The ghost of drunkards past

 I moved to San Francisco in the winter of 1986. I loaded up my Datsun B-210 with all my worldly possessions, drove the 87 miles up highway one, carried the boxes up two flights of stairs, stuck them in my new room, then the next day got on a plane to New York. When I returned, I unpacked and settled in. I lived with my sister and her boyfriend, and their housemate Mark in a top floor Flat on Ashbury Street, just up the corner from Haight. The room I lived in faced out on Ashbury, and I spent many a coffee time leaning out the window of that room, watching the comings and goings of people down on the street, pondering who they were, and where they were going. My brother in-law got me a job as a bike messenger. My days were spent pedaling the city, my nights were spent at clubs and bars when I could afford it, but more often I was in my room. My room was pretty standard. As I said, the windows looked out on the street, there were French doors that separated it from the "living Room" and it had a small walk in closet. When I say small, it was probably only 4 foot by 4 foot. It was a strange little room in that it had a counter and a sink with a big mirror over it, and on the opposite side an area to hang clothes. I guess it was a sort of dressing room, I was never quite sure.  I decided it was my writing room, and put my old royal deluxe typewriter on the counter over the sink. The sink didn't work anyway, so I figured it was a good place to write.  I had wanted to be a writer for some time. I had written several short stories, but to be honest, my writing was atrocious. But I persevered because I had read that Stephen King once said, the best way to become a writer, is to write. So I did. Sometimes late at night, early in the morning, or whenever the mood struck, I would sit in that little room, smoke cigarettes, sip booze, or coffee, or whatever drink was available, and write. 

I wrote plays and dissertations, short stories and poems. Observations, critiques, and reviews. Paper moved from one side to the other, from blank to filled, as cigarette butts formed a pyramid in the ashtray. 

One piece that I considered my magnum opus was a play about a man who was steadily loosing touch with reality. A man who fears he is going insane, because he cannot reconcile the things that he is experiencing with his expectations of logic. He prays for some sort of a sign, and is sent a guardian angle, who looks to everyone else like a regular fellow, but to our protagonist he looks like a demon. Horns, fangs, bat wings, the works. I thought it was good. It was filled with existential questions, and angst. Fear and joy, and ultimately a spiritual awakening. When I thought it was finished, I made the mistake of showing someone. They  read it, literally laughed out loud,  and told me not to quit my day job. 

Shortly after, I took the typewriter out of the closet and stuck it in the basement storage area. Then I took all my writing out to the back yard, stuck it in a small metal waste paper basket, and burned it. 

I didn't shed a tear, I simply watched the words disappear the way you might watch Drano clear a clog, and when it was done, I went about my business. 

It would be six years before I started writing again. 

But I digress.

Lets rewind a bit...

Say, a year or so before that fiery judgement day...

Late one night, or early one morning, depending on how you look at it, I was working on the demon/guardian play. 

I was also drinking.

I suppose "working on it" is slightly incorrect. I had rolled in a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter, returned the carriage, but that was as far as I had gotten. I was stuck. I didn't know where to go with the story. I stared at the typewriter keys, my fingers hovering over various letters, but nothing came. 

I took a drag on my cigarette, and my gaze followed the smoke up to the mirror.

I stared into my own eyes.

"You’re the problem,” I said to, well, myself. 

"you... are... the... problem" 

I shook my head, "how am I to get anything done with you staring at me?"

My reflection simply blinked, but didn’t answer. (Which I suppose, was good)

I decided to do something. 

I took the mirror off the wall and put it behind me, leaned against the wall, tucked behind the jackets and suits, where it could no longer judge me, then I sat back at my typewriter.

That was when I saw it. 

There, on the wall where the mirror had been, was a small door about one and a half feet square.  It was outlined in one and a half inch trim that formed a sort of frame, and on the left hand side was a small knob, almost flush with the wall. 

 It was all but painted shut.

My mind raced. What could be in there? What if it were some sort of wall safe? Lost through the years, heaped with gold and jewels. 

Perhaps, but more likely it was some sort of forgotten medicine cabinet.

Sole occupants, a rotting band-aid, discarded razor blade, a degrading aspirin...

I reached up and pulled on the knob. It protested at first, and then popped open with a slight squeak, and a wisp of musty air. To my surprise, there was nothing there. Just a dark hole in the wall.  I climbed up on the counter, and held my Zippo lighter up to the opening. A slight breeze came in and caused the flame to flicker, but in the dim light I could see that the opening went into the air space between my house, and the house next door. The gap was maybe a foot or 16 inches at best. I went and found a flashlight, climbed back up on my makeshift desk and peered into the hole. Directly across the gap was another little framed in square, with a knob on the left hand side. I am not sure what was going through my mind at this point, but for what ever reason, I reached through and grasped the knob and gave it a push. To my great surprise, it gave, and opened into what appeared to be a similar closet/dressing room in the house next door. I could not make out what was in the little closet, but the door was ajar and I could see light, and hear voices.

Now what came next, I really have no explanation for. 

I took a deep breath, leaned through the hole, and then let out a blood-curdling scream into the house across the way.

Then I reached through and shut their little door, shut the door on my side, and although it probably didn't matter, shut off the light in my closet. 

I sat there in the dark. 

I could barely hear it, but there were muffled frantic voices, and what sounded like doors slamming. 

I sat there for a while, pondering. Finally I turned my light back on, and looked at the blank page of my insanity/demon play in the typewriter. 

I lit another cigarette, and began to type:

"I had begun to hear voices. At least I thought I did. They didn't tell me things or give me directions, they were just strange sounds that I could not explain. Although I knew quite well that the mind can create any reality it deems necessary to keep the illusion of sanity, I also knew that the random sounds I would sometimes hear coming from places they could not be coming from, such as say, the closet, had to have some sort of a logical explanation"