I have lived in southwest Missouri for almost four years in a suburb of Joplin, if you consider very small cities to actually have suburbs. It might me more accurate to say that I live in a small town beside a small city.
A friend of mine, came to visit this summer and did a little research before she came. She discovered “The Joplin Spook Light” in a tourism guide (Joplin took up exactly one page) and insisted that we check it out ~ she is crazy-brave and always up for anything. I live here and I had never heard mention of such a thing, but I started asking around and indeed, the Spook Light is a local phenomenon. My neighbor is the ultimate thrill seeker. She loves all things adrenaline-laced and seeks them with vigor. The two of them were like junkies looking for drugs ... and the SpookLight was the fix.
Let me say this … I hate scary things. I hate scary movies. I hate wandering around in the night, even on my own street. I hate, hate, and hate all of it. As with most fears, this powerful inner-emotion has evolved into a full-throttle fight-or-flight response to all things that go bump in the night. It’s like this ~ I don’t swim out in the ocean because that’s the home of sea creatures that can kill me (and I don’t like for my body parts to be submerged in foreign substances in which, therefore, I cannot see them) and I feel the same way about the night. The dark night on a wooded back road, even if I can see all my parts, is a foreign territory that belongs to someone or something else. I am a trespasser … and as such, I would deserve any attacks or cruel, chainsaw- wielded treatment I may receive there. So, I don’t go there. I consider my absense from such places as respectfully polite.
Reluctantly, and under peer pressure of the most intense kind, I agreed to go “see” the SpookLight. According to internet lore, not everyone actually sees the SpookLight. In fact, I didn’t talk to one single person who had actually been there who had ever seen it. There was a very slight amount of comfort in that fact. The SpookLight is not considered an evil presence; it is more of a spiritual legend … or electrical anomaly. So maybe it’s the spirits of two, young Indian lovers who jumped to their death; or maybe it’s the spirit of an old woman looking for her husband; or electricity run amok … no one really knows, even though this “thing” has been under investigation since the late 1800’s. SpookLight Road sits on the border of Missouri and Oklahoma … deep, deep in the country … on a very, very narrow country road, under an umbrella of scraggly tree branches long since forgotten by the county maintenance crew.
Our venture onto SpookLight Road began, of course, with watching a scary movie (slightly scary to them, to me it was horrifying and I spent the entire 106 minutes with my head under a blanket … peeking through at the non-scary parts). It was late, maybe 11:00, when we finally left home. Supposedly, the best time to see the SpookLight is around 1:00 am, which ties into one of the Indian legends (I don’t remember which one). Another reason to go with the flow … the SpookLight is only about 30 minutes from our house … assurance that we would not see anything. I climbed into the middle row of my neighbor’s SUV since they wanted to ride in the front … so they could ‘air quote’ see ‘air quote’. I took the blanket with me …
If you believe in signs, then you will agree with a few of my initial instincts as we took out. First of all we missed the exit and had to drive 20 miles into Oklahoma, and pay a toll to turn around and drive 20 miles back to the correct exit. Math told me that we would be almost one full hour closer to the "time". I found this sign to be enough for us to go home … no. Then, following the map, we drove up and down a stretch of road, maybe a mile long, and could not find the turn. This was also a good reason to scrap the trip and return home … no. Eventually, and more determined than ever, my friends decided to take a side road with no sign. This side road did eventually end at another road, with a sign, which unfortunately provided proof that we were going the right way. The roads were so dark and they climbed up, up, up and then fell off like a small roller coaster. My neighbor, who drives like a Nascar hack, on a good day, was barreling up and down these hills and we were literally bouncing up and down in her Navigator as we bottomed out in each valley. I hit my head more than once.
I was terrified before we ever got to SpookLight Road. I had that elephant-on-your chest feeling … I couldn’t decide if I should close my eyes and go under-covers or if it was more beneficial to check and re-check the seat behind me, as well as the door locks. My head sat on my neck like a manual typewriter, on which someone was speed pecking my own obituary …left to right … look, look, look, look, look, look, look, return … look, look, look, look, look, look, look, return. Oddly, looking back, I do not feel I overreacted at all, although my friends found me funny that night and have since let the legend of my fear evolve into a hilarious every-single-party story for anyone who will listen.
Before we actually turned onto SpookLight Road, we stopped. Another sign … a black cat in the road. I found this to be enough and voiced my objections to any continuation of this adventure. I was assured that the small cat-like animal in the road was a “dog” … yhea, right. We turned onto the road … nothing but pitch black ahead of us … under a swag of ragged tree limbs that completely shut out the night sky. The road was barely wide enough to accommodate the SUV. Our driver, every so slowly, swerved from edge to edge attempting to miss the limbs that were scratching at the car. At this point I had the blanket wrapped around my head … looking somewhat like Yoda and equally as green. I don’t know if it was the motion of the car or the fear-sickness churning in my gut, but I felt like I was going to pass out.
We stopped. Right in the middle of the road, we stopped … and then someone hit the interior lights. For me, this may as well have been a full on alien abduction with anal probe. I screamed and pulled the blanket further down over my face. (((If you are in a car, in the dark, with the lights on inside and you look at the window, you will see your own reflection.))) That sounds completely benign, unless your reflection shows a dark hooded figure with shoulders up around its ears … which then jerks and jabs and starts screaming at you … until you finally realize that it’s actually you … but by then, it’s too late. A little pee is running down your leg. Twenty yards onto SpookLight Road and I had already blown my wad. I was totally wrecked. I collapsed down into the back seat to the haughty laughter of my friends who were actually taking pictures of me now.
We slowly inched forward. From my slumped position in the back seat, I could see a light ahead of us. I stared at it, but said nothing. We creeped over the little hills and down into the low valleys … in the dark. I could still see it. Then it blinked. It was a cell phone tower. Whew! I was so thankful that I didn’t say anything. I wrapped my blanket tighter around my head and began saying The Lord’s Prayer. I don’t know why I thought The Lord’s Prayer was a good thing to chant on a spooky road in the dead of night … approaching 12:30, but something about the trespassing made good sense to me and so I continued humming very quietly … “and lead me not into temptation” … I could see another light … “for thine is the power and the glory forever”. They saw the new light, too.
“Do you see that?”
“Yhea … maybe it’s a motorcycle.”
“But it’s moving straight ahead.”
“Yhea.”
“If it was a motorcycle, it would be moving up and down.”
“hallowed be thy name … thy kingdom come”
“I think that’s it.”
“thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
I pulled the blanket all the way down over my face.
The car slammed to another stop.
“forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”
“What the fuck?”
“Do you see that?”
I wasn’t seeing because I wasn’t looking. I was busy praying for my soul. The light hum of my words had turned into a full Gregorian chant … but they weren’t listening to me or laughing at me anymore … something had their full attention and I wanted to know what it was, but I was too afraid to even peek from the tight wrapping of what my friends now call the “safety burrito”. “lead me not into temptation …”
“…Pentagram!!!”
“Holy shit!”
“What does that sign say?”
“trespassing, trespasser, God, trespassing …”
“... Pentagram.”
“Beware … white man … no.”
I sat up … I couldn’t take anymore of the heat from my own breath inside that blanket and my curiosity was at that one, itsy-bitsy second, more powerful than my fear. I sat straight up and all I could see around us was trees. They were still mumbling about the sign. To my left there was a sign nailed to a tree, but it was too dark to see what it said. I looked off the hood of the car and there it was … the pentagram they were talking about. It filled the entire road … edge to edge. In the headlights, you could see colors, purple, red … and above it writing … “man”, “white” …
Again I screamed, but not a generic scream this time. I began spontaneously screaming as some might begin to speak in tongues. I was not having a spiritual embodiment, however, I was having what is often described as the “shitting-her-pants-breakdown”.
“Back the fuck up!”
“Back the fuck up!”
“Back the fuck up!”
“Back the fuck up!”
“Back the fuck up!”
Apparently, I screamed that phrase more than once. Also apparent to me now is the fact that fear is contagious. You can get it from other people and the girls in the front caught it ... quick-like. As I screamed and wedged myself under the middle row of that SUV, my friends also began to scream. I don’t remember how we got out of there. The road was so narrow … and there were ditches on each side. I have no idea how we got turned around, but we did. All three of us screaming … that huge car turned around and we were turning out onto another road before I emerged from under the seat. We bounced up and down those back roads until we finally found light at a highway truckstop.
We sat there, under the neon, breathing rapidly, and being totally silent. I was silent because I had taken a vow not to ever speak to either of them … ever again. They were silent because they really thought that they saw the SpookLight … or maybe because they finally realized that they were a little scared too. It’s hard to say with those two.
We slipped into the truckstop, hit the potty, and grabbed some drinks. I tried to buy beer, but you can’t buy beer after midnight on Saturday.
We got into the car and headed home. I swear to
God, we hadn’t been in that damn car for 30 seconds before they started laughing. Laughing! Laughing LOUD!!! “Back the fuck up!” … hahahahahahahahaha … “Chicken shit!” … hahahahahahahaha.
Bitches.
The next morning my phone rang.
“Hello.”
“hahahahahahahah!!!! Ahahahahahahahaha!!! Hahahahahahahah!!! Back the fuck up!!! Hahahahahahahah!!!” … for at least 5 minutes …
Bitches.
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