Letters to Jud

Dear Jud: If I had known what a terrifying experience it would prove to be, I’d have had no part in the plan to frighten Ida Wiley out of her wits. That event, which is still troubling to recall, took place on Halloween night during the year Bob and I turned 16. We and several friends were roaming the streets of Republic, searching for bird baths, lawn chairs and other movable objects that could be taken from yards and porches and relocated elsewhere in town. We had broken out several street lights on Elm Street and were walking toward our house when we saw Ida’s small house next to the funeral home. That’s when the scheme was hatched. When Ida’s husband died, she sold their home and had a small cottage built on the lot adjacent to the funeral home. Her late husband, a retired large-animal veterinarian, was one of many men known in Republic as “Doc.” You once commented that in our town, use of that title didn’t necessarily require a medical degree. There was the late Doc Wiley, the vet; Doc Leidinger, the M.D.; Doc Mitchell, the osteopath; the late Doc Beal, M.D., who set my broken arm; Doc Brim, the dentist; Doc O’Dell, the druggist; and Doc French, the Chevrolet dealer. I had always been fond of Ida, whose bearing reminded me of those patrician society ladies in the Abbott and Costello movies, but who also became gushy in the manner of Billie Burke when she spoke to Bob and me. She had professed to adore Bob and me from the time we were twin babies. When we pressed her, Isabel would retell the story of Ida’s reaction when she first saw us as infants, lying side-by-side in our king-size baby buggy. She clasped her hands to her breast, Isabel said, and cried “Oh! Precious lumps of gold!” On that night, the light in one window told the lumps of gold and their friends that Ida was still awake. We agreed that we should hide in the darkness and make horrifying ghoulish sounds that would convince an elderly woman, all alone, that hideous fiends were outside her house and were about to come in. We ran through the night and flattened ourselves in the grass at the edge of her property, our backs toward the funeral home. I glanced over my shoulder at the dark windows of the building behind us, which seemed somewhat more ominous than usual. I had never liked being this close to the funeral home. It was a place we had always feared passing by at night – a dread owing to the fact that this was a place to which the dead were brought. None of us would admit to believing in ghosts. But at the same time, when walking by late on a windy night, it was hard to doubt that this was the place where dwelled the spirits of those who had been brought up the long ramp that led to the back entrance. As I lay on my stomach, facing Ida’s house, I remembered stories I had heard about the house behind me. One story told how, years before the house had been converted into a mortuary, a despondent woman living there had killed herself -- possibly in the very room that overlooked us now. According to the story, the woman had sat in a chair, barefooted, placed the muzzle of a shotgun in her mouth, and pulled the trigger with one of her toes. The wind had picked up, and over the sighing in the branches overhead, I heard feet running. I looked up to see one of our party dashing toward Ida’s lighted window. He crouched low, dragged his fingernails across the window screen and uttered a low moan that broke and became an awful, ululating wail. We joined in with a chorus of gibbering shrieks and hoarse grunts. I envisioned poor Ida inside, clasping her hands to her breast in terror. But instead, I was surprised to see the porch light come on, illuminating Ida’s frail figure in the doorway. She hesitantly opened the screen door a few inches, and in her Billie Burke voice, spoke into the night. “Hello? Who’s there? Is someone there?” Ida was spunkier than I had expected. She continued to stand in the doorway as we unleashed another series of hellish screams to frighten her back inside. It seemed that we succeeded, because she stepped back inside and a light went on in another window. The wind seemed cooler, and I turned to glance again at the funeral home. It seemed closer to us than it had a moment ago. I heard a clumping noise. Someone had found some walnuts and was bouncing them on Ida’s roof. This brought her to the doorway again, and this time she ventured out onto her small porch. “Who is it?” she asked of the night. “Who’s there?” I heard some conspiratorial snickers, and then I felt a tingling on my back. I looked behind me again – and I swear that the funeral home appeared to be nearer than it had been even a moment earlier. It must have been my overheated imagination, but the side of the building seemed to loom over me. And what was that pale shape in one of the dark windows? Was it a reflection from Ida’s porchlight? Or was it a woman’s face? Every hair on me sprang up as if I had walked into a magnetic field, and the air around me seemed taut, the way it might feel to be surrounded by static electricity. Our moaning and wailing had stopped. The others seemed to sense something, too. I saw the shadowy figure of someone in our group turn and look behind us. I turned to look, too, and in my state of mind it seemed that the side of the funeral home was closer yet – almost as if it were advancing upon us. And the pale, oval shape was still in the dark window.