Finding Shamoo

I. Early Encounters with Death

The Ouija Board

My first encounter with death, when I was nine or ten, came from contact with a Ouija board . . .

* * *

My parents had taken me in tow and we were visiting some old friends, the Sayers, who lived ten or fifteen miles away, when ten or fifteen miles away, at the north end of the San Fernando Valley, before freeways, over surface streets, past orange, walnut and olive groves, past all the little ranch-style houses that had sprouted up right after the war, still seemed a long way away. I was extraordinarily fond of the Sayers and would have liked to have seen them more often. They were a very eccentric family and I have always loved eccentricity, even when the eccentricity can turn a bit scary.

Upon arrival, there might have been a quick pause at the front door to murmur a polite hello to the parents, Roy and Betty, but probably not. Their three kids would have swept me up and I remember disappearing into the den, white louvered doors closing emphatically behind us.

It must have been a day for staying inside, because the curtains were shut, only letting in a little light at the long divide down the middle. Two or three lamps were on, but the low wattage bulbs made the room feel snug, dark and shadowy. Even better, it was littered with toys and games, something that would never have been allowed at my house. Knotty pine paneling, long since out of fashion, long since torn out of any house that contained it and the house itself torn down, completed the effect.

I was immediately drawn, with magnetic force, to the Ouija board, marker at the ready, spread out on the carpet in its own little pool of lamplight. Constance, the oldest, who we used to call Connie, was clearly the Ouija board’s resident expert and chief enthusiast, and solemnly gathered us around it.

I must have been told by somebody, at some point, something about Ouija boards because I knew what it was and what it was supposed to do. I wasn’t scared – more excited, and deliciously apprehensive. I don’t know whether at this age I could have defined the word “occult,” but I was pretty sure that I was about to experience something strange.

So did Ronnie move the marker, or planchette, as it is officially known? They say you can’t tell when someone does. But if the motive force is coming from a certain side, or specific direction, you would certainly think you could – like trying to hold back a slowly moving car with your eyes closed and a table in-between. But the planchette is clever – perhaps its shape discourages this. In any case, whatever was happening, it felt completely real to me.

I can’t remember now what questions Paul and Margie asked, and only one from Connie, the inevitable “What is the name of the boy I’m going to marry,” hoping that the Ouija board would not spell out my name. I must have asked some pretty insipid questions of my own but then I came out with this:

“What year am I going to die?”

Why did I ask this question? Was I just trying to impress everyone? Or maybe I felt it was time to up the ante, to ask the Ouija board something really dangerous? Or even more perverse, was it possible that I had an early pre-occupation with death? The answer, as a matter of fact, was yes, I did. And though I never fully understood where it came from, once started, and later reinforced by other events, it was a thing that stayed with me all my life.

It would at this time have been about 1958 or 1959. There were eight hands resting on the planchette. It slowly, almost haphazardly, moved to the number 2.

Then to 0.

Then to 2 again.

Then finally to 6.

2026.

Connie was nice, but no genius: never in a million years could she have come up with such a number. So what on earth had? And what if it were true? I didn’t care how far off 2026 sounded.

I pushed the marker off the board. Violently. And only a little less violently got up.

The game was over. A few moments later, we began playing something else.