I Do Believe in Spooks

About a month ago, I applied for a second job as a ghost story tour guide.  Every step of this process has been such to leave me wondering whether this is actually a real job, or a very weird scam, or what.  The tour script is abysmal, with details that all but the least inquiring mind is going to go, "What?" about.  There's a story that I can't find a single primary source about, and it shows because it refuses to mention names, and it involves sexual liaisons, a prominent, yet strangely anonymous, political figure and a suicide. 

Tonight I finally got to shadow, proof that this job is actually real and does appear to pay money.  So I asked the guide, "How many times have people asked you the name of the politician?"  "Never." He pauses, "Thank Holy Jesus Christ."  He is the longest tenured tour guide, and though I've honestly spent less than ten minutes actually reading the tour (because it's awful), I kept wanting to stop, to interject, and to at least do SOMETHING to make the tour scary or at least interesting.  I mentioned to my brother that I was off to shadow and he said, "Carry cold iron, silver or jade to give to newbs in case they get too scared."  And I thought, "That's good."  

There is nothing on the tour to warrant this, in spite of the number of murders, suicides, and, in one case, unfounded mention of medical experiments.  But it would be very, very easy to take what's there, and create a spooky atmosphere.  And I am both a skeptic (of most ghost stories, the way they're told), and also a terrible coward.  I know EXACTLY how to scare the shit out of someone, and convince them that maybe it didn't even happen... or did it?  Because all you have to do is create an environment, a suggestion, and people will do shit in their own minds to scare the bejeezus out of themselves.  

The scariest house on the tour is actually condemned, built by a former Confederate doctor and later inhabited by a union buster.  Nasty people.  We even have to keep across the street from it because the sidewalk's closed in front of it.  Nasty house.  And the kid says, "Yeah, um, this next house is abandoned, so we're going to stay here."  And I look into the attic and see a purple light.  "Abandoned," I can't help interjecting, "save for the not-at-all-mysterious light in the attic.  That's nothing to worry about."  And suddenly the entire tour group takes a breath.  The kid goes on to talk about the house, and when we get to the end, someone says, "So.... if it's abandoned, why the light?"  The kid pauses.  He has no idea.  And I say, "It's the ghost light.  Construction workers use them so when the power is otherwise shut down to a house, if they need to get in and fetch something quickly, they can.  It also gives the impression to would-be burglars that someone might be in there.  But it's called the ghost light from a similar theatrical tradition of leaving a light on in an empty theatre.  It may just be for the construction workers or the theatre staff, but tradition says that the light is left on so that the ghosts may come and go as they please."  And the entire group is staring at the light in the attic, and the couple who have been as into it as anybody has been tonight goes, "Did the light just flicker?  I think the light flickered."

It didn't, but that's the power of what I can do with just a tiny set up and a lucky question.  

I've been doubting my ability to do anything, lately, but damn it, I am a good tour guide.  And I'm gonna buy a few little Allen wrenches to carry on tours because they're made of iron (steel, but, close enough), hold nicely in your hand to fidget with, and you can truthfully call one a "hex key."