Sleepwalker At Chiller Theatre
We
had a deal. I would try my best to not get up in the middle of the
night all night long to watch the test pattern on the big TV in the den,
and he would let me watch monster movies with him on Saturday night.
I demanded every night but he explained they weren't on every night
and Daddy needed his sleep. He also asked me to stop jumping up
reaching for the chain-pull to the ceiling light because I'd snapped it
off several times and moved the easy chairs together to climb on them
and click it on directly from the beveled glass fixture itself and then
leave the chairs there in the dark in the middle of the night for him
to trip over on his way to his middle of the night job
but he didn't understand that I was afraid of stepping on lava so the
only way I wouldn't go up in flames was by commuting throughout the
house via furniture. It all seemed very cut and dry to me and I didn't
really get why he was being so obstinate. I was four. He was 34. God,
man, grow up.
They
couldn't do anything about my sleepwalking though, well except install
slide locks at the top of every door leading outside because they'd
found me in the street or garden in my granny nightgown at 3am standing
in the moonlight eyes wide open but vividly dreaming. This is not
something an elderly neighbor with a heart condition wants to see when
she puts her cat out or something else for my father to find upon
returning home from a swing shift.
They also couldn't negotiate with me when in my sleep I'd drag chairs
over to the doors to climb on them (lava, too) and unlock the doors and
go outside anyway,. I suppose that in my dreams it made perfect
sense.
When I was
six-months-old my father decided it was time for me to sleep through
the night and thus began his fakakta Get Elaine To Sleep mission which
failed or succeeded spectacularly depending on who you asked because
YES, I did go to sleep and YES, I did sleep through the night but it
didn't stop me from getting up and doing everything anyway. At six
months, mobility is an issue but there does come a point in development
when cribs are the toddler equivalent of K2 and therefore must be
conquered no matter the personal risk: bruised tush, black eye, bloody
nose--many casualties including the tragic broken bodies of colleagues I
was unable to bring back to home base, my teddy bear (Teddy) and doll
baby (Smakata which is Polish for 'snot-nose' a favorite endearment of
my Grandmother for me), and a Dawn doll who not by her own fault was
missing a head. I also held in my possession specific Tinker Toy and
Lego parts that technically belonged to my brother David, parts that
were uncommon and necessary to assemble anything remotely resembling a
'thing' so were of great value in terms of currency, negotiation and
manipulation. I was an intrepid, shrewd, if somewhat reckless
adventurer. I knew how to haggle with the natives and learned their
primitive lingo. It was at this time when I became an insomniac.
Either I
would sleep and walk, or not sleep at all so at night I was either
dreaming technicolor musicals rivaling any Bollywood extravaganza (while
exploring) or use my imagination while wide awake to dream up and plot
my future adventures and any revenge against anyone who may have
recently wronged me. I also pondered the meaning of life and what would
happen after I died, like would my 'being' cease to exist or go
somewhere else or if my brothers would consider playing Gilligan's Island
using their bunk beds as the pitiful broken Minnow because I wanted
more than anything to be Ginger. I didn't like her at all. I liked
Lovey, Mrs. Thurston Howell III
because she was the only one with a partner on the whole friggin
island for the entire length of the series, while no one else seemed to
pair up (well except for the Skipper and Gilligan-not that there's
anything wrong with that) which I thought was really stupid. There is
strength in numbers (as evidenced by my siblings and extended family)
and maybe if they did they could have built a new boat especially since
the Professor could make anything out of coconuts including a
shortwave radio which incidentally didn't get them off the island
either. The whole thing was frustrating but Ginger had the best
wardrobe so of course I had to 'be her' when we played. Then during my
midnight musings I would look to up to find my father standing in my
doorway and say softly, 'Elaine, go to sleep.' and I'd roll over and
pretend. Until Saturday night.
On WPIX in New York from 1971-1982 old thrillers, monster movies and horror movies would be aired on Chiller Theatre.
It actually began during the 60's with an on-air host and then
eventually morphed into a six-fingered claymation hand rising out of the
mists replete with spooky music as the opening for the show. Then they
played some good but mostly godawful movies. Other little girls had
puppies and kittens posters on their walls. I had Christopher Lee and Vincent Price
and various pages from Monster Magazine taped to mine and would
'borrow' my uncle's monster mags to read in the basement whenever I had a
chance and he wasn't in his room. My dad and I would settle in on the
couch and I would snuggle up against him. He was big and warm and
cuddly and he would put his arm around me and tell me I was hot like a
little furnace and made him sweat and he'd drink lots of ice water but
he still let me cling to him like a monkey and ask him incessantly,
'What did that man mean, Daddy' and, "What did he say, Daddy' to the
degree where he never had a moment's peace or got to see any movie all
the way through, in my presence.
I tried hard
to keep awake. I practiced keeping my eyes open and holding them open
and considered using Lincoln Logs to prop them but though better of it
but eventually sleep would overtake me and finally my father would shut
off the TV and carry me to bed and I would fuss and he'd tell me to go
to sleep and sometimes, eventually I did.
I cherish
those times with my dad. Now he's become really cantankerous and
misses my mother terribly and calls me constantly to ask me how I'm
doing or to complain about 'some shit on the Food Channel'. I don't see
him as often as I should because I need to take him in small doses and
he worries too much about me which makes me feel horribly guilty but
we talk a lot and every now and then I do go over there and watch a
scary movie with him and he calls me his little girl, his little
sleepwalker, his little dreamer. He says it proudly and with such love.
And when I can't sleep at night, when the Ambien and the Xanax and
even a martini doesn't help, I hear his voice softly saying, 'Go to
sleep, Elaine' and sometimes I do.
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