Halloween Hilarity- The Hogg, The Witch, and The Broken Toe

Halloween in 1991... The Hogg, The Witch, and The Broken Toe.


1991... What a terrible year.

I was in the 7th Grade. Halloween is my favorite holiday, always has been. I remember being really excited that a new girl enrolled in the GAWD AWFUL school I attended. She looked like Drew Barrymore, but she had an unfortunate last name... Hogg. Yep. Hogg.

The irony of this was that she wasn't fat, I was, and she liked me... so the fat kid hung around with a "hog." Get it? Luckily for me she didn't get this right away. It only took 3 weeks until she realized this irony as well as vaporizing. However, I will always believe that the catalyst for her disappearance from the school only 3 weeks after enrolling, had everything to do with what happened on Halloween in 1991.

She lived in an area of Dallas called Casa Linda. I loved this area because of it's Spanish style houses, cool shopping areas with Romanesque looking pillars and a movie theatre that held a very special place in my heart because it was the first theatre I had ever seen a movie in.

  Just like the rare West Virginia sightings of The Mothman,  I was never invited to do anything with anyone. When I was, a inter dimensional puncture in the fabric of space must've occurred in order for my peers to find me "cool" enough to hang out with.

Anyway...

This girl, as I've said, enrolled in the school I went to. For some reason, still unknown to me, she immediately liked me? She invited me to spend the night at her house on Halloween. I was pretty sure that she would figure out that her reputation as the "cool new girl" would be shattered by inviting me over to her house but little did I know at the time that it would be the events on Halloween that would forever seal my fate with The Hogg.

Halloween rolls around and she is super stoked about what we are going to do. She wouldn't tell me until we got back to her house but I quickly found out that her parents were not in on the plan. Being much like the character, "Butters" from South Park, anything that I could sniff out as being a possible "your in trouble now" situation, made me incredibly nervous. I usually would try and talk the person out of doing anything stupid but historically they would do it anyway and then blame it on me. I knew this well. In fact, it still kind of happens today. (Read my blog entitled, Narcissistic Rabbit & Friends.)

The Hogg wanted to go toilet paper houses in the neighborhood she lived in. In my neighborhood, if you did that, you'd be shot. In her neighborhood it was merely white people being mildly put out over having to get their Mexican yard man to clean up the next day. My neighborhood is probably where they contracted their Mexican day laborers. (not hating on Mexicans AT ALL... my neighborhood was hispanic and mostly black and we had a blast together being anything but rich white people with free time, believe that)

I kept saying to The Hogg, "why can't we just Trick or Treat? I mean, do we have to TP people's houses? We won't get any candy?" (said the fat kid... me)

She said the following verbatim, "(sigh) Look, if you want to be cool, you have to take some risks, duh! Trust me, it will be so much fun. You'll see. If you don't do it, I won't hang out with you anymore."  Nuff said. I'm doing it. I was so desperate for a friend at school, I figured it was worth the risk. It wasn't.

That Halloween was one of those rare fall days that I can I remember as a kid when it was actually cold outside. Wind blowing, leaves falling, and the kind of chill that only happened when you were wearing a 100% Polyester costume from Kmart. The kind that made you sweat profusely when you were inside and then contract pneumonia when you were outside. I brought over to The Hogg's house, my stage makeup and various black clothing to ensure that I could be extra ghoul-like. She didn't want to put on any make up and said the following... verbatim... "Melodee, you are too old to be wearing costumes! We are doing what the teenagers do and that is NOT wearing a stupid costume for Halloween." Um... okay? (silent tear rolling down my face from that epic let down)

Trick or Treater's came and went and that is when The Hogg sprung into action... "come on! It's time." She handed me more toilet paper rolls than I had ever seen at any one house I'd ever been to. Toilet paper in my house was rationed out like bits of bread in the Soviet Union circa 1985.  I remember thinking/knowing they were rich just from the stockpile of toilet paper they had and how by taking hoards of it, none of it would be noticed as "missing."  I told her, "I can't carry all of this, isn't there a sack we can put it in or something?" She sighed and retrieved her dad's gym bag from the stack of expensive luggage in the storeroom. Again, it was even more of a sign to me how rich they were because I think we had one suitcase in my family and it was duct taped shut when we went on vacation.

We walk down the street, further and further away from her house. It was cold. So very cold. We roll up (no pun intended) to a house at the end of the block. It was our first target. She told me to take off my shoes so that my boots wouldn't "crunch the leaves and give us away." I argued that it was really cold and that I had a tendency to get pneumonia this time of year. She didn't care and just silently stared at me until I did what she asked. Took off my shoes and we began the toilet papering of shrubbery and various low hanging branches at this house. We succeeded in doing this undetected. I figured it was a success and we would go back to her house and watch television or something. After all, "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown," was coming on that night so I didn't want to miss that ritual I'd grown so accustomed to doing on Halloween.

She said, "um... no? We have like 5 more houses at least?!"

I remember this moment like it was yesterday. I began sweating because of two things that make me sweat on cue.
1. Rage- usually this comes from feeling trapped in a situation I have no control over.
2. Worry- I had paralyzing fear of getting into trouble with parents, cops, or feeling like I was disrespecting someone's property.

I over-rided the rage and worry and pressed on. I put my shoes back on and continued on the quest of wrapping houses. I think we wrapped about 7 more houses before THE house that ended everything.

The Witch House.

About 6 streets over and in the thicket of tons of willow trees and large vine type plants that shrouding a structure in a veil of scary was The Witch House. This house was an old stone built house with stained glass cathedral type windows, gargoyles guarding the sides, and cats... lots of cats. Anyone who knows me knows that I've never met a cat that liked me. Ever. Cats take one solid look at me and make a judgement call to attack the soft spots. I don't trust cats, I think they are the choice pets of demons and old people who sacrifice chickens to the dark overlord.

I took one look at this house and said, "nope." "Nope. I'm not doing it. You said 5 more houses and we've done like 8 houses and now you want me to toilet paper the devil's lair?"  She told me that if I did this, we would be the only people who ever had the balls to toilet paper this house and blah blah... street cred... Okay fine.
I looked at the grass and said, "okay but seriously, can I keep my shoes on? The grass is wet and my feet are already freezing cold. Come on, please?"

DENIED. The Hogg said, "if there were any house that you don't need to be detected at, it's this one... no, shoes are comin' off!"  Fine.

I asked her what the deal was with this house and I was extremely curious as to who would live in this vortex of pain and darkness. She told me it was a witch, like a real witch who has a cult that meets there on certain times of the month and various neighborhood pets had gone missing after these cult meetings. CRAZY RICH WHITE PEOPLE ARE THE CRAZIEST. Period. Anyway... She said that you can't let this woman see you because she will put a curse on you and frankly, I already figured I had a full grip of curses on me so I didn't need another one added to the stew of bad luck I had.

We crept slowly on our tippidy tip tip toes through the ever darkening yard of terror. The grass was so cold, so wet, and I started feeling numbness in my toes. We wrapped a tiny tree and I said, "okay we did it lets go." She was insistent that we wrap the vines that grew up the side of the house by the scary ass stained glass windows.
We crept some more... tip toe, tip toe, tip toe... stop, breathe, tip toe, tip toe... drawing ever closer to the epicenter of evil. I wandered off about 10 feet to the left of The Hogg and started feeling uncomfortable with how I was just wrapping up this area closest to the scariest year-round-not-halloween statue of a devilish looking thing. About 10 of the longest minutes goes by and I really can't feel my feet now. They are cold as ice, numb, and it's beginning to concern me. I moved over to the window that had the flickering candle on the ledge and that's when a black cat jumped up and "RAWRRRRRRRRERRERERERRRRR HISSSSSS HISSSSSS!"

I screamed and then covered my mouth and within seconds I look up and see a face staring at me from the stained glass window.

SCREAM, HOLLER, SCREAM n' HOLLER....

I just dropped everything and ran. I ran harder, faster, and with more conviction than I'd ever ran before. I was almost back to the street when I heard The Hogg say, "hurry up!!!" That's when my numb foot NFL kicked a 14 pound slab of limestone and watched it flip over itself in mid-air  landing about 6 feet away and shattering.

I grabbed my shoes and we ran all the way back to The Hogg's house. The adrenaline I had was so intense that all I remember doing when we got back to the house was laughing and crying at the same time.

Just as the adrenaline wore off, we looked up and saw The Hogg's father who was scowling at us. My worst nightmare. I was "in trouble" and it wasn't even my own family that was mad... which to me was highly shameful and I thought myself better than that.
He said, "where have you guys been and Melodee, why does your foot look like that?"

Huh? OH SNAP! I looked down and my foot was the size of Shaq's. It was swollen, bloody, and the type of bruise I had was already black & maroon. It was still numb though so I said, "it doesn't hurt." Press forward about 10 minutes after it wasn't numb...."OH God, Oh God... I want to go home. Oh God. My foot hurts so bad. Oh my God. Oh God help. Heeeelllllllppppp!"

I threw the fit of the century. I told The Hogg that I wanted to go home and that I was going to scream until I got a ride back home. She woke her dad up and I got a very passive aggressive ride back home in which I was asked about 10 questions regarding our night of shame and now, agony. I told him what happened. I told him that I had kicked a rock at a full sprint with a numb foot because a Witch appeared in the window and her devil cat put a hex on me. (because to me, that's what happened)

The next day I went to the doctor. My middle toe(the important one) was broken pretty hard. I went back to school and The Hogg wasn't there. In fact, she never returned to that school. I will never know exactly what happened to her but I knew somehow it was my fault. I ratted her out pretty hard to her dad and my Pop called him up the next day after the doctor visit and gave him the verbal "1, 2, punch" and went off about how his kind was the reason a generation will grow up and be "lousy good fer nothin' spoiled assholes 'cause their daddy ain't takin' a look 'round his life to see what his priorities amount to... blah blah...."  Chewin' and chompin' this guy up like he was the cause of the world's problems when actually my Pop was just mad that he had to fork out 100 bucks at the doctor's office only to find out that I was unsupervised until midnight on Halloween.

Many years later I drove past that "witches" house. I saw an old lady watering her beautiful plants outside and she waved at me as I drove by as though I lived in the neighborhood. I got a close look at her yard and I noticed something. There was a headstone in the front of her lawn with an engraved picture of a dog on it along with a sign mid-way through her yard that said, "no trespassing, beware of cats."
This "witch" had a grave site (that I kicked and shattered) with her dog's face on it and a sense of humor about her "attack cats."  It also dawned on me that I was probably the reason for that trespassing sign being implemented in the first place.

I jotted down her address and sent her an apology card 10 years too late. I got a letter back in the mail which I was scared to open but did and it said,

"Thank you. It's nice to know that I got to be a part of your childhood memories. Don't worry about a thing dear. It's all part of growing up which I think you must be doing a fine job of."

Perspective. Get some.

Scary But True- My Life Growing Up with Paranormal Experiences, Part One

It is said that the night of my birth, my birthmother encountered a full-on angel about three times en route to the hospital when her car kept breaking down. She will have to tell y'all the story of that because it's way better coming from her. (I was given up for adoption and so the story was told to me fairly recently via meeting my biological mother. )

I guess that's how I came into the world, and she was quoted as saying, "You were the only child I had that had an angel present at your birth. I guess God knew you needed one." 

Nothing more true has ever been said regarding my life. 

I feel like the time is ripe for me to open up about the paranormal things that happened to me growing up. They still happen, but not in the way I'm about to launch into. I'll try to make this story somewhat hilarious so that it doesn't leave a weird aftertaste.  

I have memories that are crystal clear dating back to before I knew how to walk or speak. I've read about this in various bullshit new agey self-help books. They explain this as being, "you had awareness because of being an advanced spirit." Whatever. 

Here's how I explain it... I had awareness because if I hadn't had awareness, I would've either died, or grown up being 100% off the rails crazy. I guess the jury is still out on the second part of that...or at the very least I am routinely questioned by "normal" people as to my motives for not being "normal." 

When I was adopted, I remember my first nightmare being so terrible that to this very day I can remember it like it was a scene from a movie. That nightmare involved me getting my head chopped off.  Other nightmares soon followed that one which involved red eyed demonic looking animals that were always trying to get to me through windows, etc...  Soon enough, those nightmares became a reality. 

The first non-sleeping paranormal experience I had was when I was sitting on the floor in the living room playing. I heard my name being called with a voice that was female and very softly it would say, "Melodeeeee, Mellllodee... Melodeee," with different inflections that would trail off into a whisper. I would ignore this until it became so annoying that I would audibly say, "WHAT?" Then it would stop. This continued for about an hour, on and off, rinse & repeat. I kept ignoring it until I noticed that the carpet I was sitting on began to transform into maggots which were squirming all over the place. I stood up and couldn't breathe and looked up at the ceiling to "regather" my reality and that's when I saw rain coming from the ceiling. 

Here's the thing... I didn't have a good imagination as a kid. I didn't like movies, or playing pretend, or anything like that. I liked REAL things. As I've found out with years of therapy, (ha ha) this is a very common trait among orphans and robots. Okay not robots... 

This first experience that I just detailed out above, was the beginning of years of torment. I'll go ahead and say that the worst part of going through years of paranormal shit is NOBODY believes you. My family especially aren't keen on believing anything that isn't pleasant to digest. They also have an aversion to anything extraordinary and they happened to adopt a kid(me) that was anything but ordinary. 

I remember being very "in tune" with spirituality early on. I had questions, lots of them. I knew that the world I lived in wasn't completely what it seemed to be. I was incredibly loving to everything and everyone. Very open. I say all of that to say this... Several mystics, priests, shamans, or any spiritual practitioner will tell you that evil lies in wait for the opportunity to corrupt someone pure of heart. 

Not too long after the crazy ass maggot/rain name calling shit, I had my friend Michelle Merriman over to my house. Michelle and I performed together all the time and she was a part of my life from the beginning. She was one of those feisty hyperactive kids that always had a plan for what we were going to do that day for fun. She kind of wore me out to be honest. So... her mother came in and was talking to my mom about when she should come back to get Michelle, etc... Michelle within seconds of arriving at my house, immediately wanted to play hide and seek. I agreed to this with some trepidation, but figured I could use the "fun time" and felt like I needed to at least TRY to be a kid once in a while. Michelle said, "Okay, so you count and I'm going to hide first." I agreed to this plan and began the counting. "Ready or not here I come." I went to the places I rationalized were perfect hiding areas and she wasn't there. I kept looking, looking, looking, looking.... Finally! I see a reddish light coming from the crack of the door of my closet. I was thinking I'd be super sneaky and just fling open the door and say, "gotcha!"  When I flung open the door, it wasn't Michelle that I "got." It was a 7ft tall shadowy being cloaked in darkness with glowing red eyes. I remember just looking at it. Not screaming, just looking at it with paralyzing fear. That's when it started this very purposeful scary slow smile at me. It's teeth were spindles with sharp points, jagged staggery teeth. It was laughing at me. I had one thought after I saw that... "It's here for me."  I don't know why I thought that but I knew that 'it' had a mission and that mission had something to do with destroying me. 

I slammed the door, ran as fast and as hard as I could toward my mom. "Mom, listen to me, Michelle can't stay here. She can't. She's gotta go home. Trust me. She has to go home. It's not safe here. There's this thing, it's like the devil, it's here and it wants me, and Michelle has to go home or it's going to do something really bad to her to try and get to me. " 
My mom looked at me like I was insane of course, but Michelle was standing right behind me and she started crying because she thought I didn't want to be friends with her and that is why I was trying to get her to go home. (first onset of chick type behaviors that I have grown to loathe in most women to this day) 

My mom was very upset at me because Michelle's mother had just left so...

I didn't care. I knew I was right and that I had made the right decision.

Jump to- Nightfall.

The realization that I had to go back into my room to sleep was too much to bear. It made me angry that I was having to deal with shit like that. I knew it was my battle and that nobody in my house would ever believe me so I had to take this on myself. I just remember being mad that I had to take on anything, you know?

Bear in mind I was probably around 5 or 6 years old at this time.  I prepared myself mentally for the war of bedtime and went into the room. I opened the closet up, nothing was in there, and I felt like maybe I had just imagined all of it.
Nope.
Around 2-3am that night, I woke up from one of my many reoccurring nightmares of spinning downward through a vortex. After awakening from this dream I saw the glow of the red light coming from under the closet door again. I decided to ignore it and just go back to sleep by praying to God. I started to feel hot breath on my face. The same feeling you would get if your dog was just staring at you as you slept, but only if your dog was like a chupacabra or some shit like that. My eyes were closed and I did not want to open them. I kept praying. The breath became more intense and I started feeling the bed sink. I knew it was pressing the bed down. I held firm in my decision to not open my eyes and to keep praying. The intensity seemed to ramp up about 50% more until I broke from the pressure of this thing trying to get my attention and yelled, "GET OUT OF HERE!"
 It grinned at me again but this time it was inches from my face. I remember it looking up and then it disappeared instantly as though something spooked it. What could have spooked it? My only answer to that is that it had to have been something protecting me from the lighter side of the train tracks. I didn't see an angel, but there was some reason why this thing buggered off just as it was gaining momentum.

This type of experience with this terrible "thing" happened regularly for years and years. It followed me to my grandparents house, school, everywhere. I even felt it at church a few times in the back annex areas where the recreational activities took place.
It wasn't too long into this regular occurrence that I started to break down physically. I had weird things happening to me all the time. I vomited regularly, had fevers that would reach 103 F at times, and I would get pneumonia as often as people get the common cold. I spent a great deal of time at the doctor and everyone would scratch their heads as to why my immune system was so weak. There was also the bizarre mood swings of everyone in my house. My dad became violent, abusive and downright scary. His face would change and he looked like an animal grinding its teeth at its prey. After he would have these bouts of terrible rage, he would cry for hours. I would comfort him as he said, "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, I love you."  I knew he loved me but I knew that he had problems that were way above my "pay grade."

 Various pets would disappear or be killed in tragic ways, etc... At the time, none of this was connected to me. My health seemed to be an anomaly that we kind of all assumed was from being a kid in entertainment that was pushed too hard to be perfect. The pets...well, we lived in the country so it could've been anything from coyotes to the black jaguars that had been spotted in that area. My dad's rage... that could have been his time in the military or the stress of dealing with my mom who spent his money as fast as he made it...

Now, after many years of research, I know that most of the turmoil was caused by something nobody saw but me. It was meant to destroy me by any means necessary. "It" was going to use any and everything around me to wear me down so that I wouldn't fight it.
Luckily, I wasn't that smart in some ways so I would continuously try, try, try something until I mastered it or figured it out. I had obsessive qualities that I wouldn't wish on anyone. However, that bullheaded determination is why I'm able to blog about this 30 years later with a clean bill of health and a fairly good head on my shoulders. I was objective about everything as a kid and through most of my adult life. I guess I still am in a lot of ways, objective,  but objectivity was/is the reason why the fear, pain, and dysfunction didn't consume me.

In the next blog, Part Two, I will continue the story of how specific this "thing" was in trying to lure me into a false sense of security.  I will also say this for the record... I am writing this down because I know that it's a subject that people do not want to believe is real. I understand that entirely. However, it is real and maybe my story will bring a new perspective to what we classify as "paranormal."

Here's a hint... This story, my story,  has a happy ending.

....expect Part Two very soon...

Reactionary Locomotion

Does anyone remember "Bed Knobs & Broomsticks" ?

I'm going to talk about why I named the blog reactionary locomotion.

Locomotion is self-propelled movement. 'Reactionary' is defined as doing something in opposition to another way of doing it that you don't like.

Put them together and you have the makings of a steam engine or my current state of being. So what is driving the steam engine? Combustion. My own combustion is the way that I typically process the mix of life...i.e. pressure chamber style.

I think the biggest challenge, and listen to me, I think this is the biggest challenge of life in general: Retaining, or being able to sustain enough of your unique blend of energy that keeps you authentic. I know I spent a great deal of time growing up daydreaming about who I'd become, what I'd do, where I'd go, what I'd look like, who I'd meet... possibilities were endless. They still are but the difference is the daydreaming to problem solving ratio.

Very recently I asked a friend of mine who I absolutely think is one of the most brilliantly talented people I've ever known a simple question... The question was this: What is next for you? This friend of mine gave me some tragic answer that drove a knife into my solar plexus. It sounded like a "I give up" answer. I know that isn't true but maybe in someways I was directed to ask that question in order to prompt a response that wasn't audible...i.e. I believe this friend probably did some thinkin' after our talk.

In the past 2 weeks I've had some strange occurrences come a' rollin' my direction. This is nothing unusual for me, but what was unusual was my reaction to all of it.

For example... Within 2 days of each other, I met two different unrelated people who struck up a conversation with me that made me shift in my chair from being emotionally uncomfortable. I didn't know it at the time of the conversation but they were both well-known psychics. No matter what you believe or don't believe about that... the information that rolled out of their mouths was so shockingly specific and secret that only I know how to process it and I know that they were directed to me because I was SUPPOSED to hear some of the things they said. I won't get into the details of all that because it would incriminate me and it will stir up a hornets nest of controversy.

So... that being said or unsaid I'd like to say that the pressure chamber/combustion cylinder I put the data of life's many signals in, is needing a good scrub down. A lot of residue is on the walls of my combustible brain.... in more words... My engine has overheated too many times and now needs a closer look.

I looked.

What I saw was horrific. (for me anyway) I saw that I'd been so busy pressing onward that I had forgotten how to read the signs that said "dangerous curves ahead," or my favorite, "slow down. Dip in the road."

So... that movie, "Bed knobs and Broomsticks,"... the opening of the movie you see Angela Lansbury's character who is a secretive type person who has shut herself off from being truly emotionally close to anyone in particular because she is a "serious scientist/wizard" and has a goal that has overtaken her.... In this scene in the very beginning of the movie where her character is being established, you see her riding a motorbike that looks similar to the one Jack Black rides in "Nacho Libre." In otherwords, a real hunk of shit on wheels. She is driving this thing in the most spazzy way you can imagine Angela Lansbury doing anything physically demanding. Her gait or walk is fast, nose up, and pressing onward in a military type fashion to get done her daily "go to town" errands. If you've seen the movie you know that she ends up getting manipulated into temporarily taking 2 children who are being sent there because of the war. She pleads with the Yoda-ish crazy old lady from the church that she is not suited to watch children... The lady reminds her that she has a huge house, lives alone, and in a nutshell says, "yeah well you're taking them."

So.... we find out that Angela Lansbury's character secretly practices witchcraft because she thinks she might be able to help the war effort if only she could get this one last spell from her mentor via vocational witchcraft school... she's never met him but she's invested a great deal of money and time and energy into putting to practice his methods. The bratty kids of the movie end up becoming the distraction she needed in order to actually KNOW how to put to use her own power and she saw the "wizard of oz" i.e. her mentor/teacher was nothing more than a scam artist peddler who was trying to make a buck. She eventually embraces his inadequacies and together they win the fucking war. Whatever... But they used a spell that made inanimate objects locomotive...the reactionary response was "oh it works" but "oh shit how can we control something that is self-propelled and on a course for chaos?" The museum held artifacts of metallic/bronze soldier uniforms so... she put to good use (made them animated and alive in a robotic sort of way) they became unruly and terrifyingly destructive. She wasn't able to stop them initially, but then mustered up the mojo to reverse what she had done.

I was always fascinated with the idea that the "pressure chamber of your life" could thrust you into a instantaneous belief of "I can" which then becomes self-directed action. After the result of that level of self-directed action- you are different, a more superior version of yourself. It's alchemy. An alchemist has to use extreme heat, pressure, more heat, more pressure, and then has to stabilize the new creation with a cool down period. The result of what once was; will forever be what is. It's new. It's stronger. It's more valuable. Of course in some cases the creation becomes extraordinarily priceless depending on what elements were used and the courage it took the alchemist to "see what happens."

I know this blog is sort of all over the place but I'm trying to type out an abstract thing which is always hard to do. (for me anyway)

I've also been interrupted about 100 times while writing this...

Anyway... My point? If anyone is going through a real pressure chamber of life right now, just remember that you can direct it with action that stems from an organic intrinsic nature that is specific to you and the outcome will be something that is more valuable, stronger, and extraordinarily priceless to your locomotion of life.