The Haunted House A chapter from a novel by Julianna Rowe.

                                     Chapter Twenty-Nine: Moving from The Haunted House

When I use the phrase "The Haunted House," I refer to the nasty small town two flat notsomuch castle we were dumped in by second Hubbs "Big Dick." (I genuinely dislike capitalizing the b and d in Big Dick.  It makes me feel like I am giving "it" some sort of glory, ya know?  

The children, all five of them, and I finally gained the strength to leave that house of horrors but not without the emotional pain it caused.  There are some things I am unwilling to share because some of the people involved are still living.  I will share this:

Years after leaving that hell hole we were dumped in by "Big Dick," I was talking to an acquaintance when I mentioned living on Monroe Street at one time.  I refrain from giving out the address here.  She asked me if I was aware a young man had committed suicide in the living room there.  In fact, he was a good friend of hers, and I shall only divulge his first name, Andy.  Well now!  That told me why the children heard dishes clanking, and lights turned off and on.  The young man that killed himself had recently graduated high school, where he had been bullied mercilessly.  Not to mention he had no family or friends to support him.  He blew his head off in the living room by the front door.  

Before I knew about the history of that old house, the boys, ages eight and ten, and I ripped up the nasty carpet, and I suspect now, asbestos linoleum under it and found old pine floors we redid, hoping to modernize the place.  We weren't used to living in a dumpy two-flat with dirty carpet and old cupboards that had been painted thirty times, so we took the appropriate measures to handle the embarrassment big dick deposited us in.   The asbestos may have caused my boys all their health issues throughout life.  Anyway, and not to make light of the asbestos, I took photos of the floor redo which I am known for doing, and in said photos was a ghost right in the spot Andy had taken his life in the living room.  Of course, I wasn't aware of what the mist in the photo was until years past when I discovered the history totally by accident from a friend of a friend who went to school with the chap, Andy, that did himself in the poor soul.  I often wonder what other havoc he caused us due to his unrest during the several years we abided his coffin.

Oh, we got out, but not without repercussions.  My parents told me I had ruined their rental home, and considering I wasn't accustomed to being cared about by them, I partially accepted their deduction of my worth.  Yet, on the contrary, we had built a fence around the property by hand, we painted, we sanded, we varnished, and we updated that darned old haunted house for several years, not to mention we brought class into a nasty dumpy old wreck of a dwelling and the surrounding neighborhood. 

We had come so far from any situation in life such as this before big dick, and his controlling daddy and my narcissistic mommy backtracked us with my foolish permission.   Before moving, we lived in a beautiful home with a pool.  I was the family provider making excellent cash flow, the boys loved their daycare, and the older boy was well settled in his school with amazing friends. Unfortunately, I caused them to be uprooted and have to start over.

So, when we moved to that haunted dump, my son Robbie was still in high school and lived in the basement of that tenement house.  It was a two-flat, but the word tenement reminded me of how we felt.  The basement floor was partial cement and partial dirt, but at the least, he had his own space.  I should mention some of our upstairs space dropped onto his bed if anyone walked harshly or ran across the upstairs floor.  At that time, dirt would fall onto his person if he were in bed.  Nasty.  And I felt the guilt.  Hell, I was raised on guilt, so this was right up my guilty alley.  My Crestview Grandfather used all sorts of manipulative tactics in life, including guilt.   I never saw that from my Dad's side, but it was my Mother's modus operandi to this day.

Since our deposit back in Farmville, USA, I had regained much of the courage I had lost due to one insurmountable curse after another.  The decision was made, and we moved out of that haunted prison, although it sheltered us for several years, and for that, I was thankful.  Our first night at our new beautiful modern home was exciting for all of us as we believed it was a blessing.  The kids were all in bed, and I was up late getting things organized.  I couldn't have been happier.  Freedom for all of us from the sick family control.  It was pushing me on to settle us in.  Remember, it was our first wonderful, exciting day in the next chapter of our lives. 

 I was standing amid what a usual move would appear when the doorbell rang.  Lord, it was one o'clock in the morning.  I had an instant flashback of five officers in blue as I peered out the tiny brass peephole only to see the new landlord.  Of course, I opened the door and asked him if he was alright.  He barged in, shouting about the mess I had made in only a few hours of moving in.  He was obnoxious and obscene, and drunk.  When he was finished berating me, he left, and I sobbed until I thought I would die, for the oxygen had just been sucked out of the room, and I felt out of my being.  I did not tell anyone, for the shock of it was beyond my immediate comprehension.  So, I disassociated from the incident.  What else could I do?

It took me only three days to put our new home in total order.  And it was beautiful, but there was that underlying threat the drunk man would return.  We had new floors, no dirt falling through the main floor cracks onto my son as he lay in his bed or doing his homework, clean carpets, brand new cupboards, a garage, and plenty of space for everyone to feel free.  I never shared with the children what happened that first night we moved in.  I tried to hide the fact I knew there was trouble under all that beauty. 

As time passed, the finished basement flooded where my bedroom, the family room, and the laundry room lived.  The drunken landlord refused to fix it or shop vac the water.  I hired a lawyer who advised me to withhold the rent, to give it to him, and he would put it in an account which I did.  Apparently, that wasn't ethical or legal??  I must have had a dumb lawyer, or there was more going on behind the small-town scenes of this mess.

How could I forget, drunken landlord's biker girlfriend!  We were great friends until she and the drunken landlord split up, and she got my side of the duplex as a settlement.  That woman was hell-bent on winning or killing me, whichever came first.  Now listen, I am no fighter which has become apparent through thirty-some chapters of "Let life lead you to Hell and don't fight it." Regardless I did fight, but she won, and I still had to pay a certain amount, plus the lawyer that caused more trouble than he was worth.  Shyster!  I could have personally repaired their house and saved money.  She also turned me in to the credit bureau for the money the lawyer put in that savings rental account that she got anyway!  Not to mention she put a judgment on me! 

Thank God or the Universe who took me to the end of the walking plank before saving me, a lovely man bought the duplex from a biker babe, and we lived peacefully for a few more years.  In fact, the new neighbors had a bit to do with my saving grace.  The husband was a six-foot-four-inch blonde hunk of a cowboy who schmoozed biker girl and got her off my back before the new owner came through, and the rest of that story is upcoming in Chapter Thirty-Six. So buckle your seat belts for the best lessons yet to come.