Haunted

"And then what?"

Michelle and I are squished into a booth in a tiny Lebanese deli and I'm updating her on recent events.

"I had a panic attack."

She puts her head in her hands. "Of course you did. How bad was it? Was it one where you needed one of the bags? What was going on?" 

"Mostly kissing. And it wasn't that bad. I didn't need a bag. I just needed to . . . I don't know. Slow things down. Think rationally for a second."

"Oh, honey. The last thing you needed to do was keep thinking." She pauses. "I love you, but you're just a mess."

"But a good mess right? You know, like how I strive to be sort of charmingly crazy rather than don't-stir-that-pot-of-crazy crazy? Can I be a funny, smart mess? A mess who's also a good writer and a fantastic baker and pretty generally has her life together? Maybe a mess that you wouldn't be, I don't know, completely disappointed you spent the night with when you woke up the next morning?"

"You want stuffed grape leaves?"

"I hate you."

***

Here, in no particular order are some things that scare me.

Confined spaces. Heights. Being touched by strangers. That whatever guy I'm with is secretly a serial killer and I'm about to done in in some horrible, gruesome, Dexter-esque way. Anything jumping out at me. The Redneck Pain Family from Cabin in the Woods. The monsters from Hush. Basically anything Joss Whedon has ever created with the intention of scaring the shit out of you. The Exorcist. The Blair Witch Project. Walking down empty streets alone in the middle of the night. Anyone chasing me in any context ever (which is amplified when they have a chainsaw). 

That seems like enough for now.

***

I have two really bad moments in the haunted house. 

Haunted houses are emphatically not my thing. I like a good scare, yeah, absolutely. But I have a terrible startle reflex, so jumpy things and I are not the best match. I don't watch movies where things pop out of nowhere and I generally avoid haunted houses this time of year. 

But it's a dear friend's bachlorette party and I'm trying to be a good sport, so I agree "Yes, a haunted house sounds like fun!" all the time thinking "Oh my God. The last time I was at a haunted house I was twelve years old, got separated from my family, and was so scared I peed my pants. This is going to be bad."

I drink almost nothing all day and go to the bathroom four times before we get in line. 

Things start to fall apart when we board the hayride to take us out to the haunted house and are informed "Our monsters will touch you. You may not touch them."

Oh shit. 

We make it through the hayride with me squeezing myself into the middle of the wagon and pulling my hat down over my eyes and generally avoiding everything going on around me, which is a cacophony of bangs and screams and random people in costumes jumping on the wagon and ohmygodthere'saredneckpainfamilymemberstrokingmyback. 

Despite the fact that I can't stop screaming, this is not one of the bad moments. 

Jess is good enough to walk next to me and hold my hand over the next forty minutes. She takes the brunt of the attention, but there are still people jumping out and touching me every three to three and a half minutes.

Eventually, we're trying to get into some dark building and someone walks up behind me and starts stroking the back of my neck. 

As we were walking in, I had given myself a pep talk. "None of this," I told myself "is real. You are in control of how you react to this. These are human beings and if they see you start crying or you ask them to stop touching you they'll have some compassion."

False. 

The guy stroking the back of my neck just won't quit, not even after I shout "Stop fucking touching me!" 

So I throw an elbow. 

This guy is also apparently, a member of the Redneck Pain Family, because this just makes him lean in closer and start whispering in my ear, something typically reserved for people who spend the night. I'm freaking and Jess yanks me forward. 

***

"So," Michelle asks, after the grape leaves have arrived. "Why the panic attack?"

I play with my food for a little while and don't answer.

"Oh, Kels. Was it the serial killer thing again? You need to talk to someone about that."

"I do not need to talk to someone about it! We grew up in Milwaukee while Jeffery Dahmer was still at large. Our brains hadn't finished forming yet, I think it's perfectly reasonable that it scares the shit out of me."

"I've told you this before. You're not" she pauses here for emphasis, as if I don't already know what she's about to say "a gay man. As such, that particular fixation is not reasonable."

"It's not just Dahmer! It's the whole thing, the whole serial killer thing." Her eyebrows go up. "Shut up. I was reasonably confident he was not a serial killer and that was not what was making me panicky." 

"So what was it?"

I give her the Cliff Notes version, the same thing I've told two other people, one of whom was my therapist. I tell her and despite the fact that she's been my closest friend for fifteen years, it's really, really hard. She, not one for physical affection, gives me the last grape leaf. "Oh, honey." 

***

I do all right for the remainder of the haunted house, holding it together through a room where the walls are soft, black, weighted, and literally pressing in on you and through strobe-lit corn mazes and on and on. It's the last maze, the one with the black walls, black hallways, and no lights where I dig in my heels and say "No. No. Nononononononono. I can't do this." I get tugged forward and the next thing I know I'm in a long, dark, hallway. 

The are two men in masks running straight at me. From opposite directions. With chainsaws. 

There are moments in your life where the rational side of your brain checks out. Where the calm, reasonable, thoughtful person you've always thought you were goes out for lunch without you. Say, when someone you love calls you and says "I never want to see you again." Or when you're kissing some devastatingly cute guy and you flash back to the last time you were kissing some good-looking guy and how that ended. 

Or when there are two people representing one of your worst, most archetypal fears chasing you down a dark hallway lit only with strobe lights. 

Jess can feel actually feel my fight-or-flight-response kick in. When we finally got out of this damn place she said "I knew you were going to bolt, that you weren't thinking clearly, and that you were going to get lost. Alone. That would have ended badly." She screams at me "Pull it together, Prosen!" 

I close my eyes. We run.

***

Michelle and I pay our bill and step outside the restaurant. In the open air of the street she finally asks.

"Panic attacks . . ."

"Attack. I only had one. And it was short."

"Panic attack aside, how was it?"

I just smile.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your poker face sucks. I knew the second you stepped out of your car." 

I hug her. "I knew you knew. That's why I told you the rest of it." I pause "I'm just afraid . . ."

"Nope." She shushes me. "Don't even go there." Then she hugs me back. "Way to . . . you know . . . face your fears. We'll get you to watch The Exorcist yet."

"Actually," I brighten up a little. "I'm going to a haunted house at the end of the month."

"I'm so, so sorry for whoever is going with you."

I jingle my keys as I'm getting into my car. "I don't know. I've got a good feeling about this one."