Don't make me go in there!!

Let me tell you about creepy dolls. They’re a huge and lasting part of my transition from well-adjusted-yet-rambunctious youth into the strange, dissatisfied, trust-deficient conspiracy-theorist you see before you right now. I’ve been terrified of several things in my life, most of them perfectly rational and rooted in common-sense: falling, cancer, failure, spontaneous dental hydroplosion. I had a normal childhood, split between M-F suburbia and weekends and summers spent on my grandparents’ cattle-farm. Friday afternoon, mom and dad, older brothers and myself piled into the Pinto (yup, lime-green station-wagon) and head to Osceola, Missouri. When we got there, fantastic food, family stuff, chores, and then the kids and adults would split. I’d spend the evening exploring the farm or following my brothers around while they explored the farm. Then, bedtime, which I had quickly learned to dread. Three farmhouses on the property: the new farmhouse (10yrs old), the old schoolhouse (rebuilt after a fire, 20yrs ago), and the old farmhouse (100+ yrs old). Grandparents in the new house, brothers in the schoolhouse, parents and me in the old, brick, creaky, musty, filled-w-secret-nooks-and-crannies farmhouse. My parents slept in the master-bedroom, filled with oak appointments and the fireplace, right off my grandmother’s painting solar. Me? I slept in the “craft-room.” My grandmother had many hobbies: oil-painting, scratch-cooking, silent sharp judgement. But her craft-room was dedicated to a hobby she’d cultivated for 60 yrs: dolls. She made porcelain dolls, wooden dolls, paper dolls, big, little, girls, boys, old gnarled men. They all had one feature in common. Every one of them had those little glass eyeballs that moved when the dolls move, and close when the doll lays down. Every one of them. “Erik, time for bed!” First, I’d beg leave to have a drink of water. This was usually good for a 3-minute diversion. Next I’d “remember” that “Hee-Haw” only had about 10 minutes left (yes, “Hee-Haw,” we’re talking very rural Missouri, here). This one was a hit-and-miss situation. If the day had gone well and dad was feeling generous, he’d capitulate. This one was good for an hour or so, since he was sure to fall into a deep and grateful sleep on the couch, rather than watch Conway Twitty stumble drunkenly through another generic four-minute crapgasm. However, if I’d forgotten what was at stake, forgotten what awaited me at 8:30, I was out of luck. Dad would lead me to the craft-room, gently push me through the door, and tuck me in. “Night, Erik.” The thick oak door closes with the most horror-movie cliché sound effect you’ve ever heard. Now it’s dark, I’m in a very tall bed, next to a huge window with no curtain, letting the moonlight in. (Look straight ahead at the blank wall, look straight ahead at the blank wall, LOOKSTRAIGHTAHEAD…) Eventually I slowly move my head to the wall to my right. This is the wall for finished dolls. Shelves line the wall from floor to ceiling, and every space is filled. Every eye is open, shining, reflecting the light from the window. Shepherd girls, little china dolls, leprechauns, lumberjacks, trolls, and dozens of little clowns and clown-white children. Every sound echoing through the house definitely comes from them. Every shift in the shadows is certainly them inching towards me. I need to find a way to look away from this wall. The logical mistake is to turn my back on them and go to sleep. Can’t do it. The other wall has her work-table and a few shelves of in-progress dolls, in various states of dismemberment. And the closet. Yeah, I never opened that closet. I can only imagine that it’s filled with boxes and bags of dolls and assorted doll-parts, paints, and clothing. Just storage, that’s all it’s got. I hope that’s what it’s got. If not, the new dolls that fill the shelves every visit are just to replace the runaways. I can’t handle that. Nights in that room were harrowing trips through my own still-developing psyche. I’d wake up feeling like I’d just tricked myself into fitful, crappy, nightmarish sleep. The dolls looked harmless again, but they looked smug, satisfied. And I still had one night left on the farm. Since those days, I really can’t stand dolls. Any dolls. They’re all, every one of them, tiny exercises in “how to destroy Erik’s self-confidence.” I will read to a kid for hours, but don’t ask me to play with Barbies or even Army Men. I’m a bad uncle. Dolls were originally designed by primitive cultures as a sort of psychic Tupperware, to house displaced souls and demons. Do we honestly think that we as a society have figured out how to cancel out that weird juju? I’m not buying it. Now, as freaked out as I get, I have an unhealthy fascination with the doll-as-pscho-killer horror genre. From old “Twilight Zone” episodes (“Living Doll” and “The Dummy,” starring Cliff Robertson) to “Magic” (starring Anthony Hopkins as a ventriloquist, in a film directed by Lord Richard Attenborough), these stories hypnotize me. I’m constantly looking for new ones to watch. I’m happy with “Trilogy of Terror,” “Child’s Play” (1, 2, “Bride of Chucky” and “Seed of Chucky”—Plus the new “Child’s Play” due out next year), and “Puppetmaster,” all of which are masterpieces. The series of movies (and they’re making the third, as I type) that most terrifies me, however, is the “Toy Story” franchise. Toys waiting for their owner to go to sleep or leave the room, so they can embark on their many plans for Andy’s-room domination? These plastic freaks are one coup d’etat away from Potato-Head being in charge. And we all know what happens then. Think he’d have saved Wheezy from the garage sale? Would PH have worked to save Buzz from the psycho kid next door or bring Woody back from Al’s Toy Barn? I don’t think so. I think he’d have Etch drawing hardcore porn, he’d always wear his angry-eyes, and you can be damn sure it wouldn’t be long before Andy met with an “Accident.” You’ve been warned.