I grew up in a town of forty thousand people, but in my childhood days, my world was limited to about one third of the block that I lived on. My mother was a very protective woman when it came to her kids and my sister and I could ride our bikes as far as we wanted as long as we didn’t go past Mrs. Doyle’s driveway to the east, and Mrs. Bishop’s driveway to the west. Mrs. Doyle was our next door neighbor to the east, and Mrs. Bishop lived two doors to the west of us. Needless to say it didn’t take long to cover this area on bicycle. Even though our world was small it was not with out friends. Across the street there was Marsha (my best buddy) and her older brother, Stan, and there was Bobby who lived two doors to the east. His house was out of my territory.
I have many memories of this world that now seems so far behind me. Some as vivid as if they happened yesterday, some starting to fade, and others almost forgotten. I remember on summer evenings about the time the sun went down the neighbor kids would gather in our yard to play games. Our yard was never what you would call manicured so it didn’t matter to Mom that we trampled the grass into the ground. Our front yard was the neighborhood ballpark, fully equipped with dirt baselines where the grass had been worn out.
Our next door neighbors to the west of us was my Aunt Elsie and Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill was among the nicest men God ever put on this earth, but Aunt Elsie was a very strict woman, not often were we allowed to play in her yard. One night that I do recall being in her yard is one of my most vivid memories. They had an enormous lilac bush in their backyard. It was at least twelve foot across and twelve foot tall. It had also grown out around itself and the inside had died out leaving a hollow space large enough for at least three kids to have a neat fort inside it.
But on this particular evening we were bold enough to be playing blind mans bluff in her back yard. Now for some reason blind mans bluff was kind of a scary game for me, I don’t know why, must have been the blindfold, and just not knowing what the other kids were doing around me. But whatever it was I was pretty nervous when it came my turn to put the blindfold on. My turn finally came after the sun had set and the light was fading and Stan fitted me with the blindfold. He always made sure he put it on me real tight, I think just because he knew I didn’t like it. Once it was on they twirled me around several times and turned me loose.
As I was trying to find my “ friends “ in the darkness someone pushed me down on the ground, and I heard the kids running away as Stan was screaming, “It’s the boogie-man, he’s in the lilac bush!“, followed by the spine tingling laughter that I had only heard in horror movies.
I was left lying on the ground franticly trying to get the blindfold off that Stan had put on so tight. When I did manage to get free I looked up into the lilac bush that was silhouetted against the sunset and I saw that boogie-man looking at me from the top of that bush. I sprang to my feet scared out of my wits, ran to the house and went to the bathroom window to get a better look, but the boogie-man wasn’t there. Of course I know now that that boogyman was just a group of leaves in at the top of that lilac bush. But on that summer evening laying on that cool grass in my Aunt Elise’s back yard, I saw fangs and bloodshot eyes in that group of leaves.
I never played in that lilac bush again.
Jack Roberts – December 2001
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Reviewed by Darren Gordon
8/25/2002
Wonderful read! I have always carried a fear of dark garages for similar reasons. Well Written
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