BALD PUNK &#187; Demon

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(“Footprints in the Sand”, uncredited)

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

Waiting for Worlds to Collide

Bald Punk — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:31:49 +0000

(A cat on Christopher Street sidewalk, Photo by Joe)

The sickness has come again…

I’m in an apartment that my boss owns in Queens. On top of my head is a pool of sweat. I dip my fingers into it and paw at my damp face. My eyes shift suspiciously to the 36″ TV, then to the various objects in the adjoining rooms. The table in the kitchen is vibrating, inching ever-so-slightly toward the noisy refrigerator. The dusty pictures on the walls quiver and hang precariously. They look ready to take flight. Beside me on the couch–especially if I look from the corner of my eye–I spot movement inside the pillows. It could be eels.

For the past few hours, I can’t drink and I can’t eat. Thirty minutes ago I went to the corner bodega and bought a pack of butts, though I don’t smoke. I just needed something to consume. And they were the only thing in that damn place that I thought I could, although…

An old Hispanic guy behind the counter was sweating nearly as much as I was. He smelled like Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup. I could have sworn the beads of sweat on his neck were colored by blood. My tongue had lathered with saliva as I thought of lapping up blood-flavored, chicken noodle soup. When a female musk flushed through the balmy air, I saw a voluptuous, tanned woman behind me. Standing at the counter across from the cash register, I looked over my shoulder, trying to make it seem like I was interested in buying something else, though my eyes lingered on her nooks and curves. Her breasts and butt were respectively squeezed into a tank top and unbuttoned shorts that were like a white bud ready to flower. I kept thinking her blood was a secret I needed to know.

She had to lean past me, to also buy a pack of butts. Then I followed her out of the bodega, terrified of giving into the sickness. Because I wanted to taste her from the inside out; I wanted to know her blood. It was the gateway to a fantasy world…

There were plenty of people on the sidewalk, and the street was packed with traffic. For a second, I was able to calm as I eyed her butt. It was the only thing that I could focus on. ”I’m not a vampire,” I said to the curvaceous behind, before making a beeline back to the apartment.

Now as I sit and watch the furniture move, I think about how Benny, “the cigar store Indian” said drinking a person blood could make me very sick. But I’ve never trusted Benny. He’s an old homeless man and clairvoyant, who believes he’s lived many lives. I don’t trust him, because he knows way more than he ever admits to. But he’s all I have. My friends whom I could have turned to with this problem, have abandoned me.

Soon, I’m going to go outside and wander the streets. I want to look at people and imagine the places their coursing blood could carry me off to. The darkness is not right yet. I don’t know what time it is. The cable box time is blurry. When I touch on my cell phone, I can’t make out a thing through the glare of the LCD light. All I know is that it’s dark outside, and getting darker.

But it’s not dark enough.

Before I got sick, I never knew there were different degrees of darkness. Maybe I’m waiting for midnight, or 2 or 3 a.m., or that “dead time” psychic investigators like to talk about. All I know is that a time is coming, when I can see, not clearly, but the spiritual world will be more in focus than ever before. Not that there’s something I want to see there. I just don’t want to get hit by a car, or walk into a street lamp or someone. The two times before when the sickness came on, each time I was almost killed in the street. Once was by a nut on a bike.

At the moment, I can’t judge distance properly, plus I get fixated by the shimmer and seeming movement of objects, and lose track of where I am. But when that special time comes, it seems to bring balance to my equilibrium. Though that’s not what happens exactly. It’s more like both real and non-corporeal worlds collide, or meet side by side. And I can see pretty good. I won’t be so nervous then.

Now I’m just sitting and waiting. Waiting for worlds to collide. I can’t wait to get outside.

—

Episode Thirty-Five

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

A Trickle of Blood

Bald Punk — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 10:53:55 +0000

(Vampire teeth, uncredited – Photoshopped by Joe)

Forget that last post. I am not a vampire. I have never been a vampire.

A trickle of demon blood on my lips made me sick. It was from the demon runt I killed at the house on the river’s edge. Benny, “the cigar store Indian” told me I will get sick again. But I will not have to kill. I have no need for blood, though there may be complications. He didn’t say what they were.

My lady friend knows I was drunk, but there is no excuse for my walking out of the bar past her with another woman. We broke up. I haven’t told you everything, but there are other reasons for the split.

I’m living on my own, barely living that is. I haven’t gone to work. I’ve lost weight. I’m miserable.

And I will get sick again. End of post. End.

Your friend,

Joe aka Bald Punk

Your friend in blood…

—

Episode Thirty-Five

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

I Am The Night

Bald Punk — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 23:21:13 +0000

(Tonic East sports bar, Manhattan(original below), Photos/Photo art by Joe)

That night, the darkness was disguised as light, and my kiss—was the kiss of death. While the blonde wanted my kisses, as much as I wanted to give them. She was caught in the “fantastic lie” of the light that shined brightest inside me…

It was a Friday night and my life was coming undone. My friends were back inside the sports bar, watching the Yanks play the Redsox. I was outside with a blonde in my arms, madder than a hatter. I had just walked out past my mortified lady friend. Worse. My head was filled with visions of past lives that seemed so real, it was as if I was presently living each life.

I was a pirate and my two-masted brigantine sat deep in the water at a South Street wharf, weighed down by plunder. I was also a Tammany man, eyeing the grunts mulling outside my Union Square office, some waiting to ask me for work, others to beg me for money. While in the Five Points neighborhood, I was a burly cop walking in a rutted path. But to top it off, I was a priest at the altar in a Lower West Side church, before my congregation in their Sunday best. Sunlight bled through stained glass windows, down into the dusty pews, and candles set along the walls drew ghastly images over the whitewashed interior and even over an imposing Jesus Crucifixion that hung at my back. I lingered over that spectacle. First to catch my eye was how my parishioners’ souls flickered colorfully though their breasts, while I was devoid of even a scintilla of light. Then I spotted a horned being snickering up on one of the rafters. It could have been the Devil himself. He was blood-red, his skin covered in deep black wrinkles. When our gazes met, he reached out with a lolling appendage that was phallic-like. I knew he meant to spear it through me–his conduit to those earthly souls.

(Five Points by George Catlin, 1827)

And then I opened my eyes to the blonde who had fallen under the same spell that had me, or so it seemed, as she had freely walked outside and took my hand. She was giddy but not laughing as she fell back in my arms. Her skin was waxen and the blue veins of her neck awed me like rivers of gold.

The sight of those veins made the life force in me quicken. My teeth pained in a curious manner and I remembered that in past lives, it was through them that I could feel the most exquisite pleasure. While I knew that to bite into the blonde’s flesh would be the most erotic measure possible. I opened my mouth and bore my teeth, saliva ran down my chin. I could just taste her juicy steak of a neck.

Someone screamed and I hissed, immediately roiled by the mortal interruption. Three men shot in our direction. One thrust out his hand and cried, “Vampire!”

I roughly pushed the blonde aside, knowing who and what I had suddenly become–though the full impact had yet to hit me. At that moment, being a vampire was like being a postman, truck driver, or butcher.

All my assailants had wooden spikes in their fisted hands, but they also had fear in their eyes. Fools! I snarled, and spit a wad of flem soundly against the pavement. I was agitated that I might not satiate my bloodlust. Then I remembered the familiar shock of impalement–it had happened many times before.

But not this time… I howled and swept one lunging man into the others, and easily jumped free of their path. I wanted to tear out their throats, yet I wanted the free flow of blood in my gullet more.

I sprinted east on 29th, to the nearby river. The tastes of past kills watered my palate. I wanted to take another woman, or maybe a young girl. No! I wanted to circle around, and see if I could recapture the blonde. I looked over my shoulder. I was too fast. No one followed. But I had to be smart. Others with inhuman speed would know of my presence by now. I had been rash. They would soon come after me, as they had before in my long experience being an undead thing. I didn’t know who they were, but they had the knowledge, if not the brute strength and speed, to kill me.

To kill me… an undead thing…

“I had done this before,” I told myself and dug my fingernails into my palm. I ran my tongue over sharp incisors. In the morning, I had been a lowly demolition man chasing rats. Now I am no longer a living thing. I am a soulless nothing that forever escapes the light. To become night… I am a vampire. I am the night.

To be continued…

—

Episode Thirty-Five

(Tonic East – Photo by Joe)

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

Transformation

Bald Punk — Sun, 29 May 2011 15:39:59 +0000

(“The Hall” – Photos by Joe)

The earliest signs of the change began in an apartment building in Bushwick. I was there with three co-workers, Nester, Edwin, and Kevin–to clean out the basement. Along with piles of junk strewn across the floor, we had to discard the ruined plywood flooring that was laid over two-by-fours and dirt. The landlord told us that the tenants flushed cooking oil down their sinks, and the oil had clogged the main line and overflowed through the basement toilet. Rats hid underneath the plywood floor. Given this type of work, I usually scream like a nut and avoid the rats like they carry the plague. But I was suddenly fearless, if not a bit mad in the head.

All four of us worked together. The others stood back, prying up the boards with long bars, while I yanked at the edges with my hands. I stamped my feet and howled as the vermin, some nearly as big as cats, darted into various nooks and storage areas, or fled up the cellar stairs and through the open doorway, to the backyard.

We were soon joined by one of the tenants, who wore fatigues and polished black boots. He retrieved a BB gun from one of the storage areas. Each time we lifted a board, he leveled the gun and took crack shots at any fleeing vermin.

By lunchtime, it was like I had one foot in Bushwick, and the other on cloud. All I could conclude was that later in the day, something otherworldly lay in my path.

Quite frequently, I sense that I’m headed for a paranormal crossroads. Though that day, the sensations were unlike anything I had ever experienced. In the late afternoon, I felt completely detached from the moment. Time passed like a half-remembered dream.

(My work truck, Brooklyn)

When the landlord paid me in cash, I shoved the money in my pocket like it was mine. It didn’t occur to me to mention the cash to my boss Nick, who had just arrived with the packer truck, and was on the street, crushing the plywood in through the hopper, along with the junk we had hauled out of the basement.

I kept the money, not because I planned to steal it, but I needed it for the evening out that I had planned with friends. Over the wail of the truck, I murmured “goodbye” to Nick. He was shifty-eyed, concentrating on the work at hand as I walked off.

I went home, took a shower, then went back out to see the light of early evening was rolling in like fog.

I couldn’t say how I had gotten from my Uptown apartment to the East Midtown bar, though I do remember the clanking sounds of the subway, and the whirr of passing vehicles. Within the fog were bluish imprints that held my interest. Many skirted by like flowing tapestries, looking like people wearing long sheets. Given my state, they could have been ghosts as easily as pedestrians.

I seemingly stepped out of a cloud into the sports bar, Tonic East, on 29th St and 3nd Ave. Every few feet, just above a gathering of heads, was a blur of flat screen TVs. The Yanks/Redsox game played on most of them.

(Tonic East sports bar, Manhattan)

I headed to the bar with little regard for anyone. It seemed by accident that I saw my lady friend(LF). She was in the back with her sister and brother-in-law, along with the pizza and Chinese delivery guys(aka num and nuts). When our eyes met, she must have sensed my detachment, thought I was moody, as she looked away without acknowledgement.

I had a pint, then another, and another. I found myself next to my friend Nester from work who talked about the rats. Nester was there with a hot Spanish number. Her ruby red lips were like the brightest light in the place. I couldn’t ignore them.

Other friends approached. I spoke without thought or meeting anyone’s gaze.

I soon realized how acute my sense of smell had become. It was just after LF appeared before me. She kissed me on the lips, and didn’t seem mad that I looked right through her again. I was taken by the scent of her sweat, and then picked up on the acrid alcohol and cigarettes on her breath. I saw the “light of a good time” in her eyes. She pulled my hand to lead me to her table. I let her fingers slip and went into the bathroom. The stench was overwhelming. It was like I was one of the urinals.

I returned to the bar and had another pint. The place blazed with colors. A few stools away, three girls in casual attire seemed like juicy, overripe fruit. One had glittering blonde hair. The light from the TVs exploded upon her. She scrunched her face like she didn’t want to know anyone. Her gaze rarely left her friends. I stepped next to her.

My mouth was moving, and the blonde was laughing. I zeroed in on a flashing, stark-white light inside her chest. Was it her soul…

She was pretty, though her mouth was a tad rectangular, and her skin looked rough under a thick layer of cover-up. She had black eye brows and no sign of dark roots in her hair. I liked how she played with her hair and easily smiled.

I could smell cigarettes, perfume, and the wax scent of her lipstick. I can remember thinking about that time that to see clearly, I somehow had to use my sense of smell.

A man with a salt-n-pepper beard pushed between us. It took a moment to recognize my friend, “Louie trips.”

“What’s going on?” he cried.

I craned my neck to the Yankee game, then remembered LF’s scent. Through the harsh light, I saw she was still in the back with her sister and friends. It was a few seconds before our eyes met. I thought of her sweat and smiled. She looked away. Yet to acknowledge Louie, I pushed him aside, and moved closer to the blonde.

I followed the blonde outside to smoke. Even after she lit up, one smell was overpowering. It was the iron rich scent of blood. I drank in the flavor, and surveyed the blonde’s exposed flesh. I stared so wantonly that it became nearly impossible to see, though when I focused on the blood scent, her neck seemed to rise up to me. I ran my tongue over my teeth. The incisors had become sharper.

With a singular focus on her neck, my head cleared enough so as to let in various voices. Some came from far off places.

I bent to the blonde’s slender neck and inhaled. I could hardly catch my breath. The blonde was in a near stupor, seeming to be under my spell—or the spell that had me, too. I opened my mouth wide.

Just a few feet away someone shrieked. Three figures darted to us. One cried out, “Vampire!” They had wooden spikes in their hands.

To be continued…

—

Episode Thirty-Five

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

The Last Embrace

Bald Punk — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:22:33 +0000

(Living room)

Last time I had gone inside “the house on the river’s edge“, if I noticed anything out of the ordinary, I couldn’t say. But this time, it was like I walked off into a dream, one that would change me forever, and one that I will never, ever talk about again. . .

The exterior door closed soundlessly. Seconds later the deadbolt clicked shut. I went to a window in the foyer, just off to the side, and pressed my palm against a layer of paper thin glass. On the gloomy, dead end street, the three ghost hunters moved between parked cars and onto the sidewalk. They grew hesitant. The one with the video camera panned to his right, now filming a different home. It seemed they had lost sight of us, even before we had entered the ghostly house.

“Don’t worry about them anymore,” Benny, ‘the cigar store Indian’ said, who was right behind me along with my lady friend(LF). The pizza and Chinese delivery guys(aka num and nuts) were a step further down the hall with the boy named James, who “lived” in the house.

“It’s pretty dark, I hope their film’s blurry,” I uttered, recognizing the elegantly furnished living room. On my first visit to the home, I had been so comfortable that I thought about nose-diving onto the plump-cushioned sofa. Now I couldn’t get my bearings. “But they might have been following us for a while.”

“None of it matters,” Benny said, leveling his tanned face up at me. His eyes were startlingly lucid. “This world hides its secrets very well.”

“It does,” James offered, a glint of red in his distant stare. He smiled up at me, then LF. The red was gone.

I shuffled into the living room. In the air was a soothing, minty potpourri scent. My focus was drawn inward, and I noticed two shadowy figures on the edge of my mind’s eye. One was square shaped. The other was tall and skinny, and wilted toward the squarish one in what I took to be fawning servitude.

They were demons who had toyed with me in the past. In particular, they had distracted me one day when I was out for a leisurely stroll in Brooklyn, and I had nearly been run over by an SUV. It was a clear message that they could kill me if they pleased.

Now it seemed they looked upon us through “a window ” in my head. From what I’ve been able to discern, they are fascinated with death. No one knows that better than Max Beckley, a Revolutionary War soldier they abducted, whom they still hold captive.

Dazed and calm, I couldn’t muster up the proper fear for LF. (She is my all, my everything, my one true path to harmony.) Her eyelids were nearly closed. Black hair angled from her shoulders to her plump cheeks that beamed from a recent salon treatment. Like all of us except for the boy, she clutched a wooden spike. “If your father could see you now,” I said to her, “he would put a dent in my forehead.”

Her eyes cracked open and she lazily smiled. “Joe,” she said sweetly as if she didn’t want me to wake her, while unable to fully meet my gaze.

“Probably deserve it,” I said and looked expectantly to num and nuts. Also bright-faced from the salon, their arms hung loosely at their sides, and they postured like two dog-tired children. They were too befuddled to chirp or nod in agreement.

“It’s too late to turn back,” LF said.

“It’s been too late for a long time,” Benny added.

“Just watch out for vampires,” James said. “They come out from places you’d never imagine.”

I eyed num and nuts again. The only reason they were in the ghostly home was because of their undying devotion to LF. It was good that they would be by her side. They provided a buffer, and could be taken first, until I had time to reach her in case a demon or vampire attacked. They were flotsam and jetsam.

At my feet was a wicker basket of dried flowers, fruit, and bark. I took in the couch, then the dining table off in the next room, and then another whiff of minty potpourri. This was a home, once, maybe. . .

I couldn’t shake the sluggishness. It felt like I OD’d on Ambien.

I headed back into the hall, and peered up the stairs. I told my friends not to move, and then ran up the stairs. I didn’t want James seeing anyone dead, especially his sister Lara. Spike at the ready, I check the rooms. They were all tidy. I thought James’ mother, after she had been turned into a vampire the previous night and possibly taken her own daughter’s life, had then set the beds, spiffed up the rooms, and disposed of her little girl.

(Camille Saint-Saëns – Danse Macabre)

“We’re going down the basement!” LF called up to me.

I chugged down to the first floor, and through an open door in the hall, then down another set of stairs, into the basement. It was cooler. Invigorating. A hazy light spread from the center of the room like a breath of tiny yellow stars.

Yet the basement was steeped in shadows, and I couldn’t see the far end wall. The floor space seemed much larger than the exterior of the home. The walls and floor were cement. Overhead ran wide joists. Pitched on an angle to my right was a dilapidated, wooden dresser with tools spilled across the top. In one corner was a furnace and oil tank. I was reminded again that the place was a home. But my feelers told me something different.

James ran his hands over one wall, and suddenly, an arched door appeared. He pushed it open, then moved through into a murky, arched corridor. “It leads out to the river,” he said.

“The East River?” I said, noticing Benny’s tensed expression, as if he was readying for something. Both he and James were not lethargic like the rest of us.

“I guess,” James said. “It’s not far.”

Now in my mind’s eye, it seemed my demon onlookers had moved closer. I reached out to them–to the stone wall in the corridor. For a second, it looked as if they were embedded deep in the stone. They had arrived to bare witness, but to what. . .

My eyes set on James. He had begun to stride in an odd manner–more like he was stalking. His back was hunched, and he held his arms straight down and pumped his fists. When he came to a door, he never tested the handle before he spoke. “It’s locked,” he said, and oddly, did not face us.

“James, what’s going on?” I asked. He shrugged, and it was then I noticed how stout he had become since we left the basement. His blazer and pants were nearly splitting at the seams. And a thick roll of fat folded over on the back of his neck. Was he growling. . .

“He’s a changeling!” Benny cried, then looked in the other direction. With leaping strides, James’ mother was flying down the corridor. There was a brutish look on her sallow face. Her eyes were lifeless and her mouth was open in an oval-shape.

“Kill her,” James said with a snort. I glanced back to see he had turned. His face was wrinkled like a bulldog’s, and his hands had become claws with deadly, sharp nails. “She’s a hog! Hog! Hog!”

(Michael Wolgemut – The Dance Of Skeletons)

Benny ran to the woman. He struck her with a fist, only at the last moment did he reveal the spike in his grip. I heard the unmistakable sound of the instrument slam through skin and between bone. Her arms wrapped limply around Benny’s neck as they toppled to the floor. A yellow-faced little girl in a dress hopped over the two bodies. It was Lara. She loped to me with open arms, opening and closing her hands. She wanted to jump in my arms.

Before I could consider what to do–I didn’t think I could strike her down with the spike–LF screamed. James had sprung up, and clutched LF’s neck. Head cocked, he bore his fanged teeth.

Adrenaline finally surged through me, yet was too little, too late, as there was no way I could stop the demon boy from biting LF. Num and nuts were a step away. Both their faces were white with terror, and they seemed to be screaming.

Yet in a split second, they ”came to life” and pounced on the changeling with deadly ferocity.

“Turn, Joe,” LF huffed.

I wheeled around just as Lara leapt into the air, coming right at me. She had a sweet, vapid expression as she bore her yellow, fanged teeth. There was still a look of innocence on her face, which gave me pause. And she made it into my arms and snarled. It was her last embrace.

—

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Thirty-Four

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

How We Must Have Looked

Bald Punk — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:43:31 +0000

(Photos by Joe)

How we must have looked as we traipsed uptown, the four of us and an invisible boy from a dream . . .

We stepped out from the shadow of the row homes on East 6th Street and into the late afternoon sun on 2nd Ave. The boy, whose name was James, became diaphanous in the brighter light. He scrunched his button nose and reminded us that he would disappear soon. My lady friend(LF) knelt down to whisper in his ear and then kissed his cheek. He nodded and gave a wistful smile. She then held his hand to ensure we didn’t lose him, while the pizza and Chinese delivery guys(aka num and nuts) began to watch him like two slouching hawks.

The five of us headed across the pedestrian heavy St. Mark’s Place, which is a main artery in the East Village. All around us, as is usual on the block, tourists, suburbanites and hipsters, all brushed shoulders. I checked the faces of those we passed. None of them seemed to light upon the boy. Yet most with “the gift of sight” would be surreptitious.

We went down into the Astor Place station. For god knows what reason, num and nuts swiped a MetroCard through the fare slot for James to pass through the turnstile. The blue-eyed boy’s face turned ruddy as he struggled to budge the turnstile arms. When a moment later I heard the clap and rattle of a train, I manipulated the arms, and guided him through with a hand on his sponge-like back.

There was a handful of empty seats in the polished, stainless steel subway car. James sat on LF’s lap. He turned fully transparent under the fluorescent lighting.

LF was radiant, having gone that afternoon to an East Village salon with num and nuts. I sat next to her and pushed aside her sleek black hair. A musky scent filled my airway as I kissed her neck. Her brown eyes popped open wide, and she touched the spot I had kissed. Right there blue veins rose gently under her pale skin. Her look told me that I shouldn’t have done that. Not now. Not given what we were about to possibly do.

We exited onto Lexington Ave and East 53rd Street. By now it was early evening, and bright orange clouds drifted beneath a violet firmament. Once again, James became fully opaque, though it still seemed that only we could see him.

We came upon the dead end street in the East 50’s where I had seen James’ home, a home that I since could not find. A medium height man in an overcoat, stepped out of the shadows on the corner. It was Benny, “the cigar store Indian.”

(Antony Gormley’s Event Horizon – 26th St and 5th Ave)

“I got him a free cell phone from senior services,” LF said, cutting me off before I could get in a word. “And I texted him to meet us.”

Benny came upon us and gave a somber, gap-toothed smiled. The old homeless man smoothed his hand over James’ thick black hair. I assumed he knew the boy’s mother, if not a vampire, was a demon whom we might have to kill.

As we walked down the block, Benny discreetly gave out wooden spikes to everyone but the boy. The wood was gunmetal gray. It looked terrible in LF’s hand. I pictured her rearing back, in girlish awkwardness, to strike a killing blow.

Num and nuts slipped the spikes into their pants pockets. I didn’t expect them do anything with the instrument other than poke holes in their pockets and hurt them themselves.

When we could see beyond the last home on the right, James’ three-story home came into view. The facade had an insubstantial air, looking at it was akin to watching an old movie reel film. It was a sea foam green color and had three turrets that reminded me of rocket ships. The windows overlooked the FDR Drive and East River.

I slipped my hand inside my coat, and ran my fingers along the spike to the blunt point. I looked down at James. “You should stay outside with (LF),” I said, and looked at her. “We have no idea what we’re going to find.”

“The house has secret passage ways,” James said, his blue eyes confidently meeting mine. “When Pie-eyed Pete comes into the house, I can always smell the river. I’m pretty sure, I know the passage he takes.”

“I don’t think you coming inside is a good idea,” I said.

“I know all the secret doorways,” he said. “You don’t want a vampire sneaking up on you.”

At the mention of the word “vampire,” num and nuts began to squawk and banter like unruly parrots. Benny gave a shrug and gazed over his shoulder. He took a full step back.

“Okay,” I said with a huff, “we all go in.” I gazed up at the “grainy” doorway, then led the way up the solid wooden stoop. Our footsteps made no sounds. Benny hurriedly followed and waved his hand, urging us to go inside.

Two guys and a girl came diagonally across the street. All three wore black windbreakers, and one man filmed us with a video camera. I recognized them from the train we took uptown.

“They’re ghost hunters,” Benny said, as we filed into the front door.

—

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Thirty-Four

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

What You See

Bald Punk — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:06:07 +0000

(“Home” – Photo art by Joe)

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” – Michelangelo on creating the David.

Weeks ago I told Benny, “the cigar store Indian,” about a haunted house in the East 50′s that mysteriously disappeared. My lady friend(LF) and the pizza and Chinese delivery guys(aka num and nuts), were with me when I spoke with Benny. The five of us had gone to a Tex Mex restaurant.

Benny, who is an old homeless man with clairvoyant powers, said the home I had seen was in a dream, weaved into reality. The reality part explained the emails I received from the boy I had met in the dream, as well as a phone call he had made to my boss. Benny also said that if I found I was at the home again, to tell myself that it wasn’t real. Then he said I should just forget about it as I did most any other dream. He didn’t say what to do about further phone calls or emails, and I didn’t ask.

After a long day of demolition work in Flatbush, I came up from the Astor Place subway and treaded to a hair salon in the East Village to meet LF. Just days from the start of Spring, there was a touch of warmth in the afternoon air. It was as welcoming as a cold beer.

The salon was tucked away on a quiet street, lined with cars and five-story walkups. The sidewalk in front of me was empty. The budding leaves on the trees caught my attention, before I noticed the silence was uncanny. My senses came alive.

A boy loped between two parked cars and paused on the sidewalk ahead. His arms were behind his back, and his head was angled to meet my gaze. It was James. He was the boy I had met at the haunted house that disappeared. He was the boy from the dream. Yet he looked real.

I became conscious of each step, wishing someone else was on the street to see the boy. LF was in the salon, less than sixty feet away.

“You never came back,” James said pointedly, seeming aloof yet angry. His short black hair was neatly combed to one side. His blue eyes were icy.

“I did come back, but couldn’t find your house,” I said, texting LF: ”Come outside right now…”

“How could that be?” he said, wearing a similar outfit as the time I met him: a collared white shirt, “high-water” slacks, and polished black boots. Though now he had on a stylish blazer.

I tried to touch his arm, but he jerked it back. “You’re not real. You’re from a dream world,” I said, seeming to have no reason to question my consciousness. “Somehow you’re weaved into reality.”

“What about my mother and my sister, you met them too?” he said.

“They’re not real either.”

“Good, so then you won’t have a problem, because,” he wiped his forearm across his eyes, “it’s going to get messy.”

“What happened?”

“That ghost in my house, it wasn’t a pirate, or maybe he was at one time–” James lifted his right arm for me to touch.

I clasped the elbow and marveled how it was soft and pliable, more like the arm of a doll. I looked up. LF and num and num came out of the salon. Immediately, they set their sights upon James.

“–His name is Pie-eyed Pete,” the boy continued. “He’s a vampire.”

“How do you know,” I asked as LF and num and nuts came within earshot.

“I knew his name all along, but not that he was a vampire.” He cupped his mouth. “Then he–he and my mother!”

“Your mother didn’t believe your house was haunted,” I said.

“And now she’s dead! Or undead.” He sniffled.

“Undead?” LF wondered, her black hair and white face glinting even though we were in the shadows. “What do you mean?”

“Last night while I slept, she came to me,” James said. “When I woke, she was bent over me. Her eyes looked like the eyes of a wild animal.” Tears rolled down his cheeks. ”There was blood on her mouth . . . and her nightgown. And the air smelled like blood.”

“Did she have pointy teeth?” I asked.

“I don’t know?”

“Where was your father?” LF asked.

“I haven’t seen him–in years,” he said. (This conflicts with what I first was made to understand.)

“And Lara, your sister, where was she?” LF asked fearfully.

James looked up at me and wiped his cheeks with both hands. “If you could have come back, maybe it wouldn’t have happened!” His pale face was streaked with red. “My mother,” he said and took a deep breath. “My mother jumped back from my bed and hid her face from me. ‘Run for your life, James’ she said. ‘Mommy is dead. Your mommy is dead.’ She was crying when she said it.

“I got out of bed and ran to Lara’s room,” he sobbed. “The sheets and covers and stuffed animals were thrown on the floor. Lara was face up on the bare mattress, dressed in her communion dress. My mother must have put it on her. But I couldn’t look at Lara or go closer. I ran out of the house.”

Everyone was sobbing. LF knelt and hugged James, who went limp. I heard him whisper, “I have no where to go.”

“You can stay with us,” LF said.

It was some time before James recovered enough to speak again. He looked directly into LF’s eyes. “Soon, you should know, I’m going to disappear, but I’m not really going to be gone. I will still be with you.” He embraced her again, and pressed his head into her shoulder.

“Okay, don’t worry James,” LF said.

—

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Thirty-Four:

Avenue A in the East Village

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Some photos from Greenwich Village:

Tompkins Square Park

Most Holy Redeemer Church in the East Village

Around Cooper Square

First Presbyterian Church in Greenwich Village

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

Lost

Bald Punk — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 14:47:22 +0000

(E 79th St and York Ave – Photos by Joe)

Nearly a week passed before I found time to return to the “house on the river’s edge.” The demolition company where I work had previously gotten a call for an estimate to cart away junk from that home. In part it had been a trick by a boy named James. He wanted my help with a ghost that terrorizes his little sister. On that initial visit James’ mother had taken my business card, seemingly unaware of her son’s plan or the ghost, and said her husband would get in touch with me.

Given the guilt the boy had managed to lay on me, I should have gone back that first night. Maybe there would have been a way to lure the ghost or whatever it was, into the street.

In the time since, the husband has not called for a proper estimate, while James, who had first contacted me via email, doesn’t return my emails. Plus I’ve called their number, but it just rings and rings.

(E 78th St by York Ave)

As I remembered, the home was at the end of E 51 St, just south of the Queensboro/59th St. Bridge. In the last post, I didn’t identify the street number or mention that it intersected Sutton Place. That was in order to maintain privacy for the homeowners.

Upon my return, I was vexed when I didn’t find the home on E 51 St. So I proceeded to walk up and down Sutton Place, and look for it on all the dead ends streets which intersect Sutton. Then I headed up past the Queensboro, and did the same on York Avenue.

My boss had received the original call for the estimate. When I called and asked him if he remembered the address, all he had said was, “You f–king went ‘dare.”

Yeah, but where . . . It’s like I lost my car in a parking lot, and I can’t even find the lot. I spent over two hours searching up and down Sutton and York, before I figured either the house was never there or???

The latter two pictures from the previous post were taken when I went on the estimate. They are proof I was in the right place. Though interestingly, the area populated mostly by apartment buildings and stately homes, nothing I saw resembled the more modest, suburban-type dwelling I had originally visited.

(Church of the Epiphany on York Ave)

I keep thinking about things James said in his emails. In one he had cryptically stated, “You have a friend here. He’s been here since the beginning,” while another mentioned that I would know the house but didn’t elaborate.

Then there is the little girl. I think I heard the mother call her Lara. I know what it’s like to be tormented by the supernatural. For an innocent, it could only be much worse.

My lady friend is upset that I didn’t speak up sooner. She thinks there is a chance Lara is being abused.

Today is the rare Saturday that I’m off from work. So my lady friend and I along with the pizza and Chinese delivery guys are going to see if we can find Benny, ‘the cigar store Indian.’ I’m hoping he can set me on the right path.

(PS158 on E 78th St and York Ave)

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Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Thirty-Four