Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf...

31 October 2005

Apparently...I am still afraid of the big bad wolf. I could have named this blog...Step-Father the Sequel...but that sounds too much like one of those horror film chains that is unending...just when you thought it was all over...when the psycho killer has been electrocuted...burned...chopped up...pureed....composted...hung...stabbed...voodooed...and decapitated...here he comes again...this time resurrected by unwitting aliens seeking to restablish the human race...only to discover too late their mistake...Step-Father...your Mom divorced him..but he just keeps coming back.

Last night I returned home to find a letter in the mail box that I had apparently missed the day before (unless Step-Father is so powerful that he can command the U.S. Postal Service to operate on Sundays...hmmm). I pulled out the letter...saw it was from him...and immediately...I mean with all the tremendous speed that a man with post-traumatic stress disorder can summon...I put the letter back in the mailbox...slammed the lid...said out loud hell no...and made the sign of the cross. Ok...so I didn't make the sign of the cross...but I did all the rest of that...and the emotion that I was feeling as I dropped the keys at least three times trying to open the lock was panic.

I still haven't read the damn letter. I woke up this morning (an hour earlier than necessary...daylight savings time ending gets me very time)...and looked around the room to see if maybe the letter had crawled out of the mail box, picked the lock, disarmed the alarm system, and crawled into my room during the night. I laid there for about five minutes before I could assure my disbelieving mind that the letter wasn't waiting to abush me when I stepped in the shower. Or worse...once I was in the shower...I thought maybe I would see the shadow of the approaching letter...cluch my heaving bosom...and scream just as it pulled back the shower curtain and as the scene faded to black. But...I made it safely through my daily ablutions...albeit perhaps a little jumpy throughout the entire process..and eventually stepped outside my apartment...into the bright morning sun...ready to brave the mailbox...only to remember it was Halloween. Then I had to convince myself that because of the nearness of the physical world to the spiritual world that somehow this wasn't all an elaborate plan by my step-father to escape prison by mailing his soul to New Mexico...awaiting only for me to open the mail box...break the seal on the envelope...and set him free to terrorize the dreams of children...again.

During this entire sketch comedy that is my childhood trauma come back to get me...I text messaged my friend/co-worker Gigi to tell her that the letter arrived...and that if I didn't show up to work on time....to call out the blood hounds and start searching for my mangled corpse...but I also asked her that if I made it the 16 blocks to the office...if she would sit with me while I opened the letter to read it. One reason is so that if I have any sort of emotional break with reality there will be someone there that I can trust. The other reason is that I am going to open the letter with the back of it facing Gigi...so if my Step-Father emerges whole from the letter and looking for his first victim...she'll be the first to go...and maybe I'll be able to get to the car before he snatches out her eyeballs and uses them to play yatzhee.  I'm all about chivalry...but there's a reason why the white folks always get killed in the movies...they don't run soon enough...and they don't realize that when Evil comes knocking you ain't got no friend but Jesus.

It worries me a bit that I had such a gut wrenching reaction to an envelope...but I also know that my emotions are what they are...and to expect them to be otherwise is counterproductive. I am aware that as humans with an extremely limited understanding of ourselves...and a whole lot of contstructed caca about who and how we should be at all times...we spend a lot of energy judging our feelings...saying things like...this shouldn't make me happy...or I shouldn't be sad but...or there's no reason to get angry...well...actually...if you (me) are feeling a feeling then it is always...exactly...at that moment the feeling that you are supposed to be feeling in that situation and under that circumstance. Always. Unless you are hallucinating or have been possessed by one of the past victims of the Step-Father that is trying to warn you of his impending ressurection from the Other Side.

So...I am going to pluck up my courage...and add some liquid courage to that (iced chai people!)....and go and read the letter. May God have mercy on Gigi's soul if she is disembowled in front of her four year old daughter...but we all have to make sacrifices...and some of us even get sacrificed. That's just how it goes. Happy Halloween.

P.S. A Happy Birthday shout out to Mr. Erik Leve of Albuquerque...it's neat that there is someone living in Albuquerque that remembers the first Halloween ever...that's living history folks...and you just can't beat that. Hehehehe.