A great little hamburger place sat in the middle of the road as the street split in front of it allowing traffic to go around the building. You could smell the hamburgers from all directions which made me hungry every time I went outside. A high school was opposite of the burger joint and the house our apartment was in sat on the other side. I would watch the school kids dart across the street each day just to eat their lunch there. My family and I only visited the restaurant a few times that I can remember. Each time we took the food back home which was only a short five minute walk across the street. That must be why Mom would let me carry the goodies home as long as I put both hands on the bottom of the grease soaked brown paper bag. The aroma of those delights filled my little nose so well I can still smell them. Funny how something you smelled as a youngster so few times can stick with you. The memory of that smell reminds me of the moment I smelled those burgers no where near a brown bag.
All of the houses we lived in while I was a child seemed so big that I thought I could get lost looking for all of the apartments in them. This house was no exception to my fears. Our front door was inside the house, up the stairs and at the end of the hall that ran straight down the side of the house. The hall way would get darker the farther you went. I realize only now that there were no windows in that hallway or a light that you would expect to be glowing from the ceiling. Wood work in the house seemed original and untouched since the house had been built. Our door was the last one on the left and a door way with out a door was at the end of the hall. The woodwork of that doorway outlined the darkness like I have yet to see since then. The pitch black of the area beyond that doorway spiked my curiosity. I asked my Mom one day "What's in that room?" Her reply was short and serious. She said " Nothing and don't go in there either". Needless to say that's like telling someone standing on cliff not to look down especially to me. While we walked the long dark hall once again to our door I noticed something in the forbidden darkness along with a familiar smell. Who had the hamburgers from across the street I wondered? The smell grew stronger as I got closer to our front door. When my Mom stopped walking and turned to put her key into the door I saw what I would forever associate with the smell of a great burger from that restaurant. Not a glow or a bright light I could define as anything I had seen before but outlined in white where the two red eyes from a height as tall as Mom that looked down on me from that doorway. “I see you. Now come see me” was what I heard it say to me as I stood in sheer terror. Getting yelled at by my Mother was worth it as I pushed aside my little sister and Mom’s legs to get to the safety of our brightly lit kitchen. The next time I smelled those hamburgers I was drawn to the darkness again by my curiosity. The lack of eyes or an unfamiliar voice from the dark drew me closer with each tiny step I took behind Mom before she opened the door again to our home. I stepped into the dark to find the smell had just hit me like a rock as my mother called out to me. I saw the railing of a staircase now missing the stairs that led into a darker back room below. I ran back into our kitchen to find my father with a greasy brown paper bag of delicious hamburgers on the table. The restaurant has since gone but the memory and the smell remain.