Chapter 11 – Big Head
The Giant
Head wasn’t quite as big as Billy Blande had described to the group the
previous day. It was startling enough, however if you encountered it in one of the
darkened subterranean passageways. Those that were left over from the days of
Prohibition in America. Those passageways ran for a five-block area parallel to
a spur of Old Highway 6, one of the main drags into the downtown area. Some
passages ran under the entirety of Oak Street including my house. There were
tunnels that ran underneath the Little Pine Cemetery, The White Owl Bookstore,
The Hungry Hobbit, The Rodeo Motel across the alley from my house and Grubbiest
Fine Foods. There was even a collateral that ran all the way into the metro
area of Dusk Thorne.
In all,
there were fifteen miles of intersecting tunnels before you reached the longest
one leading to the main portion of town. Although the Big Head occasionally
trekked (well, technically floated) into the metro tunnels, it mostly lurked in
the passageways near the cemetery and the motel. Most recently it had been
spending a lot of time in the tunnels near at the Old Baily Place. This is
where Billy had encountered it.
Billy had
died in the late fifties when he was eight years old. As a ghost that had
refused to “move on” there was very little for little Billy to do but float
about and observe others that he had known and met in during his brief
lifetime. When his playmates aged and eventually left town or moved away to
other neighborhoods, he discovered the tunnels. After that, the tunnels
occupied quite a bit of his time. Billy wasn’t into assertively haunting
houses. It was unusual that he let my group of friends even glimpse him. He was
a very shy kid until he got to know you. In the tunnels he could keep a low
profile. In most tunnels he was able to hear what was happening in the home
above. He could listen to what living people were doing. Face it, Billy was
alone for a long time before we met him.
The
tunnels conducted sound from electronic devices from above. In life, Billy was
a compulsive television watcher. He would float through the tunnels and listen
to what the homeowners were watching on television. If he heard people
listening to one of his favorite shows, he would float up and invisibly watch
television. This was how he eventually made a friend. He was in the White Owl
Bookstore watching a rerun of Leave It to Beaver when he realized another child
could see him.
Billy couldn’t manipulate objects and
certainly couldn’t change channels himself until he met Isadora’s niece Winnie.
The little girl became playmates with Billy and having enhanced psychokinetic
abilities herself, she managed to teach Billy to move small objects and
manipulate spinners and cards so they could play board games.
Later
Billy adapted these lessons to do other things to amuse himself and pass the
time. These later self-invented psychokinetic activities, such as goldfish
levitation from a tank or a bowl of water while people were trying to feed their
pet, unweaving macramé wall hangings, supergluing pennies together in a stack, making
doorbells chime the hour, and placing unusual objects in refrigerators or ovens
(toilet paper rolls, T.V. guides, wallets, and combs), eventually earned Billy
the designated title of house poltergeist. Generally, the invisible prankster, Billy,
would grow bored and move on. This precluded the possibility of any serious
paranormal investigations.
When Billy
first encountered The Big Head, he was underneath the Rodeo Motel. There wasn’t
much that could have prepared him for The Big Head experience. Billy couldn’t
possibly have known that the floating Big Head belonged to fat Vinnie Roma, a
gangster and leader of a bootlegging operation and part of the Smaldone crime
family.
Legend has
it that Fat Vinnie Roma died suddenly while in the basement of my old house
while visiting his mistress, Sally Guterres. He choked to death on a macaroni
and meatball sandwich. Dorthy, a necromancer and knowledgeable about all forms
of sudden death, later told me that the abrupt release of emotion can create a
“non-intelligent haunting” or what I’ve come to call a “looper”.
A “looper’
isn’t an interactive experience. It isn’t a visitation from an intelligent
spirit like Billy where the ghost retains all or most of the personality of the
deceased. It is more like a multisensory playback of a past event. It can’t
respond to questions or react spontaneously. It doesn’t think for itself. It is
like an echo of the past or a tape recorder on a continuous loop.
The
phantom in the loop, Fat Vinnie Roma, was transformed into a large head because
of the trauma of choking to death. Vinnie Roma’ attention was completely focused
upon his mouth and throat. Psychologically this was imprinted as a powerful
psychic projection onto the environment of the tunnels during the moment of his
death.
* * *
Alice,
Naydene and a reluctant Petey had all agreed to take a preliminary look at the
tunnels in my absence and without my permission. During the argument about what
to do with any further found cash Petey had noticed that there were four voices
(including his own) involved in the conversation. Then, he suddenly saw Billy
as a glowing apparition.
Petey
uttered a very low key “Well, I’ll be damned”. Disbelief fell away and Petey
started reacting to Billy afterwards as if he had just met him in a tavern,
football game or movie theater.
Billy had encountered
a mindless psychic playback in the tunnels. But he took the Giant Head to be
another intelligent spirit like himself. He tried to warn the would-be
adventurers of the foolish risk they were about to take. The “Big Head” experience had terrified Billy,
who still didn’t understand what was going on. The group had assembled in my
living room after Knuckle Butt, Dorthy and I left for Carter’s Field. They listened
to Billy recount his experience in the tunnel.
“Well, first
the dim tunnel was filled with the smell of cooked tomatoes and garlic. Then I smelled
smoke. Really stinky smoke.” Billy said. His voice was shaking.
“Like gas?”
Alice was becoming hyper. “Oh my God. Do you think we will we need gas masks to
go down there?”
“No, not
like gas. Like the cigars my Uncle Lewis smoked.” Billy corrected.
“Um, okay.
It doesn’t sound too bad so far.” Petey offered cautiously.
“There was
red gooey stuff running down the sides of its huge mouth. It was hideous I tell
you.” Billy trembled as he talked. Also, pieces of pasta.”
“Pasta?
Are you certain?” Naydene asked in disbelief and confusion.
“Hey, I
know what I saw.” Said Billy defensively. “If I’m lying, I’m dying, okay.”
“Um, dude,
you’re already dead.” Petey pointed out.
“You know
what I meant.” Billy said indignantly. He continued. “The Head was enormous. It
had terrible breath. So, I’m thinking yeah, we need the gas masks. The face was
all red and blotchy. It was gagging. That horrible gagging. I could try to
imitate it for you.”
“No
thanks.” Alice said flatly.
“I’m game.”
Naydene said loudly. Petey clapped his hand over her mouth.
“Bro. We
good, just finish the story.” He said in a low tone. Naydene defiantly slapped
Petey’s hand away from her mouth.
“I also
heard someone repeating something, like chanting in the background.” Billy
said.
“Like,
what did they say?” Alice was on the edge of her chair.
“It was in
some foreign language. The Head looks like a man. But this was a woman’s voice.
That was doing the chanting.” Billy tried to recreate the words. He had been
too scared to move during his confrontation with the Big Head, so the
experience had repeated several times in his presence. He managed to verbalize
a close approximation of the words.
Petey
exclaimed, “Wow, that’s Sicilian. My grandmother is Sicilian. That is a prayer she
used to say over my brother Mike when he did crazy shit. Like one time he tried
to ride his bicycle off the roof of the house and knocked himself out. I
thought she was gonna’ have a heart attack. She prayed in Sicilian over him after
he landed and then beat the crap outta’ him five minutes later after he came to.
“Really?”
Alice said. “You’re sure that is Sicilian.
“Yes.” She
was Sicilian. Mike and I are both part Sicilian.”
“Whew.
What does it all mean?” Alice exhaled.
“Well, are
we going down there? Naydene’s level of excitement was through the roof.
“Saddle up
cowgirl.” Alice said. “I figure we got a couple of hours to kill before Doc
gets back.
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