THE LADY

THE LADY

It's been strange these past few years, ever since we moved into this house. The noises I hear at all hours of the day and night. Like the four taps on my bedroom wall that woke me yesterday, and several other times since we've been here. It wasn't my wife. I knew where she was each time. And the dog can't make sounds like knuckles tapping on wall board four times in quick succession.

I've heard my name being whispered, or out and out called out by some woman. Again, it's not my wife's voice. I've heard shuffling sounds in the basement sometimes. And voices. Kids voices. Like they're calling for someone, waiting for an answer. And sometimes, when I get up to pee in the middle of the night, it sounds like a party is going on in the living room, and then, as I get closer and closer, step by step, to the bathroom, it just drifts away, like the smell of the burnt scrambled eggs my wife makes herself for breakfast some mornings, before I get up.

Things got a little stranger at noon today. I was tending to my garden, trying to extend the seemingly ever-lengthening growing season we're having with a mid-day watering of my tomatoes and cucumbers. The zucchinis finished up last week. I heard a car door slam, and looked towards the street, only to see an old lady ambling through my back yard, casually looking around and heading back towards me. She was dressed in a yellow sun dress, complete with matching hat and pumps. She was a bit rotund, and had a pleasant way about her, I thought, kinda smiling as she walked, looking around nonchalantly like she owned the place. I dropped the hose and sprinkler and said "Hi".

She asked me how I was doing, and asked if I was the owner, which was kind of odd. Who else would be in t-shirt and cut-offs, watering a garden in a back yard but the owner? Yeah, I said, I'm the owner. Then she looked straight in my eyes and told me she couldn't tell me what happened in the well in my basement, but it did, and that was that. I asked her what the hell was she talking about, and what well?

She asked if I ever saw the round cement thing in the back corner of my basement. I said sure I have, what is it? She told me it was the well cover, and how the last owner cemented it to the floor after what happened. After what happened, I asked. And again, she told me she couldn't tell me.

Yeah, but it's my house, I told her, and I kinda think I would have the right to know what happened on my very own property, no? Yeah, she said, you might think that. But the thing is, she said, that it wasn't your property back when it happened, and what a damned shame about it happening, just the same.

I stood there for a minute, kinda tapping my foot in the getting hotter sun, considering what the hell I was hearing. After the minute passed, I asked her what right did she think she had, coming back here, in my very own back yard, that I'm paying good money for, and telling me something happened in the well in my basement, but refusing to tell me what it was? She looked at me and said, well sonny-boy, at least I did come back here, having gone out of my way to do it, trying to be nice, and told you. I really didn't have to, you know, she said.

So I tell her how much it's going to bother me now, and my wife, if I decide to tell her, wondering now, what in God's name happened in that well...the well I didn't know anything about until just now, when you decided to be nice, go out of your way, and tell me you can't tell me what happened in that well. How in the world would I ever get any sleep, I asked her. She looked at me and said that what happened in that well certainly wasn't in God's name, and that I wasn't sleeping to well as it was, what with all the tapping’s on the walls and the calling of my name and the goings-on at night in the living room and all. She kinda giggled as she turned around, mumbling something about being careful of the bones the next time I dig up a garden, then walked back through the yard, got in her car, and drove out onto West Blvd.