The Cricket’s Soiree

It was just after dinner on a warm late spring evening in Newfane, a small town in the far reaches of western New York State. It was the late 1960’s, and I had turned seven a few months before, just finishing the second grade.

Lazy clouds were floating across a blue sky, and the glow of long rays of the sun put a gauzy filter on the lush green leaves and grass. Too early in the early evening for the mosquitoes to take over, the neighborhood kids were all in our backyard playing one of my favorite games, spud.

The ball was tossed high into the air, and after scattering in all directions, my next-door neighbor Bobby Goodlander caught it and yelled “spud,” freezing us all in mid-step. He took three giant steps in my direction and flung the ball, just missing my shoulder as I ducked out of the way.

The ball scooted across the yard and was stopped at the edge by Sam Glenn. Sam was older, in the fifth grade, and was kind of the neighborhood enigma. She usually kept to herself and rarely played in our games. She seemed to always speak in riddles and asked uncomfortable questions, usually about things left to adults.

Sam picked up the ball and walked over to us. Everyone came near since it was rare to hear from her.

She dropped the ball, paused dramatically, and said, “To speak to the dead we need a séance. Who will speak to the dead with me?”

No one said anything but we all stared at her. She had a small shoulder bag and pulled out a candle, three sticks of incense, and a box of stick matches.

Bobby’s father was the town Funeral Director and he felt compelled to say, “You can’t talk to dead people. My Dad has never heard a dead person say anything.”

Sam slowly blinked her eyes several times but didn’t say anything for what seemed like an eternity. She stooped her shoulders and looked deeply from one face to another in the circle we made around her. When she got to me, she abruptly straightened up and thrust a stick of incense into my hand, and passed out the rest of the incense and the candle.

Looking from face to face, she quickly blurted without stopping for a breath, “Who’ll light the matches? Who’ll hold the candle? Who’ll light the incense? A séance is fun. A dog will be easier than a person. We can try talking to Dash. He got run over last fall. Let’s go out to the field across the street. Come on!”

Without looking back she headed toward the field.

None of us were allowed to play with matches and Sam was older so everyone followed her out deep into the field across from my house. Nobody knew what a séance was, but she sure made it sound fun. Everyone sat on the ground in a circle. We each got to light a match and helped get the incense burning.

“If Dash is to hear us, we all have to hold hands and be perfectly quiet,” Sam exclaimed.

Too young to care about holding hands, we clasped each other, and no one said a word. It was a very calm still night without a breath of wind. Only the steady sing-song chirping of the crickets could be heard.

Sam pulled a tie-dyed purple colored bandana out of her bag and wrapped it around her head. In a husky voice, she then began to chant.

“Dash, grrr, Dash, bark, Dash grrr, Dash howl, Dash, Dash, Dash,” Sam wailed, alternating barking and howling sounds between each time she said the dog’s name.

She chanted in this way for a few minutes, then abruptly stopped. In the silence, she lit the candle. Once again, we heard the field of crickets singing away, even louder than before as it got closer to dusk.

Using a lower, softer voice, Sam began chanting Dash’s name again, and an eerie feeling began to set in. The hair on the back of my neck felt like it was standing on end. After a few minutes, she stopped chanting and raised her head to the sky with her eyes closed. The trilling sound of the crickets singing seemed to grow louder in the silence.

Without warning, Sam opened her eyes and whispered, “Oh great spirit, show us a sign that Dash is here.”

At that precise moment, all the loud cricket chirping suddenly stopped.  There was total silence as a deathly hush settled over the field. Not a peep or a sound could be heard.

For several seconds, we stared at each other with a look of terror in our eyes. Then out of nowhere, a strong gust of wind rustled the leaves on the nearby trees, and the moment was interrupted by a screen door slamming about a block away.

We all started screaming at once. I jumped to my feet and sprinted out of the field as fast as my feet would take me. I didn’t stop running until I got inside our house. I slammed and locked the door. Panting, I leaned my back against it as if I was trying to keep an intruder from entering.

My older sister Kathy was across the room with her nose in a Monkees magazine. She was in high school and barely tolerated me as her youngest brother.

“What’s got into you?” she asked, without looking up in her typical annoying teenage manner.

Panting heavily, I explained about the séance between gasps for air, sharing how the crickets stopped chirping and a gust of wind swept through the field when Sam asked for a sign from the dead.

“Sure squirt and a UFO landed in the field too,” she said with a sarcastic, mocking laugh.

Without looking up from her magazine, she walked over to the nearest open window and lowered her ear toward it.

“Are the crickets I hear chirping through the window different from your crickets? Maybe what I’m hearing is just a cricket recording or something, huh?” she smirked.

With a wave of her hand, she dismissed me and sat back down with her eyes still glued to Davy Jones’ picture in the magazine.

I found my Mom upstairs doing laundry and told her about the séance. Ignoring my agitation, she listened without comment to the whole story while she focused on folding clothes (a family of seven makes a ton of laundry).

When I finished telling her, she continued folding the clothes and said, “That’s fine son, now time to get ready for bed.”

As I brushed my teeth, I tried to tell my other brothers about Dash, the crickets, and the gust of wind, but no one seemed to care. I was convinced there was nothing that could have made that field go eerily quiet like that. I was so spooked I kept a flashlight on under the covers all night.

None of us kids in that circle ever mentioned what happened that night, and Sam moved away soon thereafter.

Of all the cloudy memories from my early years, I remember this one incident vividly.

It was the first of many reminders in my life that the world doesn’t always seem as it appears. There are things that happen that are hard to explain and even harder to sometimes believe. Even if you’re the one who experiences them.

No one in my family ever believed my story.