The Dark Secrets Here Are Fun
Saw this the other day and had a laugh, then thought about it some more…
Maryland isn’t exactly northeast so it doesn’t really fit in the chart below. But I can invent a secret, but not so dark maybe.
Maryland was known as the “Free State” for its general defiance of prohibition (Maryland was the only state among the then-48 to decline to pass an enabling law to back up the federal Volstead Act). There were probably dozens of speakeasies in Baltimore city during the 1920s. So I’m thinking there’s a story here somewhere, involving a phantom speakeasy that randomly appears in some off the beaten path corner of the nightlife, patronized by young at heart jazz age spirits who just never wanted the party to end.
Modern day revelers chance upon a door down an alley they’d never noticed before and think, hey here’s a new spot, let’s check it out. But the door is locked and when they knock a peep hole slides open and a gravelly voice asks “who sent you?” and they laugh and someone pulls a name out of thin air that just happens to be the right one and the door opens and they’re led down some narrow stairs to a basement…and into an amazing jazz age space with flappers and a stage with a jazz band and singers and waiters all dressed formally and the Bourbon is they best they’ve ever had and so is the beer and there is Real Absinthe served here and genuine Cuban cigars and they think they’re in a cosplay of some sort but they go with it and have a wonderful time. The best night out they’ve ever had.
Next time they try to find it, the door is ajar and they look inside and the place is a vacant dusty wreak. It looks like it hasn’t been occupied in a hundred years. So they ask an old man who happened to be passing by what happened to that really cool nightclub that was here and he says oh…you mean the Winking Owl? Oh that was a speakeasy back in my granddad’s day. They say it was the best on the east coast, even better than the Stork Club. Fitzgerald came here, and Mencken was a regular. But it’s long gone. That basement’s been empty since I was a youngster.
And then the old man’s voice drops a bit, as if sharing a secret. But, he says, they say when the spirits on the other side really get the joint jumping it appears again, right where it was, and if you walk past a just the right moment, and if you’re lucky and Moe lets you in the door, you get the best night out ever.
Mid-Atlantic – In the old cities where the bright lights shine are ghosts from the jazz age, cutting the rug night after night in their phantom speakeasies. When the joint gets really jumping you might see a door appear in some dark alley where you didn’t notice one before. And if you happen to find yourself walking a strange lonely road deep in the rural zone you might pass a horse drawn wagon whose driver looks at you suspiciously. Give him a smile and pretend to tip a glass toward him and maybe he’ll give you a sample of his wares, and you’ll taste the best bourbon or beer you have ever had. These are the ghost wagons that bring the city’s phantom speakeasies rum, bourbon, beer and cigars, chased for all eternity by prohibition agents condemned to never catch them.
(Hat tip to Seanan McGuire, who educated me about the ghost roads…)
