My name is Bill Giovanni. It was my wife's idea to go to Zogg's that night to get us out a little

into the cultural swirl of our new town. Since we'd come to Chapel Hill for her new job, we'd both been buried in our work. Still

didn't know much at all about the area. We were eating Cheesigrets and Po-boys at a local place near

the UNC campus, and if there was a flyer on the table advertising a concept new to me, a public silence.

Not even a Halloween event, just the notion of the woman who owned the bar beside the restaurant.

It would be staying open an hour late the next Sunday for anyone who wanted to sit,

have a drink or two, and casually try to summon the ghost that allegedly haunted the joint.

No cover charge or anything, just a why not sort of event.

To emphasize the light-heartedness of the affair, the word sayons was spelled

S-A-Y-O-N-T-Z on the flyer.

My wife, whose favorite movie is The Others, loved the idea. I didn't love

the notion of getting to bed after midnight on a work night, but I have to say I was kind of taken by the

Flyers gloomy hand-drawn illustration of a haggard sort of fantasmagorical middle-aged

man sitting before a beer Stein in the dark.

So late on a stiflingly hot night in August, Nessa and I went on our first evening outing in Chapel Hill. To get to Zogg's Art Bar and Pool Hall, you go through a yellow door up a creaky enclosed staircase leading from the sidewalk on Henderson Street.

Zogs has the feel of a pleasant neighborhood dive, lots of dark wood and the lights are kept low.

A few pool tables sit on a checkerboard pattern floor,

and there's funky objects hanging in unexpected places.

A sarcophagus in the corner of the bathroom to top it all off.

When we got there and nestled ourselves into a booth, there were two other couples doing the same thing across the room,

and one woman on her own was sitting with an ice tea at the bar.

The owner of Zoggs, and the restaurant beside it at ground level, gave us a cheerful hello and brought our beers. Her name was Mandy, and I complimented

...