Today’s story is a guest post from Thumper Forge.
Someone recently asked me what the spookiest thing I’ve ever seen was, and while I always hate to disappoint, I also didn’t have a good answer. As a witch who spends most of his free time splashing merrily about in the occult, you’d think I’d have any number of supernatural tales to share, but I honestly don’t — anything ghostly that’s occurred around me either came with a rational, ho-hum explanation or seemed perfectly normal given the circumstances.
Besides, the elements that make my one and only spooky story spooky have nothing to do with something I saw. They do, however, have everything to do with what someone said.
Back in 2018, I competed for the title of International Mr. Leather, which takes place every year in Chicago. (I didn’t win, but I will accept polite applause for my efforts.) All of the IML contestants stay at the Congress Plaza Hotel, a venerable downtown institution which, I learned much later, is considered one of the most haunted spots in Illinois.
I was staying on the fourth floor (this will become relevant momentarily), and late one evening, I returned to my room to discover that the power was out — the lights didn’t work, the outlets didn’t work, nothing. So I called down to the front desk to report the issue, and they sent up a maintenance guy, who was, without a doubt, the most over it person I’ve ever met in my life.
There was a hidden breaker box inset in the wall next to my door, and the maintenance guy popped it open, stared for a couple of beats, then let out a long, beleaguered sigh. He flipped a few switches, restoring the power, then turned to me and said, in the voice of a man who does not get paid enough for this shit:
“Somebody’s trying to fuck with you.”
I thanked him profusely for his help, which he waved off before tromping down the hallway, but his statement kind of hung in the air behind him. At the time, I assumed he meant that one of the other competitors was trying to fuck with me, which was weird, because everyone got along really well. The general attitude amongst the contestants was, “We’re all in this together,” and I hadn’t made any mortal enemies or anything, so the idea that one of my class brothers would go out of their way to inconvenience me just didn’t seem very realistic.
I’d put the whole incident out of my head by the following morning, and I’ve rarely thought about it since then. Up until last month, that is, when I was scrounging around the Internet in search of horror movie recommendations and somehow stumbled upon a list of ghosts associated with the Congress.
Apparitions abound throughout the hotel, but the fourth floor, where I lived for a week, is generally understood to be the most haunted area. And of all the phantoms in residence, the one who makes himself known most frequently is Peg Leg Johnny.
In life, Johnny was said to have been a one-legged, unhoused gentleman who lived in an alley behind the hotel. He was also sadly murdered in this location, but his spirit has been seen around the premises ever since. Although encounters with Johnny are not always face-to-face: According to local legend, he often announces his presence electrically, futzing with in-room appliances and turning the lights off and on.
Or flipping breakers, apparently, which explains why the maintenance guy was so grumpy. Once again, Peg Leg Johnny chose his shift to fuck with a guest. I can only imagine how old that gets.
Overall, Johnny seems to be harmless, although an obscure but persistent rumor suggests that prior to his unalivement, he was actually a traveling performer named Charles Cramer, also known as Conway the Clown, recognizable by his wooden foot. (His leg had been amputated below the knee after a circus accident, “circus accident” being a concerning turn of phrase in any conversation.)
In 1912, Cramer and his wife were arrested for the murder of an heiress named Sophie Singer, whose body had been found strangled and stuffed under a bed in a rooming house just down the street from the Congress Hotel. Cramer willingly confessed and was sentenced to life in prison, but in 1925, he escaped custody and was never seen or heard from again.
Because of the proximity of the murder he committed to the Congress, and because of his telltale wooden appendage, some Chicago denizens firmly believe that Conway and Peg Leg Johnny are one and the same. Which would mean that the power to my room was cut by, y’know, a demonic clown.
Yeah…. I don’t like this version of the story very much. I made it all the way through 2016 without an evil clown sighting and am not keen to rewrite my personal history to include one.
At the same time, the maintenance guy was like, “Someone is trying to fuck with you,” and not, “Someone is trying to strangle you and hide you under a mattress,” and he was clearly the resident expert, so I feel like it’s safe to assume that I was not the next circus accident on the menu.
And even if Johnny really was once Charles Cramer, at least he did me the courtesy of turning off the lights. Ignorance really can be bliss when you can’t see the clowns in the dark.
Thumper (Horkos) Marjorie Splitfoot Forge is a Gardnerian High Priest, an initiate of the Minoan Brotherhood, an Episkopos of the Dorothy Clutterbuck Memorial Cabal of Laverna Discordia, an irreverent blogger for Patheos Pagan, and a notary public from Houston, TX. His first book, Virgo Witch, co-authored with Ivo Dominguez, Jr., will hit shelves on November 8th and is currently available for pre-order here, here, and here.
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