Marfa

The summer of my fourteenth year found me in Marfa Texas, home of the famous Marfa ghost lights. But my story has nothing to do with the lights. It was a time that seemed like another life ago. Gasoline was thirty-one cents a gallon and stamps were a nickel. President Johnson was sending troops to Vietnam, but all of that was a world away. I was more concerned with whiling away the lazy summer hours and spending time with my friends. Especially my best friend, Jackie.

Everyone thought Jackie was a little weird. But he was a natural born leader, and it was easy to follow his lead whether the result was praise or punishment. Jackie lived alone with his mother in a modest wooden house in the Dallas suburbs. His father had been an FBI agent, and had passed away several years before I met my friend. The result of cancer, not a bad guy’s bullet. Jackie used to smuggle photographs from his father’s files to share with us kids. The photos were autopsy shots of criminals who were taken down by agents in the line of duty. The gross-out factor was really high, and Jackie enjoyed sharing the clandestine photos, just for the reaction.

Both of us were heavily involved in the Boy Scouts although in different troops. The preceding spring, Jackie gave me the exciting news that his Boy Scout troop was going to take a trip to Mexico. This was something I couldn’t miss out on. With my parents’ permission, I switched troops and joined Jackie’s. Anticipation ran high. Neither of us had been out of the country before and we were excited to see what it might be like. Mexico was more than I dreamed. We took a train through the Copper Canyon and watched monkeys scamper through the trees. We visited Poncho Villa’s house and even spoke with his widow. It was a glorious vacation but we were all relieved when we crossed the border back into Texas.

The sun was fading like the end of an Old West movie when we finally rolled into Marfa. The Scout leaders had selected a plain but comfortable motel to spend the night. Four of us boys shared a single room. The bed barely slept three, and I was odd man out, but the motel furnished a folding cot for me, and we all climbed into our respective beds. We were left unsupervised, but the scoutmasters were in an adjoining room, divided only by a single common door. None of us were particularly tired and chatted, made jokes, and talked to waste away the evening hours. Our voices competed with the hum of a window air conditioner, and grew louder as the hours passed. About 10 o’clock the room door swung open and a scoutmaster turn on the light. “You guys need to knock off the chatter and get some sleep”, he ordered. “I don’t want to hear another peep out of you.” The room immediately fell silent. We knew he meant it. We were never sure exactly what he had in mind for punishment, but none of us wanted to find out. He turned out the light, left the room, and once again the place fell silent except for the monotonous hum of the air conditioner. But boys being boys, even the stern warning could not dissuade a joke, a laugh, or another story. It wasn’t long before the noise level had risen once more. I was terrified that the scoutmaster would reenter the room and so I pulled the covers over my head and tried to get to sleep. But it was pointless. As I rolled over in a futile effort to get comfortable, I noticed a shadow in the corner of the room. It was the silhouette of a man about six feet tall. I could only make out a hazy outline in the night-time shadows, but it seemed as though the man was standing with arms to the side, gazing at the other boys. The scoutmaster had returned, I thought. Somehow he’d snuck back into the room and was watching the commotion, ready to pounce. I determined that at least I would not get in trouble and rolled over once more to try and sleep. Suddenly the room light came on. Jackie was sitting on the edge of his bed, trembling and with his head hung down. The scoutmaster I saw in the corner was gone. “What’s the matter?, I asked. It took Jackie a moment to compose himself. “I saw my father in the corner over there”. He pointed to the corner where I had seen the shadow. We all knew about his father and an involuntary shiver went up my spine. “Jackie,” I said, “I know you won’t believe it, but I saw it too.” The other boys gasped, and one of the younger ones began to cry. None of us dared to turn out the lights again.

Many years have passed now. Kids have come and gone, and that long-ago era is a bygone dream. But on warm, dark summer nights my mind still wanders back to the night in Marfa when Jackie saw his father… and I saw him too.

Credit: Kenneth Bourell