Post by poseygilbert on Feb 18, 2014 23:32:05 GMT -6
Chuck's Dog
By: Posey Gilbert
Chuck died 2010 having never changed his story.
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A point of interest about Chuck
Hindsight Is 20/20
By: Posey Gilbert
This is an accounting of a family mystery that as of yet, is still unsolved.
One day back in the 1960s my older brother Chuck got dressed up for a party walked out of the front door and did not return.
After the first day my mother called the police to report his disappearance but was told he had not been gone long enough for her to report him as a missing person, and that he had to be gone for more than one week before she could file such a report.
On hearing this I was tossed back in my mind to the night when once my favorite Uncle Bax, a Korean war veteran with a metal plate in his head, suddenly suffered a flashback, attacked, and was trying to kill my father.
We, my mother and my siblings ranging from the ages of six to twelve were left to fend off a muscular six foot seven, raging Green Beret that thought he was back in Korea.
It was only when he snapped back to where he was, that we were finally able to get him out of the house.
To do that my mother lost three teeth when she bit into his shoulder to get him to loosen the bat he had raised above his head and was about to bring down upon my struggling father whom he had pinned and held down with his massive right hand.
Only that bite saved my father for both Chuck and Theresa dangled like rag dolls from his upraised arm in a fruitless attempt to restrain him from raising it to strike my father, only then was Ralph and I able to pull the bat from his iron clasp.
A moment before then my mother was on the phone talking to the police trying to get them to send help.
Though they said they would be right over they showed up three weeks later, claiming they had just gotten the report that day.
So because of that I had little confidence in the police, and even as she was dialing the phone I knew her efforts were useless.
For the week to follow her frantic call our family was held in the grip of a silent terror, despair, and forebodence that we would never see Chuck alive again.
Not one of Chuck's friends saw him during that time, nor had he shown up at the party.
In fact it was their calling from that party asking for him that first alerted our parents that something was wrong.
For all he had talked about for weeks before then, was that party, and how detailed he had been in preparing himself for it.
He had even gone to get a manicure for the big event.
His closest friends called every day after that, to asked if he had returned, and some even aided in the search for him knowing his haunts and hangouts.
Then on the eighth day Chuck just showed up at the front door as immaculate as he was when he left and when my enraged and relieved mother asked him where had he been he calmly answered, "I don't know."
His demeanour was not that of one that expected punishment or that of one that had done something wrong, but of one that truly knew something had happened, but did not know what had happened.
He was calm, not confused, and realized he had been gone awhile but where, he did not know.
The strange part was that he was dressed as he was like he had left, his clothing still clean and pressed, and not wrinkled as they would have been after being worn for seven days.
His shoes were still spit shined as he had learned to do them in the Jr. Marine corps.
Even his nails were still clean and shinning with the clear polish that had been put on them.
Plus he still stank of too much Brute cologne just as he did when he left.
Later after all the hubbub and hollering settled down Chuck was sitting in our bedroom on the side of his bed and I asked him.
"Truthfully Chuck where were you?"
He looked at me and said,
"Butch, I really don't know, I can't remember it all."
"Well, then, tell me what do you remember," I said "You know I won't tell."
Chuck looked at me silently for a moment and then said,
"Well... Ok, I was suppose to meet the guys up on Fordham Road, but when I got there, their was no one around, I mean no one man, the streets were empty.
I waited awhile, but it was cold, and I began to think, I had missed them.
I had the address, and apartment number, so I started walking looking for the place.
As I started walking after awhile I started coming upon a lot of darkened blocks, and they were too dark for me, so I started back to where I was.
I was hoping to meet the guys or some one that could tell me where the address was.
As I got to the corner of the block something ran at me out of the darkness.
At first I thought it was a little man on a leash, but when I looked at it I noticed it was a bulldog with the face of an old man.
I started screaming, but then it barked, that's the last thing I remember, until I was standing in front of the door today, that's why I could not tell them what happened."
Now back then I was about twelve or thirteen and I knew nothing about drugs.
True Chuck three years later was to become addicted to heroin but back then I didn't know of such things so I just took him at his word for I knew Chuck like Ralph, and myself over the years had, had encounters with strange entities too.
When years later it was found out that he had become an addict I said to myself maybe that was what caused his strange dog tale.
Then in the early 70s as I sat in a theater on 42nd St. I saw Chuck's bizarre tale play out in the remake of the old sci-fi classic " Invasion Of The Body Snatchers ", where the Earth was being invaded by pods that would assimilate people as they slept to replace them the next day.
In one of the scenes a man and his bull dog were merged and the dog ran up on two of the last remaining humans in the small town and barked causing the female of the two to scream and giving away that they were still human.
The moment I saw this I thought of Chuck's anecdote of the night of his disappearance, but quickly attributed it to coincidence.
Then in the late eighties as I was listening to W.B.I.A Pacifica Radio I heard of a story from some ancient Jewish scriptures called the " Zolstar or Kabalah " about a chamber where the true name of God was suppose to have been written.
Any one entering and reading the name and saying it outside of the chamber would be able to create miracles, the problem was it was guarded by two dogs.
They would allow you in to read the name, but as you left they would bark, and their bark would cause you to forget the name.
Again Chuck's dog popped back into my mind for after it barked according to him he remembered nothing else.
Yes Chuck was an avid reader and maybe the story of the man faced dog was part of the plot in the original science fiction story and he had read it, or had heard of it, and incorporated it into a drug induced hallucination.
If it is not part of the original story in book form, as it wasn't in the original movie, where did he get such a story from?
As well where did the remakers of the movie get the idea of the man faced dog, was it reported by some one else somewhere else?
Then there is also the fact, that for certain I know Chuck did not have access to, nor could he read Ancient Jewish text in any way, shape, or form, and to this day he sticks to his original tale of what happened to him that Winter night so long ago.
Today I no longer believe Chuck's Dog was an drug induced creation, but a possible encounter with and entity and his memory loss to be the same as reported by other Encounterers.
As for his vanishing I do not think that he was abducted but because of his reporting the dark streets he may have stepped into another universe.
When I push Chuck even over almost thirty years later I just get that familiar silence a shrug and nervous smile that I get when ever I ask him about things that frighten him too much to speak about them.
Chuck died 2010 having never changed his story.
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A point of interest about Chuck
Hindsight Is 20/20
Chuck had an obsession about keeping his lighter in tip top working condition.
Once as I sat watching him dis and reassemble his Lucky Strikes Zippo.
"Where the hell did you get a real Lucky Strike Zippo?" I asked,
"Do they even still make Lucky Strikes?"
Chuck laughed his cigarette dangling in the corner of his mouth dropping ashes onto his lap which he quickly brushed away he took a last drag and denched the cigarette butt in the ash tray at his feet.
"Shouldn't be smoking now anyway," he said as he started to disassembling the lighter.
He suddenly started to talk about something he called, "The Sands."
"Do they even still make Lucky Strikes?"
Chuck laughed his cigarette dangling in the corner of his mouth dropping ashes onto his lap which he quickly brushed away he took a last drag and denched the cigarette butt in the ash tray at his feet.
"Shouldn't be smoking now anyway," he said as he started to disassembling the lighter.
He suddenly started to talk about something he called, "The Sands."
"The Sands?" I asked him surprised at this sudden non sequitur, for I had no idea where this abrupt turn of the conversation had come from.
"What the hell is The Sands?" I asked.
As he worked he started to outline a scenario where in which I suddenly find myself in a cold dessert surrounded by nothing but sand, sharp stone outcroppings and shrubs.
"And night is falling what you gonna do?" he asked.
I shrugged and said, "Freeze I guess."
He nodded held up the Zippo and said,"That's why I always keep her ready just incase of, The Sands."
"What the hell is The Sands?" I asked.
As he worked he started to outline a scenario where in which I suddenly find myself in a cold dessert surrounded by nothing but sand, sharp stone outcroppings and shrubs.
"And night is falling what you gonna do?" he asked.
I shrugged and said, "Freeze I guess."
He nodded held up the Zippo and said,"That's why I always keep her ready just incase of, The Sands."
Back then I just laughed and thought no more of it.
Since his death now I often think of it, and wonder if he was just joking around as he always did, or was he really trying to tell me something?