A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven (15 page)

It was while I was with my son as a tiny little guy that my first physical confrontation happened with the shadowy residents of the Foster Manor. Until that point I had listened to the descriptions from the people hanging out on the third floor with fascination—I had never experienced anything like that. I did not doubt them—I mean, the evidence was right there on their bodies, for fuck’s sake—I just had nothing to identify with from that side of the coin. As far as I was concerned, as long as Griff was okay, I was minding my own business. I gave little thought to these issues as I watched my son in the mornings, feeding him and making sure he stayed out of dangerous chemicals while occasionally singing him to sleep in his swing.

One morning I was carrying him down the stairs to make him a bottle. It was early—the sun is not your friend after four hours of sleep. But as a dad, your job in the early years is really just the survival of your kin. So fuck sleep—grab the moo juice. I figured I would get him settled and put on some TV, relax, maybe even nap while he napped. It seemed like such a simple plan. I was spacing out, heading down the stairs, focused on getting to the kitchen, when I was pushed from behind. I felt it right in the middle of my back. I was pushed so hard, my chest shoved straight out. It surprised me with its force. I found myself falling down the stairs with my son in my arms. The only thing I could do was twist my body in midair so I landed on my back with him on my chest. It knocked the wind out of me, and I bounced my head on the hardwood floor. My boy started screaming instantly. I lifted my eyes up to where I had just been, and of course, as always, there was not a soul in sight.

Now I was fucking pissed. I was on fire—a pissed off German Irish bastard who was ready to break shit with a cricket bat in order to protect his kid from danger, even if that meant going crazy and doing something stupid. I could feel my teeth gritting and my knuckles popping. My jaw hurt from flexing and my eyes were dry from staring down molecules because there was nothing else around for me to mean mug. By Grape Soda, I was dying for some action! I needed to bypass caveman mode and go right to Machiavellian evil. Something had threatened the brood, and I wanted to torture it until it felt as helpless as I did at that moment, trying to calm down a little boy who had just flown through the air and not of his own volition. I wanted war like a monger lusts for power, and I set out to find it on my own.

So one night when the boy was at his grandmother’s house, I got drunk and went into the attic to challenge the invisible slits to a fight.

I know: this was a colossal waste of time and effort. But this was 2003, which was during what I call my Dark Period. So my idea of fixing a problem in those days was to chug whiskey and smash it to bits with a hammer, only to wake up much later with a headache and a much bigger problem. But no matter—it made sense to me, so it made sense, full stop. I charged drunkenly up the stairs and started yelling at fuck all. “Come on, ya cocksuckers! I am ready for you now! Let’s see how fucking tough you are when a guy is looking! And when he is not holding a fucking toddler!” That was pretty much the routine for a couple hours before I got bored and wandered back down the stairs to eat cold fried chicken. I can feel how impressed you are by that very male display of domination. I also cook bacon without wearing a shirt. Fuck the hot grease—I feel nothing but manly hunger! When no one is looking, however, I do apply a nice salve to the tiny burns. That shit feels like microscopic knife wounds.

I know what you are thinking, so I will answer your question: no, nothing happened that night. I did spill my drink all over the place, thus spending an entire afternoon trying to get the stain out. All hail the mighty warrior . . . dude guy. So much for alcohol and bravado; in this instance pathos goes out the window with subtlety and wisdom. But when something happens to me and mine, I freak out like a maniac. You do not poke the fucking bear. The Shadow Man is lucky I could not get my hands around his supposedly scrawny neck. I would have wrung him out like an old dishrag full of suds and evil. My anger eventually dissipated, and I got back to doing constructive things like rolling down the hill in the front yard with Griffin clinging to my chest and laughing his ass off. But I still got some sand in the craw about that whole situation. What is the statute of limitations on being fucking pissed at a ghost? I might have to do some research in the Library of Congress on that one.

It was not all bad in the Foster Manor. Even though I was having difficulties in my relationship at the time, there were some good times as well. I watched my boy swim in our hot tub when he was still very small, his arms clad in Pool Buddies, which are essentially inflatable cuffs for your upper arms so you can float. He absolutely loved it. The only problem was that he loved it so much that he only ever wanted to swim in the hot tub. Even when he got older, all he wanted to do was jump in and out of the jacuzzi. There sat a massive pool for him to swim back and forth in, but he would not have it. He just liked doing ridiculous cannonballs into the hot tub. It was not until much later that we were able to coax him into “the big-boy pool.” Now the kid is a damn fish; it does not matter what time of year it is, all he wants to do is get in the pool. Even when I let him get in when it is a bit cold and his lips turn purple and blue, he gets very upset when my wife or I insist on his departure into the warmth of the house. I do not know where he gets his stubbornness from sometimes . . .

You! Yeah . . . YOU. Shut your inner mouth.

There were some good grown-up times as well. I can remember a fairly inebriating evening of cocktails and shenanigans that was going swimmingly—a party for the professionals, if you will. Unfortunately there is a giant lapse in my memory around this point, but I do recall coming around in my kitchen, standing at the sink, and eating the smallest BBQ sandwich I had ever seen with no pants on. I do not know where my pants went. I do not know where the sandwich came from. All I know is it was very cold in my kitchen and pants would have been a good thing—especially with all the partygoers saying goodbye and staring rather rudely. But as far as I was concerned, my house plus my kitchen equaled my prerogative. There were nights of wonderful games like Trivial Pursuit and Scene It. One night some friends and I learned how to play Texas Hold ’Em, and I got cleaned the fuck out by those same prick-like friends. At least they left me with a shirt I could wear. Things would seem normal for long periods. I would only hear fleeting things about other experiences up on the third floor.

Also the damage perpetrated in this house was not always consigned to the spiritual wrecking crew. There was a night when the kids were at Grandma’s house and we had some friends over for a few tee many martoonis. Around four in the morning I was trying in vain to get those friends to simply crash at the house; it was clear they were too inebriated to drive themselves home. After a round of arguments and a sneaky exit, these stalwart friends ended up driving backward through my front yard and colliding dangerously with a telephone pole. Another foot to the right and they would have taken out my neighbor’s mailbox. On a different occasion someone ran around my house during a Halloween party, spitting beer all over my walls. It may have been years ago, but if I find the son of a bitch who did it, I just may dig a pit and toss his or her body in with a nice little lye bath for good measure. It is probably the same motherfucker who stole one of my black Gibson Les Paul customs I had stashed in the basement so no one would see them. God, I hate thieves as much as I hate cold coffee sometimes.

One day Griffin’s grandmother was taking the trash down to the corner so it could be collected the next morning. As she was depositing the receptacles at the curb, a big white van pulled up full of Japanese tourists with cameras. They climbed out of the vehicle and immediately started taking pictures of her and the house. Needless to say, she was a little perturbed and asked what the hell was going on. They explained to her that they had been sold a “Map of Slipknot” at the airport, so they had rented a van to take them around to snap souvenir pictures. Griffin’s grandmother waved them off, and I tried to warn the other band members that weirdness was coming their way in the form of a van full of tourists.

Oh and by the way, just so I can put to rest some scuttlebutt that has been spread across the landscapes of Facebook, Twitter, and even the desolate frozen wasteland that is still Myspace: I HAVE NEVER DONE DRUGS WITH ANY PERSON IN ANY OF THE BATHROOMS IN ANY OF THE HOUSES THAT I HAVE OWNED, LIVED IN, OR OTHERWISE. I do not know where this shitty sordid rumor started, but apparently there are a virtual host of assholes in Des Moines and other places that claim to have done all kinds of chemicals with yours truly while sequestered in one of my commodes. I have thrown many a party, even one that included wild livestock and a crash helmet (that was one hell of a birthday, I will say), but I have never imbibed or offered any illegal controlled substances with or to any people since 1989. The only thing other than alcohol I have ever partaken in was weed and mushrooms, and both of those were in Holland and Los Angeles. So all you mother fuckers who keep passing that brag around like a blow-up doll at a frat squat can just let it go because it is absolutely not true. However, there were two different times when cocaine was offered to me in a bathroom, but both those times were in Los Angeles as well. Ironically, both of those times involved well-known actors; one was at the old Viper Room (while said actor was trying to chat up a Puerto Rican boy in an attempt to get him to come home with him) and the other was deep inside our old friend from a few chapters ago, the Mansion. So just to sum up: I have never done any drugs in any of the bathrooms located in any of my old or current houses with any individual, alive or dead, but I myself was offered drugs in a couple bathrooms by B-List movie stars amid strange goings-on and whatnot. I hope this clears up any confusion in that land of facts and truth, the Internet.

As you may have read in my previous book and as I have said in interviews, it was right around Griffin’s first birthday when I, quote unquote, “started to get my shit together.” What followed was a three-year period when I did not touch a drop of alcohol and I started to get my focus back on work, family, and responsibility. That is hard shit for someone who has made a bloody mess of a lot of things, but you just have to keep slogging at it until it gets a bit more tolerable. So during this time frame I had that first conversation with Griffin about the Shadow Man. This was a very new development; up until that point there were really just the odd brushes with invisible antagonists. If anything, every once in a while you would see something quick and abrupt in the corner of your eye. But when a father hears his son describe “a man in the corner who keeps me awake,” you bet your fat ass I take it seriously.

Some of you might be saying, “Well, he was three or four at the time, and kids have amazingly vivid imaginations, right?” Trust me, the thought crossed my mind. But studies have also shown that as children develop early on, they have a sort of extra perception for certain things. I am not talking about ESP; I am talking about being able to see things in a way that adults cannot after a while. Maybe it is because, as we get older, our minds fill with what is supposed to be real. Maybe we lose it because most people are taught that things like that do not exist and, because everyone else thinks that, your mind refuses to see them anymore. It is a possibility—God and Adam know stranger things have happened.

I also had to take into consideration that he might have wanted me to sleep in his room with him because I was on the road a lot and my times at home with him were precious and few. So there was the guilt-trip side to the story. But my son at that age really had no manipulative bones in his body. Plus, I remember the look on his face: he really saw this thing. He said the Shadow Man would stand in the corner looking at him, and every once in a while he would walk toward the bed and lean in at him. Griff would bury his face in the covers until the Shadow Man disappeared. But he always came back. So I took to sleeping in his room with him every once in a while, just to keep the Shadow Man at bay as much as I could.

One night I was in Griff’s room, and my son was fast asleep. I was kind of in and out of consciousness—you know that feeling when you are just on the cusp of passing out? It can be a fertile ground for dreams and the like. So my eyelids were heavy, and I found myself slowly but surely nodding off. That was when I finally got my first glimpse of the Shadow Man with my own eyes. At first I was not truly convinced I was seeing things clearly. There was a moment when I thought it was part of my dream. Then I thought, “Well why would I dream about this spot in Griff’s bedroom?” Once I woke up fully and realized he was still there, I found I could not move. He stood in the corner, exactly as the boy had said, just staring at us. His face was pale, and he never blinked. Finally he made as if to walk toward the bed. I suddenly shot bolt upright, not sure what the hell I was going to do against a flipping ghost but damn sure I was not going to let him fuck with my son again. But it turned out it did not matter because as soon as I moved, he vanished. I watched it happen. It was incredibly fascinating and terribly unsettling all at the same time. We were only in that house for another year, but the Shadow Man never came back, even when I was gone at work.

Things died down for a bit. If there was anything going on, nobody really noticed. Griff’s mother and I were beginning to separate, so it is easy to say that my attention was otherwise elsewhere. By the middle of 2006 we were no longer together, and neither of us was living in Foster Manor. It seems so strange to call it that now. It was just an old house on an old side of town that just so happened to come with extra residents. But to me it represented less the start of a new life and more the beginning of the life I lead now. It was a foray into adulthood by a “man” who should have started much earlier than he allowed himself. Had I done that, I am sure things would have turned out much the same. But having said that, I still have no regrets. I am exactly where I am meant to be in my life. Griff’s mom and I have both met fantastic people whom we married, and between the two couples we do our best to raise Griffin to be a good, intelligent, and creative boy, which he definitely is today.