by Brad

April 4, 2007

YOU GOT ANY OF THOSE LITTLE MARSHMALLOWS?

On a rattlesnake speedway in the Utah desert
I pick up my money and head back into town
Driving cross the Waynesboro county line
I got the radio on and I'm just killing time


The house that we call home is around 77 years old. The woman we
bought the house from is around 770 years old. I don't know how it
worked out that way, but it did. It was more house than we needed,
2,094 square feet on a corner lot, but the price was too good to pass
up, even for a town with less than 15,000 people. However, we paid a price--and we paid dearly--in dealing with the old woman.

I was never a fan of the old woman. Let's call her Mrs. Crockett. She
didn't endear herself to me from the first minute I met her and my
feeling about her never wavered. Oh sure, she fooled some of the
people in the town. Wendy and I later heard from people about how
sweet Mrs. Crockett was and what a saint Mrs. Crockett was. Mrs.
Crockett could make the blind see and the lame walk, we were told. The only thing I knew about Mrs. Crockett was she could be a pain in the ass.

For example, Mrs. Crockett was supposed to be absent from the premises the first time Wendy and I toured the house, along with our
real-estate agent. The house was ours to see for 30 minutes. About 10 minutes into the viewing, Mrs. Crockett showed up and leeched herself on to us. For such a tiny old woman, she proved to be quite a
distraction. She told us how great this house was and if we traveled
the entire globe, we wouldn't find a house as solid as her house. The
only reason she was selling this house was because she had the
arthuritis real bad. Navigating the stairs is hard when you have the arthuritis real bad.

As it turned out, this was my only chance to see the house before we
bought it. Work and other conflicts prevented me from returning with
Wendy for other viewings. However, Mrs. Crockett, this gnarled old
piece of detritus, always showed up, and she always interfered. Wendy heard how Mrs. Crockett had this house on the market off and on for a couple years and she was afraid she would never get rid of it. In fact, Mrs. Crockett's children--alleged criminals all--objected to her having the house on the market. She spun tales of woe of how she might fall down the stairs because of an arthuritis flare-up, or
being eaten by wild dingoes, flown in especially from Australia to
devour her. Yep, Wendy heard a lot from Mrs. Crockett and she deserves a medal for it. Maybe even sainthood.

But we wanted the house. It was a nice old house with big rooms and a lot of charm, despite it being inhabited by Mrs. Crockett. We made an offer on the house and it was accepted.

For some reason, that didn't make Mrs. Crockett happy. As the closing date neared, she started hemming and hawing about moving, and about how selling the house might be a mistake. This withered old harpy was definitely sending out negative vibes. However, we had a legally binding contract on our side, along with some legal skills, and Mrs. Crockett could only whine and moan about what a mistake selling the house was.

At the closing, Mrs. Crockett was still in full complaint mode. She
claimed she had been tempted to not show up and even considered
looking into ways to have the contract legally voided. I suspected
someone hipped her to the idea of how much money a court battle would cost her and it must have gotten the old arthuritis flaring up
big-time. The house became ours. Oh sure, we got a bargain for it, but as I said before, at a high cost.

Mrs. Crockett's parting shot to us--well, rather to Wendy--was when
she said she couldn't wait to drop by and see what we do to her
house. She did it all sweetly too. She grabbed Wendy's hands, held
them in hers, and looked at Wendy like she was her loving grandmother. My guess is Wendy had dry mouth, or else Mrs. Crockett would have walked out of that room with a face full of spit.

There were lingering effects of dealing with Mrs. Crockett. On a
couple occasions, one or both of us would be out in the yard and a
representative of the senior citizen community would come up to
us--uninvited--to tell us how Mrs. Crockett missed her house. We would also hear tales of how Mrs. Crockett cured the invalid and created the world in six days. Some fat fuck from down the street helped himself to the pecans on our yard that fell from a tree because "Mrs. Crockett always let him." He was out in our front yard, with some huge burlap sack, using what looked like a modified golf-ball retriever grabbing up all the pecans. One time, Wendy was at a nearby grocery store when some random stranger approached her and exclaimed, "Mrs. Crockett is just dying to see what you've done to her house." Wendy, who had had a bad day at work, replied, "That's the only way she's going to get to see our house.

For the record, Wendy and I have never claimed to be neighbors of the year, nor do we strive for that goal.

Wendy's friends and relatives would report back to her with Mrs.
Crockett encounters. This dried-up chew-toy was constantly complaining about how she should have never sold her house. She hated her new house. Selling the house to us was the biggest mistake she ever made. It's been over a year, and we still get reports from people with Mrs. Crockett sightings and Mrs. Crockett complaining about selling the house.

I had a near encounter with her a few months after we moved into this house we call home. I was at the post office, minding my own business and admiring the wanted posters, when I heard a familiar voice. It was like the voice of some unseen horror--heard only in
nightmares--talking to some poor soul in the lobby not five feet away
from me. Mrs. Crockett! She had cornered this poor sap, someone who probably made the mistake of asking her how she was doing, going on about how she--you guessed it--hated her new house and how she regretted selling us the house. I made eye contact with Mrs. Crockett as I hurried past her. I sensed she saw me as a familiar face, but she didn't know from where. I didn't stick around to remind her who I was.

That was the last time I saw Mrs. Crockett and I hope to keep it that way.

However, Mrs. Crockett still manages to haunt this place. I mean,
she's still alive as far as I know, but her presence from this house
we call home hasn't been completely shaken. For example, the
downstairs bathroom will have the distinct odor of cigarette smoke in
it. Neither Wendy and I smoke. It's almost as if Mrs. Crockett has
figured out a way to spirit herself into our downstairs bathroom, in
some kind of creepy X-Files way, power-smoke two or three Newports before disappearing into thin air. Creepy.

And on some nights, with the windows open, I lie awake at night and I swear I can hear something bone-chilling. It's faint and distant, barely rising above the din of some dog barking in the distant, but if
I listen closely I can hear a voice. It's not strong, but with some
effort, I can make out the bitter words: Biggest mistake I've ever
made.

Write Brad at exit149@gmail.com

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