Blame it on the closet.

Feeling like a lazy slop I mustered my strength this afternoon and got out of bed. 

The morning had been glorious; full of dreams with epic narrative and adventure and peaceful, cool fall sunshine 

(reflected off the window across the alley).

Breakfast was toast and coffee. Then back to bed.

Nuked chicken pot pie leftovers for lunch with two root beers. The sudden sugar and calories rush got me up and dancing to a post-work playlist I made last spring titled MGMT. Shuffle. The most depressing songs came on first. 

(Is all of this playlist so melloncholy?)

Now playing: My Body is a Cage by Arcade Fire.

The song was wrong. All wrong. No song could have been worse at that moment. With the aid of those melodic tones and suspenseful beats the darkened bedroom doors began to look like decaying gaping maws, yearning for me, their stench making it tough to breathe, toxic hands reaching out to pull me in. 

I pulled the doors closed.

(Don't approach it!)

(...not all the way closed...let some air in)

The first door pulled closed easier and had nothing obscuring it. 

My doorway had the stereo cord running through it. I couldn't unplug it. I'd lose my morose music. 

My room was dark. I had turned off the lights and gotten dressed before turning on the music. As I pulled the door closed I saw part of my room faintly illuminated in what must have been the florescent glow the closet makes when you open the left hand side of the closet's double-doors.

(I didn't leave that open.)

The door closed

(most of the way).

I tried to dance. Tried to exercise. 

(I must have left it open.) 

Song change. Five more song changes. 

Nor playing: Golden Years by David Bowie.

Much more relaxing. 

(That door is still open.)

With the brightest lights in my apartment on I tried to dance. Five songs later I couldn't take it anymore. I had to tell somebody about that door. First step to closing it is ackgnolegding that there is nothing scary going on here

(it's just your stupid negligence. There are no Ghosts here).

I start to type and instinctively glance over at the door to my bed room. As I'm looking at it a breeze runs through it and the door gapes open slightly, welcoming me back. Weakly I close the computer, walk over to the room, and turn off the music. 

(Nothing is there.)

The other door slams shut.

(wind)

I push my door open.

(There is nothing there.)

I turn on the big light.

(See? I told you.)

My room is exactly as I left it. I looked toward the light coming from my closet, to my right

(wasting electricity). 

 I walked over and closed both doors at once. A gust of wind rushed past me from 

(somewhere)

inside the closet as the doors shut with a click.

(They could just as easily click open again.)

(No they can't.)

I have homework to do. I'm supposed to be writing a business plan for my possible future goat dairy. I can't be obsessing over a closet that isn't haunted.

(then why the fear?)

It isn't haunted. That's a stereotype. It doesn't matter that every time I see it ajar a chill runs down my spine. I'm sure the reason I advert my gaze every time I close it is that I'm a coward. That must be it. There's no way my closet is inhabited with evil

(sucking my lifeforce).

There's just no way.

Faces

I may be the only person you've ever heard of who has a haunted coat. My memory keeps trying to protect me by making these images lost to the dark recesses of my mind only to resurface in the depths of night when the cold sweat of fear starts to creep up my lower back. It's then that you have to slow down. If you run or act panicked they will know and give chase. If you keep your cool they think they have the upper hand and allow you time to crawl back under the covers. Pull them up over your head.

I've been seeing faces. Then they disappear and I forget them. This is important--proof-- I need to remember.

Last Sunday I was up at my friend Scott's apartment in that giant old building on the corner of 72nd and Amsterdam/Broadway. You'd know it if you saw it. Huge and old and towering over the intersection. We were overcome by a longing for french onion soup so we took an excursion out to Fairway a couple blocks north. We came back, set the groceries down and took off our coats. It was cold this weekend. We needed our winter coats. Mine is this big gray thing with an intensely high collar I can get lost in. The inside of the sleeves is silky. I pulled my iphone out of the pocket and held it pressed against my palm, unaware of pressing any buttons. Suddenly the device sprang to life. The camera+ app opened and the flashlight turned on (I didn't know it could do that). Then the camera focused and refocused on the inside sleeve of my jacket. A sign kept popping up "Cannot take photo" or something like that. No explanation why not. When I saw what the camera was focusing on I wanted to take a picture but the button was grayed out.

There, in the crook of the sleeve inside the big gray winter coat was a face. A man's face. With a big gnarly nose and angry beady eyes. I tried to save the frame but pictures had been disabled. I blinked. The face was still there, glaring at me through the camera. All his features mysteriously in beige beneath my flash.

"Hey Scott," I said. "There's a face."

Scott looked and paled slightly. "V," he said. "I think you're the only person in the universe with a haunted coat."

I let that incident slip out of my mind a little. For the purpose of mental stability (a futile effort). Then last night I couldn't sleep. My head would droop into the book I was reading (The Shining) and I would snooze and drool a little on the page, wake up, wipe my mouth, turn off the light, and stay awake. Forty-five minutes later I'd switch the light back on and resume reading/snoozing. Around dawn the light was off and I had no plans of turning it back on until morning; but there was enough light to see by from the city's glow through my semi-opaque blinds.There was a woman in bed with me. Her face on the pillow next to mine. She was tan, brunette, and she smiled slightly when our eyes met. I blinked rapidly and she disappeared-- melted into the folds of the purple throw blanket she had possessed. Melted into the recesses of my memory to be forgotten as a dream.

I never had any dreams of being in my own bed before we were haunted.

As I'm writing this right now the cat ghost is staring at me. Her head turned, her ears pricked. I go over to look at her and she's back to normal. Floating in the center of her black canvas. Looking ahead. Blurry.

My Ghosts - a poem

Lucas says

I got my ghosts from the Chelsea.

I suppose that could be true.

I can't remember

(the trouble sleeping)

before the Chelsea.

I am sure (I had nightmares 

before my 

(divorced)

father moved us to the Chelsea Hotel.

It was in elementary school that I became aware

and obsessed

with ghosts.

Wonder how many kids

made their stories up?

(Mine were true.)

We would huddle in the closet.

Swap stories.

Then one time in college

we were five of us

(in a bed.) Telling ghost stories.

and Hawaiian Ledgends.

This one guy says "Wow,

You must have a Dark

---spirit

following you

or something. 

And it hit me.

I have ghosts.

Must have picked them up in the Chelsea.

"May I come in?"

In honor of the holiday I am going to share with you a story I just heard tonight.

Last year or so my friend was standing on some scenic cliff near Santa Monica taking pictures. This woman appeared while he was photographing the scenery and stood in his view. Shot after shot she insisted on being in. Finally she comes right up close to him and says "Listen, I've really been having a rough day. Can I come home with you?"
My friend looks at her and says "I've got four guys living back at my place. I'd love to invite you over but there's no room." and he leaves. Couple days later he's going through his film of that day. All the shots of rocky scenery are there but no shots of that lady existed.
So tonight my friend tells me this story, then he says "So you see, I was taking pictures of Jesus."
Without even thinking I said "That wasn't Jesus." The room went cold. My friend stiffened slightly. "Jesus would never have to ask to be invited in," I said. "Jesus is always here. He is everywhere. What you saw was something else."
Notice: only servants of Satan need to be invited in. You can invite them in directly, where they appear harmless and ask you straight out, or it can be something as simple as believing in a Ouija board and providing the spirits in your house a doorway into your reality. Even believing in the ghost of my dead cat come back to protect my family from evil spirits allows the spirits room to exist in my reality. Damn. I'm screwed...

Is it called a tourniquet if it's used for torture?

There are two ways to tell this story. One is considerably more exciting than the other.
I almost died this week. First I slammed my head into a shelf while playing around on an exercise ball, then I woke up and slammed my forehead into my sturdy orange bedside table, and finally, twenty-four hours later, I fainted at the 116th Cathedral Parkway number one train station and landed on my face.
I feel like an idiot. More than that, I feel like I have the worst headache and my nose won't stop running. If I die in the next few days, blame the United States health insurance system for making me afraid of hospitals.
Or blame something way more exciting.
The exercise ball was my fault. I wasn't thinking clearly that day. It was nearly impossible to think clearly after that though. Making me prime for possession. Dostoevsky includes a character in Crime and Punishment who rambles and raves about the ghosts he has seen. He says you can only see the other side when you are close to death yourself, because why would you need to see it were you not in need of hope.
After the first head injury I was weak. When that female presence who frequently appears at dawn to yell at me showed up she found me thus weakened and was empowered to force my head to collide with the bedside table. I woke up due to the force of movement and then passed out again with my new concussion. That Lady, feeling triumphant, vanished for the night.
The next evening at choir practice something drew my attention to the balcony that sits above the front door. Earlier in the evening two men had been walking around up there but they had packed up and gone. For a second there was a woman standing there. She was garbed all in black with a black veil, holding the banister. I blinked and she was never there. 
When she appeared later I was out--sleuthing around Columbia with a friend. A little after 3 am we bid good night to each other and I went down into the one train station. 116th Street Cathedral Parkway. I had just missed a train. Fourteen minutes until the next South Ferry bound one. There was an odd number of construction workers and a man sitting on the opposite platform.
"The next South Ferry bound one train will arrive in seven minutes," the automated message reported after what felt like twenty.
I was beginning to get warm. There was no ventilation in that tunnel like platform. Tomb. She showed up and waited. Watched.
I looked at my phone. It was half passed three. Sent a text to my friend saying "14 minute wait b" because I couldn't correct the b to a period as the world swam and I pocketed my phone.

I was sitting in a tall backed wooden chair in a dimly lit chamber. They had a thick leather strap around my head and it felt like they were tightening it.

"Ow, You're hurting my head," I said and the sound make me come to.
"Miss! Miss! Are you all right?" people were screaming at me from fifty feet away.
"Oh shit," said to myself then "I'm sorry!" to everybody else.
"Did you fall asleep or do we need to call for help?" the man from across the platform yelled.
"Fell asleep! Sitting down now," I called back. "I'm fine," to the construction workers down the platform. I wasn't fine, though.
The subway rattled into the station and I scrambled onto it. The doors closed on my shadow and we rumbled off. I removed my hat and scarf and sat sweating. My head felt like something had bashed it into the wall and the floor. Half the route later I was home. Tired and weakened for another attack but on guard. Today I will burn sage and drink lots of water and tomorrow I will go to church.

Out.
V.

#13 W. Crack-In-The-Universe Street, New York.

Big Moose Lake

I don't know how haunted the lake is. It tops the list of most haunted places in the state, but I think that's just because it's in the Adirondacks, which starts with A. My father used to take me and my brother up there every summer to stay at the last great American lodge.

My father and I were always friendly with the waitresses. One of them, Emily, lived across the lake and commuted to work in her own motorboat. When the dining hall was closed she would sit on the docks and draw the loons. One time she took my family out for a ride in her boat. She took us to the gas station dock where we got Sugar Daddy's and then she drove us all the way to the other end where there appeared to be a creepy lagoon. I remember there was always a fog over the lake and it seemed to originate in that part. Emily drove us into the very middle and shut down the motor.

Then she told us a story. In 1906 this scumbag, Chester Gillette, was two-timing a lot of chicks when one of them, the poor one, Grace Brown, got pregnant. So, being the scumbag he was, Chester took his pregnant girlfriend for a peaceful boat ride on Big Moose Lake one day. She never returned. In one account he hit her over the head with a tennis racket and pushed her over the edge, in another it was an oar, in one story the boat capsized by accident and Grace couldn't swim. Sources say her body washed up on shore the next day. Emily told us she was never found-- still in the lake, she said. The story has been made into at least two novels, one movie (staring the late Elizabeth Taylor with her huge doe eyes and Montgomery Cliff as the troubled Gillette) and an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. 

I looked out at the fog as she was talking. And then down at the murky green water and tried to see Grace down at the bottom. 

That night I had a dream. I was sleeping in my bed at the lodge when a fog started rolling in. The lamps along the sidewalk that ran along side that part of the lake started going out, one by one as the fog hit them. The scene turned eerie, cold, dark, cast in blue. At the far end of the sidewalk from our house a woman appeared. She was in a long light dress, made pale green from the lake. She started walking slowly. The fog proceeding her with each step. Lamps flickering off as she approached them. Until the whole lake was dark, silent, and her face was in my window. 

That is the only nightmare I ever had at that lake.