Ghost!

1.

It’s sometimes baffling how reality can be stranger than fiction. Andy seemed pleasantly baffled as the kindly old man whittling on the hard bench in front of the Courthouse held up out of the shadows his freshly finished carved masterpiece. It looked like a miniature railroad spike.
“Nice,” Andy said, grinning and studying the object close-up. “But I need two,” he added, somewhere between joking and dead serious. The old man nodded, got up slowly, and went to chase down some more wood.
Barney was sitting askew at his chair, leg propped up on his desk and looking dead tired when Andy came inside. He yawned.
“Late night?”
“You could say that.”
“I don’t see how you do it…”
“Ange?”
“Hmmm?”
Barney swung around slowly towards Andy sitting at the desk but was quiet and peered out the window avoiding eye contact. He swallowed hard and hesitated. Then he asked:
“Andy?” He was so hoarse Andy looked at him closely.
“Hmmm?”
Barney stood up and began to pace, but thought otherwise and restlessly sat down quickly. He cleared his throat.
“Do you believe in the Supernatural? Would the sight of an apparition scare or fascinate you?”
Andy smiled and laughed softly but Barney interrupted before he could say anything.
“This is nothing like retrieving a baseball from the Remshaw place.”
Andy leaned forward and thought for a moment.
“Well, it would interest me intensely I’d guess. But Barney, what have you seen?”
“Andy, I want you to spend the night in my room. Mrs. Mendlebright returns tomorrow from her sisters in Mt. Pilot…she stayed on after the funeral of their elder brother, you know…. so you’ll have the house to yourself.”
“But what…”
“Oh no, Andy, I’m not telling you in advance what you may expect to encounter. I need you to go in with an open and unprejudiced mind,” he stated official-like.
“Barney!”
“Please, Ange,” he pleaded with his arms outstretched.
“Alright,” he said finally after letting out a deep breath, his curiosity brimming.
Barn let out his own deep sigh of relief. With new found courage he said “I’ll sleep on your sofa tonight..of course I’ve been unable to sleep…so if you need my company I’ll be right next to the phone.”
“Well, that’s a comfort,” Andy said with a wink.

2.

He tested the bed for firmness. A framed photo of sweet smilin' Thelma Lou with her full red lips leaned on the bedstand under the small yellow shaded lamp. The headline ‘Mayberry Sheriff Rated Best In State,’ with Barney standing proudly next to a seated Andy hung perfectly straight on one wall opposite the Mayberry High pennant. A bleak small wood curio cabinet hung next to the closet and nearby a wobbly looking table with a radio and a library of back issues of True Blue Detective magazines; one of the bookends was a steel framed photo of J. Edgar looking mighty serious. Little did the famous G-Man realize there was a jug of sweet cider at his feet. Closest to the bed was the infamous dresser. Andy laughed and shook his head. He thought he could still smell the spicy chili forever burned into the ancient Mendlebright artifact.

He wasn’t tired at all and confident he could handle the worst of nightmares. But still he dressed for bed and grabbing a True Blue magazine turned off the 40 watt overhead and snapped on the lamp next to the bed. Within a half hour the wind outside picked up and began to howl like the cry of a woman in hopeless grief. Wayward tree limbs scraped against the side of the house, and no doubt somewhere outside the swirling wind made it a rough time for the huddling Winkin’ Blinkin’ and Nod and their babies.

Pulling up the covers a bit after a quick shiver struck, Andy thumbed through the magazine and stopped at the fascinating title ‘How I Picked A Pocket And Paid,’ reading and re-reading the part where the ex-con described the ‘brushing technique,’ the “smooth and deceptive method that every pick pocket adds to his arsenal.”

“So THAT’S how Thomas A Moody got my watch!” he said quietly out loud. He closed his eyes and shook his head remembering Barney’s swinging empty key ring. Enthralled by the rest of the article, Andy didn’t realize his eyelids were slowly getting heavier as it was now half past ten. He tried to fight it, but combined with the mesmerizing sound of the wind in the trees like water running in a tub he soon drifted into a deep sleep and the magazine slipped out of his hands onto the floor.

The sheriff was aroused a few hours later by a blast of ice-cold air and the sound of someone moving stealthily from the direction of the door. The wind outside had died down and he could definitely hear the shuffle of feet. He sat up in bed and blinked three times trying to clear his vision as his visitor stopped first at the curio shelf, then on to the desk near the window, seemingly in a desperate search for a treasure. As he moved across the terminator from the shadows into the dim rays of the table lamp Andy could see his visitor was dressed in a tattered gray suit. His face was emaciated, ashen, and whiskered, his eyes sunken, and hair stringy white.

After continuing the frantic search in every dresser drawer he swung around to Andy at the foot of the bed and shook his clinched fists in anger. Then, the vision dissolved like melting glass and it was gone.
“Shazzam.”

3.

Barney closed the door and walked slowly up to the Justice of the Peace’s desk without looking away from those haggard looking eyes. He turned his head slightly without breaking eye contact.
“You saw him?”
“The old man searching.”
Barney slumped into his chair and closed his eyes as Andy recounted the visit in the night.
“Who is he and what’s he looking for?” Andy seemed to ask himself.
“I don’t know, but every night..even if I do happen to fall asleep..he shakes me awake and gives me that frown of hopeless despair.”
Andy leaned back. “Well, I’ve been sitting here studying different possibilities since two o‘clock. By the way, I need to get you a new lamp. I yanked it cord and all and heaved it at him even after he done disappeared.”
“And?”
“When did he first appear?”
“Three or four days ago I guess.”
“Do you recognize him?”
“Are you kidding?”
Andy smiled and looked down.
“Appeared about the time Maude’s brother died?”
“Ange! That’s it!”
“C’mon. Let’s go see Howard Sprague.”
“Huh?”

4.

“Mother forgot the cheese.” It wasn’t even near lunchtime and the man with the bow tie was peeking inside the brown paper bag planning ahead.
“Howard?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, let me see. Ah, m m m!” He turned and pulled down an old dusty ledger book at eye level with a cracked brown cover. He sneezed. Carefully pulling his handkerchief from his coat pocket, he wiped his nose, folded it slowly and methodically, then replaced it with three slow movements.
Barney rolled his eyes.
“Mother says..”
“Howard!”
The County Clerk quickly buried his cleaned nose into the oversized yellowed pages and scanned with his pinky finger.
“Here it is, Andy. Yes, the Mendlebrights have owned that property from 1862 on.”
“Now we’re getting some place,” Barney said.
“I bet that was Frank’s room too,” Andy thought.
“Thanks, Howard. Say hello to your mother for us.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that. Always glad to be of assistance,” Howard said sincerely.

5.

In the early evening, just as the full white moon was peeking above the horizon, the kindly old white-haired lady with young, delicate, steady, blue eyes arrived back home at the boarding house, exhausted but glad to have the boy’s company. They sat opposite as she pulled the shawl closer and gently rocked in her favorite chair.
“Yes,” she answered as she looked up at the ceiling like she had x-ray vision, “Mr. Fife, you have Frank’s old room.”
She smiled. “Mine and Cora’s was across the hall, but as young young kids sometimes we’d sneak quietly over in the night to Frank’s and climbing under and propping up the bed cover we’d pretend we were camping. And dear Frank…he was the oldest, you know…he’d read to us adventure stories under there by candlelight.”
“Bless his heart.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fife. The was so long ago. Frank went to Nashville, mother to Florida after father died, but Cora never drifted far.”
Andy and Barney looked at each other knowing it was time to ask.
“Mrs. Mendlebright,” Barney enquired, “do have anything here in the house that belonged to Frank?”
“Let’s see,” she answered, fingertips of one hand trembling at her lips, “only what’s wrapped in tissue paper in that shoebox on the closet shelf. It was our mothers, but my brother wanted it kept in this house.”
The sheriff and his deputy were smarting after bumping heads reaching for it.

6.

Barney snapped close the silver locket after looking at the miniature photo of the two sisters arm in arm one last time.
“I’ll put it here on the cabinet, Andy, since this is where he always looks first.”
“Fine. You sure you don‘t want me…”
“No. I can handle this,” Barney replied calmly. The veil of darkness in his soul was lifting. “I hope.”
“Ok.” Andy turned off and on the new table lamp he bought like a man kicking the tires of his first car, and stood for a moment admiring it in deep thought.
“Well, goodnight, Barn.”
“Night, Ange.”

He left the lamp off and lit candles at strategic places in the small six-dollar-a-week room instead. Remaining dressed in full deputy uniform he reclined on the bed starring at the ceiling and waited. And waited. Around two A.M. a chilled wind swept through and snuffed all but one candle out. Barn turned on the lamp.
A shadowed outline of a man appeared at the door and within a few moments formed into as solid a figure as a living being. He stopped at the curio shelf and inspected its contents as on previous journeys. Taking up the locket he examined it eagerly, then turned and smiled at Barney. Opening the locket he took out the photo and threw it to the floor and replaced it carefully with another. He closed the locket, kissed it, and put it back on the shelf. Turning once more, he clasped his hands, tilted his head, smiled and bowed slowly and deeply. He vanished as the extinguished candles burned once again.
Barney rushed to the curio shelf and brought the locket back over to the bed. Leaning into the light of the sixty watt bulb he opened the ancient locket. The new photo was of a proud grinning boy, his arms squeezing two little girls affectionately.
“Now you’re together again,” Barney whispered.

7.

Opie was asleep in front of the tv with his head propped in his hands. He missed the thrill-packed ending to Shep and Ralph and would ask what happened as his pa carried him up to bed. But Andy had no idea. He missed it. There had been a hauntingly soft tapping sound coming from the front door. Andy switched on the porch light and opened the door slowly. It was the old man squinting and smiling with Andy’s second whittled piece of wood.

***
© 2006. Inspired by "The Brown Hand," by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

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