"WEE-WILLA-WINKIE"

 

Like a forelorn Sentinel of the night of yore, "Willa" haunted the streets of Manhattan....

"I only feel free, truly free when I am out wandering in the middle of the night... anonymous and alone."                   F.V. Ludwigslust

"Wee-Willamina-Winkie"...

She reminded me of a waterthrush.... a type of solitary, secretive warbler and the way it scurried along the marsh and stream banks back home, just as she scurried along the side streets and alleys of lower Manhattan all night.

Only her legs moved as she rushed... oblviously in circles to nowhere.  Willa's head would be tilted stiffly to the right, her shoulders and trunk rigid and both arms swung to one side motionlessly holding plastic bags or such that were slung over her left side.  She was a strange mixture of a little lost waif and a sad, aged woman and very reminiscent of Patricia DeCou of the film "The Blair Witch Project". Wee-Willa-Winkie could almost appear to be a child from a distance until she orbited by... and then her long, weary face framed by thick, witchy, brown hair would expose a lost, forgotten soul.

Never a night went by that I didnt see her and yet no one in the area knew her name or where she came from... no one.  All of a sudden she appeared out of thin air and was one amongst an often crazy cast of odd characters on that off-off broadway stage in the deep bowels of the city...  but hers was a solo show with an audience of none.

It was still my early years in New York and I was a notorious night owl.  I could and would often be out at any given time at night as I worked late and would then hit the after hours and secret meeting places with my friends.  It was on these nocturnal jaunts that I first noticed Willa.  I would see her only in the dead of night and always alone on what appeared to be a routine, orbital path up and down the cement, paved trails that traversed the island.  She would frown slightly as she sauntered by me,  as if her nightly mission had been invaded by an unwelcome alien.

Was she wandering the neighborhood as a sentinel?... or was she merely searching for something that she would ultimately never find in this life? 

  She reminded me of a street urchin version of the legendary lamplighter of old urban folklore "Wee-Willie-Winkie".  Someone whose destiny was to roam the nights alone forever.

This went on for years until I realized that this poor soul never slept, she just walked the nights away... but why?  I puzzled over it for years and still do.

I have the undying curiosity of an alley cat and I have always loved a mystery but that wasnt the only reason that I was fascinated by Willa... it was my similar driving obsession to wander after dark like her, all over... not wanting to ever go home.  I longed to be out all night with the Moon, the Stars and... the Meteors.

All rights reserved @ by Fritz Von Ludwigslust

Photo and story written by Fritz Von Ludwigslust.

November 18, 2020

"BLUE-BONNET"

 

  Oh Blue-bonnet !  Probably one of the saddest stories, that I will write about.  Blue-bonnet was another lost, wandering castaway on the island of Manhattan, that came and went like the echoe of a soft whisper in the night.  She was another unknown, yet often seen sight in the early morning hours in the city.  Blue-bonnet was also another mystery, as none of the locals knew her name or where she had come from originally.  She just appeared out of nowhere one day.  She was to the sunlit mornings, what ghosts were to the nocturnal world after dark.  Unlike the dead spirits of the night,  she was a living, breathing ghost that haunted lower Manhattan by day.

  I saw Blue-bonnet throughout the 1990's and into recent years, but only in the morning and only in the Spring and Summer. I never saw her during the Autumn or Winter-time.

  Blue-bonnet always wore a huge over sized bonnet on her head,  with a thick gauze veil over her face, tied down with blue ribbons.  She never actually showed her face, in all the years that I saw her.  She would always walk with her head down and covered with blue veils, like a bee keepers hat.  I remember one of her most unusual accessories...  a small, toxic bouquet of bittersweet nightshade blossoms!   Other times it would be jimson weed with its ugly, thorn apple like seed pods mixed in with the large, trumpet-like white flowers.  She also would hang plastic flowers, odd ornaments and small dolls from her large sombrero-like hat, further obscuring her unseen face.

   Noone ever saw her talk to anyone, nor did anyone ever see her go into a store or a shop.  She would just drift through the side streets like an aimless cloud looking for odds and ends.  Some say that she wandered the streets looking for a lost love, that never really exsisted, which I found incredibly sad.  She appeared to be a gentle, frail soul, who had been severely damaged, and so shut herself out from the often cruel world.

   Blue-bonnet would pick wild flowers and weeds that she found growing in the old lots of former tenement buildings and sprouting out of cracked pavement and asphalt.  Non-toxic ones at times like Dandelions, violets and such.  I always felt a deep pang of sorrow whenever I saw her.  Some of the locals called her Shrinking Violet.   To the best of my knowledge, she was last seen casting toxic, wild flowers onto the Hudson river, on a May day in 2003.  I have never seen Blue-bonnet since then.

Blue-Bonnet ......    last seen Hudson River and Canal St.    Disappeared...... May of 2003

Copyright ©  2014 by FritzvonLudwigslust  All Rights Reserved

"SAL THE STOOP OWL"

 

 Sal, Oh Sal... was one of the many lost street spirits that wandered and lingered in our little micro-world in lower Manhattan.  Sal always wore a wool suit even in the heat of the summer and carried a walking cane and an old weathered briefcase.  He looked like an old office clerk who got lost after work ... like lost for ten years after a binge on skid row.  Just like many of the other actors in this novel no one knew where Sal was born,  where he grew up, or anything about his past life at all before he turned up in the area, to remain for many years before his passing.  It was all just one more typical unanswerable mystery and status quo for the area at that time.

   Sal always had a small coffee to go cup and a cigarette in each hand (pall mall filterless).  He really looked like a little, chubby, dishevelled Screech Owl with his bushy, tufty brows, and huge blinking eyes.  Sal also had a stout round physique and would sleep sitting bent over like a collapsible chair.  He looked and sounded like character actor Eugene Pallette or better yet Eric Blore.  Everyone in the area knew Sal and he became the little mascot and sentinel of our street.  It wasnt long after he appeared that we all grew to love old Sal and his curious but charming habits and ways.  Sal also kept a small suitcase with him on which ever stoop he was roosting at, at that moment.  He kept changes of clothes, old books, newspapers, writing materials and other personal items in it.  I remember seeing Sal at the corner laundromat in only shorts and a t-shirt while washing his wardrobe, which would then be put neatly back into his suitcase.

 Sal refused to go to a shelter even in the harshest winter weather and so we would all take turns letting him sleep in our top hallways in make shift beds, during the coldest nights of the year.  Unlike most of the other character "actors"  in this "blog-book", Sal was always a constant spirit that haunted our street...  he never disappeared only to reappear and then disappear again like Alice, Merlin or Cosmos (from my other book blog "Acting Out") and yet, despite this I knew even less about him than any of the other "ghosts" in my novel here.  Sal could not seem to remember anything about his own parents or even where he had been born or where he had grown up.  He was a charming enigma.  I saw him over the years almost daily, until I had to sublet my apartment to take care of a family member in Niagara.

  Sadly after almost 10 years of living on our block, poor Sal passed away after a brief illness.  I thank the Lord though that Sal left this world in a warm hospital bed, amongst friends.  The neighbors even had a memorial for him.  It just wasn't the same when I returned that Autumn... our little Owl was gone.  Sometimes, late at night especially in the winter, I think I see Sal sitting on someones stairway in the distance but its just an illusion.  Many of the locals in the area still believe that the ghost of our little stoop Owl is always haunting our doorways and the corners of our street at night.

Sal ......   passed on dead of winter 2002    last seen ......on a stoop in lower Manhattan

Copyright  © 2014 by Fritz Von Ludwigslust.  All Rights Reserved.