The 9 Lb. Hammer’s Halloween costume consists mostly of artificial
cobwebs. They’re more effective than usual: The 9 Lb. Hammer is dim,
with high ceilings and the general aspect of a place that should have
lots of cobwebs at all times. Sitting on the bar last weekend: a
large plastic rat caught in a large plastic trap. Sitting in front of
the rat and the trap: a man and a drink, the former of which activated
the rat via a paw-squeeze when interest was indicated, causing it to
scoot around with its eyes glowing red. In the side room, where the vat
of free peanuts may be found, a giant lacquered wooden leaf reading
“TOBACCO” hung on one wall, while on a ledge above it an abnormally
large, motorized Swiss Army knife slowly and menacingly waved its
blades. (These things are always there, but in context: scary!)
Across the street, part of the thick brick front wall is all that
remains of the former Rainier Cold Storage building. It looks torn by a
giant hand, and it was: the giant hand of gentrification, the
scariest giant hand of all. The development company is embroiled in
the permitting process, then comes scary, scary condos and the (ditto)
dwellers within. Georgetown feels especially spooky on these autumn
nights—dark and desolate, with small knots of people
scurrying from bar to bar and cars passing infrequently on Airport Way
South. Enjoy it while it lasts.
A little further down, the old Brew House still stands impassively.
Last weekend and this one (Halloween and November 1), it’s host to the
Haunted Brew House Tour, which is worth the price of admission for the
hulking, creaking wooden door alone. The massive door’s creak is
ridiculous; it belongs on a spooky sound effects record. Inside, the
building is a beautiful, dark, empty wreck, with huge holes in its
distant, coffered ceilings, with paint so peeling it’s barely
there, with a rusted wrought-iron spiral stairway that disappears
once every rotation, embedded creepily into the wall.
Performers provide purportedly scary oration and move about in
zombie- and ghostlike manner, but they may have been directed to
refrain from actual frightening: The floors are so uneven, the
banisters so vertiginous, the walls so crumbly, that anyone
shrieking and staggering back in fear would be an insurance
liability. Upstairs, a band plays—last week, the haunting,
tattered (and funny) Circus Contraption band, this weekend, the
Ensemble Sub Masa. On the way back down, via the truly terrifyingly
high/rusty spiral stairs, beware the scary bird poop.
Afterward people, including a nun and a priest and what looked like
a Good Humor man, drank beer and admired a series of gravestone
rubbings in the old engine room, which was brightly lit and not
scary at all.
9 Lb. Hammer, 6009 Airport Way S, 762-3373; Haunted Brew House
Tour,
www.theatreoffjackson.org.