Andy's Room

A Crack in the world

 

He woke up. It was still dark. Off to the side he could just see the light around the top and one side of the door. He was probably three or maybe four, but he had no sense of that now. His big brother was there. Andy pointed to the crack in the ceiling. It bothered him. What was it? What did it mean? Dan said that was the ghost crack, the crack to The Other Side. If he wasn’t very quiet the ghosts would know he was there. Andy wasn’t sure if his brother went back to his own big bed, or if he left the room. He could do that, just leave the room. Dan didn’t have bars on his bed like Andy had on his.  

In the dark from his bed he could just make out the crack in the ceiling. He stared at it – hard. He looked away fast. Had he seen it move? Couldn’t be, it was just a crack. A crack couldn’t do anything could it? He looked to his stuffed bunny, there beside him. Pulled it closer, buried his face in it. After a long time he looked at the ceiling. It had seemed to move just a little he thought. He pulled the covers up over his head. He wanted to call out for Mommy, Daddy, someone, anyone to come get him, come turn on the light. But he could make no sound. Not. A. Sound.   

After another long time nothing had come and gotten him yet. He pulled the covers down away from his eyes just enough, just barely enough, to see out through the wooden bars of his bed into the dark beside him. Nothing was there. He pulled the covers up over his head again. It seemed cold when he uncovered his head. Were Ghosts cold? 

He slowly pulled the covers down again. He did not look right at the crack in the ceiling. He somehow thought that maybe it only moved, only opened when you looked at it. Was that right, or did it only move if you stopped looking at it? If that was true he hadn’t looked at it for a long time and maybe it was way big open now. He looked. It hadn’t moved. He looked harder. It moved. It didn’t. Did. Didn’t. He covered his head up again. If it got him, he would stay gotten for a really long time, maybe forever. He wasn’t sure either, what forever was, but sensed it meant for real and for keeps and maybe even past then. 

 

He pulled the covers down again. He was sure the crack had gotten wider, deeper, and blacker inside. He looked away and then back. It was the same as when he first looked at it. But there, off to the side, where the ceiling met the wall, now he saw a spider web. Spider webs meant spiders.. A Spider! It wasn’t. It was. Wasn’t. Was. He covered his head with the blanket again. Did spiders only move when you were looking or when you weren’t looking? 

That reminded him he hadn’t been watching the crack. He had to know, even if looking meant it would move while he watched. He looked. It was wider. It wasn’t. It was. It grew wider and wider still; began to open downward into the room. It was really dark inside, but he could tell something was moving. He could feel it coming to get him. He pulled the covers up over his head. He thought sure there was something, something mean and angry and hungry in the room with him now.  

At that moment he was sure it would be bad. It would hurt and hurt and be scary and sad and hurt some more, for longer than anything ever and there was no one to help him because he could not move or make a sound. 

 

Andy woke up. It was lighter in his room now. The side of his bed was down, like when Mommy came to get him. But Mommy wasn’t there. His gaze shot up to the ceiling. The crack, little more than a squiggly line on the ceiling. It was the same as it had always been. His brother Dan’s bed was gone. The funny cactus lamp was gone. The rug was gone. The bookshelf that held his Little Golden books and Dan’s big books was gone. Everything in the room, except his bed, was gone. He stood there in his pajamas looking for a long time at the floor where the rug should be. It was covered with a thick dust. 

He had to find Dan, he had to find Mommy, or maybe even Daddy for this! He ran into the hall,down to the first place the steps stopped, to the front window. There were no curtains on the window. The window was covered in dust. He rubbed the dust away with his hand and wiped his hand on his Roy Rogers pajamas. When he stood on his tip-toes and looked out the window he could see his parents’ car out in front of the house in the street below. There were people in the car. 

 He ran, almost stumbling down the rest of the stairs, suddenly knew that the living room downstairs was bare of furniture, that the whole house was empty of everything except fort maybe ghosts. He got to the front door. Pulled with all his might on the big wooden door, and again, and more frantically still and finally got it open. He couldn’t open the screen door. He banged and banged on the door, trying to get the people to see him, to hear him. They were going away. They couldn’t hear him and they didn’t see him. 

The car slowly pulled away from the curb and drove away. He sat down on the floor and cried. And cried harder. And cried some more.  

Andy woke up. It was too dark where he was. There was a crack of light in the floor. He needed what was on the other side. He pushed the crack open, slowly, quietly. There was something alive sleeping in the room below.

And Andy was hungry.

things I remember

Walking out the back door, across the flagstone patio, down to the creek he saw that it had shrunk back down. The earlier heavy rain had brought the tiny creek from a foot deep to more like ten, roaring at flash flood speed over all in it's path. He watched closely along the bank, scrubbed bare now. There, just there, some oddness, a hole too big for frog or snake.  He dug, and digging down found the shell. A painted turtle or what remained of  one.

Some would find it grisly. To him it was a marvel of design and more. A symbol for his people, some of them, of strength and protection, even though it couldn't protect the inhabitant from the earlier flood.

Turning from the bank he caught the smell, musky and sharp, taste of an old penny on the tongue. He froze in place, knowing that taste, that smell for the only thing it could be. Cotton Mouth. It was the only creature here to be feared, killer venomous, evil tempered and devious.  Picking up his staff he swiveled slowly at the waist, not daring to move his legs yet. It had to be close. After standing there, half crouched for some long minutes, sure it was not directly under foot, he retreated into the creek. If he could smell it, it probably was not in the water.

Wading back upstream towards the house he kept a sharp eye out for any movement, any sign. Finally, coming abreast of the back porch, quickly charging up the bank, glad to be getting out of the snake's territory.  He carried his treasure, the new old turtle shell into the basement to be put with the other half dozen collected over the last couple of years. Some day the inspiration would come, he would know how to paint them, to bring luck, power, or perhaps just the connections with this place and his people he cherished.

To my Brother G, childhood memories

Coffeyville, Kansas, about 1967 or '68, walking home, maybe about eight or nine years old, from the west on 10th street. crossing to our alley at the end of the block. 


About then I was surprised to hear really quite loud rock n roll, blasting down the alley way. I recall  thinking Oh, some old people are gonna be yelling at someone about that. I walked on.  Once I got a couple of backyards down the alley, it was obvious the sound was coming from OUR old carriage house garage, OUR HAYLOFT! (I'm guessing Dad wasn't home). You were singing, um, pretty much screaming actually,  Purple Haze.


I went up to be in on this strange & amplfied wondrous happening.  I was the kid, didn't get to stay long.


My second mind expanding shock of the day came maybe an hour or less later. I was on the screened in back porch, trying to make a tornado out of play-dough. It was then a quite attractive young  lady, probably Joanne came walking towards me from the direction of the alley, with the bright sun behind her, silhouetting her form through a white  and yellow cotton dress. I had never seen that back lighted kind of view before. Oh my.


I remember her smiling and talking to me(probably asking after you) as she came towards me. It was pretty amazing, perhaps, as I say, even mind-expanding to an impressionable eight or nine year old. Now I can't help but see her, that dress,  or the old carriage house garage, whenever I hear Purple Haze.  

rock 101-mid 1960's

Mid 1960's; I remember that guitar, my big brother's Fender Duo-Sonic. I was too young to know it fretted badly. For many years I thought it had been a Telecaster or Strat, until corrected. I had never even heard of a Duo-Sonic.

I remember it from the living room on 9th st.,Coffeyville, Kansas(We killed the Dalton gang-woo-hoo?). I would have been six or seven-ish. I was not allowed to touch it, though I dearly wanted to.
It could not have been a more magical or mysterious an object to me if, if - anything. It seems like I only remember seeing it played about once each by my brother G. and by Dad. I may be remembering imagining or dreaming of Dad playing it. 

It did seem like seeing/hearing G. playing became much more frequent after the appearance of the Goya acoustic. I noticed here they're requesting photos of Duo-sonics and some other "obscure" Fenders. Man, wouldn't we both love to have that back, if only to put it on auction, or perhaps in a vault.
Here's a related memory - I remember being downtown, Coffeyville, Kansas at night, 9th street in front of about Newberry's, and seeing G. and some other guys, all about sixteen or seventeen, on a trailer, going down the street playing. Midnight Madness? The Roaches? was that a dream?