, luck, and creativity. Perhaps one or more are connected, perhaps not.
The first body of evidence concerns the religious and miraculous: the appearance of apparitions, or guidance by an unseen hand. The centuries are filled with reports of healings (Lourdes a modern example), visions, Joan of Arc, Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy; and among contemporaries, the reported appearance of the Virgin Mary at Medjugorje. Such appearances are generally accompanied by revelations.
Guidance by an unseen hand has been reported so often in the history of America, that is practically a rib in our body politic. Many, perhaps most, substantial reports come from Puritans and Quakers in the 17th century. We have records of ships blown so far off course that death from starvation was inevitable; yet a sign in the heavens, and a correcting wind saved them.
One must approach such evidence with skepticism, but also with an open mind. After all, we have records of such evidence (in the western world) for over two thousand years. The odds on all of it being meaningless are impossibly long. There’s just too much of it. We can’t explain it. Perhaps we can’t understand it, but it is the height of folly to deny that it exists.
Further, it is just plain impotent to say that if evidence cannot be duplicated, and thus subject to scientific method, it does not constitute evidence. There’s no scientific way to explain sources of religious revelation. Yet, religious revelation happens over and over in history.
The second body of evidence is generally dismissed as illusory, or coincidental, or fabrications by unsettled minds. It includes ghostly sightings, flying saucers, possession by the Devil (or something equally nasty) and communications from the dead.
The standard responses to such evidence is generally, “It’s a damnable lie,” or, “Oh, lordy, I believe.” Very few responses say, “I wonder?” or, “Let’s examine the evidence.”
If we do, we find that it is almost always intensely personal. While the first body of evidence is sometimes communal, this second sort is singular. Groups of people hardly ever see ghosts. Flying saucers, or lights in the sky, may be seen by large groups; but encounters with flying saucers are almost exclusively reported by individuals or couples. Possession by evil is generally one-on-one (although when we arrive at a discussion of creativity we’ll see it happen to groups), and messages from the dead are exclusively reported by individuals. (Group séances may well be unrepresentative because of a long record of charlatanism.)
This second body of evidence can be subject to both psychological and physical examination. Some people are amazingly neurotic. Some are insane. Some are physically unbalanced. And for some, there seems no help. It is as if some genetic flaw, some “bad seed” compels th
em. Physicians can measure brain waves and chemical imbalances. Psychiatrists can exert their skills. Between medicine and psychiatry many are helped and some are healed.
If we set aside all evidence given by those who are emotionally or physically injured, we are still confronted by countless reports from people who are as sensible as salt. They are not famous liars. Some of them are beyond reproof or reproach. They are not lying, and have no record of hallucinations. For them, at least, something happened. They can’t prove it. Yet, because of who they are, and because of their great numbers through the ages, their testimony constitutes valid evidence. I would, for example, no more argue with the mystical knowledge of some American Indians, than I would argue with the sun.
Good luck constitutes a third body of evidence. It sometimes happens beyond all statistical probability. It is with luck of gamblers that we see evidence of something “going on” that cannot be rationally explained. It is probably statistically impossible to make seventeen or eighteen successful passes with dice, yet it occasionally happens. I have seen three royal flushes in a night of poker. The winning hands were held by different people. No one in the game had sufficient skill to cheat, and the cards were not marked. And, we were playing for pennies, thus with no great motive to cheat. Three such hands in one night (with no wild cards) are statistically impossible. Gamblers speak of “lucky streaks,” and “hot dice.” One branch of psychology speaks of “extra sensory perception.”2
Bad luck is practically impossible to demonstrate, but scarcely anyone over age twenty-five has not experienced a year in which a series of major bad things happened. I’m sure we’ve all heard someone speak to the effect, “I wouldn’t live 1988 (or some other year) over again for all the money in the world.”