My Kevin

The sound of a door being slammed jolts me from a deep sleep.

I look at my phone.

3am.

“Kevvviiiinnn!” I groan against my pillow, “Why? Why, huh? Why, NOW?!”

Another door slams.

Opens and slams.

“Kevin! Please!”

There is a pause and for a moment I think it’s over. That I’m being shown some mercy.

And then there is the sound of multiple doors being opened and slammed shut. Over and over again.

I jump out of bed and fling open my bedroom door.

I watch as multiple doors down the hall open and slam shut on their own.

“KEVIN! STOP IT THIS INSTANT!” I roar.

The sound stops.

“I have an interview at 8am and if I don’t get enough sleep, I swear to GOD, I will call in a priest and get an exorcism done. I will call a goddamn Shaman and have him burn sage and call on the ancient gods to END you. Do you hear me? Am I making myself clear?!”

Silence.

After a moment, I notice one of the doors gently swaying back and forth, as if Kevin is nodding his (or her) head.

I go back to bed.

Yes, there is a ghost in my house.

I have named him (or her) Kevin.

I came here because of Cynthia.

I fell in love with this woman I had met in New York.

Her dream was to move back to the small town where she had grown up.

She wanted a family.

A white picket fence.

A big house to raise lots of children.

But, she couldn’t afford any of it.

Her credit was crap and her savings? Non-existent.

I was sick in love, borderline obsessed, so I agreed to use my money, all of my savings, to take us hundreds of miles away from the only city I had ever known, to this small-ass town, and into this big-ass, spooky, belongs-in-a-horror movie, house.

I did it all for her.

Except, of course, it wasn’t like she expected.

She wanted to move to this town because she thought it would make her feel closer to her parents who had both passed away years ago (they didn’t live in this town when they died, by the way. They had the good sense to move WAY before that). And, the town wasn’t like she remembered because, of course it wasn’t. She hadn’t been here in more than 20 years, so what the hell did she expect? And no one remembered her because most of the people who lived here when she was here had already moved away or died. So. No. Not quite the fantasy she thought.

But it was too late, I told her. We had to live here, at least until we could save some money.

But, she didn’t want to wait.

She couldn’t, she said.

Her dream had blown up in her pretty, stupid, face and she couldn’t take it.

So, after a week of screaming and crying and pleading, I woke up one morning to find Cynthia gone. Her things gone. And a note on her pillow saying,

“I’m sorry, but I had to.”

And that evening, I met Kevin.

After discovering the note and reading it a million times, and calling Cynthina a million times until she finally blocked me, and reaching out to all of her friends and family until they blocked me as well, I decided to do the only sensible thing.

I bought three bottles of tequila from the local liquor store, and three packs of cigarettes even though I had quit smoking two years ago, and I asked the kid working behind the counter if he knew where I could score some pot and of course, he was the one I could score some pot with. So, I bought enough weed to make sure that I was too zonked out to even think about Cynthia.

The problem with being determined to not think about someone, is that that person becomes the one and only thing you can think about. So, even as I tried to drink and smoke myself into oblivion, Cynthia was the only thing in my head. The only thing I could see. And, as I felt myself getting closer and closer to having a complete and utter breakdown, I suddenly heard a door slam from somewhere in the house. The sound jolted me out of my stupor. There was silence and for a moment I wondered if I had imagined it. But as I was about to take a big gulp from my tequila bottle, it happened again. The sound of a door slamming. Burglars, I thought. I raced to the kitchen and pulled out the handgun I had stored there our first night. Cynthia hated that I owned a gun. One of our fights when we moved here was that she thought I should get rid of it. “I understand why you had a gun in New York, but you don’t need a gun in a small town,” she said, “It’s unnecessary!” My immediate response was, “You need a gun anywhere in America. Especially in a small town.” And at the moment that I was searching for burglars, I said out loud, “You see, Cynthia? I needed the gun after all.” In response, I heard another door slam, this time from somewhere else in the house. I jumped and pointed the gun upstairs. I waited. I yelled, “I have a gun! I’m going to call the police.” There was silence. I slowly made my way to the stairway. I slowly started to creep upstairs, gun pointed straight ahead. Halfway up, another door slammed, this time from the bottom floor. I screamed and shot a hole in the wall. I looked down the way I had come. Multiple burglars, I thought. I reached into my pocket to grab my phone, but it wasn’t there and in my tipsy state I couldn’t remember where I had left it. While I was trying to remember where I had put it, another door slammed upstairs and then another one downstairs and I screamed, pointing my gun in the direction of the sounds, and then I watched in horror as the kitchen door opened and slammed by itself three times. And then the lights went out. And I wailed like a little girl and peed my pants. Yep. I peed my pants. I ran down the stairs in darkness, tripped over a step and tumbled to the ground. I leapt up like I was 25 instead of 35 and made my way to the front door in pitch blackness, bumping into furniture and unpacked boxes. As I started to unlock the door the lights came back on. Shaking, I turned back toward the wide front room. It was empty of course, but then the kitchen door swung open, and I screamed again as cupboards and drawers opened and closed on their own. I unlocked the front door and raced outside, slamming the door shut behind me. I ran out into the street and faced my house. And as I caught my breath and felt the dampness of my urine soaked pants and socks, it dawned on me that I was stuck here. I couldn’t go anywhere. Not anytime soon. And I didn’t even have enough money to stay at a hotel. As if reading my thoughts, I watched as the light in my bedroom flickered on and off. On and off.

I stood outside for an hour, staring at my house, trying to build up my nerve to go back inside. An old man walking his dog stopped and looked at me. I waved, trying to act normal, and then remembered I had the gun, and was standing in my pajamas with a big ole pee stain on my pants, and wondered if the guy was going to call the police on me. He looked at me and then at the house.

“You the one that just moved in here?” he asked.

I nodded, “Yep.”

“Wasn’t there a girl with you?” he asked.

“Uh, yea. She left,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.

“Huh,” he responded.

I watched him look at my pee stain and softly smile.

“Can I help with you something?” I asked, feeling my anger rising at his stupid smile.

“It’s you who’s gonna need help, neighbor,” he responded, his smile growing, “Your house is haunted.”

I stared at him for a moment and then, because there was no denying it, I just nodded again and said, “Yes, it is.”

“Guessing you can’t move, yet?” he asked.

“That’s right,” I said.

“Well, good luck to you,” he responded, tipping his hat to me in that good ole small town way, and continued making his way down the street.

I eventually built up the courage to make my way back inside. As you can imagine, there were more opening and closing of doors, with me screaming each time. Every once in a while the lights would shut off and I would wait to see the shape of a monster in the shadows. Needless to say, I was completely on edge that first night, terrified and didn’t get any sleep. The second day continued with more mayhem, and eventually I stopped screaming each time a door slammed. I went about my business as much as I could. Unpacking boxes, applying for jobs. At one point, I was in the kitchen putting my plates and cups away and I watched as a cup I had just placed in the cupboard, floated into the air and back down to the counter. I stared at it for a moment and then into the air where I assumed the spirit was,

“Look,” I said, “We have to co-exist for a little while. Ease up a bit, ok? I promise I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I can. All right?”

Silence.

And then after a few moments, I watched as the cup floated back into the cupboard.

I took it as a yes.

The weeks went by with the occasional slamming of doors and turning off of the lights and my blanket being pulled off in the middle of the night, but for the most part I ignored it all. When it got particularly annoying, I would yell and threaten to perform an exorcism and that usually made everything quiet. I was a fairly successful freelance photographer back in New York and began to apply to as many opportunities as possible back in the city. Being an extremely competitive field and given that I had already been out of the city for at least a month, which is basically the equivalent of being gone for 84 years, things moved at a snails’ pace. I decided to get to know my neighbors, show them my portfolio, and got several gigs photographing parties. Word got around fast that the newcomer needed work and while I had no desire to stay or get super close to anyone, people were very generous with their opportunities and pay. Everyone knew I was the sucker that had bought the haunted house and each time I asked what had happened there, folks would just shake their heads. “Too sad,” they said, so eventually I just stopped asking. During this time, the ghost and I got used to each other. And then, one December evening, I sat down with the intention to watch A Christmas Carol, but as I was about to put the DVD into my blue ray player, Home Alone floated off of my bookcase and into my lap.

“Ok,” I said, “I guess we’re watching Home Alone.”

And as I watched the movie and watched Kevin McCalister make the burglars’ life a living hell, it dawned on me that that was the perfect name for my ghost.

“Kevin,” I said to the air, “That’s what I’m going to call you from now on. It’s perfect, right?” In response, the lights flickered on and off.

“Good,” I said, “Kevin, it is…don’t set any booby traps, please.”

The lights flickered on and off several times, as if Kevin was laughing.

I wasn’t sure whether to take that as a bad sign or a good sign.

Even though Kevin liked to cause the occasional mischief, we lived relatively peacefully. When I left for the day to go photograph something or someone in town, I would put on Home Alone and leave Home Alone 2 out, just in case. Sometimes when I came home, there would be a pot of water boiling and a cup with a packet of chamomile tea all ready to go for me. Did it bother me that Kevin could use the stove? Absolutely. But I was touched that he (or she) had made me some tea.

And now, after months of applying and getting nowhere, I have finally landed a job in New York working for an ad agency and I have saved enough money to get the hell out of here and sell the house. I leave in a few weeks and I Cannot. Wait.

Packing up my things has been…difficult. Every time I start to pack, Kevin unpacks. My things go flying. He (or she) has already broken several of my plates and even when I threaten to call a priest or a shaman, the chaos keeps going.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” I asked, “Didn’t you want me out of the house?!”

Silence.

And after a few moments, the usual orchestra of door slamming.

It is the night before I am supposed to leave.

After a lot of back and forth and screaming and threatening to burn down the house, Kevin eventually stops.

There’s been no disturbance for the last two days and I am finally packed.

Tomorrow morning at 6am, I pack up the U-Haul and head back to New York City. Back home.

I make myself a cup of chamomile tea and am about to watch Goodfellas when I decide, instead, to put on Home Alone.

I expect there to be something, anything. A door closing, a flicker of a light, but nothing.

And then, at the end, during the scene where Kevin McCalister's mother finally comes home, I see reflected on the television, the outline of a small child next to me on the couch.

A boy.

I look over and of course, there’s no one there.

I look back at the television, and there it is.

There he is.

Reflected on the screen, behind Kevin McCalister hugging his mother, is my ghost.

My Kevin.