Musings of a Punk Rock Father

One night, near the end of my sophomore year of high school, I camped out in the forest with Brian Miller and Cameron Anderson.  We actually camped in Brian's backyard, but the vast yard included a forested area.  Brian's house lay on a side street off Mussetter a few miles north of my house.  Mussetter wound up and down, alongside a pasture, and around a rock that once caught a careening pop-fly of an airborne Porsche, before the road gave way to a hallway of trees that guarded Brian's neighborhood.  Some distance away from our campsite, the foundation for a new house had been poured, and construction began on the second floor.  When the workers ended their day, we used the open, skeletal house as the set for our music videos, lip-synching as the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Fight Like a Brave" blasted from our portable tape player.

Brian and Cameron shared my passion for movies and comic books.  Every Friday afternoon, after picking through the newest comics at the urine-scented basement called Brainstorm Comics, we headed over to the theater.  Brian covered his inherited bulk with extra-large t-shirts emblazoned with a superhero such as Spider-Man.  When he laughed, his puffy cheeks pushed his glasses up on his face, and his moppy brown hair shook.  Cameron, not as skinny as I, hid his muscular arms and legs in a slender body.  Although fragile to look at, Cameron could have snapped me in half.  When talking animatedly, his teeth pushed their way outside of his lips and he often tucked runaway strands of reddish-brown hair behind his ears.

After preparing our campsite in the daylight, we ate dinner and watched a movie at Brian's house.  Cameron chose The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 as our evening's entertainment.  I have never been a horror fan, but Cameron subscribed to Fangoria and owned a pair of Freddy Krueger gloves.  Downstairs, we played a pre-movie game of "Golden Axe" on Sega Genesis, when Mrs. Miller called down.

"Dinner is ready, boys!"

"What is it?" Brian shot back without taking his eyes off the TV.

"Italian beef," she yelled.

I didn't think I'd be able to choke down an Italian beef sandwich while a man with someone else's flesh attached to his face wielding a chainsaw chased a hapless teenager through the dark.  But I did.

Later that night, after watching innocents get sliced up over a meal of Italian beef, we camped.  Our campsite lay far enough from Brian's house that we felt secluded, but close enough that we could grab some more Coke in the event supplies ran out.  We nearly missed our tent in the dark of the forest.  Once we found the tent, we settled in and lit the lantern Cameron brought.

Huddled around the central glow of light in the tent, we listened to Cameron read from a book of ghost stories.

"And the blood oozed from the walls," Cameron growled, affecting the most menacing voice he could muster, "and collected in crimson pools on the floor below."

A car pulled into the driveway of the house under construction.

"Uh oh," I said.

"What?" Cameron asked, the light shadowing his face from below.

"The car.  It must be the owners."

"Don't worry," Brian reassured.  "We're not on their property."

Cameron shrugged and returned to the story.  "An awful howl spread through the Victorian house..."

I heard a car door.  This time, Brian and Cameron both looked up.  Cameron put the book down.  The car door opened, then closed.  Footsteps on the gravel driveway.  We all cocked our ears toward the sound.

"It's nothing," Brian now whispered.  "They're probably just inspecting it."  He sounded unconvincing.

"Inspecting?  At two in the morning?" I asked.

Cameron hushed us.  I clearly heard a trunk latch pop, and a rustling noise.

"How can you tell it's the trunk?" Cameron whispered.

"Didn't it sound like a trunk to you?" I asked.

We all sat completely still.  Silence.  Then, more footsteps.  In our direction.

"It's nothing, it's nothing," Cameron repeated.  Brian held his sleeping bag up to his neck, his eyes large and clear behind his square glasses.

Another sound, like a lawnmower being started.  Then a sputtering.  No, not a lawnmower, a chainsaw.

A CHAINSAW!

Brian threw himself to the ground, pulling his sleeping bag over his head.  Cameron stared ahead, frozen.  The lantern fell over, casting the light into a corner of the tent.  I jumped from my sleeping bag, my brain tripping over itself in indecisiveness.  I rummaged in the tent, searching for my shoes in the limited light, and unsuccessfully tried to put them on.  I heard the footsteps, crunching one by one through the twigs and brush lying on the forest floor, as loud as if her were standing right next to me.  Screw hiding, I was going to run.  But where to?  Through the woods?  I couldn't even see in the darkness.  What if we were quiet?  Would he even know we were here?  I couldn't get my feet to fit into the shoes.  I am going to die.

The chainsaw now roared to life, and roared ever closer to our tent.  Brian and Cameron were useless, crying and quivering in their sleeping bags.  My ability to coordinate my arms with the rest of my body vanished.  I couldn't scream; I couldn't swear.  I couldn't rouse my friends to take action with me.  I wanted to yell Stand and run! Leatherface towered over our tent now; why didn't I run without my shoes?  Why didn't my life flash before my eyes, the way it does in movies?

I awaited the appearance of the chainsaw through the fabric of the tent, through my friends' skulls, spraying blood and brain matter everywhere.  Instead, the serial killer unzipped the flaps at the front of the tent.  A face peered down.  Not a face with someone else's flesh attached to it, but a familiar face.  Mr. Miller.  Brian's dad.

"Have a good night, guys," he bellowed, chuckling as he killed the chainsaw and walked back to his car.  "Don't let the bedbugs bite."

Next: Part IV