It's that time of year.
And no, I'm not talking about the ever-expanding, all-consuming, unconscionable, unstoppable terror that is The Holiday (Shopping) Season. The powers that be can kick off Ford Motors And Best Buy Present The Viacom X-Treme X-Mas X-Plosion of Hi-Tech Values (Brought To You By Subway — Eat Fresh!) during Labor Day Weekend, for all I care; for me, the holiday season starts on Black Friday, as it was and ever shall be, amen.
I'm talking about bats and skulls and pointy teeth. I'm talking about cool breezes that sneak through the trees after dark to create sounds not unlike ominous following footfalls. I'm talking about cable-channel schedules crammed to bursting with suspense, violence for the sake of violence, gore and plots so bad they're funny. I'm talking about getting drunk while trying to carve a pumpkin and ending up rolling around on the floor making out, and finding seeds in your hair while driving to work late the next day.
I'm talking about mixing a lot of red food coloring with a lot of corn syrup and generally going to a lot of trouble to really scare somebody you really care about and nearly being accidentally shot for your trouble. I'm talking about the best parties of the best season of the year.
Excepting those who still believe that an evil entity living near the earth's molten core has representatives up here who ride brooms and wear pointy hats, I do not understand why Halloween isn't everybody's favorite holiday.
Terror? Candy? An opportunity to pretend you're something, anything else? That girl you've always crushed on, dressed up like Bettie Page As The Devil's Housemaid? Frightening the shit out of those kids across the street whose parents let them fight and shout outside until 10 o'clock on weeknights?
Come on. That's better than all the roasting chestnuts and Wal-Mart gift cards and demonstrations protesting the commercialization of Christ's birth combined.
You can't tell me people don't like to be scared. I'm not the only one who went into the house where the mom supposedly went crazy and killed her own kids. And who looked forward to stories around the fire more than Smear the Queer at camp. And who was tricked into buying a book by Richard Laymon. And who lives in a nation whose current administration has demonstrated, consistently and successfully, its grasp of the idea that people need something of which to be afraid.
Fear is a powerful feeling. Like hunger or love or lust, it can be uncomfortable or painful, sometimes unbearably so. But also like hunger or love or lust, fear serves as a notice for the arrival of its own satisfaction. We want the thrill of being scared, because we need to beat whatever it is that scares us.
At least vicariously.
There are a million things to be scared of: terrorists, drunk drivers, family reunions, male-pattern baldness. We don't have any control over most of them. If the pilot of our next flight out west to see Nancy and the kids happens to find an old forgotten hit of LSD in his wallet and decides to take it a couple of hours before takeoff, there's nothing we can do about it. When our girlfriend decides to stay out later than usual with a bunch of her co-workers, we can't have her accompanied by a bodyguard until she gets home. We're even wondering if the War on Terror can realistically be won.
But we know the girl in Friday The 13th Part 2 is eventually going to get scared and/or smart and/or mad enough to outwit Jason by impersonating his mother's severed head. We know she's going to overcome her fear and that we'll share in her victory.
That's what Halloween is — a giant catharsis, a dance with fear, a recognition and trivialization of terror-at-large on a scale that we can handle.
What I'm saying is, if Halloween isn't your favorite holiday, then the terrorists may have already won.
Plus, there's candy and parties.
This year, my favorite holiday is approaching with a giant unexpected bonus, an unforeseen yet substantial spine-tingling development — another fear to be faced and overcome, if you will:
Becks' house may be haunted.
Since I moved in, strange phenomena have manifested themselves to both of us, at different times, when we've been both together and alone. Even Milo The White Trash Terrordog has noticed, though he may just be hearing one of the cats trying to take a politely quiet dump in the other room.
But things have happened. Little things, to be sure, but little things that defy explanation and go beyond "Did you hear that?" or "Cool, that melted candle looks a little like Lemmy from Motorhead."
We've seen things and, given the approach of the Season of the Witch, we're giddily letting them get to us a bit.
I won't go into details now; I'll save it for next week, after we've had a chance to do a little low-budget parlor-trick paranormal investigation.
Until then, go buy a mask and a bag of candy, will ya?
This article appears in Oct 18-24, 2006.