Are We There Yet?
March 19-25, 2018
By Jay Edwards
“A house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers ... Ghosts were created when the first man woke in the night.”
~ J.M. Barrie
So KM overheard me on the phone with Fred a few weeks back as we talked about heading down to Cajun country for a night’s stay at Myrtle’s Plantation, in St. Francisville, La., famous as the most haunted house in the U.S. with nine active ghosts. When I got off the phone she was standing at the bottom of the stairs and said, “What are you two up to now?”
I explained that a road trip to see some haints would make a good story. She kept shaking her head and saying “No no no,” almost like she was possessed herself. Then, when I told her she wasn’t invited, she thought it sounded like a pretty good idea. “But if some entity attaches itself to you while you’re there, do not bring it home, just drive to the nearest Catholic Church.”
KM grew up Catholic and Fred is Catholic and he and I both went to Catholic High. And we all saw “The Exorcist” back in 1974 at the great old Center Theater downtown. So we know that when you need an entity removed, a Catholic priest is definitely the way to go.
I asked Fred if any guests ever died while staying at Myrtle’s and he said they usually ran to their cars in the middle of the night before that happened. Then I asked him how much the rooms are and he said, “Here you go, already looking for a way to get out of this. Are you in or out?”
“I’m in bud, calm down.”
“Like you were in for the Notre Dame, LSU game?”
“Jesus, that was like 20 years ago.”
“Once a flake, always a flake.”
He was referring to 1998 or ’99, when we had access to four tickets to a season finale game at South Bend between the Irish and Bayou Bengals. Four of us committed and then three of us backed out, leaving Fred all alone, to forever chastise us as wimps of the worst kind.
“I’m in bud, don’t worry. I think it will make a good story. But if we don’t make it out alive I’ll blame you.”
“Hey, the good news is that if they do happen to scare you to death, you’ll become ghost number ten and get on the daily haunting rotation at the scariest hotel in the country.”
“Great,” I said. “So how close is it to New Orleans?”
“Well, it’s 30 miles to Baton Rouge, which is 80 miles from New Orleans.”
“OK, then I’m definitely in if we can do a night in the Crescent City.”
“For sure.”
“But maybe we should go there first.”
“How come?”
“Because if we are going to be scared to death then we ought to do the fun stuff first.”
“Good point,” Fred agreed. “But once you’re a ghost you can probably go wherever you want. And since there are nine of them, well, 11 when you add in me and you, it should be easy to get vacation time. I imagine it will be like that “Twilight Zone” where the mannequins each got a night off every month.”
“Right, and then one didn’t come back. What was her name?”
“Ann Francis.”
“No, her mannequin name.”
“Marsha.”
“Yeah, Marsha. She was pretty cute, even as a mannequin.”
“You digress bud. Let’s book this thing.”
“OK, let’s do it.”
That’s all for this week. If you don’t hear from me anymore come visit me at Myrtle’s sometime, if you dare.
See all of Jay’s past columns on our website at www.dailyrecord.us.
