Gallows Pub
Jill Wainford's parents divorced when she was just eight years old. The dissolution of the marriage was not a traumatic experience for the child since she saw little of her father, Thad Wainford, a man who lived out of a suitcase, constantly traveling around the country for his job. After the separation, her relationship with him remained much the same as it had been before the divorce: a phone call once a month, gifts delivered on her birthday and a surprise visit on Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving.
Two months after Jill's ninth birthday her mother remarried. Here, at last, was the little girl's chance to have a traditional, two-parent family. However, Emory Musgrave, her stepfather, did not like having to raise another man's child. It wasn't a question of money since Jill's father never missed a child support payment, and if there was an unexpected expense, Thad Wainford was quick to send additional funds. Emory's problem was that he just couldn't muster any affection for a child that was not his own. Thus, for eight years, the adolescent and her stepfather maintained a polite and respectful yet decidedly cool relationship.
Then, just two weeks before Jill's seventeenth birthday, Thad died of a sudden heart attack. Emory grudgingly helped support his stepdaughter since her mother made little more than minimum wage working as a cashier at a convenience store.
It'll only be for a year, he often told himself. Then I'll be free of her for good.
Finally, the day Emory had waited for arrived. Rena, his wife, put a home-baked cake in front of her daughter that evening after dinner and wished her a happy birthday.
"You're eighteen now," her stepfather announced as Jill opened her mother's gift. "That's old enough to be on your own."
"But I'm still in school," the young woman objected.
"You graduate in June. That's only six weeks away, so you might want to start looking for a job and a place to live."
"You're kicking me out?" Jill asked in disbelief.
"You didn't think I was going to support you for the rest of your life, did you?"
"No, but ...."
The girl looked to her mother, hoping she would take her side in the matter, but Rena said nothing. She didn't want her second marriage to end in divorce like her first. Receiving no support from her mother, Jill got up from the table and went upstairs to her bedroom.
It was only after Emory had gone to bed that Rena went into her daughter's room to speak with her.
"When your father died, there was an insurance policy, and you were the beneficiary. The money is in a bank account for you—ten thousand dollars. That should at least cover a few months' rent, second-hand furniture and some groceries. I'd help you out if I could, but I don't make enough ...."
Jill silenced her mother with a kiss on the check. She knew life had not been easy for Rena, a woman who got pregnant in high school and had to quit in her senior year to get married. If there was ever any love between her parents, it slowly died of malnourishment. The two rarely saw each other after their child was born. When Rena met Emory Musgrave, she thought she could improve her daughter's life as well as her own. She divorced her husband, and the following year she remarried, only to discover her new husband was not the godsend she had hoped he would be.
"Don't worry about me, Mom. I'll be fine," Jill assured her. "I'll find an inexpensive place to live and get a job. Maybe I'll eventually put myself through college."
"I sincerely hope so," Rena cried, hugging her daughter tightly. "I would hate to see you wind up like me."
* * *
When Frieda Dorsey opened the door to the apartment above Decker's Insurance Agency, Jill sighed with relief at her normal appearance.
"I take it you're Jill Wainford?" the twenty-seven-year-old nurse asked.
"I am. And you must be Frieda Dorsey. When I saw the ad for a roommate in the paper, I wasn't sure if I should call or not."
"You were expecting the creepy single-white-female scenario, huh?"
"To be honest, I didn't know what to expect. I was silently praying I wouldn't come face to face with sex traffickers."
"No worries there. You're safe with me. I work for a pediatrician over on Fourth Street. If you've got a few seconds, I'll give you the grand tour of the place."
The apartment was small; that was obvious. But the rent was cheap, and utilities were included. Also, Frieda seemed like an agreeable person.
"Mind if I ask how old you are?" the potential roommate inquired as the two women discussed details of living arrangements over a cup of coffee.
"I'm eighteen."
"Isn't that a little young to be on your own?"
"My stepfather doesn't think so. He gave me my eviction notice on my eighteenth birthday."
"Sounds like a nice guy," Frieda said sarcastically, feeling compassion for the young woman.
"So you want someone to split the rent fifty-fifty?" Jill asked, wanting to change the subject.
"That wouldn't be fair since I get the only bedroom and you'll have to make do with the convertible sofa. How about forty-sixty and I'll pay the cable and Internet bill?"
"Sounds good to me."
It didn't take Jill long to move into the apartment since she had few personal belongings: just her clothing, a photo album, some cheap costume jewelry and a couple of dolls and stuffed animals she had cherished as a child.
"You can have the hall closet," Frieda said and helped her roommate hang up her clothes. "Do you have a dresser?"
"No, but I don't really need one. I can keep my underwear and such in boxes at the bottom of the closet."
"Don't be silly. There's a consignment shop on Liberty Street. You can pick up a decent used dresser there for under twenty dollars. It ought to fit in the hallway beneath the oval mirror."
After crushing the cardboard packing boxes and putting them with the other recyclable items, Jill went to the coffee shop on the corner and bought the local newspaper. As she sipped a mug of hot cocoa, she read through the want ads in the classified section.There were several job openings: truck driver, CDL needed; haircutter, up-to-date license required; administrative assistant, minimum two years' experience necessary, bachelor's degree preferred; real estate salesperson; computer analyst; substitute teacher.
Since she had no work experience and only a high school education, Jill's chances of finding a job looked grim.
What's this? she wondered with interest when she spied an ad at the bottom of the page. Immediate opening for wait staff position. Call if interested.
Jill quickly gulped down the rest of her cocoa and hurried home to call the number in the ad.
"Gallows Pub," a harried man announced when he answered the telephone.
"I'm calling about the opening for a waitress."
"Great. When can you start?"
"Excuse me?" Jill said with surprise. "I was calling to schedule an interview."
"Interview?" the man asked with a laugh. "You can speak English. I assume your legs and arms work. Can you read and write?"
"Yes."
"Good. You're hired. When can you start?"
Thankfully, the job was in walking distance of the apartment she shared with Frieda. Jill would not have to spend money on bus fare.
"There it is," she said to herself when she saw the sign hanging from the front of the building.
Reminiscent of an old English pub sign, the macabre placard featured a man in eighteenth century attire hanging from a noose on a gallows.
"Are you Jill Wainford?" the owner, who doubled as one of the bartenders, asked hopefully when she entered the inn.
"Yes. You must be Mr. McGarry."
"No need to be so formal, just call me Whitey. Darla!" he shouted for another waitress to come out of the kitchen. "This is Jill Wainford. She's taking Aida's place. Can you show her the ropes?"
"Sure, Whitey. Just follow me, honey," she said to the young woman. "We have extra uniforms upstairs. I'm sure we have one that will fit you."
The uniforms that Darla referred to consisted of an ankle-length Colonial Era dress, an apron and a white mob cap.
"I assumed the place got its name because it was owned by a person named Gallow," Jill said as she and the middle-aged waitress passed by an eight-foot-high wooden gallows from which a hemp noose hung. "I guess I was wrong."
Darla laughed and explained, "Back in colonial times this place was a tavern. According to historians, in 1777 one of the patrons was accused of being a British spy. He was tried on the spot by the local Sons of Liberty, convicted and immediately hanged from one of the rafters."
"He was killed here on the premises?"
"So the story goes. Of course, I believe the truth has been somewhat embellished over the centuries, which suits Whitey just fine. He's capitalized on the tavern's dark past since he bought the place."
Further proof of Whitey's morbid marketing strategy could be seen in the "gift shop"—nothing more than a glass case beneath the cash register, actually. In it were T-shirts, postcards, pens, beer mugs, shot glasses and baseball caps all bearing the name Gallows Pub above an image of the same unfortunate hanging victim displayed on the outdoor pub sign.
* * *
Given her warm, outgoing nature and pleasant countenance, Jill was liked by both the customers and her coworkers alike. Darla, whose two children were away at college, became somewhat of a surrogate mother to the young waitress.
One Friday, as Jill was looking at the following week's schedule, she was surprised to see that Whitey had scheduled five waitresses to work on a Wednesday night.
"Why so many of us for the middle of the week?" she asked. "We normally make do with two or three."
"It's the first Wednesday of the month," Darla explained. "Hangman night."
"What's that?"
"Some bars have karaoke; others have a trivia game. The Gallows Pub has hangman night. That's where contestants can play a game of hangman."
"And it draws a crowd?" Jill asked with disbelief that such a simple word game could attract people into the bar in numbers great enough to warrant requiring two extra waitresses.
"Whitey goes all out on hangman night. He's got a life-size dummy that gets hanged, piece by piece, from the gallows: head, torso, arms, legs, hands and feet. The winners at the end of each round get free drinks, and the big winner at the end of the night gets a $100 gift card for the pub. Everyone has a lot of fun. And you can usually earn twice as many tips as you would on a busy Saturday night."
When Jill entered the pub on Wednesday evening, she was surprised at the transformation that had occurred overnight. Miniature white lights strung from the rafters gave an air of fantasy to the place. A large board that looked similar to the one used on Wheel of Fortune was placed against the wall where all players could see it.
"Who's playing Vanna White?" she asked Darla.
"Whitey and his wife, Verna, run the game. He acts as emcee—the Pat Sajak—and she puts the letters up on the board."
Jill began her shift at five. There were fewer than a dozen customers in the bar at that time, most of whom had stopped for a drink on the way home from work. With the game scheduled to start at seven, people began coming in after six thirty. By ten minutes to seven, there wasn't an empty seat in the pub.
"I never saw so many people in here. No wonder we needed extra help tonight," Jill said.
"You can count on latecomers, too. Whitey keeps folding chairs in the basement. One of the bartenders will put them out as needed."
"Will we be able to move with all those customers?"
"We'll manage, but we have to keep an eye on the candles on the tables. Make sure no one lights them. If you see one lit, blow it out and take the candle off the table."
"Why?"
Darla lowered her voice and said in confidence, "On hangman night we usually draw more people than the fire code allows. So far, we haven't received any fines since the fire inspector is an old friend of Whitey's, and he usually shows up to play hangman and enjoy free beers all night long. Still, we don't want to take any chances."
Jill was amused by the example of small town public corruption.
"Speak of the devil," Darla announced. "There he is."
The fire inspector, a forty-two-year-old man with a beer belly and a receding hairline, walked into the pub and was immediately shown to a front table where he could see the game board without having to put on his glasses. Whitey himself walked over to his friend's table with the first of many beers "on the hanged man."
The man wearing a Red Sox cap and a Tom Brady number twelve Patriots T-shirt, who walked in behind the inspector, was no VIP, no friend of the owner, no front-table patron. He was not greeted at the door and had to make do with a folding chair in the back of the room. He noticed Jill before she saw him.
"Could I get a Sam Adams Boston Lager?" the man asked her as she passed by him on her way to the bar.
"Sure," she replied, "I'll be back in a minute with your drink."
Although she couldn't put her finger on it, there was something about the man in the Red Sox cap that made Jill uncomfortable, like an unpleasant aftertaste in certain artificially sweetened beverages. When she brought the beer to his table, he attempted to engage her in conversation.
"You're new here, aren't you?" he asked.
"Yes. I started three weeks ago," she replied, not wanting to offend a customer, yet hoping not to encourage him.
"So this is your first hangman night?"
He seemed to deliberately be taking way longer than necessary to fish the bills out of his wallet, thus making the waitress stay at his table to answer his questions.
"Yes, it is."
"What's your name?"
"Jill."
"Well, Jill," he said, finally removing the money from his billfold. "My name's Lewis Gilpin, and I'll be drinking the same for the rest of the night."
The attractive young waitress smiled, pocketed the cash and quickly walked away.
Several times throughout the evening, Jill had to return to Gilpin's table with another bottle of Boston Lager.
"I met Sam Adams once," the man in the Tom Brady shirt told her. "And his cousin, John, as well. I also had the misfortune of running into Samuel's Boston Mob friends."
The waitress looked at her customer as though he were insane, which he clearly would be if he believed he spoke to men who had been dead for over two hundred years.
A disturbing smile suddenly broke out on Gilpin's face and he laughed.
"I'm joking," he claimed.
Jill forced a smile, waited for payment and then hurried back to the bar once she had received it.
"Are you all right?" the bartender asked.
"Yeah," she replied unconvincingly. "There's just something about that customer that I find disturbing."
"Which customer is that?"
"The one with the Red Sox cap and the Tom Brady shirt."
The bartender quickly scanned the pub but could find no one that fit the waitress' description.
"You're in luck; he must have left."
"Thank God!" Jill exclaimed when she saw another man sitting in Gilpin's seat. "That guy gave me the creeps."
At the end of the night, before leaving the pub, Jill quickly counted her tips. A smile broke out on her face when she finished.
"Didn't I tell you the tips were good?" Darla asked.
"Yeah, but I didn't realize they were this good!"
"I've got to get going. Would you like a ride home?"
"No, thanks. It's a beautiful night out tonight. I think I'll walk."
After a quick visit to the ladies' room, Jill walked out the rear exit of the pub. She heard the door automatically lock shut behind her.
"Don't you know it's not safe for a young woman to be out here by herself?"
She recognized the voice before she saw the baseball cap and the Patriots T-shirt.
"I'm waiting for someone to pick me up," she lied. "He ought to be here any second now."
"I'll wait with you until he gets here," Lewis offered, inching closer to her.
"There's no need to. I'll be fine."
"Oh, I insist. It will be my pleasure."
"But I ...."
There was movement behind her, and a handsome stranger stepped out of the shadows. Though he spoke not a word, his very presence seemed to frighten Lewis.
"I've got to go," Gilpin declared and quickly walked around the side of the building, presumably to one of the cars parked on the street in front of the pub.
"Thank you," Jill said after she watched Lewis disappear into the night, "I ...."
When she turned around, however, the handsome stranger was gone.
* * *
"From now on, I'm going out the front door when I leave work," Jill told Darla the following day.
"Why is that? Did you come across that skunk that's been patrolling our dumpster?"
"The skunk I met walked on two legs."
"Oh, really? Did someone try to bother you last night?" Darla asked with surprise.
"He was just making a pest of himself."
"Did you tell Whitey about him?"
"No, I had a stranger come to my rescue. But when I went to thank him, he was gone. It was as though he had vanished into thin air."
"You must have encountered the pub's resident ghost," Darla said with amusement.
"The Gallows is haunted?"
"Some people claim it is. There have even been several psychic investigators who've brought in their Ghostbusters electronics to study the place."
"Did any of them find anything?"
"They all did. The problem is none of them could agree on who is actually haunting the place. Of course, most of them believe the ghost is the spy that was hanged by the Sons of Liberty. However, some claim it's the soul of a barmaid who died tragically in the fire that destroyed the carriage house that once stood next to the pub. A few say it was a young patriot who was murdered here, and still others claim it's the ghost of his murderer. I suppose you can take your pick."
"If it was a ghost I saw," Jill joked, "I hope he was a patriot. I'd hate to be beholding to a murderer or a traitor to the American cause."
Once the dinner crowd started arriving, there was no more talk of haunting. The waitresses were far too busy to talk about much of anything.
It was after eight o'clock when Jill spotted the Red Sox cap in the pub. Lewis Gilpin, who wore a Celtics jersey this time, sat alone at a table, silently brooding over his Boston Lager. Although his eyes followed Jill's every move, he made no attempt to speak to her or to get her attention.
"Darla," she called to her coworker as the two women were leaving at the end of the night. "Would you mind giving me a lift home?"
"Sure. I have to drive past your place anyway."
As Jill walked out the door behind Darla, she glanced from side to side, expecting to see Lewis lurking somewhere in the vicinity. Thankfully, there was no one there.
Two weeks passed, and although Jill saw Gilpin at the Gallows Pub several times, he never bothered her, nor was he ever waiting outside the bar when she left at night.
Maybe he took the hint, she thought hopefully, or perhaps the handsome stranger scared him off for good.
Either way, Jill again felt safe enough to walk home at night.
* * *
It was Monday night, arguably the slowest of the week, and just nine days away from the monthly hangman game. Although two waitresses had begun the shift, one of them left at nine since very little food was being served at that time. Jill and Whitey, who was tending bar, were perfectly capable of seeing that the customers got their drinks.
It was five after eleven when the owner told his employee to go home.
"It's dead tonight. I can handle whatever business comes in until closing."
Since Lewis Gilpin had not been in the pub that night, Jill had no qualms about leaving through the rear exit. After hearing the click of the lock behind her, however, she heard something move in the darkness. Her heart raced with fear.
Then the handsome stranger stepped out of the shadows.
"It's you," Jill said, immediately sensing she was in no danger. "I didn't get to thank you for coming to my aid the last time we met."
The stranger raised his hand as though to reach out to the girl.
"Who are you?" she asked.
Before he could answer, the stranger disappeared before her very eyes.
He really is a ghost! she thought with awe.
* * *
The following evening, a Tuesday, Oona Holborn stopped at the Gallows Pub with her husband for a quiet dinner. It was a place the psychic often frequented, not only for its paranormal history but also because of its delicious food.
Moments after walking through the entrance of the pub, Oona sensed a charged atmosphere.
There's a troubled spirit here tonight, she thought with excitement.
Darla went to the table and took the couple's order. It was the younger waitress that attracted the psychic's attention, however. When she saw Jill leave the dining room and slip out the door to take her break, Oona got up from her table and followed her out into the parking lot.
"You wanted to talk to me?" the psychic asked.
"I'm sorry, but you must have me confused with someone else," Jill said, unaware of the woman's identity, "I don't know who you are."
"I'm a paranormal investigator, and I understand you've encountered the spirit that haunts this old place."
"You know about the ghost? You've been able to contact him?" the waitress asked excitedly.
"Yes, I have."
"Is it the ghost of the British spy that was supposedly hanged here by the Sons of Liberty?"
As Oona opened her mouth to answer Jill's question, the expression on her face became vacant as though she were under a trance. The voice with which she spoke was no longer her own.
"I wasn't a spy!" a male voice cried through the psychic's mouth. "My name was Clinton Ropes. I was a blacksmith in town and a loyal American."
"Then you weren't the man who was hanged here?"
"I am one and the same, but the story told about me is incorrect. As I said, I was a patriot. I was in love with a barmaid who worked here at the tavern. Sadly, I wasn't the only one who fancied her. So did the local wheelwright. When he realized I was the one who won her heart, he accused me of being a Tory. He convinced several of the ruffians in town that I was giving information to the British. He instigated the mob to seize me and bring me into the tavern where I was unjustly tried, convicted and executed on the spot."
"So it wasn't the Sons of Liberty who hanged you?"
"No. They knew me well. I had helped them on many occasions. When they found out, they retaliated by tarring and feathering the wheelwright and then running him out of town."
"And what about the barmaid? What became of her?"
The unearthly voice broke as though choked with tears.
"There was a fire. She ...."
Oona gasped for air as though she had been holding her breath underwater and finally broke through the surface.
"What ... happened?" the psychic cried.
"You went into a trance, and then your voice changed. You claimed you were a man named Clinton Ropes. I believe he's the ghost that haunts the Gallows Pub."
Shaken up by her encounter with the spirit world, Jill went home early that night.
"Are you going to be all right?" Whitey asked. "Do you want someone to give you a ride back to your apartment?"
"That won't be necessary," Jill answered. "I just need to get some sleep. Don't worry. I'll be fine tomorrow for hangman night."
* * *
Like on the night of the previous month's game, the pub was decorated with strings of miniature lights, and the hangman board was placed where all could see. Once again, it was standing room only, and the fire inspector was seated front and center, enjoying his free beers.
"Now, for the first game of the night," Whitey McGarry announced in his microphone as his wife placed the lettered cards on the board with the backs facing the players. "We're looking for a title. And I want to remind you that you cannot call a vowel until the torso is hanged."
The answer consisted of three words: the first had four letters, the second two letters and the third four. The first contestant who was randomly selected by a drawing of names called a T.
"There is one T," Whitey declared as Verna turned over the last letter in the first word. "Do you have a guess?"
"Best in Show?" the contestant asked.
"No. That is a wrong answer."
The second contestant asked for an N. Since there was no N in the puzzle, Whitey hanged a life-sized Styrofoam head wearing a rubber mask from the noose.
As was the custom during the game whenever a piece of the dummy was placed on the gallows, the audience cheered, "Hang the spy!"
Jill did not add her voice to the others'. She felt sympathy for Clinton Ropes, a man who was not only brutally and unjustly murdered but whose reputation was forever blackened by an untruthful legend.
The third contestant called for an S, and Verna turned over the third letter of the first word.
Jill guessed the answer. However, since staff members could not play, she held her tongue.
"Can I get you another beer?" she asked the fire inspector.
As she turned to head back to the bar she spied Lewis Gilpin standing in the back of the room, staring at her. She shivered with revulsion as she walked past him.
"East of Eden," the contestant called out.
"That's correct," Whitey said. "The first game goes to our high school math teacher. In the next game we're looking for a proper name."
"I'm going to take my break now," Jill told one of the bartenders. "I need some fresh air."
"You want to do me a favor and take this trash out to the dumpster while you're at it?" he asked.
"Sure."
It was a cool night, but the chill in the air was a welcome relief after the hot, stuffy atmosphere inside the overcrowded pub. She opened a bottle of Dasani and sipped it as she sat on a bench beneath a maple tree.
It's so good to sit down, she thought, stretching her legs. My feet are killing me.
Jill closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of the cold water going down her throat. Suddenly, she was engulfed in warm, acrid smelling air. Her eyes opened to the sight of the Gallows Pub engulfed in flames. As she stared in horror at the conflagration, someone grabbed her arms and tried to drag her toward the inferno.
"Let go of me!" she screamed.
"Hurry. You've got to help them," a man's voice ordered.
"It's too late. There's nothing I can do."
Lewis Gilpin, again wearing the Red Sox cap and Tom Brady shirt, continued to pull her closer to the flames.
"Why are you doing this?" the waitress demanded to know.
"Because you must die. It's the way it was meant to be."
"You're insane! Let go of me!"
As she was dragged nearer to the burning building, the smoke irritated Jill's eyes, and she began to cough. A second pair of hands then grabbed her waist from behind, and she found herself caught in a deadly game of tug of war.
"Let her go!" Clinton Ropes shouted.
The closeness of the wronged blacksmith gave Jill the strength she needed to fight Gilpin off. When she was finally free of his clutches, she sought shelter in the arms of the hanged man.
"You lost once again," Clinton told Lewis. "Despite all the evil you have caused, you will never win."
Jill turned and saw that the former wheelwright was no longer wearing his New England sports fan clothing. What was left of his eighteenth century attire was torn and blackened, and small white feathers stuck to his shirt and trousers. The skin on his hands, neck and face was severely scarred from being burned by the hot tar.
"You may have been the cause of my death," the hanged man said, tightly holding on to Jill, "but you will never keep me apart from the woman I love. I have found her again at long last."
"I will never give up," Lewis vowed.
Suddenly, two flames shaped like oversized arms with clawed hands reached out of the burning building for the ghost of the wheelwright. He screamed in agony as they grasped him by the neck and pulled him into the hellish inferno. No sooner had his cries faded away into the night than the flames in the Gallows Pub were immediately extinguished.
"I don't understand," the waitress said. "There's no sign of the fire. The building is not even scorched."
Jill heard the sound of laughter from within as the customers continued to enjoy the hangman tournament. She made no attempt to return to the pub, however. Instead, she closed her eyes and rested her head on Clinton's chest. The two hundred years that had separated them faded away, and they were once again two young people in love.
* * *
"Sorry, but there's no D," Whitey announced and attached a torso—an old shirt and pair of pants covering two overstuffed pillows—to the head of the hanged man.
"Hang the spy!" the customers loudly cheered.
After giving the fire inspector another free beer, Darla scanned the room and noticed that the young waitress was not there.
"Where's Jill gone to?" she asked the bartender. "I haven't seen her in a while."
"The last time I saw her was when she went outside for a break, but that was more than an hour ago. She ought to have come back inside by now. Maybe she's in the kitchen."
"I'd better go see if something is wrong," Darla offered.
When the worried waitress opened the back door and searched the parking lot, all she found was the empty bottle of Dasani Jill had been drinking and a Red Sox baseball cap.
The police were called, but although an exhaustive search and investigation followed, they failed to discover what had become of the young woman. It was assumed that Jill had been abducted by the man in the cap, and after several months passed it was feared she would not be found alive.
What no one knew was that Jill Wainford had died more than two hundred years earlier, not long after the man she loved was falsely accused of being a British spy and hanged from the rafters of the town tavern where she worked.
Salem bought a souvenir T-shirt from his favorite tavern.
