by Gary Jansen
“A couple?”
“Yes, you have a woman, an older woman. She’s short, with short hair. She stays downstairs for the most part. She’s been in your house a long time. A very long time. She was dead when your house was built. You’ve lived in the house a long time, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” I had said.
“Since you were a child, right?”
“Yes.”
“She was around when you were young. She likes to stay in the front room of your house by the picture window. She walks back and forth from the room to the front door, which is right next to the room. It’s as if she’s waiting for someone. She’s standing next to the glass box right now.”
The hairs on the back of my neck started to stand up on end.
“Oh my God, are you serious?” I said. A time machine in my head raced back to the night in the kitchen when I was seven years old and my mom told me of the ghost woman looking out the window waiting for someone to return.
“My mom said there was a ghost in our house growing up and she described her the same way,” I said. “Mary Ann, she described her the very same way. I never really believed her.”
She had given a short laugh and said, “You should have listened to your mother.” Then her voice changed slightly and there was a seriousness in her tone that hadn’t been there before.
“Yes. She’s very low energy. I’m not concerned about her.”
“What?”
“I’m not concerned about her.”
“What? Wait, you said there were two ghosts in the house? And if you just said that you’re not worried about the woman ...” I didn’t finish my sentence.
“Well, you have another ghost, a man. He’s younger than the woman and he’s been in your house only about a year. Him, I don’t like. I don’t like him at all. He’s a bit of a troublemaker.”
“He’s what?”
“And Gary?”
“Yes?” And just as I answered her, I felt that electric surge run up and down my body.
“He’s standing right on top of you now.”
Chapter 9
People from all walks of life have encountered ghosts: from common people whose names are lost to history, to Saint Augustine, who writes about a haunted house in the miracles section of the twenty-second book of The City of God; from Abraham Lincoln to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, to Joan Rivers. Dee Snider, from the rock group Twisted Sister, was visited by the ghost of his deceased brother-in-law. (Dee grew up in Baldwin, the next town over.) Even Jesus was visited by a ghost.
I’m not kidding.
In Luke 9:28-36 there is the story of Jesus and his unique camping trip on a mountain.
About eight days after he said this, he took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray.
While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white.
And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.
Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep, but becoming fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.
As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But he did not know what he was saying.
While he was still speaking, a cloud came and cast a shadow over them, and they became frightened when they entered the cloud.
Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”
After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. They fell silent and did not at that time tell anyone what they had seen.
Did you see the ghost? It’s Moses. He had been dead for a long time (Elijah is a bit of a freak and doesn’t count as a ghost—he supposedly never died but rode off to the great beyond in a chariot of fire). And why didn’t Jesus’ friends say anything to anyone? Because no one would believe them, that’s why. Even then, people were suspicious of ghosts.
Now, no matter what you feel about Jesus, whether you like him, don’t like him, are totally ambivalent, think he looks good as a plastic statue on the dashboard of your car, you have to hand it to him—he was an amazing storyteller. His parables, which were atomically powered short stories that he told to get people to think, are not only etched in the collective psyche of Catholics around the world, but are ingrained in Western culture as well. Stories like the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son cross all faiths and creeds.
But did you know that Jesus liked a good ghost story, too? Maybe that encounter with the ghost of Moses had some effect on his storytelling. Who knows? But the tale isn’t found in any of the gnostic gospels or one of those suddenly uncovered scrolls National Geographic keeps in a metal desk in a warehouse somewhere in order to make a documentary for sweeps week. It’s found, again, in the Bible.
Later on in the Gospel of Luke 16:19-31, Jesus gathers his followers around and tells them the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man.
There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day.
And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.
When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side.
And he cried out, “Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.”
Abraham replied, “My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.
Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.”
He said, “Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.”
But Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.”
He said, “Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.”
Then Abraham said, “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.”
Did you catch it? The poor rich man who blew his chance in life asked Abraham to help him out and send Lazarus, a good spirit, a ghost if you will, to the living, to impart a message to his brothers, to shake them up and force them to change the path they were on (sounds a lot like the exchange between Jacob Marley and Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol). Abraham, because he’s kind of badass, refuses. He doesn’t think it would do them any good. He didn’t say it couldn’t be done, just that it wasn’t going to happen now. Makes you wonder if the great patriarch would have agreed to a haunting if the rich man’s brothers had felt something like a lightning bolt coursing through their spines.
“OH MY GOD,” I cried out. I could feel the surge of electricity running throughout my body. “Mary Ann, I can feel it. It’s like he’s all over me.”
“Yeah, he’s not all that happy with you.”
“With me? What did I do?
“Yep, not too happy.” And then she had added, “Oh, he’s been frightening your son. Your son doesn’t want to sleep in his room anymore, does he?”
“No!” I had blurted out. “What is it? Is it the devil?”
“Oh, no, it’s not the devil, honey. It’s not a demon. I can’t see those types of spirits. I can only see the spirits of people who were once alive. And this one wa
s definitely alive. He’s twenty years old.3 He’s only been dead about a year and has been in your house for about the same amount of time.”
“So, wait, is the woman ghost evil, too?”
“No, she’s not evil. She’s not bad at all. And the man isn’t evil, either. He’s not a bad guy, he’s just mischievous. He knows he shouldn’t be doing what he’s doing, but he does it anyway.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Well, whatever you do, don’t talk to them.”
“Don’t talk to them? I have ghosts in my house and I can’t talk to them?”
“Honey, didn’t you read my book? If you talk to them, you give them power, so don’t acknowledge them. Ignore them as much as possible.”
“That’s it? How do I get rid of them?”
“How far are you from Cleveland?”
“I don’t know, like ten hours by car, maybe.”
“Are you near Baltimore?
“No, that’s about four hours away.”
“Oh, that’s too far. I’m going to be in Baltimore next week at the Edgar Allan Poe house to see what’s hanging around there and thought if you were near there I could stop by.”
“So what do I do?”
“Give me your address and I’m going to send you something in the mail. It’s a smudge stick. All it is is sage and sweetgrass. It’s a Native American thing. What you’re going to do is take the stick, light it on fire, but do so in a pan or on a plate. I don’t want you burning your house down. Then you put the flame out and what’s going to happen is that the stick is going to smoke. Wait, do you have allergies?”
“No.”
“Good. But you have small children, right? You better have them and your wife stay at someone’s house for the night while you do it. The smell can be really powerful.”
I told her I would do that.
“So once you have a nice bit of smoke coming out of the stick, I want you to start at the top of the house. You have an attic, right?”
“Yes.”
“Start in the attic and I want you to say the Lord’s Prayer and outline all the windows and doors in your house. Every one of them. Your closets, the doors to any rooms, the doors that lead in and out of your house. You have three doors that lead into your house, don’t you?”
“No, two.”
“Are you sure? I’m getting three.”
I thought for a moment. “Oh, you’re right. I think there’s a doorway behind one of the walls that was covered over with drywall back when the washroom was added to the house. I saw it when I gutted the room after Grace and I moved in here a few years ago.”
“That might be it, but I’m getting something else. Do you have an old mirror in the house? One that wasn’t originally yours?”
She was right again. There was a creepy old vanity mirror in the downstairs bathroom that my father had fished out of the garbage years ago and brought home one day. My mom hated it, but my dad had installed it in the bathroom anyway. I had never gotten around to changing it after Grace and I moved in.
“Yes,” I answered. “How do you do this?”
She just laughed. “It’s what I do, honey.”
“What about the mirror?”
“Well, you never know what the original owner might have done with that mirror or what kind of person it was who looked into it every day. Everything has energy and leaves behind traces of energy and that can build up in a mirror. Not only that, sometimes people use them in ceremonies to play with things they shouldn’t play with. But don’t worry about it.”
“What do you mean, don’t worry about it? How can I not worry about it? Just telling me not to worry is going to make me worry.”
“It’s going to be okay, honey. Don’t worry. Now, do you have a lot of antiques in the house?”
“No.”
“Stuff from garage sales?”
“No. Wait. Yes. Actually, we do. My mom still goes to garage sales and every time we visit she gives us things she’s picked up. Usually religious things.”
“Oh, that’s not good. People just don’t know what they are bringing into their houses when they do these things. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have anything secondhand, but when we bring in other people’s belongings, we sometimes bring in pieces of them, too. You never know what is attached to an object like a ring or a picture or a statue. You just don’t know.”
“It’s kind of like a relic, just the opposite, right?”
“Exactly. The same principle. A relic is imbued with the holiness of the person who had carried it with them. Not everyone is as holy as the saints.” She paused and then said, “This is what I want you to do. I want you to get a spray bottle, fill it with water and a tablespoon of sea salt, and then I want you to spray the corners of your house and these objects that have come into your house. Don’t worry, by the time we’re done, your house will be fine.”
“And what does the smoke do again?”
“It’s called smudging, and for whatever reason the smoke calms spirits down, basically drains them of their energy. It’s going to help them cross over. We need to calm them down so they can go into the light.”
“Kind of like when a priest burns incense at a funeral. He’s helping the spirit rise to heaven, toward God’s light.”
She laughed. “Oh, you’re good, honey. That’s just right.” Then she asked, “Have you had your house blessed?”
“Yes, a couple years ago. But wait, why wouldn’t that have gotten rid of the woman spirit downstairs?”
“A priest needs to know what he’s blessing. When he just gives a general blessing, he’s basically just blessing the spirit, too.”
“Can I ask you one more question?”
“Sure you can.”
“Why are the ghosts here?”
“Oh, honey, I don’t know. They’re not talking to me now. It’s not that they won’t at some later time, but they’re not saying anything right now. Sometimes ghosts just go where there is a lot of energy. Sometimes people invite them in like bringing an object into a house that has one attached to it. It’s hard to say. Sometimes there’s a reason and sometimes there isn’t.”
I realized that as we were talking the electric sensation had gone away and I hadn’t even noticed it.
I gave Mary Ann my address, thanked her, and we agreed to talk again after I had smudged the house so she could give me the next steps for clearing the ghosts out. I hung up the phone and replayed our conversation in my head, filling out the notes I had taken while we were talking.
I was overwhelmed. I believed her and while it may sound naïve that I gave myself over to what she was saying so easily, I felt a certain peace move through me that I hadn’t felt in a year.
I went downstairs and told Grace that I had a great conversation with Mary Ann, that she was warm and pleasant and funny, and I felt like she was my second mom. Grace asked me what she had said, and I told her I would tell her after the kids went to sleep.
“YOU MEAN TO TELL ME there are two ghosts in the house?”
“That’s what she said.” I had told her everything Mary Ann relayed to me, and she sat patiently and listened.
“And you believe her?”
“I do.”
“So what are we supposed to do?”
I told her about the plan to clean the house by smudging it.
“I don’t like that.”
“What’s the big deal? Priests do it at funerals. What do you think they’re doing when they shake the smoke from an incense burner around a casket?”
“But you’re not a priest. What are you going to do, start blessing Ritz crackers and giving Communion, too?”
Ouch. She got me on that one.
“Everything will be okay. I promise.”
She looked at me and I realized she wasn’t angry. She was frightened.
“Look, I’m not saying you shouldn’t believe her. Maybe she’s right. I just don’t like these sorts of things.”
I nodded my he
ad, but at this point I was convinced and ready to do whatever Mary Ann said. I looked at Grace, and, invoking Indiana Jones, said, “Trust me.”
That night I thought about my mom and her stories of angels, and the ghost that lived in our house. She was never the same after the murder of Christopher Gruhn—it was like the devil had stolen a part of her soul. For fifty days the police searched for his killer and during that time my mother wept and hardly spoke a word to us. I knew inside she somehow blamed herself. She had a vision like she had had on many different occasions and had seen something in her head, something terrible, and didn’t know how to interpret it or what to do. In the weeks that followed, she reached out to some of the priests and nuns in our community to talk about what had happened and about the visions she had seen. But they didn’t understand what she was talking about or know how to even deal with her. Some of them were sympathetic and listened patiently. Others thought she needed a psychiatrist. Still others told her that visions weren’t real. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t know what to do, either. I tried to pay attention to her during the times she came out of her shell, but I wasn’t any help to her. I could tell she needed an answer, but there were no answers to be found, at least not from any of us. Eventually, my mom stopped talking about everything and retreated into herself. I know she felt abandoned by God, left alone by the one person she loved more than anything in this world. And though she never told me this, I’m sure she felt abandoned by me as well.
In the days after the murder, Rockville Centre was a veritable ghost town at night. Children stayed home with their parents, curtains and blinds were drawn. The people in grocery stores seemed to move about quickly and didn’t make eye contact with each other. Cop cars roamed the streets in the evenings in a way they never had before. No one knew who could have done such a thing or if that person was going to strike again. People talked about how this sort of thing never happened in Rockville Centre. But they were wrong.
On May 10, 1983, seventeen-year-old Robert W. Golliver was arrested and a year later convicted of murder. He had lived two doors away from Christopher Gruhn.