Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Bars and Brothels and Ghosts, Oh My






The second ghostly experience I’ll relate was in a brothel - a used-to-be brothel in Eureka’s “Old Town” area. This part of downtown, especially Two Street, used to be a hive of bars and brothels, and the prime destination for loggers coming in out of the woods. It was rough and ready and alcoholic, with brawls and stabbings a common occurrence, and characters like Muzzie, playing piano and singing in her own very popular bar.

The heyday of these bars was finally winding down in the 1970s and 80s, and now there are only a few of the old ones left – much tamer now, and on the fringes of a slightly more civilized area.

They've been around for a while

A friend of mine talks of delivering newspapers to Old Town brothels in the early 1950s, but they’re gone now too. Now there are apartments over top of the neighbourhood businesses, and today, the “girls” loiter on street corners, and in doorways, or stake out their bit of turf over by the library.


I walked through an empty brothel-that-was, before it was converted. There was a small, square foyer and a long, broad, wooden staircase leading up into a dimly lit hallway. Our footsteps were loud and hollow-sounding as we climbed the stairs, and our voices bounced off the walls and echoed, even when we whispered.

At the top of the stairs, we turned to face down the hall of many doorways. The doors were all either open or missing - don’t remember which, but we could see into all of the rooms with their bits and pieces of debris. The dust smelled like old alcohol and sweat, and it seemed as if we could hear faint sounds from the far end of the hall – murmurs, moans, soft laughter, the clinking of glasses and rustle of fabric. There was, of course, no one in the rooms – not when we looked straight in. It was only out of the corners of our eyes that we could catch soft, furtive, shadowy movements.

I don’t remember too much of what it actually looked like, other than dark, musty, dilapidated, because the back of my mind was too busy picturing reds and purples, velvet draperies, flocked wallpaper, plush carpets, mahogany furniture. It may never have been that elegant. Reality was probably booze, vomit, and pee-stained, with torn curtains.

Leaving, we hurried along the hall and almost ran back down the stairs, sure that we were being watched by ghostly eyes from behind and above. When we were out on the sidewalk again, we took a deep breath as we locked the door securely behind us.

That was then, this is now

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