Gladys

The summer I turned seventeen, my best fried Annie and I met a new Bridgeport hippie named Walt who was subletting an apartment in a old brick tenement  on south Parnell Avenue. He was a well-built shaggy blonde recently up from Kentucky who had arrived in Chicago on the Greyhound with just a bass guitar and the clothes on his back. Once in a while he earned cash unloading trucks, and he had a music gig most weekends, but usually he just hung out at his sublet, a big half empty apartment with a mattress on the floor and stacks of books  that the lease holders had left.

I read Naked Lunch there, and Stranger in a Strange Land, and Hesse’s Siddhartha. I started on the Tolkein trilogy to keep from getting bored when Walt and Annie started to hang out in Walt's room for hours at a time.

The apartment had some antiques, too, roughly equal in age to the building. There was an old windup Victrola that still worked, though we only had one scratchy Caruso record to play on it. And an old black dressform that Walt called "Gladys"  stood in a corner of the livingroom. She was supposed to be haunted.

"Sometimes I hear her rolling around at night on those squeaky, rusty wheels of hers," Walt told us. "One time I woke up and she was standing right next to my bed....I kept my bedroom door closed after that."

I was suspicious. Although I believed in ghosts and psychic phenomenon and such things as might include a haunted dress form, I was not sure I believed in Walt.

"I’ve never heard of a haunted object," I said. "Maybe it’s really a poltergeist." I had accumulated a vast knowledge about the occult by this time and fancied myself a parapsychologist in training, or at least a junior adept. But I was pragmatic. These things had to be proven scientifically.

Walt was adamant. "Oh, she’s a ghost alright. I know her story."

"What’s that?" I asked.

"Years ago, a young woman who lived in this building was getting married. She fitted her wedding gown on that very dress form. But her boyfriend left town on the night before the wedding, and she never heard from him again. She went crazy, and her family had to lock her in her room."

"What room?" I injected.

Walt looked annoyed. "I don’t know what room, sweetie," he said. "Maybe that little room off the kitchen where you’re always hanging out reading books."

I nodded. I didn’t miss the sarcasm. I’d never seen Walt as much as turn a page. He was more interested in chatting up Annie and getting high.

"Anyways, one day she got out of her room by accident. The door didn’t lock behind them when they brought in her lunch or something. She put on her wedding dress and climbed up to the roof—"

"Where you’re always lying around sun tanning," I added.

He gave a dry little smile.

"With your buddy Annie," he replied. "Do y’want to hear this story or not?"

I nodded.

Walt continued. "She walked to the edge of the roof and jumped—just spread her arms out like wings—and fell to the ground. Stone cold dead."

I smiled. I liked his story. It didn’t even matter if it was true. He was cute. Maybe he and Annie would get married.

The next morning Annie and I arrived at Walt’s to take him on a picnic, but he had just woken up and came to the door in a rumpled shirt and blue jeans. He looked grumpy and hungover.

"Hey, girl," he said to Annie with a kiss. "I had a bad night."

He turned to me. "Telling you those stories probably," he said.

I noticed the dress form was gone.

"Where’s Gladys?" I asked.

"Up on the roof," he said.

"The roof?"

"Don’t get all excited," he said. "I put her there."

"Why?"

At first he didn’t answer. He was concentrating on rolling his first joint of the day.

"Why did you put her up on the roof, Walt?" I asked again.

"I couldn’t sleep," he muttered.

"Why not?" I asked.

Walt ignored me.

I climbed the ladder to the trapdoor and stepped out onto the roof. Gladys stood in the shade, a black negation of light.

"Hi, Gladys," I whispered.

I wondered if any of Walt’s story was true. If so, there might be a way to calm Gladys’ restless spirit. I’d been reading about talismans, little amulets with certain symbols and images on them that were designed to protect a person from evil spirits. Maybe I could exorcise Gladys’ ghost from the dress form, and she would be free to move on to the "other side," where she had people who loved her.

The next day I brought an occult book from home and spent the morning  painting magic symbols on Gladys’ bodice with purple Day-Glo paint and reciting Latin incantations in an off-the-cuff exorcism. That done, I set off to buy the makings for peanut butter sandwiches while Annie helped Walt clean his room. I knew they were making out, so I took my time.

When I got back they were still "cleaning," so I started up the ladder to check on Gladys. I was half way up when I realized that the dress form wasn’t where I’d left it. Something made me turn my head, and I was horrified to find Gladys looming above me, right next to the trapdoor. I screamed and nearly fell down the ladder.

Ok. Maybe Walt moved Gladys, though he and Annie both swore they hadn’t touched her. Or maybe she’d rolled along the roof in a stiff Chicago breeze off the lake. But the roof had an incline, and the trap door was upgrade from where I’d left her. Maybe, just maybe, she’d moved on her own.

That weekend Walt had a party at the sublet. The guys from his band came, and Hector , our small-time local dealer, arrived with plenty of pot for sale. I didn't smoke, not even cigarettes, so I stayed for the spaghetti dinner  but left soon after. People were pairing up, but guys thought I was young for my age, so I didn’t have a boyfriend. Besides, the music was loud and the people downstairs had already started banging on their ceiling with a broom handle. There wasn’t a good vibe.

Annie wanted to stay a while, so I walked home alone.

It was a good choice.

Annie told me later that after the party wound down, she and Walt had climbed up on the roof to look at the stars. They brought a blanket and strung up a pair of speakers to enhance the experience. Apparently they were just getting romantic when Annie heard the rattling squeak of Gladys’ wheels rolling along the roof.  When she sat up, a dark shape was standing  right next to her.  Gladys.

 Annie jumped back.  The dressform just stood there, as if she were a jealous lover who had just caught her boyfriend with another girl.   Then it turned and rolled to the edge of the roof,  paused for a second, then tipped forward and over the edge.

Annie freaked out and started to scream bloody murder. By the time Walt calmed her down, the neighbors had called both the landlord and the police.

By some miracle, there were no drugs in the apartment, since Hector and his customers had already left. But Walt’s landlord gave him three days to vacate for causing a disturbance and being behind on the rent.

A few days later Walt packed up his bass and left with the clothes on his back.