Scaredy Cat, Part 1

Do you like scary movies and suspenseful books? Do you like being scared and scaring people? When I was young, and even today, I would answer, “Yes, yes, yes and yes!”

The Early Years

When we were kids, my siblings and I were all afraid to go down or be down in the basement if the lights weren’t on.

The basement itself wasn’t scary. My Uncle Lee built our house but my dad’s claim to fame was that he had finished the basement. The basement stretched over almost the entire footprint of the house, save for two crawlspaces. Before my dad converted a portion of the basement into a bedroom and bathroom for my brother John when he was a teenager, the basement consisted of three rooms. The main room which housed my grandfather’s pool table, the barroom, and my dad’s workshop. Besides the workshop, the entire basement was covered in a caramel-colored wood paneling that, when the lights were off, helped to make the darkness even more opaque.

If the lights were off and it was dark outside with no light coming in from the small basement windows, the basement would be pitch black. You could see nothing. The scariest thing in the world would be to be stuck in the middle of the basement, at night, by yourself, with the lights off.

And that’s why it was so much fun to turn off the basement lights when one or more of my brothers was down there. (I never tried pulling this prank on my sister Julie. I was too afraid of the consequences.) I’d wait until I was sure they were in the middle of the basement, far from any light switch. I would extinguish the basement lights by flipping the switch at the top of the stairs and quickly shut the door. Because the basement door was in the kitchen, the silverware drawer was conveniently close. Extracting a butter knife from the drawer, I could then lock my brothers in the creepy cellar by sliding the knife between the door frame and the wall. This all had to be done with lightning speed, before the boys found their way to the stairs.

Several minutes of pounding, yelling and threats could be expected every time this prank was executed properly, signifying a job well done.

The problem with this prank, of course, is that it was only a matter of time before the same prank could come back to bite you in the ass. That is why I decided early on, never to go downstairs at night again after I was locked down there myself.

—   —   —

My mom and dad went out one night, leaving my sister, three brothers and me with a babysitter, Janet.Julie, my oldest sibling, was about nine years old. Jimmy, the youngest, was just a baby. We were all in the family room. Janet repeatedly asked Jimmy in a sing-songy voice, “How big?” as he stood on her lap and she held his hands up above his head. Julie sat in the armchair and John, Jeff and I played with Hot Wheels on the floor. Suddenly, the lights went out.

Janet told us all to relax, that the power would probably come back on in a minute. A few minutes passed. Still, no light.

“Do you guys know where the fuse box is?” Janet asked.

Julie and John knew exactly where the fuse box was. In the basement.

“Do you guys have a flashlight?”

Four of us shrugged our shoulders. The flashlight we later kept plugged in next to the basement door for this kind of situation, did not yet exist. There would be no flashlight to guide Janet into the black abyss.

Janet then asked if we knew where our parents kept their matches. Neither of my parents were smokers but we had a woodburning fireplace and most of us knew that Mom and Dad kept matches on a little built-in shelf above the firebox. We showed her.

“Okay,” Janet addressed Julie and John. “Can one of you go downstairs with me and show me where the fuse box is?”

Both refused. The basement was just too damn scary.

After several minutes of pleading, refusing, bribing, bellyaching and bargaining, a deal was finally made. We would all accompany Janet on the terrifying, underground trek to the fuse box in exchange for two popsicles each.

Janet illuminated our journey by continually lighting matches. Julie held Jimmy in a vise-like, don’t-take-my-teddy-bear grip. We moved as one, each of us having a hold of some part of Janet’s clothing. At a snail’s pace we shuffled through the blackness, down the basement stairs and then into the barroom. Finally, both Julie and John pointed to the treasured fuse box.

—   —   —

My brothers and I were home alone one night when I was about 10. My older brother John was supposedly “in charge” though none of us treated him like he was. He was 13. That night he was in the kitchen making coffee cake, both his specialty and only dish. I was in Julie’s and my bedroom, sneakily playing Julie’s “don’t-touch-my” albums while she was out of the house. Jeff and Jimmy were somewhere, probably arguing about something stupid.

I was playing the music so loudly on Julie’s “don’t-touch-my” stereo, that I didn’t immediately hear the banging on our bedroom door. I opened it to see my three brothers, all agitated. They all started talking at once. I couldn’t understand what any of them was saying. I went to the stereo and turned it off.

It took some active listening on my part to finally discern what had happened.

John had been in the kitchen, cleaning some of the dishes he’d used in making his coffee cake. The window above the sink looked out onto our fenced-in patio. You couldn’t see the backyard beyond the six-foot wooden fence, just the tops of our four large trees. According to John, who was the most shaken up of the three, a wild man’s face had appeared in the kitchen window, scaring him half to death. John described the wolf-man-like face as having a beard, long, wild hair and crazy eyes with blood smeared across his face. For someone to put their face up to the kitchen window, they would first have to open the tall wooden gate to get onto our patio. And it wouldn’t have been until he was on the patio that he would have seen John. It was hard for me to believe someone would do that.

It didn’t make sense to me and with every question I asked, John got more agitated, angry and impatient.

I told John he should call the police. “No,” he answered. “You call the police.” I reminded him that he was, in fact, “in charge” and he was the only witness, therefore, he should be the one to call the police. Again, he refused although he agreed that someone should call the police. 

So, exasperated, I said, “Fine, don’t call the police. I’m sure the guy has left by now anyway.” I backed up and shut my bedroom door.

I heard John on the other side of the door, trying to convince Jeffrey to call the police.

“I ain’t calling the police, John! You saw him! And you better call ‘cause he might still be in our yard!” Jeff argued.

I opened the door again and asked if any of them had thought to check to make sure the patio door was locked. Boy! The terror in all their eyes! We all hurried to the family room to confirm that the patio door was locked.

There was no convincing John that he should be the one to call the cops. John has always been extremely stubborn. I had my own reasons for not wanting to call the police: I wasn’t convinced John saw what he thought he saw. Plus, does anyone ever really want to call the police? So, we have John, Jeff and me all refusing to call the police even though we all agreed that the police should be called.

Six-year-old Jimmy was the bravest of us all. We gathered around the phone in Mom and Dad’s bedroom. We all coached Jimmy on what he needed to say. We dialed “0.” I whispered to him to ask for the police. Jimmy started talking into the receiver, but we couldn’t tell if it was the police or still the operator on the other end of the line. After a few seconds, Jimmy lifted the receiver away from his ear and gestured toward John to take it. John shook his head vehemently and backed away. Angry at John, I took the receiver from Jimmy and answered the police officer’s questions. I think they had asked Jimmy to give the phone to the oldest person there.

Two officers came to the door. We weren’t allowed to open the door when my parents were away, and we would have been too scared to open it even if we were allowed. The ringing of the doorbell created a bit of hysteria in the foyer. The officers told us not to open the door. They just wanted to let us know that they would be walking in our yard and taking a look around to make sure everything was safe.

After several minutes, one of the officer’s returned to the door to tell us they hadn’t seen anything and would be leaving. They advised us to call them again if we had any more problems.

—   —   —

In grade school I spent several nights at my friend Kim’s house. Whenever I spent the night at her house, Kim and I would lie in beds we’d made for ourselves on the floor of her room, and stay awake for as long as we could, telling each other horror stories that we made up as we were telling them. Our stories were created to one-up each other in scariness. What fun we had telling about the hooked hand knocking on the window of a couple’s parked car. Or the bodiless head descending the stairs. How did our imaginations conceive such horrific gems? Eventually, we’d both fall asleep, with not one nightmare between us

—   —   —

During the seventies, on Friday nights in Columbus, Ohio, WBNS-TV aired scary movies after the eleven o’clock nightly news. Fritz the Night Owl was the host of Chiller Theatre. On some Friday nights, my mom would let us kids sleep in the family room and stay up late watching the scary movies. The ones with Vincent Price were my favorite.

There was always a great deal of “calling” going on during the days preceding Chiller night. “Calling” who got to sleep on the couch, who got the chair, and who was destined to sleep on the floor. If you were going to sleep on the floor, you would “call” if you were going to lay next closest to the brown chair or closest to the fireplace. If you ended up on the floor in between two other kids, you needed to hone your “calling” skills. That was the least desirable place to watch Chiller Theatre.

Having dibs on the couch was ideal, but you really had to be on your toes to beat my brother Jeff in “calling” it. Although it was the most comfortable bed, the couch, along with the armchair, were also the most isolating. You didn’t have the warmth of another human body right next to you which was always comforting when you were watching scary movies. At least, that’s how I rationalized my never getting the couch. Time after time I’d lose the couch to Jeffrey. I never wanted the armchair. Though it was the most comfortable place to sit and watch a movie, it was too uncomfortable to lie in all night. So, I usually ended up on the floor, leaning back against the couch, and listening to Jeff tell me every five minutes to move my big, fat head because he couldn’t see the TV.