Hear Me Out

I’ve already covered scent, so now I’m on to hearing. I don’t have witnesses to the actual experiences I had, but others have reported the same things at different times.

I’ll start with the earliest audient one I remember. I was about 12 or 13. I’d spent the night at my best friend’s house. She had three cats at the time and when they wanted to come in to her bedroom when the door was closed, they’d scratch at the door or meow or sometimes both. A few times, when I’d get up to let one in, I’d see nothing but tail and back end running down the hallway.

She shared a room with her sister and it was at the end of the hallway. The nearest door was about fifteen feet away, so if a cat was going to scratch and ditch, it’d have a ways to run before hooking a right turn into the bathroom. Beyond that was her brother’s room, which was beyond the point where the cats could slip through the railing in order to use the stairs as an escape route.

But they rarely scratched and ditched.

That morning, we were engaged in girltalk. Me, being closest to the door, assumed that since I heard the telltale scratch, a cat must want in and I should get it. However, the sound was a bit odd. I almost wasn’t sure I’d heard it. While it definitely came from the direction of the door, it still sounded a bit strange to me for some reason. In fact, when I got up to answer the door, my best friend looked at me sort of sideways, wondering why I’d gotten up so suddenly.

I opened the door and no cat was there. Not even tail and backside scurrying away.

We thought it was weird that I’d heard the “cat”, but she didn’t. Apparently, all the women in her house had either had the same experience I did or tripped over a shadow cat on the stairs in the middle of the night when the rest of the household cats were accounted for in other parts of the house or had stayed outside.

While I believed in ghosts, I really didn’t want this kind of thing happening around me. I’m weird enough as it is, I don’t need supernatural stuff going on around me, too. Although, I also have to admit there are times when I just didn’t want to be alone and thankfully, ’someone’ was always there. Usually my grandfather, but there were others, too. I worked in theaters for a decade and every theater has at least one ghost.

At a certain theater, I only had the opportunity to do one show. It was late in 1995…around Christmas. I can do sound, lighting, set construction, costuming, special effects and props. I’m basically a one-woman show backstage. On this particular show, I was a lighting technician and then during the shows, I operated a follow spot. Anyhow, I was brought in a little late to the game. The show was already designed and the lights were hung. I was assigned to adjust the focus of a few lights and hang a special.

I was up in the catwalks all by myself. There was only one other person there at the time and he was nowhere near the stage. I don’t recall if he was in the scene shop or had gone out to the storage shed outside near his car. I just know he wasn’t around.

I can focus a light with the rest of the lights on, but it’s a whole lot easier to isolate the one I’m focusing, so I had very few lights on. The stage was mostly dark, as was the house.

I hung the light, plugged it in, went into the light booth to bring up the dimmer and went back to the catwalk to focus.

Step step step step step step. Stop.

’Someone’–who sounded like a man wearing dress shoes–had just walked from stage left out to the middle of the stage and stopped. Was this ’someone’ about to audition for a play? I saw no one. I wasn’t even sure I was hearing what I heard until the third or fourth step. I ’sensed’ activity, but I wasn’t in a position to really dive in. I mean, this was my first show at this place and at the time, yeah, I was sensitive (always have been), but that doesn’t mean I always use my sense nor do I always seek out activity. In fact, up there in the unfamiliar, darkened theater, I was kind of scared.

I sighed and went on with my work anyway. When my boss came back, I asked him if he’d heard the footsteps before.

“Yep. That’s George. No one knows how he got here. He also likes to turn on the house lights in the middle of shows. Other people have bigger stories about him, but he’s only done the footsteps for me.” (Yes, most of us theater people are quite nonchalant about the ghosts we “work” with.)

Sure enough, out of twelve performances, he turned the houselights on four times. There was a fifth time that could’ve been someone backstage, so I’m leaving that one out. Part of the training for a light board operator there was to be ready with the houselights because the slider would be all the way down. First, you’d have to realize that the houselights had come on, then press the button to take control, bring the slider up and back down again. It usually took three to five seconds, but that can be a long time when the audience is wondering what in the world is going on.

Although not an audient experience, there was also a blue glow that sometimes appeared in the furthest corner of the light booth. I hated going into that area whether night or day. If I had to grab equipment, I did it as quickly as possible. I only saw the glow once and I wasn’t really sure of it because some of the onstage lights were on and could’ve been reflecting off the front glass of the booth.

Except the blue glow was its own light, backlighting the light board operator’s chair, and one of the equipment shelves.

To me, George–and whoever else was there–was unhappy. I never sensed anything positive except when mischief was happening and even then it was more like vicious humor. I think he liked to see people being scared. When I ran the follow spot for the show, I stayed away from the rear wall of the light booth. That was where I felt the greatest despair. I also did my best not to be in there alone. I wasn’t afraid that something bad would happen to me, I was afraid of what I might see (psychically or physically), what I might learn about the source of the despair.

Theaters attract people who want to make it big. There’s nothing like hearing an audience roar with applause after a show, when all the focus is on you. It’s unreal. The sad truth is that there isn’t enough time in a single lifetime for every actor to get more than fifteen minutes of fame. So, I’m guessing some stick around beyond their lifetime, still hoping for their big break.

Although, not all theater ghosts are actors or stagehands. How do I know this? Well, that’s a whole other story I’ll share later, I promise. It’s one of my favorites.

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