(Published in Facsimilation Magazine 2004)
Candy Corn, Pain Killers and Lip Sweat:
Or, How I Found Love in the Tunnel of Fear
by
Diana Grove
I shoved a piece of candy corn on each canine like fangs and gave Erin a seductive look. As I crawled across the coffee table aiming at her neck, I slipped on a magazine and fell, banging my forehead on her knee.
"Owwwww, I was trying to drink your blood, not impale myself on your patella."
"That's nice Doll," she said "Are you ready to stop messing around and go to the Dungeon of Doom?"
"Do I look like I'm ready to go to a dungeon filled with teenage boys with spare candy money? I believe the answer is 'yes.' Hey Erin…"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think there'll be chills at the Dungeon?"
"Yes."
"How 'bout thrills?"
"Yes…maybe even spills if you keep acting like such a retard and don't stop falling all over the place. Here, help me find a knife. I gotta get the cat out of the bathroom…"
Erin and I had it all planned out. This Halloween we were going to do three things. 1. Rediscover our love for tacky $5 haunted houses. 2. Forget our woes, and instead, make fun of small children in pathetic costumes. 3. Drive as recklessly as possible, maybe even through a corn field. And, of course, get the goddamn cat out of the bathroom by whatever means necessary.
After an hour of painstaking preparation, we put on our jackets and zipped up. Erin grabbed the keys to the van as I suggestively fondled a stuffed scarecrow on the fireplace. We were ready, and I must say, for a couple of married girls we looked fantastic: lipstick, earrings, combed hair, well-fitted pants, new shoes…a severed head.
Being practical and anticipating a long night of terror and possible bloodshed, we popped a couple of Vicodin (just in case one of us got mouthy with the "chainsaw guy" in the "chamber of horrors" and lost a limb) and headed out to Erin's van.
The van seemed relatively new, white and shiny at least, but as I slid the door open and looked inside, a frying pan fell out on my foot.
"Jesus Erin, this vehicle isn't fit for human existence…it's filthy. I mean, what is this thing?" I held up a half-eaten granola bar that was partially calcified and covered in some kind of hair.
"Hey, don't question the van! If I ever have to run away from home I could live in here for weeks. Now hold on to the severed head…it's making my hands sticky."
I threw the rubber head in the back next to a slow cooker and some M&Ms. It was too early for the extra body parts now anyway. We'd bring it out later if we got stopped by the cops. It was a small town and Erin had dated a local police officer a while back, which to my mind gave us carte blanche to scare the living shit out of anyone who dared pull us over for speeding or vehicular manslaughter.
"Hey Erin."
"Yeah?"
"Do you think I'll get laid tonight by a 13-year-old with braces and a Trapper Keeper? I've got baseball cards in my purse just in case…"
"Well, that's why I brought the bubble gum-flavored condoms, so let's hope so." Erin backed out of the driveway at top speed with no regard for small animals, mailboxes or any rules of the road.
Excellent. Everything was going according to plan.
I shoved a handful of candy corn in my mouth and began to laugh nervously. I was unaccustomed to eating sugar and all of the corn syrup was making me hyperactive and sweaty. The van was traveling through the picturesque neighborhood at break neck speed, which just added to my growing anxiety. We flew past pumpkins and colorful piles of leaves, just narrowly missing a small boy dressed as Superman.
"Fuck," Erin hissed, "I just missed my chance to run over Superman. I mean what kind of a guy wears a cape anyway?" She rolled down her window and yelled after the kid, "FAAAAAG! "
I continued laughing hysterically, not because of her outburst, but because a head of lettuce had mysteriously rolled between my feet.
"Oh, that's where that damn thing went. Here, take the wheel a minute." As I grabbed the wheel, she bent down behind my seat and fumbled around under some newspapers and what looked like a meat slicer.
The van swerved maniacally off the road onto the gravel shoulder.
"Goddamit Diana, I thought we had this mastered years ago! You drive, while I find my cigarettes underneath the seat! Right?" She took back the wheel and straightened the vehicle, then pulled a hardened wad of gum off her pack of Camels.
I immediately piped up, "Right, right, but I think my technique has been blurred due to the immense amount of sugar I've been eating. I mean, my upper lip is beginning to bead up and my heart's pounding out of my chest." But actually, aside from that, I was beginning to feel extremely good. (One Vicodin makes the pain go away, but two is a party…just ask Brett Favre.)
"Hey Erin, how do you feel?"
"Fucking awesome…you?"
"I suddenly feel so fantastic I could kill myself."
"Well," she said, "You might want to wait till we get to the Dungeon of Doom to do that, I don't want you messing up the van."
It turned out that the haunted house was located in the hog shed at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Grayslake, a place Erin and I had spent many a day as teenagers eating pork products in front of the prize hogs.
When we pulled in, Erin hurled the vehicle into the dirt parking lot diagonally, taking up two or three extra spaces so no one would make any unseemly dings in the van.
"Hey Erin."
"Yeah?"
"Wanna leave the severed head on the dash so no one fucks with the van?"
"Of course, just put it above the radio next to the dead rat and the tube top."
At the hog shed we were met by a long and impenetrable line of 14-year-old kids. They seemed to wrap their way around the Halloween dungeon like a shifty, twitching tail. Joining it seemed impossible, even dangerous. Who knew what kinds of germs those kids had, and you can bet they hadn't discovered deodorant yet. At first, we weren't sure we should subject ourselves to such a rigorous endeavor, especially in our delicate state. After all, it's never a good idea to mix drugs with children…they'll kill your buzz every time.
"Christ almighty, will you look at that line," I said, scratching my head. "Well…wanna buy some candy apples and stick it out, or blow it off and go to the Duck Inn and pretend we know how to play pool."
Erin had a strange, far off look in her eye, a look I remembered from years ago when we organized a party featuring 36 physics majors and a handful of GED cosmetologists. (It ended badly, but the boys all went home with free lipstick samples.)
With that look, I knew we were staying.
Feeling the drugs continue to rush over me like a warm blanket, I grabbed her arm and we took our place at the back of the line. Standing in front of us was a sizeable group of impossibly short Puerto Rican kids. They chattered away nervously. The girls went on and on about the horrors that undoubtedly awaited them inside.
"Hey Erin," I said, loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Yeah?"
"I heard that these haunted houses are sometimes busted by the cops."
"Oh really, why?"
"Well, sometimes the dungeon people actually steal young girls, especially the really tan ones, and sell them into Irish prostitution rings where they're forced to satisfy the perverted needs of drunken barley farmers. Yeah, yeah, and the girls are only allowed to eat boiled sheep's head served with carp semen. Oh, and they have to wear green gingham, while they're peeling potatoes…at 3 in the morning…with bloody fingers. True story."
"Shut up! Gingham? That's fucking child abuse!"
The Puerto Ricans were beginning to take notice.
"You know what else?"
"What?"
"The candy apples they sell here are sometimes laced with LSD."
"No way!" She yelled, causing the girl in front of us to drop her purse. "I think if I had LSD right now I'd probably grow a gigantic lizard head and start making out with that Mexican kid over there. Look at him…he's adorable, like a muscular little fire plug."
She was right, the kid was pretty cute, and he had hair like a golf green - buzzed close to the skull and velvety soft-looking.
Without hesitation Erin grabbed my sleeve. "Come on, let's go check him out. Hey, how old do you think he is - 14? A head of hair like that's not gonna stick around this joint for too long. Listen, you mollify him with the candy corn and I'll grab him when he least expects it."
We left our place in line and strolled about 30 bodies up, easing our way in next to the kid. Erin approached him as his friends took a step back.
"Hey, I was just noticing what a terrific head of hair you have…um, do you mind if I touch it?"
The kid didn't say a word; he just stood gazing up at her, pokerfaced. She took his silence as a yes and began running her fingernails through the brush cut.
"Hey Diana, you've got to feel this. It's absolutely incredible, like a velvet dinner jacket. Seriously, feel it…he won't mind. Will you?" The kid just stared at her as she fondled his head like a crystal ball.
Erin and I were easily the oldest (and tallest) people in the crowd. So the Mexican kid's friends just looked at each other and smirked while Erin continued to have her way with him.
I stepped up and lightly touched the side of his head. "Oh God yes, that's heaven. MMMMMMMMMM, like a plush blanket…or a baby seal! The kid continued to look stern, so I moved to the other side.
"Hey Erin, try the right side, it's even softer. Oh, why don't I have hair like this? If I did, I'd spend all day caressing my cranium.
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. " The line wasn't moving, so we continued groping and fondling the Mexican's skull for a good 15 minutes.
"Hey Erin…"
"Yeah?"
"Touching this kid's hair could be the single most satisfying experience of my life…you know what, I hope it never ends."
"Yeah, me too. Hey…wanna go get a sno cone?"
"Um…yeah."
So we left the kid and got a sno cone.
It didn't matter that we abandoned our new place in line, or that we left the Mexican kid all alone with his hair. Because as usual, we had a plan.
And that plan involved line jumping. We'd been doing it for years. It's really the only way to get anywhere in life in a timely fashion.
This is how it works: Erin stands somewhere in line and suddenly has a terrible cramp in her leg. Naturally, as her friend I have to rush to her aid. She then stumbles across to the next section of the line, which easily puts us 40 people ahead, with me trailing behind. Then, I very dramatically drop my purse at some stranger's feet and pick it up in yet another section of the line, putting us ahead another 30 people and decreasing our wait time by a good 45 minutes, and so on. It takes a lot of creative energy, but it works every time. It also helps to be in a group of 14-year-olds who aren't smart enough to have you arrested.
At one point, a blond cheerleader-type complained loudly to the crowd that we were "skipping." So I leaned over and whispered into her ponytails, "Hey, pipe down there missy, you're learning from the best. We're going to be screaming bloody murder in the Dungeon in exactly 5 minutes while you're still out here bored as a pail of linebacker piss, see what I mean?" She huffed off into the darkness and we never saw her again.
We were starting to gain notoriety in the crowd. A small group of black kids were so impressed with our line jumping capabilities they asked if they could join us and call us Mom. Why not I thought? In the dungeon there's safety in numbers.
The Puerto Rican kids had been studying our maneuvers from afar, too, and had followed suit. They were now directly behind us, all 4 foot 3 of them.
When it was finally our turn to enter the Dungeon of Doom, Erin and I were leading a daisy chain of little brown children. Together, we looked like Sally Struthers on another crackpot mission from a loveless God.
"Hey Erin."
"Yeah?"
"I bet at the age of 33 you never thought you'd have so many brown kids calling you Mom, huh?"
"Yeah, it's weird. But look on the bright side, maybe we can frisk 'em for cigarette money when we get into the Tunnel of Fear."
"Yeah, good idea."
So we all trailed through the haunted house grasping onto each other in one big Boy Scout line. The Puerto Ricans were in back, and Erin shoved me in front, using me as a kind of terror shield to break through all the dead bodies and gore that swung out and made us scream like a bunch of rabid, flaming banshees.
My sugar high had worn off, but the Vicodin was still going strong, so I saw the hanging man, the electrocution victim, and all the vinyl entrails as merely a pleasant distraction. Amidst the smell of particle board and synthetic blood, we felt our way through the pitch black Tunnel of Fear on our hands and knees.
"Hey Erin."
"Yeah?"
"Would you marry me?"
"Sure thing Doll. Do you think we'd ever get past the whole penis thing?"
"Probably not, but you're a good 'ol gal…I wonder if your husband would mind? You know…if we could ever lose these goddamn kids we might just make a go of it."
"Yeah, let's lose 'em in the Time Warp and go get a Frosty, what do you say?"
"Sounds swell. Hey, maybe later we can leave the severed head in your neighbor's mailbox."
"Consider it done."
