Board Game

I have no song for this story. Nothing necessarily brings it to mind. Truth is, I have been trying to either forget or tell this story for nearly 50 years now.  I have been pretty good at one of those things – forgetting.  By and large, the events are tucked away deep in the recesses of my mind.  It’s only every now and then that something happens which opens doors better left closed and shines light into dark corners.  I have tried to tell this to people from time to time.  It never works.  My family knows of it, but they don’t know it. Every so often, they will ask that I tell them. The story scares me to this day.  Something recently happened.

What happened? A message. Like an old Tweet:  I’m back. Yes.  I’m back.   Simple.  Short. Out of the ether.

Yes.  He’s back.  That’s all I know.  And now I am compelled to tell the story.  Let me start with some background.

It all took place during Christmas Break, 1966, in our little home town in Pennsylvania.  It was a cold, wintery white Christmas, but then, most were.  My friends and I were all home for the holidays – just like the song. This was our sophomore year, and the first extended time away from our college classes that year, Winter Break.  Star Trek and Batman were cool; the Mamas and the Papas were groovy. Ho Chi Minh was in our vocabulary. Coming together after the first semester of school was going to be a blast – stories to tell, brews to throw back, new moves to try out. 

We were a tight knit group who’d pretty much grown up together.  There was Jimmy.  He had a sort of tough life but a large extended family.  There’s a whole separate story there, but that’s for another time.  Tim was his neighbor, short, cute, totally Irish.  Liz and I were from families which had such a long history together that we almost could have been brother and sister.  Fran & Frank were the only real couple of our group.  Their relationship was fairly new; basically, they started officially going together when they ended up going to the same university.  It was a little bit romance and a bit more convenience.  Two of the group were MIA.  Kenny, Diana’s long-distance boyfriend, had not gone away to college. He had stayed home and gotten a job in town instead.  The rest of us were not sure just why he’d stayed.  Money?  Grades?  Fear?  Whatever the reason, he still lived at home.  The other absentee was Enos, the guy with the name which opened him to a lot of grief when spoken aloud, had the farthest distance to travel home.  His university had a slightly different schedule, as well.  These two points, combined with the weather, had made it harder for him to get home on time.  Finally, there was Diana, the oldest child and only girl in a family of four kids. It was at Diana’s house that the events of the story began.

We had all arrived home in the days before December 25^th. With little time, we’d all done our shopping for family and friends – what little we could afford, helped with some final house decorating, cookie baking, and gift wrapping … basically gotten ready for Christmas.  At that point, we had not had a lot of time to catch up. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were for family. 

After Christmas, however, it was time for our group to get together.  Our plan was to meet at Diana’s home before heading out to Tommy’s In Crowd just across the New York State border.  Tommy, the owner, was an old friend; his place was, in fact, the “in” place to see and be seen in the late ‘60s, and the drinking age in NY was still 18.  

Diana’s home, with four children ranging in age from about 10 to 18, was fully decked out for the season, a beautiful tree, holly sprigs in Christmassy vases, festive ceramic Santas, angels and reindeer in place of the ‘regular’ nick-knacks.  Their tree was huge, bright with lights, tinsel and all sorts of glass ornaments.  Under the tree, piles of opened and still-wrapped presents were clustered into what we learned were “people piles”, one pile for each member of the family.

First to arrive at Diana’s house were Jimmy and Tim at about 7:30. Fran and Frank were a few minutes later, followed shortly by Liz.  I got there just before eight.  Seven friends.  Hugs and kisses.  Greetings and laughter.  Instant catching up and eyeing one another evidence of the infamous “freshman 15”, the notorious extra pounds students often pack on in their first year or two of dorm food. Seven friends and a quandary.  What to do?  Wait for Kenny and Enos, who might not even make it, or leave and let them catch up later?

“Call ’em,” Liz said.  In the days before cell phones, that meant calling their home phones and hoping that someone was home to answer or that the line wasn’t busy. 

“Tried that,” Diana told us.  “Got a busy signal.  Got a no-answer.  Tried again.  Kenny’s mom said that he wasn’t there.  Nothing on Enos. So basically I got nowhere.”

We decided to hang out for a while, reconnect and wait for Ken and Enos.  Diana’s brothers had gotten some new board games for Christmas, so, if conversation lagged, we could also play a game or two.  There was also lots of food in the house, and pop and eggnog, so we were set.  Fran noticed one game in particular.  It was a Ouija board, a fortune telling game.  She said that she had played it with the girls in her dorm and that it was fun.  “Game”, we would all soon learn, is not the right word for a Ouija board.

Setting up, Frannie explained the process. She volunteered to handle the planchette, the pointer, but needed a partner. Jimmy volunteered.  The rest of us had jobs, as well. I was the recorder. I tracked the path of the planchette and wrote down letters in the response sequence.We would ask question of the board. Anything at all. Fran suggested that it was usually good to start simple to sort of test the process. In addition to asking questions, we would read what the all-seeing, talking board Ouija had to say. 

The board, itself, was a large rectangle. Arched across the upper half of the board were the letters of the alphabet in two rows, A-M and N-Z. Below the letters were numbers 1-0. The upper left corner of the board had a shining sun with the word ‘Yes’; on the upper right was a crescent moon with ‘No’. The bottom of the board simple said, “Good-bye.”

Frannie and Jim sat facing each other on dining room chairs, the board lay flat on a small TV stand between them.

 “OK, then….no cheating, you guys,” the rest of us admonished.  Smirks.

“Course not!” they replied. Winks.

“OK, who goes first?”

“Wait.  Wait! What’r the rules?” Diana asked?

“Rules?” Jimmy said.

“Yeah.  I mean…what do we ask? What kinds of questions?  Who looks?  Who doesn’t?”

“Hell, damned if I know,” Frannie said.  “What do you want to know. Like I said, just ask us a question. Start simple. We both have fingers on the pointer. We close our eyes and the pointer moves around the board to letters that spell the answer. You read the answer. That’s about it!”

“Right. Ask you a question!” I retorted.

“Go,” Jimmy said.

So I started.  “Hi, Mr. All Knowing Seer Weegee, what can you tell us?”

Frannie and Jim closed their eyes.  They seemed to go into a trance.  They squinted.  Slowly the planchette moved.  It spelled out  AOYTGING.

“Oops,” Frannie chuckled.  “I think that means ‘anything.’  We hafta warm up our fingers.” 

“Ok,” Tim said. “So we can ask anything.  Right?”

The planchette moved to YES.

“Shit, Man, this is too tough.  My turn.  Can I ask?”  Still Tim.

NO

“Why not?” Tim continued.

“Fran looked over, “’Cuz it said no to you, doof.”  We all laughed.  “Ok, Timbo.  Ask Away.  We’ll see what we can do.”

So Tim asked, “Will I ever find love?”

YES

“Phew, that’s a relief!”  Tim said.  “What kind?”

Fran and Jim looked at each other.  There was a semi-nod between them.

DEEPFNKYHARDCOR

“I like it,” Tim said when he saw the answer.  Cute as he was, Tim had never been what one might call a ladies man.  His dates had always been friends, not even kissing friends.  Just girls who said yes to the dance, the date, the evening because it would be safe and there would be lots of other people around. And he was definitely cute.  But, too familiar.  “I can go deep.  I can get funky.  I can be hard core.  Thanks,”

Again we all laughed.

About that time Diana’s parents came into the room to say good-bye.  They were headed out the door to visit some neighbors, have a holiday drink and come home.  It was about 8:30 or so.

We said a round of good-byes, and Diana asked what time they thought they would be home. Not that it mattered. We were probably going to be gone, but she asked out of curiosity. “About 10:30 or so,” they said. They were just going to visit some friends in the neighborhood.

After they left, Diana turned toward the board and said, “I have a question, oh all seeing Ouija. What time will my parents get home?”

“927,” came the answer. Jimmy and Fran looked at one another as if to ask, “Who did that?”

Back to the board, Liz asked, “So what about me?”

WADBOUCHU 

As the planchette moved, and the letters identified, one of us spoke each one aloud. I wrote them down. We looked at the string, repeated Liz’s question and stared at Fran and Jim. They shrugged back. We attempted to pronounce what we saw. After a few tries, we settled on a translation of “What about you?”

“Cool, guys,” Frank said to the planchette movers. Referring to the seemingly effortless movement from random letter to random letter, he asked, “You guys practice this before?”

“Hell, no!” they said in unison. “Guess we’re just totally synched with the board.”

“So anyway,” Liz followed up. “What about me? Will I find love?”

YOUWILLNOBDYANBDYHERENOSDWNTRODINTHFUCHRGODUN

That had proved to be too many letters to track in our heads, so the board was asked the same question again. This time, I, alone, was tasked with writing down the response, letter by letter.

Liz’s question was posed again.

DUMSHTGTSMRTYOUWILLNOBDYANBDYHERENOSDWNTRODINTHFUCHRGODUN

It took a couple minutes of translating again, but we finally landed on: Dumb shit get smart. You will. Nobody anybody here knows. Down the road, into the future. Good one.

So, two question down and two positive replies. It felt like we were off to a good, fun start. We complimented Jimmy and Frannie on their ability to coordinate so well. “It’s not us,” they said. “Of course not,” we agreed. It was the All Seeing Ouija.

“By the way, Ouija,” I asked. “Who are you?”

DONAX

That took us aback. What did it mean? DONAX  “Don’t ask.”

“But you are supposed to answer our questions. So, who are you?” I figured that the few seconds which passed had given Fran and Jim some time to create a reply.

UCTHNDLTHEANSRICLDLI

Translation: You can’t handle the truth, or I could lie.

I looked at Fran and Jim; they looked back at me. “Cute!” I said. They were about to say something back to me when the front door opened. It was Diana’s mom and dad. Before we said a word, we look at the clock on the wall. 9:27.

“Mom, Dad, what are you guys doing home so soon?” Diana asked. Her parents explained that they’d walked down the block to visit with some neighbor friends, and when they got there, nobody was home. That surprised them as they had made arrangements earlier in the day. So they went to other neighbor’s home, and they were there. They went in and had an egg nog, but as their friends were leaving early the next morning to visit family in another state they didn’t stay long. Rather than just wandered the neighborhood looking for someone to take them in, they decided to come on home. At 9:27.

As Diana’s parents walked toward the kitchen, Fran’s face lost some of its color. She looked at the rest of our group and said something to the effect that she and Jim had not been moving the planchette. Their finger tips had been on it, but it had moved by itself. They weren’t tracking the letters, we were. And on top of that, there was no way in hell that they could have known that Diana’s parents would walk through the door at 9:27!

There followed a moment of silence. We looked at one another. Was this a game?

“So, again, who are you?” I asked the board again. “And do you always tell the truth?”

PUNKYNMYBE – Punk. Yes. No. Maybe.

To tell the truth, we were all beginning to be taken aback by all of this.

“OK, guys,” Liz said, “Let’s go deeper.”

We were a bit more reluctant, but we addressed the Ouija, “So where’s Kenny? Why is he so late?”

KENNYKENNYKENNY

“Yep. Where is he?”

NTHEREEMBRSDNTNSKULDUMASSGOTANUBTCHMSSNGRUNDSORYDNNAURTOST

It was a challenge to track the letters. It was even more of a challenge to translate into regular words. The closest we would come to that was something to the effect that Kenny was not here because he was embarrassed that he wasn’t in school like the rest of us, and that he was out playing around with somebody else instead of being with Diana.

If that was the message, this was no game, and it was no longer fun.

We decided that we needed to test the board. We decided to press the question about who we were communicating with, who was sending responses to our questions.

“Who are you?” Frank asked. “Who is answering our questions?”

UDONWANANO  (You don’t want to know)

“Yes, we do,” Frank persisted.

FKUDSHTFUKNU

That reply took some work. We finally settled on, “Fuck! You’d shit if you knew.”

“Who are you?” Liz persisted.

GDMTIMJSTAANGL

More time to translate. “Goddamn, I’m just an angel.”

“No. You’re not. Angels don’t curse like that.” It was Liz again.

No reply.

We thought about our next question. We wondered if we should ask anymore, at all. Finally, we all decided to change the line of questions.

“Where’s Enos?” Diana asked.

“Good question! Yeah, where is he?”

DONKNODONCAR  (Don’t know; don’t care)

“You may not care, but we do.” This time it was Tim. “We just want to know where he is and if he’s coming over tonight.”

YEPSN  (Yep, soon)

The doorbell rang. “Ahhh, there he is!” Diana said. “Soon, all right.”

SNOTHMITSJANEE

No one had asked a question; no one had directed anything toward the board. As Diana got up to go answer the door, the rest of us decoded the message. “It’s not him. It’s Janie”.  Janie was Mary Jane, another friend who live across the street from Diana. She was supposed to be out of town with her family.

Diana was surprised when she opened the door and saw Janie. She welcomed her in and brought her to the dining room where the rest of us were gathered. She was also surprised by the stunned look on our faces as they came toward us. Stunned. Almost frightened. Dead silent.

Diana hadn’t seen what the board had said as she was going to the door. “What?”

We showed her – them – the note we’d taken down. Diana sat, almost fell, down. Janie didn’t understand. We tried to explain, but she just laughed.

It was getting late. There’d be no Tommy’s In Crowd for us that night. I, for one, just wanted to get home and feel safe in my own house. I was not alone feeling that way. Although Janie had just arrived, we started to all say our good-byes for the night. Tomorrow would be another day. Another cold, winter day.

I drove home very carefully. Liz, Frannie and Frank also all drove home, Liz alone, Fran and Frank together. Jim and Tim both lived a block or two away, so they walked together. Only Diana and Janie remained.

It was an anxious, nerve wracking night. Later conversations noted that none of us slept well at night at all. And if we slept at all, there was jarring, disturbing dreams.

The next morning, we checked in with one another by phone. No texts back in the day. It was one call at a time, hoping to get through. Strangely enough, as unsettling as the previous night had been, we all knew that it was not over. We knew that we had to come back together and finish what we had started. Looking back, that was a very unwise, dangerous even, decision. But that second evening, we were back at Diana’s house.

Diana’s parents were in the family room watching TV. Her brothers had all gone to friends’ houses. We gathered again in the dining room.

Janie did not come back. Apparently, her family did leave town for a few days to visit relatives. Enos still hadn’t joined us, although he told Jim that he planned to do so in a phone call earlier in the day.

“So, should we do this again or not?” That was me. I knew that the question was rhetorical. We were all there for one reason. But I raised the issue anyway.

Frannie and Jim took the same positions they’d had the night before.

“How do we know that you guys aren’t just jerking us off?” Tim asked.

“You read those things last night. There’s no way we could have known some of that stuff. But if you want to be sure, blindfold us.” That was Jim. We took him up on that. Moving forward that night, Jim and Fran were blindfolded.

First question: Where’s Enos?

CMGHRAT759 (Coming. Here at 7:59) It was 7:48 at the time.

“Who are you?”

TLDUIMANGLODRKANGL

That took some figuring out. (Told you I’m an angel, dark angel”)

“Do you have a name?”

LOTS

“Like what?”’

CLDBEMKLCLDBERFLCLDBEBLZABB (Could be Michael. Could be Raphael. Could be Beelzabub)

“But what should we call you?” This was Liz.

CLMEDRKANGLCLMELUCFRCLMEZROASTRCALLMEBELOVDCLLMESTANCLLMEHLLFRE

This was both challenging and, as we soon learned, frightening.

(Call me dark Angel. Call me Lucifer. Call me Zoroaster. Call me Beelzabub. Call me Satan. Call me Hell Fire)

I should point out that as Fran and Jim were blindfolded and could not see where the planchette was pointing, we had also turned the board itself. Letters and numbers were facing a different direction than they had been the night before. Also, as some of these messages were long, and as I was tracking the letters as best I could, the others didn’t always see what had come through right away.

“OK, Dark Angel, do you always tell the truth?”

The planchette pointed to the sunny “Yes.”

“Do you lie?” Another yes.

“Great! So how do we know when you are telling the truth and when you are lying?”

ASHOLUDNTBTIDO  (Ass hole. You don’t but I do)

We paused. We went through the most recent responses. Most were brief but pointed. We discussed continuing the “game” and what line of questioning we wanted to pursue.

The doorbell rang. 7:59. When Diana answered it, it was Enos. When he got settled a bit, we filled him in.

By way of background, Enos was a really smart guy. Scholarship. Pre-med. Prestigious school. Wicked funny sense of humor. When he heard our story, he was all in. “I got a few questions,” he said.

“OK, board, tell me about the world today. What’s up and how are we doing with everything?”

THTSABGQSTONTHWRLDSKSRGHTNWJHNSNISASOBBTRYNWATTILNEXTPRSDNTNXNSDSASTRNVRWINVTNMMRCLNSGDBTNTHINGHPPNSWHTELSUSSRDANGRUS

That was going to take some time to translate.

(That’s a big question. The world sucks right now. Johnson is an SOB but trying. Wait until the next president, Nixon, a disaster. Never win in Viet Nam. Mr. Clean is good but nothing happens. What else? The USSR is dangerous)

“What? Can you speak in full sentences? Who are you talking about?

URDNOKWSASSALRDYUGTSENTNCSPRSJHNSNNXNNXTUTHNT

(You are doing OK, Wise Ass. Already you get sentences. President Johnson. Nixon is next. U Thant)

OK, so we knew Johnson. We knew of Nixon, but he was an old vice-president. Why he was included here we didn’t know. Yet. U Thant was the United Nations secretary general; for some reason, we referred to him as Mr. Clean. Not bad for a board game.

“Who are you again?” This was Enos.

SATAN

This time, it was pretty a straightforward, pretty scary answer.

“Are you lying?” That was me.

YES

“Are you telling the truth?”

YESNOYESNOYESNOYESNOYESNOYESNOYESNOHAHAHAHAHAHA 

The planchette slipped back and forth, back and forth across the board between the sun and the moon. To tell the truth, we were all getting really scared. It was obvious that Jim and Fran were not controlling the pointer; they couldn’t even see the surface of the board.

All of a sudden the planchette started to move.

ASKMEBOUTYURLIVS  (Ask me about your lives)  Pause.

GTPRSNL (Get personal)

We looked at each other. Did we dare? After what we’d been seeing, did we want to get into personal lives and maybe our futures? Tim ventured first.

“Who am I and what will happen to me?”

TIMTINYTIMSADLONLYLFFARAWYFRMHRE (Tim, Tiny Tim, a sad lonely life far away from here)

That was not what Tim – or any of us – wanted to hear. Tim was a happy, popular guy from a great family. Did he want to pursue details about the reply?

“Are you lying or telling the truth?”

YES

“OK, change of scenery!” Diana jumped in. “Board, where the hell is Kenny these days?”

RELLYWNT2NOHESHKNGWSMBMBONELMRA

(Really want to know? He’s shacking up with some bimbo in Elmira)

Tears welled in Diana’s eyes. She had been suspecting something like this, but never expected to get it from a board game.

And so it went for a while. We each dared the board and asked personal questions. Some of the answers were on target; others were quite different. The follow-up questions did little to satisfy our needs. But we were all sucked into the miasma of “fortunes.”

Lies. Truths. Mis-information. Dire predictions. Never knowing what was true and what was a lie. The board had trapped us. It felt evil. Frankly, we were all terrified, and we didn’t know how to escape.

After some more questions, we finally stopped. The board was boxed up and re-placed under the tree. We had made a decision, a pact, that we would never “play” with the board again.

Until the following evening. Curiosity, addiction, fear, a giddiness factor – whatever it was, we all came back to Diana’s home the next night. The days between Christmas and the New Year were winding down, but like addicts needing a fix, we wanted one more hit.

URBKSKRSINEWITUCNTSTOPSNGYRSWTDRKANGL

The questions became deeper. Some were general; others were as specific as we dared ask. The answers were, in turn, as dark, as bright, as ugly and as pleasant as the imagination can fathom. The board foretold world events. Of course, at the time, we had no idea what those prophecies meant. It spoke of things not yet done – in real time. It spoke of plagues, volcanoes, the Berlin wall, suicides and diseases. We decoded the names of Greek gods, kings, warlike terrorists, and much more. The board named names, now historical, which, at that time, were unknown to us. We learned of the happiness and sorrow, the life and death, the triumphs and tragedies of one another and those we loved – or were to one day love. Of course, as always, we checked. We double checked on the veracity of the details and the trustworthiness of the Dark Angel. And as always, it always told us the truth. And it always lied. What we learned about our futures both excited and scared the hell out of each one of us. Sheer terror would usher in in the New Year.

And that night, we stopped for good. We again made a pact among ourselves to never “play” this game again. This night, we swore it. Truth be told, we were terrified. Like the bell that can’t be unring, or the vision that can’t be unseen, we’d experienced things we could never forget.

Our decision was made. The planchette slid down to the big “good bye” at the bottom of the board. Fran had deliberately done that.

UCNNVRSYGDBYTOME  (You can never say good-bye to me) But we were done.

We never did make it to Tommy’s that night, again. We barely made it home. As I had been translating the notes as they came through the board, I decided I would destroy them as well. The board itself stayed at Diana’s house; it was her brothers’ after all. However, Diana tried to tuck it away where they couldn’t find it.

Decades later, as my brother and I were packing up the house that our family had lived in for close to 100 years, I was cleaning out the junk in a closet. To my shock, I pulled out a Ouija board. Where it had come from and how long it had been in the closet, I had no idea. What I did know, though, was that it had to go, fast. It was thrown out and destroyed as fast as I could pull it out.

This story may not capture the full extent of the trauma it brought to our group of friends. In looking back, I realize that some of the predictions it had made for some of us did come true. Some good; some less so. We did eventually go to Tommy’s. We celebrated the New Year with family and friends. We went back to school for our 2^nd semester. Life did go on.

To this day, except for the time in the closet, I have never touched a Ouija board again.

But after many, many years, I did get that tweet.