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Park Borchert
A Haunting on Cornelia Street |
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"If you don't believe in ghosts, have I got an apartment near NYU for you" |
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In the maelstrom that was the 1990's I found an apartment on Cornelia Street. Cornelia Street is one block long and stretched from Bleecker Street to the corner of West 4th Street and 6th Avenue in the West Village near New York University. The apartment was 400 Square feet, which doesn't seem like a very small space until you realize that you have to put furniture in there and live in there with all that furniture. This is not to mention that at the time I was working on my Masters' Degree and had a great deal of computer, sound and video equipment that I needed to complete my projects. The only light was from two tall windows on either side of the back wall which faced out to the west, which was a courtyard and the back of the building on Jones Street. The room was an almost perfect square with a strange small area that might have at one time been a closet, but now was a too small for work space, too small for bed area. The floors were a gorgeous wood that had obviously just been redone. The rent was $750, which at the time was a lot of money. (Here's a little side bar: somewhere in the time that I spent living in that spooky little apartment, was the time that the real estate market went crazy. Not that, to a certain degree, it wasn't already crazy, but it was at least manageable.)
I moved into the apartment with the help of my friends and their van. It was spring of my first year in Grad School and I had only a mattress and a drawing table and a lot of boxes with books and clothes and papers and paintings and video tapes.
The first night I was there, I slept on my mattress on the floor surrounded by unpacked boxes and a cat who was so furious that I made her move that she threw up on the oriental rug and then hid in the closet for 2 days. As I was lying on the mattress that night, in the heat- sans air conditioning, sans fan, sans clothes- I felt a hand touch my back and sort of pet me as if to figure out who or what I was. I immediately jumped up and turned on the only lights that were unpacked. I looked around the room for the logical explanation of what had touched me.
- The cat was in the closet
- There was no breeze
- There were no bugs
- I didn't have any covers or sheets to touch me
- I was neither drunken or high
- There was no one else in the room
It didn't make any sense and I was a little bit concerned that I was imagining the whole thing and that I shouldn't be such a pussy. So I lied back down and slept with the lights on and my eyes wide open.
As time went by, and I set up my living and work space, I forgot about the incident. Well,
I for forgot about it until one night when I was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the corner/kitchen area of the apartment. I set the lid from the jelly down on the counter and with my knife slathered out a rather hefty portion of Smucker's Red Raspberry Preserves onto my Wonder Bread. Then I opened the Peter Pan Peanut Butter (creamy) and scooped out a wave shaped dollop and spread it on the other piece of white bread. I put the two pieces of bread together, wiped the knife clean on the edge of the bread, put the knife into a glass in the sink that was filled with water (presumably to soak), picked up the lid to the peanut butter jar and replaced it and then reached for the lid to the Smucker's. The jelly lid was slowly turning counter clockwise on the counter. And I don't know, but I must assume that the whole time I was making that sandwich it must have been turning. I reached for it, but as I did it stopped. So, my first thought, of course was, "did I really just see that?" I quickly turned around, why I'm not sure, and looked around the room. The cat by this time was out of the closet (like most of the rest of the neighborhood) and relatively comfortable in the apartment at this time. However, she was sitting on the bed, facing the wall looking straight up as if something very interesting were somewhere between her and the ceiling. I couldn't see anything at this point so I shrugged it off as an optical illusion and an insane cat and went back to my studies and ate my sandwich.
Not long after that, I was sitting at my drawing table which was converted to a computer table and which was set up with a cpu, an external hard drive, two monitors (because all the programs I used, e.g. Photoshop, Director, Premiere, Illustrator et.al. needed to have so many windows open that the entire monitor's territory was occupied and very difficult to negotiate without constantly moving the little windows and repositioning), a bunch of music/sound equipment and was generally a very busy area.
So I was sitting there trying to get Beany McGee's mouth to move at the same time that her voice was heard, when I heard footsteps by the window. I looked over in that direction. The phone answering machine and the clock occupied that window sill (when you are in a tight space, everything becomes shelving) and I noticed that the time was 2:56am.
The footsteps moved toward me and sounded as if they went through my desk (which was against the west wall where the windows were) and over to the window in the northwest corner of the room, next to the closet door. So here were the facts that went through my mind as I reflected on the footsteps going through my desk.
- No one lives above me
- The basement is below me
- The boiler is on the other side of the basement
- The riser pipe is still cool as the building hasn't switched over to heat yet
- The only sound at the time was Beany McGee
- Mine are the only feet with shoes on in the apartment
I was now paying attention to the apartment as a living, walking entity.
Somewhere around this time I called the rental agency to ask them if they had ever had any complaints about this apartment and the young man who had the unfortunate luck to take my call never really got the gist of what I was asking or he had never seen Ghost Busters.
"Is there something wrong with the apartment, sir?" he asked trying to clarify.
"No, the apartment is fine. The problem is that stuff happens in here that shouldn't happen and is hard to explain using physics."
"I'm not sure I know how to address this call sir. Have you had vandalism? Do you need some repair work done?"
"No, not exactly. I honestly believe that this place is haunted, and not in a good way. And that is with the caveat that before I moved in here I didn't believe in ghosts and now I do. And I am just curious if anyone has ever mentioned it before or knows the source of the haunting" I waited to see what his response would be, because I know that if I said that to me, I would be a little put back on my heels."
"Well, sir, that is the most unusual complaint I have ever had." He said as if hoping either he had a rule pertaining to this he could read off to me or I would just go away.
"Dude, this isn't a complaint. I'm wondering whether this is just me or if this happens here all the time."
"Really have no way of knowing sir, and I have nothing in my records that speak to this sort of complaint, if you would like, I could have someone with more expertise in this area give you a call and try to interface with you in this regard." Ok, so he found something to read out of the rule book. And I just knew that the minute I hang up the phone, this preppy suit is gonna try to get all ghetto with the other MBA homeys in that office and go, "Check this out! Motherfucker calling to complain about Casper the Ghost and shit! Aight! They is smoking the good shit down on Cornelia!"
A week later I was working on my thesis in the middle of the day and there was a knock at the door. I answered it and it was the super. He was a short-ish man of stocky build from Poland. And for the life of me, I cannot remember his name. And I say that to make sure you realize this is all true. I didn't make up a single word. Anyway, the super says to me in an impeccable foreign accent, "I hear you call the office with a problem?"
Now I am feeling really embarrassed that the punk in the office had the unmitigated gall to call and bother this hard working man and tell him that I called to find out if anyone ever reported having a ghost in Apartment D.
"Uh, yea, but it doesn't matter, I didn't mean to bother anyone."
"My friend, there are many things in the world. In my country, you talk of such things and people gonna believe you. In America, they don't believe in such things. Maybe they only believe in money." He looked at me with such sincerity. "If you needa' help, I don't know, but I try." Then he nodded his head like he didn't know what else to say or he was afraid I had the body of JonBenet Ramsey on the floor of my apartment. Then he turned and walked away.
"OK, thanks... thanks." I said slowly closing the door trying not to seem too anxious for him to leave.
The footsteps reoccurred. Unlike the lid to the jelly jar incident. And then I noticed a few things that all sort of started to occur at the same time. I started to see pops of light at about where the wall met the ceiling. Strangely enough (and there wasn't anything about this apartment that wasn't strange) it was the same area that the cat was looking at during the jelly incident and many times thereafter. So in pursuit of an explanation for my hysterical ghostly musings, the young woman that I was dating at the time, Valerie J. Lauriello, took me to see her eye doctor. After a complete examination the doctor decreed that my eyes were fine, so we decided not to tell him about the things that I was seeing in the apartment. Ironically, a month later I left Valerie alone in my apartment to study her homework from her St. John's Law School classes, while I went to Martial Arts class. When I returned, Valerie was huddled in the corner of the bed.
"I heard it" she burst forth the minute I walked into the room.
"What now?"
"I heard the walking. you ain't crazy!..., this place is crazy!"
"I told you" I answered, "but I think I might have looked nice in glasses in any case."
I was often awakened in the middle of the night, usually around 3 am. Not by noises, but by the feeling of "something". One night when I awoke I looked through the darkness of my room. It was the sparkly grey blackness that is normal in a dark room. Then I noticed an area near the kitchen corner that was pitch black. No light, no shadows, just black. I was so scared that I literally could not move. As I watched it, I tried to control my breathing, which was picking up pace as well as volume. If it was something standing there it would have not only heard me, but it would have handed me some asthma medicine. After a while this concentration of blackness just dissipated and the heavy feeling went away.
Up until this period of time I was considered to be a rather jovial, non-confrontational, pleasant sort of guy. But the years that I lived in this apartment were typified by arguments and police and fights and anger. There wasn't one person that I knew that I didn't alienate in some way while I was there. And the longer I stayed, the screwier I got. I fought with Robb Pruitt (the nicest guy in the world) while we mere making the documentary "Kane". I fought with Richard Faulklen (the most thoughtful man in the world) when we were doing "Pot at the End of Your Elbow". I fought with Robb and Guy West (the gayest man in the world) while we were making "Billy and Bobby: The Hollywood Years" I fought with Valerie Lauriello (the most nurturing person in the whole world) and at one point smashed the phone, because she wanted to come over and watch Ally McBeal. I look back at this time in my life with a feeling of astonishment. I am also astonished when I remember the night I was laying in the bed and I could hear a voice screaming up through the pillow as if miles away, below me. It was a man's voice and he was angrily screaming in a language that was not Italian or Spanish, but had a similar type of sound. Toward the end of my stay there my behavior was as erratic as the apartment's. I would come home to find glasses broken in the cupboard. Books and object on the floor, but across the room from where they were originally sitting. And I always had this feeling that I was frantic about everything.
When you are in the middle of something like this, and I am not making any excuses for my behavior, you feel crazy and angry and don't have a lot of perspective as to what the consequences of your actions and words might really be. I was so riled up that I went to see a therapist. In the fog of time I have forgotten her name, which is probably a good thing as I might tell you her name and then she would sue me and I would have to go study civil law again. I sat and told this psychologist about all the things that had happened and I was anxious and angry and unfaithful and brooding and violent and she said that I had an entity in my apartment and wanted to get a Santeria Priestess in to perform a reading and see whether I was being effected by some angry spirit energy in my apartment or I was just an asshole who deserved what he got.
At this point no one was talking to me anymore, anyway, so other than the price of the reading I had nothing to lose. Robb Pruitt didn't want to work with me anymore, Richard Faulklen still hasn't really forgiven me, even though he tries to be nice and I never have seen or heard from Valerie J. Lauriello ever again. So I waited and waited and finally on a warm Saturday afternoon the buzzer sounds. I open the door and a very sweet looking Spanish woman was standing there carrying a large bag and looking a little faint.
"Hello"
"Hello, I am Marta. And you are Park?" You see, that is how a person who is supposedly psychic should enter a room. You don't have to introduce yourself, they already know who you are.
"I am indeed. Please come in" As she entered she looked around. And keeping in mind the tinniest of this apartment, she was looking around like she was seeing things that made it at least a 1000 square foot loft, which I couldn't have afforded.
"You know, maybe I should come back, I don't feel so well and I..."
"Can I get you some water or a diet coke or orange juice... here... please sit down."
"Yes, water... thank you."
I didn't really know what to make of her, so I got her some water and sat her in the only chair I had. I was really hoping that this little woman could put my world back together, bring my friends back, bring my girlfriend back and erase one of the most difficult times I had ever had.
She sat quietly for a few minutes, sipping the water, clearing her throat while gently touching her throat and periodically mopping her brow.
After some time she had gathered herself together. She took some items out of her bag and set them on the open space on my desktop.
"I have to be honest with you, when I first come here I get a sick feeling. When I first come in the front door I want to turn around and go home. I feel sick to my stomach and I'm afraid maybe I'm gonna throw up, so I don't know if maybe I should just go home, but I feel ok now, but this place has a lot of really bad energy. How long have you lived here?" she looked me right in the eyes as if searching my soul as she sipped the water again.
"Four and a half years"
"You gotta move. You gonna have a hard time and mess you whole life up, your job, your love, even you could get physically ill."
Why is it that I get all the important information after the fact?
"It's too late, I already screwed everything up"
Marta unfolded the cloth that covered a deck of cards. And then she unfastened the rubber band which bound them together. She kissed the deck and held the cards and then whispered something and then held the cards up in the air, whispered something and then a noise was made in the sink in the kitchen. I am so not fucking kidding, It was like a really low budget spook movie scene and I was rooting that this lady was not some psychic hotline rip-off. I needed her to be the real deal and summon a clap of thunder and make everything go back to 1997 when I opened my birthday card and it said, "I'll always be there for you." Here's the other thing. Littledog, the cat, comes out and sits there in the middle of the floor and is watching this lady like they were old friends.
"I need you to put your hand on the cards, but don't pick up the deck." She said in a very quiet tone like she didn't want all the other people in my apartment to hear. Again, my inner monologue was making jokes like "Your card is the Ace of Spades!" kind of trick, but Marta was dead serious. She kept clearing her throat and touching it like she was choking. She dealt out the cards in three rows of three and started turning them over, and stacking them and I was just staring and trying to figure out how I got cast in this scene. She stopped abruptly and turned to me.
"You are very sensitive."
"Thank you" I thought she meant cause I got her a glass of water.
"The man who lives here, you have seen him, you have heard him." Oh, shit, I thought. Somebody lives here and is not chipping in for the rent and is scaring me all night.
"He is very angry and the longer you stay the more angry he gets. You are taking on his anger. What did he say to you?"
Was I really doing this? When I moved in here the only paranormal thing I knew was that my mom said she could think our names and then we would come in from the barn or the woods or wherever we were playing. But at this point, where I walk around all day on the verge of tears, smashing my phones and screaming at everyone, I was going to play along and see if her mojo would turn this whole mess into a cool story I could tell the whole family at Christmas in Syosset next December.
"I couldn't understand what he said, and it was like yelling from really far away."
"This man, he died in this room, you live in his bedroom, he spend a lot of time in the front where his living room was." Now, no one ever told me any of this when I first looked at the apartment. "I think he is Portuguese. Maybe this was something to do with boats and he was very sick and he die here in his sleep and when he wake up he waiting and very angry everyone come into his house."
"So...?"
"You gotta move, but I think maybe you are very lucky nothing really bad happen."
"Well, a lot of really bad stuff did happened and I have to try and fix it."
"I see a lot of tears. Not tears already. This is sadness gonna come."
I am not kidding you, this is verbatim.
My chest felt like my heart had been punched out by a ground zero pile driver. The gravity of the situation now weighed so heavily on me. And the fact that the only way I could reconcile my personal life was to employ spiritualists and psychics spoke to not only the abject desperation but also the months of disregard for the feelings and patience of those around me who I had loved and lost. Marta pulled out a thing that was a bunch of sticks tied together with a string and a pint bottle of rum.
"Do you have a lighter?"
"Yes" I went into my backpack and pulled out my Zippo lighter, which I always carried in the case of a film noire cigarette lighting emergency. I handed it to her and she teased the flame across the end of the bundle of sticks until it started to glow red.
"This is a smudge stick," she said as she quietly began to narrate the process, which would keep me from interrupting her to ask what she was doing.
more to come
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Park Borchert |
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