Mira DavisFollow

Date Collected

Fall 11-19-2018

Place item was collected

Logan, Utah

Informant

Bridgette Luke

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Bridgette (Gette) Luke is a coworker and good friend of mine. Born in 1989 and a Cache Valley native, Gette lived in Seattle for a few years before moving to Logan during high school, and has been here ever since. She is a host and busser at Herm’s Inn, a local breakfast hub in Logan, Utah, and has been working there for about six months.

Context

I interviewed Gette along with five other coworkers from Herm’s in the living room of my apartment. The setting of this group interview was very casual: we were all circled around my coffee table, drinking beer and wine, as we often do together on our evenings after work. Gette is one of several employees at Herm’s who has claimed to have uncanny experiences in the past, and has used this specific instance as a talking point in connecting her own haunting account with the odd supernatural happenings at Herm’s. Hers is the only story from this group interview that is not directly work-related. Steve, Gette’s boyfriend who also works at Herm’s, had a few things to add within this story as well. The other pieces from this interview can be found under the following names: “The White Figure,” “The Children See Ghosts,” “Tired of Talking to Ghosts,” “Haunted Coffee Spoons,” and “The Heroin Spoon.”

Text

Mira: Gette do you believe in ghosts?

Gette: [hesitating] Yeah [pause] I don’t know if I believe in full figures of ghosts, but I know that I’ve seen some shit that freaked me out. One time I was at Steve’s apartment in the basement cooking. And it was like the living room and the kitchen were all one room and there was just one countertop with like the stove and the fridge and then there’s like behind you is the sink [motioning hands to give us a visual]. And to the left of me is the pantry, and the pantry’s under the stairs. So the door to the pantry was always open. We never ever closed the door to the pantry. It was just always open, there wasn’t a light on in the pantry, and I just had like one light on in the kitchen, so the rest of the room was dark, and I’m just at the stove cooking, and in like my peripheral vision to the left I see the door to the pantry close. [pause, then emphasized:] all the way!

Steve: like there’s somebody in there.

Gette: It clicked closed! [pause] There’s nothing, there’s nothing in that room, it’s just under the stairs, like there’s not an air vent, there’s literally nothing in that room but storage, and the door closed all the way, and I like looked over and was like, “oh my god the door is closed!” and I ran to his [pointing to Steve] bedroom, and I was like, “you get your ass out here!”

Steve: She screamed my name from the kitchen.

Gette: “Get out here right now!” And I screamed out.

Steve: [Turning to look at Gette] And at first I thought you were just like being weird, like being dumb about it.

Gette: [voice raised] I was so scared!

Steve: [looking at Gette] So I was giving you shit.

Gette: Like what just happened?!

Steve: She was actually like really terrified, so I was like okay maybe I won’t make fun of her, ‘cause she’s actually scared.

Gette: [referencing what she said within the story] “I cannot be in this room by myself, like I need to be out here because something just happened, and… I’m not okay with it.” [pause] It was scary.

Steve: Yeah, she better believe in ghosts ‘cause she’s been around them.

Gette: That’s not the only thing that’s happened to me, though, like I’ve had other things happen to me when I was younger that made me afraid [emphasized], like I didn’t see a figure but something weird happened and I was like “oh shit! Something is here that I can’t see, but I can feel it!”

Texture

Gette was clearly pretty terrified by this experience, which makes sense considering her earlier mention of believing in ghosts, at least to a certain extent. She was also very expressive as she told this story, leaning forward dramatically, making eye contact with everyone in the room. Gette is an active bearer, and such dramatization is not at all abnormal when she’s telling stories. It was evident that she was very comfortable during this, lounging on my love seat, using one hand to help express what she was saying and the other to hold her wine. Steve is an active bearer as well, so consequently their dialogue overlapped toward the end when Steve began to give his own account of what happened.

Course

ENGL 2210: Intro to Folklore

Instructor

Dr. Lynne S. McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2018

Theme

G7: Revenants

EAD Number

2.2.2.2.4.12.4

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