1984.—Ghosts are not what I remember of my childhood; but somehow they 

infuse memories of myself as a child, the little girl in a storybook, with 

ghosts hovering around her. The reason is, I intermingle my childhood with 

the ghost stories my grandfather recounted to me countless times, stories 

which he uttered seriously but with the practiced adeptness of a storyteller 

who regards each tale as purposeful, serious, not to be held lightly.

Years ago, after I had urged him to tell me a ghost story, he said, in a 

somber tone, looking away from me, “It is not good to talk too much about 

ghosts,” then he resumed eating a slice of water pear.

Disappointed, I decided to ask a practical question, for we were sitting 

in the kitchen, in which place he liked to talk and in which place he was 

The Storyteller: one had only to say, “Abuelo, tell us about construction days”—

a favorite topic with him—and one was guaranteed two hours, at least, of 

stories, some of which he ended by saying, “This is true, you know. True, true.”

I said, “What’s the best way to beat an evil spirit?”

“Suppose you see an evil spirit,” he said, “singing a song, or you hear him 

beating a drum, or you hear him walking, you can scare him away.” I asked him 

what he meant and he explained that one had to throw a fireball—a sort of 

firecracker—in the spirit’s path. The spirit would vanish. “Not prayers at all 

times drives the evil spirit. You have to know the enterity of a spirit—especially 

when it’s guarding a fortune.”

“Enterity?” I had never heard the word, but he seemed unwilling to explain further 

except to nod and say, “Yes.”

“When they’re guarding a fortune, it’s more difficult. Some spirits drink a lot 

of liquor. Some don’t drink at all. The spirits that drink you can move away....” 

He then paused, coughed, displaying a serene countenance of satisfaction, then added, 

“You can make him talk to you—get him to tell you who sent him.”

I then asked him whether he had met any ghosts in Panama, face to face. He answered, 

quite casually, that he had met with several, one of which held him in a vise until 

a woman in a pale gown intervened by restraining the First Ghost.

“Who was the woman-ghost?” I said.

He said, “Her name was Encarnacion Escobar.—A woman I knew 

before I met your grandmother.”—He sighed. “Well, that woman loved me, 

and she died. And one night I was at a certain place and a voice said, 

‘Luke More, come and kiss me,’ and I said, ‘All right,’ and I crossed over and kissed her.”

He sighed deeply. “And that was Encarnacion—the same woman that saved me. 

That was a good woman."

--from chapter I of PORRIDGE & CUCU: MY CHILDHOOD