Terrified...

Some families share an addiction to alcohol or physical abuse, which can span multiple generations.  My family has never struggled with anything quite as serious, but by no means interpret this as a testimony of normalcy.  

Genetically, it’s all about the scare.  Not a simple “Boo”, mind you.  I’m talking about the uncontrollable urge to bring people you love to the brink of physical harm or a Syd Barrett mental breakdown.  

I was unaware of the depth of the sickness when I was a kid.  This was most likely a self imposed ignorance because if I had allowed myself to really dwell on it I probably would have been much more neurotic than I am already.  Earliest I can recall is that at least once a month my grandfather would ask me to get him something from the basement.  He knew the anxiety that these requests brought me but would assure me that he would wait at the top of the steps and keep any monstrous harm at bay.  It never dawned on me to ask him why he just didn’t go down himself.  As soon as enough time passed for me to make my way into the bowels of the basement the lights would go off and the dark silence would be penetrated by a deep, guttural moan.  My grandfather’s scare noise was very different from my father’s.  It was elaborate, pained and super legato.  Finally a flashlight illumined figure would emerge, hunchback formed by pillow, inching closer until I screamed, cried or both.  Then he would immediately revert back to the quiet, cool cat that was his usual facade.   As I’m writing this I know it sounds a little twisted but he really couldn’t help it.  Trust me...I know. 

The first documented episode took place in the mid-50s.  My grandfather bought an expensive mask of the Frankenstein monster.  He woke up very early one morning and went up stairs.  My father and uncle shared a room.  There were two ways in.  Normal people would enter through the door but the closet actually was connected to a hall closet.  I can remember crawling around in there when I was young.  My grandfather entered the hall closet and came out in the bedroom.  His two sons were fast asleep, innocence still intact, as he emerged from the closet, expensive monster mask in place and the groan coming from a place very deep in his chest.  The story goes that my father cried but my uncle slipped into hysterics.  It took my grandmother an hour or so to get him fully under control.  She was alternating between comforting her poor son and yelling at my grandfather.  In a swirl of confusion, anger and fear my grandfather ripped up his mask.    

My father and uncle were chips off the old block.  The awe inspiring chops that caused so many nightmares as a boy were honed on each other throughout the 60s and early 70s.  My uncle was good, but my father’s mind was much more elaborate and equally devious.  In 1971 my uncle set out with some friends to see the Allman Brothers play the Fillmore East.  An infamous show of it’s own merit but what happened after the show, back in Queens, that’s the real stuff of legend.  Before he left my uncle made a dire mistake.  He shared, with my father, the fact that he and his friends were going to be expanding their minds with a chemical compound known only by three letters.  My father pounced.  Although he was not an active member in the counter culture he knew that my uncle and crew would still be peaking when they arrived back home, in the wee hours of the next morning.  After my uncle left, my dad went to work. He assembled a small cast of friends that came up with an amazing freak out.  First they splattered ketchup all over the bathroom...I have no idea where my grandparents were but they were definitely not home.  They had my father’s friend John lay in the corner of the bathroom, face paled with makeup, ketchup stained razor in hand shaking over a faux blooded wrist.  He supposedly was moaning in a hushed, whisper tone.  When the happy concert goers came home my father complained about what a drag the night was.  He explained that John’s girlfriend had broken up with him and he was an emotional mess.  After a few minutes he asked my uncle to go see what John was up to...he had been in there for almost a half an hour.  I wish I could have seen the mayhem that followed.  There was screaming, crying and some very bad vibes.  Legendary.  I’ll never be able to pull anything off on that scale.  

Of course there was retribution but not a scare sadly.  Briefly it involved a young lady keeping my father up for a few days until he passed out from exhaustion at which point my uncle and friends covered him, head to toe, in Vicks.

One final bit of history is how my father concluded this sibling rivalry.  It’s much less intricate but in no way less amusing.  It started when my uncle and his girlfriend retired to his room.  After their personal time was over they both fell asleep.  My father entered the room with his favorite scare prop...a stocking over the head.  He quietly went over to the bed and put his capped head on the night table.  Then he started with his scare noise.  It was an amazing sound that I miss almost as I miss the man who made it.  Very different than my grandfather's...it was a much simpler and airier “Ahhhhhh”.  Delivered in my father’s soft baritone, it was almost soothing.  Ahhhhhh.  Ahhhhhh.  My uncle opened his eyes, looked at my father and then closed his eyes again.  Failure.  My father was very upset.  He never actually said he was upset but I know I would have been.  As he started to get up, stocking half off his head, my uncle levitated and let out a blood curdling scream.  The whole thing happened too fast for anyone to really process but my father reacted to my uncle’s wailing by shouting in terror himself.  Do I even need to add that the poor young lady was brought to tears by the whole incident?  I mean, her naked boyfriend screaming in the face of another man, himself screaming and with a stocking half on...half off.

To date I have fought the urge to scare my son, in the same way that I spared my sisters when they were little.  All of my scaring needs are satisfied by friends, in particular my cousin Chris.  Of the many times I’ve made his heart skip a beat the best, by far, was the time I got him in the middle of cleaning his bathroom.  The trick...you see...to the perfect scare...is when you move in for the kill.  Chris was cleaning his bathroom, half in/half out.  His back was turned and I crept up very slowly.  When I was close enough to hear his breath starting to get a little fast I waited.  Just another moment more.  Just at the point when his stiffening body told that he was aware there might be someone on the room with him.  The fear was already pulsing through his veins.  As he started to slowly turn I pounced.  My scare noise is like Lon Chaney’s Wolf-man after drinking a few double espressos.  It’s fierce, staccato and completely lacking finesse but it works.  This was evident as Chris body sprung backwards about 5 feet throwing him on to his bed where he laid painfully clenched and whimpering.  For a moment I actually thought I gave him a heart attack.  I know...I know...very cliche but I’m not exaggerating.

In case you’re wondering about me, can I still be brought to tears by a groaning hunchback in the basement?  Very definitively, yes.  My wife need only call my name from another room at night and I am totally freaked out.  A few years back we were sleeping.  It must have been 2am or so, and I had a dream that I was single again...back in my old apartment...asleep in my bachelor bed...alone.  When my wife turned over my brain registered it as someone, or something, sneaking into be with me.  Even asleep I am an easy scare.  I jumped out of bed, threw the lights on scaring the life out of her.  In my groggy daze I stared at my confused wife and said only one word, “Terrified”.  Story of my life.