My Family Legend

I remember late nights of hide-and-go-seek in the dark. The darkness always made it scary, and playing with scary older cousins didn't help any. I usually didn't get to play very long, just until my mom would call me from the porch and say it was too dark. I remember that cousins would sneak around in the shadow of a giant bush, their hands in the shapes of claws, while they whispered in a gruff voice: "I'm Gardner and I'm coming in."

There is a legend behind that infamous quote, but I don't know the story well. It must have happened in the late 50's. My dad had been born, but was not old enough to leave his mother for very long. My aunts and uncles are in Alabama, far from their home in Missouri, at Mawmaw and Papa Freeman's house. I imagine my Great Grandmother (their Mawmaw) rocks slowly in her chair, intently shelling black-eyed peas, her hands stained purple. I imagine my aunts and uncles - five of them - are playing games and teasing each other. Then, through the open door, they see a shadow appear. The room is silent, and Mawmaw looks up from her work, wishing that the men were back from the store. Behind the screen door, the shadow speaks: "I'm Gardner and I'm coming in."

My great aunt Evelyn always insisted that he said, "Hello, I'm Mr. Gardner. May I please come in?" This was just one problem with the family legend. No one could remember what happened. The story I get from my father is that Gardner, or Mr. Gardner, had evidently killed someone, accidentally or otherwise, and had come to use the phone to turn himself in. But the words he used were so perfect, so direct - a simple introduction, followed by a simple statement. Mr. Gardner himself has been lost to history - we don't really know who he was or what he did. But his words have become iconic - the words that will be used for an eternity as a stock phrase of midnight ghost stories: "I'm Gardner and I'm coming in."