Bathroom Monologue: Ghost Culture

I've never enjoyed waking up early. My body just did it to me, as it did a lot of things to me in my childhood, which is why I had to live in the Special Wing. No one else in the bunks was awake, so I sat up and pulled my blanket over my head, turning myself into a human tent. I don't remember when I started doing it, only that from my earliest memories, it felt better than lying in bed. It's like a denial of the day, or at least a stay of execution.

My bunk shifted with as someone else climbed on. I tensed up, afraid an orderly would chastise me for not sleeping, but this girl lifted the foot of my covers. She was no older than I was, with spindly arms and legs and splattered with freckles, and perched there, draping the end of blanket over her head as though mimicking me. Like everything other kids did back then, I thought she was making fun of me, even when she spoke.

"I like playing ghosts, too."

Bathroom Monologue: Exorcising Mother

It’s still surprising Mom lived so long. She was a sweet lady, always donated to UNICEF and Make-A-Wish. She worked as a maid at one of the Chicago Hyatts for thirteen years, and again at the Radisson for eighteen more. She cleaned rooms, folded toilet paper into white roses, and occasionally spiked visitors’ medications or the minibar with untraceable chemicals. As Aunt Theresa put it, she was a prolific but unassuming professional.

When she died, it wasn’t by a hitman. It was liver failure. I was there, bawling my eyes out, and the only assassins to blame were diet and genetics. She’s why I eat so many salads.

She’s also, I think, the reason why all my ex-boyfriends are dead. As far back as I can think, Mom was very supportive of who I was. Dad still doesn’t understand – he thinks I can just like girls if I try hard enough. Mom understood and coaxed me to love who I loved, though she refused to lower her standards. The boys I liked weren’t good enough for her. When I was dating Micah, she actually went to his concert to watch how he behaved. I saw her halfway through his set. She made a little “swish” sign at her neck, which meant I wasn’t seeing him again. Like, romantically again. She didn’t kill him. Heroin killed Micah. I’m pretty sure heroin killed Micah.

It was a month after Mom’s funeral that I noticed a problem. I was with… Jake. It sounds tackier than it was, but Jake was a Canadian brewer hoping to turn full-time hockey player. I know, it’s terrible, but he was so earnest. Or he seemed earnest. Actually, he was an asshole who called that he was sick the morning of Mom’s funeral, and it turns out he was actually drunk with his team. I saw the pics on one of their Facebook Walls. I was so mad, and I was plotting to dump him via that same Facebook Wall when other status updates came in. Jake, who was almost born on ice, had slipped in his shower that night and broke his neck.

I was devastated. Like, Aunt Theresa and my friends thought I was going to kill myself. These two girls from Mom’s church actually drove me to grief counseling sessions, to and from, and took me out to lunch afterward every time. Mom knew really nice people. I mean, except for the mob ties.

It was at one of these sessions that I met Hunter. Hunter. God, I can’t believe I ever dated someone named ‘Hunter,’ and that name hurts twice as bad in retrospect. It turns out he would go these sorts of grieving sessions to prowl for easy lays. I kind of suspected it, but he had the nicest hands I’d ever seen. Hands are a thing. Don’t judge.

Anyway, Hunter tried to sneak out of the house with my wallet and was, by means I still haven’t figured out, decapitated by the screen door. You probably read about it. It was kind of a big deal in the newspapers. I hear it made the front page of Reddit for a minute.

Then there was D’Angelo. He restored vintage cars, and we made out in the back of the only Rolls Royce I’ve ever been in, and a week later a pneumatic press broke and the Rolls fell on him. And then Gustav and Aleksei, who I wasn’t really in a thing with, but they both fell through the same patch in the ice. I remember them because right before my cell rang, I swear I saw Mom in my mirror. She looked like she was cleaning the frame.

Am I crazy, or is my mom’s ghost killing all my boyfriends? Dad said he still feels her presence, but I don’t have the balls to ask him if that presence feels like it strangles people. He’s lucky that he doesn’t want to date anymore. It’s also frustrating, because if he would, and those women died, I’d know Mom was looking after me. I mean, stalking after me. Poltergeisting after my sex life, because it isn’t hard enough being gay in America.

It’s super-weird, but I moved twice, and it hasn’t stopped. I could probably get the Match.com people arrested as an accessory at this point. Last week a cute guy cut me off in traffic, and ten minutes later I drove past the smoldering ruins of his car. “Afternoon Delight” was on the radio. That was Mom’s favorite song.

I once saw a psychotherapist to find out if Mom is just a useful delusion, expressing latent telekinetic abilities. What if I was actually killing all of those people with mental powers, and schizophrenically projecting it onto my late mother? The doctor thought this was all a scam to get prescriptions. He’s dead now.

It’s lonely. I mean, I guess Mom is stuck in a homicidal purgatory which is probably pretty lonely. I still have friends, and Aunt Theresa, and Dad, while Mom doesn’t even have Twitter. I’ve tried telling her, and praying to her, and praying to God to maybe finally take her away, but if you believe that omen on the turnpike, it hasn’t taken yet. It feels too harsh to have my mom exorcised, especially just for my sex life. I don’t know. It isn’t fair.

So now I just tell people the truth. Nobody believes my cute maid of a mom is now snapping necks from beyond the grave, and I need this stuff off my chest. I don’t know. What would you do?

Consumed Presents: Paranormal Activity 4

Consumed rises from the grave! I managed to browbeat Max Cantor into joining me for Paranormal Activity 4 this weekend, and we recorded a fresh podcast about it last night.

If you know, you know I love Found Footage flicks. They are my cinematic opium, and Paranormal Activity has been my favorite annual dealer until now. PA4 is nearly incoherent, and Max bravely joins me in diving into how it falls apart, from lack of innovation with their cinematography and scares, to just failing to deliver a plot even though it’s on fictional rails. If you like rants, you’ll enjoy Max swearing he’ll never pay to see the fifth movie. Me? I know I’m doomed to repeat it.

You can download this episode from Consumed’s officialwebsite right here.

If enough listeners enjoy it, we’ll do a bigger retrospective episode on the franchise. It seems only fair to give it some praise, especially with how many times I’ve re-watched the first film.

True Story of John: A Haunting?

I lived in the same house for most of my life. My parents brought me home to it the night I was born, they made pencil marks on a wall as I grew taller, I lay in a bed crippled there are 13, dragged myself to the bathroom and learned to walk again in its halls. It became a ward where I thrived and recovered, and over time I almost convinced myself it loved me back. But eventually Mom had to put it up for sale.

The packing was intense. I spent one entire morning dividing things from my filing cabinets. Near noon I hungered, and because our fridge was unplugged and appliances packed, our only hot meals were takeout. I paused for a moment, looking out my door to Mom’s, which was perpendicular to mine, and so I could see hers was open. Listening, I heard papers rustle in her room, and so I called out.

“Hey Mom, want anything from the deli? I’m thinking about lunch”

I heard the sound of papers being set down, but she didn’t answer. When I called again there was still no reply. I got up and walked over to her door, and found while there were folders on her bed, she wasn’t around. I could see every corner, even the door to her private bathroom. Unless she was hiding the bathroom with the door open, no one was there.

Thinking I must have been mistaken, I returned to my room to get a little more work done. Once Mom returned, I’d ask her what she wanted for lunch. But almost as soon as I opened my desk drawers, I heard the distinct sound of someone walking into Mom’s bathroom.

I called one more time, something to the effect of, “Hey, Mom?”

Water began running through the pipes. My sister was downstairs doing laundry, and the laundry room was relatively close to our hall, just a flight down, yet I could swear I heard water running through the pipes into Mom’s room. As I walked toward her bathroom, the sound of water in the pipes stopped, though continued faintly downstairs. I checked through the open bathroom door and saw that it was empty; the window was closed, and the shower stall open and vacant. The sink was dry, making me doubt my hearing. I looked around impotently, for there was no other way in or out of her bathroom than through this door.

A little while later, back in my room, I heard water running through the pipes again, and this time the inclusion of water splashing in her bathroom sink. When I yelled for her, no one responded, and I went straight for her bathroom. The sink was off, but now it was wet. I put my hand to it, just to make sure.

When I asked my sister, she had no idea and seemed unnerved by the story. We’d been alone in the house. Mom arrived home some time later; she’d driven out for some moving-related errands. She had no idea what I’d been hearing, and joked that the house was going to miss me.

I don’t think our house was haunted, or that it had gone sentient and messed with me on my last days of residence. I do wonder about it, though, from time to time.