Abandoned House

When Al ask me to come down to the Mission Mine and conduct asbestos inspections on three abandoned homes located on the mine’s property I was more than happy to do so, it would mean a day out of the office. I borrowed a company Chevy Blazer number 116, the best of three vehicles in our department. Stained brown by years of use at the Ray mine, with a weak transmission and rough shocks 116 was really the best of three junkers. I could have driven my own car but 116 had air conditioning and an even better a radio, besides, I was on company business and felt no desire to go through the travel reimbursement process this time.
Once at Mission Mine Al took me to the first two houses. As I conducted the inspections Al explained that the homes used to be rented out to employees. Over the years the employees had not really cared for the housed very well and the company, going through financial difficulties, had no desire to maintain them. The reason for the inspections was so that the company could tear them down, the homes had become too much of a headache for the general manager at Mission. “Plus,” Al informed me, “the last house we are going to was robbed and the renter brutally killed.” He went on to explain that the house’s remote location made the crime easy to commit since no one was around to notice or hear what was going on.
“Do you mind doing the inspection on a house where someone was killed?” Al asked.
At least he had the decency to ask. I didn’t think it would bother me. Death is a part of life after all. This death had just been premature, that’s all.
The road to the house ran past abandoned farming fields. The mine had bought the farm in order to obtain the water rights that went with it. The precious water had once run through the now forgotten irrigation ditches. These had been excellent ditches for a farm. Not earthen ditches, the once carefully laid cement was now cracked and mesquite trees grew up through holes that would never be repaired.
As we approached the home it became obvious that this was once a very proud farmhouse. The hay barn, three dry rotted wooden walls and a corrugated tin roof that was now rusting, was stuffed full of broken and also rusting cars. The stable, again a three sided building, was in better repair; but, the horse manure had not been shoveled out for years and made the building look shorter because the pile came up so high. The yard was once full of green grass and still held a rotting garden hose and sprinkler in the middle.
The house itself was magnificent. The Spanish tile on the roof was in good repair. Al ushered me in through the garage and into the kitchen. My first shock was to find that the house still seemed occupied. There were some dirty dishes on the counter and a mouse or a packrat had pushed the newspapers left on the counter onto the floor to more easily carry them off to it’s home.
A mug on the counter that was shaped like a women’s breast and indeed had a spout from the teat gave Al and I a brief moment of embarrassed laughter. The mug combined with a poster of a swimsuit model gave Al an opportunity to talk about the former occupant’s life. He worked with Al at the mine. Not a close friend but a good acquaintance. Al spoke of the man’s midlife crisis and how he had gone from being a family man to being consumed with living for the moment. His crisis led to divorce and eventually the man became very superficial.
As we toured the house I couldn’t help but be envious of it. There was a high vaulted ceiling with thick wood support beams, a large flagstone fireplace in the living room, three very large bedrooms including the master bedroom with it’s spacious bathroom. The house was U shaped with the western leg of the “U” going out about twice as far as the eastern. The “U” surrounded a covered patio that was completely tiled with white and blue Mexican tile. There was a back wall that completed the courtyard and truly gave the yard a very regal feeling, making me feel as though I had stepped into the nineteenth century and this house was under the rule of Spain.
I was there on business so I knocked some of my own holes in the walls with the reassurance from Al that nothing I could do during my home inspection would matter. The home was too be torn down by the Mine in a desire to eliminate the liability of renting to anyone in such a remote location. Still, knocking new holes in the walls seemed a sin against such a lovely home. There was so much potential with both the home and the yard.
The grandeur of the home was a stark contrast to how the man had occupied it. His superficial attitude carried over into the home’s upkeep. It was obvious that the carpets had never been cleaned. The state of the yard, and the disrepair of the items in the home: cabinet doors missing, holes in some of the walls, and cobwebs that would take years to form, were obvious signs that this man did not appreciate what he had.
The murder had happened sometime in the night. A man from South Tucson was found driving the man’s pickup truck in Los Angeles. He hadn’t even tried to get rid of the truck; he just assumed that he could drive it indefinitely without getting caught. During my tour of the house the dirt stains of the carpet were secondary to the holes that the police had cut into the carpet. Al showed me where they had found him. My disgust for the way the man had kept the house gave way to pity. Not even the most superficial man in the world deserves the fate this man suffered. That pity reminded me of every man’s greatness. We are all children of one God. God certainly doesn’t want us doing what these two men had done.
As we left the house we passed the mug in the kitchen and gave it one more embarrassed laugh. We were both trying to keep the thoughts of the evil carried out in the house as far from the surface as possible. As I left I couldn’t shrug off the sorrow. He had isolated himself from the things in the world that bring lasting happiness and thereby destroyed his family, and then he died.
I tried to avoid the dust that Al’s car kicked up on the return trip away from the farm. I turned the radio on to listen to the next topic of discussion on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, in an effort to turn my mind from a house that had been abandoned first by a family and last by the spirit of a man. Then I concluded that this man had lost his life long before it was taken and I had to turn the radio up louder to try to cover the deeper sorrow I felt for that.
I suppose that a house becomes haunted whenever the thoughts about the house become haunting. I have since tried not to think about this poor man. I would not say that his house was haunted, indeed, I would still be happy to live there. The way he died was gruesome, the way he lived, that is the most haunting part of his life in the end.