The Last Night IN Bldg. 617

Hello Sue,

I'd like to extend my greetings to all of my Raytheon friends who are still working in Fullerton. I sure miss you all! The people I clean for here in El Segundo are nice enough, but they can't compare with you. I had a chance to look around a bit in your new building and I have to admit that it was as clean as can be expected. It seems your new custodians are giving you the service to which you are entitled.

I have a story to tell you about my last night working in building 617. But before I begin, I want you to know that I did a little research after that night, and what I discovered was quite alarming when figured in with the events that occurred.

There is an old friend of my family, Mr. George Dean, who is a retired reporter for the Orange County Register. He began his career working for the long defunct Fullerton News Tribune. With his help, I discovered the following:

Since what was then known as Hughes Aircraft first opened in Fullerton, there have been 183 people employed by Hughes as custodians. Of those 183 custodians, 105 are deceased. And, of those 105, 78 of these folks all died in a violent, tragic, or otherwise mysterious manner. During this same time, 154 people were hired as Security personnel. Of these employees, to date, 89 are deceased. Of these 89, an astounding 74 also died in a violent, tragic, or mysterious manner. With that in mind, let me tell you what happened on that warm summer night:

It had been an excruciatingly long night. There was not a bit of maintenance work to be done, because the building was completely empty. There wasn't a stick of furniture or a scrap of paper to be found. Even our equipment had been packed and trundled off to El Segundo-- the last stand for all union janitors. I was alone for the last half of my shift. The rest of my crew had all come in early for a pizza party, so I was left alone to complete my eight hours. As you are aware, 617 was the last of the old buildings to await the bulldozers.

Company Policy prevents me from admitting how long of a lunch I took that night. And, for the same reason, I can't disclose whether or not I might have dosed off during those endless hours. Suffice it to say that it wasn't a typical night's work for me.

But I was determined that the final last hour of my shift would be business as usual. I went into my little supply room, now made bigger by the absence of my desk and cabinets, and got out my walkman and my harmonicas. I put in a blues tape and practiced playing my harp until around midnight. I put away the walkman and, like I've done for the last ten years, ended my set by playing "Good Night Irene." If you're not familiar with the tune, perhaps you'll recognize the lyrics: Sometimes I feel disgusted
Sometimes I feel so down
Sometimes I have a great notion
To jump in the river and drown

Good night Irene, good night.
Good night Irene, good night
Good night Irene...good night Irene
I'll see you in my dreams . I have no idea why I've always ended my practice by playing this same song, but I always do.

I don't know if it was the acoustics of the now empty room, or the emotion of this being the last night I would ever play in these buildings, but I have to say that I've never sounded better. The echo off the cement floor and bare walls created a full rich sound that must have been inspiring, because I played with a control that I had never experienced before.

It sounded so good that I played it again. I just couldn't get over how perfect the tone was, so I played it yet again—this time raising the tempo just a little. It was just incredible! It was as if my lungs and the harp were one and the same. I couldn't feel my breath anymore. I glided effortlessly up and down the scales, bending the notes one by one or using my tongue to blend the cords with an ability I had never possessed until that moment. Encouraged by this newfound talent, I drifted into an impromptu solo.

I know this sounds crazy, but I can't say whether I was in complete control or totally out of it. I kept playing faster and faster, and as I did, the pace grew with a frenzy that was almost frightening. I say almost, because it was also thrilling. The goose bumps caused the hairs on my arms to stand on end as I moved about the little room with the grace of an experienced entertainer, the sounds I emitted swooping and diving with dizzying speed.

I was playing something that sounded like a cross between the harp solo on the Rolling Stone's Midnight Rambler and Little Walter's solo on Muddy Water's Manish Boy when I began to imagine seeing something out of the corner of my eye—if you've ever spotted a mouse trespassing in your kitchen in this manner, you know what I'm talking about. This startled me, yet I continued to play. I'm not sure I could have stopped even if I wanted to.

It was at this point when I spotted the apparition through the door and down the far end of the hallway. I say it was an apparition because it looked like a person, yet it did not. If you've ever stared at a light bulb for awhile and then suddenly turned off the light, you'll understand what I mean. You continue to see a vision of the light bulb, but it looks different—the colors are more vivid, the light shimmering and vibrant. This is what I saw drifting towards me that night. It looked like a figure, but it was far from human. And still I played my harp.

By now you are probably wondering why I didn't drop my harmonica and run screaming in terror. Well, friends, I've been wondering the same thing ever since that night, but the truth is that I wasn't terrified and I had no intention of stopping the most incredible solo of my life. The fact is I even started moving towards the door to meet my unexpected visitor.

I crossed the threshold of my room just as the specter reached the end of the adjacent hallway. Now I was within arms reach of the figure, and I continued to play. As I did, the figure seemed to grow more distinguishable. I could now see that it resembled a man—a dark man, not black but possibly Latino. I was startled to see what looked like a large screwdriver protruding from his chest. Never missing a note, I suddenly was reminded of a story I'd heard. It was about a security guard back in the Seventies who was stabbed to death by a janitor that had overdosed on PCP. The badge on the man's translucent shirt verified his identity.

But I had no time to reflect on this, because a noise coming from down the long hall to the lobby caused me to turn and see that there were more of these ghostly figures coming towards me. And still I played. I was so entranced not only with the spectacle before me, but also of the crisp dry notes that flew from out of my mouth and between my hands. I was vaguely aware that the temperature had suddenly dropped so low that my breath was visible as I continued to play on my harmonica.

I know that you are all familiar with building 617, so you know that there is an elevator on the west side in the middle of the building. Now, imagine me standing in the middle of the carpet there, playing my harp to this unholy audience of what were now seven figures. Three of them were women, and of these, two wore security uniforms. Of the four men, only one was dressed as a custodian, and I suddenly realized that I knew this guy, or I should say I had known him when he was alive; for there before me, his glowing persona swaying as the others were to the music I was making, was none other than Tim Whitehead.

Tim started to work at Hughes on the same night as I. We were friends for a few years, but I was ten years older than he and my partying days were just about over. Tim's partying days were over, as well; although his ended much more dramatically than mine. Tim was killed in a car accident one night while racing from one bar to another trying to score another bag of cocaine. The glass that was buried in his left eye was undoubtedly from the windshield of his van. As I played on and on, Tim pointed towards the hall that enters into what was left of building 607.

I was still playing my demonic solo, yet unable to refuse a request from a fan, so I started towards building 607. As I did, my audience grew in size as more and more specters came out of the empty offices and cubicles. I was aware that there was a chant forming to the rhythm of my music, although I could not make out the words. Still, I played.

By the time I arrived in the atrium of 607, I had quite an entourage. By now, I was not surprised when I would recognize a face in this ghostly crowd. There was Rudy Zamora, a janitor who drank himself to death on Thunderbird wine after his wife died of ovarian cancer. Over there was a security guard whose name I don't recall. I remember that he was hit by a car while trying to rescue a woman who was trapped inside her burning automobile.

On they came, and when I was standing in the middle of the atrium, my midnight party had grown to hundreds of dancing, chanting, haunted spirits of the night. And still I played. I played, but I strained to understand their three words, keening upwards with my music to the top of the third floor.

And then I saw her. She was standing on the third floor mezzanine, leaning over the railing and chanting along with her spectral companions. Even in her present ghastly condition I would have recognized her, for in life she was certainly one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Her ebony beauty was legendary at Hughes Aircraft. Back in the early Eighties, she worked as a janitor in building 600 in the area known as Mahogany Row—the executive suite.

The story I heard was that she was having an affair with one of the top executives until she discovered that he was a married man. On the night she confronted him, according to the executive, she refused his offer of a ride home and he left her sitting at a bus stop. She was never seen again; that is, until this night. Now I knew what they were chanting as I played. The three words were: Take me home! Take me home! And I knew what I had to do.

Still playing my harp at a blistering tempo, I began to walk back to building 617. My audience followed me as I expected them to do. Together we all marched through 607 and down the narrow corridor that carves through the middle of building 617 and out the turnstiles into the parking lot.

The warm summer night felt like a blast from a furnace compared to the unearthly chill that pervaded the doomed building we had just left. There was no time to ponder this phenomenon, however, because I knew that if I was to circumvent the hard fast, cut in stone bargaining unit agreement, if I was to set a new precedent, I would have to do it before the end of the midnight hour. And so, on I played.

On I played as I led my crowd of tormented souls like some demented conga line through the parking lot and down Hughes Drive—just a short walk for some, but an eternity away for these poor devils whose only crime was their failure to navigate their way safely through life. On I played like some pied bluesman from hell to take them all where they needed to be. On I played to take them home.

On I played as we filled the circular courtyard of buildings 675 and 676. On I played as they chanted their relentless, pitiful wail and on I played and on I played as one by one, two by two and three by three they disappeared into the newer buildings that, heretofore, were never theirs to inhabit. On I played until, although the hundreds of voices could still be heard—there was only myself and the ghost of the beautiful black cleaning woman remaining in the driveway.

I continued to play but, as I looked into her eyes, I slowed the tempo and slowed the tempo and slowed the tempo until I held one single note, the one single note, until it rang through the trees and the hundreds of voices joined me in song as I played the last, final notes of this momentous evening: Good night, Irene, good night
Good night, Irene, good night
Good night, Irene, good night, Irene
I'll see you in my dreams.

As the last note faded from my harmonica, as the last voice faded in time, the soul of the lovely Miss Irene Jackson blew me a kiss and withdrew into her new home; to leave me to stand in silence, save for the crickets chirping and a freight train passing through Fullerton on its way into LA.

Now, I know what you're thinking. I can hear you snicker! You think that Pat always was a clever sort and wasn't he the janitor that loved to play his little jokes on everyone? If you think I'm just having some fun with you, it's your right to believe what you will. But sooner or later, you're going to be working late to meet some deadline, finish a contract or prepare an itinerary-- and then send me an e-mail and tell me what you saw out of the corner of your eye. :)

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Author's note: This story is dedicated to all of the thousands of people who worked at the Hughes Aircraft facility in Fullerton, California, and especially to so many of those who shared those times with me. I hope that your memories of those years are as fond as mine. I hope you cherish the moments with those who made your world a little brighter and forgiven those who didn't. I hope you never forget those who left us sooner than we could have imagined.