Boardwalk Banshee

The sun sets in the parlor of his Aunt's Victorian on Ocean Boulevard in Seaside Park New Jersey. Shadows reached out to embrace John but tiffany table lights did too. He closed his eyes and could hear the ocean pounding for attention-beyond the dunes. Wind must be coming from the East, John thinks and closes his eyes. When he reopens them, in the mirror, he sees the reflection of a distorted face in the window behind him. John jumps up, twirls around and laughs when he sees it's his girlfriend with a flash light shinning up under her chin.

He opens the door.

John

'Get in.'

Patty laughing

'You turned all kinds of shades of white.'

John

'Thought you were a Leprechaun...don't look at me that way. I've been hanging green shamrock lights and leprechauns all day.'

Patty

'...and Charlie Sheen thinks he knows how to seduce a woman.'
Patty playfully kisses him hello.

Patty

'Anyway...it's breezy and creepy out there.'

John

'Sometimes I like it off season...sometimes the island gets creepy lonely. I'm always afraid someone will come across the bridge to rob the empty mansions and kill any witnesses.'

Patty laughing

'Oh, my God what a thought. I'll protect you Johnny. Rational me was actually worried about banshees and ghosts.'

John

'O.k.

Patty

'No really. Somethoing is crying on the boardwalk. The end with Madam Lillian.'

John

'Madam Lillian is in Florida now.'

Patty

'How do you know.'

John

'In the summer she predicts 'you will meet your true love in the fall...'cause when you don't meet him...she's in Florida.'

Patty

'Well, humor me. Someone, or something muwhaaaa is screeching on the boardwalk.'

Patty grabs John's arm and pulls him onto the porch.They listen as the wind whips in off a moonless ocean.

Patty

'Listen'

John hears a cry...off in the distance towards the skeletal frames of Funtown pier.

Patty

'Let's investigate.'

John

'There's a wierd scream on a deserted boardwalk in a deserted town and you think we should investigate it.'

Patty

'I'm Jonesing for a banshee. Am I the best girlfriend ever.'

John

'Ever'

John goes back inside, grabs his coat, glances behind at the tiffany light shining like a stained glass window through the Irish lace curtains.