Aside from the intrigue of the building was the torture and unfair treatment so many people had to endure as patients there. I have heard so many things that send uneasy chills those horror movies couldn’t replicate unless they too were based on truth, and even if this was possible, a movie cannot emulate the same chilling vigor a building that harbors the story could!
During 1991, Worcester State Hospital closed, leaving the energy and some of its people as a permanent scar.
I love the good type of crazy Worcester manages to be, and though my hometown has a dark history, I am content there, and I love the people. There is such a heterogeneous atmosphere via all of the colleges and coffee shops, intertwined with the intriguing history, and crazy inner parts.
Most of the girls can fight, and all of the associates or friends I have from there take no shit.
There are seven hills in Worcester, just as there are seven layers of hell in Dante’s depiction.
Worcester is diverse, with a dark history, obscure energy, and is undeniably crazy, but I have an eerie connection with her, whereby I keep crawling back with some kind of strange incentive. This time it’s Mistress Fran, and last time it was a house party hosted with the lure of spicy food and spiritual talk.
I grab a heavy winter coat, throw my expensive jewelry in the desk safe, and call a taxi, because my rims wouldn’t last an hour parked in those neighborhoods, especially considering I haven’t been by there in so long and nobody would recognize my car. The taxi driver arrives within minutes of my call and snakes his car in and around the city without introduction or small talk until I’ve reached the neighborhood where I experienced my best and worst childhood memories. It smells the same as I recall the scent of rubber tar, with just a hint of soul. Small, dilapidated businesses are fancily decorated with bars on their windows and doors. Narrow streets overlay cobblestone roads once suitable for horse and carriage, flanked by old buildings that barricade the constricted streets with barely enough room for one lane, let alone two. It’s like a jigsaw mousetrap that seems as if it were purposely set to slow your vehicle if you make a wrong turn. How strange it is to be in this focal point of my childhood, a harsh reminder of where I would have stayed if not for my success. Though it is also a wonderful reminder of a time I could be as crazy as I wanted, without the harsh judgment experienced where I reside now. I spent most of my life bouncing between urban neighborhoods in cities such as Boston, Worcester, and Lynn (Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin, you never come out the way you came in). They’re virtually identical neighborhoods in terms of politics and demographics, but each has a distinct feel and smell. Even though Massachusetts harbors many wealthy neighborhoods, and is fruitful in regards to history, culture, and expensive schools, it does have its rough areas, and I’ve lived in them all. As small children, my friends and I would break into abandoned homes and vacant factories, play marbles on the street corners, and try to stay away from more serious mischief. Not many of us succeeded in that effort, which is sad, as a lot of my friends ended up in prison or dead by twenty-five. The few that are still around and not sleeping on the corner steps of the local liquor stores have moved away or are running the streets, perpetuating the cycle of poverty street smarts.
The address reveals an apartment complex that’s not much more than a rooming house. It is a large five-story brick building poorly insulated, as evidenced by the large dripping icicles that look like three-foot daggers ready to fall on some innocent bypasser. There are no markings outside suggesting that “Mistress Fran” lives in the building, and the card doesn’t include a clear apartment number.
Nevertheless, I find her apartment with ease and help from one of her friendly neighbors. This is not typical for me, but my inbuilt compass decided to work for once. Number 204, the first door in view when I hit the top of the stairs on the second floor. Even though the door is not completely closed, I knock loud enough for the sound to drown out the blasting TV set she left on. No wonder she couldn’t hear the phone ring. I am shocked the neighbors do not complain, but again, silence is probably an unexpected presence around these parts. No answer, and so I knock again, only harder, forcing the door open just a bit and unwillingly allowing a smothering fetid stench through that about knocks me on my ass. A mix of cat piss and rotten food intertwined with the overpowering odor of stale cigarettes burns my nostrils and taste buds something fierce enough to lose my strong stomach reflexes and give way to vomit. I can almost taste my stomach acids, as I swallow them back with discipline. Despite the smell, I force my way inside.
As expected, clutter and waste block the door from fully opening. A TV assaults my ears, and the smell is overpowering. All I can make out in the middle of her small living space that wasn’t covered in trash is a card table heaping with witchery books, scattered papers, and odd collections of crystals and stones.
“Fran?” I call out as if she had been expecting me. No answer, and to make myself heard over the television, I would have had to take a deep breath of the foul air, so I quietly make my way around her one-room apartment instead. It reminds me of a hole-in-the-wall shop you might find in Salem; only someone broke in during the off-season, ransacked the place, and used all the candles for some ritual. Lifelike porcelain dolls sit on the bottom of the large, dusty windowpanes. The dim room—with pagan and tribal ornaments filling the windows, along with the chaos of mess and smell—is a lot to take in. Her spirituality seems too confused to pinpoint because her room is full of religious brands, so I’d assume a witch or eclectic spiritualist (which is often the same thing).
The only true piece of furniture in the entire room besides the card table and TV is a vinyl reclining chair with its back to me, stained and ripped and probably light blue once. I am sure this would be where she sleeps, reads, watches TV; and by the telephone on the floor next to the right arm of the chair, I would assume she does pretty much everything there. I inch my way towards the chair uncomfortably, trying to make my way through the piles of junk. As I approach, I can see a bit of her straggly white hair hanging over the throne of her recycling chair, while her wrists dangle slightly over its arms. Thank god she’s here, I think. What a waste of time and energy this would have been otherwise?
“Fran, I am sorry to intrude,” I begin as she gives no attention to me being there. I politely grab her hand to wake her and startlingly notice how cold she is, her feeble body stiff in its place. An overwhelming sickness greets me once again. The smell of urine should have given a little insight as to what I may have stumbled into. Perhaps I inadvertently came to deny my instincts to lessen the effects of shock. Is she dead! Did I embark upon her radical path of transformation before getting to know her? Things get too final and intimate at once. How could I have predicted this unless I made a habit of foreshadowing death’s clock? Denials sets in, but only long enough for my mind to make a weak attempt at convincing me that I am hallucinating and last night was leaking into my reality. Again, this brief gleeful ignorance is crushed by the death in her face.
She must have died in her sleep. My first instinct would be to leave, but what if someone had seen me come in? After all, I spoke with one of her neighbors. I hold my breath and reach for her right side frantically to grab the phone and call 9-1-1. As I reach, I brush across her, and a shock of fear comes over me. I imagine the demonic entities from last night’s dream ravaging her spirit until her body could take no more.
I snap myself out of this and get the phone.
I let the dispatcher know, in a shaken voice, that I came to her home invited and found her dead in her chair. The dispatcher asked me to stay until the officers arrive so I could fill out a police report. Frustration becomes me because I know that it would probably take them a few minutes to get here, but who knows how long to fill out the paperwork and explain my crazy reasoning for being here. I have no idea what I expected when I arrived, but this certainly wasn’t it.
In the next