Jimmy? Who Are You Talking to?

told by James Heath
(as told to April Heath Pastis)
After your mom and me got married we lived with mom’s mom for a short 
time in a house on Avenue A. We stayed up in the second floor and we 
didn’t have much furniture at all. In fact, I think we were using 
some lawn furniture for chairs. Anyway, Jimmy couldn’t have been more 
than two or three, he probably was two because I remember we borrowed 
your grandma’s rocking chair so Donna could rock the baby (Curtis). 
Jimmy was the best kid you could imagine, he’d make up his own games 
and keep himself occupied so that you barely knew he was there. He 
was always talking to himself, so I thought he had an imaginary 
friend like most kids do. One afternoon, I heard Jimmy talking to 
himself again. It wasn’t kid talk but sounded pretty adult, but he 
was always an old man, even at the age of two. I was feeling a little 
guilty that I didn’t spend more time with him and worried that 
imaginary friends were probably not healthy, so I walked into the 
bedroom. When I did, Jimmy fell silent.
“Jimmy? Who are you talking to?”
”That man,” Jimmy said and pointed at the rocking chair.
”Now, Jimmy. You are only pretending,” and I walked over to the 
chair. “There’s no one in this chair.” I said and reached my hand out 
to touch the back of the chair, but before I touched it, the rocking 
chair tilted back. It began rocking back and forth and I found myself 
backing away from the chair as I watched it rock back and forth. It 
started out slowly and then it began to rock furiously.
I stood next to Jimmy and I felt that something was sitting in that 
chair. It also did not like me. I felt as if it was going to say 
something, but it didn’t.
Instead, I felt it say “Get Out of My House.”
Well, I nearly shxx my pants. I grabbed Jimmy and got out of that 
room. The thing is, it didn’t seem to have anything against Jimmy. I 
felt it didn’t like me.
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