FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
Some years back our family spent Halloween night in jail! In a penitentiary to be precise. Little did I know when boarding a flight for New York that I, my wife and two daughters, would end up in the penitentiary in Philadelphia! Such, I suppose, are the vagaries of trans-Atlantic travel.
Not bad enough that my wife had some of her cosmetics confiscated (potential bomb material, security said) but we end up behind bars into the bargain.
“During the time you spend here, it is important for you to discover not only why you got
into trouble but what changes you can make within yourself that will enable you to live a
relatively happy and constructive life in the future.”
So read the first paragraph of my Handbook For Inmates.
We hadn’t gotten into trouble, of course. God knows we’re a fairly good-living, decent, up-right family. Nor could we blame the authorities for our “plight”. No, sir. We had only our American friends and hosts to blame. Old friends, they say, are best. They are. But
they’re also full of surprises. Glad to be away from New York and the mayhem of Manhattan, we were looking forward to a relaxing Halloween evening in the home of our friends in the quaint town of Newtown, a 30 minute drive from Philadelphia.
No such luck. Instead, thanks to our good friends, we found ourselves outside the Eastern State Penitentiary of Philadelphia, now a derelict world of crumbling cell blocks, for a night of Terror Behind The Walls.
The most terrifying part of the night of, however, was the massive numbers outside the walls, queuing and pushing and jostling to get in to this real prison ranked sixth Best Haunted House in the US.
The Eastern State Penitentiary of Philadelphia opened in 1828 and closed in 1971 after 142 years in service. The original seven cell blocks radiated like the spokes of a wheel and it had running water and central heating before the White House! Its vaulted sky-lit
cells held many of America’s most notorious criminals, including bank robber ‘Slick
Willie’ Sutton and, perhaps the most famous, or infamous, of them all, one Al Capone.
The Eastern State Penitentiary of Philadelphia was the world’s first true penitentiary in that it was a prison designed, not just to punish, but to inspire penitence (hence the name) or true regret, in the hearts of criminals.
The only regret in my heart that Halloween night was the teeming queue of teenagers, many appropriately attired and masked for the occasion, lining the pavements.
Noisy and boisterous I felt quite uncomfortable amid this mass of hyped-up, hormonal sea of bodies.
Luckily for us our friends knew a friend who slipped us some VIP passes which allowed us to skip the interminable queue. Equally terrifying, however, was actually skipping the queue. Were they hisses I heard as we scampered along trying not to look obvious. OBVIOUS! There’s a queue a mile long and here’s my wife, two daughters, two friends and myself, skipping blithely past everyone. Blithely? I don‘t think.
And then the fun and games started in the Eastern State Penitentiary of Philadelphia. From every nook and cranny of this maze-like, menacing prison we were accosted by “prison wardens” and “inmates”. When we weren’t being accosted and verbally abused we were “set upon” and startled by ghoul-like, ghastly creatures. The constant darkness, dampness and knowing we were fumbling through real-life prison corridors and cells made the experience all the more authentic and eerie. Three-D glasses made our careful, cautious treading through the laboratory and the morgue all the more gruesome while our tiny, hand-held torches merely pin-pointed our presence for more ghoulish assaults and heart-stopping sudden apparitions.
Shrieks, screeches and screams were the currency of the night – mostly from me, the head of our family, who led our cowering, hunched-up, bunch of six into each chilly corridor and cob-webbed cell, and paid the price ie. a near coronary around every corner.
The bright lights of Philadelphia were a welcome sight after our Night Of Terror behind the walls of the Eastern State Penitentiary, the sixth Best Haunted House in the US of A.
