Sunday, October 30, 2011

Ghost In This House

I am being lazy and using a "trick" that many a-blogger before me have used:  recycling old stories to fill a post. This is not my norm, nor will it be. This is not really a lazy thing, just one of my better post things. 


We get no trick or treaters and we don't go to costume parties, so this is my one Halloween story - even though i t was not on Halloween. It was first posted in 2007. 


I also drafted a different, but similar, post for Becky's blog back in 2008.  You can read that here.  It looks like she's kind of / sort of, back to blogging. 





I feel like I might have posted about this in the past - but the story has been told so many times, I cannot remember if I committed it to blog-form. ...and I'm too lazy to look through the archives.

Someone asked me not too long ago if I believed in angels. I do not. But I responded that I do believe in ghosts.

Years ago (fuck almost two decades ago!), I was living in a hip upcoming area in Columbus. The building had two apartments - the other inhabited by frequent blog mentions: Morty and Ditto. We had a great friendship (well, we still do) and a sweet arrangement. I've said here before - the doors weren't always locked upstairs and we just kind of came and went into each other's pads as needed, but always respecting each other's privacy. At least usually.

...and yes, many of the days we were prone to drink. It's not like we were always shitfaced (oooh....I'm so back at 22 years of age when I could say things like that), mainly because we could hold our liquor, since our tolerances were so high.

One night hanging at their place - and to be honest, the only person I remember being there was Ditto. I know there was someone else, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it was Slusser (that bastard owes me $20!).

The room was set up that there was a couch and two chairs in the living room. We were not living large. As we were sitting around knocking them back and yakking - all of the sudden, Dith asked me if I was ok, as I had stopped in mid-sentence.....and let's face it, it takes a lot to shut me up sometimes.

But I wasn't alright. I wasn't in distress either....just a bit shocked. As I live and breathe, I saw someone walk right behind the couch where Dith was sitting. It was brief, but as real as real can be (yes, say like Ed Grimley if you must). He was tall, had dark hair and wore yellow button down shirt. It should be noted that the only form of egress was on the other side of the apartment. No one could have sneaked in.

I told the guys what I had seen, and from my tone they knew I wasn't joking (again, which I'm prone to do). It pretty much ruled the conversation the rest of the night.

Though I'm sure I told Jon, it made it no less surprising a few weeks later when he rang the doorbell and I had to trudge down the big flight of stairs to open the door. He asked why I had ignored him when he came to the door and I was at the top of the stairs a few minutes ago - and why had I changed my shirt.

Well, I had not been at the top of the stairs - as I'm sure I had music blasting and probably singing at the top of my lungs, which yes, I am prone to do. But I also had not changed any article of clothing. And Morty and Dith were not at home - just me in the building.

What Jon went on to describe is exactly the same guy I saw in apparition behind the couch. And I don't think he was yanking my chain either.

It should be noted that I never saw the ghost in my apartment, but we all called it 'my' ghost.

However, once when Becky (have you fucking pre-ordered her book yet???) was up from Houston, she stayed with me. Being the socially inept host that I was, instead of giving up my bed, or asking her to share it, she slept on the couch.....at least for awhile. In the middle of the night she woke me up and crawled into bed because someone/something had touched her as she slumbered. Human touch - and not the Springsteen album.

Every now and again, I think of those instances and feel that something is out there....or stuck there. When in a Columbus bar a few years back, as I was there on business - the town, not the bar - a woman came up to me and said 'you're the guy who had the ghost in your apartment!!'.

It kind of freaked me out - more so than the ghost itself. Turns out she was a friend of Jon's - but it had been 10 or 12 years since I had met her (which was all of twice), but the story (or perhaps my striking good looks) stuck in her memory. Weird.

Now that we have this 97 year old house, my 16 year old niece asks if we've seen any ghosts. We have not. But she is undeterred. She fully believes it has to be haunted. You should have seen her face when I told her about the one at my old residence. Her mother was not amused that I might be keeping her up at nights.

Ditto, Morty and I are all gone from those $200-300/mo apartments, which now go for triple that (or more). But here's hoping the supernatural resident still lives there. It was a great view.

So Happy Halloween to you all.

...as for the image post - just be thankful I didn't use a Patrick Swayze or Caspar .jpg.


song by: Alison Krauss

3 comments:

jonny said...

Nope. Totally sober. Hadn't started drinking yet when I rang that door bell. The door to the apartments was street level, on the side of the building. It had a decent sized, uncovered clear glass window. So, you could look down to see who was there buzzing, or the buzzee could look up the stairs to a landing which turned up a few more steps and then to the hallway to the apartments.

I buzzed Robert's apartment and a man appeared at the top of the stairs. It should be noted that I did NOT see the guy's face, just a man, standing at the top of the stairs wearing a light shirt and dark pants. I did the international gesture of "WTF..let me in already" when he turned and walked away towards the hall. I rang the buzzer again and it's when Robert appeared...differently dressed. I mean, it really was less than 30 seconds. I guess he could have changed, but why would he?
This was my only ghost experience. So far....

Ur-spo said...

oooh I love stories like this!
Thank you for sharing it.

rebecca said...

Squee! My favorite!