The Story of Crazy - Roomates, Round One

Me and Mickey. This was during the happy times J and I lived together

I don’t think I’ve met anyone who hasn’t had at least one crazy roommate. I may not have had very many, but I am certainly no stranger to the crazy.

In 1993, I moved out for the first time. I had started a new job at Disneyland, and since a friend of mine needed someone to live with, we moved into a little apartment together near the park. He was one of my best friends at the time, and I was acting like a little mother – because that’s what I did. I was also extremely naïve. I was barely 20, and had lived a fairly sheltered life. I trusted WAY too easily. J was a lady's man. He loved the ladies and he did anything he could to get in their pants. He was also a con artist. I still truly believe that we were very good friends and that for a time, he considered me family. But at some point, our relationship became something else entirely. We weren’t dating. We weren’t even sleeping in the same room. But I had a crush on him that made me cry on a regular basis. I would write lists of things that we “needed” to talk about, and usually the last thing on the list was about “us.” I think it all started out with me being the crazy one.

At first we had so much fun, being out on our own for the first time. We watched TV, had his family over to use the pool (which we got kicked out of because there were too many people), went to Disneyland, and had our mutual friends over. All the craziness that happened at our apartment would make another story entirely.

As time quickly wore on, J had a very hard time holding down his job. I had bought him a car so he could get out and do this. It was some sort of door-to-door salesperson job. He was free to decide on his schedule and then make his own appointments. Pretty soon, he would disappear for entire afternoons. He told me he got paid once a month, but only when he made a sale. I only saw one, very small, paycheck. So, I was supporting us. I thought he was leaving every day to go to work. I was wrong. We played, we ran up my credit cards (which up until then, I had been marvelous at keeping track of and paying on time), and did whatever we wanted to… well he did. He pretty much told me what I could and couldn’t do and who I could have over and who I couldn’t have over. I tried to win his favor by buying him everything he wanted. This included an amazing car stereo, a gold necklace, and a tattoo or two. But then I began to notice strange and large amounts of money missing from my accounts.

About two months into this mess, he stopped going to work. I didn’t really realize this, as I was at work myself. He came by a couple of times to see me at work, for which I was always glad. One time, he ran into one of my coworkers while looking for me. He told me she would be his. They went out later that week. She moved in with us the next day. Suddenly, there was a mattress in our living room. We had two TV’s there and they were both on 24/7. She would eat, but she would wouldn’t clean because of her “sensitive skin.” When she wasn’t at work, they were laying around sleeping or having sex, in the LIVING ROOM.

It was about this time that the money ran out. When I went to buy a personal safe. I felt in my gut that things of mine may be in danger of disappearing. I should have listened to my gut feeling. That's when my last card was declined, I went home and took two boxes of diet pills. This did nothing but make me sick for three days. Neither J nor his girlfriend cared. Things got really weird at this point.

I was happy that one of our friends who was a Marine had set me up with one of his buddies, and I saw him a couple of times. Unfortunately, I also “got” something from him. Meanwhile J had been freaking out on us. He took his girlfriend’s car to Northern California to visit some old friends of his. Apparently, he ran her manual transmission into the ground and also found some girls up there, too. When he came back, he and his very large knife took a nice rip out of my favorite Mickey Mouse poster which I had on the door to my room. At the same time, I looked so thin and unhealthy every time I visited my parents that they started giving me food which I hoarded in my closet with my bedroom door locked.

One night I came home from work, and found that my bedroom had been broken into, my food taken, and a few things ransacked. A contract that J and I had signed was gone. It had been written before we moved in together and stated that he would pay me back the $800 that I lent him to buy his car. Because of this, we ended up getting into an argument and he hit me over the head with a beer bottle. The beer, I assume, he got from my closet where I had been saving it for the weekend. I found out later that once he had gotten into my room, he coerced a friend into telling him where the contract was hidden. Once he found it, he burned it.

A few days later I needed to go see my Mom about a delicate situation which involved the aforementioned Marine. It was a Monday night which I remember because we had to wait for the football game to end and Dad to go to bed before we could talk. Dad asked me how things were going and I talked to him about how J had hit me with that beer bottle. We didn't really talk about anything that was important after that. Mom helped me out with my issue and I went on my way. We no longer had a phone, because we couldn’t afford to pay the bill, but I did still have a pager. It went off wildly the following day. It was my dad. He told me that I would need to be ready to get my stuff and get out on Saturday morning.

Friday night, I cleaned everything up and began packing. Luckily, J and his girlfriend were out until about 2 in the morning. They didn’t even really notice that something weird was going on. I packed up as much as I could before passing out because I was so tired. The next morning, Dad's page came bright and early. He was on his way with the son of one of his customers and a friend of his. They had both been released from prison recently and were raring to go. They brought a couple of huge vans and all three stalked into the apartment. One of the guys went over and opened the curtains in the living room near where J and his girlfriend were sleeping and yelled “rise and shine!” J was furious until he was told to sit down and shut up which scared the crap out of him.

Dad and his friends tried to take everything they could of mine, but I’m sure there were some things left behind. I just didn’t have a chance to pack everything up. I moved back into my parents’ house, but I was still terrified of J. The next time I saw him was on a Friday night, when I got paid. He waited at the top of the tunnel that led to the parking lot until I got off work. He said something to my co-workers to make them go away, and when they did he demanded my paycheck. He felt that since I'd run out on them I owed them my check for the rent money. I told him no, and ran to my car in the parking lot. He yelled out a bunch of threats! I drove around the corner to call my parents to let them know. They slept through the call.

J didn’t come around any more after that His girlfriend had not spoken to me since I had moved out, but after a while started showing up at small get-togethers with our mutual friends. I learned that after the whole fiasco, they left the apartment in the middle of the night, losing a few things in the rush – such as his floor length leather coat. Then she met a Marine from the same squadron as our friend. She came to work one day married to the marine and then she abruptly disappeared. J also disappeared. I ran into him a while later, after I had gone through bankruptcy to pay for all the credit card bills we ran up.

When he had been out on his “job,” he was tempted by a customer to use speed. That was all it took. He ended up going to this guy’s house every day and doing drugs. A lot of my money went toward paying for that. This explained a lot of things that hadn’t really phased me before, such as why the TVs were constantly on, why J was awake all night watching them, why he had such a bad smell, why he never ate, stuff like that. When he explained these things to me, he also apologized profusely to me for getting me involved in this and taking advantage of me. After that night, it would be almost ten years before I’d see him again. And at that time, that was alright with me.

Hauntings

I know this is a bit late for Halloween, but I was thinking about it today (while reading ghost stories), and though I would post something I wrote a few years ago in my old apartment. Enjoy.

I
There is someone on my stairs. I understand this entity is male. I noticed him last September. Just kind of a shadow, some noises going up and down the stairs. When Tyler and I started dating, he came over a few times before he said anything. He asked me if I knew there was something on my stairs. I never said anything to anyone about it before that. We just pretty much notice occasionally, but never really say anything, except an occasional hello.

We hadn’t really noticed him much after my last roommate moved out in January. We thought maybe the ghost belonged with him or something. In August, my friend’s daughter, Katie, was taking care of my dog while I was at work during the day. She would come over and watch movies and hang out. One day, when I was giving her her payment, she asked me if I knew there was a man on the stairs. Now, I have never mentioned this to her or her mom.

I asked her if she was sure that it was a man. She knew. She hadn’t seen his face, but she knew. She said he was nice, and didn’t bother her. Since then, we have noticed the shadow back on the stairs. We have even noticed Mario playing with something on the stairs. We both seem to be pretty respectful of each other’s space. He keeps to him self on the stairs, and we keep to ourselves, as well. Mario seems to be the only one that entertains him.

II
When my dad died, I had not much in the way of ghostly experiences. They have always fascinated me, but I had to live vicariously through my friends stories. While my dad was dying, he had some interesting conversations with – well, we don’t really know. Sometimes, we could tell he was talking to his dead brother, sometimes we really couldn’t even tell what he was saying. One of my favorite conversations – from his side was when he was talking and suddenly said, “George, George, George… you bulbous bastard… George W. Bush.”

Anyway, after my dad died, some weird things started happening around the house. He did die in the house. And it would make sense for him to hang around, since he had lived there for almost 30 years.

The first thing that happened was when my grandparents came down to stay for the funeral. My parents had slept in separate rooms for several years because they both tended to snore and kept each other awake. My dad slept in the master bedroom, and my mom had moved into my old room. The master bedroom was the only room with a bed big enough to hold two people, so my grandparents stayed in there. The first night they were there, my grandparents turned off the lights around 11 and went to bed. About 2 in the morning, my grandma woke my grandpa and yelled at him for not turning off the light that was over the dresser. The light switch was at least ten feet away, by the bedroom door. My grandpa remembered turning it off. It was on, and shining brightly.

The next couple of days, a few other things happened. I don’t remember the exact order of everything, but I do remember what happened. We were all standing in the kitchen, which backed up to our large family room. The family room had one light in the corner by the kitchen. I happened to be facing into the family room, when I noticed three lights flash in the air over on the other side of the room. The family room is over 20 feet long, and it was in the back in the house, so there was no chance of it being a car going by.

My dad brewed his own beer. We had cases of it out in the garage. He hadn’t had any in months, and neither had anyone else. My grandpa had one bottle while he was visiting and threw the bottle in the trash. After he left, we found an empty bottle on one of our pantry shelves. It is still in my mom’s pantry.

As I have said before, my dad almost always wore red 49er shirts. He NEVER wore undershirts. My mom was doing laundry and found my dad’s undershirt that had been on the bottom of all of his clothes in the bottom drawer of his dresser, in the laundry basket. We have no idea how it got there.

My dad was a gardener, and he knew my favorite flower was gardenias. I had a skirt that had giant gardenias all over it. One day, I put on the skirt to wear to work. Suddenly, I smelled gardenias. Where there weren’t any. For the entire ride to work. And for about 2 hours at work, until I asked someone if they smelled it as well. No one else could smell it. It suddenly went away.

We had trouble at some point remember what my dad looked like when he was well. I think that sometimes my dad communicated to me through my dreams. I actually had a billboard in a dream that kept saying not to worry, that he loved me. Mom slowly had him show up in her dreams. First, as a floating head, then, slowly his body would start materializing.

The best and perhaps most “chilling” story happened to my mom when she got home from work one day. My mom promised my dad that she would retire from work once he died. She couldn’t do it quite yet. So she went back to work. My dad would always be waiting for my mom and call out to her, “Hi! How was your day?” Almost before she could even make it to the door.

So, she gets home a few weeks after he died and the phone is ringing as she walks in the door. She answered it to a lot of static, like a cell phone with bad reception. For some reason, she felt she should stay on the line. She said hello again, and heard “hi.” Then she heard amidst the static, “where have you been?” She told the phone that she had been at work. The phone didn’t say anything back for a while. Then it said, “I miss you.” She said it back. Then it said, “I love you.” She said it back. The phone faded to more static and then went dead.

She called me at work to ask if I had called. Nope. She tells this story better than me and gives everyone chills when she tells it.

The only other thing I can think of is when we were getting ready to move. We had a gate that locked from the inside and outside. The day before we moved, the “doorknob” fell out of the gate into my hand. The people that were moving into the house, were a woman and her kids after a bad divorce. She wanted to be able to keep her husband out and the gated opening was a good selling point. We were able to replace the doorknob before she moved in. She told us that she has felt a protective energy ever since she moved in.

We haven’t really had many “dad” experiences since moving, other than little dreams, and the hummingbird incident. But he is still always on our minds, and we hope he has moved on but is still watching over us.

III
About 10 years ago, a friend of mine passed from drowning. We hadn't spoken in a couple of years, but we had been really good friends for a while before that. A mutual friend of ours was in the Air Force, working on Air Force One. He lived just outside DC and a couple years later invited me to come and visit him. It was the first time since the death of our friend that we had seen each other. We were both really excited.

I flew out to see him, with my best friend – because he worked for the airlines, so I was able to get first class. He got back on the plane after he got me there. I met my friend a few minutes later. We went back to his town home and he introduced me to his girlfriend at the time. We stayed up and talked for hours that night. His girlfriend worked the graveyard shift and he worked early in the morning.

The next morning, I heard him leave for work. A few minutes later, I heard knocking on the wall next to the bed I was sleeping in. On the other side of the wall was an office-type room with only a couch and a computer in it. I thought my friend had maybe forgotten his keys and couldn't get back in. I moved toward the stairs and the knocking stopped. I went back to bed, and the knocking started again, this time right on the window of the room I was in – on the second floor.

When his girlfriend came home from work, I told her what happened. She said that similar reports have happened from other people when they have stayed there. There was no “real” explanation. They ended up telling me about some other weird stuff that had happened in their house – mostly in the kitchen, involving the lights.

The second night, I could have sworn that I heard our deceased friend talking to me, and being quite prominently in my dreams. I told my friend about this the next day, and he said that happens to him quite often.
When I went home, I felt like I had taken this entity with me for some reason. A few strange things happened at home. I would be sleeping and I would wake up to use the restroom in the night, and the bedroom door would just magically be closed when I got back. When I opened the door, the radio was on. Then I heard a voice say, “Hi, Jen. How ya doin'?” I am pretty sure that was the extent of it, but it was weird to me.

IV
My mom tells me this story: When I was a baby, she was pretty sure that we lived in a haunted house. I would be in my crib and she would hear me talking (baby talk) for about an hour before she got up. She swore that I was talking to someone. She would come home from work at midnight and my dad would leave for work at 4 am. After he would leave, she said the dog would start hiding under the bed and whining. Then the bed would start to move across the room. Not far, but it moved enough to freak her out.

We all have weird experiences, but who knows what they really are? Electro-magnetic impulses? Dead people in limbo? I don't think anyone knows for sure, but it sure makes for interesting conversation.