The Ghost (Part 1)

It was the summer of 1960 it was a hot and humid late July afternoon. Ralph and I were on our way home from day camp at Benjamin Franklin J.H.S 55. As we reached near the bottom of the steep hill that was 169th a man suddenly staggered out from between the parked cars down and to the right of us. He was a young Latino deep brown skinned black greasy curly hair worn in the style of the fifties slick on the sides curly on top coming to kind of a coma in front.

He was taller than us of course may be five three of a slender build and in his late teens early twenties but old to us.

He was limping badly and I thought he may have been hit and had been laying in between the cars stunned.

As we were watching him stumble and hold on to the cars making his way up the hill toward us Ralph leaned over to me and whispered , "Should we help him?" "No!" I scolded him ,"Remember Mother said not to go with any one cause they could take us and hurt us!"

We slowed down and moved toward the fence puting as much distance between us and the struggling man as the sidewalk would allow.

The man never looked at us once but just seemed to be concentrating on getting up to Saint Pauls Place and Washington Ave at the top of the hill. He would walk a little and pause and hold on to the cars and gather his strength then try to walk a little more and end up stopping again to hold on to the parked cars for balance again.

I put myself between Ralph and the man so I had a clear view of him all the while we approached each other.

He never said anything but grimace ever time he took a step on his left leg. We passed him to his right he to our left we took one step an then I said , "Ralph he really looks hurt , we should help him."

We turned and the man was gone.

I thought maybe he had fallen between the cars again.

We turned and started back up the hill puting a distance between us and the cars just incase he wasn't hurt but hiding.

Ralph walked in the street and I walked on the side walk we each looking into the parked cars to see if he was in one.

He was nowhere to be seen even an athlete could not have made it up that hill in the second it took for us to turn around.

Me and Ralph just looked at each other and said "May be he was a ghost."

Because we were thinking about helping this man and going against the warnings of our mother we could not tell any of our family about it but we told our friends that we saw a ghost but because they booed and called us crazy we stopped talking about it.

I end here but it doesn't end here.....

AARRON

It was a warm day the sun was just coming over the tenements of Brook Ave. I had been sitting on the big stoop waiting for my brothers to come downstairs.

Growing impatient I stood up and turned to walk inside an look up the stair well to see if any one was coming down yet for the third time.

As I started to enter the foyer suddenly it was lit with a bright white light and I spun around to see where it came from and was surprised to see a little boy standing looking at me.

Dressed in a short sleeved shirt , white short pants , and white knee socks and tennis shoes with bright blonde hair and every blue eyes and very pale skin but not sickly pale just very , very pale ,and yet healthy looking. He was a very good looking kid too good looking like he was an angel or something and was about my hight but seemed to be a bit younger than me. The thing that I most remember was about him though was the light that came off of him it illuminated not only the stoop but the entire inside lobby of 1530.

He then said with a smile like I have never seen since.

"Hi I know you , and I know your mother Mattie , your father James , your brother Walter (Chucks real name), your sister Theresa ,your brother Ralph and your baby sister Janet."

"What's your name?" I asked embarrassed he knew me but I didn't remember him.

"My name is Aarron" he said then he spelt it "A A R R O N."

I asked him to repeat it for I had never heard it before and he said smiled at my obvious confusion and said ,

"Aarron , A-A-R-R-O-N"

This time spacing the spelling so I could hear what he said.

That was when I heard my mother calling me from upstairs over the banisters.

"Tell you mother I said hello." he said with that big smile that now some how seemed unnerving.

I stepped into 1530 and the light vanished I turned around and he was gone. When I got upstairs I told my mother of the little boy but she said she never heard of him and to forget about him someone was playing a trick on me.... Sometime later as I was walking up Clairmont Parkway to Bathgate Ave to buy school supplies for the new term when an old man in a grey suit suddenly came up to me with a big smile.

"Hey how are you , my son told me he saw you." he said , "How's the family doing?"

"They are ok," I said trying to figure out who the hell he was.

I decided I didn't know him and politely said "Well I got to cross here."

Though where I was going was farther up.

"Well it was good seeing you tell the family I said hello."

"What's your name?" I was forced to ask again.

"Aarron" he said "A-A-R-R-O-N"

I looked to see if a car was coming and looked back the old man was gone.

The Bus Stop Visitation

I was in Sound View walking with my best friend Mark.

I don't know how I got on the subject but I had just finished telling him the Aarron story and he laugh that laugh he often did when I told him of the weird stuff that happened to me.

Now understand Mark has been witness to many strange things that happened to me too and we both may have been abducted from the roof of my building but that is another story.

But there comes a point when you hear so many bizarre tales from one person you begin to wonder if any of them are true , as I feel I am soon to reach with your readers but none the less what I tell you is true and Mark will tell you too this happened.

Well that being said , I will continue...

When Mark reaches that , "Your Stories Are Too Weird For Me To Take Any More" quota of his he unconsciously gives this smile/smirk that tells me no more for now.

Any how I had just got that look when a young well dressed black youth walked up to us and asked if we knew where the number so and such bus stopped and not knowing the area we both said no and that he should go up the block around the corner to the taxi stand and ask there.

We took a step and I saw the bus stop across the street and we turned to call him.

He was gone... Mark said nothing , I did not have to....

The Ghost (Part 2)

In 1982 as Ralph and I sat talking about the weird things we had seen in our lives. he suddenly asked me ,

"Do you remember that old man ?"

"Old man ?" I asked.

Thinking about Aarron he didn't know about Aarron only mother knew about him.

"Yeah " he said " The old man in the grey suit."

"Me and you were walking down from 55 and he came out of the street carrying those heavy shopping bags and I asked you if we should help him and you said no because mother said not to go with people.

Then when he passed us you said we should help him and when we turned around he was gone."

"Is that what you saw?"I asked.

"Yeah why did you think I was asking if we should help him?" he answered.

A Baby In The Rain

It was during my fifth year after I was injured on my job I was reduced to living at sixty percent of my salary from the eighty percent I was receiving while I waited for my disability case to be settled in court and socail security to contact me as to the status of my case. My room mate Jean had just got married and moved out and Ralph had died a year before.

I had a dollar and a token to my name and I was going out to get a loaf of bread. As I stepped out of the front door it started to rain and I saw a woman with a bundle in her arms standing down from me looking up at the tenement up from me. When she saw me she walked down and started looking up at the building next to mine. I looked away from her and started to walk pass.

"'Cuze me...." she suddenly said and I turned toward her.

I saw she had a baby in her arms.

"My baby is sick an I got no money and I was wondering if..."

I looked at her and noticed her nose had dried blood under it. Her eyes were sunken and her cheek bones were prominent.

"A crack addict!" flashed through my mind.

I grew angry and snapped ,"I ain't got a damned thing for you!" I walked into the street to put a van between me an her. My anger was because of two things. One was because three times since I came to live in Brooklyn I had walked up on crack addicts talking about babies they or others had taken and sold or were fighting over the money they had made by taking a baby and selling it. I know what this sounds like but it is true I reported it but no one listened to me so that was that.

And part two was all I had was a dollar and that was for bread so I would have something to eat at least.

Then I thought you don't know what the deal is She could have been hit by a boy friend and any way you do have a token and that baby should not be out in the rain. I walked around to the front off the van a to give her the token but she was gone. There was no place she could have went the doors are all locked on our avenue and she did not get into the van....

The E. Ville Ghost..

It was a cold winters night in 1994 about 3:00 am and I had just left the home of my friend Carolyn in the East Village.

I had just rounded the corner of 2nd Street and Ave A and was starting up to catch the F train. A brisk wind had swept the streets clean of garbage and Clubers alike and was hurrying me along too. I had just passed the East Indian Deli and was walking pass the parking lots of the high rise when I saw the young man approaching me.

He was staggering and really not dressed for the weather now though earlier his attire would have been enough. I remember thinking to myself you'll not make it through this night if you continue going the direction you are staggering like that. Why not just put a sign on your neck saying "Mug me.... Easy prey." To my surprise the youth staggered toward me and stopped.

"You won't believe this he said but I have walked all the way down from Broadway trying to bum subway fare..." he slurred " No one will give me even a quarter."

I looked at him and was startled how much he looked like the ex boy friend of a mutual friend of Carolyns and mine.... It was just that he was at least ten years younger but damned near a twin of him. He apologized several times to me for being in the condition he was and said he should have known better but he spent every dime he had on a girl and a good time and that they both ran out at the same time.

I laugh and gave him a quarter and started to walk for it was cold and he said , "Great all I need now is another dollar."

I had thought all he needed was a quarter by what he had said earlier and called him back and said, "Look you need to get your ass off these cold streets give me back the quarter and I'll give you a token."

Wobbling he put out his hand and I took the quarter from it at pushed the token into his palm for I was afraid he would drop it and that was all I had was two tokens and a quarter.

"Now you need to get on the subway" I said and started to walk toward the station.

"Ok." he said but walked the other way I turned to call him he was gone. I walked up the block and called Carolyn to tell her of what happened and about the young twin of Rob I had encountered.

After a long pause she told me how when Rob was a young kid he had been stabbed and died on a subway but was brought back to life in the hospital.

Was it young Roberts ghost?

You tell me.....