Scared of the Dark

There was a nightlight in the little room with pale pink walls. Plugged into the east wall, I insisted that it be turned on each night after mom lovingly tucked me in, always with a sweet hug and kiss goodnight.

“I don’t get you,” she once told me. “When we go camping in the mountains, sleep in a tent, where wild animals roam around in the dark and you can’t see your hands in front of your face, there--of all places--you fall asleep instantly!” She could not understand why her little girl had such a phobia in the safety of her own home, when she was not scared of the dark out in the wilderness.

Before an extra bedroom was built in the basement, my brother and I shared that little pink room. Well, it wasn’t pink at the time, more a turquoise color as I recall. We had bunk beds in a cute colonial style, the kind you could take apart and make into separate beds if needed. When the basement bedroom was complete, the bunk beds came apart. Ted got his own room: The Middle Bedroom.

That’s how they were known, much like in Goldilocks: The Little Bedroom, The Big Bedroom, and The Middle Bedroom, which was located straight down the hallway from the living room.

My nightlight was on that night, but as usual the shadows cast eerie shapes here and there. The wind was blowing. I listened to the metal threshold plate on the front door screaming in the wind, a frightening sound peculiar to our house.

When I could take no more, I crept into The Middle Bedroom and woke my brother. “Can I sleep with you?” Ever the protector, he always agreed.

Now, I don’t know why he had his bed facing straight out the door and down the hallway. I would never have set it up that way, much too spooky. I sandwiched myself between my brother and the wall, and promptly fell asleep.

Later, after midnight, we both woke to hear the hardwood floors creaking and groaning. Soft footsteps. A sound near the front door. What’s that? It was unspoken but we shared those silent words. Two little heads popped up from the pillow, eyes big as saucers, peering into the darkness down the hall.

And then, just then, we saw a figure in white gliding across the end of the hallway from right to left. Our hearts began pounding in our chests.

Another noise quickly followed, that of a chair being kicked, its legs scraping across the wooden floor, followed immediately by the thundering low, loud sounds of the bass keys on the upright piano.

“Dammit!” The kitchen light flicked on, followed by muttered words and the sound of a match.

This was no ordinary ghost. It was mom, pacing in the middle of the night, checking to make sure the front door was locked, indulging in a bit of late night worrying over one last cigarette. She had tripped over grampa's chair near the kitchen entrance and slammed her hand into the piano keys.

Phew. We were safe. At least for one more night…

The inspiration for this story came from a writing prompt: Spooky Story, by San Diego Momma. Thanks for the idea!

Urban Orphan

In southern Colorado is a county named Huerfano, a word that means "orphan" in Spanish. About sixty miles north of the New Mexico border off I-25, you can't miss the county's namesake: Huerfano Butte. This lone volcanic plug lies east of the highway among scattered sagebrush and yucca plants. It seems lonely, lost on the prairie, far removed from the lofty peaks to the west.

Another 150 miles north of Huerfano Butte, a busy, bustling street cuts through the heart of downtown Denver. Broadway is home to our finest old hotel and is one block distant from the city's tallest building. As Denver grew, a good number of its original buildings fell victim to progress, demolished to make way for skyscrapers and modern edifices. But there remain many historical places mixed in among the sterile, gleaming towers of glass.

One such place sits near the corner of 20th and Broadway--busy street in front, light rail train station at the rear, three diminutive stories dwarfed by towering luxury condominiums--an urban orphan far removed from its contemporaries.

Using a configuration common at the time, the exterior walls were designed to make best use of space on a wedge-shaped lot. Looking at the building from the rear it seems unremarkable, plain, with three square sides. But standing at the northwest corner, the triangular walls appear much like the pointed end of a large slice of architectural pie.

It may not have a fascinating background chronicled in newspaper archives. Its facade is not likely to be featured in the western history photographic collection at the Denver Public Library. Yet 1980 Broadway has a past I cannot forget.

Some time after my family moved to the Denver area, my grandfather followed to be near his youngest daughter and son. For a while in the early sixties he lived at 1980 Broadway, where we visited him from time to time. A trip to downtown Denver from our quiet suburb was always an adventure. I remember peering out the car window as we passed buildings no more than four or five stories, inconceivable heights to a little girl used to living in a small ranch-style home.

Even now I can close my eyes and be transported back in time to the boarding house where grampa lived.

Through the front door is the lobby and a dark, smoky sitting area with decrepit furniture, upright piano shoved against the staircase wall. The steep staircase heads straight up one side of the building. Grampa's apartment is at the very top of that dark, forbidding stairwell.

Such a tiny living space! The first thing you see is the sofa bed, then a small table and chair in the corner. Turn left into the tiniest kitchen you could ever imagine, and through another doorway is a bathroom with windows that open onto the most incredible part of his apartment: a fire escape!

My brother and I loved to crawl out the window to that fire escape. Mom and dad would visit with grampa while we indulged ourselves in imaginary New York City-type scenarios on the tiny metal balcony, the likes of which we had never seen before.

Grampa came to live with us before he died. Mom told me that he missed his apartment and the city, where he could walk several blocks to Civic Center Park, meet up with other elderly city dwellers, and talk about the old days while playing checkers.

I'm not sure how this particular building managed to survive Denver's march ever forward and upward. Now it hosts a Budget Rent a Car office, where this week we stopped to visit. The two young women working at the counter were friendly and interested to hear stories about a brief period in the building's history. They told us the upstairs rooms are sealed off, unused and in disrepair. We peered up the dark staircase and saw a mess of cracked, peeling plaster and rickety stairs.

Then came the best part of the day. "Did anyone ever tell you if the building is haunted?" one woman asked. She said that one day she was alone but felt a hand on her shoulder. Another time she witnessed her office chair spinning on its own. Both women have discovered cabinet doors in the back office hanging wide open not long after they were closed.

Whether or not you believe in ghosts as I do, the stories are fun to hear. So I told them my grampa's name, Evan, and said next time something happens... and on the off chance it is him... just say hello.

Now when I pass the building, it won't seem so much like an orphan.