Ghostbusting, room cleanup style.

I flipped on the light, illuminating a room that was sparse and neat at first glance. I paused for a moment to look around before crossing the cheap landlord-special brown carpet to retrieve the empty Wal-Mart bag on the desk. The crinkle of the plastic reverberated against the bare walls in that buzzy echo that sounds like moving day.

A low-sitting futon style frame supported a made up twin mattress in the corner by the closet. The surfaces of the hand-me-down desk and bureau were bare with the exception of a shoebox that contained a pair of workboots and a grandmotherly side-table lamp.

I sighed and it too echoed against the walls. An iridescent soccer ball. A beat up acoustic guitar in and even more beat up case. Hand-me-down furniture. A bright yellow bookcase held a few books – James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series, Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas, Ripley’s Believe it Or Not 2006, The Zombie Survival Guide, and a handful of trivia books were the only real clue as to whom this room might belong.

This room should have more in it, I thought. It once had. Anger, pain, and sadness had consumed most of an adolescent boy’s possessions.

The barren walls told their own story. Depression had trashed them, staining the paint with a cup of tea thrown in rage. Remnants of a pizza slice that had also gone the way of the tea cup. Blood from a late-lost molar spewed against the closet door and mirror. Gouges. Holes. Singe marks.And the carpet where snake-like indents bore the reminder of string set alight and then dropped when they became to hot to hold.

The walls and carpet would be taken care of next weekend, I thought. Right now, what mattered was how this room had changed. He’s been in treatment for six months and after a few upbeat weekend visits, we tackled his room together.

“Dude.” I said to him mid-Saturday morning. “I’m going to tidy up the house a bit and at noon we are going to start on your room.”His face fell and I could see the memory of pre-treatment attempts to get his room clean play across his face. Yelling. Tears. Door-slamming. An all-day entombment in chaos.

“Don’t worry, dude. Here’s the deal. I’m going to help. We’ll start at noon, and we’ll be done at two. What we get done is what we get done. It’s not going to be an all-day thing.”

“You’re going to help?”“Yep.” I confirmed. “That’s too much for anyone to handle alone. So…about a half-hour more of your game, and then we start. Kay?”

“Kay.”And start we did.We moved furniture. We broke down what wasn’t serviceable anymore and threw it away. He held the dustpan while I swept the under-bed detritus into the trashcan.

Together we, squeamishly pried what might have been a half-eaten apple up off the carpet.

Together, we negotiated the placement of the furniture that went back into his room. He vacuumed. I Febreezed.

Then, we celebrated the completion of the project 15 minutes ahead of schedule.A different outlook in less than two hours. That was my secret goal and I hoped that it would catch on.

Over a late Chinese Buffet lunch, I remarked. “Dude, your room has a completely different orientation now. “Just like my head” he said, not skipping a beat. Not slow on the up-take, this one.

Next weekend, we’ll spackle and paint to remove the last remaining ghosts of who he was before treatment from his walls. (He’s already called dibs on the spackling job.) Hopefully by the time he comes home next weekend, I will have completed a cotton rug to give a new face to the melt-scarred carpet.

Then, we’ll work on the rest of the décor