about pitching a tent on Lake Amanda. I once yearned to roam, abandoning established life, a drifter with no
home, ever walking into the sunset. Duh!
I lived in the house on Valley Street on and off until age fourteen.
My mom was a beautiful undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and my dad was a handsome playboy who cheated on
her with the ugliest women he could find. They fought like dogs and cats. They would have a big fight and she
would snatch up my younger sister Vickie and me and move back in with her folks, who lived for years and years
in the top apartment on Valley Street. Then they would make up, get their belongings out of storage and start all
over. This happened three major times that I can remember, before they finally divorced for the first time, in
1961, when I was five.
It must have been in November, because he told her he was going deer hunting, when he was really going dear
hunting. Not just any dear, either. He was having an affair. With his bestfriend's wife. And his friend caught
them together en flagrant, gave my mom a head's up. On the rebound, mom began an affair with the local Dutch
Oven Deliveryman. He would visit her on his route. We girls were ordered to stay outside while they enjoyed a
quick cuchi cuchi bum bum, as my husband Nabo calls it. She must have thought I was dumb. But I knew exactly
what was up. No pun intended. That went on for awhile and then the doo doo hit the fan, big time. There was a big
fight, and I found myself living above a haunted apartment. Again.
We lived there for a year or so. Mama found a waitress job working nights at the University Yacht Club, on Lake
Amanda. Her parents, my Mama and Papa Dorsey, and their youngest daughter Pam babysat. On the nights she
was off, she partied down. Sometimes she took us to dance halls and ordered us to dance for her friends. Those
were the days when divorcees had bad reps, whether they had earned them or not. Papa Dorsey was old
fashioned; he thought it was shameless for mama to be out dancing and drinking and we all know what. On the
nights she went on dates alone, she would come home late and her dad would be waiting for her. He was a pistol in
his cups and they were a matched set of six shooters. He would meet her at the front door and they would curse
and holler at each other and sometimes actually come to blows.
She finally had enough, and we moved into a housing project. She began dating a work buddy, and, in 1962, she
came up pregnant. Big trouble. He offered to run off with her to Florida until the baby was born, but he didn't
want Vickie and me. So she called up my dad and asked him if he would take custody of us. He asked why. She
told him. He said, No, let's remarry and move to another state. And that's just exactly what we did. We moved to
North Carolina, sometime after Christmas, 1963, and my baby sister Renay was born that June. That August,
we moved back to Atlanta, back into the house on Valley Street. But not upstairs with my grandparents.
We moved right smack dab into the haunted bottom apartment.
I don't know how I knew it was haunted; I just knew. I knew there was something in that house; I could feel it.
And I was scared; couldn't sleep nights. Daddy transferred back to the Bona Allen Harness Shop. (I called it the
Horney Shop until I found out what horney meant.) Mama found a job at the local teenage hangout The North
Pole car-hop diner similar to Al's on Happy Days. I started second grade. When mama was working at night, I
made daddy come sleep with Vickie and me. I would not tell my parents what I was afraid of. My dad was a knot
head who I thought would surely laugh at me. And, as far as I knew, Vickie hadn't a clue; she thought Renay was
the only booger in the house.
Winter came, and that house was icy. The space heater, as big as it was, was too weak to heat the whole house.
The heater was in the living room. So daddy moved us girls' bedroom into the living room and moved the couch
and chairs and stuff into the other room. So, of course, the front door bumped off that bedroom.
Three years passed without incident; my fear eased so I grew older and became indifferent.
Then...
It was 1966, I was ten, and my best friend in all the world was Susan, who was a year older than me, beautiful and
smart as a whip. One Thursday afternoon, while my parents and sisters were off grocery shopping, Susan and I
were all alone in the apartment. The back door was one of those jobs that automatically locked when shut and you
had to have a key to open it from the outside. The front door was open, the screen latched. We were sitting on
that old green vinyl couch, yakking about something now forgotten and listening to some now-forgotten rock
tune on the stereo. For some reason, I glanced straight ahead through the entry--and there she was.
A woman thingy leaning against the top bunk bed.
Where I always slept.
She was tall, with short curly white hair, wearing granny glasses and a navy blue dress with big, red cabbage roses
blooming all over it. Now, I ask you, would anyone be caught alive in a dress like that? I couldn't see her feet,
because they were not there. That is the thing that has stuck in my mind to this very day. She looked me straight
in the eye, without blinking. I blinked.
Blink!
She was standing in the entry.
Blink!
She disappeared into thin air before our very eyes.
I shifted my eyes to Susan. Her jaw was in her lap. She looked at me. We jumped up as one and went digging it
across the living room, skidded into that bedroom, unlatched the screen, and flew out onto the porch. We were
speechless, until I said, "I'm going back in there!" No, I wasn't crazy, merely foolish. I stomped over to the
screen, hooked my fingers around the handle, started to pull it open.
The woman thingy was on the other side of the screen.
Mere inches from my face.
Blink!
She was gone.
Susan and I were afraid to tell anyone what we had seen; this fear of telling someone I can't to this day explain.
We made a pact never to tell a soul. I never saw the woman again. I don't know if Susan ever told anyone what
we had seen or not, but I finally did tell my parents long after we had moved. What did they say? Mama tended to
believe me because, even though I had always had a vivid imagination, I had never come to them with such a
thing before. Dad? He said, "If you say you saw it, you saw it," and stared at me for a moment with a strange
look on his face--a look I had seen once before.
And I was reminded of a night long before I saw that woman thingy. It was a school night; mama was at work;
daddy was watching TV in the living room; and we girls were in bed. All of a sudden I was snapped awake by the
sound of feet pounding across the porch.
Just outside my window.
I sat up as if jerked by a stunt cord; daddy came running, whipped the curtain aside. Nothing. "Lay back down
and go to sleep," he said. He went back to watching TV. I lay awake. It happened again. He came digging it back
in there and looked. Nothing. "Just kids," he said, but his brown eyes were spooked. I wonder... was there...could
there have been...
More than one thingy haunting the house on Valley Street.
home, ever walking into the sunset. Duh!
I lived in the house on Valley Street on and off until age fourteen.
My mom was a beautiful undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and my dad was a handsome playboy who cheated on
her with the ugliest women he could find. They fought like dogs and cats. They would have a big fight and she
would snatch up my younger sister Vickie and me and move back in with her folks, who lived for years and years
in the top apartment on Valley Street. Then they would make up, get their belongings out of storage and start all
over. This happened three major times that I can remember, before they finally divorced for the first time, in
1961, when I was five.
It must have been in November, because he told her he was going deer hunting, when he was really going dear
hunting. Not just any dear, either. He was having an affair. With his bestfriend's wife. And his friend caught
them together en flagrant, gave my mom a head's up. On the rebound, mom began an affair with the local Dutch
Oven Deliveryman. He would visit her on his route. We girls were ordered to stay outside while they enjoyed a
quick cuchi cuchi bum bum, as my husband Nabo calls it. She must have thought I was dumb. But I knew exactly
what was up. No pun intended. That went on for awhile and then the doo doo hit the fan, big time. There was a big
fight, and I found myself living above a haunted apartment. Again.
We lived there for a year or so. Mama found a waitress job working nights at the University Yacht Club, on Lake
Amanda. Her parents, my Mama and Papa Dorsey, and their youngest daughter Pam babysat. On the nights she
was off, she partied down. Sometimes she took us to dance halls and ordered us to dance for her friends. Those
were the days when divorcees had bad reps, whether they had earned them or not. Papa Dorsey was old
fashioned; he thought it was shameless for mama to be out dancing and drinking and we all know what. On the
nights she went on dates alone, she would come home late and her dad would be waiting for her. He was a pistol in
his cups and they were a matched set of six shooters. He would meet her at the front door and they would curse
and holler at each other and sometimes actually come to blows.
She finally had enough, and we moved into a housing project. She began dating a work buddy, and, in 1962, she
came up pregnant. Big trouble. He offered to run off with her to Florida until the baby was born, but he didn't
want Vickie and me. So she called up my dad and asked him if he would take custody of us. He asked why. She
told him. He said, No, let's remarry and move to another state. And that's just exactly what we did. We moved to
North Carolina, sometime after Christmas, 1963, and my baby sister Renay was born that June. That August,
we moved back to Atlanta, back into the house on Valley Street. But not upstairs with my grandparents.
We moved right smack dab into the haunted bottom apartment.
I don't know how I knew it was haunted; I just knew. I knew there was something in that house; I could feel it.
And I was scared; couldn't sleep nights. Daddy transferred back to the Bona Allen Harness Shop. (I called it the
Horney Shop until I found out what horney meant.) Mama found a job at the local teenage hangout The North
Pole car-hop diner similar to Al's on Happy Days. I started second grade. When mama was working at night, I
made daddy come sleep with Vickie and me. I would not tell my parents what I was afraid of. My dad was a knot
head who I thought would surely laugh at me. And, as far as I knew, Vickie hadn't a clue; she thought Renay was
the only booger in the house.
Winter came, and that house was icy. The space heater, as big as it was, was too weak to heat the whole house.
The heater was in the living room. So daddy moved us girls' bedroom into the living room and moved the couch
and chairs and stuff into the other room. So, of course, the front door bumped off that bedroom.
Three years passed without incident; my fear eased so I grew older and became indifferent.
Then...
It was 1966, I was ten, and my best friend in all the world was Susan, who was a year older than me, beautiful and
smart as a whip. One Thursday afternoon, while my parents and sisters were off grocery shopping, Susan and I
were all alone in the apartment. The back door was one of those jobs that automatically locked when shut and you
had to have a key to open it from the outside. The front door was open, the screen latched. We were sitting on
that old green vinyl couch, yakking about something now forgotten and listening to some now-forgotten rock
tune on the stereo. For some reason, I glanced straight ahead through the entry--and there she was.
A woman thingy leaning against the top bunk bed.
Where I always slept.
She was tall, with short curly white hair, wearing granny glasses and a navy blue dress with big, red cabbage roses
blooming all over it. Now, I ask you, would anyone be caught alive in a dress like that? I couldn't see her feet,
because they were not there. That is the thing that has stuck in my mind to this very day. She looked me straight
in the eye, without blinking. I blinked.
Blink!
She was standing in the entry.
Blink!
She disappeared into thin air before our very eyes.
I shifted my eyes to Susan. Her jaw was in her lap. She looked at me. We jumped up as one and went digging it
across the living room, skidded into that bedroom, unlatched the screen, and flew out onto the porch. We were
speechless, until I said, "I'm going back in there!" No, I wasn't crazy, merely foolish. I stomped over to the
screen, hooked my fingers around the handle, started to pull it open.
The woman thingy was on the other side of the screen.
Mere inches from my face.
Blink!
She was gone.
Susan and I were afraid to tell anyone what we had seen; this fear of telling someone I can't to this day explain.
We made a pact never to tell a soul. I never saw the woman again. I don't know if Susan ever told anyone what
we had seen or not, but I finally did tell my parents long after we had moved. What did they say? Mama tended to
believe me because, even though I had always had a vivid imagination, I had never come to them with such a
thing before. Dad? He said, "If you say you saw it, you saw it," and stared at me for a moment with a strange
look on his face--a look I had seen once before.
And I was reminded of a night long before I saw that woman thingy. It was a school night; mama was at work;
daddy was watching TV in the living room; and we girls were in bed. All of a sudden I was snapped awake by the
sound of feet pounding across the porch.
Just outside my window.
I sat up as if jerked by a stunt cord; daddy came running, whipped the curtain aside. Nothing. "Lay back down
and go to sleep," he said. He went back to watching TV. I lay awake. It happened again. He came digging it back
in there and looked. Nothing. "Just kids," he said, but his brown eyes were spooked. I wonder... was there...could
there have been...
More than one thingy haunting the house on Valley Street.
True Ghost Story #1
Blink
Endless
The house on Valley Street was haunted.
The bottom apartment was, anyway...
I've moved around so much that I once told my mom that I
needed to buy two grave sites so my coffin could be dug
up and moved from one to the other now and then. I've lived
in Tennessee, North Carolina; in Atlanta, Georgia most of my
life. In apartments, houses, boarding rooms, dormatories,
duplexes, single-and-double-wide trailors, and I once thought
The bottom apartment was, anyway...
I've moved around so much that I once told my mom that I
needed to buy two grave sites so my coffin could be dug
up and moved from one to the other now and then. I've lived
in Tennessee, North Carolina; in Atlanta, Georgia most of my
life. In apartments, houses, boarding rooms, dormatories,
duplexes, single-and-double-wide trailors, and I once thought
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Depiction