Imagination running wild
Horrifying experiences rekindled in dreams
I had a nightmare when I was a
kid. We’d hear over the radio, some
how it was always over the radio,
bad news spoken by that articulate
and disembodied voice I k new from
the nights when I and my family
woufi^ cower in the neighbor’s base
ment listening to the weather re
ports and waiting for the tornado to
bury us all under the debris of their
house. There is something very
“nighttime" about the voice of the
radio in my dreams.
And in my dreams we would
hear the bad news: a mad wolf, a
raving lunatic from the asylum that
all small town kids dream down the
road, a gang of vicious bikers had
escaped, been sighted, were com
ing our way.
We’d racearound the giant house
of my dreams, locking and bolting
the doors and windows, only to
C:~A . i— i i i._a_.i__
l/wii waouiawn, u ic.
Iasi piece of furniture piled against
the door that we had, true to the
cartoon logic of my childhood
dreams, locked the terror inside the
house — just like in all the bad
spooky stories in the world.
I dreaded these dreams and the
endless games of hide and seek
with unspeakable evil, always ap
pearing in the room with you, al
ways miraculously escaped th rough
the secret passages we knew or
discovered or sensed everywhere:
trap door leading to trapdoor until
you would have wondered if this
house had any structural supports,
any true walls at all, had you not
been dreaming.
1 lad 1 not been dreaming and all
in a panic too.
There is no way to convey the
horror these dreams inspired in me
without seeming comic. The dreams
themselves were comic, the villains
regenerated, I fell from terrific
heights, the house was endless.
In my waking hours I compen
sated for whatever insecurities in
spired my dreams with day dreams
I could more easily direct. There
were always surprises in the good
ones, but pleasantenough surprises,
twists of pathos that I might never
have purposefully introduced.
In most of them I was all power
ful. Sometimes it was an eerie mas
tery of technology that gave me the
edge I considered adequate—total
control of others and material ob
jects.
In other day dreams, it was more
simple and direct magical power
that set me above my peers.
In any case there was very little
l cuuiu nui uu in my uwn imagine
lion and in the daylight.
Fortakingonoverweeningpow
ers by day I payed at night in sweat
and terrors. I could hardly take out
the ga rbage a fter su ndown without
running two thirds of the way.
Something I saw in the bushes or
leering over the fence made me
shiver, p^jll away, stash the trash
under the porch for later — to be
forgotten.
1 had a horror of all living things
other than cats and dogs, the
domestilicd, pathetic creatures. The
sight — even the suspicion of a rat
put me in a panic to get away.
I felt superior to houseflies be
cause they held no terrors, 1 could
trap and kill them savorily. But 1
had nightmares even about butter
flies, lest they touch me.
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k
1 wanted to be Kal F.l, lost boy
from space who, adopted by the
kindly Kents, grows to discover he
is really Superboy — only no one
knew to tell him.
I wanted heat-ray vision and an
invulnerable cape to swaddle my
self in to protect me from the infer
nal flares of the surface of the sun.
I wanted to be protector. I was a
smart boy and 1 wanted my smarts
to count for something in a world
where footballspiralsandthespeed
to run the bases were the things
that really mattered. I wanted even
to be above all that, to have to hold
back in the games children played
so as not to betray my true secret
identity. And my terrible burden.
Praise meant nothing to me. 7!ie
truth is, I had by then a monster of
ego that I would not be content
until all the world bowed before
me. I did not want to say, Why
thank you. I wanted to say, Rise my
people, do not fear me, l am your
god.
It was a strange childhood.
But l think now not so strange as
all that. There were many boys, less
fortunate in their imaginations than
I.
- it
/ felt superior to
houseflies because
they held no terrors,
I could trap and kill
them savorily. But /
had nightmares even
about butterflies, lest
they touch me.
-*♦ -
I, who pored over the deeds of
Superman, Batman andSpiderman.
They were pimpled, for the most
part, white boys with older broth
ers. They had red hair and some of
them wore glasses. They touched
themselves in secret and felt ter
rible fear and shame over the imag
ined consequences, and then went
back to looking at the brightly
colored comics and the glossy girly
magazines.
Don’t be surprised that I lump
them together, comic books were a
form of pornography, allowinglitlle
boys the luxury of violent, often
gruesome, lingering death.
Both skin mags and comics had
to be hidden from your parents.
Both were sweated over and read
until they fell to pieces. And not a
few comic pages were stuck to
gether permanently by a young
boy’s overenthusiasm for some
scantily clad super heroine.
Wehad no power, even over our
young bodies. And we desperately
wanted power — Power to change
the world, to make it safe for lesser
people. And babes, we wanted
babes. But we wanted them after
we had the power, otherwise they
would be terrifying.
But if we couldn’t have it, we
could identify ourselves with those
who did.
It is for this reason that so many
pubescent children are so touch
ingly devoutly religious. They have
an instinct to ally themselves with
power. It is not lost on children
either, that there is something sexy
in religion, there is an Elvis quality
to Jesus, or the jesus figure, perse
cuted though in the right and com
ing to wreak terrible vengeance in „
the future.
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