(World Trade Center, Photo by Joe)

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

I woke up early this morning and took photos of my bed for the next story post titled ”An End To All Days.” I’ve actually been exiled from my bedroom, hence, it’s actually not my regular bed.

None of the pics were great, and I chose one, hoping to play with it in Photoshop. For the most part, the pics that accompany my stories are just for effect.

All four pics below are the same photo. The first is untouched. In the second, I tweaked the contrast and flipped it 180 degrees. In the third, I ran it through Photoshop. The last one is a close up of the original, untouched photo.

(Photo of my bed – original)

(Manipulated contrast and flipped 180 degrees)

(Photoshopped)

(Close up of original/inverted – Look closely for face of the demon)

I sure as hell wasn’t trying to put the face of a succubus onto my sheets. And to tell you the truth, I’m not very happy about finding it.

Why did she have to say “I can destroy you with words?” Words are my life.

Things are not good here. Just wait for the next post in this series.

– Joe

—

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

The Destroyer Cometh

Someone’s Calling In The Night

Photo of the succubus in my bed‏

An End To All Days

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

(5th Avenue and Central Park – Photos by Joe)

On my dry lips was a name, one I didn’t want to utter or even think. I was afraid I might expose the being who sat blissfully on a park bench two blocks up on the 5th Avenue perimeter of Central Park.

I scooted down the sidewalk adjacent to the park, knowing that all about were various creatures and *wisps of energy tweaked by his presence, but knew not who, what, or where he was. Earlier that evening Benny, “the cigar store Indian,” had sent me up 5th Avenue to meet him. He had wanted me to see the positive side of the supernatural and thought meeting this being would help me.

I hoped Benny, who was a blithe homeless man, didn’t wander far from where I had left him in Grand Army Plaza. I couldn’t wait to talk to him in secrecy about my conversation with the sagacious entity.

I was thankful because of late I’ve been at odds with the paranormal world. More closely, I’ve had some run-ins with demons in the Seaport neighborhood that have a history of human abduction.

Weeks ago Benny had me talk with a man who was once a famous magician. His name was Ehrie and he had tried to show me how “to disappear,” which would help me deal with the paranormal—especially the aforementioned demons. Mostly, Ehrie had said that I needed to be quiet—mind, body, and soul. You can read about that whole episode, which began with: Nowhere To Run.

All I know is that I definitely need to learn how to slip out of sight the next time those demons set their propeller-like eyes on muah.

And I’ve always known that my problem is I’m loud in every veritable sense. To begin with, like many New Yorkers my conversational voice can go from a whisper to a scream inside a word. Also, if I’m not grooving to some tunes on my i-Pod while perambulating the city streets, I’m strutting with my head high and a gaze that “sees nothing yet catches everything.” People notice the strut, while preternatural beings sense I have an eye for them. Benny’s told me that even a miserable old ghost, shut away in a closet, can be aware if someone out in the street has the gift of sight.

Given how I broadcast my every thought, as I waltzed down 5th that evening, I felt proud that my head was clear, even if I couldn’t contain my excitement over the meeting. It was like someone thrummed strings at the very core of my being and the vibrations lofted soothingly through my flesh.

As far as who I had met, let’s just say he was a wizard. And he had not only changed my outlook on the paranormal, but he changed the way I see the world. 

(The Plaza Hotel from Grand Army Plaza)

With Grand Army Plaza in sight, I started to feel safe enough away from the wizard so as to consider him. I gazed vacantly at the gilt though-badly-peeling General Sherman statue. He’s on horseback with a woman in a toga waving a fern in front of him. The wizard’s lightly-accented voice played in my head, and his puff of white hair and shaggy dog face floated in my mind’s eye.

In retrospect, knowing I had pointed out some things that enlightened him was titillating. Because if there ever was a man close to “all-knowing,” it would be the wizard.

I spotted the slight figure of the cigar store Indian still in the plaza. He stood on the fringe of a crowd that watched a break dancer work his leg-flung magic.

Benny met me with a beaming, closed mouth smiled. “So, what did you see?” he said, his lips out of sync with his words.

“A wizard!” I cried with a laugh, too excited to consider there might be something out of the ordinary occurring.

(The Wizard)

“It’s safe. Tell me his name,” Benny said, his voice still out of sync, though now his tanned face had a look of concern.

Since he had sent me to see the wizard, I was surprised he didn’t know his name. When I spoke it, a black shadow moved over Benny’s face, and he flagged his hands. “Where?” he asked, though I couldn’t hear the rest of what he said.

I was hesitant with a reply until Benny gave a muttered cry. ”Seventy-third,” I blurted. “He was on a bench, just like you said!”

The cigar store Indian’s brow rose, and his mouth opened in shock. It was only then did I begin to understand that it had probably been a demon who had asked me the questions in Benny’s voice. But it was too late.

A half-dozen black shadows peeled up from the ground and sailed up 5th Avenue. They quickly came together, only to vanish into a murky, tall skinny being that clambered over the Central Park wall. A moment later, as if information was relayed from the shadows, the being fled uptown.

Most of the people on the sidewalk were tourists. Only a few batted an eye as the being zipped by them.

“We have to warn Einstein!” Benny said, his voice finally in accordance with his lips. He started up the street with notable speed.

It was all I could do to keep up with the old homeless man. I could hardly consider the danger I had heaped upon the ghost of one of the greatest men to ever walk the face of the Earth–who at that very moment was still at work in the afterlife, pondering the theory of everything . . .

—

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Thirty-One – August 2010

Paranormal Embrace

To See The Wizard

The Ghost of Albert Einstein

I Am The Blood

–

* See: We Are Knowing

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

(South Street – Photos by Joe)

The five of us all gazed at a blue neon glow that was brightest by the Fish Market Restaurant on South Street. I shuffled my feet, blinked, squinted, and pretended to look real hard. Don’t know if the shuffling of the feet worked, but I did my best not to let on that I clearly saw what we all were searching for.

The others, who included my lady friend(LF), the pizza and Chinese delivery guys(aka num and nuts), along with a white interloper from Queens named Terrence, all knew they were missing “the bigger picture.”

The blue was representative. I saw “it,” but held my cards close.

Last month I had seen a similar glow over a late evening crowd holding placards, set behind police barricades by the Columbus Circle entrance to Central Park. It had seemed more like a blue gossamer upon their head and shoulders–or a touch of twilight that remained. Of the times before I had seen a similar glow, I had thought it nothing more than spirit matter, which I use to describe various unexplainable, airborne disturbances.

That night I had looked about for another trace of the blue as I headed up Central Park West. At my right was the stone wall that surrounds the rectangular park. While beginning on the corner across the street–for as far as the eye could see, were stately apartments, hotels, museums, and houses of worship. They create one of NYC’s many amazing skylines. It can be a visual treat from one of the park’s winding paths. Directly across the street, out front the comparatively-new, Trump high-rise hotel, I had spotted a point of blue as it glided toward the large globe that sits in the middle of Columbus Circle. All of a sudden, it had looked as if the point closed, re-opened, and rotated. I dropped my gaze to see my shirt and arms were illuminated by the same blue that fell upon the crowd.

(Columbus Circle)

Now, if I turned, in front of the old Fulton Fish Market building that sits on the water on South Street was a similar, hovering point of blue. It was like a floating eye, a probe, possibly–lighting upon the Fish Market Restaurant across the street. At various times the others had glanced back. I thought the only reason they didn’t see it was because it was tiny. After all, I had missed it plenty of other times throughout the city.

I nudged my LF’s sweaty arm, and whispered for her to turn around. She abruptly looked up at me. So did the others. I shook my head, not wanting to show them. Yet num and nuts, who both looked super cool in cottons with sweaty, slicked-back hair, started to grow jumpy and make the odd whimper.

I knew they were on to something. Those two are good at picking up shit, annoyingly good. But this is one secret I didn’t want to unravel just yet, especially since we were plagued by the interloper named Terrence–the big white guy who didn’t sweat. If I showed him, in the future he might think of me as his personal guide to the supernatural. I didn’t want that.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, and started toward Fulton St., which is the main thoroughfare in the historic seaport area.

“Ner, nu, ner, na,” num and nuts uttered to each other. So much for their summer-chic, MTV beach house “façade!” Those two are whacked. I know that–and so do my readers.

“What is it?” my LF asked, her long black hair lying damply on her shoulders.

Num and nuts limply angled their arms a few doors to the left of the Fish Market Restaurant.

My anticipation rose. I shuffled my feet nervously. Terrence’s eyes opened wide and he smiled with hound dog cheeks.

Sure enough, where they had pointed, a steel gate over the front of one of the buildings opened a moment later. It was old and rickety, the kind that a person had to raise by pulling chains, yet it slipped up the painted steel rail without a sound or person in sight. Behind it a door opened and a man slinked out onto the sidewalk. Dark blue lines outlined his frame.

Head ducked into the open V-neck of a coat, the person swiftly headed uptown toward Peck Slip. Terrence jumped out between the traffic and crossed the street to the sound of horns. The man’s head shot up and his back straightened.

(Max Beckley)

I followed with a hop in my step. I had to skirt between passing cars, one being a cop car. I thudded ahead of Terrence and up behind the man. Along my bare arms appeared a dark outline of blue. I turned, and with a gnarl, yelled at Terrence. “If you know what’s good, stay the f— back!” He slowed. “There’s a line here that you don’t want to cross,” I said, threateningly.

Terrence sighed and came to a stop. His fleshy breasts jiggled for a second.

“Hey you, you, you!” I cried, watching the man’s steps grow hesitant as I caught up with him.

His face was bright pink as if it had been scrubbed. His short hair was dark, wavy, and clumped with a lumpy jell. The light in his eyes screamed of innocence. I recognized his face! It was the Revolutionary War soldier, Max Beckley!

“They woke me for you! They woke me for you,” Max said, his eyes alight with terror. Fear seemed to leap off his person. “I’m to give you a message.”

I stepped back in horror. My eyes were on the clumps of jell in his hair. What was it from? His birth???

It took all my power to utter, “What is it?”

“You amuse them,” he said with a strained laugh as if someone had forced the words him. He angled his face and gave an eerie, detached smile. Then he slapped his cheek. Blood oozed from his left eye. “This is what we can do,” Max said, though the voice was sweet and calm; definitely not his own. “Wake Max and kill Max. Others, too, Joe.”

They know my name.

From the corner of my eye, I spotted my friends encroaching. I windmilled one arm and cried, “Get back!”

Max fell to his knees, and his right leg snapped sideways at the calf. Yet he only moaned in pain, though such was the sound from his lips that it was like a silent scream. More bones snapped and my mind whirled in fear and disgust.

I wanted to run, but searched “them out.” I knew they were watching. I knew they were close.

Diagonally across the street in front of the old Fulton Fish Market building, mere feet from by the blue point of light, was an unusually dark, sleek space. I spotted a wide-bodied creature and saw vague motions flutter about it. I turned back to Max who was writhing in pain. His body slipped away and squished down into the curbside opening for the sewer. To fit, his flesh ripped away and more of his bones cracked.

There came shrieks and cries from my friends. My LF loudly sobbed. It took a minute or two to semi-recover after Max was gone. I looked about and saw the blue light along with the creature had also vanished.

—

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Thirty – June/July 2010

Milk Toast

Keeping Secrets

See The Light

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

(Photos by Joe)

I wanted to get up some photos of these boats docked at Pier 17. If you’ve read some of my stories, you know I spend a lot time over there. 

Here are my STORIES and PHOTOS

(South Street across from The Paris Cafe – Photos by Joe)

“Where your treasure is, there will your heart also be.”                      

Luke 12:34   –

Believe me, I don’t give away all of NYC’s secrets. Especially those associated with that block of small brick buildings on South St. between Beekman St. and Peck Slip. At one end are vacant fish market offices, and at the other is The Paris Café, established in 1873. In my eyes, the sadly dilapidated row of buildings, save The Paris, sits in its own little cloud within the boundaries of historic South Street Seaport.

The rundown row carries the truth not only of time, but of another age. Particularly in the seemingly sterile tourist district, where many of the pre-20th Century brick and mortar buildings have been brought back to old world splendor.

Before I ever even noticed a strange cloud or apparition on that block, I saw the buildings as windows to the past. Now I know them as “curtains and doors” to which ghostly images permeate, yet still think of them as windows to the past, ones that for certain do not hold their secrets very well.

~

I headed across Pier 17 at South Street Seaport to meet my lady friend(LF) and the pizza and Chinese delivery guys(aka num and nuts). On the wooden pier is a three story mall that has an open deck, which wraps nearly around the upper floor.

Behind me was a pesky white guy from Queens named Terrence. He had just met me that hot and humid evening, and wanted details on a ghostly neon light over one of the aforementioned buildings on South St.

I stopped abruptly and shook my head. “Dude!” I cried in a derogatory manner, though that’s how that word always rings in my head. I looked away for a second. This guy just won’t leave me alone. “Another time, I’ll catch up with you. I’m just not in the mood to play tour guide to the supernatural tonight.”

“Maybe it would be, um, it would be easier, now!” Terrence said, his face round with plump cheeks and expressive brown eyes. “The blue neon light has, um-has started to brighten.”

“Man, you’re from Queens and you’re white, you’re basically a tourist!” I cried and paused to read a text message on my cell. My friends were wondering what was holding me up. I glanced at the skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan before I took in Terrence’s face. It was pure white, no greasy sunblock residue–and the bastard didn’t sweat . . .

Cell in hand, I pointed my thumb at him. “Listen, dude! If you don’t stop following me, I’ll never help you!”

Terrence sighed with head and shoulders hunched. His frame had the shape of a bloated question mark. At over six feet and near three hundred pounds, he didn’t exude a hint of aggression or force of character.

“Another night!”

“Okay,” he said, twisting his mouth and nose in a near quarter-circle. His large body heaved with sadness as he skulked off.

(Pier 17 at South Street Seaport)

I went into the seaport mall and met my friends. We had a few drinks on the outside third-floor deck. It’s one of my favorite places to hang out in NYC. I can grab a beer or a cup of Joe and kick back on a lounge chair, all while admiring the most famous East River crossings, Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Upper Bay.

I had told my friends about Terrence and what he was looking for. After we left the mall and came to South Street, we all gazed up past Beekman at “the brick row of buildings” on the west side of the street.

“I can see the neon blue glow,” my LF said, wearing a black tank top and shorts. Num and nuts, who both wore bahama shorts and cotton-white button-down shirts, nodded like bobbleheads.

“Yeah, and the fat white guy–see him, that’s Terrence,” I said, pointing to where he stood between two parked cars. There was a touch of the blue glow atop his head, which was cocked in an odd manner, as if his neck was broken.

“Let’s go over and take a look,” my LF said.

I stiffened. Let everyone look, but I’m not giving away this secret.

We took up on the other side of the street from the row of buildings, in a parking area under the elevated FDR highway. Terrence came over and joined us with an enthused smile. “This guy thinks I’m a tour guy to the supernatural,” I said, just before I reluctantly introduced him to my friends.

He guffawed with a twinkle in his eyes. We wasted no time in admiring the blue neon light. It was ”strongest” by the Fish Market Restaurant, which sat near the middle of the block.

(Fish Market Restaurant)

Num and nuts drifted into the street, which isn’t separated from the parking area by a sidewalk. All of a sudden, a tall tourist bus with Ontario plates towered directly over them! None of us had seen it coming. It would have been a scarier moment, had not the Canadian driver smirked and shook his head as if it was a routine occurrence. He pulled away without a sideways glance.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

“We’re missing something,” my LF said, to which everyone seemed to agree.

Except me! I didn’t say a word. I wasn’t giving this secret away even though I clearly saw what they were missing and knew if I pointed it out, it would be clear as day to them.

—

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Thirty – June/July 2010

Milk Toast

Keeping Secrets

See The Light

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

(Photos by Joe)

 I must have hundreds of photos from South Street Seaport. It’s easily one of my favorite places in NYC

 Here are my STORIES and PHOTOS

(Photos by Joe)

I wanted to post some photos of this section of South Street, because it’s the focus of the next story in Episode 30. Here is the first story in that series: Milk Toast.

Here are my STORIES and PHOTOS

(Wavertree sailing ship/South Street Seaport, NYC - Photos by Joe)

At South Street Seaport to meet my friends, I was aware a tall white guy had tailed me since I came out of the Fulton Street subway station that was a four block walk. Just to be certain, I moved away from the sparse, early evening crowd between South Street and the three-story mall set on Pier 17. I made my way over to the old boats moored on the other side of the wooden pier.

Next to an old tugboat sat an iron-hulled sailing ship called the Wavertree. A few weeks ago I had met a man who told me that his 76-year-old uncle had recently made new yardarms for the vessel. He had made them over at a warehouse in Mariners Harbor, Staten Island. He said his uncle was a shipbuilder from Scotland. It was where the Wavertree was made in 1885.

I eyed the rigging on the Wavertree. The ship is one of the last large sailing vessels constructed out of wrought iron. A moment later I turned to see the white guy amble nearby. He was my height of 6’2”, weighed close to 300 pounds, and seemed to regard me with a bit of trepidation. He gave an abashed smile and continued closer. “Joe, can I ta-ta-talk to you,” he asked, twisting his mouth as if to push out the words. He wore a black T-shirt, fashionable jeans, and had a milky white color.

“Why?”

“I know-na-know of you,” he said, stepping within a dozen feet.

“You’ve read Bald Punk’s stuff. It’s all fake, made up stories.”

“I knew about a-a-bout you before the blog,” he said with a shy grin, having plump cheeks that gave his handsome smile a clownish appeal.

“Is that right?” I said, puckered and noticed how his pale skin shone brightly against the black T-shirt. It had been a hot sunny day. The stranger had followed me from Fulton Street, yet I still wondered if he’d spent even a moment in the sunlight that day.

“Terr,” he said, a spark of both fear and excitement seeming to light his gaze. “That’s my name, Terrence.”

“What’s your problem?”

“I want um, um, your help,” he said, his voice having a nice tone as one does with a good sense of pitch.

What was he afraid of–me or . . .

“You have aaaa, the gift of sight. I do too, not as good as you do–as you do, but I can see certain aaaa-things and can’t make them out–you could. I know, um, that you could.”

“If you’ve read my blog, then you would know I’m trying to see less and less crap. And I ignore ghostly music, whispers–I don’t want to hear shit.”

(Pier 17 – South Street, NYC)

“The first chapter of your book, yeah, aaaa, in the first chapter, Max–” Terrence began, referring to the main character named Max Beckley in a manuscript tucked away on my laptop. He was a Revolutionary War soldier abducted by demons in the Battle of Brooklyn. Countless times on this blog I’ve mentioned both Max and the book, but never his adoption after being reincarnated or whatever it was that had happened to him; which I’m still trying to figure out.

“–he-he-Max wasn’t adopted in, aaaa, in NYC. It was in Miami.”

I tried to remain nonplussed as I wondered how he could have known the particulars of the first chapter.

“When the step-parents a-a-a-left with him,” Terrence continued, his stuttering growing worse, “it was a hot summer day, really hot and humid. You had that right, but the orphanage was in Miami.”

I knew he was right. In the draft, I had put the scene in NYC because the visions I have of Max’s are not only entirely set there, but seem tied to the very soul of the city. But now that he said Miami, it felt right, especially because the image of the orphanage that I have is of a white-washed building surrounded by heat-scorched trees and shrubbery. It’s unlike any place I had ever seen in NYC.

“Is that worth something?” Terrence asked.

I shrugged.

“Ya-your words come to me, the words from your book,” he said.

“Save yourself the purchase price,” I said, eyeing him severely. I thought if I told Terrence to get the F outta my face. He would run off. He seemed to be the very essence of ”milk toast.” But in the same moment, only now do I realize that his timidness had forged a connection. And to offset his uneasiness, I continued to joke. ”You’re a cheap bastard.”

Terrence gave a hearty guffaw and spoke. “Max’s story needs to be-to be told. Many like you and I, people like us, want it to be known.”

“Why do those images remain?” I wondered and looked searchingly into his brown eyes. “In some instances I can see the images with my eyes open, as if they were filmed and are broadcasted from the spot where they occurred.”

“I almost think someone left a trail, um, left a trail, images remain, are there for those who have sight,” he said, seeming to repeat much of his dialog for clarity. “Images of people and places are everywhere, in, throughout NYC. They want a-the story, a story, unh, to be told. I can, I get them confused with ghost sightings, too.”

“So if you have sight, what do you need me for?”

“The same reason your friends do, because you see and hear things real clear, much clearer than-than they do.”

A bolt of tension froze my body. How dare he–!!!

–By friends I knew he meant my lady friend and the pizza and Chinese delivery guys(aka num and nuts), who at that very moment waited upstairs at the seaport mall for me. “I don’t feel comfortable that you know so much about my book, and it pisses me off that you refer to things about my friends that I don’t mention on my blog.”

“I can’t control what I see and know, I’m sorry, I was being honest.”

“So what is it you need from me?”

(South Street)

“There’s a place on South Street, a few blocks from here. Everyone once in a while I can just make out a blue neon light coming from there. Um, I have a sense ghosts or something, um, sweep in and out of a door. But I can’t–see it. It’s already started to glow this evening, um; it will be more visible tonight.”

“What do you think it is?” I asked.

“I don’t know. There’s a strong pull and it upsets me that I can’t figure it out. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt.”

“Now knowing everything you know about me, why do you think I’d show you the doorway?” I asked.

“Because,” he began with a hint of confidence, “on your blog, you do say all the, all the time, you don’t want to see-to see things. But it’s clear you do! You keep writing about Max, you practically live here on South Street, which is ghost central, not to, um, mention all the images, and you go in Central Park all the time at the gloaming hour. You, you, you want to know even though you say you don’t.”

“You’re f–king milk toast,” I cried and gave a sarcastic laugh. “Where do you get off telling me this crap?”

“Um, it’s true!”

To be continued . . .

 —

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Thirty – June/July 2010

Milk Toast

Keeping Secrets

See The Light

—

Wavertree Sailing Ship – Restoration Research (Outside link)

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

(Alba House – Photos by Joe)

St. Paul’s design looks like it was inspired by the utilitarian, concrete buildings from the heyday of the old Soviet Union. It is located at 2187 Victory Blvd in Staten Island.

Here are my STORIES and PHOTOS