A Ghost Story, Part II (Interlude)
Its not really just the house thats a little creepy in Vicksburg. The whole town seems a little anxious. A poor desperate anxious. And there are a lot of poorer areas of the south don’t get me wrong, but they seem to have a gracious poorness about them. Nothing sinister or dangerous. Just not very weathly, is all.
Not here, and I’m not sure if the lady at the B&B put me in this mindframe or the town really is sending me the heebie-jeebies, but I definitely feel the inclination to look over my shoulder, like I’m in a dark alley. Like something is about to go bad wrong. And this is despite the historical buildings, pretty streets, bright sunshine and river views. It felt like getting off the subway in certain parts of Harlem, and having to walk a few blocks. Menacing even though nothing seems wrong on the surface.
There is one main street in the town which is completely refurbished, looks great, and has the old courthouse museum overlooking it on a large hill. I stopped there, parked my car, triple locked it, and went to check on the little restaurant which looked pretty upscale. I wasn’t taking chances. Eggplant parmesan was coming my way, after a few minutes at the bar, where everyone knew everyone elses name, and they were all roaring drunk. The town catholic priest was sitting on one side of me, and a guy who told me he was a pilot, a construction worker/architect, an army commando, a lawyer etc blah blah blah. You wouldn’t believe what an absolute absurd jerk this guy was… I tried to say as little as possible, as he took everything so far I stated (“oh, my boyfriend is a pilot too”) as a challenge to his manhood, he started in with “I don’t like your attitude, you are arrogant” to which I said “I haven’t said a single thing to you that was not pleasant hellos so, if you don’t want to talk to me thats fine with me, and I’m sorry you feel that way”. The man looked absolutely evil and angry. “you didn’t say anything arrogant, you just are, I can tell by the way you look. You know one day you’ll get whats coming to you” he whispered.
This man was creepy! Violent and herky jerky too. Whats funny is he did it only when the priest got up to talk to his other drinking buddy chums. Then he started with the straight staring at me, then ” I kind of like you, you are gorgeous and your about the only one in here intellgent enough to interact with me” oh brother. This guy was a psychotic, stuck on himself, lying, leerer on top of it. I wolfed down some of my eggplant, now not hungry in the slightest, and the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end. He had both physically threaten me and come on to me, in back to back sentences. I still had to pay, and I didn’t want to go out to my car a few blocks down the street and have him follow me. This sometimes, unfortunately, is what you have to put up with when you are a girl travelling alone, just saying hello sometimes can land you in a scary place before you know it. It hasn’t happened to me in a while, but several times in NYC I was on the receiving line of similar conduct as well.
Fortunately FINALLY the drunk priest sort of realized that this guy was really being a jerk and scaring me, and put himself between us. The bartender, the priest, and I continued have a good conversation, and I learned a lot about the town, and people through him… he was a character, but a really nice guy.
The jerk on the end of the bar was getting really drunk now, I mean fall off the stool drunk. Thank god. I tried my best not to provoke him farther which meant acknowledging him every few minutes or so, lest he say something like “what, you think your too good for me?” kind of stuff, and was praying he’d just get up and leave. It was getting dark outside.
As the priest rambled on, discussing the troubles with Vicksburg, which are numerous (clearly), the man finally left, as the sun was most likely right on the horizon. I paid, and rapidly tried to extricate myself from conversation…. now wishing I’d watched the direction the guy went.
Look left look right. Nope, no guy. I practically ran to my car.
Safe, holy moly. Not what I had in mind. And I still had the house to deal with… over the Mississippi I saw the last trace of sun vanish… we were in heavy twilight. I took a deep breath and looked in my rearview window….not only was there no guy, but there was nobody else, period. Anywhere. Seriously spooked I looked in my backseat before I took off…just in case I was in the Hitchcock zone.
Tags: Deep South, Deep South USA, Mississippi, Vicksburg, Tag Index
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