Jeffery W. McKelroy

by Jeffery W. McKelroy

It was November 4^th, 2015. It was 6 days before my birthday, and I was packed up and ready to go. I retired from the military on the 1^st of September. I had moved all my furniture into a storage unit on Tchoupitoulas Street the day before and already returned the truck to the U-Haul store on Tulane Ave. I spent a restless night in a sleeping bag on the floor of my soon to be old apartment. I had only lived there a few months, but I felt it was the right time to leave so, I wasn’t concerned about losing the deposit. Truth be told, I wasn’t hopeful of ever seeing it again anyway. The landlords in New Orleans are notorious for not returning deposits and the courts always favor them. The apartment was awful anyway. It was in a one-hundred-year-old building called the Arcadia on 6^th and Saint Charles. I imagined that with its proximity to Irish Channel and the docks, it must have been an Irish tenement. My apartment had only one bedroom and one closet. The tile and bathroom fixtures looked to be from around the turn of the 20^th century, but the kitchen was most likely updated sometime in the late 1970’s or early 80’s. The hallway of the building was dark and there was always condensation dripping from the ceiling and running down the walls. The lights were constantly flickering, and the entire place felt like a sinking ship. Living in such an environment was a hard pill to swallow but I was starting a new life and most beginnings are humble. If the building was haunted, I wouldn’t have noticed because I usually knocked myself out every night with a 6 pack of IPA and a couple swigs of whatever I could afford from the liquor store. Getting back to work on something, anything was an absolute necessity. I needed to focus. I needed a mission. This is why I started writing again.

I started out early in the morning. I set the bar low for the first day. I would, for the most part, follow the Mississippi River north. My first destination was Memphis. It wasn’t really on my way and there was no particular reason. I just wanted to see it. It had been a while and it was only 5 hours away.

The first day on the road was completely uneventful. I skipped revisiting the Natchez Trace. It’s a beautiful drive but it adds a lot of time, and I already knew the stories of river pirates and Indians and settlers moving ever further west. I was looking for new adventures…..and barbeque.

I reached Memphis in about 6 hours. I have been there many times, but I have avoided straying too far from Beal Street, because I don’t want to look behind the curtain. I want to imagine it as it was in the books I’ve read, the movies I’ve seen and the music I grew up with. I prefer not to see its strip malls or crime and opted to walk down the alley, behind the hotel and step down into The Rendezvous for a plate of ribs. After checking into the hotel, I headed out for a meal. When I got to Beal Street there was a light dusting of snow on the ground. It was 80 degrees when I left New Orleans and I wasn’t dressed for the weather. It was a short walk to The Rendezvous, and it was warm and inviting. I hadn’t been there in a few years and the familiarity was comforting, like stepping back in time. I ate my fill, and determined to call it an early night, I stepped out into the chilly night air and walked the short distance to my home for the evening.

I arrived at my hotel in short order and settled in with a cup of tea. In bed, with notebook nearby, I looked at my map, a regular atlas like we used to use in the “old days”. With my finger, I traced out the route, looking at names of towns, for anything that sparked my imagination. I jotted down a few place names so that I could look up the history at a later date. My eye lids were heavy, and I figured that it would be best to leave the details to another day.

I didn’t feel as though I had been asleep for long when I woke up with a gasp. I felt as though I had stopped breathing for a moment and suddenly started again, waking myself up. I realized I was sitting up on my elbows now, in a dark quiet room. I guess I had remembered to turn of the lamp on the bedside table but didn’t remember doing so. I could see the outline of the lamp by the light that filtered in through the thin, drawn curtains. I felt uneasy. Something wasn’t quite right. I was on the 11^th floor so all the noise from the street, the music, the sirens, people shouting was muffled. The sound of my own breathing was the loudest thing in the room until I heard a slight rustling from a dark corner. The rhythm of my heart changed as did the rate of my breathing which I tried to keep as quiet as possible. The sound came from a dark corner near the door. I could guess the direction but not the cause. Slowly I reached for the bedside lamp. As I did, as I reached out in the dark with my gaze tightly fixed on the lamp, trying to judge the distance in the darkness, to my horror, I saw the silhouette of another hand other than my own, reach up and turn on the lamp. With that the room filled with light and even as I scurried like a crab, up against the wall I could see that I was alone in the room. I did not feel alone, though I was.

For the rest of the night, I slept or attempted to sleep with the light on and the tv on and the curtains open. By morning I was exhausted but departed as soon as I had showered and packed. The elevator arrived on the 1^st floor with a thud and a ding, and I stepped out into the lobby with purpose. I waited patiently in line at the front desk with my key in hand, occasionally looking over at the ducks splashing in the fountain. Ducks? Inside? “Good morning, Sir. Everything to your satisfaction?”, the desk agent asked.

“Well, yes”, I replied, “Are you aware you have a ghost in this hotel?”

The desk agent looked at the computer for a moment and then smiled. Looking up he said, “Oh yes! This is The Peabody, and you did stay on the 11^th floor. I hope he didn’t keep you up.” At that, he chuckled.