So the Wife and I went out last night with Shawn and David. We went to Backstreet, a hip local disco, and had a fine time. We dressed up for the holiday: Shawn was a cop, David was a Jersey hooker, I was Eddie Izzard and Sonya was a naughty schoolgirl, though several people guessed she was Mary Catherine Gallagher.

So, in the spirit of the holiday, I will tell a story of one of my brushes with the supernatural. I have never out and out seen or heard anything where I could look back on it and say, "that was truly a supernatural occurrence." However, I have experienced a few things that I have no good explanation for. Here's the latest one:

A few years ago Sonya and I were living at the Gayoso House, which was built around the turn of the century and was a hotel for many, many years. Later, it was an office and storage building for Goldsmith's department stores, and then it sat abandoned for a few years before a Memphis development company bought it and turned it into apartments. Its a neat place with lots of nice architectural flourishes and old-time touches. It was a cool building to live in - even though eventually they quit charging rent and switched to something more closely resembling extortion. That's when Sonya and I moved out.

Anyway, one day I went to the elevators and punched the down button. The elevators were brand new and state of the art but they had been installed in the elevator shafts that were originally there. So I hit the button and wait for the elevator to come up. We lived on the sixth floor, and I heard the elevator making its way up. As it was rising I could hear people talking on it - which was not unusual. As the elevator got closer to the sixth floor I could hear these people's conversation getting louder. I had the dog with me, so I pulled her away from the elevator doors so she wouldn't startle the passengers or vice-versa. The little indicator over the door showed the elevator was about to open. The voices were very loud, now - it was still muffled, but I could almost make out individual words. I wondered idly if these were neighbors I knew.

The elevator stopped, the door opened, and of course no one was inside. I swear to you the conversation stopped a split-second before the door opened.

Could it have been the other elevator? No. The indicator light on that one showed that it was on the first floor the entire time. Was it somebody talking in one of the apartments around the elevators? I doubt it. The place was old, remember, and like most old buildings in downtown Memphis it was built like a fortress - thick walls and solid doors. Conversation rarely carried outside.

What did I hear? I have no clue, but it was creepy as hell getting on that elevator to walk the dog.

Speaking of the dog, ghosts and the Gayoso House: sometimes Roxy would bark - with a great deal of ferociousness and intensity - at a spot right in front of one of the windows in the living room. Of course, she could just be a stupid dog. But I thought you needed to know.

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