(“Dredging for Oysters” Prince’s Bay, NY, 1855 - Ballou’s Pictorial/Photoshopped by Joe)

Jack steered the oyster sloop away from the South Brooklyn wharves where ice had begun to form, bearing to the Narrows strait that flowed between Brooklyn and Staten Island. In an effort to masquerade as river pirates, and because Jack liked fine clothes, the three of us were dressed as dandies, though we were all about killing that frigid January night. On top of nets and coils of rope in the sloop’s cabin, we had loaded an assortment of bowie knives, bludgeons, pistols, a mace, and two staves, of which Jack had said one would be mine for the marking of the demon.

I had one knee on the cabin’s roof to brace against the gentle sway of the boat. My hands were shoved in the pockets of a new Brooks Brothers overcoat that Jack had spent 18 dollars on, but I was shivering, partly because I needed the drink. But it was cold. I felt like a wedge of ice, packed in ice. I also wore a new Brooks Brothers suit and white shirt with a high collar that cut into my neck. I hadn’t been so clean and scrubbed since I was a child. But at twenty-five-years of age, I was characterized by a dark, sullen nature. There was no way a bath and shave could change that.

We sailed past warehouses and factories set along the Brooklyn shore, then smaller offices, pubs, and counting houses and then rows of detached homes that rose up a hilly landscape. The only boats in the bay that January night were moored. There sounded the creak of the rigging and the sometimes flutter of the sails. I didn’t see a soul and my gaze went to the curl of chimney smoke, back to the small waves, and then to the moon and stars. When I could take it no more, I slipped down into the dark cabin that smelled of fish and went for the gin.

Jack kicked open the cabin door from the deck. “Best to forget about the drink for now,” he said, as he reached down with his foot to hold open the door.

“O, come on now, Jack! Tis’ cold.”

“If you can’t say no to the drink, you won’t survive long with us.”

“Tis’ cold!” I cried again, and leaned back on my knees, caressing the bottle of gin between my thighs. The door knocked shut. Without taking a drink, I wrapped the bottle up in rags, placed it between layers of netting, then went back on deck.

At the helm, Jack gazed off into the heavens. The gorilla eyed me from the starboard side of the cabin. I didn’t have to look at him to know he was smiling. He had white teeth and smiled often. The day before at the bar I had learned his name was Gabriel Burgh. Soon after, I had lifted my drink and said I thought “the gorilla” was a fine nickname for him. “I have many nicknames,” he replied with a wink and a smile, “and have killed a man who called me one I didn’t like.”

The two others searched the head waters. Lights were visible all the way out on the Staten Island shores. The gorilla leaned closer to Jack and cried, “Too soon to say we’ll have business tonight, but I think they’re very close.” He pointed with an unlit pipe in his hand, out to the Narrows entrance to NY Bay. From there all sea faring traffic first set their eyes on the island of Manhattan and its magnificent waterways.

“What do you see?” I asked.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” the gorilla said.

I gave a blank stare, before I turned to Jack. “Before he died,” I said, speaking about the man whose place I had taken, “I heard Tom Bickers say what you do isn’t worth all the money in the world.”

“I will tell you about Tom Bickers,” the gorilla said in shrill voice, eyes flickering with a maniacal twinkle. “He was afraid of his own shadow!”

“We’re searching for a ship,” Jack said calmly. “We believe it will enter the harbor this very night. On it is a blood-sucking demon, a vampire. We’ll follow the ship to port. Kill as many on board as we can, and mark the demon.”

“Why mark the demons and not just kill them?” I asked.

“They don’t die easily, so we brand the demons in order to identify them in the day as well as the night. Though after a long voyage, unable to satiate their blood lust, most are easier to combat. They can’t switch shapes and forms as easily. But we take no chances. It’s best just to mark them, then the others can track and kill them in time.”

“The others,” I said to myself, thinking there was so much I didn’t know. But there was something more pressing I needed to know. “What do you see in me?”

“As we like to say, ‘you have a bit of the demon blood in you,’” Jack said, and looked at the gorilla who frowned. “You have just enough to let you see into their world. It will help you to become one of us. You also have a good size.”

I was a big man, but Jack and the gorilla were both massive, each about six feet six inches tall. Jack was wiry, while the gorilla had a notably bigger frame. He was mad in the head, too. And as made evident by our first proper meeting, the gorilla clearly loved to kill.

“How do you know a demon is coming?” I asked.

“If you truly have the sight, you can see the thin trail of blood smoke,” the gorilla said in a musky voice and pointed high into the sky. “At night, you can see it from Manhattan.”

I scrunched my eyes and picked up a thin red vapor. It was in the sky, just east of the Narrows.

“We think this one coming in, which looks more and more like it will be tonight, might be a 500-year-old Irish vampire. We know this through our contact in Rotterdam. He has gotten word from a watcher in southern Ireland, that nearly two months ago a ship bound for NY was loaded with boxes of turf, soil, and boxes that could hold coffins.”

“Why come to NY?” I wondered.

“It has become too dangerous where they live,” Jack said. “They’ve murdered and possessed far too many, and have been found out. America, offers new promise, more places to hide. And what better place than New York. If the vampire gets by us unmarked, there’s a vast wilderness in and around this city to seek shelter, while there is a large population to prey upon.”

“It’ll be tonight,” the gorilla said, focused on the Narrows.

—

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

American Horror Story

Hello, Hello…

Demon Hunting

Born to Kill

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

(St. Andrew’s Cemetery in Richmondtown, Staten Island – Photo by Joe)

Lately I’ve been thinking about making some changes in the direction of Bald Punk. The stories section will continue unabated. The Photos and Everything Else pages will change somewhat. I think I’m going to try and focus more on paranormal NYC.

Today I registered the domain ParanormalNYC.com. It redirects to BaldPunk.com.

Here are my STORIES and PHOTOS

(Staten Island Girls – Remix Spoof)

I have always said Staten Island is a crazy place. Well, here is a cute little spoof on Staten Island girls. The girl singing is named Tara Mooney. In the below photo she is at the left.

Here is my first series of stories set in Staten Island.  Seventh Episode – May 2009 (Bald Punk Rides Again)

Bald Punk The Explorer!

My Journey to the Edge of the World!

Staten Island BBQ Mayhem

Bald Punk Rides Again

Here are my STORIES and PHOTOS

(Photos by Joe)

These photos were from the end of Hylan Boulevard past Bay Street by the Alice Austen House.

Here are my STORIES and PHOTOS

(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

 (Photos by Bald Punk)

The church is called Saint Joachim and Anne. The grounds are known as Mount Loretto, which was an orphanage founded by Father John Christopher Drumgoole in 1871. 

When I was driving out of the compound, I decided to jump out of the car and photograph a flock of Canadian Geese on the lawn. See at the bottom.

I chased the geese, yelling like a nut, but the bastards all ran away. I figured they’d fly and I would get some nice pics.

On the way back to the car I realized I had just ran though a minefield of goose crap. Suffice to say my sneakers went in the trunk.

Related posts: Mount Loretto in Staten Island

Lemon Creek Park in Staten Island

Here are my STORIES and PHOTOS

(Rear of St. Andrew’s Church, Staten Island - Photos by Bald Punk)

I was in the graveyard of old St. Andrew’s Church to take some photos. A broad shouldered man was also there taking photos. He was far enough away so that I could politely ignore him.

When I next looked up from the stones, he was a dozen feet from me and coming closer. I blinked a few times, trying to discern what was so odd about him. He surely wasn’t real.

His body looked like it was comprised of water vapor. Something inside me said it was the ghost of a slave named Hardy though it didn’t look like either of his previous incarnations.

I tried to step back, but my arms were frozen akimbo. I looked like a gunfighter with hands outstretched for holstered revolvers.

I wondered if a force that the ghost wielded from the nether world had me in its grip, yet looking back–perhaps it was the precognition that my body was seconds from being ripped in two, and I was terrified because there was no way to prevent it.

My eyes were jumping like fireflies. Was it night or day? Did it matter? I felt like I was caught in that space between life and death, between gut wrenching pain and the most exquisite nothing.

Death was everywhere. The names on the stones were like eyes staring at me from dark hallows.

“Don’t run away this time, boy,” the ghost whispered, and I recognized Hardy’s deep voice. A week ago he had spirited me in South Street Seaport, and he’d somehow been able to affect my thoughts and dreams since. Yet I still hadn’t a clue why he chose to bother with me.

We exchanged a few words. When I asked if he was the reason I couldn’t move, he didn’t answer.

Hardy’s eye sockets were pitch-black, flecked with what looked like white ash. He had high, bulbous cheek bones and a large nose. Though his dark ”skin” had a white sheen; it was clearly the ghost in him.

He came within a few feet, and I noticed salient freckles on his cheeks. I was reminded of a Little Rascals episode in which the gang had painted dots on their cheeks to pretend they had measles in order to skip school.

In Hardy’s massive right hand was a camera affixed with a telephoto lens. He lifted it higher for me to see. “Didn’t want to startle you,” he said in a bassy voice that sounded like it had a touch of reverb.

(St. Andrew’s graveyard)

The camera fell from his hand and compressed. Before it hit the ground, it seemed like a mouth from another dimension opened and sucked it up.

“The camera was an illusion, so a stupid white boy wouldn’t notice a big black ghost,” Hardy said and reared back with a right; his fingers like Polish kielbasa. “This will only hurt for a moment.” As he swung his body turned to clear vapor, save his right arm forward from the elbow.

He hit me square in the chest, and my body imploded. My being sailed straight up. Below I could see old St. Andrew’s and its graveyard billowing up to meet me.

It felt as if Hardy’s hand had gone past my breastbone, latched onto my spine, and began to yank in an effort to separate my skeleton from its charge of flesh. I was near certain that part of my jaw had lodged in my throat.

Good God how it all felt! There was no distinction between terror and pain. Both were beyond words. I believed my ribcage had been irrevocably shattered and huge dollops of my flesh were spattered over the graves.

“That’s what it feels like when your life is not your own,” Hardy said. “It is what the Revolutionary War soldier Max Beckley went through for many years, which, as you believe, he still endures to this day.” He let me go. “Keep it up and you’ll make a future for yourself in Hell, white boy.”

My eyes rolled back and felt like they were lathered by my wet tongue. I thought, no need to call me white boy, and tried to focus. My right eye seemed to roll out upon my swollen cheek. My tongue lashed in a serpentine manner. I so wished I could close that eye.

(Hill overlooking St. Andrew’s)

I took a breath and looked slowly down my chest to between my legs. I was solid, unhurt. Good thing that I didn’t have to piss. A full moment passed as I gathered and composed myself.

Hardy waited, his face gnarled with anger. When he spoke, his voice boomed. “Whatever you do, stay away from the Seaport!”

What?

“You’ve been collecting information on Max and the demons who possess him,” he said, seeming to read my thoughts.

Huh?

“Before you went to that seaport bar last week, you were walking South Street, searching for traces of Max’s past,” Hardy said.

“Got off fu-king ferry and walked South Street to-da-bar,” I blurted as if I was trying to balance a mouth full of broken teen on my tongue. “Didn’t search for nothin’!”

“You don’t understand time and how it can repeat,” Hardy said, and his voice lowered as he gave the first inkling that he was actually there to help me. ”Vague images of places, people, and even thoughts and dreams can linger. Some people pick up on them, if only subconsciously. You are one such person. You were taking mental notes. You’ve been doing it for longer than you’ve imagined.”

I gave a sideways nod. It was true that I’ve known about Max for a very long time. Visions of his plight came into my conscious before Benny, “the cigar store Indian” had told me about him. “So what’s the problem?”

“If the demons find out,” Hardy said, seeming to focus intently on me from his blackened eye sockets. “They might choose to make you regret it.”

(Old Mill Road behind St. Andrew’s)

“What kind of demons are they?” I asked brazenly as if all I needed to have was a few names, and I could find them and kick ass.

“The less you know the better,” Hardy said, echoing words I’ve said many a time. “I had to get you out of NYC, away from the Seaport to tell you this.”

“You afraid they might hear?” I said, smugly.

“Yes,” Hardy said, and met my gaze with his empty eye sockets in such a manner as I can’t explain.

“And what happens if these demons who have Max Beckley set their sights on me? What can I do?”

“Nothing,” he said with an air of finality.

—

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Twenty-Seven - March 2010 (Feat: Ghost of a Slave named Hardy)

White Fire

In My Head

Inside Me

NOTHING

Church of St Andrew’s – Staten Island (Photos only)

Here are my STORIES and PHOTOS

(Dunn’s Mill & Mill Pond Reconstruction -
Photos by Bald Punk)

I took these photos on the same day I took the storm photos that are linked below. There are a lot more buildings in Richmond Town that I need to get back someday to photograph. Now that I think about it, this is the third time I’ve taken photos there and each time I basically retake the same shots. Hmmm . . .

Click here for a map of the village.

Related Photos: Church of St Andrew’s – Staten Island

Storm Damage in Staten Island

A Few Winter Photos – Richmond Town 

Here are my STORIES and PHOTOS

 (Church of St. Andrew’s in Richmond Town – Photos by Bald Punk)

St. Andrew’s is such a beautiful church. Plus the setting is truly idyllic.

Related Photos: Richmond Town in Staten Island

Storm Damage in Staten Island

A Few Winter Photos – Richmond Town

Here are my STORIES and PHOTOS

(Rockland Ave in Staten Island – Photos by Bald Punk)

A violent storm two days ago had felled trees, power lines, and left many streets throughout NYC still closed. Driving in Staten Island to a job estimate, I exited the highway and soon after rolled into a traffic jam on Rockland Avenue. It’s a two lane road enshrouded by barren trees and thickets of bare brush. Much of it appeared desiccated as it was the tail-end of a long arctic winter.

At various intervals throughout the day, I had had a needling sensation that something otherworldly was set in my path. I wasn’t able to say what it could be, though I had the suspicion it was the ghost of a slave named Hardy. I knew he wasn’t done with me yet it.

A week ago Hardy had paid me a visit, and I believe, filled my head with a dream of early Coney Island set side-by-side against the arrival of a slave ship in NY Harbor. Though at the time he had spoken to me, his words were vague and as indecipherable as his figure had been.

In the past few days other surreal images have followed me in and out of sleep. The most vivid and reoccurring was of NY Harbor jammed with colonial-era British warships. In it the sky is a blood red color, filled with plumes of liquid black smoke.

The most violent action is by two tenacious frigates as they shell the Brooklyn shoreline by what is now Shore Road. Just inland from there, white and grey, low-lying smoke tells the tale of small skirmishes. A single man-o-war sits out across the Narrows by Staten Island. Every so often, it fires a cannonball from one of its many stout guns and though the ball always falls short of land, I can hear gales of laughter and song from the sailors after each shot. Given it’s just a skirmish, I don’t think the full-on battle for Brooklyn in August of 1776 had begun.

This scene reminds me of poor Max Beckley. He was a Revolutionary War soldier mortally wounded in the Battle of Brooklyn, only to be abducted from the southern marshes by a demon. From what I’ve gathered, a Staples office supply store on 4th Ave marks the spot. (See bottom links for more on Max.)

(André Basset’s – “Representation of the terrible fire of New York,” 9/21/1776)

My lady friend includes Max in her prayers. I just hope that by God’s graces, he’s dead and gone, though I’m all but certain his terror is ceaseless.

Up ahead at the intersection with Manor Road, a traffic cop stood on the dirt corner where there was no sidewalk or concrete to speak of. The left crosswalk was closed off with yellow police tape. In that direction, at a bend up the road were Con Edison trucks parked askew with their yellow lights flashing.

On impulse, I turned right and followed a handful of other autos. The road branched off into three parts, each leading up into an exclusive community known as Lighthouse Hill. I took the middle road and passed the upper floors of a nursing home set lower on the hill. The road rose up higher and to the right. There was a succession of toppled trees on both sides of the street.

In one section of a sprawling wooded area, it was good to see white flowers pushing up through the fallen brown leaves. I spotted a man coming out of the woods onto the road. When a second later I looked in the rear view mirror, I lost sight of him. I sat higher in the seat and checked the passenger window, half-expecting to see the man running abreast.

The road crested and slipped around exclusive, “million-dollar homes.” At the other side of the hill the street ran diagonally downward. There was a serene view off a steep, home-encrusted cliff out over about ten miles of land, and over Raritan Bay out to Sandy Hook, NJ.

(View from Lighthouse Hill Road out to Sandy Hook, NJ)

The traffic came to a halt by what looked like a small stone fortress called the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art.

I stuck my head out the window and saw the road was closed at a steep bend ahead. The cars were turning and coming back. I followed the line of cars through another detour and came out in the parking lot of Latourette Golf Course. I exited and made a left and headed into more traffic that wound down Snake Hill Road.

Below on the right was old St. Andrew’s Church, which itself overlooks Historic Richmond Town. I had taken photos in that area a few months ago. I had the sudden urge to take more. My camera was in my bag in the passenger seat.

I made a hard right just before the bottom of Snake Hill, and parked alongside St Andrew’s. The road was paved for a hundred feet or so and then was blocked off to traffic, though it still ran on unpaved for about a half-a-mile or more.

The church was surrounded by a stone wall and a very old graveyard. A two-story, white-vinyl residence sat in the rear with a detached three-car garage and a basketball hoop in the driveway.

The moment I stepped out of the car I knew I had stopped for a purpose. I scanned the graveyard with my senses on full alert.

It seemed as if every inch of my body pulsed. Yet, strangely, that was the touch of the supernatural.

(Church of St. Andrew’s)

I forgot my search for a moment and marveled up at St. Andrew’s, founded in 1708. The church has a haunting beauty that is framed by an idyllic setting. It includes not only colonial Richmond Town, but a nature preserve behind it that runs for miles.

I pictured colonial settlers coming to worship on cart paths set right smack in the middle of the modern road.

Within a few minutes, I spotted a man plodding through the cemetery, cradling a camera that had a long telephoto lens.

I realized he wasn’t flesh. He was vaporous. His skin was translucent and his eyes lacked any white or iris. The surface was an ashen color. I had the feeling it was Hardy.

“Don’t run away this time, boy,” he whispered, his voice bassy and ominous. Now I was certain it was Hardy.

Thick crevices, closer to slash marks were cut into the ghost slave’s face. It looked like a large feline had tried to gouge out his eyes. Though more than likely it was from the lash of a whip.

My whole being sunk and I found I couldn’t move. For an instant, the pain and suffering Hardy had endured in life seemed real in my head. And then I thought of his afterlife, which hadn’t been much better as he had been burdened as the guardian of the demon, Old Seven.

“Where is he?” I asked in a whisper, referring to Hardy’s hellhound charge. I searched the area around the ghost slave. His eyes closed and something changed about him. He knew to whom I referred, but was reticent. I raised my voice. “Where is Old Seven?”

“Inside me,” he said.

—

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Twenty-Seven - March 2010 (Feat: Ghost of a Slave named Hardy)

White Fire

In My Head

Inside Me

NOTHING

Church of St Andrew’s – Staten Island (Photos only)

—

The below two episodes both conclude by focusing on Max Beckley. Expect to read a lot more on him in the future.

Episode Fourteen – August 2009

New York City’s Deepest, Darkest Secret

Secrets

We Are Knowing

LIFE IN TWO HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES

We’re on a Road Trip to Home Depot (Secrets Interlude)

THE IMMORTALS

Episode Seventeen – September 2009

Carrie Robbins channels a Revolutionary War Soldier

Hiding Behind Coltrane

Memory Giver

The Rush Is Over

Here are my STORIES and PHOTOS