The Banker - Classic

A tisket, a tasket. I trapped him in the basket. He begged for me to set him free. But I knew he would come for me. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. You listen to spooked, steady, true. As a young child, I felt that my parents, my mother and my father, I felt they loved me very much. I did, truly. It was just the they and those people from their church, they were fighting something titanic. Something urgent, demonic. Because their apostle, Herbert W. Armstrong, preached that this was the end of days. And they had to meet with each other. Had to pray, to fast, to study their Bibles, to listen to cassette tapes from the headquarters church in Pasadena, California. And run the farm. Farms, even failing farms like ours, do not run themselves. So they worked and they worked and they worked from sun up to far past sun down. Every night, with the exhaustion, I heard the fear, the terror behind my father's good night apologies. Don't worry, he promised. The king of God will be here soon. Then we'll have all eternity to play ball and go swimming and climb trees. I told him it was okay. But I didn't mind. And it was true, I didn't mind. Even as he asked forgiveness for not having the time to spend on me, I just want to be alone. I liked being alone because I never felt alone. I saw them mostly out of the corner of my eye. The shadows, the shapes and figures darting in and out of sight. Sometimes they would even make themselves plain. Women, men, my grandmother, even a baby once. Other stuff. I knew this was my secret then. My mother and father would holler and weep and call for a pastor if I told them who really kept me company. They would say I can sort it with the very demons they fought every single day through their prayers and their fasting. I would call the pastor for an exorcism to cast them all away and I couldn't have that. I wouldn't. So I kept my world hidden. Never breathed a word about who I really spent my time with. And that's why when the darting shadows shrank from, I learned of a new force in my periphery. Something that chased the laughter and the light. Something that radiated an evil I had never encountered before. Something that for the very first time scared me. Scared me. I realized that I had kept my secrets too well. My name is Konwashington. Spook starts now. I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. The people that my parents bought from lived there for about 50 years, so it just got in disrepair. Often you pull a pack of the wallpaper and you see an old article from the Eastern European Gazette that we'd never heard of as kids. We just thought the words looked funny and, you know, picked it off the wall. When the family moved in, Antonio was only three and Anita was a newborn, so their parents decided that all four of them should share a bedroom. Anita and her crib and Antonio in a bed against the wall. I'm five or six years old and one night in my bed, I decide to look to my doorway and there's a man standing in the doorway who I couldn't really tell who it was, beckoning me to follow. I want to know who it is, but then in the exact same breath, I don't want to know who it is. I get up out of the bed, I start walking, I can only see just the shape of the person and just haze beyond. And as I get to where I think I'm going to interact with this figure, the haze turns to darkness. I then realize that I'm standing on the floor of furnace, the great searing through my feet and my parents find me screaming. My parents just look at me bewildered wondering, why did you do that? And I didn't really know. I couldn't know. It was just kind of gobsmacked thinking, well, what, who was I following? The whole family was shaken after Antonio's injury, especially after he told them that he'd been following someone. But no one had been in the house. There was no intruder. So Antonio's parents dropped it, then life went on. And as the children grew older, it no longer made sense for everyone to sleep in the same bedroom. So it is summer and some neighborhood kids, friends of the family, family members, our cousins. We're all playing in this very large room in the house. And my grandmother was looking after us. But I keep looking up into the corner and I keep seeing this man standing there and he's staring at us. He has dark black hair. It's looked back. He's wearing a suit, which is strange because it's in the middle of the summer. He's standing very straight with his arms alongside his body. And he's not moving. He's standing in this corner and he's staring at us and staring at me. Nobody else seems to think there's anything wrong happening. They don't feel creeped out in the same way that I feel creeped out. And he doesn't look like anyone I know. He doesn't look like any of my relatives. And I keep looking over at my grandmother. She's not reacting to him. And I say, grandma, who's that man? He's standing in the corner. And she says, want man in the corner? And I said, that man who's just standing there staring at us. She quietly gathers up all of the little kids and gets us out of the room. That was the first time I experienced seeing the banker. Look, I don't know about you. I like keeping my money where I can see it. Unfortunately, traditional big wireless carriers like keeping my money as well. And finally, you can stop overpaying for wireless just because that's how it's always been. With Mint Mobile. Premium wireless plans starting at 15 bucks a month. Best thing. You can use your own phone and own number. Activate with the eSIM in minutes and start saving immediately. No long-term contracts, no hassle. Ditch. Overpriced wireless. And get three months of premium wireless service from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month if you like your money. Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at mintmobile.com slash spook. That's mintmobile.com slash spook. Upfront payment of $45 for a three month 5 gigabyte plan required. Quivulent to $15 a month. New customer offer for the first three months only. And full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. What Anita and Antonio didn't know at the time was that back in the 1920s a wealthy banker had built the house as a love letter to his wife. He chose the finest furnishings imported wallpaper from France. In the backyard fruit trees blossomed over a koi pond. And for many years everything was beautiful. But when the banker and his wife died they left no children to maintain the home. Anita and Antonio and their parents moved into a house that had fallen into decay. After Anita saw him she and her grandma knew someone was lingering in the house. But they didn't talk about it. No one in the family did. And Anita thinks she knows why. The Mexican side of the family is I feel in touch with the spiritual world. And it's fairly normal to speak to your ancestors and for sometimes for them to speak back to you. And that's a very positive thing you know. But if it's a stranger, if it's someone not in your family then it's less clear what to do about it. Only a year or so later Antonio's dad was out of town on business. Antonio was getting ready for bed. I was about ten years old and I feel a presence near the bed. And I think well maybe it's one of my parents. Maybe my dad's come home and just wants to see that I'm sleeping restfully. But as I look towards the foot of my bed there's nobody standing there. I look towards the door there's a figure just standing not speaking. And I think not to speak because hey it's my dad maybe I should fake that I'm asleep. And I think I'm going to rotate to the side and fall myself to sleep. In the morning when I asked my mother hey what time did dad get home? She looks at me what do you mean? I said yeah what time did he get home? He was there checking on me. Her face loses a bit of color. No, Antonio he's still in Kennedy, Texas. Her eyes water a bit. She kind of shakes her head and walks off knowing what we never really wanted to talk about that the spirit visited again. But about a week later Antonio's mom brought the subject up herself out of nowhere. She says he's been here before. My sister's there we're in the kitchen we're looking at my mom what do you mean? And my mom says when you and your little you'd ask me about a man you'd see in the hall. Last week that was him. And so my sister asked what do you mean mom who is him? Well we don't really know his name but it's the banker. For the first time she's verifying something that I knew all along we now have a name for the person that is visited. So then she relays the story to us that one night probably when I was about four or five she's reading a book I'm dozing off she decides to lay down next to me and she and does is off all of a sudden she feels pressure. She tries to awake and there's somebody putting pressure on her shoulders but she can't see anybody and she feels a presence she said she felt the presence of a man and as she tries to call out she feels pressure of a hand on her face almost to the point of suffocation. And the only thing that releases suffocation is my little child eyes awaken and looking over and then the pressure released as she gasped for air and apparently I asked what was wrong and she played it off like nothing happened. We're like well you know hey mom why are you telling us this now and secondly why haven't you done anything about it is it going to attack me because I don't know how you fight this thing. I think Ghostbusters has probably been around at that point so we wanted her to strap on a proto pack and go take him out. My dad arrives back at the house my sister and I confront him and we want to know what mom said is true he looks over at my mom and my mom kind of just motions to him they know about him. My dad who is a deacon in the church he says okay he seems to be like he's disturbed that we now know something that they've tried to protect us from. And my dad looks over at my mother and he says well what we're going to do is something very simple bless the house. So we all proceed through the house ceremoniously we go to the front door. He came in with this golden bucket that has sort of a scepter looking thing that's in it and it's full of holy water and it has a wand at the end and he would pull this wand out of the bucket and start flinging the wand into the different corners of the room and praying. And then he does sign of the cross turns around we're now in the living room blesses the top of the door walks through each room blesses the top of the door and as he proceeds to my room he says this is where we'll end. I was nervous and I was uncomfortable but it did feel a little comfort like they knew what they were doing. And he gets a small book and we look because it's not the Bible and it's a book that has the word writes on it. And he starts murmuring some prayer that my sister and I don't understand part of it's in Latin so he blesses the door that I've seen the man over and over and over. He just looks at us it should be good now we're done. But then you kind of think well he has this book he knows about this so he's probably done this before so how long does it last how much time do we have. So there's one night I'm now 11 years old and as I'm drifting off to sleep I get a sense that somebody walks into my room. So I really weakly call up mom dad who was over there and nobody answers. So all the hair stands up on my back and I can just see in the moonlight somebody standing no less than three to four inches from my face in an old tweed suit with the little pocket for the stopwatch. I immediately think to myself dad didn't fix it. I look up and as right as I'm about to get to the face and it as this hand came and covered my eyes not touching me but just where you can feel the electricity if you will of somebody right next to your face your eyelashes almost just brushing the hand. It's just letting me know I'm not leaving you try any ceremony you want this is my house. And I'm petrified so I move my head and it tracks with my head movement but I can't see directly in front of me and I don't want to push my head forward I don't want to touch it I know what we're going to do we're going to turn on the lights I'm going to see whoever this is and when the moment I made that decision the darkness cleared and it was back to just dark room not pitch black so I leap to my feet I walk as quickly as I can the ten feet to my light switch and I don't want to look back I don't want to look back I want to hip that switch and so I go and I flip the switch and I turn around and at the same time I go gotcha the damn light bulb bust like oh my god so I carefully plot my next plan I'm going to go into the hallway and this time I'm going to turn at the same time I flip the switch so I go to the hallway I very slowly turn I've got my hand on the switch and I'm ready to just say gotcha I hit the switch and then you hear that and so I get to my sister's room about four feet further down the hall I reached into a room and go to flip the light switch it had already bursted it wouldn't even turn on I sat next to her her bed and just slept sitting there that is how my parents found me it was clear now their dad's prayers and holy water hadn't worked at all I wanted to ask my dad many times why didn't it work why didn't it just fix the problem but I felt a certain amount of guilt like well maybe it's because if I only believed as much as my dad it would work eventually Anita and Antonio moved out of the house they went to college started their own lives but their parents still live there and now that they were empty nesters they started using Antonio's old bedroom as a TV lounge and so my mom would often go in there to watch shows she likes the novellas and movies and so when I came home I said why don't we create a nice space for you here the wallpapers falling down the carpet's pretty gross it's not in a good shape so we decided to renovate my brother's room and moved all the furniture out of the room tore off all the wallpaper tore up all the carpeting whitewashed everything we moved everything back in and you know my mother really really loved it I did stutter a little bit thinking of myself well what if they change something that's not supposed to be changed what if they move something that doesn't want to be moved well what if you hmm nah I better not it's probably for the best and if if it happens at least I don't live there anymore but only six months later ten days before Christmas we were getting ready to come home we're making our flight plans and we get a call and my mom says you need to turn on the news the whole house is on fire she's distraught and when I turn it on there's somebody standing in front of our house that I grew up in saying ten days before Christmas family tragedy and I'm in disbelief because there's two fire trucks like you would see in a movie with the flames shooting out the top of our house like a bomb was dropped when the fire started the parents were asleep after the smoke woke them up they got out just in time to watch their house burn we lay there on talk to the fire inspector and he goes man this is something I don't normally see so my dad and I ask him well what what do you mean he says well this is an electrical fire okay so why is that unusual well because of this and he pushes away a bit of debris and we look on the wall and there's a wall plug an outlet which is in perfect clear non-burnt shape he says well this is the origin and all the memories flood back the origin of where my feet were burned the origin of where the second light bulb burst the origin of where I always saw him the the man the banker that was the room that was the precious room and we literally ripped everything out of it and I think it was the final straw my parents would never come out and say that the ghost started the fire but we know it had to have been the ghost there's no way it was someone else for Anita it felt like the worst possible ending to her family's struggle with the banker I think we all lost the banker loved that house and now they don't even get that house anymore so everyone loses I'm thinking to myself well hey there's the spirits probably gone and so maybe this fire was the opportunity to cleanse the spirit from the earth plane to wherever they're going and then I asked where are you gonna go mom where you go dad are you gonna go somewhere else you have the opportunity to move anywhere you want in the city and they say no we're gonna rebuild and since you're an architect we want you to do it I think to myself wow that would be great but also scared but what if we bring it back visiting my home after the fire walking to the house to see what we can salvage and I look up to the sky a leaf from the tree hits me in the face and I think to myself what if I built and designed a house that's open to the sky and so that then became the design idea for the new house a courtyard house one that you would see in Mexico it has an open air courtyard to simultaneously honor but also not allow the spirits to be in there anymore I had the opportunity to create and put the position of the bedrooms far away from any experience that my sister and I had with regard to any sightings any spirit I designed it such that that room will never be enclosed ever to try to give poetic release and spiritual release to whoever's there and say hey you know this is still your space but we are gonna occupy the rest of it what I thought about when I entered that courtyard for the first time is this is the truth if this is can't be my parents house it can't be yours house either and so that courtyard to me was an offering an olive branch say look nobody's gonna have this is gonna be no man's land come and go as you please just leave my parents alone I do honestly feel that the banker has moved on I don't sense him anymore it does seem like it worked but I still have dreams about that room wake it up in my room with the door open halfway cracked and there's somebody there Antonio and Anita we are so glad your family is safe and so glad you shared your story with us at spooked original score for that piece was by Renzo Gourio was produced by Anne Ford oh spooksters did you ever move an object with your mind see someone or something passed through a brick wall feel desperate eyes searching for you in the dark experiences you can't tell anyone about well tell me I want to know spooked at snap judgment.org because there is nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener spooked at snap judgment.org show the dark side you spook with some spook gear the t-shirt of your dreams available right now at snap judgment.org and remember if you like storytelling that will never leave you afraid get the amazing stupendous snap judgment podcast story telling with a beat spook was created by the team that trust everyone at some point to do the right thing except for Mark Ristich there's an assessment our chief spooksters Eliza Smith Chris Handrick Annie Newen Laura Newsom Leon Morimoto Davy Kim Renzo Gourio tailed the cop Marissa Dodd Zoe Farino Tiffany DeLisa Anne Ford Doug Stewart and Isaiah Sims spook theme song it's by Pat machine Miller my name is from Washington and we like to think that in our darkest moments the times of fear of horror there will always be someone else there to share the burden to carry the load of parents a friend a relative a spouse let me tell you and no uncertain terms that on this thought path you walk alone and you need to enlist every tool every trick every favor at your disposal to make this journey no one else can do it for you which is why I advise and no uncertain terms to never ever never ever never ever never ever turn out the last