In Fall of 1994, I moved from Memphis, Tennessee to Allentown, Pennsylvania. After living in an Embassy Suites hotel for a few months, I finally committed to an apartment of sorts. It was actually the upper floor of a place called the Mauch Chunk Hotel. It was 200 years old and was located on Mauch Chunk Road just outside of Allentown. That actually is the old road that led from Allentown, Pennsylvania to Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania. Mauch Chunk was renamed Jim Thorpe after he was buried there. I digress.
This was a cool old stone building. The ceilings were about 12 feet high and it was heated by a coal furnace in the the basement that warmed water for the giant cast iron radiators. There is nothing better than stepping out of the shower on a cold morning and using a soft, thick towel warmed on a radiator. The stone walls were about 14 inches thick. There was no airconditioning. The stairs to get to my apartment were very steep.
I had only lived there a few days when one of the neighbors called to me as I took the garbage out one morning. I went over, and we spoke.
“Have you seen her yet?”, he asked.
“Who?”, I replied.
“The ghost.” he said almost surrepticously.
“The Ghost?”
“She usually scares the shit out of new renters.” my neighbor said with eyes glued on me.
“The ghost? No, I haven’t seen her. Her?”, I replied and I prodded him into telling me the story.
It seems that during that dark period known as Prohibition the Mauch Chunk Hotel was operated as a house of ill repute. Sometime in the fall of 1930, one of the girls working there became profoundly disenchanted with her station if life, and took her own life in what was now my bed room. She hung herself from the same rafter from which I presently hung a lamp. A closer look at the top of the rafter revealed marks made by the rope. That gave me a chill.
Since 1930 her spirit has been seen to haunt the old hotel. Most frequently, she has been seen crying in the window of my bed room Occasionally, she has been seen angry at the top of the stairs. A few times she has appeared laughing for all the world in what is now my kitchen. Everyone in the area had a story to tell about when they saw ‘the ghost’. She has long dark hair, and is always dressed in a nightgown of some sort. They all can tell you about hearing a woman laughing in the night and about their kids asking about the woman who cries in the window.
I now understood why the rent was so low.
When I was small, Caspar the Friendly ghost scared the bejesus out of me. I know he was supposed to be a friendly ghost, but ghosts creeped me out big time. Now, I was living in a notoriously haunted 200 year old hotel in the company of a vaporous, vocal and apparantly bi-polar lady of the night. This creeped grown up me out beyond belief.
Oh boy.
That night, after having a number of beers at my standard watering hole, The Starlight Bar in Trexlertown, I shared my troubles with the sultry and amused bar keeper. She facetiously suggested that I make friends with the ghost. I did, she claimed, make friends with everyone who walked into the tiny pub. I thought this was actually a pretty good idea. This could work, I thought. This is an entirely reasonable course of action that had the added benefit of having absolutely no adverse consequences if I was wrong.
I set about to make it so. That very night, even though I had neither seen nor heard my alleged cohabitant, I introduced myself to her. “My name is Bill”, I said to a very empty room. It echoed a little because the only piece of furniture I had in the entire apartment was an old couch. The only other contents were about a hundred books, an ironing board and a hanging lamp. I looked about. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but nothing happened. I proceded to tell her a little about myself, my kids, and my life. I had a number of additional beers durring this conversation. Granted, it was a one sided conversation, but when I was finished telling her about me, I said “I need to call you something, but I don’t know your name.”
I immediately rethought that approach. It occurred to me that playing charades with a ghost in hopes of figuring out her name might not be a really good idea. “I’m going to call you Molly,” I hastily added. It was not lost on me that I was talking to an empty room, but, I was taking no chances.
And so it began. I would say ‘Good Morning’ to Molly every day and share my thoughts while I made coffee. As I left for work, I’d say ‘Good bye, Molly’ and wish her a happy day. When I came home, I would greet her as I walked in the door. Usually I’d tell her about my day as I cooked supper. Molly never revealed herself to me in anyway and no one reported seeing her crying in the window. My neighbor as impressed. He said most people moved out in less than a month. I was pleased. Life was good.
I had been there about four months when I met a girl, Landi. She was a beautiful strawberry blond girl a few years younger than me. She was the manager of data for Bethlehem Steel Corporation, extremely smart and a lot of fun. We enjoyed buffalo wings, beer, football and just hanging out together. I knew she was a keeper, but I’m not sure she thought the same of me. I thought I might have blown it when I brought her to my apartment for the first time. We stood in the mostly empty room and she looked at me as if I might have lost my mind as I introduced her to Molly.
“Who is Molly?”, sh said in a slightly prosecutorial voice.
“Oh, yeah…She’s my ghost”, I replied.
“Your ghost?”, Landi repeated with raised eyebrows. She cautiously glanced around the room.
I proceeded to tell her the whole story including the fact that I had seen nothing to this point to validate the stories I heard from the neighbors about the old hotel. I was, however, taking no chances. Over time, I got comfortable with Molly. I think that’s why I never saw her. I never heard her. We were friends as much as a person and a ghost can be. I don’t know how, but I could tell she wasn’t wild about Landi.
My daughters were four and five at the time. They lived with their mother in Arkansas, but came to Allentown for two weeks that summer. Landi helped me select some furniture. I bought a bed, a dresser and a few other items. I bought a huge (46 inch) TV and a a top of the line VCR. I had the apartment looking like a normal apartment when the girls arrived. They slept in the bed, and I slept on the couch. There was plenty of room for all three of us in the huge bed, but they kick and roll and toss and turn and kick and roll so much, I got a much better night’s rest on the couch.
Landi and I decided to take the girls to the Jersey Shore. The Jersey Shore a place of legend. The boardwalk is filled with carnival rides, roller coasters, pizza joints and more. The beach is another matter. For those of us who grew up running across the sugary white beaches of the Gulf Coast, the grey dirty sand and the cold muddy water of the Jersey Shore is a major let down. If you’ve never seen the Gulf Coast, the Jersey Shore is pretty cool. If you’ve ever been to Pensacola, you’ll never go to the Jersey Shore again.
We took the girls and they had a great time on the rides, in the surf and eating pizza. Apparantly, icy water does not bother kids nearly as much as it bothers grownups. We had a great day, and drove back to Allentown after dark. We arrived home at about 10:00pm or so.
Landi helped me carry the girls upstairs to the apartment. Landi and I both whispered a greeting to Molly. We put the girls in bed, and covered them up. We walked through the door into the kitchen. My bedroom had two doors. One to the hall and one to the kitchen. Landi went over to the sink to wash her hands. I went across the room to the table. I put the camera down on the table. I walked over to Landi. I wrapped my arms around her from behind. I brushed her hair aside and gently blew in her ear before I gave her a hug and kissed her softly on the neck.
Across the room, the camera hit the floor with a crash.
I looked at the table, and then at the camera on the floor. Through the open door I could see the bed in the bed room. The girls had not moved. They were exactly where we placed them and were sleeping soundly. I looked at Landi who looked back at me with wide, shocked eyes.
I knew in an instant what had happened.
I turned and faced the table. In a loud and very stern voice, I said “Molly, that’s not funny. Leave Landi alone and do not frighten my daughters. Is that clear?”
Nothing. Silence. But I swear, in my mind, I heard an icy “Fine.”
I lived there another two months and then moved out into another apartment. After that night, nothing seemed the same in there. I knew I had hurt Molly’s feelings. The girls went back to Arkansas. Landi would visit, but not for very long. It was time for me to go.
The lasting lesson of this whole affair is this: Once you’ve befriended one ghost, they all want to be friends. The Alamo will be a difficult experience for you. Gettysburg will break your heart. You won’t see anything that everyone else doesn’t see, but you’ll feel things that no one else is even aware of.
When you visit these places, take your hat off. Tread lightly. The men whose graves you visit are with you in spirit. You will do well not to piss them off.
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