Just Pretend I'm Not Here

If you've ever loved a cat, you know they sometimes love you back - oddly, occasionally, inconveniently - if not madly, truly, deeply. Every cat I've ever loved had its own peculiar preferences for spending time with me. 

Take my cat, Silas, a large orange tabby. Si's idea of a cozy rendezvous is sitting with me in the bathroom. If I do manage to sneak into the loo without him, he paws the door hard until it sounds like someone's trying to pound it down - which someone kind of is. The pawing is relentless, and even a task as basic as the one he's interrupting becomes impossible. 

© Teece Aronin - All rights reserved. For prints or image licensing inquiries, email chippeddemitasse@gmail.com.

Sometimes, if I'm home alone, I leave the door ajar so I won't have to get up and let him in. Within seconds, his basketball head butts the door wide open, chonky middle following, and tail, pointing straight up like the mast on a frigate. He strolls in as if to say, "Everything is under control! Go about your business! Just pretend I'm not here!" 

Once in, his approach and demeanor vary depending on his mood. There's the version where he plops down on the bath mat and settles in like the customer at an all-you-can-eat buffet who’s cleaned out the hush puppies pan - twice - and is prepared to wait for as long as it takes for a fresh batch to be fried - 20 minutes before closing time. 

A variation on that theme is Silas, the annoying neighbor. Wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian print shirt and plaid shorts, this neighbor flops down in your backyard chaise just as you were about to nap in it and brings only one beer - the one he's drinking. 

Sometimes, thinking I'm alone, I'll wonder where Si is only to see him emerge without warning from the linen closet or under the sink - like an Addams Family member roaming through hidden tunnels or behind walls to appear when you least expect it. 

When I'm running late, standing at the mirror, frantically slapping on makeup, Silas plucks my last nerve by doing figure-eights around and between my ankles. If Silas were human, he'd be that guy who wakes his wife up at 5 a.m. bugging her for you-know-what. 

My favorite Silas move - the one that makes me smile, even as I glance at my watch - is the one where he settles atop my bare feet with his paws curled against his chest and purrs. One could argue that there's a whiff of practicality in this, that Silas is holding me hostage in my own bathroom just so he can warm himself with my body heat. But how do we know Silas isn't trying to warm me? Or maybe he's killing two birds with one stone by keeping us both warm. Diapering babies, cooking someone’s dinner, patching a kid's jeans, shoveling a neighbor’s sidewalk are often acts of love masquerading as practical tasks.

When Silas lays on my feet, his purr seems primeval like something that has rumbled since the dawn of time. 

Why should I worry that he's slowing me down - especially when I’m going too fast to begin with? Why shouldn't I admire the ingenuity he tapped with this win-win solution for warming us both? 

And why shouldn't a cat and its human meet up around the toilet just so they can be together for a while? Humans have done it around bonfires, funeral pyres, and office water-coolers for years. 

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Cornflower Sky

My father is gone now. He was 91 at the time of his death more than 20 years ago. He shed no tears over not living long enough. 

If he were frank with you - and he would be - he would tell you that the only good reasons for living this long were the people he loved – especially my mother, whom he adored, and his kids, the ones he defended from every possible terror, including those we weren't afraid of and wished he'd stop talking about.


He was an introverted man of books and beliefs. Many nights, when I was very young, he'd rock me in the living room rocking chair, lights out all over the house except for one in the upstairs hall. On every one of those nights, Dvorak's New World Symphony played on the hi-fi, its "Goin' Home" lyrics drifting from the speakers. As I rested in his lap, he'd stroke the side of my face, his palm hard, but the sound it made, passing over my ear, as soft as a whispered wish. My father sought solace in his family - even its smallest member. Even the one who thought the music was beautiful but way too sad. Even the one who'd pretend to be asleep, so he'd carry her to bed and turn the music off. 

My father could laugh - hard. He laughed until his shoulders shook, and he could barely breathe. Usually, my laugh is like my mother's - but my torso-wracking, rib-cracking, tear-streaming, wheezing, swearing I'm about to die laugh - was inherited from him. My brothers often laugh that way, too. 

My father had definite ideas about how a family should operate. He made it clear that in our house, family meant safety and that family never tore each other down. After a girl who lived up the street vowed to beat me up the next day, he knelt by my bed, thinking I was asleep, and whispered in my ear, over and over, that I was not afraid. 

As was its habit, the Universe would frequently and randomly stroll up to my father, shove a pie in his face, and walk away. Our family road trip to Tennessee was like that. It was spring, when everything should have been budding and green in the South.



If the success of this vacation could be predicted by how calmly my father packed the car, how efficiently everyone worked together, and how long it took to get everybody out the door, this one was doomed. Things were going wrong even after my father finally backed the car out of the driveway, which was when our vacations usually took an upswing. We stopped for the night in Covington, Kentucky. I don't remember that there had been any issues with the weather, but in the morning, my father was complaining about the rain of frogs and locusts sure to delay our departure from Covington. 

“And you watch, Phil!” He was pointing at my mother and almost yelling - not at her, but at the Universe, whom he was convinced would be along any minute with another pie. Now he was pointing at the window. “I’m going to open those curtains, and there’ll be two feet of snow out there!” When he pulled the cord, and the curtains opened, there were three feet of snow out there. Our car was buried, and the parking lot impassable.  

One night, in my early twenties, I made a naive choice that left me stranded miles from home. I called my parents who got up in the middle of the night and drove for an hour-and-a-half to come get me. My father and I stood outside the car. I told him I was sorry he and Mom had to drive that far. He said, "Honey, I’d drive around the world for you.” 

When portable in-car GPS navigators became available, my brother enthusiastically showed one to my father who was fascinated by anything navigational - maps, compasses, sextants, all those things. "I am so glad I'll be dead before I have to use one of those things," he said.

He died peacefully one March morning, a success at never having had to use one of those things and a success at more important things, too. When I left the nursing home, the sky was cornflower blue, filled with stacks of cumulus clouds, and it was unseasonably warm, a perfect spring day. The Universe denied him this day in Covington but blessed him with it on the morning of this much more important trip. 

Goin' home, to be truly goin' home, must have felt so good. He'd been away so long.

The Phobic Do-Gooder

 A Pause in the Workday 

An office building where I used to work is wrapped in tall, wide windows. One winter day, something hit the glass not 20 feet from where I stood. There was a loud thump, and when I looked, a dark shape fell.

Image, Teece Aronin

I hurried to the window and peered down. On the ground, a sparrow lay on its back, its head submerged in snow. Its little breast rose and fell, rose and fell, and if it hadn't been for that, I would have sworn it was dead. 

I worried that if the bird didn't right itself soon, it would suffocate, but I hesitated to help. I love birds, but I love them from a distance because I'm a little bit phobic about them - fish, too. I think my fear is that they'll flap or flutter in my eyes.  

One of my coworkers came over to see what I was looking at, and because she was famously tenderhearted, I asked, "So, Jean, what are you going to do?"

An Origami Bird

While Jean was off looking for a box and I kept useless watch over the sparrow, one tiny leg sprang up and then the other, as if an origami bird were unfurling in the snow. 

Next, the sparrow flipped right-side-up, blinked, and looked around. It wore a party hat of snow on its head and another, smaller one, atop its beak. 

Suddenly, there was Jean, gingerly traipsing up to the bird, cardboard box in hand. When she got close, the bird took off but fell again. Jean came closer, and this time, when the sparrow took off, it kept going, faster and higher until it was clear that it needed neither Jean nor the box, and certainly not me. It disappeared into the wild, gray yonder.  

I need to get over my phobias before they stop me from helping when there is no Jean around. The fact that something is different from us doesn't mean we don't share the world with it, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't help. 

Besides, maybe some of the things that flap or flutter have a phobia about me. 

I Was Just Resting My Eyes . . . for Four Years

COVID Sucked Steam - Bigtime

COVID-19 sucked the steam right out of my little demitasse, leaving its contents to cool for four years. I started the blog in early 2014 to capture "anything that crossed my mind and stalled there long enough." 

Before COVID, Chipped Demitasse was a combination playground, underwater cave, and space camp where I explored ideas that struck me for any or practically no reason, probing the recesses for treasures of humor and ethos.   

When I wrote Playing Games with Underwater Welders, the post before this one, it was March 2020, and COVID was dropping a big rock smack on top of the world's head. And the world wasn't wearing its helmet. 

Clicking "publish" on that post, I had no idea that would be it for years. 

This Little Light of Mine . . . Blinked Right the Hell Out

For six years Chipped Demitasse was a light I used to keep from falling in the dark, especially the pitch-black of divorce, sudden onset single parenthood, and my mother's death. It was a passionate pipedream whispering in my ear that I might write something astounding someday, something that helped people or righted a wrong. Even if it were a microscopically small wrong that no one knew about but me, I would be thrilled. Besides, COVID was microscopically small, and it was a very big thing. 

As the pandemic leaned in to savage the planet in earnest, I thought I was doing well - overall. I mean I was saddened by COVID, terrified of COVID, worried about my family and friends because of COVID, and grateful my parents had died before COVID. But I wasn't hit so hard that I couldn't keep writing the blog that was a coping mechanism and a joy - I thought. 

Still, my focus went elsewhere, toward building multiple income streams from freelance writing, marketing, and communications consulting. I love those things too - and in times that had never seemed less certain in my lifetime, they helped pay the bills. 

In the meantime, COVID ramped up its invasions of homes, schools, offices, work cubicles, and places of worship. It was a wheezing, hacking, spit-spewing blob that seemed to penetrate walls and ooze beneath doors. 

Fever Dreams Without the Fever 

And then there were the COVID dreams; you probably had them, too. In one of mine, my parents were alive. I was standing with them and my siblings on the beach at a blighted, deserted resort. The weather was blustery, and canvas beach umbrellas and cabanas flapped loudly in the wind. 

We were all wearing raincoats, and my brother's was long, gray, and drab as a tarp. My mother pulled two frilly black bras from a beach bag, passed them to me as though they were sandwiches, and explained that I should use them as masks. One of the cups consumed my entire face, and I remarked that they'd be great for glamour mask shots, proving that even in COVID dreams, I have a sense of humor.  

When my brother announced that he was off to find a restroom, I yelled, "Remember! Six feet!" at the wind-ripple-y back of his departing coat-tarp. 

Sometimes I Wasn't Dreaming

At the height of the pandemic, things you once thought only happen in dreams, happened in real life. When my daughter, Sydney asked if we could go garage sale-ing one day, my knee-jerk response was, "Sure!" I didn't think before I spoke, and when I saw how happy Syd looked, I didn't want to disappoint her. We masked up and ventured out. 

As I browsed dogeared paperbacks, grimy action figures, and laceless roller skates in some stranger's back yard, two people without masks stopped within a foot of Syd. I transformed into Donald Sutherland in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," pointed and yelled, "Syd, get back! Those people aren't wearing masks!" 

That happened during a particularly ugly early days COVID surge. Still, it might've been an overreaction on my part. I who had performed crisis communications during two public health emergencies - an oil spill and a heat wave - went apoplectic as two passersby at a garage sale strolled into my baby's personal space. 

Then there were the almost apocalyptic experiences, like when I drove past a house with a child's birthday party underway in the front yard. The yard was decorated with a banner and balloons, and revelers in party hats laughed and clapped - but the child was in one yard with her parents, and the guests were another family in another yard - across the street.  

Things that Are Frivolous but Deep and Neurodivergent and Loving It 

Chipped Demitasse never focused on one topic. It's not a travel blog or a parenting blog, or a history, finance, or health and wellness blog, although I've written about all of those things here. 

It does have a theme, though, which I touched on earlier: teasing out exquisite, moving, painful, meaningful, awful, zany, or frivolous things to see them in a different light. 

Last October, I was diagnosed with ADHD, meaning that I'd been cluelessly neurodivergent for more than 60 years. Most people I've told said, "I don't see it; you seem pretty low-key." But ideas for things to write, comics to draw, and paintings to paint ricochet around in my head all the time, and I have to keep my phone handy to jot them all down.  

Before my diagnosis, there were times when tedious things were harder than they needed to be. A boss once glanced at notes I'd taken and complained that they gave her a headache. I was the only one who would be using the notes, and they made perfect sense to me, but I know now that my loathing of tedium and my meandering notetaking can be traits of ADHD and neurodivergence. I've also learned that those challenges could be addressed and that my turbo-charged creativity and alternative thinking skills give me an advantage much of the time.  

My plan for this blog is to keep nudging it up the same path but to zhuzh it up a little (note the snazzy new subheadings). But most important: I want to share my new and improved world with others.

Different Flavors of "Expresso" All in One Tiny Cup

The forms of expression available to me through this blog are more reasons to bring it back. Writing ghost stories for Halloween and noir spoofs starring Sam Spayed, Dog Detective, and then swinging to the opposite end of the spectrum to write about grief and loss, feels freeing, although it might give others vertigo. And if any COVID-related flotsam washes ashore, I will place it gently on the sand and look for treasure.  

Playing Games with Underwater Welders

I play this game on my phone called Words with Friends. It's a lot like Scrabble, and most of the people I play with are people I actually know. However, sometimes I accept an invitation from someone I don't know, and occasionally, when I spot someone who looks like a better player than I am, I'll challenge that person to a game as a way of sharpening up my skills. 

Words with Friends allows players to "chat" with their opponents, and it's rare that I am willing to engage in a chat on there with someone I don't already know. But once in a while I do. What follows is a conversation which took place between me and a new opponent a few months ago.

Player: Hello! You play so well. How long have you been playing? 

(I'm not that great a player.)

Me: Thank you. It's been about four years. 

Player: Wow, that's such a long time. I just started some days back. Where are you from?
 
Me: The Midwest. You?

Player: I'm from Houston, Texas, but currently at Israel Gaza for peacekeeping. How's the weather over there in the Midwest today?

Me: Peacekeeping mission? What organization do you represent?

Player: I'm a USA Military General currently serving in Gaza Strip and I work for the United Nations. Lovely photo you've got. You look exceptionally beautiful and amazingly gorgeous on your photo.

Funny how this USA Military General wrote as though English was not his first language. 

Three hours later . . .

Player: Hello?

Me: I'm really not much into chatting on here. Thanks, though.

Player: You're welcome. I just find you interesting and nice to talk to. It's been so long since I've had someone to text with. Please, for the sake of friendship, can you text more with me? I really would love to get to know you much more. Are you married or single?

Sadly, that's where our acquaintance ended. Something came over me, some fickle inspiration, and I blocked our chat. Words with Friends has a feature allowing you to do that. I'm sure he was sincere and looking for a long-term relationship. Actually, I don't think that at all. I think he wanted to scam me. The same is probably the case with Felipe.

Felipe: Hello! I must say this because it has been on my mind from the beginning I matched you. First of all, my late wife's name was the same as yours and the smile on your face reminds me of her so much and one other this is that she's also a nurse. And I have been wondering if people in this world are in twos. 

I didn't bother to point out to Felipe that not only was I not smiling in my photo, I was wearing a jacket and blue jeans and sitting in the grass. His late wife being a nurse and sharing my smile weren't the coincidences he was faking them out to be. He must have thought I couldn't see my own picture on the game.

Felipe: My pleasure playing with you! Where are you from please? I'm from Lisbon, Portugal, but I live in New York.

Me: I'm from the Midwest.

Felipe: Okay, that's nice. I have heard a lot about the Midwest, but I have never been there at all. Although I have a colleague that lives there. Have you ever been out of the Midwest, visiting other states or countries? I have traveled to several countries due to my job in engineering and seminars. 

Me: I haven't traveled as much as I'd like, but I hope to travel more in the future. 

Felipe: That's nice. At least you'll have experiences of how other countries and places feels and look like. Are you an outdoor person? I like going out maybe gather with few friends every once in a while. 

I go to bed without responding. The next morning:

Felipe: Believe that you are beautiful and have what it takes to move mountains, and you'll move mountains. Don't allow yourself to be let down by what others say. Get up and do what you can do best. Good morning!

 Me: Thanks, Felipe, all nice thoughts. 

Felipe: You're welcome! Still you have not answered my question. You like being outdoors?

Me: I used to enjoy being outdoors but not as much since I shattered my knee cap in a mountain climbing accident and had to have my leg amputated. You've really brought up painful memories for me, Felipe. 

Felipe: I am so sorry about your leg! I know it'll be uncomfortable for you sometimes. Always make sure you follow the doctor's advice so you don't hurt yourself again. Outdoor activities brings fresh ideas into my everyday life, and it makes me think freely. 

Forget about what you couldn't achieve yesterday, and think of the wonderful things today has for you. Work with all your might towards them to make your tomorrow extraordinarily bright. Good morning!

Me: Good morning.

Felipe: How's your day going? I figured you always play game at midnight. Are you working on night shift?

Me: No, it's just that I usually play at bedtime. My day is going well, thanks.

Felipe: Mine has been busy but going smoothly. Whenever I'm on my lunch break, I take time out of my busy schedule and take a little time to check on you. So, tell me, please, how long have you been a nurse or a doctor?

Me: I'm not a nurse or a doctor. 

Felipe: Oh, pardon me please! When I saw your clothes, I thought your were a nurse. So what are you doing for a living please? I'm a private contractor and an underwater welder. 

Cut and scene. That wasn't the first time someone on Words with Friends told me he was an underwater welder. Next time it will be an underwater welder who's also a "USA Military General" on a peacekeeping mission in the Gaza Strip.  

Ugh.






 

Facebook 101

When I'm on Facebook, I get the feeling I'm being immersed in a different culture. I'm not multi-lingual enough to have much Facebook experience in anything other than English, but it seems that no matter which English-speaking country its "friends" are from, Facebook has a way of of corralling everyone into certain protocols, language patterns, and forms of address. In other words, it messes with the ways we might otherwise interact.

Facebook allows users to reply to one another, and when you tap "reply," to respond to someone's comment, Facebook auto-fills the other person's name. As a stickler for punctuation, I often take the extra two seconds required to insert a comma after the name before typing my reply. If I don't do that, I am nagged by the notion that I have just contributed to the breakdown of written language in Western civilization. I think Facebook should include the comma in the auto-fill so I no longer have to take time out of a busy day to either add the comma or contemplate the damage caused when I left it out. 

Many of us also use our middle names, maiden names, married names, and hyphenates of all of the above when on Facebook. This can cause a stilted lilt in our Facebook conversations. Consider:

A woman posts a picture of herself with a trendy short haircut. Such photos are usually selfies taken in the poster's car immediately after leaving the salon. One of her Facebook friends comments that the haircut has a "cute little David Cassidy vibe going on." The woman fires back with, "Emma Jane Zelinski-Masterson-Whalberg, you think I look like a guy?!?"

In its ongoing effort to clarify users' communications even further, Facebook offers a collection of emojis for reacting to a post. The options are a thumbs up, a heart, a laughing face, an awestruck face, a crying face, and a scowl-y, angry face. Facebook used to offer only the thumbs up, aka the "like" button, but broadened the choices when users found it off-putting to "like" their friends' heart-wrenching posts about the death of a beloved pet and the other kinds of heartbreaks we all endure in life. 

That just made me think of something else. Say one of my Facebook friends goes skiing at a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. He breaks his foot and posts a picture of his bruised-up toes peeking from a cast. His post says he'll have to spend the next ten days recuperating in front of a roaring fire while drinking brandy. If I tap the heart to send my love, will people think I'm happy about the broken foot? Probably not.

But how will they know for sure?  

A Live Van Gogh

I'm at an age where I have more aches and pains than ever. I've also noticed I feel them less when I'm happy.
And the pain isn't all age-related. I was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis at age 10, and my rheumatologist told my parents that while my prognosis might be good, I also might wind up using a wheelchair more than my legs. 

Flash forward a few decades, and I'm in good shape considering. Still, my knees tend to ache and my back can get testy, so I'm focused on losing weight to take unnecessary strain off them. 

One weekend, I took my kids to Northern Michigan and we spent a day on Mackinac Island. I'm a native Michigander, and Mackinac Island is my restoration place. Cars are not allowed there unless you're a police officer or emergency responder, and horses, carriages, bikes and feet are the only means of transportation for regular folk. I was struck by how joyful I felt and by how gratifying it was to reintroduce my kids to a place they hadn't been since they were barely more than toddlers. 

We walked everywhere that weekend - up and down streets, up and down hills, and up and down long stretches of beach. That's when it dawned on me: I wasn't in much pain. 

Could it be that my mood was overriding my pain? The only place I drew the line was in climbing Castle Rock in St. Ignace, Michigan. I don't know that it was as much a pain issue as it was stamina, since Castle Rock is almost 200 feet high. My son did it though, and I vowed to him that in 2021, we'll climb it together. 

But I'm meandering, as one does in Northern Michigan. 

I was thinking that if I were awarded an all expense paid trip to Paris, and it rained for most of the trip, I'd probably still be thrilled just to be there. I'd be thinking how picturesque Paris is with its streets all shiny and wet and how fascinating Parisians are to watch, darting in and out of shops and clutching their umbrellas. Of course the Parisians, there all the time, would be all down in the mouth because it's raining. Maybe they'd be wishing they were in Miami Beach. 

So if Parisians can get bummed when they live someplace fabulous, maybe the rest of us can
be expected to when we live someplace mundane - mundane to us anyway. Could it be as simple as choosing to find what we need from our surroundings, and, by extension, our lives? 

Van Gogh painted pastures and stars and flowers and life until the day he suddenly didn’t. While he lived, he breathed color into his lungs and exhaled it onto canvass. He gazed at starry skies and walked through fields as yellow as the sun.

I choose to be a live Van Gogh every day I possibly can. 

The Axeman Loves to Swing

Have you ever heard of the Axeman of New Orleans? He was (or they were) responsible for a string of slayings and non-fatal attacks that took place in and around the Big Easy between May 1918 and October 1919. Can you imagine the panic that must have erupted in this pre-forensics era where killings and assaults were harder to solve and therefore, harder to contain?

The Axeman's first victims were husband and wife Joseph and Catherine Maggio, killed on May 22, 1918. The Maggios ran a combination barroom/grocery store and were found with slashed throats and pounded heads, the weapons: a razor and an axe. The Axeman brazenly left his bloody clothes at the scene, and robbery was ruled out as a motive. 

Next up: Louis Besumer and his mistress, Harriet Lowe. After being attacked in the wee hours of June 27, 1918, the pair was found alive at the back of Besumer's grocery store by an unsuspecting delivery man. The axe used in the attack belonged to Besumer. Adding insult to injury - literally - Lowe accused Besumer of the assaults. Things got awkward again when the extramarital aspect of their relationship became public, and dicier still when Mrs. Besumer returned from Cincinnati where she had been at the time of the attacks. Besumer was imprisoned as a result of Lowe’s accusation but was acquitted nine months later.  

The Toughest Nut to Crack award for 1918 goes to Anna Schneider who was attacked by the Axeman on August 5 of that year. Despite a smashed face and lacerated scalp, Mrs. Schneider gave birth just days after the attack to a healthy baby girl. A Wikipedia entry on the Axeman says that instead of an axe, the weapon used on Schneider might have been a lamp. One could argue that a lamp isn't as lethal as an axe, but still. And labor is hard enough as it is. Giving birth with a mass of head injuries has got to be at least a little bit rougher. 

On August 10, 1918, five days after the Schneider attack, the Axeman took down Joseph Romano, who lived with his two nieces. The nieces reported seeing a large, dark-skinned man wearing a suit and slouch hat escape the scene. Romano was able to walk to the ambulance, but died two days later. When you think of it, a not-yet-dead murder victim walking out to meet the ambulance which has arrived to transport him to the hospital makes for a creepy mental image.

Fast forward to the evening of March 10, 1919. Charles Cortimiglia, his wife, Rosie and their two year-old daughter, Mary were attacked. While Charles and Rosie survived, Mary did not. 

Steve Boca was the Axeman's next victim. Their fateful meeting came on August 10, 1919. Boca recalled seeing a shadowy predator hovering above his bed. When he regained conciousness, he rushed outside to investigate the break-in. It was then Boca realized his head was sliced open. He survived but was not able to provide police with details of the assault.

Almost done!

Sarah Laumann was discovered by neighbors with blunt force head trauma and multiple missing teeth. This was on the night of September 3, 1919. A bloodstained axe was discovered on the front lawn of the apartment building in which she lived. As with Steve Boca, Laumann survived but could not remember enough details to help police solve the crime committed against her.

Last but not least comes the Axeman's final victim, Mike Pepitone. Pepitone crossed paths with his killer on the evening of October 27, 1919. He was married and had six children. His skull was badly crushed, and there were not enough clues to unmask the killer. 

The Axeman of New Orleans was never apprehended. 

Not only did the Axeman get away with murder unless someone did him in somewhere along the line, he did it while taunting police and public alike. Here is a letter from the Axeman written ten months after the first killings and published by the media of the day:

Hell, March 13, 1919

Esteemed Mortal of New Orleans: The Axeman

They have never caught me and they never will. They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the ether that surrounds your earth. I am not a human being, but a spirit and a demon from the hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police call the Axeman.

When I see fit, I shall come and claim other victims. I alone know whom they shall be. I shall leave no clue except my bloody axe, besmeared with blood and brains of he whom I have sent below to keep me company.

If you wish you may tell the police to be careful not to rile me. Of course, I am a reasonable spirit. I take no offense at the way they have conducted their investigations in the past. In fact, they have been so utterly stupid as to not only amuse me, but His Satanic Majesty, Francis Josef, etc. But tell them to beware. Let them not try to discover what I am, for it were better that they were never born than to incur the wrath of the Axeman. I don't think there is any need of such a warning, for I feel sure the police will always dodge me, as they have in the past. They are wise and know how to keep away from all harm.

Undoubtedly, you Orleanians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am, but I could be much worse if I wanted to. If I wished, I could pay a visit to your city every night. At will I could slay thousands of your best citizens (and the worst), for I am in close relationship with the Angel of Death.

Now, to be exact, at 12:15 (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans. In my infinite mercy, I am going to make a little proposition to you people. Here it is:

I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people. One thing is certain and that is that some of your people who do not jazz it out on that specific Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the axe.

Well, as I am cold and crave the warmth of my native Tartarus, and it is about time I leave your earthly home, I will cease my discourse. Hoping that thou wilt publish this, that it may go well with thee, I have been, am and will be the worst spirit that ever existed either in fact or realm of fancy.

- The Axeman

Hmm . . . methinks the Axeman was a bit of a dip. He talks about "earthly time" and calls himself "the worst spirit that ever existed" right after mentioning "His Satanic Majesty." Wouldn't Satan have to be the worst spirit that ever existed? And would the worst spirit that ever existed bonk a pregnant woman on the noggin with a lamp? Whatta ya say to that, Lampman? 

For the record, the clubs were hopping the night the Axeman specified for the citizens of New Orleans to "jazz it out," and there were no killings that night. Isn’t it bloodcurdling to imagine the Axeman wailing away on his trombone in one of those clubs, playing, as it were, to beat the band?

I know I talked pretty big, insulting the Axeman the way I did. Still, if I were in New Orleans that night when everyone was supposed to be jazzing it out, and I didn’t feel like making the scene, I might have dragged my clarinet down from the attic, you know, just in case. 

Not in My Wildest Dreams

Late middle age has crept up on me, and I can still honestly say it is the most terrifying nightmare I've ever had. In it, I am at a wake for my maternal grandparents. In reality, my grandmother died in the mid 1970s and my grandfather, years before her, in the mid-1930s. 

Image by Teece Aronin

At the wake, my grandparents are laid out in a wooden double coffin that looks oddly similar to a piano crate. My grandmother, looking like the 86-year-old she was when she died, is dressed in a snow-white wedding gown. My grandfather appears to be a young man, in keeping with his early death while still in his forties. Although he was not in the military that I know of, he is dressed in a muddy, wool, World War I uniform. It seems he died in battle and is being buried in the uniform he was wearing when killed. His hat lies under his hands which are folded across his stomach. His face and body appear to be those of a worn and battered store mannequin, hard to the touch with telltale chips all over. 

The room is filled with people coming to pay their respects, and suddenly the crowd parts to reveal my grandmother, padding around barefooted. Her wedding gown is gaping in the back like a hospital gown, and she is dragging an IV pole around with her. I look to the piano crate/coffin to see that my grandfather is no longer there either. I'm both shocked and terrified, thinking that if my grandmother could rise from the dead, hop out of a combination piano crate and coffin and scamper off to join the party, there was no telling what my grandfather was up to. 

Then a voice, a sort of Hercule Poirot presence, makes an announcement. He tells the crowd that my grandfather's corpse has been stolen and that both thief and corpse are still somewhere on the premises. 

Like someone who has fought her way to the surface of a deep and murky pond, I smash back into wakefulness. I am shaken but confident that my grandparents are securely ensconced, side by side in the cemetery - and not in one huge double-sized grave - just two nice regular-sized graves - as any long-dead married couple should be.

A Phone Booth, a Doorbell, and Death

Our story takes place in Los Angeles, California somewhere around 1930. Let's begin, shall we?

Joan Smith was young and pretty. She was glamorously dressed as she headed to the home of her friends, Tony and Pamela Stevens. The party was in full swing when she arrived, and a fortune teller, complete with crystal ball, had been hired as the evening's entertainment. Joan waited her turn then sat down at the card table opposite the handsome, turbaned gentleman.  

A fire danced in the immense stone fireplace, altering the fortune teller's swarthy complexion with ominous, flickering shadows. Soon he was telling Joan that he could see a man. The man was missing his left index finger and was talking to someone on the telephone. 

“He is someone you know,” the fortune teller intoned.

"I don’t know anyone with a missing finger,” insisted Joan.

“Think again,” urged the fortune teller. “I am sure that you know him. He is talking on the telephone when he is violently killed. It seems the murderer has designs on you as well. If you can identify the man with the missing finger, and can do so in time, you might spare him and yourself a terrible fate.”

Joan sat there, thinking hard, and couldn’t remember anyone she knew who was missing a finger. But the fortune teller had more news, just as personal and far more chilling: Joan's death would come soon after that of the man on the telephone, and her final moments would be heralded by the ringing of a bell.

Eight days passed. Joan calmed her rattled nerves by telling herself that the fortune teller was merely staging melodramas for the benefit of the guests. But on the ninth day, she had a chance encounter with a young man at Sherman's Drugstore. His name was Frank Carson. He was a dear friend Joan had grown up with but hadn't seen in years. Frank lost his left index finger when he was a boy and the gun he was cleaning went off. The fortune teller's prediction howled back at Joan as though carried on a murderous wind. 

"Frank, if I tell you something, do you promise not to think me crazy?"

"Why, of course, Joan. What is it?"

"I went to a party a short while back and there was a fortune teller there. He told me of a man with a missing index finger who would be killed while talking on the telephone."

Instead of looking alarmed, Frank laughed.

"Joan, surely you don't believe such a thing!"

"Well, maybe just a little. And now, seeing you, I feel I must warn you. The fortune teller also said that I would die shortly after the man with the missing finger."

"Oh, Joan now, really!"

"I suppose it is silly," Joan agreed. 

"Do you want to hear a secret?" Frank smiled.

"Of course!" said Joan, happy for the first time in a long while. 

"I've been cooling my heels at a flophouse down the street for the past three days because my wife kicked me out. I've been crying in my beer and wondering what to do ever since. There's only one telephone there, and it's tied up all the time, not to mention its decided lack of privacy. I walked down here to call her from a phone booth. I'm going to try to win her back. Can you wish me luck?"

Joan's lovely features clouded again. "Frank, do you have to use the telephone?"

"Why - do you want to make a call?" joked Frank, but Joan was not amused. 

"Well, I doubt throwing pebbles at her bedroom window will do the trick," he said, more serious now. "I was a fool. I behaved badly. She had every reason to do what she did. I'm just hoping she'll talk to me when I call."

"Then let me stay," Joan urged. "The idea of you dying while using a telephone, it frightens me. I'll just sit over there. I won't eavesdrop."

"Oh, very well, if you must," agreed Frank. "But if I come out of there in tears, don't expect me to stop and chat. I'll just run back to my room and lick my wounds."

"I understand. Good luck, Frank."

Joan kissed Frank on the cheek and sat down at the soda counter. The place was deserted except for a man behind the counter. 

"What'll it be, lady?"

"Just coffee, please - black."

The man headed toward a cupboard then remembered. "Wouldn't you know, cupboard here's fresh outta coffee. Got some in the back though. Sit tight."

The man left and Joan sat, studying Frank's profile in the massive wooden phone booth. Things seemed to be going well. Frank was talking and didn't seem the least bit upset. That was when she saw it, tall and slouched over. It was wearing a black cape with the collar turned up and a black hat with the brim pulled down. She couldn't even begin to see its face.

The thing crept up behind Frank and with a decaying hand, yanked the  phone booth open. The rest happened so quickly, Frank never had a chance to scream. Now he sat in the phone booth, with the phone's earpiece dangling from his hand, his heart and his throat ripped away and his wife's voice coming through the earpiece, inviting him to come home.

Joan ran. The thing snagged her coat, tearing off a scrap of tweed fabric as she shot out the door. She hurried up the block to her car, then threw open the door, flung herself behind the wheel, and sped off. Once home, she unlocked her front door with shaky hands, locked it behind her, and snatched up the phone.

"Hello, operator, get me the police!" 

As calmly as possible, Joan told the desk officer what happened and gave him her address. He promised to send a car to Sherman's Drugstore immediately, adding that a second car was being dispatched to Joan's house. Joan paced for what felt like hours, though it was really just minutes. 

The doorbell rang.

"Oh, thank God!"

Joan threw open the door just as the rest of the fortune teller’s prediction snapped into focus, the part about her last moments and the ringing of a bell. This time, for just an instant, she did see the killer's face - if you could call it a face. It was the last thing Joan Smith ever saw.

The police failed to determine who or what killed Frank Carson and Joan Smith, but they were convinced it was the same entity because when they inspected Joan's mangled body, her left index finger was missing, along with her heart and most of her throat. 

The fiend must have been inspired by that striking physical characteristic of Frank's and decided to add to its grisly - and gristly - bag of tricks.