The Demon Box

warning -self abuse, vivid descriptions and thoughts with some reference to mental health.

Watertown, Massachusetts, 1978

You must believe me when I tell you I was never a paranoid old man, languishing through a daily meager existence, jealous of bugs for they, unlike me, at least walk free while I atrophy away in this coffin of a room for forty dollars a week complete with a cot, a chair, a table and one box, that no doubt holds a demon. As I told you, I was not always this way. Not until I was without care in the world, making time with Helen some years after discharge from the Army in Buffalo. If I had known that Helen had a husband, then for the sake of the devil, I would not have bothered. She kept him a secret for the sake of her vanity, that no woman of the High Society would dabble in infidelity. Now as a product of my desire for companionship, I am cursed.

One would never have noticed such an ugly cesspool of a shop. It was on the eve of Thanksgiving, while all the city was looking forward to extended family and feasts, I had been given my gift, my curse for my own sin of adultery unbeknownst to me. It is adultery all the same, and that night I walked in his shop with my naïve mug and two dollars and forty-four cents for a novelty for my Helen. What was sold to me was this very box. I wanted a camera; I left with a burden.

The Box would not be in this room if not for a most inconvenient coincidence. That evening gale had caused me to seek refuge in the corner shop that smelled of sulfur rot. Grimsley’s Antiques and Novelties, most ordinary looking from the facade, yet it was not known to me that the real shop lay somewhere in the realm of an existential existence where everyone knows your secrets and desires, where one is called not by one’s own choice of the moment, but by one’s prior actions. I swear on my father's grave that I had never seen Mr. Grimsley, but how would it be that Mr. Grimsley knew of each person to be called in to buy a magical item holding a curse and punishment? How was he acquainted with her husband if at all? Had I known on this evening, that the man who pitched the box as an exquisite treasure of antiquity from the Near East was going to change my life, then I would have settled for a rye and ginger all the same at The Landing on Pearl Street.

What I left with has followed me here to Watertown. I left Buffalo in 1969 after being fired from my job at the Erie County Savings Bank for attendance. I can look at my windowpane in my rented room, and see the condensation form a most hideous face. I recognize the face. It is Mr. Grimsley himself.

Buffalo, New York, 1960

“Quite a storm we have here, what is it I can offer you? I am Mr. Grimsley, and I am proud of each and everything in my store” Every novelty can be verified, and I stand by my word. What I sell to you will last a lifetime. That I can promise you,” said Mr. Grimsley.

“Well, I must say you’re a committed man, a man of passion,” I said.

“Is there any other way?” asked Mr. Grimsley.

“No, I suppose not. I would most certainly be interested in a camera,” I said

“I can’t sell you a camera tonight,” Mr. Grimsley said.

“What do you mean- can’t?” I asked.

“I mean, I do not have my usual supplier this week, for the holiday you know, and they have all been sold. What I do have for you is the most genuine novelty oriental box. It is from the Near East,” Mr. Grimsley answered.

I looked at the box and could not help but notice the gold-plated trim embedded with emeralds and obsidian gems. There was writing in what appeared to me an ancient language, and it was Mesopotamian. Could this be Sumerian or Assyrian?

“Your wife, your special lady, could use this box for shoes, or jewels for the matter. Anything she wishes,” Mr. Grimsley suggested.

I opened the box. It smelled of amaretto or almonds with almost a musky wet heaviness. I shut it immediately.

“How much?” I asked.

“Two Dollars and forty-four cents,” Affirmed Mr. Grimsley.

That was how much I had. There is no way Mr. Grimsley could have hit that number by chance; it was meant to be I guess.

“You have a deal,” I said.

I paid the eccentric man and turned towards the door of the shop with my new antique.

 As I was leaving, a couple had just entered, younger than thirty, hurried and with urgency carried a picture or mirror draped in black fabric up to Mr. Grimsley at the counter. I did not pry but as I opened the door to leave to this day I affirm that I heard the woman say, “The face is back.” How naïve of me not to inquire further about the origins of these wares, the history of the shop, and just who Mr. Grimsley was. My trek home was most uneasy.

I went up the stairs to my fourth-floor flat on Erie Street. Some nights the wind whistles through the tightly wound apartment tenements on the waterfront and my windowpanes shudder from the force. I poured myself some apple brandy and thought about the shop. I was now concerned. What was it that that couple came in with? What exactly did the young woman say about a face? Over the next few days, curiosity became obsession. I put on my favorite Mozart piece on the phonograph, Eine kleine Nachtmusik to calm my nerves and buoy my spirit.

Truth was I was not at ease with the box. Since it has been in my possession, I have felt uneasy and nervous. I also have been hearing things, voices trailing off always as soon as I focus on what they are saying.

 I had to speak to Mr. Grimsley. I returned to the shop with the box. An old man was bargaining with Mr. Grimsley to take back sure enough, a camera he had bought. The man screamed.

“The Pictures cannot be real. I don’t know who these people are! Beggars, invalids, look at this one, who is this man with the crutch?” yelled the old man.

“I don’t suppose you know much of the tarot? That is the five of pentacles Mr. Monsey”; “despair, poverty, loss.” Mr. Grimsley answered.

“Also, A photo of an obituary? They cannot be real!” continued Mr. Monsey.

“What is real?” quipped Mr. Grimsley.

“I am not a criminal. I worked for everything I have,” said Mr. Monsey.

“Yes if you call selling worthless securities work then you have most certainly worked very hard,” said Mr. Grimsley.

He stormed off. It was time to bargain with Mr. Grimsley.

“I’m sorry I do not give refunds. Your box is yours to keep, you earned it. Do not open it again from this point on, for to do so you will invite into your life maladies and sickness, possibly death. You have here in this box a djinn, or a demon shall we say. However, if you let it be, there is no reason you couldn’t live a normal life. Just do not ever get rid of it, for to do so will mean certain death. Good night,” Mr. Grimsley looked down at a crossword.

I argued but it was futile and soon found myself walking out of the shop when suddenly I met the young couple from the other night who had been in the shop listening I supposed, whispering to each other behind a bookshelf. The man scribbled something on paper and gave it to me.

The note simply read:

“We are going to die in here. Get out and never come back. “

The couple fled. I followed suit.

When I arrived home I set the box down in the farthest place from my bedroom. However, there were few places from inside, without a view of the box. I was in the kitchen, when suddenly I was startled.

 I whipped my head around at the box. I thought it had moved. No, it was my imagination now. I can’t give this to Helen now.

Watertown, Massachusetts, 1978

I did everything I could to destroy the box, but it is a composite of the most negative energy. As energy, it cannot be destroyed just transformed to another form. Such was the first time I tried to get rid of the box. I remember that muggy June evening around the solstice. Sleep was futile, humid sweltering conditions turned up not only the fans and air conditioners for those lucky enough to have them, but also violent crime in Boston would spike. The dust danced in cyclones in the sun rays coming out from the holes in the window shades.

I stared at the ceiling in the dark. The thoughts came with ferocity. “You are worthless and foul. You are ugly, no, slimy.” I had to rid myself of that box. I jumped up out of bed.

With all my strength I carried the conduit out the door, down the stairs past my landlords’ quarter, and out the back door towards the alley shared by a dimly lit Greek diner. I took four steps towards the pathway leading to the dumpster, lifted the lid and hurled the evil into the dumpster. I heard the diner back screen door open and I nearly died of fright of being exposed. I went back as if all the fuss was about ordinary doings and returned upstairs to bed. It must have been an hour, but soon a fading solstice sun, put this old man to sleep, but only for a brief time for the phone rang startling me once again to a jarring anxious awakening.

“Jack. Jack Crane?” the woman’s voice asked.

 I fumbled for my glasses. It was 10:03pm. 3 plus 1 equals 4, the number of death, misfortune I thought.

 “Yes this is Jack, “

“I'm afraid I have some unwelcome news. I am your mother’s caretaker for the week. Your mother has taken a fall at her home in Belmont and died,” she said solemnly.

I killed my mother. I did not kill her in the sense I was the murderer or the instrument of her death but simply exchanged one form of negative energy for another.

I found myself once again at the Doctor. I had been seeing Dr. Monroe for 4 years on account of insomnia and mysterious stomach ailments. 

I returned home and to my horror, upon opening my door, there as clear as I see my own hands, there lay…………………….. the box.

…“What I sell to you will last a lifetime,”… I remembered those words from Mr. Grimsley 18 years ago in Buffalo.

I trembled with fright and collapsed on the bed. I took a sedative that was prescribed to me. Somebody must be pulling a prank. This is not real.

…” What is real? ” I remembered Mr. Grimsley told the poor old man with the cursed camera.

I awoke sharply at 3:00 a.m. to sounds from a piano coming from downstairs. You were talented when you were ten, but you gave the piano up. You could have done something with it, but you quit. You wanted to spend your time in the pool halls, not the concert halls and so you lay in the bed you made while the world passes you by.

Darkness enveloped the room. This is when the demon would talk to me. I heard the voices start will no source of origin. Then came scratches on the wall. Then what I heard had no Earthly explanation.

“Jack? Jack?” a ghostly voice echoed from the hallway.

 Don't answer it! It's not your mother, I thought to myself.

“Jack you do not visit me anymore,” the voice said.

That’s a lie. You were often stopping by her home in Belmont. Don’t pay attention to it.

I felt the moist frozen chill instantly; the temperature plummeted in the time it took me to roll over from viewing the box. I often experienced the cold spells after the demon talked to me. I suspected that it was taking heat through energy out of the atmosphere of the room for one purpose; it needed the power . I knew why my Djinn needed the energy. It was not a comforting thought. It wanted to manifest, perhaps materialize out of the box and after eighteen years, show me its face, and see the terror on mine as I see ten thousand years of evil gaze into my eyes to make my heart stop.

I thought of anything that could have changed my path. I thought of Julia. Five years ago, a chance to renew life, a lovely encounter, an evening at the Boston Symphony, and hope of a family of my own, ruined the instant it came time for her to meet the box. Not one hour into our dinner at the old place, did she run out the door fearing that someone or something was singing in my closet. If I remember she said it sounded like an old woman humming. She demanded to know if I really lived alone, and the last thing I remembered was she left so fast she put her shoes on the wrong feet not fixing it until after she hobbled out the door. I should have known the box would never let me marry. I should have known it would not let me be happy. It needed me to be down. It needed me alone.

The next day I called my old colleague Don Farley.

“There is no demon in the box don't you understand dong you see! He played you for a fool! Everything you've experienced and everting you've seen is a massive delusion catered by the power of suggestion ! You are the cause ! You believe it so it is true. You are driving yourself mad all these years! “ Don voiced his displeasure with my call.

“Don you have to-..” I tried to speak. He cut me off.

“You don't call me for 3 years, then out of the blue complain of a demon box given to you eighteen years ago way out in Buffalo? A couple with a mirror? Simple mass hallucination. Mass hysteria. Haven't you heard of the phenomenon of such a thing? You know it occurred up in Salem. People witnessed specters and apparitions of the accused. Many witnesses described invisible entities pinching and tormenting them. Do me a favor ok? Don't call me anymore if you want to talk about demon boxes and strange men in antique shops in Buffalo.” Don hung up.

For the remainder of the year, I thought long and hard of this conversation. I imagined if every day was a small box of its own, I had checked off too many. Then I remembered something else from Mr. Grimsley that night on Franklin Street in Buffalo on that November evening.

…” However, if you let it be, there is no reason you couldn’t live a normal life.”

On New Year's Eve with 1978 turning into 1979, I made a resolution. Stop wasting your days checking off the day boxes, marking time, wasting time, for a demon that could have and would have already killed you. Something prevents him from killing you. Maybe Don was correct. Maybe it was just a coincidence that my mother had fallen when I was without the box. She was after all seventy-three. 

Boston, Massachusetts, 1979

I took my usual Wednesday stroll through Boston Common with a fresh coffee, down Beacon Street towards Back Bay, and found myself with uplifted spirits. I heard beautiful music coming from the next storefront. I recognized it immediately as Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21.

I could not help going into the shop and was delighted to see a beautiful piano store equipped with all sorts of upright pianos and some polished concert grand pianos. Sheet music lined an entire wall to the rear.

“You have a beautiful shop,” I said.

“Do you play?” the shopkeeper asked. 

“I did, but that was years ago. It’s a long story,” I said.

I told him about my time in the service, and about my work experience in the best light possible. I put down the coffee and offered a few bars on the closest piano of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. How it came to me so quickly when it had been years away from my mind, I did not know.

Well, I don’t know what your plans are, but if you’re looking for a job, one of my full-time workers quit today. Let’s talk. My name is Harold. Harold Winthrop,” he said.

“Jack. Jack Crane.” I shook his hand and picked up my coffee.

Harold asked me more questions about my suitability for a position. After a short time, he offered me the job. I accepted.

I told him some more about myself but of course left out the demon box. Harold gave me a tour and took me to a back room with mostly older upright pianos when I noticed a worn chipped black piano missing a few keys. Harold seemed to read my mind immediately.

“I know…I’ve had it twenty years- can't sell it. You may think I'm crazy, but I swear some nights it plays on its own. A most unusual man sold it to me,” Harold said.

I dropped my coffee, yet I gathered myself.

I nodded. “I guess we all have our burdens.”