The Visitor

We've had our fair share of strange callers at our small home amidst the oaks on the edge of what could be called "downtown". Some of you might remember the story of the early morning peeping-tom who peered in our front window at Liz while she ironed, causing her to shriek in manner that was not quite human - and jolting me out of the bed to stand on the porch in my boxers, waving a cudgel and an (empty) pistol at the receding shadows of early morning, screaming invective while my adrenaline count threatened china-syndrome levels. Our caller had ridden his bike on his pervy route and I saw it lying at the foot of our driveway. My adrenaline finding a target for release, I beat the shit out of it with my cudgel - though that only did minimal damage to it. Those bikes are built pretty tough. I managed to smash off the plastic reflectors and, perhaps, dent a few spokes. When the cops arrived they expressed doubt that anyone could have ridden such a bike. I explained that it had been in better shape before they arrived . . .

Lately we've been haunted by Carolyn, whose dementia causes her to wander the neighborhood with a strange mission to "visit with" anyone she can corner. At any hour. The first time she arrived we were glad to meet her. She had a friendly face and she indicated that she had moved into the recently renovated Crack House on the corner. We were glad to see Nice People living there, and we told her so, but we realized right away that something was off-balance in Carolyn's demeanor. She tried to push past Liz and I and step into the living room with a proprietary air. Her smile faded and her expression became determined and . . . distant. The people in front of her had ceased to exist and she was compelled to move forward . . .

We sent her on her way, but she comes back from time to time to "visit with" us. Usually it's at the end of the evening when the kids are getting ready for bed. The dogs will go ballistic as they sense her presence coming silently up the driveway. Their barking hides the tread of her feet on our front steps and across the porch but we'll hear the doorbell.

This is the kids' cue to scatter and they do so quickly, like kids in a war zone hearing aircraft overhead. Liz scoots down the hall behind them and I go to the door, careful to only open it a crack. Carolyn will smile and say, "I've come to visit with you." Then the smile will go, and with it any semblance that I'm staring at a functioning member of society. The eyes unfocus and look inward at things I can't see. Her intentions are lost in her fog. I make my apologies and excuses: It's late, the kids are going to bed, etc. etc. She turns and lumbers off, disappearing into the inky shadows at the foot of our driveway to continue her restless wandering . . .

The owner of the house next door had his own Carolyn encounter last week when he had come home from New Hampshire to tend to his rental house. She had come to the door "to visit" with him as he pulled up carpet and trim. He pulled up a chair for her but she didn't stay for longer than a few minutes before drifting out the door without a word.

I'm reminded of Tove Jannson's character The Grok (illustration at the head of this post) who wanders restlessly through the Moomintroll world, unsettling everyone with her strange and dread-inspiring presence, and leaving icy patches where-ever she rests . . .

Crazy Carolyn - that's what we call her, and not without affection. Still, like The Grok, she's unsettling. She is a large woman and her face is doughy and lugubrious. Sometimes when I come home from soccer late at night I'll see her lumbering down our road with that particular side-to-side rocking motion large women have, rolling along like a sailor on deck. It's dark on our end of the street, where In-Town peters out and she comes out of the shadows into my headlights all of a sudden, her face telling a story of sorrows and heartbreaks and worry - the La Llorona of Winder. The Weeping Washer Woman. The Gray Lady of folklore. When I surge around her she fades into the shadows again. I get out of my car at the top of the driveway and look behind me with anxiety. Will she be there, just behind me, hoping for a visit? Will she try to follow me into the house?

In Tove Jannson's Moomintroll books the arrival of the Grok is preceded by a feeling of dread and a drop in temperature. Moominpapa opens the door and she's there, lurking just outside the pool of light that spills from the house.

Yesterday afternoon the dogs exploded again, the terrier spinning in circles and the dalmatian charging the front windows. Our personal Grok had arrived but when I opened the door she was not there. I walked to the foot of the driveway and looked both ways but she was not toddling off with her peculiar seaman's gait. She couldn't have disappeared that fast.

And of course she didn't. She was at our backyard gate, peering over the fence at the children playing there. "Carolyn, you can't do that," I told her. "You're frightening the children." She told me she just wanted to visit with the people in the yard but I sent her on her way and watched as she made slow, relentless progress down the road.

When I drove down the road an hour later she was on her front porch and she raised her hand to wave vaguely at me, and I gave her a quick salute. I drove on wondering who lives there with her, who watches her?