GHOST STORY

Everyone knew the house at the end of the street was haunted - probably because it was known locally as 'the haunted house'.  At night strange sounds could be heard emanating from its crumbling and decaying frame.  Crazed howling, manic laughter, low moans, mournful sobbing.  People also reported hearing shrill screams but that was assumed to be the widow Murphy filing her bunions.

 

The house had stood eerily vacant for years.  Its shuttered windows gazed mournfully over the neglected garden like sightless eyeballs.  As if to highlight the gloom of the building, the twisted branches of the trees outside pointed outwards like skeletal fingers warning passersby to come no closer. 

 Old man Sweeney had lived alone in the house for as long as anyone could remember.  He made his money brewing his own brand of poteen (moonshine) which had the potency to peel paint, remove rust, cure mange, reverse baldness, and, according to local legend, kill the living and raise the dead.  His brew was wildly popular.  The local police sergeant was his best customer.  My own mother had a bottle hidden under the sink labeled 'Holy Water'.  But despite people's love of his beverage, he was highly disliked.  He was a mean, cranky, miserable old miser.  As he aged he became reclusive and, besides his brewing, the only enjoyment he got was annoying his neighbours by playing his bagpipes at all hours of the night and, as anyone who has actually heard bagpipes being played will attest, the sound was like twelve cats being shaved with a rusty razor and then being repeatedly poked up the bum with a pointy stick.

As a younger man Jim Sweeney loved to play rugby - so much so that by the time he was 60 he only had four teeth left in his head and they stood at such a rakish angle that all he had to do to scare the bejesus out of trick or treaters at Hallowe'en was to sit in his front garden and grin.

His dentist, after asking him to please stop grinning lest he be required to engage the services of an exorcist, recommended removing the offending fangs and providing 
Sweeney with a bright new pair of dentures.  Ever the tightwad, the old man balked at 
the cost and decided instead to fashion a set of teeth out of children's play clay.  The result, predictably, was disastrous.  The first time he took a swig of his home brew, the clay turned green, melted, and stuck to his mouth and chin, giving him the appearance of a demented Oompa Loompa. 

When he finally managed to chisel the last of the clay off his face, he reluctantly returned to the dentist and was fitted with a beautiful set of shiny new dentures.  The result was miraculous!  He was delighted!  His new teeth gave him a whole new lease on life.  He went from being a scowling old codger to a smiling benevolent old man.  He couldn't - no, WOULDN'T - stop smiling!  He felt fabulous!  People passing him in the street instantly felt better just looking at his beaming face.  And he, in turn, went from being called Old Man Sweeney to That Nice Mr. Sweeney Who Is A Ray Of Sunshine.  Neighbours who had previously crossed the street to avoid his scowling visage now engaged his services as the local babysitter.  He was positively playful.  Children adored him.  Dogs ran to him to be patted and scratched behind a grateful ear.  Old biddies left steaming apple pies on his doorstep in the hope that they might catch his eye and that their baking might lead to a possible proposal of marriage.  In short, he was a new man.

But, as is often the case when the blue bird of Paradise smiles on you, the black bird of

Hades is waiting in the wings to crap all over your happiness.  And so, after many months of bliss, something happened to ruin what could otherwise be a pleasant story with a happy ending.  (You know the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge - how he went from being a cranky, miserable old man to a happy, joyful individual that everyone loved?  Yeah, well, this isn't that kind of story.)

Every night as he got into bed, Mr. Sweeney dropped his precious dentures into a glass

of clear water so that in the morning they could be fresh and clean and ready for a day of smiles.  Beside that glass he always kept a jar of his heady brew - just enough for a tipple to send him off to dreamland where he spent happy hours skipping through a dewy meadow with sugar plum fairies and pink fluffy unicorns dancing through rainbows.  

But one night, exhausted from a day of playing with the local children and doing favours for neighbours, he accidentally dropped his teeth into his jar of poteen.   And as he slept, the potent brew completely dissolved his dentures.  In the morning he saw two glasses of clear liquid and his teeth were nowhere to be seen.  At first he thought he must have mislaid them and went searching throughout the house.  But after a while his thoughts turned dark and he convinced himself that someone, jealous of his popularity,  had sneaked into his bedroom while he slept and stolen his precious teeth.  

He flew into a violent rage.  He screamed.  He howled.  He threw furniture about and yelled awful curses that I couldn't possibly repeat.  (Seriously, they were pretty bad.)  And in a fit of blind fury he tripped over his bagpipes and fell headlong down the stairs landing in a crumpled heap at the bottom.  He was dead.  Gone.  Expired.  Departed.  He was the late Mr. Sweeney.  And from that night on his ghost stomped through the house howling and moaning and terrifying the locals.  Until one night...

Jack Rafferty and Sean O'Toole, two ne'er-do-wells who never saw a pint of Guinness they couldn't handle, were heading home from a night on the town when they drunkenly found themselves outside Mr. Sweeney's gate.  It was a still night and no sound came from the darkened house.  Suddenly Jack had an idea.  "Hey Sean," he said, "I dare you to go into old Sweeney's place and spend the night."  "I will in me arse," said Sean who didn't believe in ghosts but wasn't taking any chances.  Then he had a brilliant idea which, for him, was a novelty.  "Why don't YOU go in and have a look around.  Sure everyone knows you're not afraid of anything.  I'll wait out here for you."

Jack, unsure of how he managed to be outsmarted by an eejit like Sean, had no choice but to venture inside.  So as to appear brave, he confidently marched up to the front door.  As if he was expected, the old rickety door creaked open.  His heart leaped in his chest but, looking back at Sean who was standing safely outside the gate and waving, he knew he had to go on.  

Inside was eerily quiet and dark except for a thin sliver of moonlight which stretched across the floor and seemed to point to a large empty room.  Figuring he had proved himself no sissy, Jack turned to leave when a sudden movement caught his eye.  Something white and flimsy was wafting gently in a corner.  Suddenly it rose up and seemed to dance before his astonished eyes before it flew towards him and threw itself over him.  Jack fell to the floor screaming blue murder and wrestled with an old curtain which a quick breeze had unhooked from the window and blown across the floor.

Laughing with relief and buoyed with a sudden sense of gusto, he decided to climb the stairs with the curtain and wave it outside a window to scare the bejesus out of Sean.  Up the old, creaky stairs he went, giggling at the idea of watching Sean run terrified from the building, when he reached the landing and came face to face with Sweeney's ghost.  For a horrible second they both stared at each other.  Jack's brain screamed at him to run but his legs had other ideas and fainted on the spot.

 

Suddenly the ghost picked Jack up, spun him around and threw him violently against the wall.  Jack, who as it happened was a denture wearer himself, hit the wall with such force that his false teeth flew out of his mouth and clattered on the floor at the ghost's feet.  Sweeney's ghost stared at the dentures for a second and then, with a delighted yell of "Me teeth!",  picked them up and, shoving them into his mouth, began to dance around and sing.  Jack, seeing his opportunity to escape, bolted down the stairs and out the front door.  As he ran flapping his lips in a toothless scream, he heard crazed laughter and the strains of bagpipes being murdered.

In no time at all the whole town knew the story of Jack's encounter with Sweeney's ghost.  He became a local legend and was asked many times to recount the story, which he gladly did - the ghost becoming more ferocious with every pint.  Some people laughed and said it was a drunken hallucination. Others believed he had survived an encounter with pure evil and rushed to buy his next drink.  The widow Murphy swore that after that night she had no more trouble with her bunions and asked Jack to marry her.  

Whether or not anyone believes his story, everyone agrees that the house at the end of the street is haunted.  Only now people report hearing raucous laughter, happy cackling, loud cheers, and the singing of 'Together Again' accompanied by the sound of twelve cats being shaved with a rusty razor and then being repeatedly poked up the bum with a pointy stick.