- NORTH RICHLAND HILLS - Right
up until he died, Gary could be seen almost every day at "the Jube,"
his favorite bar, drinking Weller and water with a shot of tequila on the
side.
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- He was a sharp dresser, famous for wearing fedoras. He
loved to laugh and have a good time -- especially at Jubilation on Bedford-Euless
Road.
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- "He loved people and he loved this place,"
said Gary's wife, Gina.
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- Gary, whose full name is being withheld at the insistence
of his family, died at 49 at a Fort Worth hospital on Sept. 17, 2002. But
many believe that his spirit lives on.
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- Literally.
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- Some patrons of the bar and the manager believe that
Gary kept visiting the Jube after he died. They think his spirit could
be one of three ghosts that haunted the bar until a Fort Worth medium asked
them to leave about a week ago.
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- It's a spooky tale, fraught with coincidence, circumstantial
evidence and possibly impaired judgment. But it rings true to many of the
people who work at the North Richland Hills bar.
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- Lisa Robertson, Jube assistant manager, said she saw
an apparition when she was closing the bar one Sunday in July. At first,
it was something she saw out of the corner of her eye. But she got up,
walked around the bar and saw what she could only describe as a ghost.
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- Robertson discussed what she saw with a co-worker, who
told her that she was describing Gary.
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- Wallace Waller, Jube manager of six months, had no idea
what he was seeing. He heard glasses clinking while he was working in his
office early on the morning of Sept. 11. Waller has a digital camera that
surveys the bar and projects the image onto his computer screen.
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- On the screen he saw what he thought was a man sitting
at the bar. He has the image saved on his computer.
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- "I thought it was a robber," Waller said. "I
looked at the screen and clicked to take a picture thinking, if something
happened to me, I would want them to know someone else had been here."
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- Waller took two steps out of his office. The bar was
lighted only by one or two dim, neon signs. He saw what he thought was
a man sitting at the bar. He saw the man stand up, turn and walk to the
restrooms.
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- Waller followed, holding a pool cue like a baseball bat.
He found no one.
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- "At this point, I realized I was alone and I got
what you could call an eerie, cold feeling," Waller said. "I
dropped the cue and ran to the parking lot and stayed there at least 30
minutes wondering if I should go back in and turn the alarm on or not.
Wondering if it had been real.
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- "When I finally went back in, I looked at the screen
and knew it was real because of the image. I didn't tell anyone for a few
days because it was so weird."
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- Kat Darden, a Fort Worth medium and "visionary consultant"
for 18 years, was brought in to persuade the ghost to vacate the premises.
Darden said she sensed three presences at the bar: Gary, a female and a
second man she believe died in or near the bar in recent years.
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- As a matter of fact, someone did. Robert Stodghill, 26,
died in November 1993 after running out of the bar, which had a different
name, according to Star-Telegram archives.
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- Stodghill was accused of stealing a woman's wallet. He
was cornered in the restroom by a customer and an employee but broke free
and ran toward Northeast Loop 820. He stepped into rush-hour traffic, grabbed
onto a passing delivery truck but lost his grip. He fell, and the truck's
rear wheels ran over him.
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- Darden said she felt drawn to the back part of the building,
and it was there that she asked the spirits to leave. She said they complied.
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- "I told them, 'You need to go on now.' They needed
someone to guide them. Someone with authority who could just say, 'In the
name of Jesus you must go into the light.' "
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- She was unsure of the identities of the other two, but
Darden said she was certain that one was Gary.
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- "They hang around, sometimes they don't want to
leave," she said. "I just feel like this was home to him. A second
home. ... Sometimes they get lost and don't find their way until someone
directs them to go on."
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- Gina looked at the digital photo for the first time Wednesday
night. She doesn't discount the possibility that Gary found a way to return
after death.
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- "If anybody could, he would. That's Gary,"
Gina said. "That's something he would think of as awesome."
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- With tears forming in her eyes, Gary's daughter Andrea,
23, recounted the last time she spoke at length with her father. They were
at the Jube.
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- "He was here on a Friday [before his death] and
I sat down beside him and ordered a drink. We talked about everything,
from hurricanes and planes and the world in general. How we could see things
in the clouds even though we are grown. For the first time in all my adult
years, I sat down with him and talked. Then he got sick and we didn't talk
about anything after that. He was gone."
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- The more skeptical regulars in the bar also remember
Gary fondly but were surprised to learn that there were ghost stories about
him.
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- "Gary was a wonderful person, but really, I didn't
know that," said Jim Brewer of North Richland Hills. "That's
funny."
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- Ben Tinsley
- btinsley@star-telegram.com
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- http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/local/states/texas/northeast/74
35828.htm
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