True Haunting

It was in April, as the weather turned nice, when I met Walter. Walter owned the beautiful, brown, three story brick building next door. He was in his late sixties. He greeted me as we passed in the back yard. I was taking garbage to the alley and he was grooming and preparing his flower beds, as his yard was a vast flower garden. We introduced ourselves and he invited me over to chat. I jumped the low chain-link fence into his yard. Walter was a likable old guy. He reminded me of my grandfather. Gray haired and stocky, I could tell he was once a laborer. His handshake was firm; it was like shaking hands with a tree stump. He invited me into his basement, offering me a chair. I looked around to find it immaculate. Unlike the natural gas space heaters in my building, Walter still had an old boiler, which he fed every morning with wood. With the boiler door open and flames going strong, it held the same appeal as sitting near a roaring fireplace. Walter smiled as he produced a new bottle of Southern Comfort from behind his neatly stacked pile of wood, and just happened to have two shot glasses. He filled each and handed me one. "Nazdrovia," he stated with feeling, as we downed the shot. I can still remember that it was 10:30 in the morning. I knew right away that if there was something good about owning this building of mine, it would be Walter, my new neighbor. There was great chemistry between us from the beginning. As he poured us both another shot, I knew he had found his drinking buddy, and I had found my key to the building’s past history. "She died of a broken heart, you know." His smile faded. "No, I don't know much at all." I responded. "One of her sons lives just down the block from here. He walks by every day, going to and from work. Bob is his name. He had a falling out with her and moved. He never spoke to her again. As she grew older and was confined to a wheel chair, she would sit looking out the front window. He would pass by twice a day and never give her a glance. The bad feelings went on for almost twenty years, and not a word was spoken between them. They say that she would sometimes call to him through the window. Even if he heard her, he never looked in her direction. He ignored his mother right up until the day she died. She died of a broken heart, they said." "Did...did she die in the apartment?" I asked, tentatively. "Oh yes, on the first floor. She had another son that also died in that apartment. He died in the front bedroom. He was very sick. Not physically, but mentally...in his head. He was some kind of deviate--crazy. He died young, in his twenties. There was a mystery surrounding his death. Supposedly he died suddenly, and there was a rumor that it was actually a suicide. I remember that boy; he had a crazy look about him. We all knew he wasn't right in the head." "Who else died in that building?" I asked. "She had another son, Ben. His wife hung herself in the basement. That's where they found her. I saw them bring her out; it was sad...very sad. That truly was a suicide. They said she went down there to do the laundry, and never came back up. Ben found her. She was a nice enough woman, but they never got along. They were always yelling at each other." As Walter spoke, I could tell that the tragic events surrounding the building had affected him. "Ben was wrong. He grew up in that house, then married and stayed there with his family. He should have moved out...got a place of his own...it might have been different." "Walter, I get the impression that this family had a history of mental illness. Myra was completely insane. If the younger son and Ben were also mentally ill, I assume the father may have been ill in some way." I was probing further. Walter and I had shared three shots of Southern Comfort. Both of us were pretty well primed. Walter was now becoming more candid. "Oh, him. Yeah, he was real bastard. He abused the whole family. He was mean, and not a very good person. Now that I think about it, he may have also been a sick man. They never found his money when he died. They said he kept it in old coffee cans and buried it somewhere. He also owned some land in Indiana. They dug the place up and even broke the concrete in places in the basement. No one ever found a penny. He built that house, you know?" "No, I didn't." I answered. He studied me. Then spoke. "You are the first person outside of that family to own that building. Come to think of it, you are the only person, besides Ben's wife, to live there outside of their bloodline." He looked worried. Having had the alcohol, I was also candid. "Walter, would you think I'm crazy if I told you that...that strange things sometimes happen in that building?"