Flashback Friday: February, 2002 - July, 2002

When we last left Daniel, he had been discovered camping on the woods owned by Mr. Woods, and the latter was so cool, that he was going to let Daniel just pack his stuff and move; he just wanted the police to run a quick check on him, "just to make sure you're not, you know, doing anything wrong, out here."

Chapter 4

From Freak out To Bailout
February 19th
The officers of the Charlottesville Police sauntered onto the scene, having been shown the way by one of the wood cutters. Three of them, their radios squawking, slightly out of sync with each other, giving the aural sensation that we were suddenly in a vast canyon.
There was an older one, a Sergeant, a younger one, whom I had seen before, and an even younger one, who looked like a rookie.
The rookie was kind of pudgy, with pale skin and reddish hair. It looked like his biggest obstacle in becoming a cop was probably the physical fitness test; running a 50 yard dash in under...well, running 50 yards...
The one whom I recognized, was officer Thornton.
I remembered him for his involvement with Brenda, one of my fellow employees at the gas station. Brenda had had to file a complaint against him after he tried to barge his way into the trailer that she was living in with her 16 year old daughter and her boyfriend. A neighbor had complained about smelling marijuana "coming from their trailer," and Thornton then lied to Brenda, telling her that an "eyewitness account" such as that gave him the right to enter and search her home.

Brenda knew better, but only after she shouted "I want to speak to the Sergeant on duty; you're not coming in my house!" loud enough to attract the attentions of her neighbors, did Officer Thornton stop trying to push his way past her.

What Have We Got Here?
The officers zeroed in on me, having guessed correctly, right off the bat, which one of us was the land owner and which the one who was living in a hole.

Thornton led the way.
"How are you doing? Do you have any ID?" -getting right down to business.

I told him yes, I did. It was in my backpack, in my dwelling.
As he followed me towards the trapdoor entrance, he asked me if I had any weapons "down there."
"No," I told him.
He insisted upon going down the ladder first, though, not that hadn't believed me...

"Where's your ID, In here?" he asked, as he started to reach for my backpack.

I had been "around the block" enough to know that he was attempting to get me to consent to him searching my backpack. Had I told him that my ID was in the front little pocket at the top, see for yourself, he would done just that, and then continued to rifle through the bag, later claiming "He let me go in his bag; to get his ID; I was already in there." I had seen enough cops in action, and had heard certain questions, phrased the same way, repeatedly.
I was starting to get an uneasy feeling. Thornton didn't seem to be impressed with the marvel of construction that my dwelling was -hadn't said "This is unbelievable!" once.
"I'll get it," I said, reaching for my backpack.
I reached into the pocket, after turning the bag so that it would be facing him, and opening the pocket slowly, and wide enough so that, had there been a gun in there, he would have been able able to see it, especially as he was leaning almost over me, his gaze darting around the pocket of the bag. He would have seen a gun the size of a postage stamp.
I produced my Virginia State Picture Identification card, issued by the government, and handed it to him.
"Is this all you have, I mean, you can get one of these with just a couple of documents. You got any thing else with your name on it?"
I felt like telling him that, if the state had determined that those particular "couple of documents" met their requirements as proof of a persons identity, and I had satisfied those requirements, then, I shouldn't have to furnish additional documents, just to satisfy a nosey cop.
"No, that's all I have, and some pay stubs," trying to let him know that I had a job, at the same time. Come on, I'm just a working man; trying to cut corners and get ahead a little bit...
Now, I was starting to regret not tossing my opened bottle of wine and hiding the Hustler magazines, which were on my bookshelf. The bad feeling was spreading to my stomach.

Officer Thornton shook his head at the notion of pay stubs. Anyone can get those just by working...

"Let's go out there. You go first, and I'll go behind you," he said, pointing to the ladder made of two by fours, which scaled the wall of quartz that looked like diamonds.
While Thornton had been getting my ID, the Sergeant had been talking to Mr. Woods, above ground, about 20 yards up the path.

The rookie had been standing around as if waiting for something to do. He certainly couldn't have been there to run me down, had I decided to bolt. The thought crossed my mind.

A Cheshire-grin wearing Sergeant left Mr. Woods side and sauntered over to me.
"That's quite a place you got there! How long did it take you build that?!?"
I continued in my belief that, since I was guilty of nothing more than trespassing, and since I was a hard working, well liked member of the community -things which would come to light, should the officers merely make a few phone calls- I would eventually be freed to move my stuff off of Mr. Woods land and go about my merry way.

I started to talk about the construction process in my most charming way, sprinkling humor in, where applicable, like telling them that I thought that I'd struck diamonds when I picked my way into a huge deposit of quartz along the wall facing the reservoir. I was trying to get them to like me.

They listened.

Then the Sergeant, his grin still present, took an opportunity to say "We gotta show the Lieutenant this; she'll love it!"

A call was made over his radio, and soon, not just the Lieutenant, a short thirty-ish woman with blond curly hair, arrived, so did more Charlottesville Police officers, plus some officers of Albemarle County.

Suddenly, Mr. Woods, who had assured me that he wasn't going to press charges against me for trespassing was no longer on the scene; only myself and about a dozen law enforcement officers.

"Nobody lives like this unless their on the run from something or hiding from something,"

-was the opinion voiced by the Sergeant, who was no longer grinning.

His previous "admiration" of my construction skills and curiosity about how long it took me to make such a fascinating thing, was put into perspective when he added "Well, we've got him for vandalism; he admitted to digging the hole..."

Then, it was Thorntons turn.
"Is that your car over there?"
"Yes"
"Do you have the keys, mind if we search it, we're gonna search it anyways?" If you're going to "search it anyways" then, why ask if I mind?
I realized that I could have insisted that they get a warrant to search my car, yet, I still clung to the hope that, even if the officers were convinced that "nobody lives like this, unless he is on the run from something," maybe the judge would be more impartial in dealing with a mere vandal.
In hindsight, I should have told them that I was done talking to them and that I wanted a lawyer, as soon as I had heard the word "vandalism." How badly had I defaced Mr. Woods property? 
Hair Raising Suspicion
"Go ahead, search my car, the keys are in between the limbs of that big apple tree!," I said; still thinking that the more they searched, the more they would find that I was just who I was -nothing to fear..
One of the things that I had used my car for, even after I had stopped sleeping in it; was as a  mirror I shaved in front of the side view mirror, and I brushed my hair, standing behind it, using the reflection that the darkly tinted rear window cast. After I finished brushing, I would usually pull a clump of hair out of the brush and drop it on the ground.
The officers found one of those clumps of hair..
I was suddenly handcuffed and told to sit cross legged on the ground, and warned about what would happen if I tried to stand up.
The officer who put the cuffs on me was trembling like a leaf. As he was doing so, I heard one of the officers, an expert on hair apparently, saying "Oh, it's definitely human, because deer hair...."
By then I was being referred to in the third person tense, as if I had been objectified; another bad sign. I was now "the suspect."
"Kind of creeps you out, doesn't it?" said one of the dozen cops, at one point, to another.
Yanked Out

I sat, handcuffed, in the back of one of their cruisers for about three and a half hours, while the officers pored through a book of statues, open on the back of another car, debating over which was the most serious infraction that they could charge "the suspect" with.
During this time-frame, I had the urge to urinate; and had told one of the officers so, who replied "You'll get a chance to" and then returned to the discussion. 
A tow truck arrived with a winch on the back. The cable was run out and dragged into the woods by a guy.
At a given signal, the winch reversed direction, and the cable began to wind onto the spool at a pretty fast rate, and within seconds, I saw my Honda Civic coming up the path at a pretty fast rate; banging left and right off trees, side-swiping all kinds of forestry, and then half hopping over, half smashing through the barricade of brush that I had dragged there, to hide the entrance, and landing with a sound -a combination of "thud" and scraping metal, at the foot of the tow truck, its grill full of dirt and clumps of vegetation, its sides scratched, its front fenders deformed. I hadn't been pulled out, rather, yanked out -Almost implying some personal grudge was at play.
Albemarle County Jail, For Me...

At the end of the three and a half hours, I was transported to the Albemarle County Jail, where I would get my chance to urinate.
Along with me, was brought the evidence: a clump of (my) hair and three copies of Hustler Barely Legal magazine...and the "police report."
I was given a chance to urinate, and then brought in front of the magistrate. (hey, that rhymes...)
This was only five months after the World Trade Center Attacks on September 11th, and the hunt was on for Osama Bin Laden, who, it was widely publicized, was believed to be living in what the news reports referred to as a "bunker," somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan.
The terrorists responsible for those attacks; it had become known; had fraudulently obtained drivers licenses from both the states of Florida and Virginia, taking advantage of loopholes which each had open in their systems, causing much "embarrassment" and prompting both to change their laws; closing the proverbial barn door after the proverbial horses had already escaped.
This had the effect of making those states become two of the most difficult in which to be issued ID (by installing a veritable "Catch 22," whereby you almost couldn't get an ID without first showing them the ID which had been "lost or stolen").

My Virginia State Identification card, which I had issued to me, after I turned in my Florida (yikes!) ID, only two months before the Trade Center attacks, was as "suspect" as myself.
"They're Gonna Hold Him! "

Could I also have been targeting the

University of Virginia Rowing Team,

which practiced in the reservoir?

The magazines,the clump of hair, the information that I had been found living in what the officers described as "a bunker," the officers assertion that "We don't even know who this guy is," the "location of arrest," annotated to inform that I was 200 feet from the City Water Supply and along the flight path of planes flying to and from the Charlottesville Regional Airport, 5 miles to the north of the reservoir (which the pilots probably used as a landmark) plus the fact that I was .9 miles from a school, to boot;  was enough of an ear full to convince the magistrate at the jail to have me placed into custody.
Officer Thornton, who had transported me to the jail, and another officer, probably there to bear witness to Thornton cantation of the above details, whooped and high-fived each other. "They're gonna hold him!" said Thornton, continuing to refer to me in the third person tense.
On my paperwork, the line reserved for the listing of the crime that I had been charged with, had "suspicion" written on it.
Ms. Dugger, Mr. Digger
I was given a public defender.

Llezelle, November 8th, 2011; Now

City Clerk of Charlottesville

Llezelle Dugger was her name; representing Daniel, the digger.
She told me at my first court appearance that the court was denying me a bond and that "I'm not going to argue it." Apparently she shared the same grave concerns that the State Attorney had about me being released into the community. ...what kind of attorney doesn't even argue for her client?
She showed up at the jail to meet with me a few days after. She was accompanied by another (male) Public Defender. The door to the "attorney/client meeting room" was propped open by a door-stop. Llezelle sat closest to the door, my chair was placed almost in the opposite corner of the room.
A "trial date" had been set for October 8th, eight months into the future.

Albemarle County Jail

I was housed in a protective custody wing of the jail, with mostly other white inmates. This was where inmates were kept, whom the classification folks deemed to be at risk of harm, should they be placed in with the general population. This is also where inmates were placed whom the same folks deemed to pose a risk of harming others, should they be placed in with the general population. I guess I was a little of both, being a suspected terrorist and all..
I was given the nickname of "caveman" by more than one guard. 
The protective custody, wing was furnished with two television sets, one (unofficially) the "white" one (NASCAR and American Movie Channel), the other, the "black" one (BET and more BET). There was a cabinet full of paperback books; I was soon reading 24 of them simultaneously. There was a huge vat of coffee brought in each morning, and a basketball court out of a side door.
I became pretty certain, as my days and weeks went by in that wing, that there was no other place that the jail dared put me, because of my charge of "suspicion." It made me seem kind of suspicious, I guess.
I was twice caught brewing wine, using apples, raisins, orange juice, bread yeast and a lot of sugar. I was never removed from the protective custody wing, though, only "written up."
Letters, Scent
Letters From Xanna began to arrive quite frequently. 
They were written upon black paper, using gold mettalic ink. They were written in calligraphy, every letter almost perfect, done by quill. They were long, averaging 12.8 pages each (I'm estimating) and they all had been marinated in purfume. When the mail cart arrived, wheeled to the food/mail slot by the mail officer, and as soon as the metal slot was opened, before the officer had even called the first name, I could smell weather or not I was getting a letter from Xanna that day. So could the rest of the wing.
The letters expressed a deep and abiding love, and a promise to stand by me, and to wait for me faithfully, and told me that I was in her thoughts every minute of every day. 
Our relationship through letters would wind up being closer than the ones we had whenever we were physically together.
She also attested her refusal to believe "what they said you did to that goat!" "That's ridiculous, I know you better than that!"*
She offered to send money, and to bail me out if it got to be "too much in there," for me.
Not having an understanding of jail finances, Xanna started sending me amounts each week close to 200 dollars.
In jail, a dollar and a half can get one a Honey Bun from the commissary, which can then be traded to someone for their entire breakfast tray, the orange juice included. This is because the meals served by the jail are sugar free, (because some people aren't supposed to have sugar, and rather than go through the trouble of separating those out and giving them special diets; they just give sugar to nobody at all -problem solved) and there are guys in jail craving it like heroin.
Thus, Xanna made me a wealthy man, while I was in there...
A lot of the other inmates in the wing were educated, especially in the ways of Virginia "justice." 
None of them gave me any encouragement while trying to get me to understand things like "Virginia is a commonwealth, not a state, they can hold you for as long as they want, for any reason they see fit!" and "All a woman has to do in this commonwealth is call the police and tell them that you hit her, and they will automatically put you in jail, even if you don't even know the woman; then, it's up to you to hire a lawyer to prove your innocence..."
I was eventually (finally) given a "bond hearing," where a bond was set at $20,000. I probably wouldn't have been given any chance to bond out, had it not been for Xanna "lobbying" for me on the outside. Apparently the grandmother -the one who had bequeathed all the land and money to her and her siblings- had influence in the county, which still resonated in Xanna from beyond the grave... 
I could now bond out of jail, but, I had to give a valid address, where I would be staying while out. I couldn't await my trial while living in a hole in the ground.
Enter Xanna.
She showed up at the jail with $20,000 in cash, and on the form where it was to be listed the address where I would be residing while out on bond, well, that was pretty much academic: I would be staying out in Rochelle, Virginia, on a road so rural that it had no name, only a number; at Xannas house. 
Her will had been done.
I walked out of the jail to see her waiting in her Mustang, to take us home.
As she drove, her lips were pressed together into a hint of a smile.
She had her man.

*When I was in the Duval County Jail (Jacksonville, Florida) in 1999, my cellmate and I both had senses of humor. 
Every inmate in that jail receives, after being booked, a "booking sheet," upon which is listed his charges, along with the exact Florida statute number of the violation, along with his mug shot and other information. 
Some display theirs proudly upon their little toiletry shelf (such as those charged with "aggravated battery," or especially "assault on a law enforcement officer," -these are "credible" charges which gain them instant respect from the other inmates, as a person not to be messed with, or as a "hero" of sorts)..
Others, with less credibility (such as wife beaters) usually flush theirs down the commode, before some other nosy inmate sees it.
My cellmate and I were both charged with very petty crimes (mine was for writing a worthless check, Prevarian's -as that was his name- was for something like disturbing the peace). We both expected to be out in no time (dinner, a hot shower, some TV, a good night's rest, and then back on the street the next day...) and were thus both in good spirits.
As a joke, I took a pen and added a phony charge to Prevarians booking sheet, on the next line after the disturbing the peace charge, along with making up a phony statute number, off the top of my head.
I then said something like, "I don't know, Prevarian, do you really think the judge is gonna let you out tomorrow; this looks pretty serious..." showing him the paperwork.
I had added something like "Assault on a clergyman with a deadly weapon; to wit: a crucifix -F.S. 801-41-038a." We had a good chuckle.
Later that evening, he returned the joke, asking me the same question. Upon mine, he had written "Rape of a farm animal; to wit: a goat -F.S. 123-65-099c (or something)"
The original sheets were photocopied, and it was obvious, well, should have been obvious to anyone, that they had been written over with a ball point pen.
However, after my release, mine got stuffed  into a manilla envelope, along with my other jail-related stuff; and forgotten about. 

In the event of losing one's ID, sometimes the paperwork from the jail can facilitate the acquiring of a now one. After all, they took your picture and your fingerprints...so, I kept my records, just in case.
I guess I kinda sorta should have tossed out the "goat" sheet, though. The envelope was still somewhere in the trunk of my Civic, and the cops found it; amending their report to include mention of it.


Next Installment: Chapter 5: Life Back To Paranormal

Flashback Friday: December, 2001 - February, 2002

The hillside by the reservoir

Chapter 3
From Cold Springs To Hot Tubs

Through November, I worked to complete my dwelling, making it warm and dry and comfortable.

December, 2001

I deemed it complete on December 10th, which was also the last day that I took a bath in the dammed up stream. The air temperature was 65 degrees, that day -about the same as the water.
I was spending a lot of my free time playing the Ibanez guitar which Xanna had given me for my birthday, passing the wee hours of the morning in the booth with it, using the security camera to make videos of myself playing my compositions, and would then make copies of them onto VHS cassettes.
Xanna continued to visit me in the booth after she got off work. We continued to have long conversations, before she went off to park her Mustang somewhere and sleep in it. She always seemed to lost in thought during those conversations, as if trying to solve a puzzle. She didn't visit my house in the woods again.
I learned that she had an ex-husband, with the same name as the abusive ex-boyfriend: Tom. They had one child together, a boy named Emory, who was 14 years old, at that time. Tom, the ex-husband had custody of him.
Xanna saw him only on  weekends, which they would spend at the house in the country. I later learned that these were the only times that she would sleep in her own house.
One of my co workers at the gas station, Brenda -a single mother herself- mentioned, upon hearing about this arrangement, that it was highly unusual for a judge in Virginia to award custody to the father, in a divorce settlement -"99% of the time, the mother gets the kids...unless there is something really wrong with the mother; like she's mentally ill or a drug addict, or something..."

Into January...
It turned out that Xanna and I, in addition to both being musicians, were both pretty big football fans.
My favorite team, The New England Patriots had made the playoffs, and were scheduled to play in the first round on January 19, 2002, against The Oakland Raiders (in what would go down in history as the "tuck rule" game).
She informed me that she had booked a room at The Marriott Hotel, for the occasion, inviting me there to watch the game, and also giving me a chance to meet Emory.
When I met him, I jokingly introduced myself as "Tom," before saying "Just kidding!" ...What's this thing that mom has about guys named Tom?
We watched the game, but not before Xanna insisted that we visit the indoor swimming pool and especially the hot tub. I remembered her having told me that she had installed a hot tub at her house and couldn't help thinking that she was trying to get me to like the idea of lounging in one.
I then enjoyed sipping red wine and watching the game. Emory was thrilled to see that it was being played in a snow storm. He called it "The Snow Bowl."
The Patriots won.
Xanna told me afterwards that Emory had thought that I was "cool" and fun to be around.
The next round of the playoffs the following week would have The Patriots playing against, coincidentally enough, Xannas favorite team, The Pittsburg Steelers. She would book another room in an equally nice hotel, with an equally nice hot tub.

Into February...
I See Xannas House
The Patriots advanced to the Superbowl. Xanna chose this occasion to invite me to watch the game at her house, and to see it for the first time.
She brought me there, along with Emory, who was on another weekend visit.
Half of it had been built in the early 1900's, and another part attached in the 1970's.
It sat on 3.19 acres, most of it wooded. The driveway circled around what looked like might have once been a flower bed, now overgrown with trees.
The side which faced the dirt road, had what looked like a front porch, but the walkway leading it it was also overgrown with vegetation. Xanna used the side door, closest to the driveway, where ex-boyfriend Toms black Monte Carlo sat in a state of disrepair.
Prominent in the kitchen as we walked in was a wood burning stove, with a plate bearing the manufacturers name and a date of "1788."
"You have to be careful, because if you put too much wood in it, it will set the wallpaper on fire," said Xanna, showing me the blackened wall a couple feet away from it as proof.
The house was, as advertised: drafty.
The heat wouldn't go very far, she added, before it fell prey to the drafts down the hall.
The kitchen was part of the old section of the house. 
Past the stove, to the left, began a short hallway, which had been attached in the 70's, and which led to two rooms; one full of junk, the other with a couch and an entertainment center, apparently where Tom, the ex-boyfriend had drank his Crown Royal, cranked Metallica and played video games.
On the couch lounged two cats, that Xanna introduced to me as "Mr. Mercury," and "Mr. Falls."
Mr. Falls had gotten his moniker by virtue of being white and having fir running down his front side which looked like a waterfall.
Mr. Mercury, had been rescued by Xanna from an animal shelter. "He was supposed to be free, but I wound up having to pay fifteen dollars for his shots...he was a rip-off!" she said, as she petted his grayish brown head. I was glad to see that she had a sense of humor.
Along this hallway, were placed a small wooden table with two wooden chairs on the left, and a wooden bookcase on the right, which was populated with, among other things, candles, incense and books about witchcraft, I noticed. "Those books and stuff were left behind by a guy that I was letting stay here for a while. He went to California," Xanna explained, when she noticed me noticing. 
At the end of the hall was another door and, through the quartered panes of its window could be seen the hot tub, sitting upon a concrete slab.
"I keep it at about 90 degrees when I'm away, to save electricity, but in a few hours it can be up to a comfortable temperature," said Xanna and then pressed her lips firmly together -her common gesture- as if to drive home the point or imply "...despite what anyone says!".
Down the drafty hall of the "old section," which she seemed to "keep" at about 40 degrees, there was a music room on the right, where resided Xannas Baby Grand piano. Its mantissa supported a book of sheet music which was opened to Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag," published in 1899. 
Along that hall, past some rows of shelves on the left, which held mostly towels and which had been positioned as if to bar the entrance to another room, there ran a staircase which ascended to an unfinished second floor (she called it "the attic"). The upper aperture of the staircase had been sealed off with plastic sheeting, secured with duct tape, and a probable conduit for some of the drafts which seemed to swirl everywhere. 
At the end of the hallway was what looked like was intended to be the front door. It too had been sealed off with plastic and duct tape. To each side of it were doorways, leading to bedrooms.
The main bedroom was on the right, where sat a kerosene heater on the hardwood floor, in between a king sized bed and a mahogany dresser. The bed was covered by a heavy quilt in autumnal hues. Atop the dresser sat a jewelry box next to a display rack which was adorned with an onyx necklace. "I like onyx, always have!," she said, before pressing her lips together, as if to imply "...despite what anyone Else's opinion is!"
There was a small antiquated looking couch against the far wall near the foot of the bed, and a small antiquated looking wooden table near the head of the bed, with a phone sitting on it. Its touch pad being one of the few "modern" touches in that room. ...So this is where she hardly ever sleeps...
Across the hall was another bedroom -the one where Emory slept during his weekend visits.
A woman had purportedly "gone insane and killed herself" in that room, long ago, when the old section was the new section.

A Super Sunday
After this tour of the house, the three of us repaired to the TV room to watch the Superbowl.
I had to do some fiddling with the rabbit ear antenna and eventually place  it outside the house after running its cable out a window, so that we wouldn't be watching another Snow Bowl.
We enjoyed good food (I had grilled T-bone steaks over hickory wood, which was plentiful in the yard) and wine (soda for Emory) and a great Superbowl, which came down to a last-second field goal.
Sitting there together with the cats by our sides and the kerosene heater blazing like a hearth, felt like a "family" atmosphere. There was a lot of laughter and kidding around.
"Yes! Can there be any doubt that The Patriots are the greatest team that is; ever was; or ever will be?!?" I exclaimed every time they made a good play, to the amusement of all.
Then, "They are the worst bunch of ragtag, pathetic losers to ever don a uniform, they're horrible; horrible!" whenever they had a miscue, to the amusement of all.
Emory giggled as we wrestled on the couch, recreating tackles made on the field.
We all seemed to get along great and it felt like I had everything that I needed there.
I had grown to love being out in nature, living as I did. I loved feeding animals, tending a fire every night and cooking over it. I liked the peace and quit.
There we were, 29 miles out into the country, surrounded by miles of woods with two cats, a wood burning stove inside and a grill outside.
My spring water fed tub could be replaced, quite amply by the hot tub.
I could have a music room to play and record in, adding a piano to the mix, if I so desired.
Then there was the entertainment center, hell, I could drink Crown Royal, crank Metallica and play video games all the time...
By the time the game had ended, the hot tubs thermometer was reading 100 degrees, a temperature that Xanna assured me would be just about right; and I found that she had been right, as I sunk into the water. I happened to notice that she had a lovely shape to her body, once out of her work clothes and into a one-piece bathing suit.
As we soaked in the water, watching the stars in the February sky above, she invited me to spend the night, adding "I don't really feel like driving all the way to Charlottesville." 
I did.
I realised that  I could have it really well there, surrounded by creature comforts, Xanna included.
Yet, I still balked at agreeing to move out there. I had worked hard on the life that I had made for myself in Charlottesville, with a comfortable place to stay and a steady job within walking distance of it.
"We need to see about getting you a car," Xanna said; apropos of nothing, as she stared up at the sky.
She seemed to be doing everything in her power to get me to move in with her, but I continued to resist. She even told me that I could dig out a dwelling in the clay of her back yard "if you feel more comfortable living underground..."
Soon though, other irresistible powers would come into play, and Xanna would get her way.
A Voice In The Forest
February 19, 2002

Two weeks, to the day, after we had watched the Superbowl at Xannas house, I was at my dwelling, after having gotten off work.
I had just opened a bottle of wine and was letting some red snapper marinate in a dish. 
I had chosen white wine that particular day -the first time I had done so since the previous summer. It was the first day of the year forecast to reach 80 degrees. The spring-like conditions made me feel like I had come through to the other side of winter with flying colors, and that things would now only get better. I had gotten the white wine (a "summer thing" for me) to celebrate having staved off the elements, and to toast my bright near future. 
I had just gotten my fire started.
I closed my eyes and was in the middle of offering up a prayer of thanksgiving, when, just as my mind was letting go into it; I heard a voice. 
It was muffled slightly, and I thought that I might have imagined it, or that the Lord may have audibly spoken to me; like some people claim to have happened the them.
Sticking my head up through the trapdoor, I caught the sight of a man about 100 feet away, along the path which lead to where my car was parked. He was headed away from where my car was; towards the road.
I realised that  it had been his voice that I heard after he added something which sounded like "You're not supposed to be burning out here!"
Had he come down the path far enough to have seen my car?
What transpired the next few minutes is something that I have often replayed in my mind. Had I the opportunity to go back and do things differently, I surely would have.
I decided to catch up to the guy and try to explain my situation -that I was just a guy who came into town almost broke and homeless, but who now had a job and was just trying to make the best of things -hoping that he wouldn't call the police to report me "burning out here."
Leaving my fire smouldering, my fish marinating and my bottle of wine uncorked, I set off after him.
When I reached the road, I saw a white truck parked in front of the pile of brush which I had dragged there to hide the entrance of what used to be a logging road. The name of a tree cutting service was emblazoned upon the side door. The man that I had seen in the woods was standing on the passenger side, speaking through the window to a skinny man with a scraggly beard, who was sitting behind the wheel. 
I introduced myself and attempted to explain as best as I could about my situation, from my arriving in Charlottesville, my getting a job, and the fact that I was just trying to make myself comfortable. "I'm not one of these homeless guys who sleeps on a piece of cardboard in front of a business at night, trying to get someone to pity him and throw him some money..." I was trying to put them at ease.
They were there to survey; preparing to cut down some lumber, they explained. They also pointed out that I was not quite upon the "city property" that I originally thought that I was on; having missed by about 25 feet, "-just to let you know..."
They were polite and seemed to sympathise with me.
The one that I'd seen in the woods actually told me that he too was once "down and out" and had to sleep outside (I would have thought it of the one with the scraggly beard) and that he didn't hold it against me. He glanced at the guy behind the wheel who shook his head, as if to say that he didn't hold it against me, either.
"There's only one problem, though" said the guy from the woods. "I already called the landowner, and he's on his way out here." He was holding a cell phone.
The owner of the land that I had built my dwelling on had the apt name of  "Mr. Woods," I was informed
Mr. Woods
.
"Well, let me at least go pick up some trash, and make it more presentable," I said, before walking off to return to my place.
I really didn't envision Mr. Woods having any great problem with my being there (apart from the fact that I was trespassing). I was kind of proud of my dwelling, having put about a hundred hours of work into it, and a part of me wanted to show it off. I guess the "cat was out of the bag," and I might have to move on, but, who knew; maybe he would let me continue to live on his land...
I had managed to save almost four thousand dollars, working at the East Coast station, investing in the stock market and living like I had, and I thought that, at worse, the free ride was over; maybe I would be able to move down a couple hundred feet and rebuild, this time on city property, where nobody would be coming to gather lumber.
I waited at my place for him to arrive. I didn't think about going through all my possessions, tossing out anything which might reflect negatively on me. I didn't pour my wine out; rather; sipped it, and was considering putting the red snapper on the grill. Maybe he would be hungry.
He soon arrived, flanked by the two tree surgeons, as if for protection.
"This is unbelievable," he repeated more than once, as he looked at my handiwork.
I started to fill him in on my recent history and what had lead me to constructing a dwelling in the woods. I showed him pay stubs from my full time job at the gas station. I told him about my investments in the stock market, and even offered him some investment advice, based upon my hours of pouring through issues of The Wall Street Journal during the wee hours of every morning.
I told him how I had actually stood in my dwelling, hair all mussed up and sweating from having shovelled and swung the pick ax, and arranged stock transactions with someone on the other end, who was on Wall Street and probably wearing a three piece suit. "Imagine if he could have seen who he was dealing with!"
"You even have a cell phone! This is unbelievable!" repeated Mr. Woods.
He seemed to calm down and become understanding, eventually saying: "Well, we all have to do what we need to, in order to survive and get by. If this is all you're doing is just living out here, I'll be more than willing to let you -I'll give you a certain amount of time, maybe a week- to move your stuff out of here -I really can't let you stay, there's insurance considerations -if you got hurt out here, you could probably sue me; you know how all that goes, but...and, I'm going to have people out here knocking down trees, and a bulldozer, so it could be dangerous...I'm getting ready to sell the land, and, well..."
I had the impression that Mr. Woods, landowner, never had to do whatever he needed to do, in order to survive, but I seemed to have garnered some respect from him, as I spoke to him; some of the incredulity went out of his voice, at least.
I remember thinking: I've had had a good little run here, living for free -just erred a bit with the location that I chose- all things must pass.. I've got a few thousand dollars saved...that'll help me to relocate to somewhere else...
Then, he said something that would alter the course of my life.
"Um, I'd kind of like the police to come out and just run a quick check on you, just to make sure you're not doing anything wrong out here, you understand...other than that, I'm fine with you just picking up and moving on...I'm not going to press charges on you, or anything..."

Coming Next Installment: The Police Freak Out!
Excerpt:
The police freaked out as if they had found another uni bomber. They seemed convinced that I was on the run from something because, as one cop said: "Nobody lives like this unless they're on the run from something." 
This was shortly after the "9/11" attacks on the World Trade Center, and....

Flashback Friday: August - November, 2001

The hillside by the reservoir

The Girl Who (Owned A House, Yet) Slept In A Mustang:
Chapter 2

August, 2001

As the middle of August dragged toward September, my focus fell upon creating a dwelling on the hillside by the reservoir.
I set about doing so in earnest.
There was beginning to arrive, a perceptible chill to air on most nights, a harbinger of fall. Virginia winters are no joke; they can get a few feet of snow.
I entered myself in a race against nature, my goal being to have constructed a comfortable shelter in advance winters arrival.
I had decided as I sat by the fire, pondering my pit, that the dimensions would be 12 feet long, by 9 feet wide, matching those of a common jail cell, if for no other reason than the sense of irony it that, since I intended to enjoy a "freedom" from things like the burden of handing over chunks of money to a landlord, and from being physically intruded upon (I would be as hard to find as would Osama Bin Laden, should anyone set about trying). I would be free to do pretty much as I chose, in my "home."
I was working at the gas station and would ostensibly get off of work at 6 in the morning, but, more often than not, Modou would ask me to stay on the register (he pronounced it "Reg-iss-ter") until he had emptied the safe, counted the money and done all the paperwork; sometimes until 7:30, giving me an hour and a half of overtime per day.
Shouldering my backpack -which was of the mountain climbing variety; huge and divided into separate compartments with aluminum slats for reinforcement; a $120 value, -I walked first, about a quarter mile, to the Kroger's Market, for food.
My "special diet," a product of having grown up with intollerance of certain foods, was comprised of  about 12 ingredients -ones that I had determined through experimentation to be healthy for myself- fish, kale, spinach, broccoli or other greens, basil, oregano and other "Italian" spices, trail mix, salsa, garlic, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, mushrooms, onions, and an assortment of fruit juices and energy drinks; and a bottle of wine; every day, a bottle of wine, and of a different vintage each day; usually a bottle under 10 bucks, but occasionally one of twice that amount, if I couldn't resist the label, or words such as "Alexander Valley."
Then, I would walk another quarter mile to the Wal-Mart, where I would pick up "household" things, often from the camping supply section, anything to make myself comfortable, from oil for the lamps, to a carpet to lay over the floor at night, after I was done whacking away at it with the pick ax or shovel.
I also frequented the pet food section.
I was becoming a friend to the birds, chipmunks and squirrels, by my showing up each morning with nuts and seeds, ancillary to the ones that I ate myself, which I would place in a designated spot. Pretty soon they knew my schedule and would station a "watch bird" along my path that would sound a signal, meaning that the big underground dwelling creature with the nuts and berries was on his way.
I would first, upon arriving, build a fire in the pit, using red oak, hickory, walnut, live oak, or any combination; while the fish sat marinating in olive oil and vinegar and hot sauce and spices, on on a sheet of tin foil, folded up around the edges.
Then, the wine would be uncorked and sipped, while the bed of embers built up enough to throw a steady heat, suitable, based upon my nine years of experience, for cooking fish.
In between sips of wine, while listening to a battery powered AM radio, I would survey the clay foundation which I was hollowing out, trying to envision the finished dwelling, imagining architectural enhancements, such as the making of a latrine by burying a PVC pipe following the angle of the downward slope to the reservoir, making it break ground about 50 feet from my place, with a porto-let style bowl embedded in the wall on that side, complete with the little disinfectant bar which is ubiquitous to restrooms.
The place was going to have a roof at ground level, covered with dirt, as insulation, and planted over with vegetation. Only the chimney would protrude, hidden under a pile of brush.
The exit would consist of a ladder, made of two by fours, or a staircase, leading up to a trap door, hinged in the middle, which could be opened like a sunroof, for ventilation, or closed against the cold. That would be painted on the topside to blend with its surroundings. A dead tree could be dragged over it, before I left, so that even if someone stumbled upon the place, they might just walk right over the roof, never the wiser.
I spent almost as much time imagining as I did digging.
After eating what was always an excellent and healthy morning meal, and finishing the wine, I was invariably in a proper frame of mind for burning off some calories by swinging the pick ax and shovel and hoisting boulders up over the edge, chucking them as far as I could into a pile which was already the size of my car by the middle of August.
After removing the grill  and the carpet and shovelling out the ashes, I would go to work on the floor, measuring my progress by a few inches some days, several inches others, depending upon weather I was encountering granite, or clay .
There was a tendency for the hole to narrow as it got deeper it got, and I had to pay attention to shaving the edges, to insure that the sides would be vertical. Using a "plumb bob" which I had gotten at the Lowes Hardware Store, along the way "home"" helped.
I would be making a lot more trips to Lowes before my dwelling would eventually be finished. I took the, still llegal, Civic from where it sat, about 75 feet from my place, to get the heavier things, like lumber and bags of gravel and concrete (to finish the floor).
But, first the pit had to be dug out to the projected dimensions.
I measured my progress, daily, by how far up my body the rim of the hole aligned itself with.
It was just about shoulder height; or five feet deep, I remember; on September 11th, when, turning on my AM radio, the first words I heard were "The President has been evacuated to an undisclosed location..."
That was about 15 minutes after the World Trade Center attacls, and that is how I learned about them -standing up to my shoulders in a 9' X 12' clay pit. I must have been buying fish at the time the buildings were struck.
I usually worked on the pit from the time I arrived back there in the morning, after getting off work, until about 10:30, my consumed meal fueling an intense two hour workout, as I strained with all my effort to roll boulders up the face of the wall and push them out, and swung the ax like a madman.
I would then lie down and sleep peacefully for a full and healthy eight hours, pulling a tarp over most of the pit to attenuate the sunlight.
All of this eating well and sleeping well and getting a lot of exercise, put me in a shape approaching the best that I had ever attained, and at the age 38. I felt great most of the time.Time itself flowed like a lazy river and it seemed that I could be productive and unhurried, and get a weeks worth of enjoyment out of each day. I looked forward to work days as much as I did days off.
I woke each afternoon, only when I felt fully refreshed, usually as the sun was low in the western sky over the reservoir, a full five or six hours before I had to be in the little booth, ringing up packs of Newports and Philly Blunts, and the rest on pump 12, giving me time to enjoy some of the money that was filling my pockets.

The Bathtub
To the south of the pit, there was cut out of the clay, a canyon by a small stream which originated by the road and snaked its way towards the reservoir. Its rather steep walls provided much privacy as they curved away, out of sight, both upstream and down.
I dammed this stream up, using rocks.
Then, I vigorously agitated the water in the resultant pool with my shovel, making it became cloudy with leaves, sand, mud and other sediment dislodged from its perimeter. I then scooped out the muddy water, as if bailing out a boat, then let it refill with water.
I repeated this process (thirty two times, I counted). After each time, as water flowed in from upstream to replace what I had thrown out, the water became less and less cloudy until I could clearly see all the smooth rocks at the bottom, none smaller than a pebble. This would be my bathtub.
I would submerge my head in the invigorating 65 degree water, lather my hair with shampoo, and then re-submerge it, shaking it like a shark ripping apart its prey. Within a minute, all of the shampoo that had floated to the surface would have slowly drained out through the rocks of the dam, being replaced by crystal clear spring water.
I always bathed after having walked the mile and a half walk from the gas station to there, carrying my backpack which weighed an averag of 40 pounds. By then, I was usually starting to break a sweat and welcomed the thought of plunging into the cool spring water. It was always invigorating. All the way up until December 10th, a day when the outside temperature was 65 degrees, I recall, did I use that tub. Stepping out of the water, even on that day, the air felt great, by comparison.
I was a clean homeless guy.
I made regular, highly vigilant, trips in the illegal Civic, to a laundromat, transporting all of my clothes and blankets the two miles, in a bag which Santa Clause would think was huge. It wasn't that I lacked the physical conditioning required to tote it on my back, just that I was keeping away from the appearance of being homeless. There was a certain satisfaction which came from having none of the people whom I associated with ever wonder if I was homeless.
"Where Do You Live; The Woods?"

I only got caught once driving the illegal Civic. I can't remember now, where I was returning from, but, I was almost to the logging trail, when I was pulled over, perhaps due to the dark tint on the cars windows. The only legitimate place to turn off of that road before the water treatment plant at the end, was at an apartment complex named The Woods Of Jefferson.
The cop probably assumed that I was going there, and hence, was almost home.
He probably didn't want to deal with the paperwork involved in citing me for a cracked windshield, overly tinted windows, no registration nor insurance, and an attached licence plate from a Caddilac in Georgia, either.
He asked me: "Where do you live; the woods?," referring to those apartments, right up the street.
I said: "Yes, officer."
He let me go, telling  me to drive the remaining few hundred yards to that apartment complex, park the Civic, and not to let him see me driving it on the byways of Charlottesville, until I had made it legal.
I quickly uncovered the trail, parked the Civic back under the tarp about a tenth of a mile in, hid the trail, and resolved to be very careful should I again take the car out on the streets.
I had fallen into a sort of routine, by late September, facilitated by the regularity of my full-time work schedule at the gas station.
Before leaving the pit in the late afternoons on work days, I would bag up all of my trash, and then walk my "secret" path to the state road, cross over it to another path made by someone else, which emerged behind the Wal-Mart, by a dumpster, into which I tossed the bag. I was a clean homeless guy.
I would then typically go to a coffee house, called Brownstone's Coffee, for a cup of Java, and a newspaper. By now, I was an avid reader of The Wall Street Journal, as I was working 50 hours per week and had no real bills to pay. The barristers at that coffee house, most of them college aged girls, seemed perplexed over the incongruency of my appearance, and the smell of wood smoke which I exuded; with the fact that I would frequently produce a thick wad of money to pay for my coffee, then would leave tips in their jar.
"Do you work?" asked one of them, a very beautiful girl named Tiffany, one day.
"Yeah, I work at the East Coast station on the night shift," I replied, not helping to solve the mystery of the wad of money, in any way.
Then, I would often go to the library, or the mall, where everybody I met eventually got to know me and seemed to like me. 
I then went to the gas station, a little before 10 p.m.
I was never late; never missed a night. I saw no need to take off from work, having no pressing engagements nor obligations, one of the fruits of the freedom, which I had worked to obtain.
I was becoming interested in stashing as much as I could each week into the stock market by this time, also. The World Trade Center Attacks had caused a mini-crash, but things were starting to rebound, as the end of September approached.

Xanna
I began to take notice of a certain skinny lady with long brown hair who was pretty much a regular customer at the East Coast gas station, on Route 29, in Charlottesville.
She would stop her aquamarine Mustang, at the same pump (number 11), at about the same time each night, and would pump about the same amount of gas.
That particular pump was the one closest to, and right in front of, the booth where I sat. It was my theory that she did that to save time, in coming to and from the booth, and to keep herself within my sight, keeping things "above board," precluding me from suspecting her of anything shady.
She stepped out of the Mustang those nights, wearing a Pizza Hut shirt, jeans, work boots, and with a stubbornly determined expression set on her face, her lips pressed into a thin line, and her whole face pinched tightly. She was "all business."
A skinny wisp of a thing she was, with the light brown hair in a pony tail that hung to her waist. There was always something masculine about her dress, and it crossed my mind that she might be a lesbian. Those were some heavy duty work boots, and if it was cold, she would wear over her uniform, a heavy lumberjack shirt, of the "northern dyke" style, which I had become familiar with while living in Northhampton Massachusetts, a lesbian stronghold.
With her lips pursed tightly, an expression conveying equal parts determination, stubbornness and anger, she would take money out of a zippered wallet, that she would then place on the back of her car in about the same spot each time, then count out bills within my view, as if trying to show me that she actually had the money to pay for her fuel, and wasn't going to do a "drive off."
She would pump about the same amount each time, and then come to my window, paying to the exact penny. Her lips, pressed together like a vise so that she almost had to speak through her nose, would loosen just enough so that she could tell me just how much she was handing me, so there would be no misunderstanding, I assumed. "Here's $9.88!"
If the old-fashioned analog pumps which the East Coast station had happened to stop between digits, she would round up to the next higher cent. She wasn't  trying to take a penny from anyone.
She was all business; didn't smile.
I might have taken that as an omen.
The Challenge
Instead, I took upon myself the challenge of trying to make her smile once.
On each successive night, I spoke to her, trying to charm her with witticisms.
One night, I was finally able to see a quick, tight lipped half-smile, on her face before she said quickly "I'd better get back to work," as if sensing that she had let down a certain defense, and sped off.
Over the course of the next few weeks, our talks grew longer than two sentences.
I was able to find common ground with her by relating some of my past experiences with pizza delivery. She seemed impressed by the fact that, when I had that job, I had recorded all of my delivery data into a Lotus spreadsheet on my computer, including hours, tips, number of runs, miles and expenses, and even factored in the miles per gallon that my car had been getting, and had concluded that I was only clearing around the minimum wage, when it was "all said and done," over the course of a year.
One night; one cold night in late September, she arrived at the booth holding a cup of coffee. "Here, I brought you coffee. You must be freezing in there," she said through clenched teeth.
Coffee soon became a regular gift, and our conversations became a little more personal.
I found out that her name was Xanna and that she owned a house, 30 miles to the north of the station, out in the country on a route so "rural" that it had no name, only a number.
I wasn't ready to tell her that I was living in a hole in the woods.
Into October... 
Nobody in Charlottesville, seemed to suspect that I was homeless. Outside of the comment made by Tiffany, the barrister at the coffee shop that I "always smell like smoke," (which I explained was due to my "grilling a lot,") no one seemed to look at me askance.
As October arrived, Xanna brought me a sweater one cool night, saying that it had been in her attic, left there by a former roommate. It looked like it had never been worn.
Our talks became longer. After getting off of work, she would come back by, even though she had already gotten gas earlier. We would sit in her car and talk while she ran the heater, through the early morning, when customers of the station were few and far between.
Xanna was blind in one eye and had no sense of smell, possibly as a result of beatings by a father, who had wanted sons instead of daughters and who called Xanna the "runt of the litter."
She was demure and soft spoken, as were a lot of Virginia women that I had come across. They acted as if they had been conditioned to think that a woman was inferior to a man and that her place was to be "seen but not heard." She just about lived on Diet Dr. Pepper, too, by the way..
She had just ended a relationship with a guy named Tom.
She said that Tom hadn't worked, but rather, sat at her house drinking Crown Royal and playing video games and cranking Metallica on her stereo, while she worked two jobs to support him. She said that she came home from work with the wrong cigarettes once (he only smoked 100's) and he threw the carton at her and made her go back out to get the right ones.
She had finally come to a boiling point and asked him to leave, under threat of bringing the Law into the matter.
He left, but not before beating her and sodomizing her on the kitchen floor on his way out.
His black Monte Carlo, in a state of disrepair, sat in her front yard as a reminder of him. She was allowing him to keep it there. She never did call the law.
The name "Xanna" had come to Peggy (as that was her given name) in a dream, which spurred her to get a court order to legally change to it. "I can't stand being called Peggy because it reminds me of my past and saps my self esteem," she said.
She got $850 per month through some kind of Trust Fund which a departed grandmother had left to her (her siblings inherited real estate and larger amounts, but Peggy got the runts portion of the settlement, according to her); still, she was a workaholic, and would complain that they were working her to death at the Pizza Hut; taking advantage of her. She figured that she had no choice, because other workers would slack off, leaving early, or skipping shifts, altogether. She would cover for them. "Someone has to do the work!"
She worked many hours and then slept in her Mustang in the parking lot outside the Pizza Hut, ostensibly to be there bright and early to clock in the next day.
She complained about it and it contributed to the almost permanent scowl that she wore, yet, she continued to do it.
I finally gleaned enough about her to feel safe in confiding to her about the "house" that I was building by the reservoir. She nodded her head after I told her as if to imply that she had pretty much figured out already that I must live in a clay pit.
Once she learned that, she began to mention her house more frequently. She said that it had a hot tub, one of the finest, which had cost her something like five thousand dollars.
I told her how comfortable and private my dwelling out by the reservoir was. The temperature inside didn't drop below 49 degrees, according to my indoor/outdoor digital thermometer, which had a memory function that recorded the extremes of hot and cold. Without any heat source, the place stayed close to the temperature of the earth.
It was well hidden, with the trapdoor which I could drag a downed evergreen tree over, to make it invisible.
The fact that it was on city property meant that the land surrounding  it would probably never be developed.
I had plans to save about 12 thousand bucks per year, and after 5 such years, do something with the money to "better" myself.
She brought me a kerosene heater next, to heat the place in the woods that I had described to her. She said that it was an extra one that she had had in her attic. I could then add kerosene to the list of things which I loaded my backpack with for the mile and a half walk each morning.
Then, lamp oil, after she gave me seven oil lamps, which she said had been laying around her house.
By then, I had finished hollowing my house out to the desired dimensions, put a roof over it, waterproofed the roof, covering it with dirt. Inside, I had a small fireplace, which I used to cook food on. Over it was a "boot" from the "air conditioning duct work" section of Lowes, which connected to a six inch pipe that went up through the roof.
I was sleeping on an air mattress, had a high performance AM/FM radio with a tunable loop antennae on which I could pull in stations from as far away as St. Louis, Missouri (700 miles), an indoor/outdoor thermometer with which I could confirm that I was warm and comfortable inside my dwelling, while it was cold outside; at a glance.
I got a lot of satisfaction out of being warm and dry, while it was cold, wet, windy and nasty outside.
Sometimes when I was entering my path into the woods, on such days, I envisioned people driving by and feeling sorry for me, and wondering how anyone could deal with having to go sleep in the woods, especially in such terrible weather.
Xanna bought me an Ibanez acoustic guitar for my birthday, giving it to me a week early, as she was dropping me off at the head of my trail.
Xanna Sees My House
November, 2001
I invited her to see my home by the reservoir, around the middle of November.
It was almost "finished" by then.
The only additional touches that I had planned for it was the laying of a concrete floor with wall to wall carpeting to cover it, and the hacking into a nearby thicket where I would set up a bank of solar panels, running the current to my dwelling by underground wires in order to charge a row of "deep cycle" batteries (wired in parallel) during the day, so that I could have electricity, to eventually power a laptop computer, which I would use as a recording studio.
But, the house (ok, bunker...) was warm and dry, by that time.
I had gotten rib eye steak, and other sundries to cook on my grill. I got Zima for her, and red wine for myself. We had a nice dinner.
She remarked that my place was more comfortable than her house; "less drafty." We had sex for the first time that night, by the light of oil lamps and with the classical station playing on my high performance AM/FM radio.
I got the sense that she wanted me to move away, into her house, but I also sensed that she thought it would be a hard sell to get me to leave my convenient and draft free place to move 30 miles out into the country, even if I would be in a house. My dwelling was a tough act to follow.
She seemed to form a quiet resolve, though, and a determination not to give up trying.
I would have laughed if someone had told me that she would use witchcraft to get me to move there.
I didn't believe in ghosts, either...