Spirits in the Sky

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O

And on his farm he had an axe,

E-I-E-I-O

With a chop, chop here and a chop, chop there, here a chop, there, chop, everywhere, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop!

Old MacDonald had a farm,

EI,

EI,

oh.

Listen to Spooked.

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Okay, so I had two brothers.

I'm the oldest, three of us.

One summer, two of us were waiting on the porch for the younger to show up.

He just finished his first year of college.

We're so proud of him.

Want to hear everything.

He walks up, grinning, hugs, laughs.

Okay, so how'd it go, little bruh?

Oh, it was good.

Real good.

Classes?

Mostly A's, couple B's.

Right on, right on.

But socially, how was it?

Here you joined one of them fraternity things.

Yeah, yeah, I did.

So how was it?

What'd y'all do?

Well, you know, I really shouldn't talk about that.

Huh?

What you mean?

Well, certain things, you know, I could only speak to with my brothers.

Yahoo?

My brothers, my fraternity brothers.

Now, I don't recall saying a word.

Didn't have to.

Just a look.

Just a nod of the head.

Then we jumped, my little brother, and let our fists do the chalk.

Oh, he's big and muscular, and he tried to fight back.

But I swung with older brother energy and absolute confidence.

Your brothers, huh?

Understand.

I took no joy out of delivering the whipping he most certainly had coming.

No, I swung.

Out of a sense of duty.

I swung out of a sense of familial obligation.

I swung swung to let him know that there is a different type of brotherhood that will never demand fraternity fees.

A brotherhood that doesn't care how many shots you can consume in 60 seconds.

And this bond, though, this bond will be respected.

Huh?

What, huh?

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay,

okay.

We picked him up off the ground.

We brushed him off.

We let them fall back into the lawn chair to nurse his hurts.

Then

it was all smiles.

Now let's start over.

I'm gonna ask you again:

how was school?

Spook stars.

Now,

I'm going to be able to do this.

Community, belonging, tradition, family.

It's the weekend.

20-year-old Chuji Kingfisher and his friend, they've been hanging out, driving around the back roads in their Oklahoma hometown at night.

This one does.

And they're just about to head home, but Chuji's at the wheel and he's got one more stop in him.

A spot near the church he grew up attending in the 1970s.

As a child, I was going to church there in Cherokee County.

It was a traditional Cherokee church.

Services were held in Cherokee and English.

The bell rung.

That's when you knew church was beginning.

You entered the church from the back.

The men sit on the left side and the women sit on the right side.

When I was 12, it was time for me to sit on the men's side.

And though I wanted to be on the other side with mom and

my grandma, it was quite a different experience as I sat there next to my grandpa listening and singing the songs.

He was a strong song leader.

Right outside this new church building,

there used to be an older church.

The building itself hasn't been there since the 1970s,

but I have heard it described so many times, I can tell you what it looked like.

It was an old one-room church with a double door and the lock where you had to use the skeleton key.

They didn't need anything fancy to worship God.

It was basically a meeting place.

What remains of it is just the foundation.

It was

stones picked up from the yard,

put together with cement.

I would walk that foundation along with many of my cousins and many of my friends.

Back then, at family gatherings,

storytelling was always

the last part of

any gathering.

Many of the stories that were told were skeely stories or

boogerman stories, and even some about

our old church.

I asked many of the elders of the church if they knew anything about the old church.

I got tidbits here and there, but there weren't too many of those that

even entertained the idea of the supernatural around the churchyard.

But

this older man, he seemed to know just a bit more.

I was in my late teens.

And we were at a church gathering and this older gentleman, he was a part of my extended family.

He pulled me aside.

He said, I've been watching you.

He said, I've been listening to the questions that you've been asking.

I was waiting to find someone just like you.

He began to share the story of the old church.

He said, that's where we used to be.

That place

is still there

even though that building is not there that's still part of that spiritual world because in our world as Cherokee people there's no separation between the spirit world and our natural world

the old legend says that you can step on those steps

that you can actually reach out and grab that door handle

that you can actually open that door and step inside

I began to laugh because the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up

I'm overcome with excitement

and so I asked him I said have you opened that door he said no

I just couldn't bring myself to it

He said, but I did grab the doorknob.

So I knew that it was possible.

I asked him,

can you go inside?

He said, they say you can,

but I can't tell you if you can come back through.

He said,

there's something in you that tells me that you might be able to go just a little bit further than I did.

As I got a little older, I began to explore those things.

And now here I am, a 20-year-old new to fatherhood,

wondering about that rectangle in the ground.

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Somewhere around

two, three o'clock in the morning, a friend and I pulled into the churchyard.

It was like coming through a veil.

The air was heavier.

There was a mist

about everything.

It was a full moon.

There in front of me was the old foundation.

Like a rectangle in the ground.

Beyond the old foundation, I could see the old headstones from my family cemetery in the background.

As I got out of the car,

I came around to the passenger side and my friend got out.

We stood there wondering what we were going to do.

Is this safe?

She kept reminding me that I've got a family, I've got a young son that's dependent on me.

She tried to talk me out of it.

She continued to remind me:

in our Cherokee traditions,

whenever we embark in a journey such as this,

the consequences can be

life or death.

I knew I was going to do it.

My heart and my mind were in a good place.

They were in a place of learning.

They were in a place of study.

I just

wanted to know if I could.

She had decided that

she wasn't going to do anything.

She said, I'm going to be sitting right here.

I'll wait on you.

I'll wait on you till I get scared and then I'm out of here.

But she said, I'll wait here as long as I can.

I don't know what's going to happen.

I don't know if this is going to be for real.

I don't know if I'm going to take a step and fall down and bump my head.

I pray for safety.

I pray for an understanding because I want everything to be all right.

I walked across the churchyard to the old foundation that I'd played on many times.

As I began to look around, I noticed the air was different.

I could see it.

I see it swirling around me.

I see it almost in slow motion.

It kind of had that

how they explain sound waves traveling, you know, how they have that warped look to them.

That's the way the air looked.

And in my mind,

I see the church,

the walls of the building.

I can see the paint peeling and the cracked windows,

the front step,

the front door, the one that used the skeleton key.

I see all of this in my mind's eye as I stood there in front front of that foundation of that old church.

I looked back

and I waved to my friend.

I smiled

and I turned to face the church.

I raised my foot up

and I placed it where that first step would have been.

And I stepped on a step.

I know that I'm stepping on mid-air.

My mind was racing.

My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my neck.

The first step was done.

I summed up the courage to lift my other foot and

I stepped on another step.

I was giggling nervously as I

took another step.

I knew I was standing on that landing.

With confidence,

I reached out and

I grabbed the door handle.

I could feel its firmness in my hand,

that cold steel.

Even though I know that when I grab that doorknob, I am grabbing mid-air.

It gave me such an eerie feeling.

I didn't know whether to giggle or cry.

My heartbeat was now in my head, my throat, my arms, and my legs.

My entire body was a heartbeat.

My mind racing, trying to tell my body to get out of there.

But my stubbornness

saying, Go ahead, turn that doorknob.

And so,

I turned the doorknob.

All these emotions run through my mind, through my body,

and begin to mix up.

I feel turmoil, even.

Am I doing the right thing?

I remember the old man telling me that as far as he could go was to grab that door handle,

and then he jumped off.

So I

pushed that door just a little bit

and it moved.

Oh my goodness, that door moved.

I pushed just a little bit more,

and a bright light came flooding through that crack.

It was a white, yellowish light,

beautiful,

yet very soft.

And as I opened that door,

I could hear

somebody on the other side.

Not just one,

not just two,

but many.

The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up,

the goosebumps all over my arms.

But I wanted to hear and I wanted to see more

and so I pushed the door open just a little bit more

my eyes are

open with amazement

I can see the pews

all those old homemade pews made with sawmill lumber one by fours

and I see the backs

of people's heads.

I see the older man sitting there dressed in his overalls, his white pressed dress shirt,

and I see the ladies with their calico dresses on, kerchiefs on their head,

the smells of grandmas and grandpas

of spearmint gum and candy.

They never acknowledged me.

As far as I know, no one knew I opened the door.

Then I hear the voices.

Oh my goodness.

Voices that I had not heard in a long time.

I heard

my family singing.

I heard the voices of my aunties and uncles past.

My Uncle Bill, my aunt Anaway,

many that have already gone on, the ones that I grew up with, the ones that I knew.

I could hear their distinct voices lead our Cherokee hymns.

I hear my grandpa.

Oh, how strong his voice was.

I could hear the the song.

I knew that song.

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and Mexico with new non-stop flights to Los Cabos and Zacatecas.

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Oh, how beautiful that sounded.

I knew that they weren't living yet.

Here I was.

I was hearing them.

I wanted to be there with them.

I wanted to sit in the pews with them and sing like I did when I was a child.

And true, I do miss them.

But I was caught in a dilemma.

You see, the old man, he told me, you can step through to the other side.

He said, but I don't know if you can come back.

As I opened that door just a little bit more,

what was I going to do?

What would you do?

Was I seeing the light?

Because they say that once you go to the light, you can't come back.

Was this relevant to death?

Or was this just visiting a place and being able to come back home?

I wanted so bad to be there on the other side with them.

But what if I couldn't go back to my son?

All of a sudden, the courage that I had summed up vanished.

I slammed that door

and I I jumped off of that landing.

I landed on the ground and I rolled.

I never looked back.

I never looked to

see even if the church building was there or if the light was still shining.

When I jumped up off the ground, I ran towards the car and my friend had had already ran around to the driver's side.

I jumped into the car while the car was rolling.

I almost got left there.

We drove like we had stolen something.

We just kind of drive in silence.

Did that really just happen?

We got to the creek.

We pulled over,

still shaking from the experience,

then

composed ourselves, got out of the car, and walked around.

I walked down to the creek,

splashed my face with that cold water to wake up.

She asked me,

Where did you

I said, what do you mean?

She said, you disappeared.

I said, I disappeared.

She said, yeah.

When I saw you raise up your foot, that was the last time that I saw you.

You

smiled and you waved.

And when you put that foot down, you disappeared.

She said, do you realize that you've been gone almost four hours?

Unbelievable.

To me, it only seemed like a blink of an eye.

Like a few minutes had passed, maybe ten minutes.

I said, why did you wait?

four hours

she said because I couldn't bear the thought that I was leaving that grounds without you.

You had a son.

You had family.

What was I going to tell them if I came home without you?

She said, I was so frightened.

The next time I saw you was when you came jumping out of midair.

When I ran around

the car to get into the driver's side, I wasn't even worried about you.

I was worried about getting out of there because whatever had grabbed you, I didn't want it to grab me either.

We laughed about it nervously and I told her about the experience that I had just had.

She was in disbelief because

she just didn't understand.

We get back in the car

and drive home in silence.

We don't ever speak of it.

I'd be lying to you if I told you I hadn't tried it again.

I've tried to go back several times,

but I was never able to step on that step again.

Maybe it's because

I was there for a different purpose.

My heart wasn't right.

My mind wasn't right.

Maybe one of these days,

I'll hear

somebody that actually

stepped through and came back.

If I were to ever

get the chance again,

I often wonder, what would I do different?

I've lived a wonderful life, got wonderful family,

but I believe that if given the chance,

when I push that door open,

I would step through and

find my place there among the elders

and sit down and sing.

wulosait wa

a tlosi

Aiya totli

wigon

nai nai

u na danti

wood ni lo se

na lain nai

e ju wo lay

nai ku I say

we je got y

Thanks so much to Cherokee National Treasurer Chuji Kingfisher for sharing your story.

That original piece that was scored by Yari Bundy was produced by Chris Hamburg.

Now I'm often asked, what are you afraid of?

I'm going to throw that same question back at you, dear listeners.

What are you afraid of?

I know that some of you are hiding something.

I know this because you've told me this.

That you would change houses.

Or you would throw your grandmother's jewelry box away, or that you would burn a certain picture in the hallway.

You would do this,

but you fear the consequences.

You know of ramifications far beyond the apparent.

And if you are scared of a thing

or a place or a person

and you don't know how to proceed,

please tell me about it.

Maybe together, perhaps, perhaps we can get to the bottom of the mystery.

Because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spook listener.

And if you don't know how to identify people walking this dark path, look around you,

they might just be wearing the spook t-shirt right now as a sign in section.

Get your own while you still can.

Snapjudgment.org.

If you like your storytelling under the bright light of day, get the amazing, stupendous sister podcast Snap Judgment.

It is storytelling with a beat.

Spook is brought to you by the team that knows all too well not to disturb creatures sleeping in the dark.

Except for Mark Ristich, who always carries a sharp stick so he can disturb the creatures that are sleeping in the dark.

There's Davey Kim, Chris Hambrick, Leon Morimoto, Taylor DeCott, Marissa Dodge, Zoe Frigno, Ann Ford, Eric Yanez, Cody Harjo, Lola Abrera, Miles Blassey, Yari Bundy, and Doug Stewart.

The spook theme song is by Pat Masidi Miller on Erisland, Washington.

And everyone wants to be powerful.

Power is respect, power is admiration, it is wealth, it is desire, and secrets are the means by which we hoard power,

secret knowledge,

Secret signs, secret doors, secret caches, secrets, which is all well and good.

But none of us live forever.

Even those that twist secret understandings in order to do just that, they too will fail.

And when the secret holders pass on,

they take their secrets with them.

So much knowledge lost.

So many opportunities squandered, leaving us to piece back this puzzle in the dark simply because some would hoard their understanding understanding

but no more

mistakes are too great we've fallen backward for too long no more secrets no more lies instead of hiding wisdom under a shadow

take a vow with me

from now on

promise those that you care about and promise yourself

that you will never ever

never ever never ever never never never never never never ever

ever

turn out

the lights.

Support for Spooked comes from Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport.

OAK offers non-stop flights to your favorite destinations across the U.S.

and Mexico with new non-stop flights to Los Cabos and Zacatecas.

OAK makes travel easy with Park OAK's convenient parking options.

Reserve a spot in the daily lot or economy lot and save on your next trip.

Learn more at iflyoak.com, the best way to San Francisco Bay.