The Mystery of Death, OR Calling Mr. Feynman

Nobody Flashes…

Every year on Halloween, starting at midnight, Coast to Coast 97.1 on the radio, holds its annual Ghost to Ghost show, where people can call in and tell their ‘spooky’ stories. It’s really fun. If I must reveal a secret, every night I fall asleep with my little transistor and earplug tuned into the Coast to Coast program or else I can’t fall asleep.  And last night, George Noory, the host, asked for people to call in who had ‘seen the face of death’ or stories something to that matter….and I DO have one.  To me, it’s as good as any I’ve heard….so, I laid there and thought…..”Go on. Do it.”  Calling into a radio station is not so easy for me. Being basically a shy person,  even though I was drummer/piano/musician/singer/entertainer for so many years, the fact remains, I was afraid of freezing up on the radio.

I’d rather go to the dentist.

I called the number …and it was busy.  So I went back to bed.

Anyway, I thought as I lay there in the darkness…”I know! I’ll just write my little story in a post, and get it out of my system”

So, even though it’s the day AFTER Halloween, here’s the story of what happened to my touch with ‘death.”

                                                “Dark Matter Doth Rule” OR…”Calling Mr. Feynman”

Once upon a time, back when I knew my parents couldn’t afford to send me to college, and prostitution seemed a rather repulsive way to make a living, I taught myself the drums, bought a huge PA system, auditioned some musicians, and we went on the road. I named my little five piece band “Coconuts” after the Marx Brothers movie, even though the guys in the band didn’t really like it, what were they going to do about it? I owned the van, the equipment, and booked the jobs.

There was a very serious guitar player named Rich, a very serious bass player named Rick, a very serious keyboard player named Kelly, and a not so- serious black guy named Charlie, who was our lead singer. More about them later.

Back then in the 1970’s…you could actually make a living as a band on the road. People went out a lot to hear bands. Hard to believe it now, but they did. We were booked to play nightly, at I think it this story took place in a Holiday Inn, in Marion, IL..which was about a 2 hour drive from St. Louis. It was right off a main highway…and I remember bits and pieces of the time. I do remember being on a M&M diet. Really. It works when your about 22. Every diet works at 22.  

Now, being as I was the “leader” so to speak, I felt pretty much like a den mother to four bear cubs.  I had my own room of course, being the girl, and the guys each shared a room together. But one night, Charlie started BEGGING me to let Rick (the bass player)  stay in MY room because, you see his girlfriend, who I was told was really “HOT” was driving down from St. Louis and Charlie was DESPERATE to be with her…alone. In the hotel room.  Being as I wasn’t dating anyone in the band, it seemed ridiculous to me, (not being a guy) I wasn’t too excited about this arrangement, but being as it was the 1970’s, and who was going to talk anyway?

Rick was tall, and lanky guy. He had that Rick Springfield sort of look— dark hair, and a habit of smoking every time he could get a chance, so his left lip had a permanent snarl.  He was very quiet, and so, with not much to say, he went and laid down on the couch in my room…and then said, “I’m feeling really sick.”

Great. I felt his head, and he WAS burning up. So, to hurry up the story, I spent until about 2 o’clock in the morning (It was our night off) running to the bathroom, and wetting down wash cloths to keep him cool. I finally went to sleep, and when I woke up, Rick was still sweating and looked pretty bad.

“Well, let me order you some breakfast, maybe after you eat you’ll feel better.”

So, I ordered him some room service: Bacon and eggs, toast and pancakes.

It seemed to take forever, and I remember looking out the window to the parking lot. “Where the heck was it?” I thought. It was at least 95 degrees out, mid-July….one of the hottest days I can ever remember.

And then, the knock came…the food was here. But so was…something else. Something I’ve never seen, or felt, or experience ever again in my entire life.

A young, good-looking blond boy walked in. He had a little red waiters coat on, pretty cute. I was struck by his handsomeness. I wanted to talk to him…to get him to at least notice me. In fact, I felt a strong urge to talk to him…to get HIM to talk. He came in and walked over to a table that was near the window…and I asked him, “How are you today,”

He said nothing. And then, that’s when the whole room, which was being bathed by hot July Sunlight, turned to complete darkness.

Yes. Dark. Like pitch black. Like HEY! Somebody turn on the lights! Dark. Scary Dark. Lost in the forest without a clue dark. Blacker than black dark.

It’s up in the corner and if that darkness comes down on you it will swallow you alive and YOU’RE DEAD! Dark.

As I tried to see the corner of the room, I couldn’t, but I felt a presence that was older than mankind, older than the universe, and it put absolute fear into my soul.  And it was up near the ceiling and staring down at me and so I kept trying to talk to this young boy, trying to ‘see’ this evil darkness coming out of everywhere…and trying to talk to him…it was a nightmare.

That young man would not talk. He looked..I don’t know how he looked, I’ve never seen a person look like he did. I tried to give him a tip, but he wouldn’t take it. I tried several times…but he just walked very slowly into the room, stopped and stared at the floor for a few moments, and then slowly turned and walked out.

Rick, was sleeping…but I HAD to sit down. I wondered if I was having a stroke, or a brain hemorrhage, I had no idea what had cause that scary, fearful, and POWERFUL ‘thing” that walked into that room with that young boy, but what I did know, is I wanted it to go away.  It was…evil itself.

Remember that, I was not into any supernatural stuff at that time. My main concern during the days and night were just living.

Being the practical person that I am, I woke Rick up and made him eat.

After the boy left, the room went back to normal…but slowly, But…even though the room was normal, my mind it seemed had the heaviest weight on it…as if that black dark matter had infiltrated it’s every crease. I couldn’t get it out. I was depressed, as if the whole world had been swallowed up before my very eyes.

Rick got worse.

“Come on, let’s get you to the hospital.” It took me awhile because he didn’t have the money, so I paid for it…(I wasn’t rich either) I told him he could pay me back someday.

Marion at the time was a small farming town, and the hospital was tiny. We were the only ones in the emergency room, so I couldn’t figure out what was taking so long. Rick was miserable, it was hot, and I was pretty worried about him. Back then, if one member of the band gets sick, everyone loses their pay checks. I have been in many a band where member play sick so that the other members can get paid.

I once played with pneumonia, and 103 fever. In another band that I had, the saxophone player one night got beat up and robbed on his way to the job, and yet he played all night, with a broken jaw.

But…I’m getting off my story.

So, anyway, there we were, losing patient when I heard the most horrifying scream I’ve ever heard.

It was coming from upstairs.. …it was a woman’s voice …

“OH NOOOOOOOOONOOOOONOOOOOONOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

The woman was beyond hysterics…you could hear her screaming all over the hospitals and I’ve never EVER hear that sound since.

The only other sound that has ever scared me to the bone so much was a hungry lion’s roar. You know, one that is about two feet away from you?

Two men came running around the corner and up the stairs and for just a moment I saw an older woman who was fighting them both..and wailing and crying…and a nurse came down the steps and I asked her.

“What happened?”

“They just bought her son in..he died instantly on the highway, his car was hit by a big hauler truck. That’s his mother, we can’t control her. We need to get some more men up there.”

I don’t think I’ve ever felt such sorrow for another human being as I did at that moment.

What a day this is turning out to be I thought to myself.

Rick finally got into so see someone who gave him some pills, and he still wasn’t talking much. But the morning of strangeness still wasn’t over. As we pulled back into the hotel,  it looked like a scene right out of the twilight zone.

The staff…the waiters, the bus boys, the cooks, the maids, they were running all over the parking lot randomly as if trying to find an exist. Talking excitedly, “Did you hear?” “Jimmy!” “Did you hear!”

I rolled down my window “Hey…what’ going on?” I asked a cocktail waitress that I knew.

“Jimmy was just killed in an accident on the highway…they can’t even find his body it was so bad…OMG, everybody loved Jimmy!”

“Who’s Jimmy?” I asked.

Jimmy worked  in the kitchen.

“Was he working this morning…tall blond kid, about 19?” I asked.

“Yes” She said, “Somebody ordered room service this morning and he left right after that to go home. They said it was a big Semi, he was going really fast.”

It was then that I put it all together. That horrible evil entity in my room, the darkness that followed Jimmy into that room, was death, or destiny, or evil, or dark matter, whatever it was, I just happened to get a very small glimpse into its power.

Did Jimmy KNOW he was going to die? If so, this means that the future might very well be set..and what does that say about physics?

He walked into that room, like he was walking the green mile.

Anyway, that was the story I was going to tell on Coast to Coast. Odds are, I will never tell it. How do you make something scary like a “darkness?” In a movie you could do it, but not just talking.

It would sound like a K-mart shopper special coming from my voice. “We have a special scare today! Dark evil matter…served with a side of bacon!”

And that’s what’s great about Coast to Coast on Halloween…people call in with stories that are almost impossible to understand, but there is no doubt that they happened.

Synchronicity, people being talked to by dead loved ones, receiving signs–this stuff happens all time, and yet, there must be an explanation, right?

What happened to that band? Rick never did get better…he went home soon after that with a bad case of MONO, so that ended that band. Rich went to law school and became a successful lawyer, but still plays a solo act guitar around town on weekends. Charlie is STILL singing, and I heard Paul McCartney gave him a big tip one night. Kelly? Who knows? He was a hell of a piano player. The only white guy I knew who could wear an Afro and look normal in it.  I’m sure he still plays.  But when I think back on that band, it’s that one night that I remember. ..that night I saw death follow a young man, and snatch him and then smash him like a bug…

If ONLY he would have talked to me. If only.

Next Halloween, I’ll post about my wedding night at Lemp’s Mansion.  Who holds their wedding night in a haunted mansion?

Yeah. I wouldn’t advise it.

November 1, 2015 - Posted by Joyanna Adams | Mysteries | Mysteries