So lemme tell you a ghost story.
I’m six years old, working through my first book of simple lessons on a turn-of-the century player piano,
Bone Sweet Bone.
Bone Sweet Bone.
C, D, E.
D, C, B.
And it’s actually creeping me out a bit because I’m alone in my grandma and grandpa’s empty two-story farmhouse.
And the song reminds me of the story of the Teeny Tiny Woman in the Teeny Tiney House and the nightmare demands of GIVE ME MY BONE.
A story that some funny bunny student teacher thought would be great Halloween fodder for us innocent first-graders.
Ho-ho! Yes, indeed.
Rest assured I am not laughing as I plunk out the simple tune, listening not for my mistakes, but at every creak and sigh of the old house.
Even moan and groan of the Chimney Ghost.
See the night before, Grandpa told me all about the Chimney Ghost.
Right before bedtime, in the upstairs room with the brown ceiling splotches (rainer-stains) and the paper nest inside the two pane glass windows (waspers), Granpa put his hands on my shoulders and gave it to me straight.
That wailing you’ll hear later on in the dark? That’s just the Chimney Ghost.
He looked me right in the eye. No punches pulled.
He’ll only get you if you crawl out from under the covers.
And sure enough. Right after I fell asleep, I woke up to a soft whistling sound that only got louder.
And louder.
And LOUDER.
Until it was a plaintive wail, mourning the loss of all things right and good and pure.
Just like that ghost who wanted his bone back from the Teeny Tiny Lady.
I did the only thing I could. I stayed under the covers.
Just like my teacher, Grandpa’s quite the comedian.
He’s the kind of guy that—while riding in the back seat of the car with me—makes macabre comments about my dad’s driving.
Clunk. Dad drives over a parking lot speed bump.
Grandpa bends down and whispers, “Your dad just ran over a man.”
Grandpa watches a car zoom by in the passing lane.
He leans in close, “That fellow was a bank robber. He had a gun.”
Is it any wonder my fingers are freezing up on the keys?
Bone. Sweet. Bone.
C, D, E.
Bone.
B.
Sweet.
C.
Whooooo….
The Chimney Ghost sings along.
Frozen in place, my eyes creep to the side where I can just barely see the living room clock without turning my head.
It’s almost five.
Everybody will be coming back inside around five.
Bone.
Sweet.
Whooooo….
And just like that, it’s SLAM, the key cover is down and I’m out the door, tearing across the grass as fast as my Converse tennies will carry me.
Many years later, grandpa and me share a laugh over a beer.
He tries to convince me that the Chimney Ghost was just the north wind whistling through the flue.
I go along with him to be polite.
After all, he’s old and probably scares easier than he used to.
He’s probably rationalizing all sorts of things to avoid the truth.
I don’t really believe in ghosts, he says.
I don’t either.
Except for the one.
The one that comes late, just before midnight, whistling a haunting old tune:
Bone, sweet, bone.
Bone, sweet, bone.
And then, still shakey after all these years, I sing along.