THE GHOST OF FAIRFAX

                                           story by Patrick Breheny          pjbreheny@hotmail.com

     It was a time when it was cool to just drop in on people you knew from somewhere else if you had the address, Sure, call, but you might not have the phone number or a phone. Ginty’s car was a battered old Pontiac with a big trunk he carried his carpenter’s tools around in, and such spectacular rear fins it resembled the Batmobile. He pulled into the paved parking area before the tomato patch, in front of Bruce and Sandy’s bungalow. in Fairfax, Marin County, California.

    He knew them from L.A., in the area around LACC when they were all students, and where they’d lived east of Virgil Ave  They were together already then, and now they were in Marin and had a couple of kids. Bruce ran a travel agency that catered to upscale hippies (you know, those morphing to yuppies)  charging them for tips and bookings they could later get from Lonely Planet. Ginty encountered an incipient pair of those on the way from Mount Tam, teenaged hitchhiking boys who whined because he wouldn’t drive them home, which was not along his route.He told them to call their fathers because he wasn’t.

      Sandy took care of the kids and sold her sculpture and hand knits from a shop on the main street. At least that was Ginty’s last fix on them. Today was a hot one, temps in the 90’s. He hadn’t scouted them for two years, and was relieved somebody seemed home, with a funky VW van in the driveway. If the current tenants weren’t Bruce and Sandy, at least they’d be cool.

     He saw the front door was open as he parked, got out, slammed the door to attract more attention, then went to the house What he noticed first was…nothing. Nothing inside but bare walls, bare floor boards. No furniture, no posters, no rugs, no pictures. No sign of life except that van in the driveway.

     He said “Hel-lo”, sang it out, and heard his own voice back flat immediately, not so much an echo as a dreary comment. Yet from somewhere inside a young woman’s voice, sounding unalarmed and perfunctory, almost without interest in the reply, but not coming from an empty house either, queried, “Who’s there?”

     “Sandy?”

    “Yeah. Who is it?”

     “Ginty from L.A.”

     “Shit.”

     Now she came into sight, to what he figured had been the living room, her previous great shape rounded out more since last time, the result of having the two babies, and a little of the age that was invading him. She didn’t ask how he was. She said, “You’re timing’s good. I need a strong back.”

       His turn to say ,”Shit.” and “Maybe as long as a weak mind isn’t also required.”

      “Could be easier to control, but not required. How the hell are you. Ginty?”

       (See, she would ask, just not right away.)

      “Fuckin’ terrific” Then after a pause, where it could seem it just occurred to him he should ask her “And you?”

      “Not so much of that enthusiasm here. Step into my parlor.”

      She turned her back on him and retreated from the room, so of curiosity that killed the cat, and into a parlor where, she just reminded him,  the spider trapped a fly, he recklessly followed.

      And in there was the furniture of a two bedroom cottage, stacked and compressed in one  room, looking malevolent with intent. From the way dressers sagged, he knew the drawers were packed with heavy items like books and dishes. Weak back and strong mind formed the question that had been nagging him since arrival

      “Where’s Bruce?” The six feet, two inched of him.

      “Absent without Leave.  Derelict of duty. A fuckin’ deserter..Fuck Bruce. Weare are you staying tonight?”

      Though an invitation was implied in those words, it didn’t sound by the tone like she meant, Because I really have the hots for you.

      “I’ve been sleeping in my car.”

      “How long you planning to hang around Marin?”

     “Haven’t thought it through.”

     “The rent here is paid for another week. I could leave you a single mattress, a TV, a refridge.”

       He had hoped he might put up some paneling or cabinets for them, crash on their sofa for around a week

     “In return for?”

     “Ginty.”

      “Where to?”

      “I’m moving to my friend Andrea’s in San Rafael.”

     “I’d need another guy to pick up those bureaus you’ve turned into packing crates.”

     “I’ll get you a helper.”

     The helper turned out to be Andrea’s fourteen year old brother, not more than 140 pounds, whose face flushed every time he lifted a hefty item, though to his credit he maintained, and with the women running the less extreme objects, he managed to get it done.

      So, he had necessities---a mattress, a small TV on a stand, a half fridge. Sandy must have decided fast.. Electricity was still on. The phone.  Hot water. He had the incidental benefits of western civilization.

     Once Sandy and the kids were gone, the house indeed felt forlorn. He had friends across the bridge in the city, and there were a couple of bars in North Beach he frequented. He began driving back to Fairfax just to sleep. One night on the way back he picked up a hitchhiking young lady heading to Mill Valley who was up for a detour to smoke a little with him, one thing led to another, and she stayed until noon. He had to notice that the place didn’t feel as cold with her there. Not just vacant and abandoned.  When he was alone, it felt the temperature was much lower, while outside the nights still held the heat from a July day.

     Her name was Cinnamon, and she wasn’t a stick-arounder. Once she had a good sleep she was on her nomadic way. Back then, one was grateful for such interludes and knew better than to attempt bonding capture. If she wanted, she’d be back, but by then he might not be there. What he’d remember most about her---besides what they did---was that she made the house a little warmer.

     For a couple of nights after she left, he arrived late and played the TV louder, until he was ready to drop off to sleep. If he left it blaring, the place was tolerable, but if he turned it off, he’d awake at some odd hour with a sense of dread, adrenalin surging at his  abandonment, teeth chattering, cold and shivering from some unexplainable malady.

     Yet another night, after visiting pals across the Golden Gate, he intended to sleep in his car, but first wanted a shower, the sandwich left in the refrigerator, and a change of clothes The weather was very hot after cool and foggy San Francisco It had been almost a hundred degrees in the afternoon when he left Fairfax.. He thought it might be too hot outside to comfortably sleep in the car, and surely this heat wave was invading the house that had not even a fan. Tonight shouldn’t be so cold, but the moment he walked in, he felt---he could find no words to so well express it as  the old phrase---chilled to the bone. But he wouldn’t get himself psyched . It was vacant, empty, lonely. His imagination was creating a physical manifestation for the lack of human exchange. The cold was a metaphor.

     He was hungry, Very hungry, and needing to fill himself. With that roast beef sandwich. But heat it first in the oven. He wasn’t about to put anything cold inside himself. Sandy  left a couple of dishes, one of which he set the sandwich on, then in an oven rack

     At 300 degrees, it warmed quickly and he brought it to the mattress and TV, situated in what had been the living room. At 3:00 AM, a shopping program was all the TV offered, but voices are voices. Wilted lettuce and tomato with roast beef, garnished by mayonnaise between slices of grain bread, was an exquisite treat.

      He was beginning to feel whole and consoled, of reason again, and was halfway through this  gift from the cosmos when  BAM  BAM   BAM  the back door opened and closed, opened and closed, opened and closed .What he recalled instantly---saw it---was that the door had a three inch security chain on, so that even someone outside with a key couldn’t slam it shut that hard. The door could only be slammed like that from inside the house. But there was hardly anywhere to hide.

     Look he did anyway. In the bathroom. On the utility porch. In the bedrooms. No one could dart from those places without him seeing. And he again found bare rooms. He went back to the nocturnal marketeer, who if not present was at least on the same planet. He sat to finish the sandwich, and again considered sleeping in the car, but somebody or something was trying to drive him out, and it brought on his resistance to bending to another’s will, whatever the source or objective. He was there by Sandy’s permission, had earned the right by his sweat, and he’d stay the night, thank you very much.

     He took the last bite just as they were demonstrating pens that showed the point come out when it was pointed down, and they called it the Gravity Wedge Pen, though he knew  it was a ball bearing that pushed it out. It was correctly a Gravity Pulled Ball Bearing Pen, but con men are allergic to facts Then, from the dining room, which was between Ginty’s camp and the back door, there was a sudden terrible crash of  something heavy and ceramic hitting the floor boards, shattering to chunks and shards, then skittering debris along the floor.

     He was in the dining room post haste, to another demonstration of gravity.. On the floor was a piñata, the souvenir of one of the kid’s birthdays that Sandy had left behind maybe because it reminded her of Bruce. He had hardly noticed it hanging before, but knew the bottom had been batted out at the party for the treats inside. The kids could never destroy it as the fall had. It was a couple of larger  broken sections, and a crash field of stone crumbs and powder. One of the bigger intact pieces was the top, spared by being farthest from the impact, and at the crown of that was a screw holding a strand of rope wound into a loop. The loop had gone into a plant hook secured in the ceiling. The hook was still in the ceiling, the rope hadn’t broken, and the loop was still in place. The only way the piñata could fall was for somebody to lift the rope off the hook

     He decided to be rational. Don’t go for the simplest and least credible postulation. There are magic tricks. Somebody could exit a window when they heard him approaching a room. Except he knew Sandy left them all closed and locked for security. Could a tricky person lure him from the mattress room, then go out the front door?  .Not without Ginty seeing. Well, there were lots of magicians with techniques he couldn’t explain. There had to be a tangible evidentiary explanation, a forensic reality, that he could figure out..

    He played the volume louder on the TV, which was now showing a documentary of massive mayhem in World War II .that wouldn’t be conducive to calm sleuthing, but there was at least there was a human voice narrating it. He was also now feeling poorly of spirit and body, fatigued and suddenly weak. The mattress was looking good. He wondered if the roast beef had turned. Maybe all that was needed was to rest, ignore the distractions. He’d have no choice. He was ill. He lay down, clothes on, and the pillow took him.

       EXCEPT: The TV sound just stopped. He sat up. The black and white picture of the battlefields with soldiers scurrying  was still on, but gone was the consoling, dream inducing clacking of machine guns .and the stern monotone describing it .Had the sound feature just suddenly given out? There was no remote control, and he went over to see what could be done in the way of adjusting. The dial for sound was turned down all the way. He turned it up, and sound returned It had been manually lowered to zero. Nobody came into the room unnoticed and did that three feet from his head, and yet somebody or something had.

     He decided to talk to IT. He said,---negotiating? what did he have to negotiate with?--- “Look, I’m not feeling well. Maybe a little food poisoning.” (Was he pleading?) “I know you’re here, okay. You got my attention. If you can communicate what you want, maybe I can help you. Just stop messing with me or I’ll leave.”

      He was bluffing. He wanted to leave but he was hoping this would do, because he didn’t have the strength to drag himself out to the Batmobile. The house no longer felt cold because he knew he was running a fever. Of the different kinds of food poisoning, he could only hope he had one of the undeadly types.

     How long he slept he didn’t know  The phone by his head--- another utility Sandy hadn’t disconnected--- was ringing loudly as only an old black rotary could. By light seeping under the front door crack, it was daylight. He picked up the receiver, half expecting no one would be there, that this was just another run of the mill paranormal trick, but got in his ear the anticipatory white noise silence of  a  live connection. He managed, through dry lips and tongue, to mumble “Hello?”

      “It’s Sandy.”

      “Sandy?”

      It took him a moment to remember who she was, who he was, where he was, until she said, “I’m going back”

      The brought him to the present, helped his pronunciation, if  even at first it was only,      

“What?”

      “I can’t live with Andrea. I’m moving back.”

      “Can you do that?”

      “I’m a single mother with small children. I can’t be so easily evicted. I just have to move in before she does.”

       The ‘she’ of her reference, he remembered, was the elderly owner who, before Sandy rented, lived there with her sister, who---died in the house---and the surviving one was moving back…

       He said, “Can you wait a couple of days. I can’t help you. I’m sick.”

       “You don’t have to help .I recruited friends”

        “Not today.”.

         “Today .”

         “Please.”

         “The van is already packed. We’re coming.”

          And she hung up.      

          Sandy, the kids running around, all her boxes and furniture, and her helper friends would soon be there. He had to muster the wherewithal to gather his meager collection of items and get out to the car.

     He did manage, and slid into the back seat to recover from the salmoneella or flu or whatever he had. A jacket was a pillow. He’d sleep out the foul bug. Except, he couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t even tired. He felt fine.

       Sandy moved back in. Ginty slept in the car and used the house as a way station. He put food in the refrigerator, shared meals with her and the kids, washed dishes, toileted. showered and shaved there. No more ghostly activity occurred. He wondered if that had been a symptom of his fever.

     He was there when Mrs. Waring came by to state what he had previously only addressed as a question: “You can’t do this.”.

    Sandy reminded her of legal protections in the law for the well being of children.

     Mrs. Waring said, “This is my house. It was too hard to be in when Florence died, but I’m ready to move back.”

      “You can’t put me out in the street.”

      “I rented my other property out. Somebody is moving in. I have to come back here.”       “I have nowhere to go.”

      “Then I’ll move in with you.”

      “Where will you sleep? In the children’s room?”

      “I’ll sleep in the living room.”

      Ginty’s former roost.

     “You’ll have to pay half the rent then.”

      “It’s my house.”

     “I’m renting it  You want to be my roommate, pay half the rent.”

     “I will not.”

     “Work it off then.”

      “And how would I do that?”

      “Clean and cook and wash and iron.”

      “You have cheek, young lady.”

      “What can you do?”

      “Nothing.”

       “Baby sit?”

        “No…Nothing…Well, you mean?....What ?...I’ll be here.”

        “Deal?”

        “Do you work?”

        “I have a shop I could spend more time at. And I’m single again. I want a social life.”

         “If you don’t take my time for granted. Arrange it first. I have a life too.”

         “So deal?”

         “I’ll be here with my belongings tomorrow morning.”

        “Where will you put them?”

        “Beside yours.”

        “Going to be crowded here.”

        “I have a storage locker I can put some furniture in.”

      Her name was Eleanor, she was a good spirited  addition, and took to the kids, Darren the older, and his sister Stacy---California kids’ names to Ginty the Bostonian.

Sandy, freed up started riding into the city with Ginty on his evening excursions .Having been the married Mom a while, she didn’t know people over there, and hung around with him at his drinking holes and visiting his pals. It took a while for either of them to  comprehend, because they hadn’t so much as held hands, but they were…dating. And of course Eleanor was residing in the living room. Sandy had her room, her and Bruce’s former lair, and if they perchance ended up there, somehow Eleanor would make them feel…guilty about that. Not that they ever expressed such inclinations to each other, but one night, after he ‘drove her home’, they began smooching in the Batmobile.like teenagers. It was great, it was being 16 again. Ginty even thought to cop a feel, but he didn’t want her to think he was uncool..

     They talked on the San Fran trips back and forth, and she told him what happened in San Rafael at Andrea’s. Andre had been her best friend, a mother with kids who’d already been ditched by her hippie man, and was often around the house in Fairfax. When Sandy moved in with her in San Rafael, one night over brandy they got chummy about ‘issues’ and Andrea confessed to having been Bruce’s gig.

      When Sandy moved back out, Andrea kept asking “Why?” It took another friend present, Sally, to say, “Can’t you see its Bruce?”

     On a different trip she asked, “Ginty, why did you break my piñata?”

     “I didn’t.”

      “Oh, come on. Were you jealous?

      “Of who?        

       “I don’t know. Of Bruce.  Andrea.”

      “I didn’t break it. The house is haunted.”

       “Oh, don’t give me that spooky stuff. Nobody else was there.”

       “I swear I didn’t.”

       She said nothing more, just gave him that knowing  I- forgive- you, I- guess- you- just- got- a- little- crazy look.

        They transitioned past the inhibition they felt over Eleanor, and he moved in to share Sandy’s room. He was a carpenter and could always find work. Eleanor wouldn’t have to speculate about goings on in there in the wee hours, because unless a very sound sleeper she couldn’t help but hear, but she proved not to be the generational prude they’d put on her. After one particularly amorous night, Sandy inquired with some embarrassment, “Do we disturb you sometimes?”

      Eleanor replied, “Young people need exercise. It doesn’t bother me.”

      Eleanor began referring to her sister as Flo, and often addressing her as if present. 

There was an afternoon when Eleanor went on a dental appointment, Sandy took the kids somewhere, and Ginty was alone. He’d been in the yard starting to build a deck, came in the back door, and of habit put the chain back. He felt compelled to pause there a few moments and consider. The sister had maybe wanted him out because he was a single guy, not the family that had previously been in the house. She’d seemed inactive the night Cinnamon stayed. Now she had the family back, her sister with them, and there was a new man for Sandy. He wondered if she’d somehow been able to get to San Rafael and set Sandy and Andrea against each other. This all came to him as he stood by the back door.

     The chain came off, and the door opened and closed three times gently, then the chain went back on. A tender breeze caressed his face.     

      He could swear, outside, he heard the wind laughing.

      He said, “Well done, Flo.”