TWO – THE BASEMENTLet’s face it, darkness can be scary. Being in the dark can sometimes give you the unnerving feeling that you are being watched. Children everywhere may feel nervous about closets and the “spooky” space under their beds, but while those patches of darkness can be intimidating for some, for me, there was a much creepier place: our basement. Built in the 1930’s, our house in Detroit had an unfinished basement typical of most in the neighborhood, and its basement was dark and cellar-like. When my parents sent any of us kids downstairs on an errand after dark, it was considered a sure death sentence.
Early one day, at the tender age of seven, I accompanied my mother into the basement when it was time to change loads in the washing machine. Although shafts of sunlight glared
