I hated Grammy's house. It was huge and massive and beautiful. Built in the 1800s when workers took pride in their craftsmanship. When oak was oak all the way through and not just a veneer. When ceilings were ten feet high to expose hand-hewn beams and allow room for crystal chandeliers. When window glass was beveled and leaded. When fireplaces were stone or marble with substantial mantles and provided heat for families and a congenial place where they would gather in the evenings. Grammy's house was just such a house. It's entryway included a wide and gracious staircase to the bedrooms upstairs. The oak stairs and bannister were dark oak which gleamed and felt like satin. The house was overhung by ancient trees, oaks and maples, and its lawn was soft and green. A perfect place for children.
When Grammy's house was built, there was no such thing as an indoor bathroom in Portland. The house originally had a hand pump in the kitchen so that there was running water, but the bathroom was an outhouse somewhere. Like most such houses, as sewer systems were built, they were converted and bathrooms were added - usually by enclosing a back porch. Grammy's bathroom, consequently, was a rather long, narrow, sloping room, utilizing the side porch which had extended almost the full length of the house. In her bathroom were first, along the outside wall, a wringer washer, which she used even then, and a dryer. Next in line was an old claw-foot bathtub on the inner wall. At the far end was a washbowl cantilevered to the wall with a door next to it. That door opened to a square room about 7x7 which contained an extremely large water heater and a toilet. Unlike the rest of the house where lighting was provided by exquisite fixtures and brass double push button switches with mother-of-pearl inlays, both sections of the bathroom had light bulbs extending from the ceiling with pull- chains. Two in the laundry-tub area and one in the toilet part. This enclosure had obviously been financed by someone less wealthy than the original owner.
My parents often spent evenings playing pinochle with Grammy and Pop and would simply put my sister and me to bed in their room which opened off the dining room. We left the door open partway so the lights and sounds of the friendly group could lull us to sleep. Although we never told, we never slept in that house. We would lay awake at night as quiet as we could be, listening for other sounds. I could always see the lights reflecting in my sister's eyes and found comfort in the fact that she was not asleep, either. Whatever dangers we might face, we would face them together, she and I. And Grammy's house had dangers.
But they were dangers of an indescribable nature. They were dangers which went soul-deep. Dangers without words so you could not talk about them. Besides, no one would believe you if you tried and it was hard to be laughed at. Grownups found excuses for things they couldn't explain. Children accepted them as real. Although I had not talked with her about what lurked in Grammy's house, I knew that my sleepless sister, too, knew that something existed.
Although not my only memory, my most vivid one, the one which truly made me a believer, occurred when I was about four. Four-year-olds are old enough to take themselves to the bathroom yet toilets are still big. Your feet don't touch the floor. I hated going to the bathroom in that house. I always had and after that night, I refused to go there again. I could hold it for long hours. If we were there during the day, I'd go over to the neighbor's house. Hazel, elderly and widowed, found it curious but delighted in the little girl with the springy brown curls. She never asked why and she never told on me. She welcomed my covert visits and always gave me a graham cracker or two before I left. There is a certain depth of knowledge and understanding shared by the very young and the very old.
But that night I didn't know for sure yet and I needed to go to the bathroom. I had waited as long as I could but finally I absolutely HAD to go. I asked my mommy to take me but she insisted I was big enough to go by myself. I looked for my sister but she was absorbed in a book and Mommy said I mustn't disturb her. So I headed for the door to that long, sloping room. I left the kitchen door wide open to provide light while I dashed in to grab the first pull-chain and then the second to chase the shadows away. I reluctantly turned my back on the room while I returned to close the kitchen door which was only proper. My heart was racing and I was breathing faster. I hated that bathroom. I began the gauntlet-walk to the far end. Past the wringer washer, past the dryer. Past the claw-foot tub supported on lion feet balancing on balls. Where was the rest of the lion? Shadowy spaces still existed beneath that tub and I couldn't look under there. Clear to the end wall and the second door I crept, quiet as a mouse. I didn't want to awaken anything that the light had not already dispelled.
I opened the second door. It should have creaked but it didn't. It swung into the room easily by its own weight. I peered into the darkness, swallowing hard before stepping in to grab the pull chain. I had to stand on my tip-toes to reach it although it hung well down into the room to accommodate young people. I left the door wide open so that nothing barred my escape route. I pulled my panties down to my ankles and hopped up onto the toilet, my feet swinging free. Usually when I was afraid, I would whistle or sing but here I couldn't because I might awaken something. I glanced furtively around the sparse room waiting to relax enough to go. There were dark shadows behind the big galvanized water heater, but nothing else.
"Slap!" the sound was distinctive and the bare bulb hanging on its thread-wound, dusty twisted wires lurched and began swinging back and forth in a wide arc. A scream caught in my throat and threatened to choke me. I couldn't move. I watched as the bulb slowed and became stationary again.
"Slap!" this time the bulb bounced before it began swinging. There was nothing else in the room that I could see. Just me and the swinging bulb and the water-heater and the toilet I was sitting on. Little prickles were on my arms and legs like a cold breeze had touched me. I sucked in my breath and held it.
"Slap!" the third time I thought that my heart would beat right out of my ears before it stopped and they would find me dead here in the back section of the bathroom. I didn't want to be dead here on this cold floor with my dead heart devoured by the unknown coldness. Panic became a giant, all-encompassing force but still I couldn't move.
"Snap!" the light clicked off, leaving me in utter darkness. I could hear the chain as it arched upwards to strike the invisible bulb. I jerked my panties up as I levitated out of the room, up the sloping floor past the tub and the dryer and the washer. When I got to the door to the kitchen, the lights behind me snapped off in rapid succession and I was again in darkness. I yanked the door open and a narrow rectangle of light appeared on the floor around me. I stepped into the kitchen and yanked the door shut behind me. I never went to the bathroom in that house again.
