King for a minute...

Well, today's blog is located here.

Yes, ladies and gents, I've been honored with a guest editorial on kick-ass horror author Brian Keene's blog.

Today is a great day, indeed.

It's been up awhile, so I'm gonna put it here now (because my sister is to damn lazy to click links and scroll down).

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:: Monday, April 18, 2005 ::

Guest Editorial #18


KING FOR A MINUTE

By

Stewie


When I was growing up, I had it pretty damn good.

I had a mother who liked horror movies.

I had a pretty cool sister who I idolized and liked horror movies.

I had a father who wasn’t a horror movie fan, but was laid back enough to see them with us.

And there was a drive-in in the town where we lived.

Quite simply, my childhood rocked.

When drive-ins were the rage, my family saw a lot of movies, many of them horror. While I don’t have memories of whole movies, I distinctly remember certain scenes from horror movies projected on that gargantuan screen. I remember…

… the zombie falling in the fountain and Stephen sliding down the escalator in Dawn of the Dead when I was 8.

… Danny Torrance riding his big wheel down the hallway of The Overlook Hotel in The Shining when I was 9. I thought what he was doing was the coolest thing ever until he saw the twins. Even at 9 I knew they were creepy.

… bits and pieces (no pun intended) of The Evil Dead, also when I was 9.

Plus many, many more.

Now, don’t get me wrong. My parents weren’t sadists. My sister and I always had to hide our eyes during the bloody, violent or nude scenes. And while the movies no doubt scared us, we always knew they were just that – movies. That was because my parents always were there to answer any questions or talk to us about what we saw.

I remember my mother saying to me after Dawn of the Dead…

“Now Steven, there are no such thing as zombies. What you saw was make believe. Zombies don’t exist. Unless you are bad. Then I’ll drop you off at the mall they were in.” She would have, too.

Well, eventually, the drive-ins died out and, with them, my parents love for going to the movies. I’m not saying I never saw another movie – hell, I remember seeing movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, and E.T. (the first time I remember crying in a movie). And the father/son trips to the movies to see Flash (savior of the universe!) and Stir Crazy (the first time I saw moving boobies without having to cover my eyes!) were part of my movie experience, but the days of horror at the drive-in were over.

Then came the VCR.

Boy, when the VCR came out, it was movie time all over again. But now, instead of my mother choosing the movie (which she mostly did during the drive-in days), it was a family event. About every Friday or Saturday, my parents picked out a movie or two and my sister and I alternated each weekend with a choice of our own.

So, one night (when I was about 12 or so) it was my sister’s turn to pick out the movie we were to watch. She was about 15 and she picked out a movie she had heard her friends at school talking about.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Now, I’m not going to lie and try to sound like a big shot. The very title of that movie instilled such a dread in my soul. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That title still freaks me out a little. And at 12, no way in hell did I want to watch that movie. But there was also no way in hell I was going to let my sister know that. So I bucked up and told her it was a good choice and I’d been wanting to see it. Hell, I probably would have picked it out next weekend if she hadn’t picked it up that night.

She laughed her big sister laugh – which, for those of you who have big sisters, it’s quite demeaning – and said “Whatever sissy-boy. We’ll see.”

Bitch.

When we got home, my mom said my sister and I could watch TCM first, as she didn’t feel like watching a movie that night. So, since she was going to bed, she delegated my father to watch it with us. Not the wisest move.

A quick blurb about my father. He is the greatest man alive and the person I look up to the most. The best father anyone could want. The most laid back. As mentioned before, this is the guy who took me to see Stir Crazy and didn’t bother to tell me to cover my eyes during the boob shots. Not that I was complaining then, or now. He just focuses on the movie – everyone else be damned.

So, did he tell us to cover our eyes during TCM? I think there may have been a half-ass mumble at the beginning of the movie, but that might have been gas. If I had been watching the movie alone, no one would have needed to tell me to cover my eyes anyway. But I wasn’t alone. My sister was there and she was cutting her eyes at me the whole time to make sure I was watching the movie and not wussing out. So there was no way I was going to confirm her suspicions that I was indeed a “sissy-boy.”

I don’t know if showed on the outside, but on the inside I was so scared watching this movie that I wanted to throw up. I may be fooling myself when I think that my sister never noticed, but one can hope. But then something strange happened. About 15 minutes before the movie ended, my sister went to bed.

The movie wasn’t even over! Granted, there was only a little bit of time left, but it wasn’t over! Regardless, my sister got up, yawned, stretched and said goodnight. Shocked as I was, I managed to say goodnight back and my dad gave a brief wave. Off to bed she went.

After she left, whether I wanted to or not, I was now determined to finish that damn movie. This was a dream come true for me. I could hold this over my sister’s head for years. I only had to finish the movie. She wussed out and went to bed. She couldn’t even finish it because she was too scared. I was going to be King! And, at the end of the movie, I thought I was.

With the movie over, I said goodnight to my dad and ran upstairs to my room. Honestly, I wanted to get under the covers and away from Leatherface as soon as I possibly could.

I hit my room, stripped down to the whitey tighties, flipped the light off, put one leg on the bed and as I was lifting my other leg…

A hand from under the bed grabbed it.

I did what every 12-year-old, red-blooded American boy would do in that situation.

I screamed like a 12-year-old little girl.

Before I knew it, my dad was at my door, concerned as hell and asking me what was wrong. All I could do was point at the bed because my voice was gone to wherever the hand went. My father, not wasting a beat, flipped the bed (box-spring and all) in one swift motion.

There, on the floor in the fetal position, laughing her ass off, was my sister.

My father, mad as hell, picked my sister up by her arm and shoved her out of my room.

“YOU!” He screamed at her. “GO TO YOUR DAMN ROOM NOW!”

“YOU!” He screamed at me. “STOP ACTING LIKE A DAMN SISSY!”

I was King for all of one minute.


STEWIE is an IT professional for a law firm in Washington D.C., and writes reviews for Horror Talk under the name "Alien Redrum". He has two different colored eyes because the toll an exorcism took on him at age 7.

If you are interested in contributing a guest editorial at Hail Saten, send an email to ragekeene@hotmail.com. The thoughts, opinions, and views expressed by our guest columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of Brian Keene or his publishers. Comment on our guest editorials HERE.
:: Brian 11:58 AM [+] ::

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