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Ghost Story (Final Edition)
Ghost Story (Final Edition)
The problem I have with telling ghost stories is that generally from the start if people are expecting a ghost story they're automatically trying to work out the physics in their heads, or they're jumping to conclusions that it's a bunch of fictional bullshit. I am here to tell you the story you are about to read is true. I was present at the time this particular incident happened.
First of all let me give you a bit of background to give you a better understanding of my surroundings. I live in a rather old city in Georgia. The city has a extended history that stretches back thousands of years to the "Mound Builder" Indians. We also share a strong revolutionary war and civil war heritage. Now more than anything my hometown is known more for it's music history. James Brown, Otis Redding, The Allman Brothers, Lena Horne, Ray Charles, B-52's, REM, Indigo Girls and many others have called this area home at one point or another in their respective careers. It's been rumored that The Police penned "Roxanne" while they were here back in the late '70s. Anyway, this story is about one well known musician, or should I say the deceased father of this musician. The musician? Well Good-Golly, Miss Molly....it's Little Richard.
My office is located in a small building in the historic district of our downtown. The building is anywhere from a hundred and fifteen to a hundred and twenty-five years old. The building has been everything from a brothel, a liquor store, a bar, an apartment and now a professional office. When the place was a bar it had it's most notorious moments. From everything I've heard and read it was a rather rough "juke-joint". As a point of unusual personal history, I was talking to my grandmother a few months ago and she told me that her sister (who died long before I was born) actually worked (as she put it) as a "Bar-maid" there. She even married the bartender/owner of the place and lived upstairs over the bar. I digress, back to the story; Like I was saying the bar was not the kind of place you'd want to find yourself at late Friday or Saturday night. To my findings: stabbings, gunshots and the occasional murder were rather common there.
One death in particular, has given the address an added bit of notoriety. The murder of Richard Penniman Sr. Who is Richard Penniman Sr.? Mr. Penniman Sr. is Little Richard's father.
I'm the creative director for my company. With the title comes a lot of late nights. One of those late nights happened to occur on November 17th, 2001. I know this sounds like crap but, that particular night will go down as absolutely the most terrifying few hours of my life. Nothing could've prepared me for what was going to happen. Even now, I'm having a hard time writing this post.
Back to that night. I was deadlining a project that was due within a couple of days, the project amounted to about 30% of our net business for the next year and for some reason I had sat on it until the very last minute. "Procrastination breeds creativity I always say", waiting to the last minute is pathological for me. My partner and I were elbow and knee-cap deep in work at 8 o'clock p.m. when the last receptionist said her good-bye and locked us in for the night. We went to the office fridge, got us a Coke then went back to work. We worked pretty tirelessly until around 11:15 when things started getting weird.
To be continued... (Sorry but it's a long story and I haven't had much time to write lately. I'll finish the story this weekend.)
Ok, I'm back to finish.
Like I said, it's 11:15 and things were getting weird. In order to be more factual, this is how it happened: it went from 0 to 100 on the freak meter within a second. There wasn't any ramping up or anything, one second we're working, then the next second all hell breaks loose simultaneously. It was like somebody flicked on the "you-need-to-get-the-fuck-out-of-here-now-! switch" or something.
There were computer monitors flicking on and off. Desk lamps were flicking on and off. Pictures, a calendar and a couple corkboards (we had nailed on the walls) started dropping to the floor by themselves... One at a time! A few ceiling tiles and one flourescent bulb dislodged and hit the floor. A swivel desk chair was spinning by itself. I had one of those "magnetic art timewaster thingies" on my desk and it was spinning like a fan. I noticed this foul stinch in the air (which we now jokingly refer to it as the 'Satan fart'). There was a really loud, yet constant crackling noise. The water in the bathroom sink automatically started running. We had a box of brochures that toppled off of a low shelf and sprawled all over the floor. Doors were opening and slamming. I'm talking about off-the-scale pandemonium.
Then, as quickly as it started, it stopped.
I was scared. Bryan was scared. We couldn't believe what had just happened. I think we were stunned into not being able move. It felt like one of those dreams where you get so scared, so worked up that you can't scream, all you want to do is pass-out or wake-up. We tried to say something to each other, but all we could do was stare. We stood motionless for what seemed like an hour. From the moment that everything died down, time seemed to slow, almost to a stop. I remember saying to myself to "grab your stuff and run... just run!!!", but I couldn't.
A minute or two pass, and we're starting to get a grip on our collective selves when an old black man walks into our office. Our building has one way in and one way out and for the life of me I knew that the door was locked. He's walked into our building through two other rooms to get to our office. Now, here we have this old black man staring at us, and us at him. I'm thinking to myself "after all we've just been through we've got a homeless guy in our office about to panhandle me for a fucking quarter?!?!?".
There we are in this quietly deadlocked gaze, you could've heard a roach burp, then he breaks down into this laugh. Not a scary laugh, or an evil laugh, just a true honest to God something-has-tickled-my-funny-bone laugh. He was laughing to the point he couldn't catch his breath. Neither Bryan nor I saw the humor in the situation. Actually, we were pretty both much about to lose it and go for total meltdown.
Anyway, the old man began to regain composure, just as he was about to say something he started snickering again and at this point he was he's laughing so hard he was crying and stomping his feet (he reminded me of Grady from Sanford and Son). Needless to say, we starting to get a little light-hearted 'cause we're thinking someone's played one killer practical joke.
Once again the old man begins to settle down and he starts to speak with a really strong dialect,
"Boys, thuh twos-a-you look'n as if ya duhn see a banshee."
We nod our heads.
"You-uhns jus' dee-uhd." he says through his snickering.
Then he ask us if we know who Little Richard is. Once again, we nod our heads in wide-eyed unison.
The he says, "I'm Lil' Richahd's daddy, Big Richahd. But all the ladies call me Big Dick!" he starts laughing so hard now he's drooling. Then, he turns towards our office door, throws up his hand, waves, laughing even harder now as he walks out of the door.
Before the door closes behind him we hear him say to himself through his giggles "Big Dick, gotta remember that one!".
10/20/2003 12:07:34 AM
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