"THE GRIEVING GHOST OF MARY JO" > Page 1, 2
MARY JO
MJ was very different than the other spirits; she seemed almost nervous.
In the days that followed, Rita and the others did not even mention their strange adventure to Christine and Lizzy, knowing that if word leaked out, Don could get in trouble.
The discovery of the red room and the weird feeling they got from it made the girls even more curious about the possibility of the theater being haunted. They decided to make another Ouija board and ask Janet about it. Rita and Cathy, with the other girls looking on, sat at the board and contacted Janet. Spelling out her message, Janet confirmed that there was a ghost in the theater and that her name was MJ.
With her fingers on the planchette, Rita asked if it would be possible to speak with her. Almost immediately, a spirit identified itself as MJ through the board. The feeling that the girls got from MJ was very different than what they were used to from other spirits. There was a kind of nervousness in the way she spelled out her answers. "After a while, and with Janet's assistance, we found out that her name was Mary Jo," said Rita.
Mary Jo wasn't just a nervous spirit. There was something wrong... something disconcerting about her manner, often only answering questions with the refrain, "I cry forever. Sad. Forever sad."
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Rita and her friends were determined to find out. When in contact with Mary Jo, they pressed her for answers about her death - and her answers shocked and frightened them. |
The girls at last had found a spirit they felt was connected to the theater. But why was the sad, despondent spirit of Mary Jo trapped in the stage area of this small high school? Rita and her friends were determined to find out. When in contact with Mary Jo, they pressed her for answers about her death - and her answers shocked and frightened them.
Almost reluctantly, Mary Jo revealed that she had been raped in the school and had subsequently died of an illegal abortion. The girls began to wonder just how much more they really wanted to know. Yet they continued and asked where this horrible crime had been committed. The planchette began to move erratically, indicating that Mary Jo was becoming agitated as she tried to spell out... PR... PR... PR...
PR? What could this mean? The school's pool room? The physics room? Then the realization of what it meant struck Rita like a bolt of lightning: "The prop room!" The instant the words came out of Rita's mouth, Mary Jo began to rapidly spell out: RED, RED, RED...
Rita and Cathy were practically numb with fright. The significance of the red prop room was not lost on them, and they were so shaken that they finally told Christine and Lizzy about their bizarre discovery above the theater.
MARY JO GETS EVEN
She became an archetypal figure for me. Grieving with her and for her was like grieving for every woman victimized.
From that day on, the girls talked with Mary Jo nearly every day. Rita even began to feel very attached to her, and felt that Mary Jo liked them, too. But Mary Jo wasn't as benign a spirit as they thought at first - especially to those who didn't believe in her.
And virtually no one outside the girls' circle did believe in Mary Jo. Don, Jess and Andi dismissed the idea as a creation of the girls' dramatic imaginations and often playfully mocked the girls about it. "Mary Jo did not take kindly to this," Rita said. "She hated them, and called them respectively, ‘The Bearded Boy,' ‘Blondy' and ‘Bones.' She told us that she was going to get even with them, and although she promised that she would never do anything to us, began issuing warnings to ‘Beware stage left.' "
At the time, the department was in the midst of a production of a Shakespearean comedy, which kept them working in the theater at least four hours a day. During rehearsal one day, Mary Jo seemed to make good on her threat. It was a scene of stage combat, and Andi inexplicably fell and injured her head. This might have been easier to dismiss as merely an accident had it not happened where Mary Jo warned it would - stage left.
Despite the accident, Rita never felt an evil intent from Mary Jo. "She wasn't evil," said Rita. "She was just very, very sad and confused." Yet the spirit persisted in telling the girls that she was going to do things during the performances - that she would "make things happen." When they tried to get specifics from Mary Jo, she would fall back into her old refrain: "Sad. I cry forever."
Fortunately, nothing drastic happened during the run of the show... just little things... little personal things that brought members of the cast and crew alike to tears. For example, Rita stumbled upon the biggest jock/tough guy in the class bawling in the stage wings. When she asked him what was wrong, he claimed not to know why.
Soon after that, the girls retired the Ouija board. But the girls, especially
Rita, could not forget Mary Jo. "If I had known more then, I would have tried to really help Mary
Jo,"
said Rita, "to
release her from that cycle of pain she was caught inside. I think it would have
been possible to help her move on. It is one of my biggest regrets when I think
about how Mary Jo shared her tears." 
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> > Poll: If you were
Rita, what would you have done?
NOTE: "Rita," who related this story to me, asserts that it is all true. The names have been changed to protect their identities.
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