Mom told me I looked a lot like Great-Grandma Thelma. She took a faded black and white picture off a wall where it sat surrounded by empty nails that until recently held photos of her wedding and showed it to me.

Great-Grandma Thelma wore a shift dress and a long string of beads hanging from her neck in 1920s fashion. On her head, she had an ornate headband with a large feather protruding from it. Dark hair cut short framed her round face, and she had an impish smile as if she had either performed some mischief or planned such a thing. I could see a family resemblance.

“Great-Grandma Thelma was a prankster, ” Mom said as we stared at the photo. “She liked to pull harmless pranks on her kinfolk. She would rub Vaseline on her cousin’s bedroom doorknob so she couldn’t open the door. Once, while on the family farm, she rounded up a bunch of frogs and threw them in the outhouse so anyone getting up at night to use the toilet would have frogs jumping all over them.”

My fraternal twin brother Jimmy joined us and listened while Mom continued the stories about our mischievous ancestor. He looked the most like Great-Grandma Thelma; both stocky.

“After her husband, Grandpa Stewart’s father, died in World War I, Thelma took up with a bootlegger, and this fellow was very cruel to her. When she discovered he was cheating on her, Thelma went to the other woman’s apartment with a chocolate box full of laxatives and gave it as a gift. It was probably the meanest prank she ever pulled. When the boyfriend found out about this, he attacked Thelma in her kitchen. So, she grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed the man in the heart. “

“She pled self-defense, but the gangster was well connected, and most of the men on the jury had business dealings ruined by his death. Besides, Great-Grandma Thelma did not have a lawyer. So, they hanged her in October of 1927. Family legend has it that her ghost visits one of her descendants and plays a prank or two on them in that month.”

“Has she ever played a prank on you, Mommy?”

“One October I had a clothesline full of clothes that fell to the ground as if someone untied the rope. I think Great-Grandma Thelma’s ghost did it.

#

Jimmy always led whatever we did together. As Halloween approached, he conjured up a plan to scare Mom. One day, while my mother was taking a nap, Jimmy, in a grey werewolf mask, and I, in one of a vampire, crawled into her bedroom. We could see Mom’s feet above us at the foot of her bed.

When Jimmy gave the signal, we stood up and growled as loud and ferociously as possible. Our childlike growls turned into screams, for Mommy lay on the bed, her white nightgown soaked in crimson, a knife handle protruding from her chest. Her long black hair flowed across cream-colored pillows.

We ran into the hallway, ripping off our masks. Jimmy began to cry uncontrollably.

“We need to get out of here,” I said, grabbing my brother’s hand.

We charged down the hallway, past the fist-made hole in the wall, into the living room toward the front door. I tried unsuccessfully to open it. Jimmy began to wail.

I had never seen my brother in such a state.

“Quick,” I said, “let’s get to the kitchen where we can call the police.”

In the kitchen, I pulled the telephone from the wall while Jimmy sat on the floor crying. But before I could call 911, the door swung open. We both screamed but stopped when we saw Mom using paper towels to take the homemade blood off her face and clothes. She then laid the fake knife handle and plastic holder on the kitchen table.

“Next time you try to prank your mother, make sure she is not standing in the hallway listening to your plans. Let me clean up and change, and we will go out and get some ice cream.”

I could see Jimmy smile through his tear-streaked face. He wiped away his tears and tried not to look embarrassed. I said nothing to him.

When Mom was ready, we found the front door would still not open. Mom shook the door violently, but it did not budge, and a worried look came over her face.

” Let’s go out through the garage,” she said.

As we began to walk toward the large aluminum door in the dim garage, the overhead fluorescent lights suddenly flickered on, and all three of us looked toward the light switch.

My father, with his red hair, once crew cut in military style, now shoulder length and unwashed, looked at us with vacant eyes.

“What the hell is wrong with the front door?”

“You need to leave, Douglas,” Mom said between clenched teeth. “Do so right now, or I’ll call the cops.”

“Awe, Come on, Marion. Don’t be that way, ” His eyes widened as he looked at me and Jimmy. “Did I hear something about ice cream?”

We nodded, unsure of how else to respond.

“Ok then, Let’s go.”

“That’s it. I’m calling the cops,” Mom shouted and ran back into the house.

Dad went after her. As we stood in the doorway to the living room, we heard the terrifying sounds we had heard before, screaming and slapping.  Jimmy resumed crying, but I was past that, now consumed with rage toward my father.

Suddenly, the front door flew open, and a cold wind poured into the house. My father, with a shocked look on his face, stumbled involuntarily past us and then, as if tossed by an invisible force, landed face down on the front lawn.

Through the door, I heard the laughter of a flapper in the Autumn air.

– Steve Bailey