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Vol. XX No. 6 March 2005 |
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 The Barn My right hand has a scar on the center knuckle of the middle finger. All of the fingers bled, but only the middle of my fist bears the history. I punched out the window of an abandoned barn. Jason wrapped my undershirt around it and applied pressure as we ran, barefoot, through the high August corn, back down the rolling field to my mother's bathroom. There was so much blood. It wouldn't stop. I couldn't watch. I could only run. I punched the window because the barn was haunted and the doors were boarded shut. I didn't want to leave—we'd made it in—finally. We'd studied it from across Magician Lake Road for years. That road divided farm dynasties, ours and theirs. The first Kuthbert built that barn a hundred years ago and left it empty to stare at the first Kelly. He hated Irish. We watched the barn every day that summer.A house used to stand next to the barn. When I was 4 someone burnt it down. I watched it burn with my mother and grandmother. We put brand new lawn chairs in the flood ditch my grandfather dug along the front edge of our property, and stared across the road. "Is anyone still in the the house?" I asked.Neither answered."Everything is under control," Mom promised."It will all be fine," Grandma said.The crackle of flames woke my baby sister. She wailed while Mom stared at the house burning on the hill. Kuthbert had just harvested, and we had a perfect view. We said nothing. The fire didn't touch the barn.Years later Mom said, "Luck changed hands that day."Our corn grew taller and greener every year after that. It's how I knew the barn was haunted.We waited night after night from under our porch, to try and see one of the old house ghosts wandering around the barn. Once I feel asleep waiting, and dreamt of a little girl who didn't make it out of the flames. Mom found me in the morning and scolded my filthy pajamas. She knew what I was up to, why we crept up to the barn that afternoon. She must have watched from the window.My feet should have been as bloody as my fist from the running over broken cornstalks, but August brings callused soles with the blistering Michigan heat. I should have kicked the window in; my feet wouldn't have bled so much. Mom shrieked at my shirt-bandage, sopping in blood, and forbade the barn forever.Students interested in submitting works for this column should contact Ron Price in the Liberal Arts Department at ext. 368, or by e-mail (ronprice@juilliard.edu).
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