The Paperboy - Classic

Ray Christian hated being a paperboy. Bad pay, hard route, rude customers. But there was one customer in particular who was different from the rest, and Ray didn’t quite know why.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Glynn Washington?

  What if your very first boss never shows up? Listen to Spooked. Stay tuned.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Why have so many crop circles appeared around Britain? How did thousands of people demonstrate powers of telepathy? Can the dead suck the life from the living? Join me, Tim Harford, for a trip into the paranormal throughout Halloween month on Cautionary Tales. Listen to Cautionary Tales on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:53Glynn Washington?

  Things have changed since I was a kid, in so many ways. And I'm not even old yet, but things have changed. See, I grew up on a farm. We had goats and chickens and cows, horses. We grew corn, beans, blueberries. And yes, farms are run by farmers. This is true. But when a calf is sick in the middle of the night and needs to be next to a warmer, when possums have gotten into the chicken feed, when the vet needs help trying to birth a foal, it always happens. It always, always happens at 2 o'clock in the morning.

• 1:39Glynn Washington?

  And who goes out to the barn at 2 in the morning? Probably not the farmer. The farmer's got to get up at 6. The farmer's got stuff to do. So no, it's not the farmer walking out to that dark slate gray barn through the two o'clock in the morning gloom. No, it is not the farmer hoping desperately to get that generator running so at least, at least there'll be a little bit of light. Nah. Nah, it's not the farmer trying to calm the wild out of the mama horse's eyes to beat back that fear she has, to let her know that it's gonna be alright, that her foal's gonna

• 2:21Glynn Washington?

  be just fine, that everything's gonna be just fine, when you don't even know if everything's gonna be just fine. Because the night does what the night will. Healthy animals fall sick. Sounds come from places sound should not be. The barn itself has moods. Some good, some very, very bad. No, it's not the farmer facing the deep growls, the angry clicks, the silence in the middle of the night. It's not the farmer. It's the farm boy.

• 3:03Glynn Washington?

  My very first job was to do anything and everything that needed to be done to fight back the nighttime, so that when my father did get out of bed in the morning, that all was well. All was well. And I think now, with these little kids I've got, who sometimes wake up in the middle of the night screaming, screaming, I think that my very first job, beating back the night, is the same job I have today.

• 3:52Glynn Washington?

  My name is Glynn Washington. The first lessons are the hardest lessons. Spook starts now.

• 4:23Glynn Washington?

  We begin with a dear friend of mine, Dr. Ray Christian. You see, when Ray was a kid, he had one of the most coveted jobs of all. Ray was a paper boy. But there was one customer in particular who was different from the rest, and Ray didn't quite know why.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  I hated being a paper boy. I hated it. It was difficult for me to understand how some boys were even successful at it. Paper boys ended up being in places they wouldn't normally be. I would say in this part of the neighborhood, probably more than a third of the houses were abandoned, either burned out by fires, or they had just dilapidated from disrepair. The streetlights had been out. There'd be no porch lights, stray people just wandering, criminals, pool halls, guys up to no good.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  My mama had but one rule as terms of being a paper boy, and that was to be safe at all times. She was worried that I would walk up into somebody's house trying to collect some money and get beaten up, or robbed, or shot. Because these were the kind of crimes that were common in my neighborhood anyway. But being a paper boy made me more of a target. So my mama would say, "Be careful, deliver those papers, and get yourself back home soon as you can." But the paper manager had another rule, and that was to deliver those papers and collect that money whenever you can.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  So this is one house in particular.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  The previous paper boy who had been delivering to this house, he didn't want to deliver there anymore and he refused to collect on it.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  So the manager of the paper boys, he told me that I would take over.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  It was on North 25th Street. It was already big and creepy and it had this reputation with just about everybody in the neighborhood because it was so big and so dark. And nobody knew anything about the guy who lived there.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Some people said he had a lot of money, that he was strange.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Some people say he was a murderer. You could imagine a lot of things because it was so dark and you never saw anybody.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  And that made it creepier. You know somebody's there, but you've never seen them.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  It was the first day of my route and I went to the creepy house.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  I saw a few papers that were sitting on the porch and that's never a good sign.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  I knocked on the door. There was no answer. So I did again.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  But nobody came to the door.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  So I started walking around the porch until I got to a point in the blinds. It was partially bent open and I looked into there.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  And I met another eye looking back at me.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  And I jumped back. And somebody said, "Hey,

• 8:26Speaker 02

  come around to the back

• 8:29Speaker 02

  and bring the paper."

• 8:35Speaker 02

  So I went around to the back. But that was difficult because this yard hadn't been cut probably in years. It had small little trees growing up, really, really high weeds. And all in the weeds was garbage and trash and broken bottles. Dilapidated old junk car in the backyard.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  So I'm trying not to step on a rusty nail or get cut by a piece of metal. And I was just trying to be extra, extra careful as I walked through it.

• 9:13Speaker 02

  Got on the back porch. Some of the steps were missing. It was wobbly and creaky and rusty.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  And I knocked on the back door.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  And nobody came.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  And I said, "It's me. It's me, paper boy. I'm coming in." I beat on the door and I started pushing on it, but it wouldn't, it wouldn't move.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  So I kept pushing on it, kept pushing on it, and the door slowly started opening up. But only enough for me to just squeeze myself in sideways.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  The entire kitchen,

• 10:09Speaker 02

  it was stacked with newspapers. All the way to the ceiling. But they were neat, tightly packed. Every possible inch except one small

• 10:24Speaker 02

  path leading into another room, which was also matted down with newspapers. You couldn't see any sunlight. There was no natural light to penetrate the house. Just the unmistakable smell of paper and ink.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  I went all the way to the back, through the path,

• 10:48Speaker 02

  wondering where this was supposed to go. Into the front room, which was also loaded with newspapers, all the way to the ceiling. And there was another room, loaded, bathroom, loaded.

• 11:04Speaker 02

  And then you had this one little corner of filth.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  And I saw the guy.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  And I saw the guy.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  He was wearing one of those wife beaters. He was scraggly, had a beard, skinny.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  He's sitting on a single bed.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  It has no sheet on it, and the mattress is filthy and stained. The T-shirt he's wearing looks the same as the mattress does in terms of its color. Stained, brownish-yellow.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  He had a sickening, sweet body odor.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  The bathroom is also filled with newspapers, all the way to the ceiling.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  Everything in that room is full papers.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  And clearly, he had been using this bucket as a toilet.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  I walked right up to him and I said, "I'm here to collect money from the past due." And he said, "Okay."

• 13:06Speaker 02

  And he started counting out change.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  First, I was surprised that he said, "Okay." And I was even more surprised that he started counting out change in that way.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  He's taking out one penny at a time, you know, to count out a dollar. And, and he's going like, "One cents, two cents, five cents, that's fifteen cents, twenty cents, twenty-one cents, twenty-five cents. Oh, wait a minute." So, "We're going through this until we get a dollar, fifteen, dollar fifteen, dollar sixteen,

• 13:44Speaker 02

  dollar twenty-five, dollar thirty, thirty-one." Oh, man.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  I'm already creeped out. I want to get out of there.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  But he's being slow, and this is all taking too long. Forty, forty-five, fifty, fifty-six, sixty-two, sixty-seven. Here, dollar sixty-seven cent, that's what I owe you? Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

• 14:14Speaker 02

  But that's a lot of change.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  And I kept spilling it and dropping it on the floor. A few pennies here and there, and that's when he decided to tell me he would fold it up for me and give it to me.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  He tells me to put it all on the bunk, on his bed.

• 14:42Speaker 02

  I put it on the bed. I didn't even want to touch that. And he reached under, and he pulled out a scarf. I'm certain he had been blowing his nose with it because it looked that way.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  He unfolded that, and I'm looking at it going, "What?" "I don't want to even put that in my pocket." But he unfolded it, rubbed it out neat as he could. He placed all the change inside. Grabbed it by the corners, left and right, one tie, other two corners, second tie, twist, a knot at the top, and he gave it to me. "Here's your money." He said, "In the future, from now on, the money that you need gonna be in there on the table.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  Just throw the paper up in here, and don't bring your ass up in here no more, 'cause I'll shoot you." And I said, "Yes, sir." And I went outside and I left.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  And I continued to deliver newspapers to his house for months. But after that, we didn't have any more personal contact. And it always followed the same path. I would just walk into the kitchen, toss the newspaper back through the passageway that he had made of papers so he could get it. The handkerchief was always in that spot, always be on the kitchen table, right where it was supposed to be. And it was supposed to contain $1.50 each week. And every week, it contained $1.50, always in change.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  I'd collect it and I would leave the house.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  But each time that I would come back, I always announced to myself, "Sir, it's me, paper boy. I'm here to collect. I have your paper. Sir, I'm getting the change. Sir, I'm collecting the money. I got the money. I'm gone. Bye."

• 17:12Speaker 02

  But he never said anything.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  I often wondered what he was doing.

• 17:19Speaker 02

  Was he reading his paper?

• 17:22Speaker 02

  What, he ate?

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Did he have any kids?

• 17:29Speaker 02

  Why didn't he come outside? I hated going to this house because it was nasty and scary and it smelled. But the one good thing about it is this guy always paid on time.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  Then I'd start throwing in extra things. A little later, I would go, "It's me, paper boy. It's raining outside. It smells in this house. Did you eat today? You hear about the news? What was in the news? What'd you read yesterday? Hello? Sir? I'm dancing. It's me. Woo-hoo. Goodbye." I never heard any... No reaction, because I never saw him.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  But I would hear sounds or things that made me think that he acknowledged my presence.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  I would see a shifting of the light or shadow stand up, a flash across the room, or him stepping. But I would hear that and I would take that as quick acknowledgement.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  This is about early February of the year. It's still cold and slushy snow is still on the ground. It's still below freezing at nights, most of the days.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  But it starts thawing out in March.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  The house was really starting to reek. And I was starting to hear this buzzy sound coming from the back. And probably in late April is when the flies started showing up.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  I assumed that was related to that bucket that he had in the room. I yelled a couple of times about how bad the house smelled. "Sir, ooh, it smells in here. How do you stand it? Hello? This house stinks, sir? Hello? Stinky house? Bye."

• 20:23Speaker 02

  No sounds, no response.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  Initially, there were only but a few flies. And then it was twice as many the next day. In about four or five days, there were hundreds of flies in the house.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  I hated it. That was gross.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  It had reached a point where the smell was just outrageous.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  It takes about two months. As we started moving toward the summer, the smell dies off almost completely.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  And I continued to deliver the papers. I tossed the papers in. I still yell, but nothing. The one good thing about it is this guy always made sure I had my money. And we get about into the beginning of the fall, and I went to the creepy house. And this time, as I'm walking up, there may be 20, 25 people outside.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  And the police, and an ambulance. And the strangest thing of all is the front door of the house is open.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  I never saw that door open. There must be 100 bundles of paper that they had moved and put on the front porch. And I saw them wheeling out a stretcher, and there's a body wrapped in a white sheet. And everybody in the crowd is going, "Oh, that's that guy." I knew it was somebody in that house. I knew it was somebody in there. "How long you think he's been dead?" "He's probably been dead for years, years, years." "Who called him?" And as they're thinking through it, every word they're saying is making me feel guilty. I felt guilty

• 22:37Speaker 02

  that I didn't use that time to actually talk to him.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  I never thought that I had any responsibility to this guy. I never even thought about it.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  And I'm also starting to wonder. I've been delivering this papers to this guy's house for almost a year. Who was I talking to?

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Hearing people say that he had to be dead a long time scared me.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  I kept going back and forth in my mind where I stood there. The time that didn't I hear him? I thought I heard him. I'm sure I heard him. My money is there.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  Didn't he laugh one time when I said the house smelled?

• 23:31Speaker 02

  Didn't I see his shadow across the room when I told him I was leaving?

• 23:40Speaker 02

  But it was, it was difficult to digest as a kid.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  I heard somebody in the crowd say, "Somebody had to know about it."

• 23:52Speaker 02

  Who knew this guy?

• 23:55Speaker 02

  And I'm thinking, "Oh, yeah, I did know."

• 24:07Speaker 02

  You know, and then what starts to bother me is in the crowd, they're starting to talk about all the newspapers that they're bringing out and putting out on the porch. And somebody says, "Well, somebody was delivering those newspapers to that house." Somebody said, "The paper boy had to be delivering it." He'd probably know something. He was delivering them papers and no, he ain't doing it for free.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. Who the paper boy is?

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Hearing that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

• 24:45Speaker 02

  But I almost felt like I wanted to say something.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  Everybody's starting to talk and wonder and speculate about who that kid was.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  I wonder who he is?

• 25:00Speaker 02

  And I decided to just keep my mouth shut.

• 25:21Glynn Washington?

  Ray Christian, everyone. Dr. Ray Christian. You can find more of Ray's stories on our sister podcast, Snap Judgment. And Ray's got his own podcast. It's called What's Ray Saying? It's available wherever you get your podcasts. The original score for that piece was by Leon Morimoto. It was produced by Liz Mack. Understand, there is a secret war afoot, dear listeners, and we hope you pick the right side. But be afraid. And if you dig amazing storytelling under the light of day, check out our sister podcast,

• 26:06Glynn Washington?

  Snap Judgment. Storytelling with a beat, movies of the mind, the amazing Snap Judgment podcast. Spooked is brought to you by every single sound you fail to investigate in the middle of the night, and by Mark Ristich, Anna Sussman, our chief spookster, Eliza Smith, Chris Hambrich, Annie Nguyen, Jacob Winnick, and Lauren Newsom. The Spook theme song is by Pat Mercedes Miller. Mine was in Washington. Now, you might see fireflies. You might smell incense. You might see breadcrumbs in the forest. Do not follow. It's all a trick. Instead, stay inside.

• 26:47Glynn Washington?

  Lock the doors, friends, and most importantly, never, ever, never, never, ever, never, ever, never, never turn out the lights.