Alone and Feral, A Horror Story
July 16, 2023
James and JW left for the States on Friday and I am home alone for 23 days. We originally planned this summer many months ago, when Brian was still alive, and it was impossible for both James and I to be out of town at the same time because Brian’s care needs were too much for a pet sitter, but then after Brian passed away last month we kept our plans in place as James had already worked out the super complicated logistics of taking JW to camp and visiting colleges all along the eastern seaboard, and I was kinda into the idea of having the time alone “to write!” I told myself, which may or may not turn out to be a work fiction in and of itself. I haven’t been able to write much lately, especially since Brian died. He was my muse and my familiar. I don’t discount the powers I lost when he left my world.
“You should make a bunch of plans and hang out with people,” my sweet husband of 19 years said to me, as if we’d never been married or known each other at all. No, I would not be making plans and hanging out with people. I would be eating frosting out of a can while watching so many horror movies I’d become too afraid to go into our always creepy basement to do laundry. We both knew this.
I’m forever skirting the line between being a misanthrope and a deeply social creature. Two days into my time alone I’d already done what I love best, watched The Witches of Eastwick alone, (twice!) while eating cherries, as well as four other horror movies of the haunted/possessed house genre that did, in fact, make me too afraid to go into the basement to do laundry or retrieve more toilet paper. I’m a ghoul and I come by it naturally. My dad loved to scare the shit out of us when we were kids and the thrill never left me. My little brother and I were allowed to watch Amityville Horror when we were in kindergarden and preschool, after which we had to go straight to bed and I was terrified, which was breaking the bargain we’d made prior to watching the movie during which time my brother and I, ages 6 and 7, had declared we would not be scared AT ALL. I told my dad I was afraid someone would get me and he said that’s ridiculous if anyone ever tried to get into the house he’d hear them and I knew for a fact that was bullshit because he was an alcoholic and would be passed out on the couch hearing absolutely nothing and also, “What about the devil, Pete?”
When I say my dad loved to scare us when we were kids, I mean one time during a sleepover in middle school my friends and I were watching Silent Night Deadly Night about a murderous axe-wielding Santa Claus and half way through the movie my dad came flying down the stairs in a Santa suit wielding an axe and he scared us all so badly my little brother crapped his pants. My friends still talk about it. It’s no wonder I have such a twisted relationship to horror. I love it. And I am also a 51-year-old woman who will deliberately watch horror movies knowing full well I’ll scare myself so badly I won’t be able to go into the basement to do laundry or retrieve more toilet paper.
My dad owns multiple Santa suits and has a busy holiday season as Father Christmas. He’s almost never out in public without a Santa hat. He scares the shit out of kids even when he’s not wielding an axe.
Yesterday I was already starting to feel a little bit lonely and thinking about maybe texting a friend to hang out, but I couldn’t because I was hiding in my house with all the curtains drawn pretending not to be home to avoid going to the annual neighborhood BBQ held in the square across the street from my house. This is what I mean when I say I’m full of contradictions.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, but yesterday after watching The Witches of Eastwick for the second time in a row I texted my friend Meredith to confess I was hiding in my house because I didn’t want to go to the neighborhood BBQ and I wished there was a way I could get out of it and THEN IT RAINED!
The day before James left, we were walking through our neighborhood in Oud Zuid and I was doing what I always do, which is peer into the curtain-less windows of the mansions that line the Vondelpark imagining what it would be like to live in one. “We’d need to have our piano moved here,” I said, and my husband nodded. We would certainly need a piano if we lived in one of those gothic mansions.
“I’m torn between wanting to downsize and live more comfortably within our means and also wanting to become super wealthy, somehow, and buying one of these mansions” I said to my husband, with complete earnestness. “You’re torn by that?” he asked, and he was amused, which made me happy. One of my favorite things about our marriage is how my husband is amused by me but not in a condescending way. “Of course!” I said. “You know how my mind works. It’s a very fruitful place.” He nodded in agreement.
I would definitely need a piano if I were to live in one of these gothic mansions. It’s important to think about these details so you are prepared when the time comes.
Today I am going to open the curtains and go outside for a walk. I’m going to stop at the corner market and buy myself a piece of salmon to cook, and also some more cherries, and also some toilet paper. I’m going to meet a friend at the Tuschinski Theater to see a movie this week. But I’m still not going to go into the basement to do laundry.
Apologies to those of you who aren’t as online as some of us and therefore won’t get this, but I was so freaked out by this plane lady I’m still thinking about her, and there is no doubt in my mind I would also have asked for my bag and gotten off the plane. I’ll heed anyone warning “that motherfucker’s not real!” with this much terror and conviction. You simply do not need to tell me twice.