When I was a child, I thought that every family had a man who lived in their manhole.
Ours, was a regular fixture of our family, like an uncle or an aunt who was always hanging around in the back ground.
I saw him just about as much as I saw my parents, if not more.
My dad and step mum weren’t negligent or anything, they didn’t leave me at home alone on purpose, they were just busy adults who both worked full time and were hardly home.
And I mean it wasn’t like I was actually alone, the man in the manhole was home, too.
It’s hard to pinpoint our very first encounter, I mean how do you determine when you first met someone whose always been there?
As far back as a toddler, I can remember sitting, strapped in my high chair, mum (before she left our family) had left the room after me refusing to swallow the horrible stuff she called stewed pear.
She muttered something about needing to cool off, and stormed out of the room in a huff, slamming the door behind her.
I was silenced by the noise, and I remember staying still and quiet for as long as I could. Until I couldn’t, and then wriggling in discomfort and panic after a time had passed.
I saw him through tears, a blurry version of a man I would later come to find had curly dark hair, unreadable eyes and a 3oclock shadow.
He didn’t speak as he unclipped my belt, and picked me up. He placed me on the ground, and turned to leave but I remember leaning towards him and tugging on his Jeans.
He looked at me for a long moment and even then, my 3 year old brain knew he was wanting to say something.
“She loves herself more than you.”
I didn’t understand what he meant, not back then, but it’s burned into my memory, a moment I cannot forget, no matter how hard I try.
The moment was quicly broken by the sound of my mother returning, she slurred her words coming down the hall, but she wasn’t angry anymore, instead she was singling, happily, merrily.
I glanced towards her voice, and when I went to face the man again, I saw he was gone.
Not long after that, my mother walked out leaving me home alone. No note, no explanation to what she was doing, where she was going.
She was just gone.
It was years before the man in the manhole and I would meet in such a way again. Although I saw him from time to time over the years, always when my dad, and then my dad and step mum when they eventually married, were out.
I would be sitting on the couch, cartoons on, or eating breakfast alone at the kitchen table, doing anything terribly boring and mundane, and down he would climb out of the manhole.
I only know it was called that, because id asked my dad before what room that door was to, pointing up towards the roof, and my dad had given me a strange look before telling me it was called a manhole.
I didn’t ask him anymore questions, his answer had made total sense to my young brain.
Sometimes the man in the manhole would simply ignore me, watching TV in silence, or going on the computer in dad’s office for a long time.
Sometimes he would make me a sandwich, or Mac n cheese with gouda, that was a favorite of mine. We would sit together at the table, eating in silence.
I was 7 the next time we spoke, more weary than most my age, but still innocent enough to believe in monsters under my bed.
I woke up in the middle of the night with the burning need to go to the bathroom.
I hated the hallway, it was long and eery, especially in the dark of night. The toilet was all the way down the other side, and despite the desperate urge to wee, I stood at my bedroom door threshold contemplating the trip, deciding I would make a run for it, as quick as I could.
I was halfway down the hall when I noticed him.
He was walking down the hallway towards the manhole, towards me, a plate with our leftover roast chicken we had at dinner time in his hand.
I smiled at him, but for the first time ever, he seemed angry to see me.
“Children don’t get up at night. Children stay in bed. It’s safer.”
His voice sounded like gravel, and hearing it shocked me so much i stood in spot, mouth agape.
“I’m.. Sorry? I didn’t mean to get up.” I whispered as he continued to stare at me with burning eyes.
“It’s safer to stay in bed.” he whispered back, his voice softer, but he was urging the severity of the sentence, making it creepier as well. I didn’t really understand what he meant, but I was too afraid to ask, instead I glanced down at his plate, and told him that the stuffing was really good tonight. My step mum had tried a new thing with pinenuts and it was the best one yet.
The man in the manhole seemed pleased with this. He smiled and he even let out a little chuckle.
“That’s good to know, thanks. Now, off to bed. It’s safer in bed for children at night. Goodnight, Libby.”
“Goodnight, man in the manhole.”
I saw his kind smile as I closed my eyes, feeling the happiness of knowing I’d finally made a friend.
When I woke up the next morning, it was because our neighbor, Mrs Kenning, was pounding on our door.
Her daughter had gone missing in the middle of the night.
Dad never really went into detail, he just said that someone came and took Delilah as her parents slept.
The kids at school gossiped like crazy of course. Rumors of monsters circulated, making me jump with fright every time something went bump in the night.
For whatever reason, I never told dad, or my step mum about what happened the night when the man in the manhole and I spoke. If didn’t matter what anyone else thought anyway. I knew he had saved me, kept me safe from harm.
I began to sleep a bit easier after I realised that.
If i had been a bit of a loner in primary school, I was a full blown recluse in high school. I sat alone, ate alone. No one bullied me, which I was grateful, but it was if no one noticed me, either.
Like I said before, my dad and step mum were hardly ever home.
I would come home after being ignored all day at school, to an empty home, no loving parents to ask me how my day had been, let alone console me.
But luckily, I had the man in the manhole.
He would listen intently as I described the way I was picked last for the netball team.
How I never got invited to parties that the other kids held.
The man in the manhole never gave me advice, good or bad.
He would just listen in silence.
Staring at me in an intense way that no longer made me uneasy.
When my step mum was killed in a freak accident, some people at my school felt sorry for me. A few girls took me under their wing, inviting me to spend time at their houses, having sleepovers. To them, I was like a project, a piece of furniture that needed to be up cycled and rejuvenated.
The first sleepover was going well. Mandy and I ate takeaway pizza and watched gossip girl. We did our nails and face masks. I could almost imagine what it would be like to have friends, to experience these things, and then I stupidly opened my mouth.
I just got back from the bathroom and I noticed that Mandy’s house didn’t seem to have a manhole. It was weird, because where would her man in the manhole live? It was the first time I’d ever considered that not everyone would, or could, have one. I asked her.
“My what?” she frowned at me, a small confused smile on her face. She stared at me, as if she was waiting for me to let her in on the joke.
I felt my face redden, unable to come up with any plausible explanation for my question.
The next day at school, Mandy told everyone I believed in ghosts, and to add fuel to her already roaring fire, that I had been the one to pull the ladder from under my step mum in a jealous rage.
so not only was I now the apparent evil step daughter of a woman I sneakily murdered, and no doubt abandoned by my real mother, I was also the weirdo who talked to people who weren’t there.
I begged dad to pull me out of school, but he wouldn’t budge.
He told me things would get better. He was lost in his own grief, blaming himself for my step mums death, my own mother’s departure. I listened As he cried, alone in his office.
I wanted to feel sorry for him, but instead I was angry.
He had always put her first and now even in death, I was still a second thought, a hassle.
I felt the hand of The man in the manhole pat my back as I sobbed myself to sleep.
It was the first time he had been around while my dad was home, not that dad would’ve noticed anyway, too caught up in his own grief.
He never spoke to me, just patted my back in comfort until I eventually drifted off to sleep.
When I woke, the house was silent.
I glanced at the clock on my bedside table. It was after 9am.
I could no longer hear dad shuffling around in his office, or his intermittent cries.
I supposed he had gone to work, not worrying to wake me up. With the knowledge that I had the house to myself, I decided to do what I’d always dreamed of but never actually done - skip school and stay home.
I walked around aimlessly for a while, wondering if the man in the manhole would appear to keep me company. I considered going to the manhole myself, something I had never done. He was always just around, I never needed to go to him.
Time passed, the day dragging slowly as I kept waiting for him, or even my dad, to appear.
But neither did.
As the night time darkness engulfed the skies, I couldn’t take it any longer.
I made my way up the hallway, dragging one of our dining chairs to the manhole so I was able to climb up and pull down the stairs.
Realizing it was a room, a home, I. Remembered to knock first and wait, but after a moment no reply came so I pulled down the ladder and made my way inside.
The manhole was dark.
It smelt stale, sort of musky and sour.
The strangest thing, though, was that apart from a few boxes, the manhole was empty.
There was no bed. No sign at all that anyone lived up in here.
I felt sick. Tears stung my eyes, and rolled down my cheeks.
Wondering if the man in the manhole had abondoned me as well, just like everyone else had seemed to.
I dont know how long I stayed in the manhole. I don’t remember much after climbing up there.
Apparently, according to the reports I’ve read since turning 18, I had been up there for quite a time.
A welfare check was called when I hadn’t attended school for a week, and the police had been sent over to see what was going on.
An officer found me, still up in the manhole.
I was sleeping with ripped cardboard boxes on top of me to keep me warm. I hadn’t eaten or drank in days.
They never found dad. He hadnt been to work, or been seen, since just after my step mother’s funeral.
There was rumors dad was the one who pulled the ladder from under her, and the police were also now opening up the case and investigating the disappearance of my mother.
I never saw the man in the manhole again.
Well, not until last night, that is.
I’m grown now. Just moved in with my boyfriend of 9 months.
I never told him about my childhood, just that I grew up in foster care with some great parents, that comimg from the system, I was one of the lucky ones.
So, when I saw the man in the manhole while taking my make up off and getting ready for bed, I was shocked.
But I wasn’t scared.
He didn’t speak to me, he just stared. I smiled at him as I made my way to bed, feeling safer than I had in a long, long time.
I climbed into bed and snuggled my boyfriend, contemplating telling him about this man in the manhole and all he had done for me during my childhood.
But when I awoke the next morning, the spot on the bed next to me was empty, my boyfriend was gone. I hadn’t recalled him telling me he needed to start work early, but it was possible I’d just forgotten.
As I snuggled back under the Doona, I could hear steps above me in the roof, the man in the manhole was here again, and I knew we would be okay, no matter what.