Memories and Moments by GrannyJo

Serendipity? I was rearranging my dresser drawers yesterday, getting ready for the cooler weather, when I ran across this large white sweat shirt, as pristine as the day I got it, laying there, sort of looking up at me!

and it brought another Halloween tale to my mind, back from the year 2002 past.

I had been contributing to the EEEEK! forum for over a year, when they came up with a contest for the best Halloween TRUE scary story. Well, I had one alright, and I quickly wrote it up and submitted it. The sweat shirt was the first prize for the mysterious true ghost story I share with you today.

THE GHOSTS OF VILLA CHIGI
Copyright 2000

September was dying, that year of 1973, in our little eastern valley. The leaves had been drifting down from gypsy-colored trees for a week or so. They smelled dry and musty and crackled underfoot, their colors mingling into a mortician's powdered rouge.

But, it had been raining all night and into the late morning on the day HE drove into the parking lot of the Little Italy Restaurant. His beat-up Chevy sedan sloshed soggy gobs of leaves up on to its white fenders, as he slithered the weary car into a spot near the delivery entrance. He saw me watching him from the door and waved a hand with a tube of newspaper clutched in it.

In a rush he was through the rain and up the stairs, grinning a big, "HI!" at me. "Says in the Herald here that you need a short-order cook. Well, I'M a short-order cook and I need a job. Can we talk?"

So, we talked. I found out he had a social security card, that he had worked all over the country, and that he was broke. I took him into the kitchen and let him cook us both up some lunch. He was good; quick, neat and creative. It was Friday.....big fish fry night in 'Catholic Valley', and I needed help badly, so I signed him on.

When he finished up a shift at 1:00 a.m., he asked me if it was OK for him to sleep in his car in the lot. I told him to spend the night in the empty apartment over the restaurant. I thought he was going to cry, he was so thankful....and amazed. The next day, I trusted him a bit further. I gave him half a week's wages so that he could find a weekly motel room nearby. Which he did, and there he stayed for all the time he was with us.

About the middle of October, he came into work quite early one day lugging a huge covered package. With pride, he said, "I've got something for you. I really appreciate how good you've been to me, and I know that wall over there in the dining room could use something nice, so I picked this up today."

He quickly tore off the wrapping, and I was dumb-founded. It was a huge, wonderful piece of art about 3 x 3 feet. It was called "Villa Chigi" --Village of the Blind. It portrayed at least forty villagers at their tasks in their village in Italy. Nothing unusual about the tasks, a shopkeeper, a blacksmith, weavers, women washing clothes at a spring......all beautifully done. The only thing unusual was that each and every person was chiga (blind). The BLIND were the only inhabitants of Villa Chigi.

All the help oohed and aahed over this beautiful picture, and HE even insisted that he install it himself, which he did. There wasn't a customer in that night that didn't remark about it and many left their seats to take a closer look.

Two days later, HE didn't show up for work on the 4:00 p.m. shift. I had been wondering all day where he was, because the Chevy was parked out back when I came in at 9:00 a.m. and hadn't moved. I filled in for him that night, and waited to hear from him. When I still had no word the next morning, I called the motel. They hadn't heard from him, but he hadn't checked out.

Several more days went by, and I hired another cook, for that is what restaurants are all about. Cooks come and they go. But, the Chevy was still in the lot.

On October 31st, the police came and towed the Chevy. We still had heard nothing, and the police knew nothing. That evening I went over to dust the frame of the Villa Chigi and turned on the viewing light above it. I looked at the picture, and then crawled into a booth to get a closer look. Behind two of the villagers, men wielding scythes in a grain field, were two ghostly figures. They appeared to be white shadows of the men--lurking behind them.

It was a nice touch....the only problem being that I had never seen that in the picture before. I called my husband over and asked him if he had seen it previously. He just looked at it, looked at me and said "Hell, no!"

Now all the employees took turns looking at the 'ghosts'. We all had a chuckle, saying it must have been a processing 'thing' that we missed early on.

The evening went on and soon it was closing time. I went over to shut the viewing light and now there were six figures with the white apparitions behind them! Everybody was only too glad to get closed up and the heck out of there now.

The next morning when I came in there were twenty apparitions. It went on for several days, until finally there were over half of the villagers being stalked by the ghostly shadows. Some thirty ghosts haunted the Villa Chigi......

We never saw HIM again. We never knew what happened to HIM.

The tale of the "Ghosts of Villa Chigi" at Little Italy Restaurant soon spread over our little valley. People brought their out-of-town guests to enjoy the pasta and pizza, but no one left without 'Ghost Busting' the picture. And, if they were lucky and I wasn't too busy, I told them the story about what HE brought to Little Italy Restaurant, one Halloween night.

When we moved to Las Vegas, Villa Chigi came with us. It is on the wall right behind my back as I am writing this. If I turn around, I can easily find a ghostly figure, hard at work in the Villa. I took a close-up for you to do some ghost-busting on your own. When you look closely, you should find some haunting the people gathered in the center of town.

Don't worry, they can't harm you as long as your intentions are good. They are my sentinels, given to me by HIM, some 35 years ago, just before he disappeared. Maybe he is there, in the picture, watching and waiting for each HALLOWEEN....