Leave the Hallway Light On

(November 30, 2006)

I have come to a realization, a fact about myself, and the catalyst for this realization is its recent reversal. Get that? A thing that has been "true" this whole time is no longer true, but I didn't know it was true until it became untrue. The realization reversed it. Just in the past few months.

Clear as mud, yeah? I'll explain.

The realization is this: Nothing scares me. (The reversal of that fact will be revealed in a minute.)

I have thought about it carefully, and yes, pretty much literally nothing sparks a hot wire of fear in my gut. Don't get me wrong, I have felt fear, so I know what "scared" feels like. I love horror movies. I love that heart-racingly scary moment when you jump and squeal, like in The Sixth Sense when the kid gets up in the middle of the night and really has to pee but senses a ghost and just then a person crosses in front of the shot and the music goes BOO!. Fucking brilliant.

But I'm not talking about brilliantly-made scary movies; I don't need to debate the haunting image of Linda Blair crab-walking down the stairs or anything like that. I'm talkng about real life fears. Even as a little kid I was not afraid of the dark, Santa Claus, strangers, thunder, lightning, needles, doctors, dogs, snakes, being alone, heights, the bathtub, the ocean, the witch on Wizard of Oz, the Boogie Man or any of the other usual things. I remember saying "What?" a lot, trying to see what my hysterical schoolmate or cousin was seeing that was making them freak out and hide behind their mothers. Like I have a clear recollection of my cousins shrieking and running for the porch when a dog scampered into the yard. Another time a neighbor girl, Jackie, came over and when she saw our turtle she flipped the fuck out. She kept saying "Is that a snapping turtle? Is that a snapping turtle!?"

I totally don't understand otherwise logical adults freaking over small, living things such as spiders, gerbils and bees. Bees, yeah if they get it into their tiny heads to sting you they hurt like a motherfucker, HOLY GOD do I hate bee stings. Who likes bee stings? Nobody. But I've never met a bee and been struck frozen in fear. Just don't provoke the bee, he's not out to get you, so where is the logic in fearing a fucking bee? A sewing machine needle thru your skin will also make you curse the high heavens fairly effectively, is anyone afraid of the seamstress?

In my early 20s I did have what I called a "driving phobia," but that was a little different. I'll explain that one some other time. I think that was textbook behavioral response, like Pavlov's dogs responding to the bell, only I was the dog and the bell meant getting hopelessly lost and crashing the car.

Flying. Tall buildings. The ocean. The dark. Strangers. Guns. Death. No, I don't WANT to die, I'm just saying that I do not grow apprehensive or frightened when I think of dying. We all die. I will die. I will be crossing the street and a car will crush me, or I'll get a disease and it will consume me, or something. It's part of life. Worrying about dying is like worrying that the sun will set. Of course the sun will set. Death is like that, except that you don't know when. Instead of worrying over "when," why not enjoy the sunlight while you have it?

Well, recently I did have a discussion about this fear thing with, of all people, Joe's dad. I forget how it started but at first he wasn't believing that I have no fears, then later offered this:"You just haven't met your Fear yet." I thought that sounded pretty astute.

Well. I think I've met my Fear.

It's the Boojie Man. That's pronounced "boogie." I have met the goddamn fucking Boojie Man and HE LIVES IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD.

I first saw the Boojie Man on my walk home from work, on Braintree Street. He was standing in an overgrown lot. He wore dark clothes but his face was very white. Weirdly white, and puffy-cheeked. He looked like he's got a mouthful of something, and he wore the kind of eyeglasses that, unfortunately, I call "serial killer glasses." Westbye used to have those kind, they were hip for awhile in the 90s, but in this case I'm really regretting that I dubbed them that. Serial killer glasses. Great.

But just seeing a pale, jowly bespectacled guy in dark clothes wouldn't scare me. It was mostly what he was doing. He was standing still like a statue, and holding something square and metal, like about the look and size of a toolbox. He wasn't just holding it in his hand. He had it hefted to his chest almost like that middle move a weightlifter makes after he's lifted the barbell to the waist but before he raises it over his head? Kind of like...holding it up, about chest height? And standing...very...very...still. Braintree is a long street I walk the whole length of it -- he stood there the whole time, face sort of looking skyward while he held this square thing, not moving. So it wasn't just a pause in the middle of work to contemplate a bird. This guy was doing this statue thing deliberately.

Creeped. Me. Out. I was like "What the fu...?"

Then it happened again. I saw him from a distance -- same thing -- box, hefted, statue -- but this time I cut right and walked a different way home. It was just creepy. It's creepy. His face is creepy. The cheeks and the whiteness, they reminded me of something. He lookd just like something. Then finally I hit upon it. He's the Boojie Boy from Devo. A Mothersbaugh alter-ego. It's pronounced "boogie" but spelled "boojie," at least from what I've read.

Then one day I saw the Boojie Man on Harvard Ave. I was walking home from a thrift store trip, definitely a Thursday night because that's the day Urban Renewal is open until 8pm, so me and all the other me's are in there hunting treasure. I ran into the Boojie Man on Harvard, he was walking the other way. I saw him and then quickly trundled past, not daring to look or make eye contact.

That's when I realized: this guy scares me. When I see this guy I feel it: fear. It is NOT the jump & squeal of a good scary movie. It's real fear.

After all these years, the Boojie Man finally found me.