vituperation

February 19, 2004

“I know!” I said excitedly, “We could hang me! In a tree!”

Jeff and I sat opposite one another in his den, where we were discussing the upcoming Halloween party for my church’s informal teen youth group. Technically, the church didn’t officially have a youth group, because that sort of thing wasn’t specifically mentioned in the Bible, and this particular denomination (which shall remain nameless, so don’t ask) prides itself on only “speaking where the Bible speaks.”

The previous year — Reagan’s last in office — the Halloween party started at someone’s house in the city and ended with a hayride on a desolate piece of land far out in the county. The week before I’d taken a ride out to a spot the hayride would pass and dug myself a shallow grave. I laid a door over the grave, mostly covering it but leaving a space big enough for me to get in and out, and covered it with dirt and leaves. From less than ten feet away it was impossible to tell there was anything there.

On the day of the party I spent two hours turning myself into Jason Voorhees with liquid latex, tissue, paints, gels, and an assload of fake blood. At the party, I wore a pillowcase Elephant man style to cover the makeup, telling the kids I only made up the area around my eye because I had to leave early to go to work. That’s right: Pretending to be a resurrected serial killer, I lied to children at a church function celebrating Satan’s minions roaming the earth.

I left the party, set up an elaborate sound and lighting system around my grave area, and climbed in. In essence, we put on a play for the kids. A mother, dressed as a witch, stood by the grave holding a blood-covered goalie’s mask as the lights came up. Over the chee-chee-chee ah-ah-ah sounds from the stereo, she told the the kids that the Friday the 13th movies were based on true events in our area. She, of course, didn’t believe Jason could come back from the dead and to prove it, she challenged him to come back.

Shut up, it was fun.

At the penultimate moment, the theme from Halloween started and I punched a gloved fist out of the earth and into the lights. I’m sure you know the rest: I worked my way slowly out of the grave (the witch’s back was turned, of course, as she continued to mock Jason), killed her with a neck snap, and put on the goalie mask.

Then I turned to the kids on the trailer. And started toward them.

The minister’s son, who was in on it all, leapt off the trailer and attacked me. (In the original vision, he was going to shoot me with a blank-loaded gun, but one of the parents got wind of that and nixed it.) I, of course, died quickly, for that is the Jason way. As he turned back to the trailer to pronounce everything safe, I sat up.

The screams were deafening.

The minister’s son was dressed as a ghost, wearing only a sheet over his clothes. What only he and I knew was that he also had a gallon bag of fake blood under that sheet, which I ripped and squeezed when I grabbed him. He was able to take a couple of shuddering steps toward the kids, gouting blood all over the place, before collapsing.

I proceeded to the trailer and started trying to grab kids, who were falling off the opposite side trying to get away from me. Finally, I grabbed one of the big bloody flaps of tissue and latex dangling from my face and ripped upwards, revealing myself underneath. The screams turned to cheers.

Obviously, this year I’d have to outdo that.

In any case, it pretty much was a youth group, whether they called it one or not. I was the informal leader, not only because of my approachability but because I’d once invited the small group of teens (there were only about ten in the whole church) to go bowling with the singles, and it sort of grew from that.

Plus, the singles didn’t appreciate a good fart story like the teens.

“I could be dead, hung in the tree from a noose!” I said, “The legend could be that the parents caught Jason after last year and hung him! And he’ll come back to life if he’s ever cut down!”

“How would we hang you?”

“I’m sure I could rig up a harness with rope and an S-hook. The hook would be right here” — I pointed to the back of my neck — “and we could latch that to a noose. It’d look real and I wouldn’t be in any danger.”

We discussed it, and grew more and more excited as we planned. The next day I went to the hardware store and bought a hundred feet of rope and a huge S-hook. I spent the better part of the day fashioning a harness for myself. The harness was made with three connected loops. The first loop circled my upper chest near my armpits, and had the S-hook on the back. The other two were similar, looping me vertically over each shoulder, between my legs, and up my back. I kept the vertical loops far apart, to be able to rest most of my weight on each butt cheek when I was hanged. The loops were tied together at each intersection point.

Exuberant with my design, I picked Jeff up and we drove to a secluded location on the college campus to test it. We selected a fine-looking pine tree, and Jeef busied himself tying a noose and throwing it over a branch while I donned my rope harness. When the noose was attached to the S-hook and held up, it looked uncannily like it was actually going around my neck, especially if I tilted my head.

“Hoist me up!” I crowed. I was beside myself with anticipation.

Jeff pulled the rope tight but I didn’t budge. I wasn’t the behemoth I’d one day become, but I was pretty stout.

“You’re gonna have to really lean into it,” I said. “C’mon, give it all you’ve got.”

Jeff let out a mighty grunt and heaved like a motherfucker. The two vertical loops of rope running between my legs slid roughly eight inches up my ass, pulling my underwear, pants, scrotum, and testicles with them. Simultaneously, I was lifted about four inches so that I dangled from the limb with the tips of my toes touching the needle-covered grass below.

“Oh yeah,” Jeff said, the approval evident in his voice, “that looks pretty real.”

I made a thin, reedy sound, and feebly kicked my legs. That just made the pain worse.

“You really look like you’ve been hanged,” he said.

“Balls,” I whispered, “my balls!”

“What’s that?”

“Balls. In my butt. Let me down.”

“Your balls are in your butt? What?”

“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease let me down.”

Jeff let go of the rope and I crumpled, cupping my crotch with one hand and plucking at my ass with the other. He seemed to find the situation far funnier than I did.

We didn’t hang me at the Halloween party that year.