Girls and Ghosts

I held the quarter in my hand and asked to buy some candy.

But the old man must have heard it wrong because he poured me a brandy.

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Now you know I walk around Lake Merritt every single day.

This glorious, beautiful treasure plunked right down in the middle of Oakland, California.

A little urban oasis.

One of those fixtures like the tide,

like the Bay Area fog, always showing a different side of herself.

I learned a long time ago that walking her shoreline is where ideas come from.

I love this lake,

but just two weeks ago,

she died.

Right before she passed away on the northeast corner walking, I noticed a change color from blue to brown.

Strange.

The next day, she started to stink.

I asked aloud if she was okay.

Thought it must be the change of seasons.

Later, I see the crows.

Hundreds and hundreds of them perched on a cedar overlooking the water, these normally noisy birds, silent, looming.

Then walking near the rocky shoreline, I see two large, beautiful striped bass floating dead.

What?

I bend down to look closer.

The water around them littered with dozens of dying fish just below the surface.

First, I think it's only in front of me.

Maybe some localized poison, but I keep backing up my gaze and at every turn, there are dying things as far into the water as I can see.

Squirming, bat rays, catfish, flounders, steelhead.

I had no idea what swam beneath these waters until seeing their corpses.

Hundreds,

thousands of corpses, and the crows are waiting.

Now they're people.

People looking at each other in horror, people who walk this lake every day with me, people shouting, pointing, taking pictures, others trying to call someone at the city, the state, the fish, and wildlife, someone in charge, someone who can do something.

But

we aren't the doctor.

There is no medicine, no resuscitation.

No, we're just a corner

bearing witness, cause of death, pollutants, climate change, algae bloom, all fancy ways for saying, We did this,

we killed her.

We did.

And I can't help but wonder if we can murder an entire lake,

an entire ecosystem by accident.

What can we kill on purpose?

Sports dance,

spots dance, spots, sports, spots,

sports dance.

Now,

What if,

What if?

What if?

Now,

in the 1930s and the 1940s, Roberta Simpson Brown, Roberta lived on her family's farm and life could get a little dull in the country until cousin Linzo came to visit.

I grew up down near Lake Cumberland in Kentucky in a two-room log house.

We grew corn and tobacco.

Mom had a garden and we had farm animals.

Daddy wouldn't let us name them because then he couldn't sell sell them.

We had to keep them if we named them.

We had several fields.

There was a little creek running through it, a very cold spring,

woods on the hill behind.

Also on our property there was a sinkhole.

It was by an old wood shed just outside the backyard.

It wasn't very big.

Think of a kitchen sink, a double kitchen sink,

and then think of it as a circle.

We use the sinkhole as sort of a garbage disposal.

Throw in chicken bones, just whatever was left over from supper.

It wouldn't just go slurp and take it down,

but in a few minutes it would be gone.

It would just suck up and suck down whatever we put in it.

It was fun to throw things in the sinkhole.

I love the summers because my cousins came to visit.

Lenzo was my first cousin on my mama's side.

He lived in Cincinnati.

He was a city boy.

Lenzo came to visit us one summer because he was worrying his mother.

She was a widow and Lenzo

was getting in trouble, she thought.

He was running with the wrong crowd.

Smoking cigarettes.

and maybe stealing some fruit off the displays in front of the market,

definitely letting the school work go

my aunt thought that if she sent Lenzo to the country my father could be a role model for him

I thought he was a little naughty because he would dare to do things that we didn't do

like he thought it was okay for him to get a watermelon off somebody's vine because that was just public property to him, you know.

But I always thought he was charming.

He made friends with the boy that lived on the next farm.

His name was Earl.

We had a wood shed, and we would all go out there and play sometimes.

We played horseshoe, and my dad would let us shoot the rifle.

We shot green apples off the trees sometimes.

As the 4th of July approached, one day Earl and Lenzo were talking and I happened to be playing nearby so I overheard what they were saying.

They wanted to have their own display of fireworks.

We lived too far away from town to get to go and see the displays.

The only problem was they had to raise the money to buy the fireworks.

They finally got enough money except for one dollar.

I wanted to see the fireworks, but I didn't want to help raise the funds.

I was happy to be off with my book or paper dolls and things like that by myself.

One night, it was getting dark, my grandmother came in and Earl and Lenzo were with her

and she told my dad that Lenzo had something to tell him.

I thought, hmm, I wonder if he's in trouble over something.

So I listened and Lenzo said,

Uncle Tom, I'm so sorry, but

I took your silver dollar.

I didn't know it was anything special.

I just wanted it to make up the money we needed for the fireworks.

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Grandma told us what happened later.

My dad kept a silver dollar in a jar on the dresser along with some other old pennies and things like that, I think.

But this silver dollar was very special to him.

His father had given it to him.

Lindzo Linzo happened to be walking past the dresser by my mom and dad's bed.

And he thought, well, I'll just take Uncle Tom's silver dollar and then I'll have mama give him a dollar when she comes to pick me up.

After supper that night, Earl came over, so they went out the woodshed because Linzo wanted to tell Earl all about the money.

They had the money now for the fireworks.

Lenzo had the silver dollar in his hand and he said, look, Earl.

Earl just looked at it.

He said,

you get that.

And Lenzo said, well, it was on Uncle Tom's dresser.

I just borrowed it.

I didn't steal it.

I'm going to pay him back.

Earl said, you shouldn't have done that.

Everybody knows that his dad gave him that silver dollar before he died.

and it means a lot to Uncle Tom.

Lenzo said, oh I didn't know.

They didn't hear Grandma Simpson approaching.

As she walked up behind them, Lenzo said, well, I'll give it back.

And Grandma Simpson said, Give what back?

And they whirled around and the silver dollar flew out of Lenzo's hand

and landed in the sinkhole.

Grandma Simpson said, what happened?

What did you just do?

But of course he had to tell her.

And she said, but you know you're going to have to tell your Uncle Tom.

And my dad was a pretty understanding man, so He didn't make a lot of to-do about it.

He said, well, maybe it'll turn up.

Lenzo said, I promise you,

I'll find that silver dollar for you.

He really admired my father.

He looked up to my father.

And he didn't want to do anything to displease him.

Lenzo went back to that sinkhole every day that he stayed for the rest of the summer and looked for that silver dollar.

Just sat by the sinkhole and hoped that it would come bubbling up to the top or something.

Kind of probe around to see if he could find it.

He would say something about it sometimes at supper

that he wished he could find it.

It just never turned up.

His mom came to get him and she offered to pay, but

my dad said no.

One of those things that just happens.

But as they left, Lenzo said,

I'll come back next summer, I promise you.

And I'll find that silver dollar.

School came.

Winter came.

Finally, summer came.

But Lenzo didn't get to come down that summer.

His grades were so bad that my aunt made him go to summer school.

Oh, we were disappointed, but we went ahead with our horseshoe playing and games like that.

And the 4th of July approached.

We were happy that year because they were having a fireworks display at the local school, and we could see the school from our backyard.

So, we took our chairs out in the backyard to watch.

We all kept saying how much we wished Lenzo could be there to actually see the fireworks this year.

You know, we watched the fireworks,

they were over.

We got up,

started to take our chairs inside,

and we saw car lights.

As it got closer, we realized it was the sheriff's car.

Now back then,

very few people had telephones.

And when people had to get a message to somebody,

they would call the sheriff and he would just drive out and deliver the message.

He walked up to us, his head was bowed,

and he said,

folks, I have some really bad news for you.

I just got a call.

Lenzo was on his way home from school this afternoon on his bicycle.

And he was hit and killed by a hit-and-run driver.

Well, we were just stunned.

We couldn't believe it.

Of course, we cried.

We were all crying.

We were sorry.

Well, he stayed and he talked to us for a few minutes.

And then he got in his car and he drove away.

And my daddy said, well, let's just take our chairs on in the house.

We started to do that, but something caught our eye.

There was this light shimmering over the sinkhole.

It was a white, silvery-looking thing.

What is that thing?

Where did it come from?

And it was in the vague form of a person.

No specific features, just hovering and shimmering over that sinkhole.

It was like, oh my goodness, look at that.

What is that?

Did you see that?

Daddy said, you all stay here.

I'll go see what it is.

I like to follow him everywhere.

But mom told me not to, so I stayed put.

I saw my dad approach the sinkhole, and I saw the light disappear.

And then I saw my dad bend down and look around the sinkhole.

I saw him look up

and then back down.

And then he reached and picked something up.

and kind of fingered it, you know, in his hand.

And then he stood up

and he walked slowly back up to where we were all standing.

And he held out his hand and he showed us that silver dollar.

Ah,

look at that.

Mama said, is that your silver dollar?

Daddy had to go inside

and look with a light.

He said, this is my silver dollar.

I think he was thinking he would like for Lenzo to know that he'd finally found it.

We sat and wondered what could have happened.

I think it was Lenzo.

I believe they came back and kept his promise.

There's confirmation to me, I guess, that people can keep their promise

even after they die.

Roberta Simpson Brown.

She's a storyteller and author in Kentucky where she's known as the queen of the cold-blooded tales.

Check out her book, Haunted Holidays from the University Press of Kentucky.

The original score was by Doug Stewart.

It was produced by Ann Ford.

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Now,

Sri Lanka Rajamani, she's growing up in one of the biggest cities in the world, Mumbai.

But every year she spends the summer more than 700 miles away at her family's giant ancestral home in the country.

With not just mom and dad, but dozens of other relatives, too.

Scoot.

When I was a child, it was fun.

As I was growing up, it was like, what again?

Can we just go somewhere else?

It is so hot.

You know, it was a little bit of a resentment.

But also, like, it was fun to have unlimited, delicious food all day.

mangoes and things that we wouldn't normally easily find in Bombay.

Also, fresh coconut.

They would get it and throw it into the well.

The well was like a refrigerator.

Then they would get the coconut out of the well in the afternoon and, you know, break it.

And then you can use the palm leaf as a straw to drink fresh coconut water.

Like amazing.

The family house is filled with different sacred plants, flowers, and herbs.

The one plant that's part of every single religious ritual in Sri Latta's family is the banana tree.

The banana tree is considered female because it bears flower and fruit.

It's like the banana tree is performing the ritual along with the women.

They do the kumkum on the tree, like the kumkum that women wear.

They call it bindi in North India, but in South India we call it kunkum.

It's a powder that is red and it is made of like turmeric and something else.

And women wear that on their forehead.

Fifth or sixth grade is when I started noticing I'm different from other people here.

I guess like I wore different clothes.

You know, my cousins dressed in traditional clothes.

The girls would wear like these long skirts.

We call it a half sari and i used to wear like dresses

and they would pinch my cheek which i did not like and they would say oh my god she is looking so fair maybe people in bombay are very fair complexion they would pinch my cheek harder

they like to tease me because i was from the city i spoke tamil differently

my tamil was usually mixed with hindi and english but their tamil was actual tamil

they would make me say certain things and then they would laugh.

One day when we were in the cowshed I wanted to learn and I asked how do you know which cow to take the milk out of?

How do you know how to do it?

My cousin Shankar said oh yeah there it is.

You can try with that one.

And I started pulling it and pulling it.

It was a small calf.

He made that kind of sound like

My cousin Shubha came and said, Why are you doing that?

That was not going to give you any milk.

That's when I discovered it.

Oh my god, I was molesting a tiny male calf.

And my cousin just kept laughing and laughing, and I got so mad.

The way I've decided to take revenge was by watching them take a bath.

It was a carefully thought out plan to destroy the fiend.

So I went into one of the rooms, peering through the window.

I was calling him, hey, I can see you.

You're taking a bath.

I can see your bum.

And I laughed and I went out feeling happy.

But the news had reached my mother through mysterious sources.

And she was there waiting for me in the main part of the house.

She was like, what did you do?

How could you do this?

This is so, you're so ill-mannered.

And she spanked me hard in front of everybody.

It was extremely humiliating.

I was feeling very put upon because I had been the one made fun of consistently, and that was somehow accepted.

But when I turned the coin, it was like, you know, you're a girl.

You shouldn't be doing that.

Srilata is so mad, she stomps off by herself up to the attic where she can be alone.

And I didn't want to be seen by anybody else because I was feeling ashamed to be treated like that.

It was just a place where I could just be alone and, you know, lick my wounds.

It's quiet in the attic and the light is dim.

Srilata lies down on a mat on the floor to nap.

When she wakes up,

the room was still dim, but I could see the shadows from outside, so I knew it had gotten a little bit darker outside.

It wasn't night or anything, but it was probably getting dusk.

Then I saw this woman,

probably about six feet away.

So I thought she was somebody from the family, like an auntie.

But she was dressed like a bride, like in a wedding, very beautifully dressed.

And she was wearing red sari.

Both her nostrils were pierced with diamonds.

She was wearing this gold belt-like thing, which normally brides wear.

It's a part of bridal jewelry.

She was wearing a big red kung kum on her forehead.

Her face had this kind of power,

but it wasn't something that made me feel scared.

She was very beautiful, like her complexion was sort of like my grandmother's, and she had very long hair.

She didn't say anything to me.

She was just staring.

Probably a minute or less.

I was waiting for her to say something

and then all of a sudden she had this sickle.

Sort of a circular knife, just pretty sharp.

All of a sudden she takes her sickle and she slashes it towards me.

I thought I was going to die.

I couldn't breathe.

My body was turning clammy and cold.

And then I felt something wet.

It looked kind of red.

I started screaming and I fainted.

Next thing I know, my grandmother was patting me,

putting sacred ash on my forehead.

My mom was there.

Mom was rubbing my hands and they were both, you know, calling me, calling my name out.

My dad, he was yelling, asking, what is wrong, what is wrong, what is wrong with her, with my daughter.

I was very scared.

I was like, do I have a disease?

Am I going to die?

Like, what happened?

It was very, very scary.

I started telling them that this woman was there and she slashed me.

There was no visible wound and I was bleeding.

in my underwear.

My grandmother and my mom were like, okay, okay, okay, don't worry about this.

First, you need to go and take a bath.

Then, so they took me to the bathing area, and my mom arranged for hot water.

My grandmother and my mom were like whispering to each other.

They told me that once I took the bath, I should not go and join the family, but I should go to a separate room.

All I remember my grandmother telling me, from now on, don't be near men.

men.

Even if it's your own family, you should not be near men at all.

There was a cultural belief that menstruating women were unclean, especially to men.

No one is telling Srilata that she's having her first period, and she is still in a panic.

I kept telling them that this woman slashed me, but they wouldn't believe.

And they kept telling me it is a bad dream.

You didn't really see anybody.

Don't talk about this.

But I also remember my mom and my grandmother having very long conversations quietly.

And they would stop talking anytime they saw me nearby.

That entire summer that we were there was really terrifying.

I was afraid that I was going to see her again and she was going to hurt me again.

I was not able to go to sleep.

I or would cry a lot.

My dad would chant Vishnu Sahasranamam, which is the thousand and eight names of God Vishnu.

It is supposed to give health and courage and a lot of other good qualities.

Shri Rama Rama Rame Ti Rame Rame Manorame Sahasranama Tatuliam Ramanama Varanane.

At the end of the summer, the family leaves the countryside and goes back to their apartment in the city.

So, one day, my parents told me that a great-grandfather had died, and that we had to go through two weeks of the death ceremonies.

I did not know who he was.

I asked, Which great-grandfather was, you know, and they would be, Do you know the man who was sitting in the porch?

He was the one who died.

He's actually your dad's grandfather's brother.

They would talk about him and they would talk about how he was cursed.

He was actually the heir, you know, the oldest son in the family and he had been contracted for marriage with another wealthy family from a different village.

There was a lot of gossip about the woman he had married.

She was very beautiful and many people were envious.

There were whispers about her saying that she was promiscuous, you know, she was not a virgin.

So by the time their wedding night happened, he accused her.

She felt insulted and angry and betrayed.

So she killed herself with a sickle on their wedding night.

Before that, she cursed him saying any person he marries or any person any male member of his family marries, will die, and the family line will die out, and there will be no future for them.

Because of the curse, when they tried to marry him to other people, the woman would mysteriously die.

He decided to punish himself by living like a dead person.

He never went inside the house.

He would spend all his time in that porch area.

And we all thought, you know, he's probably crazy

because he never went in and he would never speak to anybody.

People were not allowed to look at him or talk to him.

And that's how he did for the rest of his life.

His younger brother, who then took over the head of the family, he was my great-grandfather.

He got married two times, and both times his wives died.

So then they went to a holy person who said, for you to break this curse, you need to do some penance.

The penance was for her great-grandfather to take part in a marriage ceremony.

But he would not marry a person.

Instead, he would marry a different kind of living being, like a plant.

Then, the holy person said, he would have to kill that plant, thereby killing the curse

what they did was they got a young banana tree which was not in bloom yet

my great-grandfather married the banana tree

the tree was then cut

and after that the curse was lifted

He married the person who became my great-grandmother and she was alive.

That's why for every family celebration the banana tree is still considered as part of our family.

It's a witness and it is honored with kunkum and everything.

Basically like how you welcome a guest.

To know, oh my god, the banana tree thing is probably only something my family does was super weird.

While the banana tree is honored in every family ceremony, Sri Lata can still not get past her memories of the beautiful woman with the sickle she saw in the attic.

She thinks that was the same woman who put the curse on the family so long ago.

I think she is still a part of the family in a way.

Yes, I was scared, but I don't know that she hurt me.

I think she had her reasons.

I think, think, in a way, she was welcoming me into being a woman.

Who knows?

She was treated very unjustly, and she deserves to be remembered.

She does not deserve to be forgotten.

And I hope in some way she knows there are people who think what happened to her was terrible and she deserved more.

And we will make sure that we don't treat anybody else like that.

Sri Lata's family still owns the ancestral home, and Srilata still visits it.

Sometimes she brings her own daughter.

My daughter is, yeah, she's 24.

Yeah, when she had her period, we would talk about it openly, and I never really followed this isolation thing.

So when she went to India for the first time after she got her period, she was absolutely furious that they were treating her like that.

When she goes and sees my parents, she would be like, You know, I'm not going to do that, grandma and grandpa.

Okay, I will not touch you, but I'm not going to stay away from everybody.

I'm still going to be in the living room.

And I've also told her about the ancestors, so she knows the story.

Thank you, Sri Latha, for sharing your story with Spook.

Sri Latha is a comedian and storyteller based in New York City.

The original score for this piece was by Lynx.

It was produced by Ann Ford.

Now,

you know that stories, stories are the best kind of knowledge, and stories are meant to be shared.

That's just the way they're built, that's just the way we're built.

It's a crime to do otherwise.

So, let me ask you: do you have a story to tell?

Maybe a story that you haven't told anyone else?

Well,

tell me,

spooked at snapjudgment.org, because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener.

Spooked at snapjudgment.org.

And remember, if you like your storytelling under the bright light of day, get the amazing, stupendous sister podcast.

It's called Snap Judgment.

It's storytelling with a beat.

Spook was created by the team that would cross their heart and hope to die if ever they should tell a lie.

Except, of course, for Mark Rischich,

he knows far better than to make idle promises.

There's Davey Kim, Chris Hambrick, Leon Morimoto, Teal Dakota, Marissa Dodge, Zoe Frigno,

Ann Ford, Eric Yanez, Cody Harjo, Lola Abrera, Miles Lassie, Yari Bundy, Doug Stewart, the spook theme song is by Pat Massini Miller.

My name is Gene Washington.

And if,

for one brief moment, one of the ancients were able to climb into a flying machine to sail into the sky and look around them at the land beneath.

They might not see everything.

They might not see much, but maybe

that brief glimpse would be just enough to hint at what they don't know.

Some stories too, they give us a glimpse of the big forest before dropping us back down to earth across traditions.

The wise tell us that we are blinded by what we think we know.

They suggest instead we should turn out the noise.

Turn out the self-loathing, turn out the doubt, turn out the lies, turn out the darkness, turn out the hate.

But never,

ever,

never, ever, never, ever, never, never, ever

turn out

the light.