There are 3 Haunted House incidents that I believe dictated the trajectory of my future.  By “trajectory” I mean, “flat-lined mental maturity somewhere around 10 years old”.

Haunted House, October, 1976

I was 6.  My older brother was 11.  He wanted to go to the haunted house hosted by a radio station (which was apparently staffed by some seriously sadistic motherfuckers, I have to say).  I could only go with a guardian, so my mother accompanied me.

My brother always had an air of theatrics about him.  He couldn’t just go to the haunted house in sneakers, jeans, and a sweatshirt.  He wore a cape.  He also wore an old Frankenstein mask that he enhanced by melting crayons over the mask and letting them drip onto it.  He really had the “nuclear holocaust victim” look nailed.  I lacked the confidence to to go in public looking like Ground Zero (on purpose) and went with the less attention-getting jeans, sneakers, mom ensemble.

My brother went into the house well before mom and I did — citing such things as “not looking like a loser” and “coolness”.  Mom and I followed in shortly after.  And that’s where things really went south.

The first “stop” in the haunted house involved a lady on a hospital gurney being sawn into bite-sized pieces by the Texas chainsaw massacre-er.  My mother and I rounded the corner to see this play out before our eyes.

I froze.

Mom tried to re-assure me, “it’s just make-believe, it’s fine!” she patted my shoulders.

Oh hell noes.  I was having NONE of that.  Unfortunately, we were packed into a single-file line.  Our only option was to go forward, through the rest of the haunted house.  Or so they thought.  Amateurs.

The chainsaw -wielding psychopath waved his saw in front of us, lurching toward us in what was probably a good-natured “boo!”  I heard it as, “I’ll cut a kid in HALF and make a necklace out of her INTESTINES!” to which I objected.  There we were, a line of people in front and in back, my mother trying to soothe me so we wouldn’t stop traffic, and a chainsaw massacre-er stepping into my personal bubble (which is significantly larger by several feet when dealing with psychopaths).

I screamed.

And turned around.

And shoved people out of my way as I made like a line-backer through the throng of people and bolted for the door.  No one was safe.  I was swinging, punching, kicking, and biting.  I was in a panic of epic proportions.  My mother trotted along behind me, apologizing and probably handing out tissues to mop up the blood I spilled.  I was like that saw-blade in woodshop that cut off Curtis Fellmore’s left thumb –  nothing was stopping me, not even the screams and pleas of those whose blood I drew.  I had a door to get to and they were in the way.

When I finished throwing up, we waited in the car for my brother, who described the haunted house as ‘awesome.’

Next time: Haunted Houses — Take 2, aka “Screw Disneyland!”