Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [121]
There was one villain in particular we all hated, a chubby but muscular guy who wore a fierce, skull-like mask over his head. My father and Gary would grow apoplectic over this nasty brawler and the obvious ways he cheated. One time, the man in the skull mask got thrown out of the ring and landed at our feet. My father and brothers proceeded to call him terrible names, and he looked up at them and shook his head. “Get back in there and fight like a man, you cowardly slob,” my father bellowed. The wrestler took a seat next to my father, leaned over to him and said: “Jesus, Mac, give me a fucking break. I’m just trying to make a living, like everybody else.”
After that, my father and brothers liked the guy. Took him out one night for beers. Later, Gary started to run around with the wrestler and they would drink booze and cough syrup together. I later heard rumors that the two of them might have pulled a few jobs together. These days, the wrestler is a local conservative radio talk-show hero.
IN THE FIRST WEEK OF NOVEMBER 1960, we moved to a nice, fancy new home and started life over as a family. The same day we began the move, John F. Kennedy—the only man either of my parents ever voted for—was elected President of the United States. The world was changing. It felt different—more promising.
None of that would matter. By the time we got to the new home, the ghosts were waiting for us, prowling the hallways and crawl spaces.
A DREAM: I AM DRIVING PAST the house where we once lived on the hill—the house we moved to after we left Johnson Creek. In the car with me are two people: one, a famous newsman and interviewer; the other, Nicole, Gary’s last girlfriend. It is late afternoon as we make the drive, and I can see that my old home has changed dramatically. An extension has been built on to its main structure; a tower reaches up into the air for seven or eight stories. At the top, there is a Victorian-style turret. House of Usher, I think to myself.
For years now I have been wanting to revisit this old home. I have wanted to find a way back into it, so I could once more walk through its insides. I feel like I’ve lost or left something there, and that if I could just explore the rooms once more, Yd find what I’ve been missing. Also, I’m convinced there are secrets I need to know, and the only way to learn them is to reenter the house where I grew up, the house I once fled.
Now, I see a way back in. There is a sign out front: ROOMS FOR RENT— UPPER LEVELS. The reporter agrees to pose as my brother, and Nicole as our sister. We are a family, looking for a new home. We enter through the front door into what was once the living room. Now it’s a central office of some sort, though it’s outfitted remarkably like the foyer in the funeral parlor where ceremonies were held for my father and mother and my brother Gaylen after their deaths. There’s a desk in the middle of the room, with a nice older woman seated at it. I think: So much once happened in this room; now I barely recognize it. Nevertheless, I can tell that something is still dwelling inside this house. I can feel it in the air around me. It feels thick and malicious.
The woman arranges for us to have a tour. She tells us that we shouldn’t take too long, because after dark all the employees leave. Then, the buses will stop running and we would have a hard time getting back to the city.
We climb narrow, turning stairs and enter many rooms. Some of the rooms have unfinished plank floors, and in the middle of those rooms are trapdoors leading down into nothing. Other rooms are windowless, like cold offices.
In room after room I come across people who want to tell me their stories. The stories go on forever and ever. I don’t remember much about them, except most are sad, as are the people who are telling the stories. A young black woman tells me that when she goes out to walk around the neighborhood, the other