The White Haired Man

The White Haired Man

By

B.D. Adams

© 2010

This is fiction ... make no mistake. However, this could be true, if the stars and planets were all aligned properly.

     Mark Jacobs was assigned, with his team, to assist a local construction company on an Interstate road demolition/construction in New Hampshire. The job was to take three months ... April to June. It was now mid-May, of a warmer-than-usual spring. His team, from Pittsburgh, was in-charge of the road demolition and to dynamite nearly a mile of granite rock to build a new curve and ramp on the Interstate near Laconia, NH. Hard work, but work he thrived on!! Being from the “Keystone State,” his team was no stranger to blasting rock ... all rock!
     Anyway, Mark had never been to New England (as he had never married ... plenty of possibilities, but no winner). He’d been to many locations in the western and southern United States, but this was the first to the northern East Coast. He was thirty-four years and loved adventure and really enjoyed travel to new locations. Because of the work he did, before he finished college (and became a supervisor), his body style was slender ... some muscles, but not over-bound ... with blue eyes that went well with the dark blonde of his trimmed hair.
     Presently, Mark’s blue eyes frowned slightly because he was about to face a new problem with this particular job. A folding table had been placed near the “problem,” so the blueprints he had brought could be seen by all the other concerned men to see what he saw.
     Right in the middle of an important blast site, there appeared to be a ... cemetery! It was an old cemetery of an entire family that dated from the colonial era.
     All the men agreed that this was unexpected and the gravesites were not supposed to be where they were.
     “Why didn’t the NH designers know about this?” Mark asked. He wasn’t angry, but this wasn’t what he had heard about New Hampshire precision.
     “Hey,” George, the Head Supervisor, began, “How should I know? Jack Stewaht’s always accurah’t. Don’t ‘membah anythin’ like this happenin’ evah.” The Supervisor stated his Team’s case. He didn’t want this to come down on him, in any way!
     Mark combed his fingers through his hair in frustration. Then, he placed his fists on his hips, as he stared away from the blueprint. He just wanted to fix this unfortunate problem. That was his job ... to solve problems, and usually he was very good.
     As he stared toward a group of workers, who stood near to him and the others, one man with white, wavy hair, caught his attention. This guy was rather thin ... almost a skeleton ... at more of a distance than the group. For whatever reason, this was curious to Mark.
     “We could call Jack about shortenin’ th’ ramp. That could wurk,” George suggested. He folded the one print back to see that possibility.
     Mark put his attention back to this problem to see what George wanted to show him. Quickly, though, Mark looked back to “that guy,” but ... he was gone. Mark just disregarded the incident. He put his mind back to the problem.
     “Can’t we just move the graves?” Mark asked calmly.
     “Notta good idear,” George answered and continued, “This is a final restin’ place ... we nevah move graves. It can be done, but ... notta good idear.”
     A breeze kicked up and blew the blueprints all around ... and it was a cold breeze!
     Mark began to grab the blueprints, as the breeze became stronger. One of the prints
blew off the table and flew the several yards to the little cemetery. Mark dashed after it. Hope this doesn’t happen all the time, Mark thought to himself.
     He stooped to retrieve the print, but was jolted, as he heard ...
     “Leave the graves!”
     Mark stepped back from the one grave, and then looked around quickly! There was no one near to him.
     George and his assistant trotted to Mark, who was now seated on the ground because he had tripped on a ground level grave marker in his attempt to walk backwards.
     “Hey, Mahk ... you okay?” George called out. Both men took a hand to help Mark stand again.
     “Yeah ... I’m good. Embarrassed, but good,” Mark confessed. After he brushed off his hands, he noticed that guy again, as he remained at a distance. “Who’s that guy with the white hair?” He asked George and pointed briefly. Then, Mark bent down again to retrieve the print and shake off the dirt.
     George shrugged his shoulders and queried, “What guy? I’m the only guy herah wit white hair ... what thah is of it. Did ya hit yer head?” He grinned.
     “The skinny guy, right over there,” Mark said and pointed more directly. However, the man was gone ... again. He looked this way and that ... but, there was no guy with a full head of wavy, white hair! “I guess I hit my head,” Mark smiled slightly.
     They went back to the table and Mark rolled all the blueprints up together. It was already three o’clock on Saturday afternoon, so Mark and George decided to call it a day. There would be no work on Sunday, so Mark could crunch the numbers on his computer and come up with a corrected, new print for Monday ... or, determine how to be diplomatic about getting the graves moved, if he couldn’t get the numbers to mesh.
     Mark tossed the rolled up blueprints into the backseat of his rented Land Rover. He loved that vehicle on job-sites. Not a worry, he smiled to himself.
     He and George took a moment to discuss schedules for the next week. And, after he and George shook hands, everyone mounted their separate vehicles, for their early time-off. George was more anxious to get going, so he left ahead of Mark.
     As Mark ambled down the dirt construction road, Mark glanced to his rearview mirror and nearly ran into a tree before he stopped!! He saw the white haired man at the opening of the cemetery!!
     Mark turned his head around to look better at the man. He watched as the man walked calmly more toward the cemetery and out of sight!
     Now, he was determined to find out what the hell this was all about! He jammed the Rover into reverse and gunned it back to where he saw the white haired man! Within moments, Mark was out of the Rover and stood near the first tombstones in the cemetery.  He looked around feverishly for that man, but he was not seen.
     “Where are you?” Mark yelled. “I’ve seen you ... where are you now?” Mark felt like he was in a horror film. Who was this guy? He sort of looked familiar, but not familiar enough. Mark scrutinized one of the stones ... the family’s name was Douglas. The year on this stone was eighteen-twenty ... something ... the last number was chipped and hard to read. The stone the farthest away was dated 1672 ... obviously the older ... definitely the colonial era. Mark just stood by that grave and read the epitaph ... “The Dream of Rest ... Forever” ... was what it said. It did refer to the grave’s occupant as a father, husband and farmer of this granite terrain. And, as Mark looked at more gravestones, he saw that the main thread was the same with “The Dream of Rest ... Forever” on every stone.
     The breeze picked up again, as he heard, “Leave the graves.” Mark looked up and saw the white haired man. The man wore black clothing ... a black shirt, black leather pants and black motorcycle boots ... and he appeared rather old ... weathered.
     “Who are you?” Mark asked succinctly. “What do you want from me?”
     “Leave the graves,” the man repeated.
     “Okay ... you don’t want the graves moved. But why?” Mark wanted to know.
     The man moved ... almost floated ... to a specific grave and pointed.
     Mark stayed where he was ... almost afraid to move or even breathe. This gravestone was almost in the middle of the cemetery and looked moss-covered. Perhaps, it was the oldest ... for the patriarch or the matriarch. However, Mark didn’t move.
     The ghost (Mark had decided that this was a ghost) summoned him to look at this grave-stone. Mark didn’t want to go closer, but now he had become intrigued. He approached the stone and realized it was the one where the blueprint had come to rest. Mark had read all the gravestones around, but not that one.
     “Is this you?” Mark asked.
     The ghost continued to point and just said, “Read.”
     Mark stooped to kneel, so he could better read, but the moss that covered the stone was thick ... made it hard to read. He wanted to be polite to the ghost, so he asked, “Is it all right to remove the moss?”
     The ghost nodded his approval.
     With that, Mark stood briefly to take out his pocketknife to gently peel back the moss, which made it look like the other gravestones, where other workers had checked out the dates on other gravestones.  Once the moss was cleared, Mark read out loud, “Morris ... Son of ... James Douglas.” The same epitaph was in place and the fellow died at the age of twenty-seven. The dates were, born December 8, 1743 ... died July 3, 1771. That’s sad, Mark quietly thought ... the day before Independence Day. But then ... it would be a while before that patriotic holiday would be in place.
     The ghost remained with Mark and confirmed, “That’s when I died.”
     “You died in 1771?” Mark questioned. “Your dress is more ... modern ... maybe in the nineteen-sixties.” Mark had noticed the ghost had beads around his neck. He was sort of a history-buff ... he didn’t want to misunderstand what the ghost meant.
     “Nineteen-seventy-one,” the ghost stated.
     Mark had a chill when the ghost said this. He read the names on the gravestone again ... he scrutinized the names. Morris ... Son of. Could that mean “Morrison?” Mark felt that chill again. Of James Douglas ... Jim!!! Jim Morrison ... James Douglas Morrison?! Mark knew Morrison’s real name from books he had read. He looked at the ghost in disbelief!!
     “You died in Paris ... I visited your grave at Père Lachaise!” Mark pointed out. “Your face doesn’t look like Jim Morrison ... when he died!”
     “That’s a myth, man ... you see me as I am now, sort of ... dead and decaying. Pam had me shaved ... she hated the beard.” The ghost had changed locations to state this new informa-tion, “It was decided to get me out of the French cemetery. They hated all the vandalism ... but, the damage had been done. Some people had been arrested after they tried to dig me up ... to verify I was there or that I wasn’t there. There have been many rumors that my body has been moved ... the French do double up on graves because of the lack of grave properties. It was never made official that I had been moved. My brother made the arrangements with the French officials ... I hated that the French had to deal with the fans like I did. They never did anything to me ... the French police ... like the American police did. After I died, I realized so much more than when I was alive. When I was alive ... it was great! But a royal pain once I died.”
     Mark could hardly believe his ears! He got a skeptical look on his face as he said, “Morrison had no connection to New Hampshire, from what I know. Why here?”
     “Until this construction, there was nothing to worry about. Everyone else died a long time ago and this cemetery is in the forest. Almost perfect, for the dead.”
     Once again, Mark felt the doubt rise in his thoughts. “But ...” he started to protest.
     “Don’t dig up these graves, or I’ll be found out!” the ghost interrupted, and then brought out a metal medallion on a chain from inside his shirt. “I know that there is a machine ... a portable machine ... where you can see this medallion and more, from the surface. Also, just take a long metal pole and see how shallow it goes. My coffin sits on top of Morris’s coffin.  Well, not really on top ... his broke under the weight of mine.”
     Mark felt that the ghost was actually apologizing for that damage. “Can I call you, Jim?” Mark queried.
     “Just for a couple more minutes ... I gotta get back soon,” Jim said.
     “Are you around much, Jim? You know ... just around?” Mark asked.
     “The only other time I was out was when Andy, my brother, wanted my approval of this location. He didn’t want me to haunt him.” Jim gave a wry smile, but suddenly appeared some-what tired. “Look, man ... check out the back of the gravestone. That might be enough to convince you that I’m here ... buried here.”
     “Jim ...,” Mark tried to ask something else, but the ghost began to fade.
     “Just remember ... no one here gets out alive,” was all he said, as he vanished.
     “Jim ... wait a minute! Jim!” Mark frantically called. “I’ve got more to ask.” He was yelling to the birds and squirrels!
     Mark wanted to ask Jim why he was chosen to see his ghost! Now, he knew he couldn’t move the graves, but what could Jim suggest to solve this gravesite problem. Mark scooted to the back of the gravestone to see what Jim had referred, but there was nothing to see ... just a blank, uncarved slab of granite. Then, he decided to take his pocketknife to dig below the ground ... to see if the earth covered something on the stone.
     Uh-oh ... uh-oh, Mark thought to himself. There was something ... carved ... about three inches below the surface. He took his hands to sweep the loose dirt away. There were some printed words carved by an amateur. He had to lie on the ground on his stomach to read what was printed. He read ... “Mr. Mojo risin’.”
     Underneath these words were two initials ... A.M. Mark remembered Jim said that his brother had his coffin transported back to the USA ... and his brother’s name was “Andy.”
     “Mr. Mojo risin’,” Mark said quietly, as he rolled to lie on his back. He just stared at the beautiful trees above him, as the breeze felt much warmer than earlier. He felt calm. He was convinced. He knew he’d have to work around the little cemetery to keep Jim’s secret safe.
     He’d have to dig out all his old cassette tapes to listen to The Doors when he got back to Pittsburgh.