In October of 1969 I turned 10. That meant for one night and one night only I could stay up as late as I wanted. In return I couldn’t complain about our early bed time ever again.
Deal!
25 months earlier, my brother stayed up until 10:30 playing with his Lionel Train set. Obviously I’d stay up later than that.
(Decades later Chad admitted to doing rounds about the house like a museum guard until the furnace popped, clanged, and dinged one too many times. His eyes got tired and the wall clock got blurred. He thought he was hallucinating. He remembered taking great care not to step on any of the creaky steps as he crept up the stairs.)
On my night, after Laugh In, Hopper said “Time to start up”.
Chad sullenly dragged his feet up the stairs as I sat smugly on the couch.
It didn’t take long before my eyes started to feel dry and heavy.
I must have dozed off because the next thing I saw on the screen was a bald eagle soaring past the American flag.
“Okay, good night, I’m going to bed,” Hopper said.
“Wait, stay up with me a little longer. I’ll scratch your head.” I whined, as I got up on the arm of his chair.
Nothing like a good head massage to get Hopper to agree to most anything like an extra Coke or Oreo
“No, I’m tired.” He yawned.
I didn’t get it. What did he think I would do here by myself?
I knew he had the potential to stay up really late because his and mom’s parties seemed to last forever.
Why not stay up late, now, with me? We could make ice tea or jello.
“Why don’t you read a book?” he asked as he walked down the hall to their bedroom.
A book!
The wind blowing through the phone and electric wires attached to the house made sing song moans that were soothing during the day and eerie and foreboding at night.
As the broadcast pattern faded, I saw ghostly images floating on the dimming screen, not unlike those found in
SLOVENLY PETER, OR, CHEERFUL STORIES AND FUNNY PICTURES FOR GOOD LITTLE FOLKS.
It was a children’s primer published in 1849. I was intrigued and alarmed by the drawings and tales of misbehaving children, and the fates that befell them.
I kept it by my bed and read the cloth bound book so often, I had to wrap it with a rubber band.
Children, who wouldn’t eat, dwindled to a thread and died. Others ate so much they burst in two.
Boys donning waistcoats ignited themselves while playing with matches.
Girls dressed in frocks broke legs and spurted blood when they rough-housed like boys.
Children who didn’t heed the warnings like Little-Suck-a-Thumb, were left with bloody stumps on their hands by a man wearing tights and pointy toed shoes. He carried large scissors and had long stringy hair.
That stuff didn’t scare me. I was braver now. I’ll suck my thumb until I go to college if I want to.
Six months earlier someone reported a high heeled, slashing, lunatic with long fingernails on the loose in rural Dorset.
Although the story was false and there used to be a branch tapping against our bedroom window, sounding like stilettos on slate,
something wasn’t right.
I froze with fear and slowly slid my thumb out of my mouth.
This wasn’t like being afraid of the Ghost of Christmas Future, the Wicked Witch of the West, or the man with the hook who murdered kids at camp.
Those were bad but this was pure evil.
No way am I staying down here all alone.
I made a lot of noise going up the stairs.
I closed the bathroom door hard enough so that the plaque Aunt Tani made, clattered against it.
I read the purple Gothic letters painted onto dark wood for the thousandnth time from the toilet.
“From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us.”
That Scottish prayer had never seemed so ominous.
I left the hall, bathroom and bedroom light on, and looked up at the newly pinned centerfolds of the Partridge Family, and the Monkee’s on the ceiling.
I felt more at ease.
I shoved Slovenly Peter deep under the bed and reached for good old Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. She was a kind old lady who had cures for children who were slow-eater-tiny-bite-takers, answer backers, and bath haters.
She even had one for kids who were never-want-to-go-to-bedders.
None of her cures involved death or maiming.
Rational fear reminds us that pulling the covers over our heads, quietly breathing, doesn’t mean we don’t stay alert. It just gives us a moment to hide from the Bogey Man and remember how brave we are.
Irrational fear, however, can cause us to overreact to innocent sounds and situations causing excess anxiety and stress.
That’s all I’ll say, Namaste.
Alexandra Langstaff 