I never expected to be in this situation—living in Galveston and incidentally right next door to Adi’s parents. I have settled into this odd reality where I am living equal parts Everybody Loves Raymond with a healthy dose of The Addams Family thrown in to make it feel a little less conventional. Adi and I live in the Carriage House which many years ago was the servant’s quarters/horse stable that was in service to the Big House (the family calls it the Big House) right next door to it. The Big House is a large Victorian home that has a “witchy” feel to it and Adi’s mom embraces the “witchy-ness” of the house. Picture The Addams Family with Adi’s mom as Morticia and her father as Gomez. Adi and I play the parts of Ray Romano and his wife, Debra Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond (full disclosure: I have never seen the show. I know of it only through folklore).
When I recently mentioned this to Adi’s mom, she lit up like a Christmas tree.
“We are so like Morticia and Gomez!”
There is something lovable about Adi’s parents, Morticia and Gomez (we will call them by these names in the interest of anonymity). They aren’t intrusive in the least, yet they still find ways to stop by the Carriage House for a quick hello. They never stay long—generally it’s just a pop-in to drop something off or to share some detail of the work they may be doing on the Carriage House. Old houses need constant attention of which I don’t have an abundant supply, nor do I have the skills to execute the necessary manly labor. Gomez is handy; he fixes things. I am not handy; I watch Gomez fix things.
When Morticia arrives, it is usually replete with delightful stories about the witchy-ness of the island. She loves Galveston. She loves the “spookiness” of the island and she LOVES sharing stories about her adopted hometown. Recently she stopped by to regale me with stories about the Big House that I had never heard before. I had mentioned to Morticia that whenever I go into the Big House, I can feel spirit energy circulating throughout the house.
“Your house has a whole lot of spirit activity going on,” I told her.
“Where specifically?” she asked.
“Whenever I walk into your kitchen, I can definitely feel it.”
“I’m not surprised,” she replied. “You know someone died in our kitchen?”
This was something I did not know, and it didn’t take long for story time to commence—we were off to the races. When Morticia gets going with a story it’s important to hold on for the ride. She gets excited and it’s hard not to get drawn in by her enthusiasm. I don’t think I have ever met anyone who loves their city as much as she loves Galveston and when her Big House is also part of the story—watch out. It’s story time!
In this particular case, I was intrigued by the teaser of this story. The former owner of the Big House (we’ll call him Mark) actually died in the kitchen. Mark was an artist who had lived in San Francisco in the early 80s until he grew tired of the changing landscape of the city. He moved to Galveston with his partner and bought the Big House, incidentally, moving very near his sister, Alice, who lived only a couple of doors down. Mark left the big city life for less hectic, more laidback Galveston island life. Mark and his partner hunkered down to renovate the old structure that came to be known as the Big House. The Big House has a storied history. It is a rather large dwelling that reportedly rests on the highest part of the island (height is relative on an island) and was erected before the dawn of the twentieth century.
The Big House has seen some things and lived to tell her story. During the Great Galveston Storm of 1900 neighbors gathered in the Big House to ride out the storm. Using the Big House as a place of refuge, native Galvestonians gathered almost shoulder to shoulder in the home to weather what would become one of the most lethal hurricanes in history. The “party” started on the first floor of the home and eventually moved to subsequent floors above as the water rose throughout the house showing no signs of abatement. At one point during the storm, one of the neighbors brought a prized horse into the home to keep it safe from the rising waters. As the waters entered the house, not only did those escaping the storm flee to the upper floors they actually walked the horse up the stairs to safety as well. There simply is no underestimating the value of a good horse in 1900.
The artist Mark moved into the Big House and it became a pet project for him. He took great care to renovate the space with his partner to create a home that could become a showpiece. As the years ensued, this Victorian palace embarked upon the first steps to eventually becoming a shrine to the Adi’s family. This home was Mark’s passion, one that became his pride and joy that he treated like a child until one day he discovered that he had contracted HIV. The house slowly made its way to the background as he began the slow decent to the end of life. Fortunately for his partner, he never contracted the virus that would eventually take Mark’s life. Life can seem arbitrary in that way however our soul knows what we need to serve our greatest evolution. Therefore, trust in the process is crucial.
In Mark’s final days he lingered on longer than most of those closest to him thought he would. One day people were surrounding Mark in the kitchen of the home as he hung on to the last threads of life; his friends prayed that he could gently leave his body in peace. In a moment of inspiration, while everyone was surrounding Mark, his sister Alice said to everyone:
“Let’s open the window so that his spirit can leave the body and exit the house.”
As strange as this may seem to some, they opened the window and moments later a large gust of wind blew through the house. As the curtains wisped around the window, the group surrounding Mark looked back to see that he had passed. In the gust of wind Mark departed leaving the Big House without a guardian. The Big House stood without an owner—Mark’s partner no longer needed the constant reminder of his lost lover.
Enter Morticia and Gomez. Morticia’s dream since she was a young woman was to one day own a Victorian home on Galveston Island. After a health scare, she decided there was no time like the present moment (life is far too precious to wait until tomorrow) and she and Gomez took the leap and purchased the Big House.
The first time they met Alice she didn’t miss a beat:
“Oh, my Lord, it’s like I am looking directly at my brother. It’s like you are the female version of him.”
Alice preceded to tell Morticia that it felt like it was destined that she bought her brother’s house.
“I feel like the house is in good hands,” Alice said.
Thus, a friendship was born that would continue to this day. Alice became a confidant and a watchful eye when Morticia and Gomez were not able to be in Galveston. She became the Gladys Kravitz (see the TV show Bewitched) that forever kept an eye on the Big House.
And so, the journey began to make the Big House an island oasis for Morticia and Gomez. They began making the house their own while trying to honor all of the work that Mark had done on the house. As an artist, they knew he would be particular with details and whenever they considered a major change, they would consult Alice and ask if she felt Mark would approve—this is a very witchy thing to do. Most people would just plow ahead, they treaded lightly on the spirit of a passed artist.
Good intentions always come with transgressions. No matter how much we might want to please the spirit realm sometimes offenses can be taken that can’t be avoided. This transgression that may seem obvious in hindsight, turned out to be a level of spooky that I can’t describe.
Morticia and Gomez decided that they wanted to paint over a mural that was above the main staircase of the house. This mural was an unfinished work of Archangel Gabriel surrounded by two cherubs that Mark began painting before he died. Although it was a pet project of Mark’s, for obvious reasons the work was never completed which left a void on the ceiling of the house. Not wanting to desecrate Mark’s art, Morticia consulted Alice and a few neighbors and asked if everyone felt it would be alright if they decided to paint over the work. Everyone gave the A-OK to move forward with changing the mural. No objections.
“It’s your house. Make it your own. Time to move forward!” became the rallying cry.
Enter Barney Stinnett. Barney is a man’s man, no nonsense painter from Beaumont, Texas that specializes in painting murals. He’s an artist but the kind of artist that could deliver an ass-kicking if necessary. He’s a painter but he’s Texan. This creates a unique breed of renegade that seemed the natural choice to transform the ceiling of the Big House. The task seemed simple enough; paint over Archangel Gabriel and the two cherubs and replace them with a nice cloudy blue sky. What could possibly go wrong?
Allow me to digress as I refresh the memory regarding the story of Gabriel. In the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—Gabriel is considered one of the archangels along with Raphael, Uriel and Michael. Gabriel was the heavenly messenger sent to Daniel to explain the vision of the ram and the he-goat and to communicate the prediction of the Seventy Weeks. He was also employed to announce the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and Jesus to the Virgin Mary (an event referred to as the Annunciation). It is because he stood in the divine presence that both Jewish and Christian writers generally speak of him as an Archangel.
In other words, Gabriel is a pretty special Angel. So much so that one may want to think twice before painting over a mural that was created to celebrate and honor said Archangel. Add to this an artist who was especially possessive and particular about his work and a Texan to boot and one now has a recipe for some spooky things to occur.
Barney began is work which included setting up scaffolding in order to be able to work on the ceiling. This scaffolding is not particularly easy to set up and even harder to move from place to place. It is generally a two-man operation that requires a certain level of patience and persistence to get into position to paint. This is an essential element to this story because what happens next is difficult to explain (for those that will attempt to explain this away).
After hiring Barney, Morticia and Gomez went back to the DFW area to allow him to have unfettered access to the Big House to finish his work. His first step was to paint over the mural. This was no small task and took several days to complete the work replete with moving the scaffolding to various areas of the ceiling to do his work. This work was so time-consuming he needed the assistance of his son to move the rather wieldy scaffolding.
One morning Barney arrived to work on the mural, and he looked up at the ceiling to a spot nowhere near the scaffolding. In fact, even the tallest of ladders couldn’t reach this space and right there in the middle of his erasure of Archangel Gabriel were the words that were etched in what looked like second-rate graffiti.
“Leave my house.”
Barney was perplexed. He certainly didn’t write this. In his mind, this was outright vandalism. Painting took far too long and was way too much effort to screw around like this. He called Morticia and Gomez and demanded to know why they would write something like that on his work.
“I’m a businessman and an artist,” Barney said. “I don’t have time to “F” (insert your favorite “F” word here) around like this. Why did you have someone ruin my work?”
Morticia and Gomez were perplexed. They were more than 300 miles away in the DFW area and no one had a key to the house except for them. Besides, as Barney admitted himself, even if they were there to perpetrate this crime the note that was scrawled on the ceiling was nowhere near where the scaffolding was currently placed. How could they possibly have committed this crime of vandalism? Morticia began querying neighbors about their whereabouts on the previous evening and she even went so far as to question Alice’s motives on that evening, asking if she were the perpetrator of the crime (Alice held a grudge about this for months following the incident). No one knew anything about the note, everyone proclaimed.
A mystery had ensued that was worthy of a Scooby Doo episode. Who could have written, “Leave my house”, and more importantly how could they have done it? No one could really figure it out nor did anyone have the motive. It seemed like a whole lot of work for very little reward, everyone surmised.
Unless…unless…it was the Artist Mark! Could his spirit have been so disturbed by not only covering up and erasing his unfinished work but also the work that was enshrined to honor Archangel Gabriel? Was this enough to rouse Mark from the ethereal beyond to protest the desecration of his artist endeavor? It didn’t seem all that far-fetched to me. Every time I step inside the Big House, I can hear Crosby, Stills and Nash sing a line from their famous song, Southern Cross:
Spirits are using me, larger voices calling…
The Big House has a powerful witchy energy and spirit energy seems to ooze out of her pours. Seeing “Leave my house” didn’t seem to be out of the realm of possibility for me. As Adi’s mom relayed this whole mystical story to me, I realized the Big House already had its own theme song made famous from the aforementioned The Addams Family:
They’re creepy and they’re kooky
Mysterious and spooky
They’re all together ooky
The Addams Family
The Big House sits only a hundred feet from the Carriage House and Adi chooses her moments to make appearances there. She never specifically talks about it, but I notice that her visits are brief. When Morticia told the story of the Artist Mark, Adi found reasons to exit and do some “much needed” chores in the kitchen. If Adi were to see the words, “Leave my house” she would most assuredly heed the advice of the words. She would be gone—no questions asked. I would be two steps behind her, making sure to close the door on the way out.
Galveston is alive with spirit energy. The ghosts of the past parade around the city hoping anyone will notice them. When they aren’t getting the attention that they feel they deserve they begin writing things on ceilings of homes.
“Leave my house.”
I don’t need to be asked twice, even if the story is secondhand. You stay on your side of the block, Artist Mark, and I will stay on mine. In the meantime, calling on Archangel Gabriel to bring some of that Angel Light to illuminate our block. We promise not to paint over you again.