As I approach Ms. DeLuca's unassuming two story house in suburbia, I feel a strange twinge of nerves like a yoyo spinning in my stomach. Being young, fearless in the face of death, skeptical, and generally uncommitted to any known concept of god, I am still unnerved when I come across what seems to be an authentic supernatural occurrence. Ms. DeLuca ushers me into her house, which is dark, a bit damp, and crowded with antique furniture seeped with the smell of sandalwood. She holds a cigarette in her long shriveled fingers, which are finished off by sharp, garishly painted nails. She breathes smoke in and out heavily as she tells me about the death of her first husband 16 years ago in this very house. He was an insurance salesman who made a modest living off the public's fear of death. Ironically, he himself came to an untimely death in a mortal shaving accident in the bathroom off the 2nd floor. "The stupid bastard didn't take his own advice," she bitterly remarks in a voice both raspy and hissy. "He left me in debt with this house to pay off." At this she waves her cigarette hand over the empty space to her right as if she's in a bizarro world Price is Right where the showcase showdown display gals are withered, unkempt and skinny. I coax her gently on to the topic of how she became a medium and spirit guide working out of this very house. She recalls the first time her dead husband paid her a ‘visit'. Her sister was in town staying with her. While the pair were having a nice chat over tea and snacks, her body was suddenly overtaken by some unseen force. "It's like I was slumbering inside myself. Almost watching things happen from my point of view, like on television or something, only with the sound turned off." After several minutes in this strange state, and seeing a look of shock and horror crawl over her sibling's face, she regained physical and audio control of her body and collapsed into a tray of almond pecan butter cookies. When she roused moments later, her sister informed her that Dan had been there, speaking through her body. The spirit of her late husband had a message for her, of great portent. I lean forward in the sofa, enthralled with the tale. What was the message, I eagerly implore. Ms. DeLuca leans back, closes her eyes, and heaves a heavy sigh. "He told my sister to tell me to remember to turn the iron off. Three times he repeated this. Then he was gone." When I ask what this means, and what kind of impact the incident has had on her life, she simply shrugs and says that Dan was always paranoid of the house burning down. After that fateful afternoon, she discovered she had a "knack", as she puts it, for calling up the spirits of the dearly departed. I ask her what type of clientele she has, and a her voice drops to a whisper. "That's the strange thing about it," she says, "I can only make contact with my husband's clients. Former clients. For the rest of ‘em I just read tarot cards." I ask if this ability also came with the realization of her gift as a medium. "Nah," she says with a wave of smoke, "I used to work for the Psychic Friends Network."
Copyright 1997 Jennifer Chung
All moral and legal rights
reserved and asserted.