George

          Having an imaginary friend is a rite of childhood. These friends can exist in whatever form, in whatever color, in whatever texture their creators devise. In the movie Inside Out, Riley’s imaginary pal is Bing Bong, a pink elephant made out of cotton candy with a cat’s tail and yellow and red striped legs. He could run on the ceiling, play his trunk like a horn, and drive a rocket powered by song. Needless to say, as an imaginary friend goes, Bing Bong is pretty cool.

          My imaginary friend came to me when I was four. Mama tells the story this way: We were on a three-hour tour to Elizabeth City to visit my grandparents, and I was sitting in the backseat with my books and stuffed animals. Mama had just finished reading a story to me, and she tossed it over her shoulder onto the backseat. I responded by saying, “Mama, don’t do that! You hit George!”, thus startling her so much that she spun around to study the backseat. The urgency in my young voice was so convincing, she believed a stranger named George had somehow or other gotten into our car without her knowing it. What she saw, of course, was an empty seat.

          “Who?” she asked.

          “George. He’s my friend.” And that was that. George had arrived just in time for a trip to Grandma’s, and that meant he was a permanent member of the family.

          As to George’s true form, he was a ghost. (For a highly imaginative child, I did not have the most imaginative imaginary friend.) The exact details surrounding his arrival have faded with time, although I believe he was born out of a childhood fear that was created out of my wild imagination, and which I still believe to be true to this day:

          Beneath my bed lurked vicious little trolls that looked like miniature dwarves but had incredibly sharp teeth. Every night, these little men would crawl out from beneath my bed to eat my toes. The only way to protect my toes from said cannibals was to wear armor, aka socks. As long as my feet did not hang over the side of the bed, my toes were safe, and despite the sharpness of their teeth (think Ginsu knives here), they could not penetrate my socks.

          I believe George arrived somewhere around the birth of this fear to act as my guardian against such monsters. He must have done a fantastic job of keeping them away, for I still have all ten of my toes. (But just for the record, I wear socks every night to bed even now, and my feet never hang over the side. I mean, have you looked under your bed recently? The nightmares that await there disguised as dust bunnies should keep you awake for long hours, especially if you sleep sockless.)

          George was and has been a steady companion throughout my life. Unlike Bing Bong and most other imaginary friends, mine has never left. I suppose this has to do with the fact that he is a ghost and not really some manifestation of my imagination. Evidence to his existence has been proven over and over again, and not just to my eyes and ears, but to my family’s as well. It’s always fun when he “shows” himself and not the least bit intimidating because, well, it’s George. I have had unexplainable things happen to and around me that were not of George’s making, and those are the creepy moments. The fact that there is a difference to me just cements the fact that he is a real entity. Examples of his presence include perfectly stable dishes being knocked to the floor (he really favors plastic cups, thank goodness!), doors shutting on their own (with zero drafts of wind), and my personal favorite—the piano at Mama’s house being tinkled with. I happened to be alone in the house when this episode occurred. I was in the kitchen getting a glass of tea when I heard the higher keys of the piano being played in that “ooh, the boogeyman’s gonna get you” way that always happens in movies. I put my glass down, stepped into the next room, looked at the empty piano bench, checked the driveway for cars (zero), peeked into a couple of other rooms (empty), and returned to the kitchen, whereby the piano keys tinkled again.

          “George, you better leave Mama’s piano alone, or I’m telling!”

          Silenced reigned after that.

          George has traveled the map with me, and today he floats between my house and my parents’. Unlike Riley, I have been unable (or perhaps unwilling) to send George to the dark corridors of my memory. Of course, it may be that it’s because he’s a ghost rather than an actual imaginary friend, and, therefore, I have no control over what he does or doesn’t do. Still, I like to think he was drawn to me because of my imaginative prowess and because I believe in ghosts. It’s also good that he hung around to protect my son’s toes from the vicious little men (they exist!) because my son sleeps sockless. (My husband’s toes are funky and, therefore, safe. Even little troll monsters have their limits.) As for George, he has fulfilled many roles over the years–guardian, friend, mischief maker–and our family would never have been complete without him.