The Rapist in the Neighborhood

Have you felt someone watching you?

Have you heard a noise in the house and have been convinced someone is there?

Have searched for an intruder with a baseball bat/butcher knife/gun in hand?

Have you walked around the outside of your home at two in the morning, certain that someone is hiding in the bushes?

Fear captivates us all.

When I was a child, we lived near a convicted rapist. This is no joke, but this is before the time of sex offender websites. (Have you explored those and found the creeps in your neighborhood? It’s frightening.)

But our rapist did not keep to himself. He enjoyed the attention. He had a large tree in his front yard, a trunk as wide as a car, leaves like a cloud that hid his window.

He knew the neighbors knew about him. He knew the neighbors were terrified of him.

My grandmother was convinced he was out for her. In her 60s at that time, she cried at night, “He’s gonna get me! I just know it!” I laughed and replied, “Grandma, I doubt he wants those 60 year old chicken legs.” She frowned at me and locked her door.

Then the most interesting thing happened in our neighborhood. He used large, white adhesive tape and wrote a letter on the car-sized trunk of his tree each day. The first letter was “I.”

“What does it mean?” the neighbors asked.

The next day he wrote the letter “A.”

We held our breath and waited for the next day. The new letter was “M.”

“I am… I am what?” the neighbors wondered.

Then he followed a 14 year old girl home from the park. My friends and I spent an evening planning a battle.

“What should we do?” I asked my older, wiser neighbor friend. He was 16.

“Eggs,” he said with confidence. “Eggs.”

The next day, with that obnoxiously large white tape, he put up the letter “W.” We responded by tossing eggs at his front door and windows, laughing at these adult fears with a childlike naivety.

His message continued, one letter each day. After “W” came “A.” Then “T.” Then “C.” And then “H.” Next was “I.” Then “N.” And “G.” And then “Y and O and U.”

“I AM WATCHING YOU,” my grandmother read, wrapping her arms tightly around her waist. But he wasn’t done.

On the next day after the message was complete, he used the white tape to construct a smiley face. That was the last thing he wrote on his tree.

“I AM WATCHING YOU :)”

The older boys in the neighborhood had more than enough. They moved from eggs to baseball bats, and in one crazy night, they took the bats to his door, to his car, and to his windows. They bashed in the door, shattered the glass windows all along the front and sides of his house, and turned his cheap car into a nothing more than an incredibly dented piece of metal.

He called the cops on those kids, as I watched from the sidelines. I don’t know what happened to those brave and obnoxious teens. I was forced to go inside by my parents.

Later that summer, we read an article in the local paper about this man. He was arrested, thankfully, once again. He was caught by a police officer masturbating in a park while watching children. I had never been so disgusted in my young life.

This is one of the creepiest memories from my childhood at home, and I think he’d make a great villain in one of my stories. It took place in the early 90s, before the time of cell phones and internet. It was one of the last years before we could search online for predators. We lived in fear and ignorance. We had to read the paper each day for updates, as nothing was instant. And no one could post photos of the letters he put up on his tree each day to publicly condemn his behavior.

My grandmother really did think she would be attacked. This pervert really did stalk a 14 year old girl. We really did egg his house, and several older boys really did violently destroy much of his property. And they were punished while he smiled with his letters on his tree, that is until he was caught doing a disgusting public act near children.

He will be a villain in one my stories. He will do terrible things. And he will be punished for it.

Strippers and Summer

Like you, I have so many incredible childhood stories and adventures. I enjoy remembering them and reflecting on that time in my life. The following is a true story, but I made some changes to my friends' names. This is one of many such adventures, and I certainly hope to share more.

I grew up in a well-kept, middle class neighborhood, but I lived in a house surrounded by a strange combination of lifestyles.  Next door to me was a boy’s dream: a house rented by three women who worked as adult entertainers for local strip club.  I kid you not.  They moved in as I moved through puberty, and my friends and I hoped each and every day that we’d catch them in a spontaneous performance in their living room.

                Across the street from the ladies’ house and my house was an Apostolic Christian church, neighbored by Apostolic Christians who took care of the church and its property.  If that wasn’t the epitome of lifestyle juxtaposition, one only had to look to the neighbors on the other side of my house for more culture.  There lived my two best friends as a child, Ronnie and Danny, who were raised by their gay dad and his partner.  Strippers, Apostolic Christians, and gay parents: I could not imagine having more culture as a child.

                “Chris!” Danny yelled as I walked over to his house.  “Did you hear the bad news?”

                “Yeah,” I answered, frowning.

                “I can’t believe they’re leaving.  This sucks!”

                “We have one week left.  We need a plan.”

                “I already have supplies!” Ronnie said as he pulled three dynamite long smoke bombs from his pocket.  “Tonight, we use these babies!”

                It was the first day of summer, and to our profound disappointment, word on the street was that our stripper neighbors were moving.  We had looked forward to the summer all year long.  Hot days and hot nights would mean even fewer clothes for our salacious neighbors.  We had been trying to catch glimpses of them by peeping into the windows late at night.  During one Saturday night party, we heard music and laughter.  We went to the windows and the girls were dancing, but we ran away laughing when a man in the party dropped his pants and blocked our view from the window with his ass. 

                Danny’s brother, Ronnie, came outside to meet us.  “Danny and I have a battle plan,” he said.  “We wait until night and we light these smoke bombs under the windows at their house.  Then we’ll hide by the bushes in your yard and wait for them to run outside naked!” Ronnie giggled as he said the word in his best villain voice. 

                “What makes you think they’ll be naked?” I asked.

                “We’ll wait till it’s late,” Ronnie said.

                I nodded and smiled in agreement, as if it was the most logical thing possible. 

                We passed the time playing basketball in my driveway.  Danny, as usual, won our little street game.  He was the athletic one, two years younger than me and Ronnie, but muscular and toned.  His blonde hair moved with the wind, and his blue eyes focused intensely on the ball.  At 11 years old, Danny may have been the youngest of the three of us, but we admired his athleticism.  Ronnie, on the other hand, was the scrawny, non-athletic brother.  A year older than Dan, Ronnie had dark black hair, dark as a raven, and a pale complexion.  He was the worst of us at any sport, but he had a contagious laugh and honest humility that made us fall in love with him.  I was the oldest of the three, a proud 13 year old and it was my first summer as a teenager. The brothers looked at me with awe as the wiser, more experienced member of our trio.

                Finally the sun set and we met together in my backyard to finalize our plans.

                “You take this to the kitchen window,” Ronnie said as he handed me the smoke bomb.  “I’ll put one by the front window, and Dan you put one by the window on the other side of the house.  Once we start walking over there, we each count to ten-Mississippi.  On ten, we light and run like hell to these bushes.  I even brought a camera!”

                “Awesome!” My heart was racing and my arms were shaking.  We stood up slowly and made our way to the edge of my yard.  Ronnie looked at us intently and carefully.  “Ready?” He paused and took a deep breath and then said, “go!”

                We ran, smiling, scared, and excited all at once.  I found the kitchen window and placed the smoke bomb below it.  I wasn’t sure if I was counting right.  As I reached four-Mississippi, I thought I was going too fast.  Then I thought I was counting too slow, but at ten-Mississippi, I lit the smoke bomb and ran to the bushes.

                Within seconds we were huddled by the tall, wide bushes that lined my front yard.  We grabbed onto each others’ arms and shoulders, trying not to laugh, but full of the excitement of youth and adventure.  The smoke bombs were overwhelming.  These weren’t the cheap kind that lasted a few seconds.  These dynamite long sticks poured out a fountain of thick smoke that lasted at least a minute if not two.  To our surprise, all three women ran out of the house screaming and waving their arms.

                “Is there a fire?” one asked.

                “What the hell is going?” asked another.

                Unfortunately, they were fully clothed, but their reactions forced out our laughter and we could hold back no longer.  We laughed as loud as we had ever laughed before.

                “It’s those fuckin’ boys,” one of the girls yelled pointing at the laughing bushes.

                “Oh shit,” Ronnie laughed.  “Let’s go!”

                We ran in the opposite direction, past my friends’ house, down to the end of the street.  We ran down to another block and then hid in an alley between the two.  We were still laughing as we panted from the sprint.  Our arms interlocked in a little circle as we leaned on each other while we caught our breath.

                “That was awesome!” Danny cheered.  “Let’s do it again!”

                And so began our first day of summer.

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A Pop Culture Tour: from childhood to today

The more I write about childhood, the more I realize I’m still a child at heart. Ironically, it took a long time to get there. When so much of one’s life is spent in various college degree programs and in the necessities of living (mortgages, car payments, yuck), we can forget the simple joys of life.

I’m a pop culture and nostalgia junkie. I thought I’d share with my Blog readers (thank you, you loyal few!) some of my interests. Let’s do it with pictures! It wasn’t until this spring and summer that I really redesigned a few parts of my home to showcase my inner childhood. It took me until age 35.

My favorite horror films and fun figures

My favorite horror films and collectibles of the horror villains get two special shelves near my fire place. I organized this little collection as I began writing a new novel this summer, the one I'm trying to get published, which I would consider to be my love letter to horror stories. Pennywise from It, Michael Myers from Halloween, Jason, Freddy, and the like: How can you not love all of these? 

Game of Thrones

 Perhaps my all time favorite television series and one of my favorite book series: of course Game of Thrones earns several spots in my home. On the left, two more shelves by my fire place showcase the books, movies, and collectibles.

And there's this gem, a hand made work of art personally created by one of my best friends.

Movie/Game Tower of Nostalgia

I have a large, spinning movie tower and I decided to devote some of the shelves to my favorites.

One top shelf hosts my Rocky Blu-Ray collection, along with some pretty sweet Funko figures of the Rocky characters. 

Below Rocky, Gizmo sits proudly displaying the Gremlins (and the Goonies, not everything fits perfectly). Gizmo even dances and makes his signature sounds. Am I a geek or what?

Below Gizmo, Slimer found a home by Ghostbusters and several other Blu-Rays.

And of course I have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, guarded carefully by Shredder and Leonardo.

And I can't forget the video games! Mario Kart and Mario Party earn top shelf in the game selection!

Below Mario, I had to give a little tribute to Pac-Man!

The other shelves are just rows and rows of movies and games, but over time, I hope to create lots of little displays like this on my tower of fun :)

The Man Cave of Nostalgia 

And then I have an entire room devoted to pop culture favorites. As you walk up to the man cave, you are greeted by characters from Star Wars, Daenerys from Game of Thrones, Iron Man, and Spider-Man. 

When I was a kid, I had some strange idea that unique soda cans and bottles would be very valuable some day. I've put a few on display here. Below that, I have a Michael Jordan autographed hat, an Everclear t-shirt signed by all the members in the band, and a Nolan Ryan autographed baseball (he was my favorite player when I was young).

Then I had to find a home for my oldest wrestling figures. Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Jesse the Body Ventura, Hillbilly Jim, the Junkyard Dog, and more proudly stand, with all the beatings and bruises they took from my childhood.

If you're up for a game of chess, Monopoly, or Yahtzee, we'll play over here, where more Mario nostalgia awaits.

And of course there's an original Nintendo Entertainment System along with a few of my favorite NES games: The Goonies, Mario Brothers, Friday the 13th, and the Karate Kid. 

There's a lot more to this room and to my inner nerd who loves to hold on to and now proudly display current favorite entertainment and those favorites from days past. 

They all inspire me in different ways, and they help me reflect on a time of innocence and the joys of childhood, which will all be part of future stories I write. I hope you've enjoyed my little tour, and if nothing else, you certainly know the kind of gifts you can get me if you ever feel so inclined. I do love presents.

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Rediscovering Childhood

I love how big the world is from a child’s eyes and how simple adventures can create the greatest memories. This summer I unlocked a secret to my childhood, a mystery that I had tried to discover for years. I’d like to write about that and tell you the secret that unraveled my little mystery.

I’m not sure if I can trust my memory, especially from adventures that happened nearly 25 years ago, but I will do my best.

The cemetery was the size of a planet, full of undiscovered territory for a 12 year old. We were forbidden to ride or walk through it. Not long ago, a dead body had been found in the all-encompassing woods that surrounded the endless paths of tombstones. This is no joke. Someone was murdered and her dead body was dumped in a ditch. Naturally, our parents forbid us to explore the cemetery. Naturally, our curiosity was far greater than our obedience.

Hopping on a BMX, I rode on a dirt path behind some side streets near the entrance of the cemetery. We had discovered paths for dirt bikes, and one of these paths led into the rear of the cemetery. We had to travel through wooded paths and cross a creek that often flooded when it rained heavily.

Once we were in the cemetery, the endless winding roads were a childhood explorer’s dreams. We flew down hills at life-threatening speeds and walked our bikes up the roads too steep to climb. There were mausoleums and a dilapidated caretaker’s house. We explored all of these, losing ourselves in time and space. There were creepy stairways hidden in the woods that connected the high grounds to the low. The steps were too broken and staggered to bike through, and so we walked with a giant stick to knock down the numerous spider webs from our way.

There was even a witch’s circle, a circular area that housed many graves from the same family, including small children and infants. The rumor was that they were all burned many years ago having allegedly been practitioners of witchcraft.

Deer and wild turkey vultures roamed freely, and on occasion, no joke here either, we even saw a black cat.

This was the setting of legends and adventures for much of my childhood, and there are a dozen stories to tell. We witnessed drug abuse, were chased by security guards, believed we were hunted by a murderer who left large grave hooks on a path to torment us, had a frightening experience with a Ouija board we used at night in the cemetery, and of course, there was the hidden railroad and the secret lake.

All of this minutes from my backyard.

On one adventure of many, we biked through the cemetery and managed to get lost. That summer we had watched what would become one of our favorite childhood movies, Stand By Me, and we felt like we were living the film. It wasn’t long after the murdered body had been discovered in our cemetery, and so my gang of friends and I set off on a journey to find other victims, curious if anyone else had been ditched in the woods behind the seemingly infinite grave-yard.

That’s when we found the railroad tracks. Surprised, we walked our bikes along a railroad that had to have been just minutes from our backyard, but we never knew of a train so close. Following the railroad, we discovered a hidden lake and a dozen other kids swimming and beating the heat of the summer time.

“Hey,” one of the kids yelled. “Come on in! It feels great!”

We looked around. “Where the hell are we?” I asked my best friend.

“No idea,” he responded. “But that does look fun. C’mon!”

We took off our shirts and shoes and jumped in the water. We dunked each other, raced with the other kids, and laughed harder than I can ever remember. There were no adults around. It was as if we had found our own secret garden of childhood.

Losing track of time, we swam and splashed until sunset when my friend said, “Shit, Joe. We better get home. Our parents are gonna be furious.” We must have left our houses around mid-afternoon. It had been at least five or six hours since we had checked in, and in a time before cell-phones, we were expected to pop in and at least yell at one of our parents so they knew where we were.

But of course, finding our way back would be tricky. We ended up going the wrong way and found ourselves under a massive highway bridge near the river. We were severely late, but this was too cool of discovery not to explore.

We crawled up the huge cement foundation of the bridge and were actually under it. Cars moved overhead, and the vibrations of the vehicles driving over the bridge are still noises I associate with childhood today.

We found the main road connected to the bridge and from there made our way back home. Before getting reprimanded by our parents, we swore we’d return. Every day if we could that summer. We’d bike through the cemetery, hike the railroad, swim in the hidden lake, and play under the bridge.

It was a magical summer, perhaps one of the most adventurous summers of my childhood. If I ever write a story about kids and adventures, there is no doubt in my mind that the secret lake, the hidden railroad, the infinite cemetery, and the ubiquitous surrounding woods would play a central role. I think that’d be a great story.

Of course, part of the beauty of childhood is that we don’t necessarily recognize the things we do as magical until we reflect back on them as adults. My childhood friends moved away, security was tightened around the cemetery, and I never went back there again after that summer.

Until almost 20 years later, when I was on a mission to find this secret garden of my youth. I printed maps, walked every inch of the cemetery, crossed off every section, walked to the bridge, looked around, and found absolutely nothing.

For years, I thought my memory had tricked me. Had I made all of this up?

And then this last spring I got a bike. And that was the secret. I didn’t need maps and an adult’s eyes. I needed a bike and a carefree sense to explore. One day I went off the beaten path into an area with a “no trespassing” sign. I found my railroad tracks. Although the tracks were no longer present, the indentation of the path was still visible. I also found my “lake,” although it’s really no bigger than a watering hole, and it doesn’t look like anything anyone should swim in. But again, that’s probably the beauty of child’s eyes. We didn’t care what it looked like. It was our secret, our special place.

And if you’d like, I can take you there. Perhaps I’ll take you there in a story. That story of childhood adventure is still developing in my mind. But I’d love to show you the witch’s circle, have you by my side as we ducked and hid from security, and let you feel the adrenaline that shot through our veins when we were convinced a madman was chasing us through the woods.

On a less fictional note, I can also take you there on a nice afternoon. We’ll take a walk and talk about adventure, childhood, and nostalgia. But I’d prefer to be on a bike. I’ve shown a few friends these secrets in person. To them, it’s pretty cool. But they never got to see it as a child, when the world was larger, when mysteries were unsolved, and when finding secret places in nature known only to a few special kids was the coolest thing that could have ever happened.

Thanks for reading. You can follow by e-mail or subscribe; be sure to click "full web version" at the very bottom of the main blog page and not the mobile site if you wish to subscribe. You should see the subscription tabs on the right hand side of the page.