In hopes of earning extra money for Christmas, I decided to audition for a Halloween event at a local theme park. I fear debt. Despite my general lack of charisma and my unremarkable growling ability I was hired on and began scaring paying individuals last week. When I arrived on the property before my shift the sprawling ineffective bureaucracy of it all was apparent. No one told me where to clock in. I parked here. I was bussed there. I walked miles back from the Entertainment building with my face now painted to resemble a fleshless skull. I unfolded a Xeroxed copy of directions to each haunted house and navigated areas that were never intended to be seen by those customers I would be startling later that evening.
The sun set, and honestly, it couldn’t get dark quickly enough for me. I slipped behind a black curtain and cut through the path that the customers walk and swung open the door to my assigned scare area. My counterpart with which I alternated shifts was in the zone and laughing maniacally. He was a large Black man with shoulder-length dreads. He strained through a peephole awaiting someone to amble by the drop-wall. He lifted the latch and shouted a threat to detach limbs and swallow souls. I thought, I can't bring myself to say anything like that. Sweat formed where my hairline met my forehead. We were stationed outside in a plywood prison. He informed me that the drop-wall wasn’t functioning properly so I would have to hold it up between scares. He also told me to complain about needing a fan to our stage manager and then he left. I felt alone and just as jumpy as a paying guest. I lined my eye up with the small hole in the drop-wall for any signs of movement, leaning into the wood panel to hold it in place. I released the wall and caught someone off guard. Making a noise like I was clearing my throat, I made eye contact with a grown man with a beard. It wasn’t fear in his eyes. It was definitely pity.
Time for my break came and I simultaneously felt the rush of ending my shift and the weight of knowing I had 4 more this evening, and 20 more days this season. I spotted an elderly man in similar paint and garb walking toward the cafeteria. His eyes weren’t looking in quite the same direction and he seemed confused on where he was walking.
“What’s your name?” I asked delicately scratching my nostril then looking at the black paint that transferred to my index finger. His white hair was matted to his forehead where his mask had been.
“Otto. How about you?” I told him and he mumbled about my parentage when hearing my name. I mentioned it being from the Old Testament like I do to everyone. It seemed out of place to be talking about the Old Testament. Everything seemed out of place.
“I saw you were in the Bloody Bayou house,” I continued, “I am too.” I remembered now seeing Otto in the line for make-up earlier that night.
“The bloody what? I just stand in a little corner, the light goes on, and I go ‘boo.’” His dialogue was like a spinning top. "They want me to lunge more," he continued without prompt. He was from New York originally. He had worked in social services like I do now during the day. He helped individuals gain employment. He didn’t see the irony that he now had taken this horrible job out of what sounded like a move of desperation when he explained his living situation. He also traveled in from St. Petersburg, living in an age-restricted manufactured home community in the northern peninsula by the mangroves. His wife is also a teacher. I refused to look for any parallels.
We entered the staff cafeteria. Clowns sat with wooden dolls and werewolves. Young people with blood dripping down their cheeks laughed and clamped down on cheeseburgers with two hands. We headed to the growing line. I regrettably ordered a chili-cheese dog and found a seat with Otto. I watched our time tick down and sent my wife text messages. The baby is in bed while my wife is watching a show that I wouldn’t like. I told her that I’m enjoying myself because I thought typing it would help.
“We should probably head back,” I threw out after 25 minutes had elapsed. Otto stood without responding and waited until I opened the door. His white and black make-up was smeared around his mouth. He barely lifted his feet when he walked. He must have been in his 70s. The night air felt cool as my shirt was still wet with perspiration. My spot was directly in front of the warehouse that the majority of the haunted house was located in. I stood by the shrubbery mentally preparing to pull back the curtain and return to my assigned area. Just then a door burst open and the stage manager in a red polo was walking with a young blonde girl in tribal paint with her arm around his shoulder. She was breathing heavily and holding her left side with her palm as if she were holding her ribs in place.
“Did you see him clearly?” the stage manager barked.
“Yeah, of course. The asshole lunged at me.” She was on the verge of tears. She sounded more angry than sad, though.
“We’ll get him. I need you to ID him.” They hobbled past me quickly. I was craning my neck to see where they were heading. They opened a gate in the fence into the main park. The gate clanged shut and I stood there still staring in that direction, forgetting where I was headed, and feeling the moon looming. Another girl emerged from the black curtain sliding her mask up and off her face. Break is over, I remembered, as if I could feel my feet on the ground suddenly.
The next few shifts rotated. People reacted in similar ways. They could be filed based on their responses: the too-cool to be here, typically male, usually didn’t even look at me; then there were those who were coping with the fear by laughing or waving hello or saying that I "didn’t even scare them;" and finally there were the ones who were scared of their own shadow. They jumped and squealed and begged me to leave them alone. I just wanted to console them. They were mostly young women or children under ten. I felt a wave of guilt when the wall would drop and a small child would be standing there with watery eyes in the moonlight and artificial smoke.
As the night dwindled, so did the attendees. The few that were left were barely functional on account of the extensive alcohol consumption. The stage manager walked the house with a flashlight. My shoulder was leaning into the drop-wall and the aching had grown. I dropped the wall a final time. A co-worker in a top hat said, “you know it’s over, right?” and he then walked through the curtain.
I followed. I stood at the bus stop while people wiped their faces with white cloths pulling them back and looking at the red and black paint. When the bus came it filled fast. I sat by a young girl with black hair and a pale gray eyes. I think it was a wig and contacts. I’m not sure. She looked downtrodden or tired or both. The bus driver was playing hip hop music.
“What’d you do tonight?” I asked her over the music.
“I was in Bloody Bayou.” Her affect didn’t change.
“Me too. I was outside; it was so hot,” I complained.
“It wasn’t much better inside with all the people in there. I was toward the beginning so I could still feel the heat.”
“What’d you do?" I paused long enough for a response then when she took too long I continued,"I had a drop-wall. It didn’t work.” I felt akin to her sadness so I played up the negative aspects.
“Oh really? I was up on the ceiling looking down. I’m sore from leaning on the rails.” I was sore too but I didn’t want to try to upstage her and bring it up now. She seemed to enjoy talking it out. “I heard some girl got hurt bad but I didn’t hear anything more about it. Never saw her come back.”
“Me, too,” I agreed. “I saw her come out the side door when I was going back on shift.”
“I’m not surprised. Guys were just awful. The more drunk they got, the more they tried to mess with me. If I got called an ugly fucking bitch one more time,” she trailed off and she was right back to the level of sadness when I first saw her get on the bus. "It's just not necessary, you know?" I nodded. I thought of how scary it was for us to be in the dark with strangers with little supervision; easy targets for groping or an attack. I thought of how it was funny that we faced so much more fearful things than painted faces and carefully placed strobe lights. We faced the frightening lack of respect for one human being from another. It was a reality that just seemed too heavy to contemplate so we dress people up like zombies and monsters in a maze in the dark and we force ourselves to walk through it knowing they can't touch us. We emerge unscathed in a naïve success that is just as foolishly make-believe. We pay slightly above minimum wage for this consolation.
I didn’t know what else to say but just looked out the window with her. The roller coasters were still lit up, the frames of their structure casting shadows of perpendicular lines onto the dark green grass. It was nearly two in the morning. The night was purple with all the light pollution. After a few more breaths it was clear that the conversation wasn’t going to continue. The bus driver pulled up to the stop and said, “all right, everyone get off.” I felt the moment between feeling the motion of the bus halt and the decision to stand. I felt the full feeling of helplessness as our thin layer of skin provides a barrier to the outside world. Is it strong enough to protect against every outside force? My arms were crossed. I got goose bumps and ran both hands gently over the opposite arm as people lined up to exit the bus.
