by John Brhel
cupboard. “Guess we’re stuck with this.”
“Think those prints were from the dog?” said Garrett.
“It was a dog, I guess,” mumbled Carl, emptying the
contents of the can into a pot on the stove.
The conversation was interrupted by the front door
abruptly opening. Carl and Garrett both stopped what they
were doing and looked at each other, waiting for the other to move. Ed wasn’t due home for a few more days, and
nobody ever stopped by. To their relief, they heard their
father call out in the hallway: “I’m back!”
Seconds later, the older man stood at the kitchen
doorway, smiling. His eyes were bloodshot and heavy bags
hung under them; he looked as if he had driven home on
no sleep.
“Dad! You’re back already?” said Garrett, relieved at
his father’s presence.
“How’d you do it? Pasadena and back in just a couple
days…”
Ed didn’t reply. He came into the kitchen hobbling,
wincing at each step.
• 32 •
BLACk DOG
“Dad, you alright?” asked Carl, as his father limped
toward the table.
As Ed came further into the kitchen, his sons got an
unobstructed view of their father. He was wearing the same outfit he’d driven off in the other day—a ballcap, flannel shirt, blue jeans. But their eyes were drawn to tufts of black fur that poked out from beneath his dirty, torn pants—and
then on to his large, canid feet, or paws.
Sternly, Ed looked over his two boys, who stood stock-
still, mouths agape. “I thought I told you two to stay out of the woods at night...”
• 33 •
• III •
CzARNY LUD
I remember that I was days away from beginning
kindergarten, near the end of the Summer of ‘88. My
mother had already gone back to teaching at the community
college, so my older sister and I were sent to my Great-
Aunt Cecelia’s house over on Brown Street. My great-aunt
was the daughter of Polish immigrants, and was married
to an incredibly old-school Italian. Uncle Franco was still working at Lester Shoe & Boot at the time, so it was usually just the three of us.
Aunt Cecelia loved to garden. She had a huge yard,
and grew every vegetable that was suitable for the Northeast.
The rear of the yard ended with several enclosed blueberry bushes and a small creek, or ‘crick,’ as we called it growing up. She was always out in that garden, and my sister and I would help her occasionally; but she was meticulous, and
wasn’t keen on seven- and five-year-old kids messing about in her precious, ordered rows.
That summer was unbelievably warm for Upstate New
York. We could only stand being outside in the yard for
about an hour before returning to the house. It was the
beginning of September, and my sister, Jenny, and I were
basically stuck inside. We weren’t allowed to walk to the
park to do arts and crafts or go swimming. There were no
• 35 •
CORPSE COLD: NEW AMERICAN FOLKLORE
other kids on Brown Street, and, worst of all, my uncle and aunt didn’t have cable TV. We watched Captain Kangaroo, Mr.
Roger’s, and Bob Ross every day that week.
Jenny and I played a version of hide and seek where
when she found me, she would beat the crap out of me.
My pained howls for assistance would rarely find my elderly aunt’s ear out back in the yard, and I’d have to endure the torture, or try and negotiate with my budding sadist-for-a-sister. It was odd; my screams rarely reached the garden through the many open windows of Aunt Cecelia’s house.
But if we were running around the table in the dining
room, or jumping on the couch in the parlor, you could
set a watch to Aunt Cecelia materializing out of thin air to punish us. Not that she spanked us, but she had her ways
of convincing us to act right, while also being one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known.
So, it was only days away from the first day of school,
and Jenny and I were alone in the house running around
and playing tag, because we were too old to be entertained by the likes of Sesame Street. Aunt Cecelia came in from the garden with a pail of blueberries in hand, ready to scold us for our behavior. But this time she seemed a little extra-sick of our horseplay. “Oh, no, no—this is very bad. You
two will awaken the Czarny Lud with this naughtiness,” said Cecelia. “Sit on your dupa, Jennifer!”
Jenny obediently sat on the floor. “Aunt Celia, what’s
the Zar-nee-loot?”
“He feeds on the fear of young children, instead of on
eggs and cold chicken from the fridge. But you shouldn’t
worry. You two behave for the next couple of days, and I’ll keep him fed. I know how to tide him over,” said Cecelia,
lifting the pail of blueberries. “You’re good children. He won’t have any reason to come for you.”
• 36 •
CzARNY LUD
My sister was curious, while I was content with not
knowing another thing about the Czarny Lud. The three of
us went for a walk down Main Street, and Jenny asked Aunt
Cecelia question after question about the boogeyman. But
Aunt Cecelia only said that it inhabited dark places, like the root room in the cellar, then changed the subject.
Our mother picked us up that evening and we asked
her about the Czarny Lud, but she had no idea what we were talking about, and surprisingly, our aunt hadn’t bothered
to tell her that we’d been a handful that day. Jenny wouldn’t drop it, though, and the more we chatted about it, the
more I grew frightened of the thing that lived in my aunt’s basement. I had seen the empty pail when Aunt Cecelia
returned from the cellar, and wondered if she had really
fed some mysterious creature with berries from her yard.
I knew there were mysterious things in the world,
as I was familiar with the fat man who delivered presents
while negotiating our basement furnace, the rabbit with a
penchant for discarded teeth, and the man whose flesh and
blood my parents consumed each week. And I’d been having
a recurring nightmare since watching Disney’s Mr. Boogedy, about a shadow man that occupied my parents’ bedroom
closet. So, it seemed entirely plausible, if not likely, that my beloved aunt was defending my sister and me from some
ancient, diabolical force which occupied the root room in
her cellar, with fresh blueberries from her yard.
The following morning, I asked my mom if there was
any way we could go to my grandma’s house, instead of to
my aunt’s. She quickly shot down that idea. My sister had
overheard our conversation, and immediately called me
chicken, laughing at my genuine worry all the way to Aunt
Cecelia’s. Luckily, it was raining, so my aunt didn’t leave us alone in the house that morning. However, my luck
• 37 •
CORPSE COLD: NEW AMERICAN FOLKLORE
ran out, as it cleared up after lunch, and Aunt Cecelia was itching to get to work in her garden.
I did my best to stay outside, watching my aunt prune
her blueberry bushes. But after an hour or so, Jenny was
whining about the bugs and wanted to go inside and play
board games. Likely so she wouldn’t have to listen to my
sister, Aunt Cecelia ordered me into the ho
use to play
checkers. I dragged my feet to the parlor, and sat down and played a few different games, each of which I lost, miserably.
“Hey, this is really boring. Let’s go down in the cellar,”
said Jenny, grinning.
“No. Let’s play Connect Four.”
“C’mon, I’ll show you that there’s nothing down there,”
stated Jenny, assuredly. “In two days you’ll be in elementary school. You can’t go to school being scared of…”
“I’m not scared of everything…” She pinched my arm
and I yowled. “Why’d you do that?”
“Joey, if you don’t go down to the basement with me—
just for a minute—I’m going to make sure all of the second-graders beat you up every day.”
I thought about it for a few moments, even considered
the likelihood that she could sway most of her classmates
to do her bidding, but ultimately, I let her drag me
through the kitchen and down to our aunt’s dank, concrete
basement. I’d been down there plenty of times while Aunt
Cecelia washed clothes by hand, then strained them using
her antique, mechanical washing equipment. She had an
electric washer, but I’d never seen or heard it running.
“Let’s just have a quick look in the root cellar,” said
Jenny.
I stood my ground in the middle of the room, beside
stacks of Mason jars. I wasn’t opening anything. “Please,
Jenny, don’t...”
• 38 •
CORPSE COLD: NEW AMERICAN FOLKLORE
“Joey, I’m going to open this door and show you that
there’s nothing in there.”
“What happened to all the berries in Aunt Celia’s pail,
then?”
“Look around, Joey. She sticks them in jars. It’s called
‘jamming.’” She turned the bottom latch ring on the thin,
wooden door. The door was secured by two latches with
twisting rings. Neither latch was locked, as you would have to place an additional lock on each ring to secure the door.
Jenny couldn’t quite reach the upper latch. While she
searched for a box or stool to stand on, we heard footsteps in the kitchen above. We left the root room behind and began
sneaking up the stairs, to try and slip into the kitchen. But the upstairs door opened while we were on the top landing, and we were caught.
“Jennifer, Joseph! Get in here,” said Cecelia, who sat us
at the kitchen table. “I’m very disappointed in you two.” She eyed me, and I could feel the weight of her disappointment.
“Joey, why would you go down to the cellar?”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Celia. Jenny made me.” My sister
glared at me. I knew I’d pay later, and instantly regretted tattling.
“This is your last chance. The next time I catch you two
in the basement, or even acting up, you’re going to have
to spend an hour in the root closet with the Czarny Lud.
My father locked me in the dark when I was a little younger than Joey. I can tell you, I learned my lesson.”
I practically gasped at the thought of it. My sister
even seemed to have been moved by the threat, as her own
apology sounded genuine for once. We were angels for the
rest of the afternoon.
It was the afternoon before my first day of kindergarten.
• 40 •
CzARNY LUD
We were at Aunt Cecelia’s, counting down the hours until
our mother returned. We were laughing at Bob Ross, as
he seemed to be ruining a nice landscape painting he had
made with extra flourishes. Our aunt was out back and we
were calmly sitting on the covered sofa.
There was something about the monotony of the day
that just ate away at my sister. She couldn’t help it, she just couldn’t sit still. Jenny would kick and slap me for no good reason, and try and get me to wrestle with her, so she could pin me to the floor. I loved running wild, playing, but I was also perfectly content with sitting and staring at the TV for hours.
“Let’s play tag. You’re it!”
I didn’t immediately jump up and chase her, as I knew
it would lead to roughhousing, and eventually to Aunt
Cecelia appearing, like clockwork, to chastise us. But it
was the day before my first day of school, and I was a little nervous about it. It had been the longest summer that I
could remember. An epic summer that seemed never-
ending, packed with activities and vacations, fun times with friends and family… I can’t really explain how I thought
about things at five. It was just easier to say, ‘fuck it,’ and run after my sister when she wanted to go off, and have ten minutes of unbridled fun, tearing through the house until
we were yelled at and given lengthy time-outs.
It wasn’t long before I had tagged Jenny, and she was
chasing me around the dining room table. I sort of tossed
a chair behind me as I passed, which made her stumble and
fall. But when she fell, she grabbed the woven tablecloth
covering to catch herself, which caused the glass vase that sat in the center of the table to come crashing to the floor. It broke into a few large pieces on the hardwood, and I locked eyes with my sister for a moment, as we shared a fearful
• 41 •
CORPSE COLD: NEW AMERICAN FOLKLORE
anticipation of the repercussions to follow.
As Jenny then gathered the vase’s plastic flowers from
the floor, and I stood up the overturned chair, Aunt
Cecelia stormed into the room, yelling. Her tirade began
in Polish, was broken up by English, but her intentions
were clear when she put her hands on us. She was taking us to the cellar.
“Aunt Celia, we’re sorry; it was an accident!” I howled,
already in tears. My sister wasn’t crying, but she was
genuinely pleading for my aunt’s forgiveness. Jenny could
be a rotten, spoiled, sadistic witch, but she too loved our aunt wholeheartedly, and knew that we’d made her angrier
than we’d ever seen her.
But Aunt Cecelia’s demeanor changed then. She no
longer looked angry, more so stern, and calmly marched us
down to the basement. And as we stood in front of the dark, barren, root room in the cellar, the elderly woman spoke
to us in a way that made it seem like she believed that this was what had to be done out of duty—whether or not she had reservations regarding the punishment itself.
Well, I was five and having none of it. I practically
screamed myself ragged, and oddly, my screaming—and the
fact that I was exuding terror from every pore—seemed to
give my sister strength. Some manner of change affected her then, some sort of long-dormant reservoir of compassion
welled in her heart, and she offered herself to martyrdom
on my behalf.
“Aunt Celia, I was chasing Joey and I knocked over the
vase. He wasn’t being bad. It’s my fault.”
Cecelia sighed. “Jennifer, that vase belonged to
my mother and your great-grandmother. It was a family
heirloom; something that reminded me of our family home
in Poland. If you broke it, you can take the punishment
• 42 •
CzARNY LUD
for your brother. Now, sit on the stool; I’m going to close the door for one full hour.” Cecelia walked Jenny into the root room and had her sit beneath some empty wooden
shelves that held maybe half-a-dozen dusty Mason jars.
She grabbed a second stool and placed it outside the room, then retrieved a mechanical alarm clock from my uncle’s
workbench. “Joey, you sit here for the hour. I’m going
back out to the garden. Do not open the door until the bell rings. If you do so before, you’re going in by yourself.” With that she closed and secured my sister in that windowless,
cobwebbed closet, then handed me the clock and went back
upstairs.
It was fairly dark in the basement itself. The small half-
windows illuminated the stairwell and laundry area fine,
but I sat far enough away that it was difficult just making out the Nike swooshes on my own sneakers. I was nervous
and anxious for myself, and couldn’t imagine the dread I’d be feeling if I were in my sister’s place.
“What’s it like in there, Jenny?”
“Dark. And it smells like grandma’s bed.”
We laughed nervously together, and even joked for the
first quarter-hour. Then Jenny suddenly went quiet. After
a minute or so, when she didn’t respond to my banter, I
stood up from my stool, only feet from the thin, wooden
door, and listened. I thought I could hear panting from
within the root room, like a dog was just on the other side of the door, maybe even the low grumbling that a dog makes when caught up in a dream.
“Was that you, Jenny?”
She didn’t immediately respond, but when she did, her
voice had dropped to a barely audible whisper. “Joey, shh!”
I figured the heavy breathing was her, but wasn’t sure
about the deeper sound. “Is your stomach grumbling?”
• 43 •
CORPSE COLD: NEW AMERICAN FOLKLORE
“No. Just be quiet,” she said, curtly.
I held my breath for half a minute and listened. I could
hear someone shifting around in the room. “Did you just
move?”
“No! Are you walking around out there, or something?”
“No, I’m just standing here by the door.” I looked over
each shoulder and into the dark corners of the basement,
momentarily considering if I was the one in danger. I
soon sat back on the stool, quietly, and cradled the clock, listening to the strange sounds that emanated from the root room.
Five to ten minutes passed this way before I heard my
sister whisper: “Joey, there’s something in here with me…”
“What is it?!” I practically yelled.
