Non-Fiction

31 Ghosts 2018: October 23 – A Welcome Visit

I woke up from this dream and went straight to the computer to write it before I forgot it leaving even my glasses on the nightstand. I fixed a couple little typos for readability sake, but otherwise it’s entirely intact from that just-woken-up state. My family believes when a loved one shows up in your dreams they’re actually visiting you there. I believe that strongly, which is why I hurried to capture this “ghost story” as genuinely as I could. —Jordy
Trying to sleep as long as possible this morning, I turned my early alarm off and verified the “latest you can safely sleep and still get to work” alarm was set, and drifted back into a fitful sleep. I arrived home late to a townhouse I shared with my mom (gee, I wonder where I was thinking of townhouses…). The front door was wide open and the lights were on — at least in the front room. I grabbed for my knife with my right hand and my phone with my left hand and I called my mom from my “Favorites” menu (I still haven’t taken her number out of “Favorites”). I stepped in and immediately saw the hall closet had been ransacked – all the picture albums had been shoved down from the top shelf as someone clearly had been rifling through looking for valuables. I stepped over the pile of clothes and albums on the floor and into the house as my mom picked up. “Mom, we’ve been robbed!” I said, agitated. “It’s okay, honey,” she said in a voice immediately calming and I found a little irritating because, shit, we’d been robbed! She shouldn’t be so calm!
I went to look at the kitchen and found it relatively unscathed. And before I had a chance to go into the back rooms, mom was there.
I explained what I’d seen. She nodded and smiled. She led back to the back bedrooms which were dark.
“Mom, wait, let me go back and get my flashlight… and my knife,” I realized I wasn’t holding it anymore.
“It’s okay,” she said, still smiling. But it wasn’t alright because I didn’t have a flashlight or my knife and I didn’t know if whoever did this might still be here. She continued, unperturbed.
I remember we went into her room – which made sense because she would want to check on jewelry – and it was still dark. She didn’t turn on any lights. She barely put her hand on the night stand where she kept her jewelry and immediately said, “it’s fine.” She smiled to me. “It’s fine,”  and I could see it even in the dark.
I woke up. The realization my mom has been dead now for more than four years and that bittersweet feeling of getting to spend a moment longer with her – even if just a short period in a dream that in the light of day makes little sense – feels precious and yet pokes at the wound I thought more healed than it feels right now. And I’m crying as I type this and I don’t care because I’m trying desperately to cling to the the memory of her smile in that dream even as it evaporates like the fog rising from the river as the sun comes up. I miss you so much, mom.

31 Ghosts 2018 – Wrights Tunnel

I actually wrote a piece similar to this years ago. I’m something of a digital packrat, so I went looking for it and, to my surprise, came up empty handed. So, I went about recreating it – my mind’s eye remembers the other with less history and more ghosts, but who knows? For the record, all the historical information here is absolutely true, and the tunnel – as well as other tunnels that comprised the San Jose to Santa Cruz line – still exist, though they were caved in and many now reside on private property. Also, I tried to find a good, free image like one of the ones I’ve used so far this month, but none came close to the images of the actual place. Not having been able to get permission to use any of them I’m going picture-less for now. But the twin-waterfall thing? That isn’t a fiction.  —Jordy

When I stood before the open concrete maw of the tunnel I doubted whether I should have come at all. I thought of the delightful coffee shops in downtown Los Gatos I could easily get to in just a few minutes. Or, better yet, ten minutes hike back to the car, twenty minutes more and I’d be in Santa Cruz – both possibilities held much better psychic energy than this… Tunnel #3. Also known as the Summit tunnel and most commonly as Wright’s Tunnel, for a short period of time in the 19th century at nearly a mile long this was the second longest tunnel in California. But it didn’t come without a cost.

I passed the two waterfalls on flanking either side of the mouth of the tunnel dumping run-off from recent rains. Intended to open up the lucrative Santa Cruz mountains logging routes to the shipping ports of Alviso and Alameda, this tunnel – the most ambitious of the numerous bored through the hillsides in order to complete the run to Santa Cruz – began in December 1877. Hundreds of Chinese laborers were brought in to pick, dig, and dynamite their way through the mountain even as American attitude towards them soured dramatically; five years later the Chinese Exclusionary act was signed in to law. But despite the rising racist attitudes, the foremen knew the Chinese laborers were the best in the world. Unfortunately, they also saw them as disposable.

It’s mid-day under a cloudy sky as I cross into the tunnel. I know I won’t be able to go too far – the railroad ceased operations in the 1940s and this tunnel was subsequently dynamited at both ends shortly thereafter. Nonetheless, I turn to my flashlight as the sound of the waterfalls recede and darkness envelopes me. My light splashes onto graffiti on the walls – a leering caricature, elaborate tagging script. That’s when I hear the knocking.

It’s coming from much deeper into the tunnel and despite some foreboding, I quickly continue down. After all, the tunnel is collapsed in and there isn’t much further I can go. This is confirmed only a few moments later as the tunnel slopes upwards to the ceiling of the tunnel – the blasted cave-in. And yet, knocking continues seemingly through the solid earth.

Progress on the tunnel was slow going. The shifting geology of the mountain played havoc with picks and blasting. Sandstone and clay would slide back into the tunnels despite round-the-clock shits. Progress was measured at only five feet a day and the initial optimistic 10-month completion deadline was buried as a wistful pipedream under so much muck and mud. Methane gas started to seep into the tunnels, overcoming some workers. A year later and 2300 feet into the mountain, tar-like petroleum began oozing into through the cracks in the rock and were burned off every few minutes to avoid a buildup. Unfortunately, that regimen proved not to be enough, and in February of 1879 a foreman lighting a the fuse of a demolition dynamite charge instead set off a pocket of methane. The blast blew back out the mouth of the tunnel – past where I just walked – killing five laborers. Despite the explosion and loss of life, work continued. Another crew began boring north from the other side of the mountain intending to meet the larger contingent boring south from the town of Wright.

I turn away from the cave-in and head back for the light at the tunnel’s mouth when the sound of the knocking fades away, replaced by a rumbling noise. At first I think it’s a truck or low flying plane outside, but then I feel the rumble through the soles of my boots. I turn back to the cave-in, the direction the rumbling seems to be coming from and shining the light I no longer see the dirt rising to the roof of the tunnel but just an open chasm. Then, rushing up the chasm comes a wall of light and pure fire and fury. I close my eyes and fall to my knees as the light rushes towards me. I can see the light brighter and brighter through closed lids and I wait for the heat and searing burn as the roar overtakes me… but it doesn’t come. The light fades, the rumble dissipates. Silence. I struggle to regain my breathing. I turn back to the entrance, and, sure enough, I can make out the waterfalls at the mouth of the tunnel.

I take few steps towards it, though and the light at the end of the tunnel is blotted out by bodies running into the tunnel. Dozens of men running towards me, yelling. I shine my light on them and see they are Chinese. I turn and follow them with my gaze as they rush past me. I see them coursing into the tunnel, back down from where the explosion came from. Suddenly, a massive rumble sounds again more ferocious than the first, and again, a sheet of light, fire, and flame roils up engulfing the men that just passed me, flowing over and through me without touching me, and flowing out the opening in the mountain.

There were two blasts, they reported. The first, just before midnight in November 1879, when completion seemed close at hand – indeed the north and south tunnels were thought to be separated by less than a thousand feet – ignited a pocket of gas nearly 2,700 feet into the south bore. Twenty-one men – mostly Chinese laborers, naturally – died in that initial blast. Their fellow miners did indeed rush in to try to rescue any survivors, only to be caught in a second, more massive blast. The explosions cost a total of 32 lives and caused construction to grind to a halt – mostly due to the Chinese laborers refusing to go back in. Cornish miners were brought in to try to finish the tunnel.

When the Cornish emigrated from Great Britain they brought with them the story of the “Tommyknockers” – imps who would pester miners. As they worked their way through the mines of the West, however, the term evolved from its faerie past into a more paranormal phenomenon. Miners would report hearing pick axes and shovels down abandoned mine shafts. “Tommyknockers,” they would say. Perhaps it’s the Tommyknockers I hear as the roar dissipates to silence to that eerie knocking beyond the cave-in. After the blast, the sound of the ghosts digging is welcome, albeit something that makes my skin crawl.

Alas, unhappy with the pace of the Cornish miners – just half of the 8-feet-a-day the Chinese managed – the company raised wages and brought in a new crew of Chinese workers unfamiliar with the carnage they would be tunneling through. March 13th of the following year, the Chinese and Cornish miners punched through the last of the rock, joining the south and north bores into the single tunnel.

As I make my way past the waterfalls, the echoing of the phantom blasts still ringing in my ears, I think of the relative futility of all the effort. The railroad opened in 1880. Just over 25 years later the tunnel would close due to the 1906 quake which shifted part of the mountain five feet northwest. The tunnel re-opened three years later, but operation would fall off with the rise of the automobile and the completion of the Glenwood highway over the hills. By the time the big storm of 1940 washed out a section of track, the decision was made to abandon the line and seal the tunnels.

Just as time and Progress marched on, leaving the tunnel entrance to water runoff and graffiti, so do I scramble up to the roadside where my car is parked, and I head back to the highway that ultimately bypassed the tunnel.

31 Ghosts – Day 22: The Winery

Last night I bartendered for a venue I’ve worked at a number of times. The winery is off of 101, north of Cloverdale up where the freeway devolves into a curvy highway of rolling hills. Coming into town the road narrows and late at night you’d reasonably expect a story about a phantom hitchhiker — this isn’t that story.

I’m not going to say the name of the winery or the town that it’s just outside of, but suffice it to say it’s a fairly notable destination with not just vineyard and a tasting room but sprawling grounds, restored barns, orchards, and even a demonstration kitchen overlooking a pond on the property. You can understand why it’s sought-after for a destination winery wedding even if it’s outside of the traditional Napa/Sonoma region. The grounds are situated just east of the still-tiny Russian River, not too far from its source and were originally part of the land the Pomo Indians inhabited until the Governor of Alta California, Manuel Micheltorena, granted the huge swath to Fernando Feliz in 1844. The Pomo name for the lush valley meant “sweat lodge” because the area held special significance in their spiritual life. For that reason alone, it’s thought that some of the Pomo never left the Sanel Valley. While the Pomo generally lived too far north of the northern-most Spanish Mission in Sonoma to fall under their capture, err, I mean forced conversion and coerced labor, once Feliz took control of the valley he put an end to the Pomo’s use of their ancestral spirit land.

Once you pull off the main road, the driveway winds through vineyards until you reach the main parking lot. From there, it’s a short walk to the tasting room and main barns on the property. Beyond that, though, are a series of lush gardens and orchards. Paths run through the endangered apple and pear orchards as well as the lavender garden, and skirt the vegetable garden, out to a walnut orchard. Within the gardens is a small bar that wedding planners often use for a post-ceremony cocktail hour before guests saunter through another apple orchard to a Tuscan-style garden with pergola and open lawn that’s perfect for dancing. The orchards and gardens are dense, expertly maintained, and absolutely Edenic… while the sun is up.

After the last call and the DJ plays “Don’t Stop Believing,” or “Sweet Caroline” guests almost always file out to a waiting party bus to take them to either an after party or their hotel accommodations – usually bypassing the dark and now-foreboding gardens. Then it’s cleanup and breakdown and the florist vans, rental furniture trucks, and the catering trucks eventually depart. The last of us to leave would wander through the dark, unlit paths of the garden in pairs, if we’re lucky, or more often in my case, alone.

While convenient around the house, nothing demonstrates the utter inadequacy of iPhone flashlights by utter consuming darkness.

My first time working the venue I was tasked with breaking down the cocktail bar in the heart of the dark orchards while the guests danced in the Tuscan garden only a hundred yards away. They might as well have been on the moon. I positioned my iPhone flashlight to be as useful as possible for packing up the glassware and mixers, the light swallowed up beyond my little area. I heard someone coming up the main path, their gait slow but certain moving on the gravel. Despite the warm night, the cicadas in the immediate vicinity fell silent, their buzz replaced by the distant drone of the DJ, sounding even more remote by the immediate lack of noise – except for the footfalls of the visitor coming up the path. I looked up from the little bar and couldn’t see anything beyond the wan light of my phone. I picked it up and shone it as far as it could illuminate the pathway, succeeding mostly in casting eerie shadows of the low overhanging branches and leaves. Empty. I went so far as to take a few tentative steps out of the bar area to throw the flashlight beam further down the pathway – the lane the footfalls had come from just moments before remained bereft of any visible guest. I retreated to my bar and kept working, but now I could feel someone watching me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, but the fear of chastisement over an unfinished job overrode my fear of an unseen visitor, so I put it out of my head and doubled my efforts to get out of there. A few minutes later I heard footsteps from the direction of the music and moments later one of my coworkers appeared out of the orchard. “Need some help?” “You have no idea.”

Talking to one of the servers, she recounted a time leaving the garden when she distinctly heard footsteps behind her. She stopped, the footsteps stopped. She shone her phone’s light behind her to reveal no one. But the footsteps continued to follow her just out of sight. She started running, and the footsteps receded… and then gained on her. Tired from working, but terrified she picked up the pace and flat sprinted the distance to the welcome lights of the barns. Another coworker said she ended taking a wrong turn and getting lost for twenty minutes in the garden pathways. Despite leaving quite some time after her, I arrived at the parking lot just as she finally managed to get to her car, visibly shaken.

Just last night the guests all occupied themselves on the dancefloor and I had a moment of peace at my bar. But again, that feeling of someone watching me came over me. I turned around… and someone was there – one of the property managers. I laughingly told her I felt someone behind me, and I mentioned that I’ve often felt that in the gardens after dark. She didn’t laugh at that. She recalled a number of different instances of errant guests in the dark catching glimpses of unexplained shadows, or hearing footsteps from empty pathways like I heard. She went on to explain some reports of white figures being spotted in the gardens occasionally. She explained that she locks up the kitchen by the pond after everyone else has left and then always takes a golf cart back to the barns – “I’ve heard and seen too much walking through that orchard at night. I’d much rather go around in the golf cart and leave whatever is in there alone.”

I welcome the next time I work the venue because, from a practical standpoint, it remains one of the best thought-out locations in terms of flow. Also, I’ve upgraded to bringing a bright LED gooseneck light for cleanup and a high-lumen flashlight for the long lonely walk out. But I know that even if I don’t see anyone,  I never walk the dark garden paths completely alone.