Substack of the Dead: Meeting a Ghost in the Flesh

The Band Director Doesn't Care You're Dead, You are NOT Skipping Rehearsal!

Hello Curious Spirits!

December in centuries past was considered prime time for ghost stories. Since most of my life is ghosts, that gives me an easy go-to for party entertaining this time of year! Today, I am sharing with you one that I only realized a few weeks ago was a ghost story - one of the more peculiar ghost stories a person of European descent in North America can have!

The logistics alone can cause brain freeze: if they aren’t solid, how did they inhabit that chair? But they opened the fridge and ate something from it. I had to do the dishes! What? How???

Title:Dead Drummer Author: Cruikshank, George Year: 1842 Access Date December 13, 2024 Publisher: Old Book Illustrations

In Malidoma Patrice Some's "Of Water and Spirit" (Amazon affiliate link), he writes about how an elder of his tribe passes away. After the man dies, he gets up and leads his funeral procession. In Beloved by Toni Morrison, an unnamed child returns to her village in full flesh despite being dead. The show Dead Like Me plays on these themes. In the show, a select group of spirits exist on the fringes of American society, acting as psychopomps to their fellow deceased.

These living-dead spirits must live, eat, and pay rent like they did when alive, but they aren't allowed to form deep relationships with the living. They may not engage in old habits or visit old haunts. Although they may encounter their loved ones throughout their day-to-day lives, a veil covers their true appearance most of the year.

But When Halloween rolls around, they have to hide. Why? Because on that day, the living can see them as they are.

It’s easy to dismiss the possibility of a ghost before you, taking up space like an ordinary person. The logistics alone can cause brain freeze: if they aren’t solid, how did they inhabit that chair? But they opened the fridge and ate something from it. I had to do the dishes! What? How???

My First Known Ghost of Flesh

In high school, I played the clarinet, and at times, I was the first chair/section leader. I do not fondly remember my experiences with the band. I would have rather been singing and dancing. My parents wanted me to be "well-rounded," so I had to continue with something I did not enjoy. The result of not wanting to be present was a general crankiness at the beginning of every rehearsal.

The details and expectations of the first chair were generally vague. There were expectations of me, never well spelled out. On occasion, my band director declared me in charge of things, sometimes quite literally forgetting I needed a key for the thing I was suddenly in charge of.

I had few friends in the band, which did not help my overall experience. Most band members either hated me or ignored me, and the second and third chair groups mostly derided me.

They were nasty about their contempt for me and nasty in groups. One girl, Jennifer, brown-haired, brown-eyed, short, and slim, often had the most creativity invested in her bullying.

Jen was one of about 17 Jennifers in my graduating class, and they all had the same personality, as far as I could tell. She and a friend of hers got borderline violent with me at times, knocking my books over, trying to break my instrument, and sometimes randomly screaming at me as a way of managing their teenage discomfort.

Most of the physical harassment stopped when I got to 5 8, and Jen realized she wouldn't get much past 5 foot 4. When she randomly told me, along with a couple of friends of mine, that she was moving to Jamaica with her mom and her mom's husband, I was a little skeptical but relieved. It was one less jerk for me to navigate, and at least I didn't have to hold a snake in her face to stop the harassment like I did the kid who sat behind me in biology. (He later moved to Brazil and has never been heard from again.)

She left school before the year ended, and I moved on with my life. The band at my school felt like a hostage situation, so summer began with daily and some evening rehearsals. During one rehearsal, just before the Fourth of July parade, Jennifer came back.

She entered the instrument locker room and inquired about her instrument. Frustrated, I replied while retrieving mine to seek help from the band director. Afterward, I returned to the band room and set up my horn. Once more, she stood beside me, asking where her horn was. When I explained that I didn’t have the information, she insisted, stating, "Only you can get it!"

Because I was a nice kid (as opposed to a kind and far less patient adult), I didn't indulge the f--k I wanted to give her. I finally went back and looked in my locker—and yes, the powers that be who handled kids' instruments had indeed shoved her clarinet somewhere behind mine in the instrument locker.

I got it down for her (I could reach.) When I went to hand it to her, she told me to put it on the floor. Most people where I grew up didn't want to touch me even casually, so while insulting, it wasn't out of the ordinary.

"What are you even doing here?" I snapped.

"I just came back for a visit. I wanted to see my friends." I wanted to ask her why she was bothering me instead of talking to them, but I didn’t.

I was trying to memorize music, so I didn't pay much attention to her. Because I sat in the front row, I had a good view of the flute section, where most of her friends were. She wasn't interacting with them.

At one point during rehearsal, I looked behind me, and she was sitting at the end of the second row, playing music with a stand to herself. She wasn't sharing with anyone, even my friend M, whom she, for the most part, got along with. It was weird - music stands were in short supply, so we were always pushed to share. Yet our band director didn't say a word to her about it.not —

After band practice, I walked out with my friend, who sat beside me, and asked, "Did Jennifer say anything to you? Her being here is so weird."

My friend looked at me oddly. "She moved to Jamaica."

"I know she did, but she was here today. She sat right next to you in rehearsal today."

"I didn't see her."

I shrugged it off. As a teenager, I had other things to think about - books, boys, and navigating the unpredictability of my home life.

A square-inch article appeared in one of our local newspapers about a week later. A woman from our town had moved to Jamaica- and her new husband murdered her and her teenage daughter. No names were given, but we all knew who it was. Note: I made a half-arsed attempt to look for this clip. It would have appeared in the Hammond Times or the Gary Post Tribune circa 1992 -1993.

Back then, it took a bit for small, personal news to reach us from outside the States. We didn't have the Internet or instantaneous communication.

Some people I got on within the band asked if I had seen the clip. "It's so sad," was all we could say. Details were not forthcoming, and back then, no one spoke up about or commented on domestic violence.

If the dates were correct, Jennifer would have died a week before she appeared at that rehearsal and asked me for her clarinet.

Fine Points in Ghost Spotting

There's more than one way to encounter a ghost. Usually, it's vague. You sense a presence that disappears with enough speed to question your perceptions. We sometimes need to find out what we're encountering when we encounter it. I think people experience ghosts all the time. They just don't know it.

Also, it is not helpful that ghosts differ in how they appear.

The common methods by which ghosts manifest:

• As a figure taking up space, often at the end of someone's bed (I do not allow this at my house)

• As a spread-out atmospheric energy, usually reported as a cold patch

• As a clear voice in your head or as a voice that you hear externally

• As a fragrance, often a favorite perfume or the scent that came from a favorite activity

• As a dream presence, where the dream has unusual continuity

The least common ways ghosts appear, at least to people in the US of W.A.S.P descent:

• As a physical person in a physical body

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