Terror in the Heart. I needed a title - not just any title - to aptly relate what this story is all about.
I needed a title - not just any title - to get across to you the unspeakable horror that is invoked in me when I even think about the events that have transpired this very evening. I needed a title. Not just any title. I needed one that would express feelings of ungodly terror that words in this language could never adequately describe.
Words from other tongues came to me. I thought of OY VEY! Yes. Simple, yet effective. But my grandmother Warmberg would say it was too Jewish. Next, I thought of OOGABOOGA! GUNGALOOGA! A good name. A great name! But, no, no no! Some would say that it was too African.
Nay, I fear that you and I will have to settle with "Terror in the Heart". Simple, effective, and very descriptive of my state of mind and, indeed, my state of heart.
I am sitting here, alone, in the darkness, thinking that I have twenty years. Twenty years until I have to go through it all again. For you see, every word of this story is absolutely true. By point of fact, I wish it were not so. Oh! What I would not give to be sitting here with something other than my pen in my hand, regaling you with the tales of warm heartedness that you have come to expect from me. But, no, it is not my fate just now to experience the carefree feelings of youth. No, my friend, it will not be until I can somehow unburden myself of the horrific events of the past weeks that I will be able to sleep again without snapping to consciousness in a burning sweat, eyes wide, mouth frozen in a silent scream.
Think about lying in bed late at night. It is late, very late. You are not usually awake at this hour. The lights are out. Dim, dark shadows dance eerily across your bedroom ceiling. Every outdoor sound, each cat yowl, each dog bark rings in your ears. A thought forms in the dark recesses of your mind. An amusing thought at first, but one that - as it grows and takes shape - becomes more and more terrifying. The thought is that there is a person underneath your bed. Maybe you have to get up to go to the bathroom. But if you were to even move your foot to the side of your bed, you are now completely convinced that an ice cold hand would GRAB YOUR ANKLE in a VICE GRIP OF DEATH.
That hand...that murderous, ankle-grabbing hand. That hand was what I felt around my throat the evening when, just tonight, I ventured to attend my 30 year high school class reunion.
The hard part of the story is that my lovely wife, Mrs. Warmheart, had gone away to visit her family during this whole process. Looking back, as the date of the reunion got closer and closer, I felt the seeds of anxiety grow into fully blossoming trees of panic. Panic that could probably have been alleviated had I not had to face this mountain by myself. But I know now that we must all walk our darkest paths alone.
The past weeks have been full of long-locked doors of memory being
re-opened, revealing their seedy animations. Hugh Jass walked through
one of those doors and I remembered him as the terror of my entire school
existence. He would come up from behind, grab the elastic band of my
underwear and yank up for all he was worth. Then later, he would
walk up with a face full of remorse. His hand extended, he would
sincerely tell me how sorry he was. I would fall for it every
time. When I went to shake his hand, he'd move his hand up and
whack my glasses off. I think I spent two thirds of my
high school existence with my underwear crammed into the crack of my butt
and white tape on my black rimmed glasses. It
was nothing short
of hell right on God's green earth.
As these past days have crept by, I've felt as if I was heading, step by step, up to the hanging platform.
At one point, seeking solace, I opened up a root beer and turned on the
television. As it warmed up I smiled, thinking back on the hours I had
spent happily watching the "boob tube". This would surely be
a relief. I took a sip of my soft drink as the picture
came on. They were showing JFK's limousine coming around from
behind the sign in Dealey Plaza, Dallas. Spurting out root
beer, I switched the TV off before the inevitable happened.
Damn! So much for TV. What next? Ahh, the
good old radio. I tuned in to an oldies station, figuring that
some good old music would cheer me up. I could hear Martha Reeves
and the Vandellas singing "Got Nowhere to run to baby,
Nowhere to hide". I switched the radio off.
I realized I was going through what my college psychology books labeled
'The Seven Steps People Go Through When They Receive The Invitation To
Go To A Reunion'.
You see, when I first got the invitation letter, I flew instantly into what
the book refers to as "Step One: Horrified Panic". I stood
in the entranceway to my house, sweating and stammering. A reunion!
Who the hell would want to go to see the assholes that I went to
high school with? Why?!! WHYYYYYYY!!!!
This was too much for my brain to process so I lurched, shakily, into
"Step Two: Lily-Livered Denial". I told myself that
this wasn't really happening. No-o-o. Maybe this letter was for
another Warmheart, I thought. But the address was for
me. The denial step was a failure right from the get-go.
I had to move to Step Four. No, Step Three. I hadn't gone
through Step Three yet. But what the heck was Step Three
again? I panicked for a moment until I found my college psych book.
Shaky fingers searched the dog-eared pages until I found it. Step
Three, Step Three....oh yes. Here it was. "Step Three:
Trying To Get Out Of It."
That was it! The answer to all of my problems. I could just not go. Instant relief flooded
through my body, like a summer rain giving water to a dried up creek bed.
But wait, I told myself, anxiety mounting yet again. As they had my address, they surely knew where I lived.
If I didn't show up to be Hugh Jass' little Wedgie Boy, they would all get in
their cars and come here. I had to rule out the idea of just not
going.
What other
options did I have? I could move. Yes, that was it.
I could move away where they would never find me. But where
would I go? I had to think and think fast. I could go live
in a cabin in the wilderness like Daniel Boone. When they finally
tracked me down, they would find a hardened country man, wrestling a bear or
fighting Indians. But that was no good. I didn't know the
first thing about living in the wilderness and anyway I always get Poison
Oak the second I go into it.
I snapped my fingers. I
could feign illness and when they showed up, they would have no option but
to leave me alone. But no, even in school I was never
good at that. Whenever I would feign illness in class and ask to go
see the nurse, the teacher would just tell me to knock it off and sick some
of the class bullies on me. Step Three was about as
successful as the other steps. The problem with Step Three, I've
since decided, is that you don't have enough time to come up with
clear headed ideas, such as just not going and converting your house
into an armed fortress.
Okay, Step Four was the one I was looking forward to: "Maniacal
Anger." I looked forward to it because I knew that if I could get
angry enough, I could carry the anger forward to the reunion itself and
perhaps scare some of the bullies that I knew awaited me even now.
In hindsight, it occurs to me that I tried to move to that step too soon.
I wasn't really angry yet, was really still in denial, so when I picked
up that coffee cup and threw it at the window, all it did was bounce off.
It didn't even break.
So, I skipped that step and moved to a crucial step, good old
"Step Five: Trying To Figure Out What Kind Of Personality To
Adopt For The Reunion". Step Six (Half-Baked Suicide
Attempts) and Step Seven (Tearful, Shameful Acceptance) were just going to
have to wait and if I played my cards right, maybe I could just avoid both
of those grisly steps.
What personality to adopt? I had to laugh at this because I had
spoken to people who had attended class reunions. They had done goofy
stuff like rent a Mercedes Benz to act as if they had become huge successes.
But that never worked because how many classmates happened to be in the
parking lot when they pulled up and got out of their cars? Only a few.
Others launched into incredible training programs to - in the space of weeks
- lose the beer bellies or fat thighs they had accumulated over years.
But what about me? What personality for me?
I did the only thing I could do. I went shopping and spent all the
money I had, and then some, on clothes. I guess it's fortunate
that the man I look up to the most, Joey da Icepick Wiseheart, happened to
drop in for a visit when I was trying on one of the outfits I had purchased.
Standing at my door was the man who had guided me through many of the
darkest periods of my life.
"Wiseheart!", I cried. Here was the man who would help
me through this crisis. Instead, he took one look
at me and almost fell off the porch steps laughing.
I had thought
that being a gangster would scare my classmates into taking it easy on me so
I was wearing a fedora, a black suit with white stripes and a white tie.
I was practicing an evil sneer. This just made him laugh all the
harder. He didn't say a single word. He just turned
and walked to his car laughing every step of the way. Finally,
and none too soon, he got in and drove off. So much for my dear
friend Wiseheart.
I knew it was time to move ahead through the seven steps. I thought about what a failure
I'd been with the other steps and wisely decided against the suicide
step. It would just make me feel worse to fail there.
It was time to skip on to "Step Seven: Tearful, Shameful Acceptance".
I was going to go to the reunion. I was going to be despised and
bullied. I was
going to come home sobbing.
On the night of the reunion, I again had the feeling of climbing the steps
to the gallows. As I drove across town to the restaurant where it was
going to be held, a movie played in my mind of the Hugh Jass inflicted
wedgies sure to come
that night. In defense, I had purposely worn very loose fitting
underwear just for the occasion. As I sat at a red light, I glanced at the
vehicle next to mine. It was a vanload of retarded adults. All
of them were wearing helmets. I had to laugh and found myself
sincerely wishing I were one of them: having fun and laughing, not a
care in the world. Forgetting myself for a moment, I waved. One
of them got animated and pointed, waving back. Soon they were all
waving furiously. I smiled weakly, and drove on.
Finally, here I was, walking from my car across the parking lot of death to
the front door. There were people behind me as I headed towards
that door. I heard the voices of a couple. The man was laughing
just a little too loud and I thought for sure I recognized the voice of Hugh
Jass. Hugh Jass, the worst bully of them all! I froze
inside. I was full of questions. Was it really him?
Why did he have to show up just now? Why couldn't he have come
five minutes earlier or later?
We walked through the door together and I approached a waitress at the
"Please Wait Here To Be Seated" sign. "Three" she
asked, mistakenly thinking that the three of us were there for dinner.
I tried, but couldn't get the words out. Stammering and stuttering, I
said "War.....Warmhot....calss... class..". The man
behind me put a hand on my shoulder and said "We're all here for the
class reunion. Why, it's Warmheart, isn't it?'. I turned
to face the man who had had his hand on the elastic band of my underwear
more often than any person in the world aside from myself. It
was definitely him and
now here he was, just like the old days, trying to lure me into a sense of
false security only to be followed by his horrendous brand of Wedgie, the
kind that would make your nuts shrivel into tiny, useless acorns. As I
looked at Hugh, now overweight, gray and balding, I thought it was
surprising that I ever had a child after his never-ending torment.
And just as of old, his hand was extended as if to shake. What
kind of fool did he take me for?!! Well, I wasn't going to fall for
it this time, mister. I went to shake his hand, but just as he
went for the grasp, I pulled my hand back. The look of surprise
and hurt on his face was one that I'll treasure in my book of memories until
my dying day.
I turned and followed the waitress into what I knew would be the room of
horrors. As we entered that banquet room, I saw two women
sitting at a table. There were two or three couples ahead of me and
the women were talking and laughing with each. They would look through
a pile of stickers and then hand them to the waiting couple. 'O no', I
thought to myself, I am going to have to wear a sticker advertising who I am
to those who might have otherwise forgotten me.
But one of the women, a blonde, looked so familiar to me. I thought
for a moment and it all came back in a flash. It was Julia
Swanson! Beautiful, gorgeous, model-like,
sweep-you-off-your-feet-and-you-never-come-down Julia Swanson.
She certainly had swept me off of my feet in the old school days, but I would always come
down to earth with a crash when she would pass me in the hall and act like I
did not exist. In fact, now that I think of it, whenever she saw
me coming, pie-eyed, she'd always see someone she wanted to talk to behind
me and go racing by me. Sometimes I'd follow her with my eyes as she
went by waving and calling, only to notice that, once past me, she would
just resume her normal walking pace. No one would be there.
And now here she was and as I looked at her, my heart sank.
As I thought of her through the years, I would make myself feel better by
picturing her looking dumpy, with five or six kids and a husband who wore
muscle shirts and drank a lot of beer. But how
wrong I was. She was
still gorgeous and, if anything, the years had made her more beautiful.
More mature somehow. Her hair had grayed slightly, but it only
served to add a look of wisdom and self-assuredness to her. It
was a calm self-assuredness, one that made me fall for her all over again.
As I stood in line waiting for my turn, I pictured in my mind taking a
long walk with her on the beach, spending a weekend with her in a cabin in
the wilderness. She would know what to do in the wilderness.
And so would I, I thought to myself as I started to imagine the goings on in
the cabin. It was one of those male fantasies where reality plays no
part in the picture. As if my wife and Julia's husband would
allow this to happen!
Now it was my turn to approach the table. I came out of my
reverie and froze in panic. Julia Swanson would ignore me
again, just like in school. I would stand there gaping and
drooling like those people in the van I saw on the way to the reunion.
Shit, I thought to myself, I might as well be wearing a helmet.
And, to my unspeakable horror, it happened. Before I could step
up to her, she looked behind me. Smiling and waving, she called out
"Hello Hugh". Hugh's voice came back, trying to be
sweet and sensitive, "Hiya Julia".
I wanted to puke. So that was it! Hugh was doing Julia
Swanson. And this tangled relationship was going on right around
me as I stood there, nervous and sweating. Through it all, I
could hear the voices of all of my teachers telling me "you'll never
amount to anything, Luke Warmheart".
At that moment, I knew that
they all had been right. As I stood there, I realized I was now
going through whatever step it was that meant "Half-Baked Suicide
Attempts". Suicide. I could do commit it right here in front of everyone I'd
always hated. Then they'd see how wrong they were about
me. But I knew I'd just fail and they'd see that they were all right! What could I
do now? Even if I did commit suicide, Hugh Jass would just step
over me and continue talking to the traitorous but beautiful woman who sat
before me.
Then, at the very height of my anxiety, Julia Swanson turned her eyes to me and
she smiled. A real, beautiful, heavy-eyelidded smile.
Her hair seemed softer than any hair I had ever seen. Her lips
were the same kissable ones she had in our school days. She thought
for a moment, and then took my hand, saying "Why, Warmheart. Luke
Warmheart." She stopped and laughed softly. "How nice
to see you after all of these years."
I peed my pants. It was a full on pant peeing the likes of which
I had not seen since I was in kindergarten. Every emotion, every bit
of nerves escaped into my pants in that peeing. Julia looked
down and her mouth opened into a kind of O.
That was the end of
my 30 year reunion. In the space of ten minutes, I had made it to my
car, blazed through the streets of town, and had made it back home.
Terror in the Heart. I locked every door, turned out every light
and sit here now in the darkness. Another twenty years, I am
thinking. I have twenty years to think of a way to explain the pant
peeing episode. Yes, I tell myself with a bit of relief. I
have twenty long years to get myself ready for the terror in the heart
of my class' fifty year reunion.
Well, there was always trusty, playful Fido. I knew he would make
me forget that I would soon, once again, be Wedgie Boy. I went
to the backyard and called. He came running around the corner at full
speed and made a lunge for me. At the last moment, I turned my back and
his teeth clamped down on the elastic band of my underwear. As
he hit the ground I think my voice shot up high enough to make Minnie
Ripperton jealous.