Typewriters, Aliens, and Harriet the Spy

I remember the first time I knew I wanted to be a journalist. I was five years old and my mother bought me a movie called Harriet the Spy. Harriet would spy on her neighbors and friends using various gadgets and spy gear that she carried with her on a tool belt. Whenever something caught her eye, she would write about it in her journal. I began to follow in her footsteps shortly after watching the film for the first time. I recorded everything I saw and heard as I snuck around the house, crawling under tables, and listening in on my family’s conversations.

By the time I was eight years old, I considered myself to be a pro despite the fact that, for the most part, everyone I spied on knew I was spying on them. My father got the biggest kick out of my antics. He was rarely home when I was growing up but whenever he was, he would lock himself in his office in our garage and say he was working. One night, I crept into the garage and slowly bent down to peek under his office door. The room was dark but I noticed a bright blue light glowing in one corner of the room. I was instantly convinced that my father was an alien and the blue light was coming from his damaged space ship. My spying days came to an end when I broke into the office to prove my theory, only to discover the alien typing away at his computer. I confronted him about my findings and he explained that the mysterious blue light was coming from the computer screen. The alien insisted I stop spying after that, “or else.” My mother, on the other hand, wanted to encourage my curiosity and passion. So she bought me a typewriter I had fallen in love with at a flea market that Summer. Thus my passion for spying transitioned to a passion for journalism and writing.

In middle school I gained a bit of weight and became somewhat antisocial in school. I was often teased and criticized for my awkward behavior which only led me to devote even more of my time to writing. I wrote many fictitious tales that incorporated real life individuals I came across. My mother was always there for me and very supportive. When I was bullied at school, I would call home and feign sick. She always tried to convince me to stay but I often persuaded her to come rescue me. At the time, she was taking classes at Bellarmine University and she would take me there with her occasionally. My favorite class was taught by Mark Sawyer-Daily who introduced me to the world of theatre. At first I became interested in acting when my mother took me to see Sawyer-Daily rehearse for his part in Actor’s Theatre’s production of Dracula. I was torn between my love of writing, my fear of social interaction, and my desire to become a different person on the stage just like the actors in Dracula did. I concluded that my life would be incomplete if I didn’t find a way to incorporate writing and acting into my daily life. This potentially explains how I got where I am today, taking journalism and acting courses at UofL while working towards a double major in Communication and Sociology.

I didn’t have the easiest life growing up but, then again, not many people do. I am able to acknowledge and appreciate all the blessings I have been given. My mother taught me to follow my dreams, keep my head held high, and not let anyone determine where my life is going to go except myself. She is one of few people in life that has never judged me for how excited and hyper I get when I’m passionate about a new story I’m going to write or role I’m auditioning for. One day, I’ll write a magnificent tale about all the courageous and considerate things she has done, all the trials and errors we endured together. It’s difficult to summarize what all she and I have been through to get to where we are today. I’m happy to say that the alien I wrote about as a child finally did fix his space ship and returned to his home planet, far away from us.

After I graduated from high school, my mother and I moved back to her childhood home where she and her ten brothers and sisters had been raised. A place where all my cousins and I played as children and the one place that has always been a constant in my life. When we moved in, I found my old typewriter hidden upstairs amongst the many trinkets and memorabilia left behind. Throughout high school, I had lost sight of what I wanted to be and do. Finding that typewriter was like breathing a long-awaited sigh of relief. It reminded me that I had a purpose, that I had stories to tell.

It’s easy to get distracted from your dreams and goals. Sometimes the distractions are a necessity and can still have a positive effect on your life. It’s even possible that those distractions could lead you to where you need to go but only if you keep in mind that you have a purpose, you have something that you are passionate about, something you can’t let go of. My distractions have always ended up making the best stories to write about. Minimally, they inspire and motivate me to keep writing. It’s important to follow your dreams but, like Harriet the Spy, you have to recognize that sometimes it’s the little things in life that you need to keep track of to get the story you’re looking for. Sometimes you just have to explore the light under the door.

Haunt Life

If you’ve ever been to a haunted house, I’m sure you know the routine. Ghouls and goblins, dark hallways, startling sounds and motions, chainsaws whirring. Many haunts follow a similar pattern so as best to serve the desires of patrons. For three years, I worked at a haunted house that took a different approach.

Each room in our haunt was set up like a scene from various horror films and tales. I worked as Samara from The Ring and Regan from The Exorcist. Haunt actors often get shuffled around when other actors aren’t able to work their scene. Joining the haunt industry is often compared to becoming a member of a new family. Once you’re part of the crew, you learn how to assimilate to their primary customs.

To give you a better idea of what it’s like to work at the haunt, you need to understand some of the language we “haunters” are accustomed to.

Haunters: people who work at a haunted house.
Screamers: actors who have one self-explanatory job: to scream.
Howling: when everyone is in position and the haunting hour begins, it is customary for haunters to howl. This is a way of saying, “we’re ready to go.”

There are three noteworthy codes that actors are commended for provoking:

Code Yellow: someone scared a customer so bad that they wet their pants.
Code Brown: similar to code yellow but worse. Much worse.
Code Black: a customer had their wits scared out of them and passed out.

As customers travel with their pack from one room to the next, they are greeted with familiar cult terrors from films past. When approaching The Exorcist room, customers begin to hear me scream and call out, “Mother? Mother, make it stop! It’s burning! It’s burrrrrning!” As the last sentence trails off, I acquire a demonic, gravelly tone and cackle evilly while customers enter. The room is a replica of Regan’s bedroom in the film. I hold on to ties that seemingly bind me to a blood-stained bed. This gives customers a sense of false security and oftentimes they will get closer to the edge of the bed as a result. This is when I quickly crawl to the end of the bed, hoist my leg over my shoulder and say, “Keep away! The sow is mine!” My next step is to to stand up, break free of one of the ties and aggressively reach out for the customers as a priest pops out yelling, “The power of Christ compels you!”

One particular evening, I decided to take it a step further. A group came in to the room in conga formation, one clinging to the next. A man in the middle of the lineup seemed particularly squeamish, leaning as close to the wall opposite me as possible. I hopped off the bed, spun around so my back faced them, and as the priest began to chant, I arched my head back towards the group as far as I could. I began to drag the bed towards them, screeching and reaching for the squeamish middle man. The group squealed and ran from the room, jumping in surprise as the priest popped out. A pungent odor lingering in the room was explained by the man’s screams from the hallway, “I think I just shit my pants!” The priest and I were commended later that evening for what seemed to be a code brown achievement.

There are many noteworthy incidents like this that one is bound to encounter in the haunt industry. Groups are stereotyped by the volume, terror, and actions. I had a knocking system worked out with actors in the room opposite The Ring room. Two knocks on the wall for a routine group, three knocks for a fun group, and four knocks for groups of jerks. This allowed me to converse with other actors since I often worked alone in The Ring room.

On slow nights, actors would visit the other rooms and do walkthroughs to see what the haunt is like from customers’ perspective. Often times these walk throughs would be filmed and later turned into a film that we all would gather to watch at the end of each season. We even gather with other haunts for post haunt meetings and celebrations, just to keep in touch.

If you’ve ever wondered whether the effect the haunt actors had on you was reciprocated, the answer is yes. Chances are your group was talked about right after you left the room. Haunters live for the screams, we thrive on fear and positive reactions from customers. So next time you visit a haunt, be sure to put on a show for them too.