The House of Dewey

For the longest time he had no name. Perhaps if he had not made a simple mistake, we never would have known his true identity.

The house that we purchased in 1987 was over 100 years old. It was a Montgomery Ward kit home – one where you buy as many sections of the house that you need and nail them together. The house had no foundation but sat on logs in the dirt. It sits surrounded by ancient cedar trees planted for a windbreak from the winter northeastern winds. Several depressions in the lawn indicate old privies. One or two out beyond the cedars we have never identified but they may be graves.

It was during the complete renovation of the house that I started to notice oddities in the building. The contractor had requested that all the internal walls and ceilings be torn out leaving nothing but the exposed studs and rafters. To get rid of the material, we cut a six-foot square hole in the back upstairs wall, and I would pitch the lath and paneling out onto the back lawn.

Being that we needed the interior prepped by the contractor’s schedule, I would come to the house after work, feed and exercise Carrie my dog, and work late into the night pulling boards from the walls. The power to the house had been cut and I only had one extension cord and a shop light to illuminate the interior.

It was 10 pm. The dog and I were upstairs. It was pitch black outside in the cool late fall. I was using a crowbar to pull boards free from the studs. Suddenly, I heard children’s voices in the house.

Children? Why would there be children in this breezy, cold, building at 10:00 pm. I looked at Carrie who looked at me with an “uh, oh”  look on her face.

Grabbing the shop light, I slowly walked through the house.

“Hello, hello. Is anyone here?” I asked in my manliest voice.

The children’s voices stopped but I continued to search. Eventually, finding no one, I went back to pulling boards and the children started talking again. Carrie, my courageous protector, ran back to the shed and chained herself back up. I made the hasty decision to be done for the evening.

After the house was completed and we moved back in, the boys were given one upstairs bedroom and the daughters another, both were down the hall from our master bedroom. All three of the step kids had events happen in their rooms where a vapor-being appeared, and when told to leave, exited through the window glass.

The granddaughter at age 5 was staying the night upstairs.  When Cheryl went into the bedroom to say goodnight, she bent over to turn on the bed table lamp.

“Don’t turn on that lamp grandma,” she screamed. “That is where the face appears on the shade.”

Twice now, Cheryl has been sitting in the dark living room playing games on her phone. When she looks up toward the steps going upstairs, she has seen me standing in the dark corner by the front door in the shadows wearing my hat and jacket.

“Don’t even think you are going to freak me out. I can see you,” she says to me.

From somewhere upstairs I shouted down, “What did you say?” She got out of her chair, walked toward the image and stepped through it. Her comments were that she didn’t feel a chill passing through it as others have testified to. Also, he looked better in my clothes than I do.

Many times, I have heard the car alarm go off in the garage. Going out to check, either the trunk or the driver’s door was wide open. This leads me to wonder if the being is trying to steal my SUV. All in due time I expect. Except for the thumping and creaking in the attic and our bedroom door opening after I have latched it at night, I have never experienced a frightening encounter with the apparition. For the most part, the being has been showing up but not creating problems and he has remained nameless. Nameless of course, until the new phone book arrived.

I opened the pages to the Mitchells to see if this year they listed me as Paul, Marty, or had me in the book at all.

Imagine my surprise to see us listed as Cheryl A, Dewey, and Marty Mitchell.

Dewey? “Who the heck is Dewey?” I asked Cheryl.

And then it dawned on me. That knucklehead ghost is using my phone.

Look, personally I don’t mind if we share the same house, but I wish for the future that he would get his own phone number.

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