It was that time of year were the calendar had reached fall, but the weather, despite a few glimpses, hadn’t quite received the memo. The trees still had all their leaves but were speckled with copper and gold, like a painter used their thumb to fling paint across the canvas. When days stay summer, but nights remind you that the earth is slowly shifting to hide from the sun. This is my favorite time of year because it always comes paired with Halloween, and Halloween is always lead up to with something I’ve loved since I can remember: haunted houses. If I looked back to the previous year, I was spending my time with someone who had a knack for selfishly ruining things that were special to me, but this isn’t about her. This is about her.
“Should I bring a hoodie?” I asked her as we got out of the car. “You think you’re gonna get cold?” she posed as a question back, but we both knew it was the answer to mine. We were both unsure of what it felt like outside even though we were standing in it. The temperature had dropped, yet the humidity in the air was heavy, you could feel its weight with every step, the kind of humidity you don’t walk through, you wade through. I grabbed the hoodie and threw it on anyway. I should have listened to her: she was right. She knows me in a way that a childhood friend would not the details of your life but the details of your personality, the wants and needs you have in the world around you. It’s a comfort I’ve seldom felt from another.
No matter how old I get, the potential of a haunted house will always bring a boyish excitement to me. The fog machine kicking on with a subtle “whoooosh” as you walk on to what feels like a movie set filled with monsters, each one breaking the fourth wall to immerse you in their storyline. A musty basement and latex mask smell mixed together. The kind of smells that are as welcomed as they are unpleasant, they seem to reach in and grab your lungs. Layers of screams laced throughout the entire building, some faint in the distance as an anxious preview of what’s to come, some as though they are right in your ear like an AED shock to your heart. This year I was eager to share in that together. This wasn’t just a love of mine but a love of ours.
We shuffled through the gravel and mud to get our tickets, desperate for separation from the port-a-potty farm that had been set up at the entrance, almost like someone’s unfunny joke to make every participant experience the foulness.
“Doesn’t seem too busy, I don’t think we don’t need the fast pass. It’s an extra ten dollars a ticket.”
“Yea, that parking lot was empty.”
We didn’t feel the need to rush our night, whatever was to unfold we were just happy to have a night together.
Walking to the line, we had no idea of the 2-hour fate that was ahead of us. I grabbed a bottle of Coke, not knowing we would end up sharing and rationing it like we were on a lifeboat adrift at sea. We went through the zig-zag ropes at a painfully slow pace. The standing and cooler air had started to reign hell on our bodies, reaching a point where we took turns leaning on each other. I found that I didn’t hate it. We were often busy, and it seemed our alone time leading up to this night was usually half a tv show as we both faded and sunk into the couch upholstery. It was nice to talk about life for a little bit; I think we both needed to catch up and lay out worries we had so that the other could give their input. No matter how frantic I feel about life she has this way of getting in tune with me. She’s like Ms. Frizzle driving the Magic School bus through the highway of electrical impulses firing in my frontal lobe. Sometimes my thoughts can get away from me and compound stress like Lego blocks following no particular pattern. My mind can be an unstoppable force, but if that’s true, she’s the immovable object.
“They all got that Gen-Z haircut,” she said as we found ourselves accepting the passing of the generational torch. I guess it’s our time to roll our eyes at the boisterous youth. It was a group of young teenagers that seemed to be carbon copies of each other. I guess it’s become our turn to be the cranky, tired old people in line, in denial that we were once victims to the trends. The haircut she’s referring to, a permed style that the internet refers to as “broccoli hair.” That is just their version of blonde highlighted spiky hair. A style I rocked years ago when I had hair to style.
We reached a point of impatience, like I’m sure everyone in that line did, but it wasn’t miserable. Instead, we just laughed about it and at one point I said to her, “O shit, I think the line is moving too fast now. I’m not trying to exercise.” She smiled with a faux reluctance as she often does at my humor. It doesn’t seem to leave her face, that smile. “I know I got a resting bitch face”, she often says, but I haven’t seen it. Every time I look at her, she’s smiling; she claims that’s experience exclusive to me, though. I would say I’m lucky then. She’s really a sight to behold. The biggest brown eyes you’ve ever seen, something a caricature artist would struggle to exaggerate, and a smile that doesn’t hide anything of what’s behind it, peaked on both sides with pierced dimples.
While brutally slow the line eventually did lead us to the front of the haunted house. We navigated through the dark rooms with a faint but consistent nervous laughter, not sure if we were eager or afraid of what will come around the next corner. Holding each other’s hands, despite the fear-laced sweat turning them into a clammy mess. It was as if we were desperate for a lifeline to reach the end and found that in each other.
It wasn’t until our night reached it waning hour and we were driving home that I realized waiting in line with her was what I spent my money on. The creaky animatronic beasts aren’t what I came to see; I came here to stand in line next to her. I would only be so lucky to be able to be the one that gets to stand with her in every line. I came here to learn what it’s like to be happy in the presence of someone even in an aggravating circumstance. I came here to almost cleanse myself of the feeling I was used to in other similar situations with another person, that feeling of being surrounded by hypodermic needles all a dime’s thickness away from every inch of your skin to the point that any wrong movement would end with pain.
We grow to realize that waiting in is a finite venture, as is the story of our life. They seem to be almost Shakespearean the way they play out, acts along the way filled with a multitude of characters all important in the place they take but there’s some that are crucial to who we are. You don’t get to write the ending, and you’ll spend forever trying to figure out if that’s a blessing or a curse. I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait, but If I have to get in line, I’m glad it’s with her.
