CHISAGO COUNTY PRESS
B Section, page 1 – Thursday, October 27, 1988
The Shafer Slosher
By JEFFREY B. SMITH
I had always wanted to believe in ghosts. I’d enjoy hearing people tell of their experiences with haunted houses, ghosts or even U.F.O.’s. But no matter how good the story, I’d end up skeptical because of the storytellers themselves. They always seemed a bit wigged-out, you know?
However, I now am certain that perfectly sane people have experienced ‘unexplained phenomena.” It’s just that we don’t like touting it around to the guys in the car pool or the crowd at the tavern. To dwell on these experiences too much would invite doubt about that very sanity. You see, for me, it wad a deep and intense personal experience. It shook me and changed my perception of reality, and the perception of myself.
Back in my hippie day I rented a run-down farmhouse out there near Shafer. I waned a place where I could raise some plants, play my guitars (loud) and generally do what I please. It lasted about four days.
Back in my hippie days I rented a run down farm house out there near Shafer. I wanted a place where I could raise some plants, play my records (loud) and generally do what I pleased. It lasted about 4 days.
One night, after working the second shift at the plant, I settled into my chair for some late night T.V. Before I had cracked open my beer I heard something upstairs. Although I had been alone up there a few minutes before there was no denying that someone, or something, was there now. A slow gritty, dusty kind of scraping sound was coming from up there. As if a scaly something of considerable bulk was sliding along the floor. The sound stopped only to be followed by the familiar squeak of the bathtub taps being slowly opened and then, the rush of water.
Maybe I should’ve run but I was rooted. I sat rigid in my chair, my blind gaze was fixed on the T.V. but all my senses were trained upon the sounds above my head. I would not leave the familiar comfort of my chair to run out into the night. Nor was there any way I would go up there and pull on that light.
The water kept running and soon I could hear slapping-like splashing in the tub. As if something with fins, or flippers, was beginning to frolic up there. Occasionally I’d hear loud, large waves of water slop onto the floor. The slippery squeak of flesh contacting the tub surface was followed by a gush of water spraying down above me, as if something was wallowing in my tub. These deluges would be interspersed with periods of gentle, rhythmic wave-like sloshing. And above all this there were gross, sloppy, slobbering snorts and snuffles as if a giant snorkel was siphoning.
Well, I never saw the author of those sounds. I did not move from my chair. Not even when the water began cascading down the steps and my socks became wet. Not even when my body was shaking uncontrollably – and it wasn’t from the chill. No, I vaguely recall ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS concluding to be followed by an old movie, something about John Forsythe in a T.V. studio, I think. Then came a scratchy rendition of THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER flowed by a shrill test pattern. Then an eternity of static broken, finally, by that test pattern, and again, that pathetic version of the national anthem. I didn’t even move when a goateed professor attempted to teach me Latin. (That should’ve made anyone move out.) No, even though the noises stopped towards morning, I didn’t get up until it was broad daylight and High Downs was conducting CONCENTRATION. I stood right up and walked out to the mailbox. My hand was aching, I looked down, my unopened beer can was dimpled form my fingertips.
Well, I loaded up all mu possessions, except for what I left in the bathroom, (I never even looked in there – not even out of the corner of my eye.) and was out of there by sundown. Walked right out on tow months rent.
I moved in with a buddy in his trailer near Almelund – until his old lady kicked me out. It was nice to be able to explain all the nighttime sounds I heard there in his trailer.
All in all, I’m proud of myself. I sleep well. I’m not afraid of the dark. I don’t agonize over that night. I accept it as just another unexplainable event in a lifetime that is rarely defined by logic.
And yet, when I come home at night from those rare second shifts and I shower before bed, I still hesitate before sliding that shower curtain back.
The End
