out into the light, rubbing my face now and then to get 24
off the tickle of cobwebs. When I got all the crates, I 25
looked around some more to see if there might have been 26
something else of value there.
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It
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Walter Mosley
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The ceiling must have been ten feet from the floor. An-2
niston Bennet was right: it would have made a nice apart-3
ment without all that junk. It was a well-built hole. Dry 4
as a bone and cool year round because it was deep in the 5
rocky earth. I used to think that ghosts lived in that cel-6
lar, that the spirits of my dead ancestors came from out of 7
the graveyard behind my house and played cards or talked 8
all night long in the solitude of that room. I left them 9
Kool-Aid and lemon cookies in the summer. When the 10
food was still there the next day, my father would tell me 11
that the spirits had eaten the ghost food that lives inside 12
the food for the living. He told me that it was like a bless-13
ing and now the food left over had to be buried in the 14
trash like the dead.
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