Ok sorry for the delay but I’ve got a pretty good excuse. I just spent the last three weeks in the hospital for a broken leg. Broken leg, you ask? Let me tell you the story but don’t repeat it as I told work a quite different story.
So it was 6 minutes past midnite and I was meeting Jerry to search for spirits and no, I’m not talking Cap’n Morgan. As I’ve said the building he works in is older and so, has a history. Except for the street level facade that has been upgraded to include the store fronts as I noted before, the outside looks like any three story small town building. From my research I discovered it was built in the 90’s, that’s the 1890’s. It was originally a hotel that was then converted into offices in the 1950’s. Jerry and I had talked about the building and it’s history, so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect once we got inside.
Jerry’s voice is the only real way I had of identifying him, so I was taking a chance but he seemed ok despite the seeing dead people thing. So when I walked into the mini mart and looked around I wasn’t sure what to expect. As it turned out I was surprised to not be surprised. Jerry was in his mid-twenties with features that can only be described as typical white male of non-descript origin with a pierced ear and eyebrow. His blonde hair hung over his ears and collar but looked clean. He was wearing one of those rock-n-roll t-shirts with a band logo I didn’t recognise and blue jeans with cowboy boots.
He said, “Hey how’s it goin’ tonite?”. With that greeting I knew it was Jerry. From my conversations with him I knew that when he got excited his voice raised an octave. Subsequently when he was confident about his subject it lowered an octave. There were times he almost sounded like Mickey Mouse with a cold and other times like James Earl Jones on helium. Most times tho he just had a pleasant everyman voice.
When I said, “Hey, back atcha”, he had a surprised look on his face. It was a look I see whenever someone connects the face with the voice. It’s never what they expect. That’s right as I’ve said before the info the eye sees never matches the picture the ears have told the brain what they’ve “seen”. That look of surprise wasn’t because I have a hunchback or am lucky enough to look like George Clooney. My voice just doesn’t match my appearance. I think one of the things that surprises people is my age, I’m older than they expect. I’m also older than I look so that would be the real surprise.
After introductions are made and the small talk (building courage for the real reason we’re here) is out of the way, “How ya doin’ tonite?, Oh fine, it sure feels weird to be up this late and not be working.” We headed for the back stairwell that lead to the second floor. Which is where we expected the action to take place. It was appropriate that the stairs creaked and groaned as we ascended to the 2nd floor landing. The nite lites were burning but there were more dark shadowy patches than light. It was disconcerting to say the least. I could see the 1800’s hotel influences in those lights as they looked like lamps refitted to accept electricity and light bulbs.
To be continued…..
