Yesterday, I was rooting around through a bagful of old photos when I found this old gem of me, my brother Ryan and our mom at Kennywood in probably 1986 or so.

I don’t know what happened to the lady in that photo, but I haven’t seen her in a long time.

I guess because it was so soon after Mother’s Day, but it really hit me hard. How did I go from having some semblance of a relationship with my mom to literally nothing at all? I mean, we have no contact. None. I even asked my brother Corey if she ever asks him about me or Chooch and he said no.

She literally doesn’t even ask.

I don’t really know what I’m getting at here. I’m not exactly pining for her, if we’re going to be frank about it. I know that I’m better off without her, and Chooch is DEFINITELY better off without her. (This is the lady whose response to my question of, “Why don’t you ever tell me that you love me?” was “Because you didn’t tell me first!”) But that doesn’t eradicate the confusion I feel about the whole situation and how shitty it feels when you realize that you are literally worthless and disposable to the very woman who brought you into this world. I guess I just want to know why. What changed? What happened to her? I mostly do OK with living my life and not dwelling on this, but holidays—and the accidental nostalgia binge—always trigger my neurotic obsessing and rehashing.

And while I was having a wonderful Mother’s Day with my kid and Henry and his mom, I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of a day my own mom was having — did she sit around and pity herself because she got one less card celebrating her as a “mom”? Does she understand that other women throughout the years have taken it upon themselves to step up and fill that void in my life?

Does she even notice that I’m not around?

And what if this is a glimpse into my future? What if this is the kind of mom Chooch is going to grow up to have? What if I can’t stop it?! During dinner on Mother’s Day, Chooch randomly broke down into tears and wailed (and I mean WAILED), “You didn’t even like the Christmas present I got you!!” which is complete bullshit, and maybe this was spurned by the fact that he was so fucking tired, but you know what? I realized that I couldn’t even remember what he got me for Christmas. Am I just as horrible as my own mom? Because I sure as fuck felt like it at that particular moment.

Maybe I’m not some little kid who needs a mom, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be kind of nice to have one.  I guess my point is, if you have a mom who gives you the time of day, give her a fucking hug every now and again. And an extra one for me, too.

(You think this was whiny? You should have heard me crying about my pinched nerve at work all day!)

Thanks to the Timehop app, I am reminded of the time 5 years ago that I tried to spearhead a new fashion revolution. (I am also reminded that my tweets were way better than they are these days.) Here are the tweets to back it up.

• 2:44PM: Wrapped a polka-dotted scarf around my ankle. Henry said it looks real dumb. Hope it catches on.
• 3:19PM: I hope people will think I tried to slit my ankle.
• 6:36PM: Kim (my supervisor) just pointed at my anklace (HAHA) and said, “What r u trying to be, Sha-Na-Na?” and I died. Except that I still live.
• 6+:36PM: Or ankerchief?!!?
• 6:49PM: Henry, who was 1/2 asleep when I left for work, just emailed me and asked “Were u dressed weird when u left?” IT’S NOT WEIRD ITS AWESOME.

I think that fashion statement needs reinstated.

Other brilliant things that I invented which failed to catch on:

Saying whatevelyn instead of whatev. (I still say this though.)

Referring to the year 2008 as “two thousand double quad, y’all.”

Revolutionary War porn.

The best game ever: Thingieball.

(Apparently, that same day, I was also trying to get kidnapped, but couldn’t decide between an alley at midnight or smeared with the scent of trust fund at a truck stop. God, my life could have been so different right now if I had stopped dreaming and started DOING.)

Today is Chooch’s (and my phantom C-section incision pain’s) 7th birthday and I can hardly believe it. SEVEN! I hope that things continue to go up, because six was a not-so-bad age (as opposed to every single year that came before it). His little bitch ass temper tantrums have all but died out (probably because he’s moved on to more sophisticated ways to make us miserable) and his interests have certainly broadened. Six was the age he could finally start riding some of the bigger rides at amusement parks (obviously a very big deal for me and me alone), he went to his first wedding and his first concert (Pierce the Veil, whaddup!) and also started to really get The Walking Dead — before he was only interested in the zombie parts, but now we have these long, meaningful conversations about the characters and what we think will happen, and it’s really awesome because it’s something we do without Henry so then we get to say things like, “Ha-ha, Henry doesn’t know what we’re talking about because he sucks and doesn’t watch The Walking Dead. He probably wouldn’t understand it anyway.” And then Henry frowns.

Six was the year of “Call Me Maybe” dance parties and crossbows. Of starting a new school with normal people where he flourishes and is able to be himself with no judgment from all the prudent Catholic moms. Of making secret friends and going to haunted houses.

Six was a sweet age and I’m really looking forward to see what entertainment seven will bring!

And now here is a gratuitous photo montage of Chooch as a 6-year-old for you to enjoy while I go lay in bed and cry because if he is seven then that means I am OLD OMG CRISIS.

(This was technically a week before his 6th birthday, sue me.)

Zombie party!

Photobombing Andrea’s photoshoot.

At Conneaut.

Annoyed with me.

Oh Jesus Christ, our first attempt at a photoshoot without Henry there to supervise. Disastrous.

Pissed off at me at Lakemont Park.

First day of 1st grade!

Another disastrous photoshoot.

Everyone and their creepy dentist says that Chooch LOOKS JUST LIKE HENRY OMG and that’s fine, I’ve come to terms with that because Chooch has brought home 100%s on every single spelling test he’s had this year and he sure as shit doesn’t get THAT from Henry. That’s a tradeoff I’ll take, thanks.

One of the biggest things I’ve learned since becoming a parent is to just let the kid be himself. I’m sure there are people frowning down on me for letting him watch horror movies and speak freely (to this day he still NEVER swears in school and in public, or around his grandma, but we let him get away with it at home because after all, they’re just words & it’s not like it’s a Tarentino screenplay up in here), but I think it’s important to not have a super tight grasp on him. He is his own person and I’m proud of that. He might be a little smart ass, but he has a big heart. For example, when Henry took him to get cookies to take to school for his birthday, he got chocolate chip but then made sure to get butterfly ones for the girls. HE IS SUCH A LADIES MAN.

Happy birthday, Chooch! Here’s to another year full of photoshoots that increase your resentment for me! And also hopefully your first WARPED TOUR HOLY FUCK GET STOKED!

Today I was walking home from taking Chooch to school when it occurred to me that I have officially lived more of my life without my Pappap than with him. It hit me like a load of bricks.

I found this shop on Etsy where this lady transfers photos onto slide film, tucks them into these glass bubbles and hangs them from a necklace. I knew immediately that I had to buy one and I started thinking of all the photos I’d want her to incorporate, and while it’s not some nice, studio portrait of my pappap, I knew exactly which one HAS to be immortalized in glass.

I wrote this in 2008, but I’m reposting it today because it’s one of my all-time favorite childhood memories and because, almost thirty years later, I am still that amused and giddy little girl over the stupidest things, like when the lady who collects the “last mail” from our department came from the opposite direction a few weeks, or finding out Henry was in THE SERVICE and had a door that led to the basement in one of his apartments. (Don’t ask.) So while it seems like nothing has been the same since my pappap died in 1996, I guess some things haven’t changed one bit.

————————–

When you’re a little kid, the smallest happenings can seem like these life-stopping newsworthy events and you sit there with your mouth agape and your eyes so wide and grip the edge of your seat, waiting with bated breath to see what will happen.

Everything is a big deal when you’re a kid.

I was probably around four or five when my Pappap came home from work with the mail. It was a summer afternoon, so I was on the back patio, probably with either my grandma or my aunt Sharon. My Pappap rifled through the mail and noticed that his youngest daughter Susie had a letter.

He called up to her on the sunroof, and she shouted for him to try and toss it up.

I remember sitting on a lawn chair, their lawn chairs had these taut vinyl slats in varying shades of green and white but sometimes the skin on my thighs would graze the scalding metal of the frame in between the slats and I would get tiny welts. I’m sitting on this lawn chair, playing chicken with the fiery metal, and thinking, just knowing, that this wasn’t going to pan out the way Susie would have liked.

I watched as my Pappap tried to toss the letter against the wind, hoping to get enough momentum that it would skim the top of the ledge, but instead it fell back and skidded straight into the gutter.

My Pappap had to throw himself into full MacGyver throttle in order to rescue her precious letter, subscription notice, credit card bill. Who knows what it was. But even after he mounted a patio table and used the aid of scissors to guide the envelope from the dastardly clutches of the gutter, Susie still had to exert a modicum of energy to lean down and grab it.

And I’m watching this, from the green and white vinyl slats of the lawn chair, thinking that I’m a part of something big, something huge, a memory that we’ll all share together and laugh about at holidays. And everyone else went about their day, because things like this, they’re not enough to fill an adult with giddiness. They’re glitches in regularly scheduled programs, they’re “oopsies” moments that evoke a few chuckles but then get lost in the back of the mind while bills are being paid and the news is being watched, until the memory is eventually eradicated altogether. But not kids. Kids retain these things and latch on to them and call upon these tiny moments when they need something to smile about. Kids revel in it and wish everyone had seen it and kids inflate it into something so much bigger, larger than life. It becomes real life Saturday morning cartoons.

I don’t remember what the damn letter ended up being, or who it was that shared enough of my sentiments to treat this as the Kodak moment it truly was, and I don’t think we ever reminisced and hyucked about it over turkey legs and sweet potato pie, but I know that every time I see this picture, I laugh and remember being so small and watching something so big.

Even on the days when I hate Henry with the burning passion of a million Snooki’s kookas, I can listen to this song and all of a sudden it is 2001 and I’m falling in love with his dumb ass all over again. Ugh. I used to listen to this album all of the time when I was with the Boyfriend Before Henry, and while I always loved this song the best, but it never meant anything until I met Henry.

Too bad we will never get TO DANCE TO IT AT OUR WEDDING. It’s OK. I’m getting used to the idea of being the pedestrian Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell of Pittsburgh, PA.

(Henry said they broke up, but I swear I just saw a picture of them in US Weekly, swimming with dolphins. The closest thing to swimming with dolphins I’d ever get from Henry would probably be wading furiously amongst dead Yinzers, syringes and car parts in one of our crappy rivers. You know, because Henry spoils me so.)

I snatched The Devil & God Are Raging Inside Me off the shelf last weekend when I was looking for something to listen to in the car. I forgot how fantastic this entire album is — no, that’s not true. I just forgot about how much I loved it. As soon as it started playing, it was like 2006/2007 smacked me square in the face with a frying pan, but it kind of felt good.

I listen to music like this and am reminded how lucky we are to not have to rely on the shit that the radio spoonfeeds us.

It was March of 2004. Christina and I had been e-friends for almost a year by then and I finally decided I would make the 4+ hour drive to Cincinnati to visit her. Henry made sure I had directions (printed out from MapQuest—it was 2004! No GPS, no smartphones. Not like I would have used that shit anyway. I’m directionally stubborn like a man), snacks, water and an encouraging “You can do this!” hug and a kiss. Meanwhile, I made sure I had the Important Stuff: MUSIC.

Again, this was 2004, so I didn’t have any mp3 players that plugged into my car or even a CD player that played mp3 CDs. The horror! This was “old-school” 80-minute mix CDs days. I filled a blank CD with a bunch of music that I had recently (legally) acquired but hadn’t really had a chance to listen to yet. My all-time favorite Metric song was on that CD (“Siamese Cities”), some tracks from Open Hand, Murder By Death, Armsbendback, Acceptance and even a yacht rock throwback (Ambrosia).

Even though Henry printed out a play-by-play list of directions and a map and explicitly told me, “Just stay on 70 west forever,” I still managed to get navigationally fucked. Why? Because I’m a fucking idiot and can’t follow directions. I can fly to Australia on my own without a hitch, but drive across Ohio on my own? That’s a real map for disaster. I was about 2 1/2 hours into the trip when I saw an exit sign that corresponded with the exit in the directions. It was same exit number*, and it even said “Cleveland / Cincinnati” like the directions said, except it said “77 N” instead of “I-270.” I panicked and took it, figuring that maybe 77 and 270 were the same road. Because why couldn’t that be possible? ROADS ARE CONFUSING. Still, I had that nagging sensation in my chest telling me to stop driving before I got too far into the unknown. I didn’t have a cell phone back then so I couldn’t call Henry for help every 3 minutes like I do nowadays.

ex: Henry: Tell me what you’re near. Me: A black woman in tall boots.

[* I found out later that it was actually the reverse of the exit number I needed. Driving dyslexia will get you every time.]

I took the next exit I came upon and it landed me in Kimbolton, OH which I also could not find on my map because hey, let’s go to Kimbolton said no one ever. I spotted a BP gas station and pulled over to get help. It may have actually been the very first, original BP it was that rustic. Print-outs in hand, I went inside and ask the older fellow behind the counter if he could show me where I was. Two girls behind me began to laugh. Like, the rude kind of snorting laugh that you do when you’re making fun of someone. I turned around and said, “Yeah I know – I’m retarded. It’s ok, you can laugh.” And then to really illustrate my sarcasm, I let out a dry, staccato ha ha. Instead, they took this opportunity to fucking whisper about me behind my back. I couldn’t believe that they would treat me like shit even after I offered to let them cut ahead of me and pay for whatever crap they were buying. Trying to ignore the demonic voice of Bobcat Goldthwait in my head, telling me to fuck their shit up, I sucked in my breath and asked the old man employee if he could help me get back onto 70. He held my map up to the light, and said, “This map looks like it was printed off that there Internet.” Seriously, he said this. I checked my LiveJournal and that is exactly what I wrote in 2004 so it must be true. I told him that it was and he informed me that it was useless. USELESS.

BLAME HENRY, 2004 EDITION.

Anyhow, when he saw where my final destination was, he exclaimed, “Well, why did you even get off 70 west!?” This made the fucking lot lizards behind me laugh even harder. Omigod guys, I know, right? What a dumb ass I am. Because I drive through Ohio every fucking day. The one girl was wearing two-day-old black eye liner and Wet n Wild fuchsia lipstick, which she probably purchased from the same streetwalker store where she bought her clothes. Her sidekick was pregnant I think, and wearing a belly shirt. Totally classy. I was completely envious of the stains on her clothing and the growth on her lip.

Sighing, I asked the old fuck if he could just tell me how to get back onto 70 west. He looked at me like I asked him to help me count to five and said, “Well, you go 10 miles south!” Well, shit son! Problem is that I had NO IDEA which way was south. Of course, I couldn’t ask him to point me in the right direction, because that would have just given those whores more unnecessary ammo. I pretended to understand, gathered up my useless MapQuest print-outs, and turned to leave.

Except the quasi-pregnant girl was blocking the door. I politely said “Excuse me” and she totally looked the other way. Bitch, best not ignore me! At this point, I had accumulated approximately 25 and a half things to be angry about, and I began envisioning myself ripping her fucking greasy hair out of her ugly fucking head. Instead, the miniscule shard of rationality that I store in the back of my brain surfaced and reminded me that there were two of them, and only one of me. And if we’re sharing secrets, they were really rough looking. I didn’t want my last role in life being some hackneyed-toothed hillbilly’s punching bag, so I took the bitch way out and literally ducked and squeezed between her bloated gut and the door.

Then I went back to my car and indulged myself in a total crybaby sobfest.

Sniffling like a bitch behind the wheel, I managed to find my way back to 70, and decided to take the exit for 70 east and just go the fuck home. I was scared and disoriented, not to mention BORED (driving alone is hard!) I took it out on my snack selection. At one point I even wailed out loud, “Soy Crisps don’t taste so good when I’m driving!”

Eventually, I focused on my music and it was a familial band of Texans called Eisley that got me to calm down. To this day, when I listen to Eisley, I think of that drive and laugh. And then promptly relax. I’m so picky with girl singers, so the fact that I still like Eisley 9 years later really speaks volumes. I can listen to those girls sing all day long. The video at the top of this post is one of my favorite songs ever from them.

Epilogue: A few weeks later, Christina took a Greyhound to Pittsburgh and then we drove back to Cincinnati together. We made a pitstop: A certain decrepit BP station in Kimbolton, Ohio. Those bitches weren’t there though. AND HOW LUCKY THEY WERE.

Janna and I took Chooch to the Mattress Factory when he was around 9 months old. There were acres of dangerously sharp metal installations just waiting to lacerate his precious motherfucking baby skin, but Janna watched out for both of us.

Thank god.

A few weeks ago, Chooch unearthed his very first Halloween costume in his closet, put it on and then surprised me with it. I almost died laughing, seeing his big head shoved through the small opening of a fabric ice cream. It pleased me because he was 6 months old that Halloween and it poured down rain so aside from a quick photo op at my grandma’s house, that costumes was totally wasted. I even considered putting it up on eBay a few times, or giving it to someone who has a baby, but now I’m really glad that I didn’t, because nothing is funnier than someone wearing something that they’re too big for.

One day, he wore it in the backseat of the car and waved to people at red lights.  He’s even considering wearing it for real next Halloween and I will fucking die if he does because I love this costume so much, so yes — PLEASE WEAR IT!

In the meantime, I wanted to do a little photo shoot with him wearing it. The weather was so amazingly warm this weekend, and I couldn’t stop picturing him eating an ice cream cone while wearing an ice cream cone. There’s an ice cream place right down the road from the abandoned building we use for some of our pictures, but we didn’t learn it was closed until we drove all the way out there (only like 30 minutes, but still — Henry’s frown is in full effect over things like this).  We figured McDonald’s was probably our best bet at that point, and remembered that there was one down the street from the closed-down ice cream shop we took pictures at last September.  Even better!

“But does McDonald’s have rainbow sprinkles? No, I don’t think they do. You’ll have to stop at a grocery store on the way and buy some, just in case,” I said, planning ahead.

Henry glared at me.

“What? There HAS to be rainbow sprinkles! I can’t do it without the sprinkles!” I cried. EVERYTHING IS IN THE DETAILS, OK?!

So that was another 25 minutes in the car with Henry who had almost completely shut down verbally by then. I even tried to calm him down by ironically holding his hand. He wasn’t amused.

Rainbow sprinkles procured and a vanilla cone in hand, we drove back to the Twist behind a partially disabled elderly man who cruised along at a pace of about 18 mph, melting the ice cream and our patience.

But we made it with the cone mostly intact! I jumped out of the car and poured the sprinkles on while Chooch stuffed himself in the costume cone.

I positioned him in front of the closed-down ice cream shop and handed him  the severely-dripping cone.

“Vanilla? REALLY? VANILLA? You knew I wanted CHOCOLATE!” he cried.

“Well, McDonald’s only has vanilla,” I muttered, but really — he was getting vanilla no matter where we went. It had to match his costume!

And the rest of it panned out smoothly! Henry and I didn’t even argue. We were only there about 5 minutes before I got what I needed and Henry got to finish Chooch’s cone.

This was right after 2 teenage girls walked by and giggled at Chooch. He was totally angry with me.

He even DANCED for me at the end. You know why? Because that little sucker got paid to do this. I have found that giving him a few bucks is a small price to pay for cooperation and amiability in front of the camera.

God, Henry is totally going to start asking for payment now too.

<3

I never thought I’d say this, but thank god for Flo Rida. Every time I hear “I Cry,” I shush anyone who might happen  to have the audacity to talk over it. I realize that he’s actually sampling a remake of the original song, but I fucking loved Brenda Russell’s “Piano In the Dark” so much as a kid, that even hearing the accelerated dance remix of the chorus sends waves of nostalgia over me. It brings back memories of rollerskating in my basement and at Spinning Wheels, eating grilled cheese in my grandparent’s kitchen (they ALWAYS had soft rock playing on their house sound system), riding around in my mom’s car.

And then I inevitably feel sad. But it’s that sadness that I thrive on, if that makes any sense. It’s that sadness that keeps in touch with my memories and my past, and as much as it hurts sometimes to have some old track by Alan Parsons Project finger the trigger, I kind of like it. (Don’t get me started on “Eye In the Sky.”)

So I knew that looking up “Piano in the Dark” on YouTube was probably opening a can of worms, and I resisted for weeks and weeks until finally, the other night, I succumbed. And it felt exactly how I suspected: like my heart was being strangulated with neon legwarmers and jelly bracelets. The fucking 80s make me so happy-sad!

Henry and I were in bed the other night when Flo Rida’s version came on. I admitted that I had made it my ring tone (actually, the Bingo Player’s version, because it’s all of the chorus, none of Flo Rida’s lame rhymes). And that’s how I found out that Henry didn’t know any of this was borrowed from Brenda Russell’s seminal 1988 hit! So I of course had to play it for him, which resulted in  very blase, “Oh yeah, I kind of remember that song” response right before he rolled over and fell asleep, leaving me to lay there alone in ear worm hell.

Meanwhile, I have been listening to it pretty constantly all week (I even found a live version that features JAMES INGRAM AND MICHAEL MCDONALD ON BACKUP, WHUTTTTT??

), feeling all wistful about my ponytailed childhood and even at one point veering precariously down Taylor Dayne lane.

Don’t worry, I reeled myself back in.

So now I’m passing on the torture to you.

Even when it’s not playing, I hear it. Maybe it appeals to me because I too play the tambourine and fling playing cards across the floor at random.

A little blast from the past. Henry likes his weeners like he likes his broads: short n’ fat.

This morning, as soon as I woke up, I got in one of my bi-polar cleaning snits. Every room of this house was making me freak out and kick things, and then I called Henry and took it out on him too. When I came home from taking Chooch to school, I sat down and put on Gary Numan’s Exile album in an effort to calm myself down. And then all the memories came flooding back.

It was October of 1999. I desperately needed to find a new place to live after getting (wrongfully) evicted from my current apartment. (That’s a whole different story.) My dad had found this great duplex in Brookline and I was waiting impatiently for the landlord to call me back after I filled out the application. Renting this house was all I could think about; back then, it was a great space—HUGE for one person. Granted, this was before a boyfriend, cats and a kid would shit all over its value. (In some cases, literally.)

During this time, I was going through a heavy Gary Numan phase. Not so much Tubeway Army-era, but his more current, sludge-y Goth work. One night, in my apartment, I had fallen asleep on the couch* listening to his Exile (Extended) album on repeat and had one of the most vivid nightmares of my life, of which I still have flashbacks even to this day.

(*When I lived in that apartment, I slept on the couch every night because some old bitch always had her TV blaring 24:7 on the other side of my bedroom wall and no matter where I moved my bed, I could hear it and it was slowly making me want to take a pickaxe to her face. I even complained to the landlady about this, but that bitch was in bed with all the other old ass people living in that complex, which led to my eventual eviction.)

In the dream, I was rollerskating down highways at night, frantically trying to get to the house in Brookline. I was totally out of control, skating over medians and down cobblestone hills, unable to stop. But finally, I made it to the street. In the dream, the house had an enclosed front porch (in real life, my house does not have a front porch); I let myself in and had to squeeze my way around bikes, toys, stacked furniture, debris in various stages of decomposition. Clearly, someone was still someone living there.

Squatting down in a corner was a little girl with black hair, dressed in a nightgown. She said, “You can’t go in there, Erin.”

I asked her how she knew my name.

“Marcy told me,” she said in a monotone, and then her eyes flashed red and I woke up totally freaked the fuck out. (Marcy is my evil cat, if you didn’t already know.)

Thirteen years later and I can’t wait to get the fuck out of the house I had to rent. Thirteen years is way too long to have been renting the same place.  In my dream, I was told I couldn’t go in there, and now I feel like I can’t get out. I’m so unhappy here.

Morocco 1993. I was so excited to ride a camel. Pretty sure my Aunt Sharon intentionally cut off my head, making this probably the prettiest picture of me ever.

My history with camels suck.

I was looking for a picture of myself when I dressed as a clown for my third Halloween, and ended up finding this picture, too. I have something like three photos in total of my birth dad who died right before my third birthday, and of course there’d be a clown in one.

Now I’m all sad.

(Originally posted during the winter of 2008, what what.)

The first time I was there was the summer of 2000.

There’s this Quaker cemetery out in Perryopolis. Supposed to be haunted or some shit. We should go –  it was one of those glimmering moments of spontaneity that, on a boring summer’s night, sounded a lot more interesting that the usual routine of getting drunk on my porch. I was a little wary that the person hatching this plan was my friend Justin, who had a bad track record of insisting he knew the exact coordinates of various haunted hot spots (13 Bends was the bane of my existence back then because of him), and then like a bad record on repeat, we’d inevitably wind up lost with the gas tank on E and a few empty bags of Corn Nuts.

Our friend Keri wanted to accompany us, so I felt a little better because she was always the responsible one. If you were going to get lost, break down, get a condom lodged inside of you, Keri was the girl you’d want with you. She also didn’t scare easily, so I quietly planned to wedge myself between the two of them once (if) we arrived.

The Quaker Cemetery was (supposedly) around 30 miles south of Pittsburgh, but the trip didn’t take long in my Eagle Talon considering my propensity for driving it like a dragster. As we approached the town of Perryopolis, I silently hoped that we would be unable to find the cemetery in the dark, of that it didn’t exist, or that the Earth opened up to engulf it every night after midnight. Maybe there would be a fence too dangerous to scale, Hounds of Hell snarling and tied to posts at the entrance, an exorbitant after hours admission fee implemented by Satan.

The area was rural. We coasted past a few farms and even fewer houses. The uneven asphalt was littered with loose pebbles and sticks, which clinked and snapped under the tires; the streetlights did little to alleviate my uneasiness. Unfortunately, Justin must have polished his navigational bearings, because after having me make a few turns, he told me to pull over.

“This is it,” he said, leaning in between the front seats and looking out my window. We kind of just sat there, real still, not speaking, until Keri finally went for the door handle. We all filed out and crossed the dark, quiet street. It was too dark to see the cemetery from where we stood, and after hesitating to see who would step up to take the lead, we finally took the plunge in tandem and began climbing the slight hill before us.

Halfway up the slope, we could make out a wrought iron fence, the kind you would expect to wreathe an old, small town cemetery. My eyes searched for the tombstones, the meat of the graveyard. That’s when I saw it, my first glimpse of the old stone house in the middle of the small plot of land. Suddenly, it wasn’t what lay beneath the ground that frightened me.

“I don’t like the looks of that place,” I whispered hoarsely to Keri and Justin.

“What the fuck is it, a church?” Justin asked no one in particular, squinting his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

“I’m not climbing no fucking fence,” Keri spat, arms crossed. She was always the kill joy of the group. Me, I’d go along with just about anything, no matter how terrified I was, mainly because my adrenaline would overtake my common sense every single time. (And I would always do what the boys told me.) But Keri, she’d get so far and then stop. Or conveniently conjure up a head ache. That girl has headaches like Michelle Duggar has babies.

Just then, the dull roar of an engine resounded from further down the road. We all turned to look. Headlights eventually appeared over the crest in the curving road and the car began to decelerate. We continued to watch as it approached the base of the hill and slowed to a complete stop several yards away from my car, parked along the shoulder.

“Is it a cop?” Keri whispered.

The driver flashed the headlights. We were stapled to the soft ground under our feet. The driver blew the horn. We jumped. The driver laid on the horn, sending an atmosphere-rippling siren through the once-quiet night. All three of us screamed and turned to run back to my car. We shoved each other ruthlessly, none of us wanting to be in the back.

My car was parked directly across the base of the hill. The rogue car still idled in the same position a few yards away on the opposite side of the road, continuing to blare the chilling horn. We made it to my car, slamming into the side of it, hugging it like it was the most cuddly home base of all time. I fumbled for my keys and dropped them on the road as I tried frantically to sort through the menagerie of plush over-sized key chains. Keri and Justin were swearing and screaming at me. I was crying.

The bully car continued to intimidate us with the horn-blaring while I unlocked my door and reached across the inside to unlock the passenger door. Keri and Justin both tried to get in my uterus-sized two-door Talon at once, prolonging their success. Once they were in, I gunned it, not even bothering to steal a look at the driver of the opposing car as we squealed past it.

We drove in silence until the poorly-lit country roads spilled us out onto the highway where we took refuge among the traffic.

Only then did anyone dare speak.

“I don’t know what you guys were so scared for. It was probably just some teenager having some fun, trying to scare us,” Justin said, leaning back with his fingers laced behind his head.

*****

The weather was unseasonably spring-like on Sunday, so Henry, Chooch and I piled into the car and drove south to take some pictures and enjoy the rare opportunity to drive with the windows down. Our plan was to go out to Uniontown, a small town at the base of the mountains, and get some nice country photographs.

We took Rt. 51, which leads straight from Pittsburgh to Uniontown. It also passes through Perryopolis on the way.

“Hey, there’s this old Quaker Cemetery out here. We should try to find it,” I casually suggested, recognizing that the right hand turn into farm country was coming up. What better way to spend a beautiful Sunday with the kid and manservant? Field trip to the haunted cemetery! C’mon boy, let’s get our desecratin’ on, I should have hollered to Chooch.

Henry found it without mishap (evidently the road it’s on is called Quaker Cemetery Road, so Henry figured it was a safe bet we were on the right road). When I reached the crest of the small hill, I spotted the stone house with it’s corrugated tin roof, ominously gaping front door and windows that stared out like empty eye sockets.

I wasn’t scared this time, finding bravery in the sunlight, and I marched right through the cemetery archway and started taking pictures. Probably, if I was someone other than myself, the first thing I’d do, I’d go straight inside that stone shack and start poking around there, too. But I was cautious. I let Henry go inside first while I admired the various hues of beer bottle shards as they sparkled in the sun. The shards wrapped around the front of the house, like a moat in front of an alcoholic’s castle. I was sad that no one ever invites me to party in creepy cemetery houses.

Henry went inside first, getting some shots of the interior. I asked him if he felt scared when he was in there and he gave me that “don’t be an asshole” sneer. Still, I lingered near the door while Henry and Chooch retreated somewhere in the back, behind the house. I thought I heard shuffling coming from inside the house, but I shook the idea out of my mind and went in.

The inside was sheltered by a roof made up of thin wooden slats. It looked unstable, like I could be buried under it at any given moment. The walls were mostly blue and covered in graffiti. I tried to read it all, as much as I could before my bravery reserve was drained, but there was nothing very interesting. No Hail Satans or Human Sacrifice FTW!s to be found; just an abundance of generic “_____ was here”s and ambiguous initials.

Each end of the room had a fireplace. Henry said later that he had wanted to get all up in it and see what was going on in the chimney’s guts, but he never said why he didn’t follow through. Because he was scared, that’s why. I can only imagine how much clenching he had to do to keep from shitting his pants when he was in there alone.

Still afraid of the being impaled by a collapsing slat of wood, I started to walk out. Henry completely doesn’t believe me, and probably no one else will either, but as I started to step through the doorway, I heard a chorus of whispering coming from the left corner of the room. I SWEAR TO GOD. I swore to God when I was telling Henry about it too and he was like, “You can’t swear to something you don’t believe in” so I changed my pledge of honesty to Satan instead and Henry started in on that bullshit about how you can’t believe in one and not the other and I was like, “Shut up, stop acting like you’re religious” and he said if there was no God and just Satan, then the world would be way worse than it is now and I said, “No, Satan’s just lazy is all” and that’s about as deep as the two of us get into theological debates. Our next one is scheduled for 2030. As if Henry will still be living then.

After the whole whispering episode, I was pretty much in a huge hurry to leave. If you buy into legends and ghost stories, it’s said that the meeting house was where witches were taken to be killed. I really hope the whispering I heard belonged to Glinda.

Later that day, I was reading a website about the cemetery and it says, “There are also stories of certain graves being cursed, meaning that if you stand at them, or read the writing on the head stone, you could have bad luck or die.”

Awesome. Nice knowing you, Chooch.