chauncey, froggy, muriel...

Neece and I were watching two little girls while their father picked up their mother from the maternity ward. I was doing my best to keep up with them when the youngest ran off into the yard and started shouting a name. Her older sister told me that she saw her invisible friend Muriel. I didn't see Muriel. My neice has an invisible friend. We don't know his name, but he is a "little colored boy" according to my mother, and he lives downstairs. When I was little, my brother had two invisible friends named Chauncey & Froggy. I couldn't see either of them. I was cool with Chauncey because he had a sophisticated sounding name which grounded him in civil society. I was a little bit scared of Froggy because my uncles used to tell me that if I didn't go to sleep at night, a big frog would come out of the mattress and pull me back in, zipping it closed so no one could find me. The closest thing I had to an invisible friend was an old stinky man who wore overalls and painted himself like a clown. "Mr. Ensley" as I called him would hide in the corner with his head lowered when adults came into the room. At dusk he liked to tickle all my little enemies until they would kick him off. Actually, there never was a "Mr. Ensley". I just made it up today to scare my wife. I was jealous that she had Speed Racer as an imaginary friend. I'm not too scared of Speed Racer because I know him.