Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade Read Free

back then they were fronted by huge trees that
overhung the street. A lighted Christmas tree was in one house window, and a
candle in another. They calmed my fear at walking through the shadows where
wind and moonlight made weird moving shapes. It was enough to make an
imaginative nine-year-old whistle his way through the dark.
    I turned into the rear gate of Mayfair. Up the slope
loomed the dark outline of the great house set among tall pines that suited its
Bavarian hunting chalet architecture. The house had once belonged to an
American general who had apparently invested heavily in Germany after World War
I. I found the certificates between the walls. I was now familiar with the
great house as I circled to the slender tree next to the balcony.
    The tree actually grew three feet from the balcony,
but as I climbed, my weight bent it over and I disembarked by throwing both
arms over the rail and pulling my legs away from the tree. It snapped back
straight and erect.
    On the balcony I always felt a pang of anxiety: had
someone locked the balcony door? Nobody ever had, so far, although I was
prepared to break the glass and reach inside if it ever became necessary.
Nobody would know who, or why; it might even go unnoticed for days. No need for
that on this night. The door opened as usual.
    The hall was totally dark, again as usual. Immediately
I smelt something I couldn't recognize. It was definite but not overpowering.
I reached for the room door. It opened. I went in.
    The room was pitch black. From memory I crossed the
darkness to my bed in the corner. It was gone. Where was my bed?
    I reached out, feeling for the bed next to mine.
Nothing.
    My heartbeat jumped. I was scared. I went to the door
and flipped the light switch.
    Nothing.
    I felt along the wall. Empty space. Something weird
was going on. I wanted to yell, but that would expose my post-midnight arrival.
With my fingers touching the wall, I moved to the door. Before reaching it, my
shoes crunched on broken glass.
    My heart raced. What was happening? No rational
possibility came to mind. I knew better than magic or the supernatural, but the
idea was inescapable for a moment. Just then, in the blackness, something
brushed against the calf of my leg, triggering instant terror. I jumped up in
the air, came down and tore open the door. I can't remember crossing the hall
to the balcony. In the darkness I climbed on the rail and jumped for the tree.
It was three or four feet out but I got both hands on it and it bent away from
the balcony, pulling my upper body with it. My feet were still on the
balustrade. For a moment I was a human bridge; then my feet came free.
    The limb I held snapped with a loud crack. I fell
through snapping limbs that grabbed and scratched me finally landing flat on my
back.
    Every bit of air was smashed out of my lungs. I knew I
was going to die. I could not breathe. But even while dying, I drew up my legs
and rolled over to rise. I wanted distance from the huge mansion. I wasn't
thinking. I was running on automatic fear.
    When the first tiny breath kicked in, I was limping
across the parking area toward the shrubbery. There was an acre of greenery,
much of it half wild, right here — and I knew every inch of it. I hit the wall
of shrubbery with both hands folded over my face. I ploughed through with the
branches tearing at my clothes and face.
    I veered right, behind the garage, and hit the ground
in a space beneath a giant elm whose branches swept the ground. We had put a
flattened cardboard box in there, as boys do. Exhaustion modified my fear. It
was crazy. I knew there were no ghosts. (Years later, while I was telling this
story, a listener said "I'll bet it was a cat's tail that brushed your
leg." I think he was right. Mrs Bosco had a black kitchen cat that roamed
the house and brushed against legs. What else could it have been? I spent the
night in that space beneath the tree, sometimes shivering with the chill,
sometimes dozing off" for a