Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

The year was 1980 something, it all happened in the middle of that decade of awful and awesome developments in music, fashion, politics and sex. The location was San Diego; never dreary, never even chilly San Diego, with her bleached hair, a tan and fake boobs, I can see San Diego, crying a tear, wiping it away, frowning, but with the corners of her mouth turned up, she is actually smiling when she frowns, San Diego. I was temporarily living in my sister Judy’s apartment. She had a perfect two-bedroom cottage, built over the two car garage in the large back yard of a dentist’s house in the sixties, the plan favored minimally decorated open spaces with wide-horizontal windows. The dark living room interior was finished with stained and varnished wood paneling, and because the views out the windows were of trees, the whole effect was like being in a sunny, breezy tree-house in a forest.

Although I was also a drummer and a motorcycle rider, I was mostly a sensitive art student at UCSD who had just broken up with a gardenia-sweet but kooky and ultimately cheating girl named Nicole. I was utterly heartbroken for the first time in my life and desperate for a new place to be. Fortunately I knew that Stella, (another ex-girlfriend of mine from High School) was living with my sister Judy for free. Seemed like a good deal. I asked Judy if there might be room for me on the floor if I promised to bring minimal possessions, behave and be out in a hurry. Yes! The hard part was the re-introduction to Stella. I had cheated on her horribly and sloppily, and ended up regretting it for many years. But there she was. I stood my ground and was tactful. But she knew I was desperate and she knew I had gotten what I deserved! Our initial eye-contact not as pleasant as I prefer. Fortunately she had just spent a year in Greece, with another few months roaming about Turkey and Paris. So I figured ‘Hey she’s gotta be doing fine by now’. I know I would be cool after a bitchen’ trip like that. We eventually did have time to talk. And we are still friends! So there we were. By the way, Judy was always at her boy-friend Atilla’s house, so she does not have a big part in this story. And unfortunately there is none at all for Atilla, he was like a prince and there were even whisperings of possible nuptials. But ah, we must move on.

The phone rang. Stella and I looked at it. I lifted the receiver. It was Hans, my bestie from High School. He had left us all for the East Coast years before, he was studying literature and philosophy in Boston College. Of course I had not forgotten him, but we had not stayed in touch; in fact, I realized as we were talking that I had not heard from him in like a year, which was kind of strange.

He sounded bad. A thin, gravelly, quavering voice, begging for a place to stay. Not at all like Hans. I was worried: “What? Where are you?” Stella was watching, listening “You are here? In town? In San Diego?” “I am at my parent’s house.” Was his reply. I dropped the receiver. I ran to the car and raced everyone on the Fifteen Northbound to my childhood neighborhood, Rancho Torro, a generic planned-community. A sterile, color coordinated, corporate psycho-social petri-dish of fraud. It was a vinyl village void of panhandlers, cars in yards, clotheslines, telephone poles, graffiti or any other evidence of life. Hans might have gone irretrievably bonkers if he spent ten more minutes in that betamed place. He was waiting at the curb with a small suit case when I made my final approach. I leaned over, trying to keep my eyes on him, looking for signs, I popped the passenger door, he jumped into the rolling car and exhaust smoke was the only receipt we left behind. I put some wind in the boy’s hair.

Hans was shell-shocked. Babbling about a girl named Maryellen. She… drove my poor friend out of his mind. Well, I felt like a decent boon-companionship should spring up between us. Both of us could share our crazy girl stories and heal. Which we did!

So there we were. Stella, Hans and I. We became like a small family. We told our stories, laughed and tended our innermost wounds. We smoked marijuana and ate pizza. Hans and I restored an ‘appropriated’ 1976 Honda 360 TE, and used it for transportation, the “Black Cat,” we called her. Stella took classes at the totally bitchen’ City College downtown and worked at trendy shops. Then one evening Judy came home. She was sick of the growing squatter-tribe in her flat. We all felt guilty. But we had a good run, maybe three, four months.

Stella, being neither rude nor lazy, found a nice apartment for the three of us within three days. “It has two rooms. One is sunny and bright, I will take that one; the other is dark and creepy, you guys can share that one.” Hans and I gladly forked over the cashola and Ms. Stella Luna sealed the deal the next day.

I must tell you, Stella is a very pretty lady. She has a Venusian serenity about her that could charm a badger, and her voice could lullaby him to sleep. But even more than this, she is tasteful and intelligent. Stella had driven her yellow VW squareback straight into the heart of Hillcrest, San Diego’s fabulous little twenties-vintage Gay District, right near the garden of the city, Balboa Park. Mecca of all true Southern California Gaymen, the Park was built for an exposition in the twenties, and features sometimes quaint but always coherent and even inspirational faux Spanish Colonial architecture. Decorated in plaster figures, garlands and diverse confectionery, it was meant to be temporary, but it is the heart of the city, and the plaster bits were constantly being tended, painted and repaired by volunteers on scaffolding.

The world famous cruising grounds is a geographically small but oh-so exclusive tanning hillock in a roundabout known as the “Fruit Loop” just off to the side.

Stella was wise to focus her search in this perfectly preserved and self-contained neighborhood; literature and drama were in the air every night! She did not even look in the paper; the best places are never advertised. She simply drove up and down the narrow old streets till she saw a ‘for rent’ sign displayed in a window. Time consuming, but effective. The apartment Stella found was available at a very good price. It was to the rear in a block built in the thirties, a two story unit with seven places total, with a open and sun-lit ventilation shaft running up the center of the building which everyone’s bathroom window opened to, giving the entire structure a strangely hollow feeling, despite it’s ponderous situation, block-like and gray, sitting above the sidewalk, over twin garages with a red staircase in the center. Like all old apartments it was small, but practical and charming. We were so happy. We helped Stella move all her stuff into her bedroom and were promptly kicked out with firm instructions to never go in there. “Yes Sir!” We replied. Then Hans and I dragged all our stuff into our bedroom, mostly boxes of clothes, old school books, car parts, some old guitars, but mostly rubbish. We celebrated. We smoked pot, ordered in a pizza, watched TV and fell asleep, Stella in her room, and Hans and I in the living room; he on the couch under a blanket and I on the reclining chair, in my sleeping bag. We all slept perfectly.

Time went on. Hans and I never did clear out all the crap in our room or get proper beds to sleep in. We simply used the room as a storage unit for our crap and continued sleeping in front of the warm TV every night. Life was Idyllic.

One evening Stella planned a small get-together with her sister Carlotta who we also called Carla, and her boyfriend, whose name I cannot remember. Before they arrived we were all eating pizza, smoking pot and watching TV. There was a knock at the door. Stella went to the door and said “Hello Carla!” with her happiest voice. We watched as Carla entered and then we realized that something was wrong. Carla’s boyfriend was standing on the front porch, looking into the apartment, or maybe at the door, talking quietly with Stella, then Carlotta. Hans and I leaned or turned to see what was happening. Stella, then Carla were saying goodbye to each other, planning on another visit soon. Carla and her boyfriend left, Hans and I asked what was the matter. Stella told us that apparently Carla’s boyfriend got sick and needed to go home. It seemed sudden, but I did not think too much of it other than the event was awkward and unfortunate. I had occasionally helped Stella baby-sit Carlotta when she was a little girl, we took her and her friends to see Howard Jones and the Thompson Twins. I was looking forward to seeing her again and meeting her boyfriend. He looked like a cool guy, he had long black hair, but not like a hippie, more like a native American. So after they left, we smoked more pot, ate more pizza, watched TV and fell asleep. We slept peacefully.

A few days later, perhaps it was a Sunday, at like 2 in the afternoon. Hot and dry, windows open to coax any interested breeze. There was a knock at the screen door. Hans and I were sitting in front of the TV at the time. Eating pizza. I got up and went to the door. I suddenly recognized the silhouette of the visitor. It was Carla’s boyfriend. I could not remember his name, but then he might have never even said it on his previous visit. I opened the door. He stood there looking at me, and he seemed just as confused as I was. It was daylight. I at once scanned his straight, heavy, black hair, his skin tone so similar to my own, his facial features, his dark eyes. Old eyes on such a young handsome face. “Um hello… Um, Stella isn’t here, neither is Carla…”

He stopped me. “I am not here for them. We need to talk. May I come in?”

Hans stood and faced us as we entered the living room. We all introduced ourselves, but I simply cannot remember his name, but it was a common name, like Steve or John. I will call him John. So this guy has a paper bag. He reaches into it. I wonder if its drugs. He produces a bowl made of an abalone shell. He put it on the coffee table in front of us and we all sat down. I was gazing at the iridescent swirls of color in the rim of the shell. John said: “I am from the La Jolla Indian reservation.” I had been camping up there, in the mountains. What a beautiful place!

“I am a student of our tribe’s medicine man. I told him of your case and he purified me and protected me and told me it was my responsibility to come back and try to help you.”

Hans and I looked at each other.

“Your apartment is inhabited by an angry spirit! I want to cleanse you and this place, try to find the problem and deal with it, if I can.”

Hans and I looked at each other again and slowly started nodding. I said: “Yes, I guess so…”

So then John removes from the bag a wand of wrapped white sage leaves. He lights it up and it begins to gush out a thick white smoke, familiar, quite sweet and beautiful to the nose, the scent of sage is the utterly critical part of any decent evening in the desert. But this was almost a bit much. John asked us to stand up for a moment. We complied John began to chant, and he fanned the smoke all over us, he had us turn to do both sides. Then he went off on his journey, fanning white smoke and prayers into corners, under tables, behind things, into the kitchen, into the cupboards, the fridge, the dishwasher, everything, then down the hall, opening all the closed windows, turning on lights, but the one in the hall on the left side kept burning out and did not work. He looked at it. Then he was in the bathroom, chanting, we heard the shower curtain sweep aside, the window opening, then he is in STELLA’S room! Hans and I were beginning to become concerned. Then bam. He has gone into our room and shut the boor behind him.

He was in there for a while. We could listen carefully and still hear him singing. I was doing a mental inventory of my stuff… nothing valuable… Hans had some nice guitars, but how could he…? We heard the windows sliding open. The singing continued for a while longer. The door opened. John came into the hallway, shutting the bedroom door behind him with a huge puff of smoke escaping as he did so. He was putting out the wand, snuffing it in the shell, so there was more smoke behind him than before him. He entered the living room. As he was packing his gear back into the bag, he warned us: “There is an angry spirit stuck in your bedroom, he is nasty and horrible! Who sleeps in that room?”

Hans and I looked at each other. We shook out heads, he answered for both of us: “No one sleeps there, Jack and I sleep out here every night. John was hugely relieved.

“You two must have some good spirit-guides! Never sleep in there! Also, leave those windows open for a while, the rest of the day. I really smudged that guy, so maybe he will just leave. But he is an extremely old and powerful ghost, maybe I can’t do a thing. And my master will NOT come down here (‘off the rez’) to help you. So don’t sleep in there, and don’t even keep anything nice in there, like those old guitars! And any junk in there you don’t need, get rid of it! You guys should move quickly.” John walked to the door, and when he turned to say goodbye, we thanked him.

Stella got home later that night. We told her all about John’s visit, and she became deeply agitated. We all went to sleep.

A few days later, Stella asked me to go outside, so we could walk. I said OK but I was really troubled by this unusual request, stated so vaguely… we had been a couple and she spoke to me as if we were a couple again and it was so unexpected. The moment I looked at her I became nervous. We sat on a bus stop bench. She told me she was leaving. It was partially because of me, but mostly because she felt the negative presence of the ghost in her room! She did not even want to discuss the ghost in the apartment. Her room was right next to the haunted room. Hans and I found out from Frank the landlord that a studio in the front of the building was available, which was perfect for us. Stella moved away. It really did feel like the end of an era.

Soon we met many wonderful tenants, and Hans and I suddenly felt like we were in some cool club, featuring musicians, concert promoters, punks, goth-babes and the most incendiary of all people: chefs. We began to enjoy the privileges of a first-rate party circuit and after-hours benefits at the only club in the city that mattered: The Pink Panther. Life was dreamy. I once wondered why we had never made so many friends till we moved over two units, and Peter said, “Oh its hopeless to get to know anyone who lives in that flat in the back where you guys lived with that tall, pretty girl.” “Why?” I shouted (we were at a party) and he thundered “Because nobody can stay there long! People always seem to leave in a few months! That’s why it is so cheap!” “Oh!” We both nodded. I had only lived there for eight weeks. I bet those other people tried to live and sleep in that back bedroom to the left. I felt like telling Peter about the ghost.

So as the years rolled by we eventually graduated to a bigger apartment upstairs with Peter and the real fun began. Hans and I also did routine maintenance and chores for a rent discount. The place was a regular punk palace! Old Frank Pearl would rent to ANYONE and soon the place was full of us misfits and ne’er-do-wells, but the scene was more like a hippie commune than a punk dungeon, and the building was indeed, except for that one unit in the back, full of love.

So one day, Hans and I are strolling home with groceries and we see Frank’s banged-up green pickup truck parked across the sidewalk as usual, blocking our driveway and garage, as usual. We loved him so much! He was standing there in his polyester sport-shirt, like Lawrence Welk’s smaller brother, wiry and full of jokes and surprises. We approached and the conversation got off with a bang!

“Hans and Jack! Would ya just look at this! SOMEONE is growing MARIJUANA in the vegetable garden in the back yard!” he was waving his arms in the air, pointing, eyes big, mouth open wide as he told us all about it.

Hans and I looked at the uprooted pot plant in the bed of the truck. we looked at each other.

Hans was such a cool operator: he screwed his face up into a vortex of quizzical perplexity, and grabbed his chin hard to work the twist. He pushed his brows up to scrutinize the leafy evidence, which was just beginning to sprout her golf-ball size buds and after trimming and drying may have yielded a decent ounce in a few more weeks. Bummer dude.

“How do you know if that is marijuana, Frank?”

“Oh I know marijuana when I see it! I’ve been around the block a few times, Buddy Ro!”

Was there was a hint of malice in this otherwise copacetic man’s voice? He began to accuse Hans of the deed: “I found it in YOUR vegetable garden, Hans!”

~Disclaimer: I had thought it was a bad idea. But Hans’ attitude was that the sunny spot in the garden was the best spot to grow this weed of wisdom, and he doubted that Frank would even know what it is. But he did! I was beginning to worry. This might jeopardize our good deal with our otherwise pliant landlord.~

But Hans had an ace up his sleeve. He changed the subject. It seemed like such a strange tactic.

“By the way, Frank I was showing some tenants that two room place in the back, you know the one that’s always for rent.”

“Yes?” Frank said, suddenly caught off-guard by the new topic.

“Well don’t you think we should be warning the prospective tenants that there was a suicide in there?”

Frank stepped back, raised his hands: “I am under no legal obligation to disclose inform-”

Hans twisted the blade: “You know the place is haunted! You keep taking people’s security deposit if they stay less than three months!”

Frank decided it was time to leave. “I have to go!”

Hans followed him around to the cab as Frank got in, “What if the cops see you driving around with this weed in the car?” Frank was becoming frightened! He sped off down the road and Hans, with his hands on his hips, watched and smiled. I was totally shocked! “What was that all about?”

“I talked with the old guy at the store the other day. He told me the story of the ghost in our old apartment. He was there when it happened, it was in all the papers!” “Wow,” I said. We went upstairs to our place as Hans related the story:

“Yeah, so apparently some guy back in the ‘forties decided to kill himself and everyone in the building. He locked himself into the closet in our old room with a deadbolt he had installed with the keyhole to the inside, just for the purpose. He then pushed the key out under the door so there was no turning back. He doused himself with gasoline and set it ablaze. It burned for a moment but quickly flashed out due to lack of oxygen, but he could not re-light it because all his skin was burned off and he was suffocating. They estimate that he survived for three days and eventually died of thirst. Most his skin had fallen away and he was still holding the lighter.” “That is one pissed-off ghost!” I said. Hans nodded. “What a way to go, huh?”

I lit up some marijuana.

Sent in by John F. Gamboa, Jr., Copyright 2011