The problem I have with telling ghost stories is that, generally, from the start, if people are expecting a ghost story, they are automatically trying to work out the physics in their heads, or they are jumping to the conclusion that it’s a bunch of fictional bullshit. I am here to tell you the story you are about to read is true. I was present at the time this particular incident happened.
First of all, let me give you a bit of background so you have a better understanding of my surroundings. I live in a rather old city in Georgia. The city has an extended history that stretches back thousands of years to the “Mound Builder” Indians. We also share a strong Revolutionary War and Civil War heritage. Now, more than anything, my hometown is known for its music history. James Brown, Otis Redding, The Allman Brothers, Lena Horne, Ray Charles, the B-52’s, R.E.M., the Indigo Girls, and many others have called this area home at one point or another in their respective careers. It’s rumored that The Police penned “Roxanne” while they were here back in the late ’70s.
Anyway, this story is about one well-known musician, or should I say the deceased father of this musician. The musician? Well, good golly, Miss Molly... it’s Little Richard.
My office is located in a small building in the historic district of our downtown. The building is anywhere from a hundred and fifteen to a hundred and twenty-five years old. The building has been everything from a brothel, a liquor store, a bar, and an apartment to, now, professional office space. When the place was a bar, it had its most notorious moments. From everything I’ve heard and read, it was a rather rough “juke joint.”
As a point of unusual personal history, I was talking to my grandmother a few months ago, and she told me that her sister, who died long before I was born, actually worked there — as she put it — as a “...barmaid.” She even married the bartender/owner of the place and lived upstairs over the bar.
I digress. Back to the story. Like I was saying, the bar was not the kind of place you’d want to find yourself in late on a Friday or Saturday night. From my findings, stabbings, gunshots, and the occasional murder were rather common there.
One death in particular has given the address an added bit of notoriety: the murder of Richard Penniman Sr.
Who is Richard Penniman Sr.? Mr. Penniman Sr. is Little Richard’s father.
I’m the creative director for my company. With the title comes a lot of late nights. One of those late nights happened to occur on November 17, 2001. I know this sounds like crap, but that particular night will go down as absolutely the most terrifying few hours of my life. Nothing could’ve prepared me for what was going to happen. Even now, I’m having a hard time writing this.
Back to that night.
I was deadlining a project that was due within a couple of days. The project amounted to about 30% of our net business for the next year, and for some reason I had sat on it until the very last minute. “Procrastination breeds creativity,” I always say. Waiting until the last minute is pathological for me.
My partner and I were elbow- and kneecap-deep in work at 8 o’clock p.m. when the last receptionist said her goodbye and locked us in for the night. We went to the office fridge, got ourselves a Coke, then went back to work. We worked pretty tirelessly until around 11:15, when things started getting weird.
To be more factual, this is how it happened: it went from 0 to 100 on the freak meter within a second. There wasn’t any ramping up or anything. One second we were working, and the next second all hell broke loose simultaneously. It was like somebody flicked on the “you-need-to-get-the-fuck-out-of-here-now!” switch.
Computer monitors were flicking on and off. Desk lamps were flicking on and off. Pictures, a calendar, and a couple of corkboards we had nailed to the walls started dropping to the floor by themselves — one at a time. A few ceiling tiles and one fluorescent bulb dislodged and hit the floor. A swivel desk chair was spinning by itself. I had one of those magnetic-art time-waster thingies on my desk, and it was spinning like a fan. I noticed this foul stench in the air, which we now jokingly refer to as the “Satan fart.” There was a really loud, constant crackling noise. The water in the bathroom sink automatically started running. We had a box of brochures that toppled off a low shelf and sprawled all over the floor. Doors were opening and slamming. I’m talking about off-the-scale pandemonium.
Then, as quickly as it started, it stopped.
I was scared. Bryan was scared. We couldn’t believe what had just happened. I think we were stunned into not being able to move. It felt like one of those dreams where you get so scared, so worked up, that you can’t scream. All you want to do is pass out or wake up. We tried to say something to each other, but all we could do was stare. We stood motionless for what seemed like an hour. From the moment everything died down, time seemed to slow, almost to a stop. I remember saying to myself, “Grab your stuff and run... just run!” But I couldn’t.
A minute or two passed, and we were starting to get a grip on our collective selves when an old black man walked into our office. Our building has one way in and one way out, and for the life of me, I knew that the door was locked. He had walked into our building through two other rooms to get to our office. Now, here we had this old black man staring at us, and us staring at him. I was thinking to myself, “After all we’ve just been through, we’ve got a homeless guy in our office about to panhandle me for a fucking quarter?”
There we were, in this quietly deadlocked gaze. You could’ve heard a roach burp. Then he broke down into this laugh. Not a scary laugh or an evil laugh, just a true, honest-to-God, something-has-tickled-my-funny-bone laugh. He was laughing to the point that he couldn’t catch his breath. Neither Bryan nor I saw the humor in the situation. Actually, we were both pretty much about to lose it and go into total meltdown.
Anyway, the old man began to regain his composure. Just as he was about to say something, he started snickering again. At this point, he was laughing so hard he was crying and stomping his feet. He reminded me of Grady from Sanford and Son. Needless to say, we started to get a little lighthearted because we were thinking someone had played one killer practical joke.
Once again, the old man began to settle down, and he started to speak with a really strong dialect.
“Boys, thuh twos-a-you look’n as if ya duhn see a banshee.”
We nod our heads.
“You-uhns jus’ dee-uhd,” he said through his snickering.
Then he asked us if we knew who Little Richard was. Once again, we nodded our heads in wide-eyed unison.
Then he said, “I’m Lil’ Richahd’s daddy, Big Richahd. But all the ladies call me Big Dick!”
He started laughing so hard now that he was drooling. Then he turned toward our office door, threw up his hand, waved, and, laughing even harder, walked out the door.
Before the door closed behind him, we heard him say to himself through his giggles, “Big Dick. Gotta remember that one!”