Things that go BUMP!

Cosmo Topper had the Kirbys.
Oda Mae Brown had Sam.
Lydia had Beetlejuice.
Every kid watching Saturday morning cartoons had Casper.

And we had the little boy in the yellow house.

Have you ever seen a ghost? If you  haven't, do you know someone who has? Maybe you haven't seen one, but you can tell a story where something just wasn't right.

Remember the big yellow house from Pain Pills, Numb Toes and Mexicans? I want to tell you about that house because it was haunted. Not in a bad way. The ghost who lived there wasn't a mean ugly ghost. He was just a mischievous little boy. I never saw him, I just saw his pranks. But the man who moved in after us swears to this day that he saw him face to face one summer day.

The big house on Archer Street. That's what we always called it. When we lived there, it was just my husband and me. No kids yet. We moved into the Crackerbox Palace before Joe was born. (The Palace? That's another story, another time.)


The big house on Archer was once one of THE places to be in Jacksboro TX back in the 1920's when it was built. An oil man named Spears built it for his daughter. It was the site of many fancy dinner and cocktail parties. But as time went on, it changed hands many times, and fell into disrepair, and by the time we lived there, it had been split into 3...the 'big half' where we lived, the 'little half' where an 85 year old lady who made beautiful quilts lived, and the garage apartments where the Mexicans lived, with and without goat.

The ceilings had been lowered in the house, and if you looked in a closet you could see the original ceiling about 4 feet straight up. The rooms were huge, with gorgeous hardwood floors. There was a living room, a dining room ( where Mark Vaught met his demise in the summer of '84) kitchen, mud porch, and a bedroom twice the size of most master suites. That room was so big, we had a king sized bed, a chest of drawers, dresser, couch, and end table in there, and it still looked empty.

Up there where the original ceiling was, a crawl space had been created. You could get there from inside the closet, but a quick peek up there showed there was nothing of any interest, just dust bunnies and cobwebs. And a window.

A dormer window that looked out onto Archer Street. You could see it plainly from our front yard. It had no curtains on it, but it did have those old wide venetian blinds that were always closed. Unless 'Little Boy" was in a playful mood.

There were so many times that we would pull into the driveway and the blinds would be open. The next time they would be closed. Open. Closed. Doors locked, nothing else disturbed. Just those blinds. Open. Closed.

Little Boy also liked to take things. Not your usual things whose disappearance can be explained away, like socks, or keys. He liked things like baking dishes. A colander. Shirts. Things you don't just misplace.

We never saw Little Boy in the flesh (or in the protoplasm, if you prefer) before we moved, but the next tenant swears he did.

It was a hot summer day and Doug had gotten home and taken a bath to cool off. He was sitting on the edge of the bed when he looked into the big round mirror attached to the dresser and he saw him. A little boy, blond Dutch boy haircut, old fashioned short pants, standing at the end of the bed.

Doug immediately turned around to find no one in the room with him. Remember this was a huge room...too big for a little boy to escape that quickly. Besides, there were no children in the neighborhood at that time.

Doug's friends Bill and Earnestine lived across the street. They said they saw Doug burst through the front door and stumble across the 4th busiest street in town... with nary a look left nor right... his face as white as the sight he'd just seen. Earnestine said it was a good hour and most of a six-pack before he calmed down enough to go back home.

I've often wondered what the rest of the history of that house was. Was there a little boy who used to live there, blond with a Dutch boy haircut?

I do know that a little boy was conceived in that house. And I have a picture of him when he was five years old....blond...with a Dutch boy haircut....

My Joe.