If There Be Ghosts

I spent the summer of 1985 living in Jackson, Tennessee, the second largest city in West Tennessee under Memphis, but don't be misled by that fact - it's not that big. Certainly it's larger now than it was in 1985, and much bigger than all the other towns in the western third of the state, sure. But compared to Memphis? Minute.

In any case, I had gotten a job down there between semesters of college. A friend of mine from home had an apartment with an extra bedroom that had just been vacated by another friend from my hometown, so I decided to try things down there for a bit and see how they went.

One particular Friday evening, after working all day at the answering service, I chose to stay home and out of everyone's way, not bothering a soul and minding my own business. Just me, the stereo and TV, one very nice lime, a shaker of salt, and a full bottle of tequila.

I was watching MTV, and had just been blown away a new video by this band from Australia called Midnight Oil, "Best of Both Worlds". The night was going great so far.

Wherever my roommate and one of our mutual friends were supposed to be that evening, I have no idea. But the next thing I know, they're in the apartment, disturbing my private party, and with this oh-so-amazing idea that they're going to go check out a haunted house.

And the completely idiotic idea that they're going to take me with them.

I said no a dozen times. I just wanted to stay there at home, shoot (more) tequila and get drunk(er). Veg at the apartment, out of sight, doing my thing and not bothering anyone. "I'm fine right where I am," I kept protesting.

"Oh, come on, come on," my friend cajoled. "It'll be FUN!" Which was probably time #724 of the 1,016 times she's talked me into doing something that no one in their right mind should ever do.

They, of course, soon dragged me off and out into the car, and off we went.

But the first thing we had to do - ten miles or so down the road - was... guess who suddenly had to go to the bathroom. In a VERY bad part of town. And of course, theres no place around except the Krystal, where two cops (a portent of things to come?) just happened to be sitting inside munching on a bag full of Krystals.

"Go on, it'll be OK," my friend hissed. "The police are in there. You wont get robbed or raped or murdered with the police in there eating Krystals!"

Let me stop here and mention that what I am wearing is probably the icing on the cake of this particular tale.

It is - again - 1985, and I am wearing what is really a Minnie Mouse nightshirt in dayglo Eighties neon colors, but is functioning this evening as a t-shirt minidress with a somewhat matching dayglo neon Esprit belt to boot (I think it was chartreuse); period-appropriate dayglo neon '80s jewelry, including some godawful ugly jangly necklace and long dangle earrings that don't match but are indeed part of a set (one spelled out B-O-Y, I dont remember what the other earring had on it); the prerequisite armload of neon-colored bangles and black plastic bracelets; and fuschia plastic thong sandals.

I am also (of course) wearing makeup in colors not seen in nature, thick black liquid eyeliner, and this atrocious neon-y fuschia lace scarfy thing tied in my hair.

(Look, it was 1985, okay?)

So there I go, weaving my way through Krystal en route to the bathroom, totally blitzed on tequila. Pretty much looking like Madonna Junior.

Once THAT traumatic experience was over with, next it was off to said haunted house, where we proceeded to break in via a back kitchen door. Unable to get the door open, we climbed through an already open window in the door, which was no easy feat for me due to (A) aforementioned copious amounts of tequila and (B) aforementioned plastic thong sandals, which dropped off my feet an untold number of times before successful entrance into said abandoned kitchen, flashlights in tow.

Did I mention why it was "okay" for us to be breaking into this haunted house?

The house was an old, long-abandoned Victorian, among many other old and long abandoned huge houses in downtown Jackson. The owner was long gone, but the house was still owned by the family - the family of my friend's sometimes, then-on-again-off-again, boyfriend, who a few years later would become her permanent husband, but at the time, they werent exactly on speaking terms.

The house was creepy enough, though the whole experience was kind of anticlimactic. The downstairs was still fully furnished, and the really creepy part (other than the fact that we were in a very old and very dark and very long-empty house) was that there was stuff everywhere. Not as if someone was still living there; more like there had been an intended estate sale that never happened. A humongous buffet in the dining room and the dining room table - both just covered with all kinds of oddities, tons of junk. Hardly any floor space to walk through any of the downstairs rooms, because there was so just much stuff everywhere.

The one single really eek! haunted house! moment came when we made our way to the foyer. There was this sole wooden chair semi-facing the front door of the house, as if someone had just set it there on purpose. On the chair was a very old, creepy-looking and worn, hardcover book, also seemingly set there on purpose.

The title of the book was Knock on Any Door.

Okay, so that kind of creeped us out a little. But again, it was kind of anticlimactic - just creepy enough to give us a bit of the shivers, but it wasn't, like, a screaming moment of terror.

Next, we headed up what was really a very grand wooden staircase in the front hall, towards the upstairs.

Upstairs was a little bit scarier. For one thing, all the rooms upstairs were completely empty, and the streetlights outside that were shining through the windows gave it a different, eerier feel than downstairs.

We didn't see much of interest upstairs and - after briefly losing my roommate for a moment - ended up congregating in one of the front bedrooms. It was oddly and inexplicably chilly in that room.

"I feel like someone died in here," someone said. Which one of us, I don't recall.

Suddenly, there was this jarring, loud sound from the back part of the house. My friend and I both shrieked.

But from where my roommate stood, he could see out the front windows.  "Get down!" he shushed us. "The cops are outside."

Great.

So there the three of us are, my friend and I hunkered down on one side of the room, my roommate on the other, hoping we won't get caught and hoping they'll go away. Actually, I'm not hoping anything - I'm too toasted to really care - but drunk though I was, at least I was having the good sense at the time to stay still and keep quiet.

And I have to admit that even though the whole haunted house experience this run had been pretty much a bust as far as terror and fright - and even though I KNEW it was the cops - hiding there and waiting in that desperately cold room, listening to the footsteps slowly coming up those heavy wooden stairs - yep, that was kind of creepy. Though probably more creepy in an "OK, we're getting arrested" kind of way.

When the lone police officer got to the top, he almost immediately found us (of course). As another officer came lumbering up the stairs behind him and into the room, he shined his flashlight around the room in our faces.

"Okay, stand up and put your hands in the air." We obliged, of course.

And then here comes the part of the story that has been repeated literally hundreds of times, and by many.

I pointed at my friend and told the cops: Talk to HER! She's the one! It was HER idea!

So after ratting out my best friend, and the cops obviously deciding we were unarmed and harmless idiots (especially the drunk and wobbling Madonna clone in the Minnie Mouse nightshirt), they walked us downstairs and gathered us on the front porch to decide what to do with us.

My roommate, in his best radio announcer (which he was) voice, was being Mr. Public Relations, trying to smooth talk his way (and, I guess, our way, though knowing him that was debatable) out of trouble. My friend was silent and afraid to open her mouth, though what she really wanted to do was cuss me out for ratting on her.

I wasn't saying a word either. Mainly because I was so trashed and basically just thinking, "I really hope we dont get arrested, and I wonder how much tequila is left in that bottle at the apartment."

Out on the porch, the officer that had initially found us is patiently explaining to us, as if we're all three-year-olds, the definition of breaking and entering.  As well as obviously trying to decide whether we are intelligent enough to even comprehend the fact that we might just be going to jail momentarily.

But my friend suddenly found her voice and was going to explain our way out of this. I dont recall exactly what she said, but here's the paraphrased version:

"Look, I know this looks bad, but its not like we were REALLY breaking and entering. This is my boyfriend's grandmother's house. And the window in the back door was open anyway. We didn't have to BREAK anything. We just ENTERED."

About that same time, one of the other cops on the porch is getting on his radio. "Yeah, I'm at (whatever the address was)," he says into the radio. We've got some kids that broke into my grandmother's house."

So that's how my friend met her future husband's cousin, the cop. All right! An anecdote for family Thanksgivings and Christmases for years to come!

A few more offhand threats of jail and stern warnings later, they let us go. My friend's then-sometimes-boyfriend-later-husband was somewhere between being mad that his name even got brought into it in the first place and mildly amused at how dumb we all were.

And oh, yeah - the haunted house? Years later, my friend's husband told us he thought he had heard that someone in their family DID die long ago in that bedroom that was so cold. Eek.