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 SGTDF #7: Spectering 👻🙀  

It's time to finally let everyone in on one of my favorite activities here in Maine, especially apropos since it is now officially Halloween season. I'm here to talk, of course, about Spectering.

First, let me give you some context.

This is what a Specter looks like.

  Stephen King knows what's up

Maine, in general, is spooky basically all the time. Stephen King isn't fucking around. I'm convinced every house in my town is haunted.

A lot of the houses in Bath are historic, built in the 19th century (our house was constructed in 1880) as housing for shipbuilders at the various shipyards on the waterfront of the Kennebec River.

These days, it's all one giant shipyard —

Bath Iron Works

, now a General Dynamics company and one of the Navy's primary defense contractors.

Thousands of people work there, there are weird parking lots scattered across town—some people have to park a town or two away and take a shuttle bus to the shipyard—and workers come in from all parts of Maine.

The houses in and around our neighborhood are weirdly plotted—driveways where you don't expect them to be, some houses are VERY close to each other, others not so much; some houses used to be carriage houses for other structures, some are

Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn

, some have Widow's Watches, some used to be mansions and are now apartments, etc.

For the most part, there are no large yards, at least close to downtown—our house only has a deck and stone patio space—because they were really just packing people in to get those ships built.

House on Haunted Hill

Our house is situated on a hill, one block away from BIW. We used to have a slight view of the river until those assholes built another ugly building and blocked it, but at least we can see the crane looming large.

Anyway, we're right near an intersection that facilitates a lot of the BIW traffic when the shifts let out.

Sunrise over the aforementioned intersection from our house on the hill.

Coming from Los Angeles, "traffic" means something different to me than it does to a Mainer, but when 3:30pm hits and the first shift lets out at BIW, the streets of Bath are as congested as it gets.

And the intersection by our house has a stop sign all of these cars must pass through. So while our neighborhood, generally, is quiet, these shifts letting out makes me feel like I'm in a city again for about 30 minutes a day.

But the real action, as it pertains to Spectering—I'm getting there, promise—is when the second shift lets out at midnight. All of the same sudden traffic occurs, but without the added complexity of normal daily activity.

The stops get a little more rolling, and people are more likely to try and sneak a fast one to cut around the congestion and turn up our oneway street.

The intersection in winter.

Midnight also, typically, happens to be about the time of last call for my little shadow, our sweet doggo Russell-bud, to empty his bladder before we all go up to bed. We usually just pop outside for him to do his business on the bushes.

More often than not, our cat Crouton comes to the door and waits when he sees it's about time for his brother to go outside, and will wait for me to scoop him up and carry him outside to smell the night air.

Crouton is strictly an indoor cat, essentially a lion raised in captivity, but he loves to hear the wind rustle and the crickets chirp.

But what I've discovered, the best way to cap off most evenings, is that because of how our house is situated on the hill, street lamps lighting me from behind, I can loom at the end of our driveway, cat in my arms, a shadowy figure that all of these people stopping at the bottom of the hill must turn to see when they stop at the sign.

This, friends, is Spectering.

Our house last Halloween, which makes Spectering even more effective.

And when you can see one of these unsuspecting drivers do a doubletake, undoubtedly confused about this weird silhouette hovering up the hill—

is that a fucking ghost holding a cat?

—a ghastly image that they're not quite sure is real.

Sometimes we make eye contact and I let my gaze follow as they slowly drive by. It is, for whatever it's worth, deeply satisfying.

Two Cats

Sometimes Russell prefers to pee a little further down the hill, which means we walk past our one next door neighbor's house. His name is Bill, we don't know much about him other than he lives alone and always says or waves hello when he sees us.

We've never had much of a conversation—I was out shoveling just after we'd moved in, and I introduced myself. Another time he happened to be outside when we were trying to figure out if a cat that was hanging around belonged to someone or was a stray (this cat lives with us now and her name is Frankie). Friendly but not friends.

Anyway, one evening—not totally sober, I should probably add—I was Spectering further down the hill, Crouton swaddled in my arms, and Bill arrived home.

It was inevitable that we were about to have an interaction, because I was in front of his house in my pajamas with a cat in my arms, and he knows who I am and that I am not a ghost.

In a panic and feeling like I needed to explain myself, I said to Bill, "Sometimes I like to bring our cat outside! He loves it!" Bill, who I am sure did not care, kindly said, "I didn't know you had a cat!"

And because I hate myself, I kept the conversation going—Bill in his driveway, me, Russell, and Croots in the road—and said "You know, we have... two of 'em," which is a 

Back to the Future

reference obscure enough that I can't find a clip of it on YouTube, and one that I am sure he did not know.

Goon squad.

Feeling self-conscious about my decision to quote something a person who did not watch

Back to the Future

almost every day for a year as a youth would catch, I continued to explain how and when we got our cats (Crouton as a kitten from a shelter in LA, and he had ringworm, and it was a nightmare, and funny enough Frankie was that cat I asked him about that one time that I am betting he did not remember).

Finally, Russell was trotting his way back to our house so I said goodnight and knew I would think about this interaction for the rest of my life, wondering if Bill tells his friends about the total fucking weirdo who lives next door.

More likely, he doesn't think about me when I am not in his line of sight, which leads me to realize my self-importance needs to be taken down a peg.

This was the last conversation we've had, but there have been plenty of waves and friendly head nods passed between us since, so I guess we are still on good terms.

In any case, it has not dampened the joy that Spectering gives me in the slightest.

What can I say? Quarantine made us all weird.

-Joey

P.S.

Last year, I dove deep into my Shocktober ritual

and shared my calendar of movies! If you're interested,

my Shocktober 2023 programming is squared away on Letterboxd

! Last year I revisited all the

Nightmare on Elm Street

movies, this year it's Chucky. Wanna play?

October 31 isn't just Halloween, it's also the release of the AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM prequel comic in which myself and Ray-Anthony Height have put together a Black Manta story that I'm really proud of. Final Order Cutoff—the date in which your comic book store needs to tell the distributor how many copies they'd like—is coming this Sunday, 10/8, so please let them know you'd like to buy a copy!