"Halloween for me is an exploration. It’s a time to excavate
the primordial instincts lying deep within your DNA. When you can throw
society’s laws in the shitter and deconstruct morality to escape the soulless
technological cluster fuck and self-appointed important people masquerading as
the talent struck. A freedom from this world of talking heads that smears their
acidic snot across my synapses. Halloween as a child involved a terror of the
unknown and a celebration of horrific folklore. As a man, there is no unknown
and folklore merely falsehoods. There lies a plague of cruelty spilling from
the selfishness around us and Halloween can offer a temporary escape but it may
also serve as a key to one’s own self destructive personality and a portal to
the edge of cliffs where you can awkwardly balance while dancing with Poe’s imp
of the perverse and better understand one’s fears.
My favorite of Halloween experiment is from the double
vision years at Georgia Southern University in the swamps of Statesboro. I had
a friend named E.J. (R.I.P.) who could be best described as a cross between
Timothy Leary and Charles Manson. A walking stereotype of dirty denim clad
refer-smoke haze who lived in a rat-infested dilapidated farmhouse surrounded
by acres of corn on the outskirts of town. It was a safe haven for growing
marijuana, firing guns, discussing literature and testing the purity of
psychedelic substances. Many lessons learned free from the intrusion of local
law enforcement. For Halloween night, E.J.’s buddies the Iron Coffins Motor
Cycle Club were coming to town, so he decided to throw a shindig by burning a
witch in a bonfire before the requisite live music. Since these fine upstanding
citizens made their living running microdots down the East Coast, it was sure
to be one hell of a mind fuck. I didn’t realize just how big or the visions it
would contain.
To avoid the Sheriff department‘s roadblocks, E.J. hired a
Volkswagon Beatle club to run as cabs for all the invited guests. It was the
only way in and out. Every rider received the requisite party enhancers. Once
you took the 8 mile trip and arrived, it looked like all the fires of hell had
broken loose with crazed drunken demons in elaborate costumes and topless white
trash dancing on anything that allowed for a bigger spectacle. The beer was
flowing and people were not paying attention when a plastic jug holding
microdots melted on a fireplace mantle. The heat caused a hole to appear and
thousands of doses to fall out and roll across the wooden floors, up for grabs
to anyone who wanted to fill their cheeks.
Now Halloween costumes, beer, bonfires, Southern rock,
outlaw bikers, screwing coeds in corn fields and a squadron of German cars
zipping around while it rained free hallucinogenic drugs may seem like enough
for most people, but it was not for old Wade. Nobody really knew why he was
such a puppy kicking cruel bastard or why E.J. even hung out with this greasy
300lb psychopath. Some say he got messed up in a secret Army experiment but
nobody really knew the truth. At least I didn't. It was a few months before he
committed suicide and I guess he wanted to take some folks out with him by
throwing a pillow case of live 9mm rounds into the bonfire. It didn’t take long
before bullets were flying like party streamers. They buzzed through corn, shot
up the side of the farm house and a hit a few VWs.
Luckily none of the several hundred party patrons were shot.
Wade was quickly escorted to an ass kicking and the sane trippers quickly
retreated back to the city. Me and a few buddies were not the types to let a
drop of beer remain in a keg so we decided to hold out for more thrill-seeking
milk. Once we realized the VW Bugs were not coming back and E.J. had fled his
own property, the Iron Coffins informed us that they were leaving to run some
stuff down to Savannah and would be back in the afternoon. They were also going
to leave one of their old ladies behind because she had become unmanageable. We
were told at gunpoint that none of us boys better lay a finger on her if we
knew what was best. The dust from their Harleys had not even cleared when this
road worn woman had completely stripped herself naked. She was skeletal,
missing most of her teeth on the left side of her face, had an enormous bush
and pierced flapjack tits that resembled the teats of an old hound dog with too
many pups. There was a gold chain connecting these dried up protrusions. Even
without drugs, she would have resembled a corpse that had spent a 4 day weekend
at a sold-out necrophilia convention. It was not brains on her zombie mind. It
was college cock. We were trapped and way past our drug tolerance levels so we
scrambled for our lives. There was hiding, creeping, chasing an all types of
uneasy verbs. We set traps and we made distractions. I was almost captured
several times and even heard a buddy sobbing. We were living a porn version of
Night of the Living Dead. I spent what seemed like days being chased by this
once female monstrosity through the corn fields of Georgia and not until I
snuck back to the farmhouse and climbed onto the roof did I feel any glimmer of
hope for surviving the night. Over the next few hours, all my friends made it
to that roof. We laid up there in silence afraid that even a sigh would bring a
violent raping death. By sunrise, her yelling and stomping through the house
had grown silent. With the sun sweating the life out of us, we took our chances
and made it to Highway 67 where we grabbed a ride in the back of a pick-up
truck like Marilyn Burns fleeing from Leatherface. Neil Young blasted as three
exhausted metal heads burned out and faded away.
Much, much more happened than what I have told. That party
was evil. It relished in it. I learned that living, controlling, owning and
becoming darkness can lead to a higher understanding of your capabilities. Your
killing instinct. While I may only do something relatively insane in small 30
second increments today, I have the wisdom to know what lies under my surface.
I’m one double-cross, a shot of whiskey and a loaded gun away.
Now I’m 46 with evaporating angst and I host a kids
Halloween party with my wife and daughter. I’m in charge of the typical
suburban father chores like grilling, hooking up the electronics and projecting
monster classics. There is the ritualistic pumpkin carving, gift bags, apple
bobbing and lots of cute costumes. There are no drugs, suicidal maniacs or
outlaw bikers ditching their horny old ladies. No staring at death, and the
real world horrors are replaced by the laughter of children. It’s a simple life.
One I tried to avoid. Every year after the guests leave, I crack open a beer
and stare into the night. I think about E.J.’s farmhouse and a smile creeps
across my face. The man was a goddamn genius. We all have the potential to
climb a bell tower and kill those around us. Halloween can provide a smoke
screen to allow exploration of the blackest regions in the mind, a little bit
free from self-imposed and man-made laws."
28 days ‘til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween. 28 days ‘til Halloween. Silver Shamrock.
