Humor by John Christmann
Something To Be Afraid Of
This is the time of year when we suspend rational belief, embrace the unknown, and relish with amused fascination all the time-honored characters that scare the bejesus out of us. I am, of course, referring to the season of political debates.
But Halloween is special too. At this time of year our yards are filled with an odd assortment of zombies, vampires, snakes, vultures, tombstones and spider webs lovingly arranged just to frighten children.
Outside my own house I have staged a spooky gathering of ragged characters on my lawn. The scraggly miscreants are not protesting anything; still I have placed a Wall Street Journal in the outstretched, beckoning hand of a life-sized Grim Reaper just for fun. It is my own private Halloween metaphor.
My favorite Halloween yard characters are a set of synthetic zombies sawn off at the waist. When set upright on the lawn the undead things appear to be struggling to rise from the earth. I have artfully placed the rubber mannequins in front of lifelike Styrofoam gravestones etched in freshly worn paint which say simply: RIP. My zombies are wrapped in torn rags and their lifeless, spongy hands reach upward, as if grasping to be born again into the life of the dead, whatever that means.
I love that zombies make no sense at all. I love that they look frightening. I love that they have no consciousness. I love that they will one day seize the earth in a full-blown zombie apocalypse. As disintegrating people go, they make me feel a lot better about myself.
My son wants to know what the zombies represent. I think about it a minute. The economy, I tell him as he fishes his hand freely in the candy bowl. In my own private Halloween metaphor, I realize he makes an excellent banker.
But what do I know? I am just a cynical werewolf who howls at the moon and doesn’t always shave in the morning. And Halloween is a special time of year in which the horrific should be honored and not be frightened to death by, well, life.
I remind myself that as a responsible parent, it is my duty to scare the kids in our neighborhood in a manner that is both exhilarating and fun. Preferably without chain saws.
And so, when the cool wind rustles dark silhouette leaves against a full October moon and illuminated pumpkins ward away evil spirits lurking in the dark, my yard zombies wait for the young Halloween ghosts and goblins who occupy my street hoping to reward their fear with massive amounts of candy.
The problem is, it is growing harder and harder to scare kids in a safe and healthy way. Let’s face it, a yard full of Wal-Mart lawn demons set on manicured grass does little to give young thrill seekers an exhilarating case of the willies. Relative to the evening news, my zombies seem pretty tame.
The year we moved into our house, just before our children were born and several years before we started to spread the joy of fear with our sizeable collection of decorations, I donned a form fitting synthetic Star Wars Yoda mask and draped a floor-length black and red velvet cloak over my shoulders to greet young trick-or-treaters.
In our darkened vestibule, holding a teeming bowl of mini chocolate bars with a blood-stained rubber hand floating on top, I slowly opened the door and in my best squeaky Star Wars puppet voice announced: “Count Yoda I am. Your neck it is I want to bite!”
After several terrified kids ran away crying I decided to resort to a more traditional Dracula costume that still promised to suck the life out of youngsters without risking years of therapy by introducing terrifying, thoughtless gimmicks like Darth Vader’s bloody hand or the threat of decapitation by a battery-powered light saber.
That’s when I realized the familiar is seldom terrifying. It is the unfamiliar kids dread. Which I suppose explains why I still have nightmares about algebra tests.
Unfortunately, in their increasingly sophisticated Internet lives, there is not much of the unfamiliar to frighten kids. Even the coming zombie apocalypse is common knowledge. In the real world they have come to embrace the mummified myths and legends of the underworld as welcome diversions to what really frightens them: becoming responsible adults.
Sadly, as agents of fear, the zombies that are camped out on my lawn are not going to cut it this year. No, in order to send satisfying quivers of shock through young trick-or-treat nervous systems, I will need to offer up something more dramatic when I slowly open my creaking front door. But what?
In their own private metaphors, my kids tell me I should just be myself for Halloween.
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