Mariechen Al-An’ – Part III

The cottage was at 920 N. Fulton Avenue in Evansville, next door to the Germania Männerchor, the social and cultural center established by the area’s early German settlers. Her front door was just off the street. We’d enter a short hallway that had a door on the right that opened onto her sitting room.

The room had shelves of tea pots and tea cups and we’d be asked to choose a cup and the pot we’d like the tea steeped in. If it was some sort of test, I passed it.

We’d also be asked to choose what herbal tea we’d like. But since I’d never had herbal tea before I let my friends choose. By that time Mariechen would invite us to sit down in one of the comfortable old chairs, the small sofa or, in the case they were already occupied, a cushion quickly supplied thrown onto on one of the rugs.

Mariechen herself always sat in the big wing chair that was clearly “her chair.” It didn’t take long to get used to the routines.

Sometimes Mariechen’s son Eric would answer the door and take us through. But usually the door would be partly opened and you’d walk in to a welcome from her in the sitting room. He was a big guy with a big body and head. His hair was a sort of dirty blond and his eyes never smiled.

Some old places smell musty. Mariechen’s cottage smelled like freshly baked cookies, flowers and clean washing with just a hint of sandalwood.

I’d only made a few friends at college and had met them all, at one time or another, in our psychiatrist’s office. My dad and stepmom had insisted that I consult a “shrink” because they’d caught me smoking marijuana with their pet Schnauzer. The dog and I had become instant friends and he loved to lay across my chest in bed at night and inhale the smoke I exhaled. The folks had become suspicious after he insisted on coming to my room at night instead of theirs.

The ultimatum was simple. Either start with the shrink or be the subject of a petition to have me declared insane for “blowing LSD smoke inn the poor little dog’s face.” I’m afraid my hysterical laughter at this didn’t help and I submitted to twice weekly visits until the shrink “decides otherwise.”

Most of my new friends were younger than I and once they learned I was from California I was welcomed into their eclectic little group.

We were all from wealthy families. Then you had be in order to afford the shrink. There was Alex, whose family owned drug stores. Mike, whose family lived in a big house in what had once been the huge estate of the Mead Johnson family. And Billy, whose father was a well-known designer who did all the interiors for Lear Jets. It was white privilege off the rails.

It was through them that I first met Mariechen, although after the first visits I’d go over on my own more often than not.

She seemed to take a special interest in me, which didn’t endear me to her son. When I’d encounter him at the door he’d bristle with dislike and glower at me like I was an insect he’d like to stomp on. But Mariechen would soon dismiss him or send him on some errand.

Mariechen advised me to stop taking all the drugs the shrink had me taking and one night I was in a smoke filled car with my friends when someone said something that I found hilarious. But I couldn’t laugh. My ability to laugh was somewhere below the drug effect like pain can be buried beneath a layer of pain killers but still be there.

That night I dumped the Librium and some sort of “mood elevator” down the toilet and told my shrink. I’d been having doub5w qgou5 the shrink for awhile and been able to drop back to one visit a week with his approval. But now that I’d been able to cut myself loose from the drugs I wanted to be free of him as well.

We had nothing in common. It was like we were from different planets. Certainly different cultures. Then I occurred to me that he was just as screwed up as we were. He was stuck in a wheelchair behind his desk and here we were, young, physically active and relatively attractive and able to run like the wind.

So rather than him pump me with more questions I asked him how he felt about being stuck in the wheel chair and … before I could get any further he told me to get out of his office and never come back.

My dad informed me that the shrink had told him I didn’t need to come back and what I needed now was some discipline and “direction.” I assume that he accepted I would no longer blow LSD smoke in the dog’s face. The dog seemed to miss it more than I did.

While I was in Evansville, I kept up a lively correspondence with my Malibu friends and got the terrible news that one of them had committed suicide. Accepting the news was made more difficult because my new friends didn’t know him or comprehend how deeply I felt about his death. So I kept the news to myself.

One evening at Mariechen’s Billy asked if we could try her Ouija Board. All the others knew what it was but I didn’t. So it was explained to me and I was immediately skeptical because I figured that anyone who wanted could fake it and move around the well worn planchette without anyone else knowing it. Billy had already removed the board and planchette from under the silk scarf where it lived and set it on the floor in front of our cushions.

Mariechen called upon a spirit to join us and after a few moments the atmosphere in the room became heavy and a bit sinister. Mariechen cautioned us to take all this seriously and requested the spirit to interact with the board and guide us.

After a brief pause she directed some general questions and asked the spirit for their name. Slowly, hesitantly the name that came up was the name of the friend I’d recently lost to suicide. Mariechen spoke. “One of you here are known to the spirit and has called the spirit here tonight.” When none of my friends responded I felt both dread and embarrassment at being pointed out. She looked down at me from her chair and asked if I knew who it was and I said yes, he was a friend. She cautioned that he was what she termed “an unquiet spirit” and was going to leave..

That was when I blurted out, “Why did you kill yourself Phil? Why?”

We’d taken our fingers off of the planchette once Phil’s name had been spelled out and none of us touching it when the board started shaking and the planchette flew across the room and broke a tea cup that had been sitting unused on a shelf. Mariechen threw up her hands to protect herself from the pieces and started chanting in a language that I didn’t recognize. We all sat there stunned at what we’d witnessed and nobody spoke until Mariechen simply said, “The lesson is, never again ask an unquiet spirit a question like that. I should have warned you first and the lesson is for me as well.”

Later, we discussed it and Mariechen explained that she should have been wary when “the spirit joined us so quickly.” And that I must have brought him with me because I’d been thinking about him so much. She advised me to let him go so he could find his way to “the peace he didn’t have in his former life.”

And that’s a lesson I’ve tried hard to follow with so many loved ones since then.

Mariechen Al-An’© Robert R. Feigel 2022 – All Rights Reserved