Okay, up, my last day in Salem . . . and boy, is it!!! Things are not going so well right out of the shoot! What a disaster! Why do I have to make everything so difficult? I hate packing!
I’m excited to be flying to New York from Salem but how strange that I’m not staying in Salem for Halloween! In the past, you could not drag me away from Salem on Halloween! I guess I’m thinking Halloween weekend might just be more exciting in New York but since having the final altercation with the Bitch Maid at the Hawthorne, I’m just done. It’s been five years since I’ve been to Salem and granted, I only had three days. You just can’t do Salem in three days, BUT these three days have been hard on me. So let’s start with packing. No organization, I just shove it in, squishing fingers along the way. Got it all in and now I’m ready and the shit begins.
Unknowingly, by not having the maids in my room for the last three days has caused them to suspect me of stealing towels. Towels? Towels?? I didn’t have the maids in because I was EXHAUSTED when I got here and I slept. Slept in my room for three days. It’s my room. I paid to be in it, right? Anyway, here’s what happened. I roll on out of the room and I see a gaggle of maids ahead of me. Out steps one, very authoritative, looking me in the eye and announces to me that I’ve had no maid service while I was here. I look at her, quite friendly and polite on my part, and say, “Yes.” I’m actually a little afraid of her. She looks like one mean bitch and she’s obviously unhappy with me. I would call her a witch but I RESPECT WITCHES, not her! I continue to be very polite and move away from her. I do not engage her. As I walk away, she issues an order to the other maids to COUNT THE TOWELS IN MY ROOM. Count the towels? Are you kidding me? Is that all you got? I still do not engage her. I know her for what she is. There will be a day when I want to come back to Salem and stay at the Hawthorne Hotel and this ignorant bitch is not going to ruin that for me. Engaging her would have caused a huge shit storm and I refused to go there with her. I just walked away. I hope she’s happy. All my used towels are stacked up neatly on the bathroom floor. Every single one of them. For God’s sake, why would I want to steal towels from the Hawthorne Hotel? I have stayed many times at the Hawthorne. Why would I steal from them? I like them very much. I do not need their towels and I appreciate them enough that I didn’t even think to steal from them. They have been good to me over the years. Why would some petty-ass power-hungry bitch even think that I would steal from the Hawthorne? I didn’t even think of it over the years. I am a honest person. I never steal from anyone! I am honest to a fault. I do question the motives of the bitch though. I really do.
So I check out of the Hawthorne. I am very hurt and upset but I leave without a complaint. I just leave my beloved Salem and the Hawthorne. I’m in such a dark mood and I’m just plain mad. I don’t remember getting to the airport. I do remember boarding the plane and feeling bleak all the way to New York. I didn’t know I’d feel this way on my way to New York. I thought I would be excited and happy but no. The bitch maid from hell made sure of that. One last note, when I arrived in New York, it literally took three hours for me to get from the airport to my hotel. Three hours to go 9.7 miles… and the hotel doesn’t have my room reservation. Oh dear, here we go. . . Luvs, Janet
The shadow even turned around and took a couple of steps backwards along the way! I know that doesn’t sound like anything but I was standing still and literally filming my shadow moving away from me and disappearing on the other side of the sign! I didn’t see this event until I viewed the video on my computer. Well, I loved it, of course, so I quickly put some creepy music on it and uploaded it to my You Tube Channel. Yes, I have a You Tube Channel! And quite honestly, I’ve had several very strange experiences in Salem. I can truly say without a doubt that Salem is haunted. There are many spirits moving around these old Salem streets and I’ve been blessed to be aware of them. Mainly they appear in my photos but sometimes they are physical as well. There was one who appeared just as I was taking a photo of a store window. She was so small and seemed to have a little witch dress on, I kid you not! She came dashing around me so fast. I could actually hear her coming from behind me (it was late and dark with no one around). I could hear this clattering/clicking sound on the cobblestones and as she went around me, she upset the atmosphere. My camera picked this up and surprisingly you can see her in the bottom corner of my photo. She actually looked like a white stick figure (ectoplasm) in a full-run stance with just the suggestion of a witch dress. Of course, I didn’t see her until later when I downloaded the photo but I sure did hear her. She was making a real disturbance as she ran by me. I still remember it very clearly to this day. The other ghostly guy turned up by my side in the Charter Street cemetery. This was my first trip to Salem in 2009. It was my last day in Salem and I was getting in a few more photos before I had to leave. I was taking a photo of the tree that I love in the cemetery and, of course, I wasn’t aware of anything unusual but when I got home and looked at the photo, well, there he was! He was standing right there on my left side intently watching what I was doing. He was male and looked a bit misshappen but there he was, a dark shadow figure. I felt really honored that a spirit in Salem seemed to be so interested in what I was doing and I was so fortunate to catch him in my photo! Another photo I took in the same cemetery captured a swirl of orbs in front of the trees. It was quite beautiful. Another appeared to be a sunbeam playing among a display of Halloween flags hanging in front of a store on Derby Street. The way the sunbeam jumped from one flag to another seemed to not be possible with the sun’s movements and the order in which the photos were taken. It was quite strange. And certainly everyone has heard about the Hawthorne Hotel ghost. 
Well, I believe there may be something to that even though the Ghost Hunters didn’t find anything! During my first stay at the Hawthorne Hotel in 2009, I was all tucked in bed and sitting up watching TV when I felt something playing with my hair on the top of my head. I looked up and starting swatting things out of my hair thinking it was a spider. There was nothing there, and I looked everywhere! Also, when I stayed at the Hawthorne in 2010, I had several people ask me if I’d seen the ghost when they saw me on the 6th floor. I mean when I was looking out the window and there was a tour outside, they would holler up and ask if I had seen the ghost! I never experienced a ghost while I was in that room but the bed was a true nightmare!
Oh well, I’ll just put it in my purse. I want to use it after I shower anyway. I leave the rest of my Hurricane Sandy supplies for the maids.
And then, when I picked up the Salem 2011 Tourist Guide, they used another one of my photos there as well! You can see that at the top of this blog as well! It’s the one with the little orange house. 
As you can imagine, I was totally shocked and surprised. I never dreamed anything like that would happen!
You can just sit back and let me entertain you! Here’s the link in Transylvania: http://halloweensunseen.com if you need it but you can access it by clicking on the orange or blue links right here in this post. That’s the ticket! You can start there on the first page and read my entries for my essays and then bop on down to the middle of the page for the links. You can also look for the little “next” buttons on each page and just drive around the whole site. It’s really more fun that way because you won’t miss a thing. It’s a big old trip so hop on my broom with me and let’s take a ride! Oh and mustn’t forget, turn up the sound! The music and sound effects are a very important part of each page!
And it dawns another new day in Salem, Massachusetts. The day before Halloween and all seems to be well. As I look out the window, everything is unchanged although that bright sunlight is clearly not necessary. I shield my eyes and walk away from that window. It looks like the tail-end of the storm out there. The sun is trying to break through the clouds. At this point I feel like Bela Lugosi throwing his arm up to shield his eyes to protect himself from either the sun or a crucifix. It just dawned on me that I don’t think I’ve ever actually written the word “crucifix.” Hmm, idle minds, busy fingers . . . oh hell, I don’t know.
Very nice to be walking outside today. I don’t see any storm damage at all. The beautiful Friendship is right where she was and looks simply splendid. This shot here, well, I’ve literally seen hundreds of these. For photographers this building is perfectly placed for beautiful photos. Perfect angles, rule of thirds! And here’s one of mine! On second thought, there does seem to be some new wood on this building. Damage indeed? Oh and here, this lady told me to take a picture of her dog. She didn’t ask me, she told me. “Here, take a picture of my dog.” Alrighty.
He gives me this, “if I smile, my face will crack” sort of look as I gently lay my treasures before him. I am now full on staring at him, looking for some sign of life and look … yes, there it is! A full on bona fide glance up in my direction! Oh, I feel so special, so, so lucky! He rings me up in silence and then actually tells me how much I owe him. And, and could it be? A shadow of a smile plays across his mouth. Oh, I just shiver all over at this . . . and hand him a bill or two. He makes my change, places my treasures in a little Halloween bag and almost, what? He, yes, I can almost see it! And with great effort put forth, the man mumbles, “Thank you,” with just the touch of a smile again playing around his lips. And that’s it. That’s all I get. I can actually see the curtain close across his eyes. I’m so out of here, after-life kid!
I look up to see where the cash register is. I don’t see it. I can’t see out of the aisle I’m in so I step over into what looks like the main aisle and I still don’t see it. I only see the door leading out. I figure I’ll find it soon enough and I continue to marvel at the actual condition of this place. It’s really filthy in here and suddenly this odor assails me. I noticed it when I entered. I figured it would just go away like all good odors do but this one? No dice. It’s not going anywhere. It’s staying right here and it’s getting bigger. I mean bigger, bigger and bigger. Not sure I can take this but I continue on looking at book titles stacked all the way to the ceiling, way over my head. There’s a few pathetic paper signs hanging here and there telling subjects and such but what a pitiful effort it is indeed. And now whilst dealing with all this, I suddenly hear very loudly a “Jesus-freak” outside on the Mall with his bullhorn full-on telling me that I’m going to fry if I don’t accept Jesus as my Savior. Oh must I deal with this too right here, right now? How much more can I take at this moment? This guy’s horn sounds like he’s standing right in the doorway of this freaky-ass bookstore! I retreat back more toward the back of the store and put a few thousand books between me and the religious, yelling man outside. I look for the proprietor of this place to see his reaction to the unrest but this dude is old, I mean very old. Not much help there! So I continue to fall back more toward the back of the store to get away from that horrid noise! But then, now the odor has become a full-on stench! There’s a back room back there and the stench is very strong the closer you get to it. At this point, I look down and to my surprise (hee!), the floor looks like it hasn’t been swept in probably 30 years or so. Lots and lots of dust-bunnies but not your normal dust-bunnies these! No, no, no, no, no! These are full-grown little evil looking sons-of-bitches. These are not cute! They’re full grown and looking for some ass to kick. Yup, and do you want to know another little unpleasantry about dust-bunnies? Well, do you know what dust-bunnies really are? They are not dust, they are human skin! We shed our skin and it collects into dust-bunnies! Truth! But now, as I draw near to the mysterious back room, I stop dead in my tracks. The stench, the stench has now become so strong! Let me tell you about how it smells. Ok kiddies? It smells like must, yes, there’s that. Must, must, musty old must. 80-year old must, coupled with just pure on, hell ya, stinky, stanky ass smell! Ass that has not been washed in, well, ever. Let me say, it just ass stinks. Mixed with musty, must and it’s strong! As I really hope it’s not coming from their bathroom, I shrink away, moving back toward the front. Whoops, wrong turn but I found where you check out, I think. It’s this tiny opening in stacks and stacks of ceiling-high books. Just a small slit of an opening. You peek through it to see the clerk taking your money but you can’t see him because the slit is so thin. You just have enough room to shove your money through and wait for your change and receipt to be shoved back at you. Now I only observe this because I did not buy anything in the store. Try though as I may, I never saw a single book I wanted. I didn’t want to ask for a book that was tied down up in the stacks. I figured it’s just too much bother, too much trouble. And the stench, well, I just have to go. I am the hell out of here. I wave and wink at the Jesus-freak as I go by. Ah, hell, I don’t know why. I’m sure he gets tired of people hating on him just like he hates on people. Somehow that 80s song “Round and Round” by Ratt comes to mind. “Round and round, what comes around goes around, I’ll tell you why, dig . . . .” Okay out, thank the Lord that sits atop this madhouse, I’m out.
On to the wine-tasting . . . and I missed it by a few minutes but the girl is still there and tells me about the wine that she’s pedaling of which I might add, is still sitting right in front of her … still open. Now you’d think she would have snuck a thimble-full to me but no, nada, nothing. I browse around for awhile but damn it I wanted that little taste of wine. I wanted it bad. Funny, I don’t even hardly drink but I guess my ego still wants it. I mustn’t ever be told no, I can’t have something because you can bet your sweet ass that I will want it! So I buy a bottle of wine for myself. So there, see?
Okay, tomorrow is Halloween and what a Halloween treat is this house! It’s actually quite hard to believe that I’m in Salem, Mass, the Halloween capital of the world! But there it is and I suppose I should get some rest this evening. I’ve walked a lot today, as always in Salem. That’s half the fun, right? I go to the cemetery to hug my tree and tell it good night. I love my tree.
I talked straight away with Jason. He’s still very perturbed with me and is absolutely convinced that this day will be my last on this planet. Silly goose, I ain’t going nowhere. I attempt to calm him, after all, I am immortal, right? Being a witch, I will simply grab my broom and ride above the super storm until it abates and then, I will land gently back down on the blessed earth and continue on my blissful way here in Salem. Right? Well, Jason is not convinced knowing that I would never be able to get my fat ass off the ground. Broom or no broom, this ass ain’t going nowhere. I then assure Jason that nothing will be amiss as this day goes forward. I am sure of it. I then call my bestie, Dash, and leave an assuring message and now I will be on my way.
No one will look at me. No one will acknowledge my presence. I try to meet someone’s eyes and they seem to be looking at a spot in the middle of my forehead. They look but they aren’t looking at me like meeting my eyes. Still no one comes forward to wait on me. Odd. I know I’m not invisible, at least not yet! This goes on for some minutes and by now I’m feeling uncomfortable. I look around and the restaurant is pretty much empty. Now that’s a clue. There is a couple of people over there eating and talking with their waitress about being stranded in Salem. Well, good gawd almighty, I’m stranded here too . . . and being totally ignored at Red’s? At Red’s? As I’m sure you must surmise by now, I have had this same experience before on this crazy trip. So, finally one good-hearted lady comes over to me and moves me over to her section and my every wish is her desire. Bless her heart. She is so nice to me. She knows what all those bitches are doing to me. It is now a game to me so I try several times to catch the eyes of the Cashier and she just won’t do it. She knows I’m trying to catch her eyes but the silly bitch absolutely refuses! Fire the bitch! I don’t know why I’m surprised at this turn of events. My personal waitress brings everything I want and need, even fussing over me and making sure my leftovers are wrapped up nice and snug. She tells me that I might need it later when the storm rolls in. Oh how I love the sound of that. I’m so excited! She pats me and sends me on my merry way and she got one hell of a big tip from me! And no, in case you are wondering, the Cashier never looked at me. Even while taking my money, not one glimpse. Crazy, silly bitch. People like me pay your fucking salary! Not a very bright bitch indeed….
Okay, get real. Here I am, utterly alone, 1,600 miles from home. Do you know how far that is? I’m almost in Canada and I live in Texas on the Gulf Coast! That’s one hell of a long way! And I got this monster storm on its way. I should be scared. And somewhere inside me, I am scared as hell! But I don’t own it. If I did, I would lose my mind. Don’t you just love these predicaments I get myself into? Makes me feel like Lucy! But really, look at that storm. This is what Jason is freaking out over. It does look like I’m under the thick middle of it up here doesn’t it? Yup, I’m right under the thick middle of it.
So now I make my way on over to CVS. This CVS has been my safe haven many times during my past trips to Salem. I remember one Halloween here in Salem, I was so friggin’ cold that I stepped into CVS just to get warm. I wasn’t staying in Salem at the time and I had nowhere to get warm. I walked around and acted like I was shopping. Oh the warmth felt so good, like a warm blankie being wrapped around me. Anyway, I go on in and pick up a few more things. The employees are complaining because they can’t leave early because of the storm and all. And the mystery of why I was treated so badly at Red’s is solved. They were trying to leave! If they didn’t want any customers in there, why didn’t they just lock the door? They close at 3:00 pm anyway! They were just being bad ass bitches. Not a very nice way to treat people that are stranded in their city a long way from home with no where to go.
Oh dear, I’m not acting right. Why is the Weather Channel suddenly pissing me off? I believe it’s called an absence of activity . . . for me. I mean like now I’m realizing that there’s not much for me to do but wait on the storm. Oh well, I guess I’ll busy myself and watch the water in the toilet slosh back and forth. Huh? Watch the water in the toilet slosh back and forth? What? So now I can only assume that this building is swaying back and forth. Right? Swaying with the wind, right? I’m getting a little anxious here. I look out the window. It’s starting to get dark. Yes, it is raining and I suppose there’s some wind out there. There’s something over there next to a light pole that’s loose and swaying and clanging. Or is it the light pole itself swaying back and forth and clanging with every move? I really can’t tell but the sound is awful and annoying. Ok, yes, it’s raining pretty hard out there and it’s very windy. The conditions are failing pretty rapidly. There are a few cars that I can see but not a soul one. My window is facing the Salem electric plant and the Harbour. You can just see the mastheads of the Friendship and the unsettled water. It’s looking kind of creepy out there and you can see the white caps being blown up on the water.
So here I am engrossed in the movie, feeling warm from the wine and I watch intently as the lights begin to flicker. Huh? The lights? Ok, now I didn’t figure that into the equation. My mind races forward. Ok, no electricity. Did I write this into the story? No, I most certainly did not. I never even thought to buy a candle until now. Gawd, I know better! If these lights go out, it will be pitch black in here. *Looking this way and that* Jason? Dash? Hmmmmm. I suddenly feel better about the Hotel staff being down there. At least I’m not alone. I’m sure they’ve been through this type of thing many times. Oh how I hate being happy that the asshole is probably down there and worse, I may need his help. Just goes to show, you’ve got to be careful how you treat people because you might need them someday. I may need him. What a wicked thing to ponder. I go over and stand by the window looking out. The street lights are on. That’s a good sign. It’s raining hard and the wind is pretty heavy. The rain is coming down in sheets. It’s not like the Hawthorne where you can hear the wind in the eaves. Surprisingly, you can’t hear a thing from outside. This building is pretty sturdy. So to avoid having to be concerned about the lights going out, I will just go to bed. Pitch all the pillows to the floor and grab my little flat one . . . the vampire is at rest. Nighty night freakies!
My Salem Happenings 