When I returned from college, around 92′, I worked at a downtown bar that was a ballroom in the early 1920’s. It was said that Al Capone and all the other gangsters used to frequent there on a regular basis. Well over time it had been opened as many resturaunts and even at one time was an old movie house.

I started there as a bartender, I worked Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri and Sat til 4:00 am. The weekends were packed, standing room only. The first part of the week we did not get much of a bar crowd. So I would sit there and watch Kung-Foo on USA network and smoke cigarettes. Since I am a big guy, the owner showed me where the gun was and they left. So every week night I was alone from 10:00 pm to 4:00 am.

My first encounter with the ghost came on a Monday morning around 2:30 am (I will never forget this). I was washing the last of the bar ware and starting my closing crap to get out at 4:00. The bar was one huge square and across from the dish well, where we did our dishes, was a corner mirror. On each wall was a mirror that met at the right at the corner. As I was washing everything I could see myself and what was behind me.

Now before I start this I have to say I was a skeptic of the paranormal. I believe in what I see. Well that all changed in a six month period.

Now as I said while at the sinks, I would watch the mirror for anyone who tried to creep in and rob me. This night I look and no one was there, I did not here the sqeak that the front door made. I could always tell when someone walked in by that sound. The next time I looked up there is a huge figure standing right behind me in the mirror. I almost shit my pants thinking some thief finally got me. I spin around ready for a fight and nobody was there. I think OK your just imagining things. Little too much on the Stephen King novels. So I go back to work. I look up again, same figure right behind me. This time instead of spinning around I watch the figure. I stands ther and shifts, I hear no sound, It was not a trick of the light, it just stood there while it kinda shifted. I really don’t have a word to descibe it. I can see it clearly in my mind but to put it to words is hard. I am 6″3″ and this thing had maybe a foot on me. So this time I turn around slowly, nobody, I look back to the mirror and its gone. Now I know what I had seen. It had form and some detail. It was not a shadow or a trick of the eye.

Over the next four years working there, when I was alone, this thing would play games with me. It would cause things to fall, the bathroom doors would open etc, etc, etc. My wife, I met there. She used to come in and sit with me on the slow nights. One night she went into the bathroom, a second later she screams. I run in ready to kill some pervert that I thought had snuck in the ladies room. I meet her in the hall, she is hysterical, couldn’t even speak. I go in every fucking door in the ladies room (12 doors) are opening and closing in rapid succession. I stand there stunned, and watch this happen for a minute or so. She left never to go back in there unless a lot of people were there.

We have had cleaning people leave in the middle of their shifts, refusing to return to work, unless someone else would be there. The place next to us was renevated from an old ballroom to a concert hall. Denny the manager would not go into the hall unless someone else was there. He told me one night he was booking bands and setting up schedules, he hears a noise outside the office. When he walked out, all the lights shut off and he looks up the grand staircase, descending down the stair case is a female figure that he said “sort of glowed”, he also tried to produce the noise the form was making. It was sort of a whispering scream. Needless to say he ran out of there and would never stay late again.

Our cook Jimmy used to do part-time work over there. Setting up sound equipment, cleaning, basically the “everything” guy. We got to talking about the shit that happened to us, he starts to tell me that one night, after a Battle of the Bands tourny, he was cleaning up. He went downstairs to grab the cleaning equipment. The closet door slams shut and everthing on the shelf starts to shake violently. The mops and brooms all fall off their pegs and he described a sound of someone screaming upstairs. He never worked there again. The next day he walked into to Denny’s office and told him what happened. Denny said he understood and they left it at that.

I used to talk with the manager and the other bartenders, they said since I was the new guy, that’s why I got those shifts. They would not work them. They would tell me their the things that would happen to them. Very much the same that was happening to me. I didn’t care, I was making money and this thing never touched me, just mind fuck you. At the end of the night it would try and talk to me, I would be in the office and I would hear someone shout “HEY YOU” or just a low moan or a scream from next door. I know I was the only person when it happened. At closing I would do a walk-through with a flashlight and a 9-iron from my car. I checked upstairs and downstairs, no one.

After a while I used to taunt it to see what would happen. Usually the screaming would become more frequent or doors would open but no harm would befall me. I dealt with that for over four years. I heard and had seen some freaky shit. I just took all the shifts that nobody would take. I go back home from time to time and see the old place. The new crowd of bartenders know me, but not all that well. One time I asked this kid about it, he was the new early week bartender. He didn’t say anything but just looked at me and he his face had turned white. O yea, he knew what I was talking about.

Well that’s my story, never encountered another ghost. Just bringing this back up has made me jumpy and I have goose bumps.