Styrofoam Throne (16 page)

“Fuck, man. I’m not talking about that. I’m going to slay chicks all night in that thing,” he said, pointing at a large coffin, “and you take care of the room.”

“Oh yeah, totally. Cool.”

“You look confused, Dono.”

“No, man. I got ya.”

“Right.”

“So you’re gonna fuck chicks in the coffin? They’re cool with that?”

“Cool all day, every day, man.”

I thought it was creepy in a non-Castle way but yeah, whatever. Fourth of July had opened my eyes to this stuff already. The coffins were all super authentic looking—brass rails, plush lining, and polished oak. But they stank, probably from Pete rolling around in them all day, every day.

I climbed into a coffin. Pete leaned over before shutting the lid.

“Okay, so I’ll do my thing when the plebes come and when you hear me say, ‘He’ll never bother me now!’ and laugh,
‘Ha ha ha,’
then you pop out.”

“What’s the plot before that?” I asked.

“I was in a partnership at a funeral parlor but I killed the other guy, you, for the full stake. So I embalmed you and put you on permanent display. Then you strike from the grave.”

“But if I was embalmed, I wouldn’t look like this kind of zombie,” I said pointing to my rotting flesh.

“Who gives a shit?”

“And, technically, I’m not in a grave.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, are you serious?”

“I just feel like this could be better.”

“This isn’t what it’s about, man,” Pete said with a look of “Don’t fuck my night up.”

“Okay, no. Let’s try it out.”

“We gotta get you laid, dude.”

“I’m seeing that Melody chick.”

“You sure she’s seeing you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If there’s any run-off tonight, I’ll send it your way,” Pete said and shut the coffin door on me.

It was a while before anyone came through. I was stuck in plush, pitch black and breathing shallow, hot breaths. I had never been in a coffin before, and had jumped at the opportunity, but now doubted my enthusiasm. It seemed more like some actual satanic hazing ritual.

We did the simple skit over and over. It was alright, I guess. Pete tossed me a couple beers he kept in a cooler behind one of the coffins to keep me “hydrated.” After a while, it felt like I was just opening the coffin to grab another beer. Then he finally gave the secret knock on the coffin for me to take over. His chick had arrived and they disappeared when I came out. I didn’t really know how I was supposed to work the room by myself. What’s a zombie doing in a funeral home? I decided to just hide behind a coffin and do a simple pop-out scare. It got the job done enough to keep the plebes moving through. Pete finally emerged from his coffin with the sweaty chick. She kissed him and left.

“Good lookin’ out, brother,” he said and cracked a beer. I got back in the coffin and wasn’t there two minutes before he did the secret knock again. I got back out and he was already gone.

I worked the room for about fifteen minutes when all of a sudden, a red-faced dad barreled through the room. I popped out to scare him but it didn’t work. He grabbed my throat the second he saw me and nearly foamed at the mouth while yelling, “I’ve got two daughters and one of them just came out of the Castle looking deflowered, you dirty motherfucker!”

His choke hold made it almost impossible to squeeze out a reply but I tried.

“Not . . . me . . .”

“Try again. I got her to cough up who it was and she said the guy in the Funeral Parlor. And you’re the only guy I see. How you gonna get out of that?”

I couldn’t. The choke hold put me on the verge of passing out.

“That’s what I thought, you scumbag!” He threw me across the room and I smashed into a coffin. The dad picked me up and just started wailing away on my zombie face. I had never been punched so hard and so many times in my life. And for nothing. The dad was out of breath but kept kicking my ass until I couldn’t stand anymore. I collapsed on the ground.

Just then, Pete opened his coffin and another girl got out with him.

“Cindy!” the dad yelled. It was his other daughter. The dad instantly knew that he was beating up the wrong guy but didn’t seem to care, and he lunged for Pete. Pete’s reflexes were much quicker than mine and he took off running through the Castle with the dad behind him.

I was barely conscious, lying on the Funeral Parlor floor. The plebes passing by seemed to think my real blood was fake and all part of the show. And why would they blink at some zombie, curled up in a ball, crying for help in a place where that’s already the norm? After a few minutes that felt like hours, Pete came back. He picked me up and a bunch of blood ran down my chin.

“Jesus Christ, man. I think you saved my life,” he said.

Trying to talk hurt, so I didn’t. I also didn’t have anything to say. I was fucking pissed and didn’t know where to start. He brought me to Jack’s office where he had a first-aid kit set up and a bag of ice.

“Here you go, Dono,” Jack said, handing me the bag. “Are you gonna be okay?”

“I think . . .”

“Well, I nailed that motherfucker good for ya,” Jack said. “I dragged him out to the curb and told the cops he was wasted, causing a scene, so they took him to jail. Gonna be a funny wake-up for that dumb fuck.”

The guys were being really chummy with me, and even though my face and gut were hammered in, I dug that this was making me one of the boys.

Jack, Pete, and I just sat there going over everything that happened. I got to tell my version of the story and they paid attention to me like it was a warrior’s epic saga. When I was done, Jack turned to Pete and scowled.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t fire you for this, Pete.”

“Hey! I pull my weight around here,” he said.

“The only thing you’re pulling are panties. I can’t even believe you could get it on in there with that stench,” Jack said.

“Oh, that’s from all the pussy I’ve gotten.”

“No, it’s not,” Jack said. “That’s formaldehyde. What, you think I’d buy new coffins?”

Pete’s eyes went way wider than mine. It was disturbing and disgusting news, but at least I didn’t have my dick out in the things. Pete started to turn green and ran for the door.

“Hey, don’t worry! I Lysoled the hell out of ’em!” Jack yelled as Pete took off.

Jack came around the other side of his desk and cracked open the first-aid kit.

“Shit, Dono, I can’t tell which ones are real or not,” he said while inspecting my beaten zombie face. “Hell, there are bruises under bruises. You’re a tough guy, huh?” I wasn’t but agreed. He cleaned me up and said, “You know, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to come back.”

“Fuck that.”

Jack pulled a liquor bottle from under his desk and poured two large glasses of whatever it was.

“I’ve got a question though,” I said. “How do you even get a used coffin? I mean, like, seriously.”

“Drink this down, buddy,” Jack said as if he hadn’t heard me. He handed me the glass and pounded his with a wink. It seemed like an answer. All this camaraderie I was gaining from getting my ass kicked made it feel like it was worth it.

I was too beaten up and buzzed to sneak in my window that night, so I had to do a face-to-face with Janice in the living room. I planned to play off the real bruises as makeup.

“My son, the drunk monster.”

“I’m not drunk.”
 

We were both drunk.

“You’ve gotten really good at looking terrible,” she deadpanned.

“Yeah, it’s makeup.” I said.

She bought it at first, but when I sat down on the couch, I could tell she noticed. We watched a little TV and my nose began to bleed. She didn’t call me out on it. She just went to the kitchen and came back with some paper towels and a bag of frozen peas.

“Here,” she said.

I took the peas and we watched more TV in silence. The Castle Dunes commercial came on. I didn’t need anything else stirring the pot and squirmed as the “Toccata” played.

“Just . . . Why, Donovan?” she said.

“I’m making money and I’m happy,” I slurred. The shock from getting beaten up was wearing off and I was feeling the booze in its place.

“You sure look it.”

Janice went into her room, turned out the lights, and started crying.

As the summer went on, cast members started to get bored with their acts. They’d get lazy and change their act in bizarre ways. Like, I know there was one girl who got busted for pretending to chew on a bloody tampon. It was ketchup. She did it for one day and got more complaints than anything all summer combined. Each cast member was weirder than the next but I thought the worst offense was from the clown.

I didn’t think the whole clown thing was actual horror material. What the hell is a clown doing in a Castle anyways? A jester, yeah. But the clown’s usual schtick was so boring and didn’t fit in with the gothic nature of the place. He was a real loose cannon too, and now I’d have to deal with him.

Jack split up Pete and me after the Funeral Parlor thing and assigned me to the Haunted Jail. It was a double boo room. Two cast members would hide and pop out at different areas of the jail bars. One monster would set up the next, distracting the plebes while another swooped in, unexpected. I was back in my werewolf mask to cover up my black eyes, which I thought looked pretty cool through the mask. The soundtrack in the Jail was slow, hard-heeled footsteps walking down a hallway.

I staked out where I wanted to crouch when the clown walked in. He was a runty, white guy with a facial twitch and raspy voice. But today he was done up much differently than normal. In place of his traditional clown makeup was a fully racist blackface look, and he wore oversized baby clothes. After getting my ass kicked just yesterday, I wasn’t looking to be around more trouble starters. And this was bound to ignite something bad.

“Dude, what?” I said. “You can’t do that blackface shit, man. You’re gonna get our asses kicked.”

“Whhhhy?” he said in an evil clown voice.

“Dude, I’m serious. Why did you even do this?”

“Clowns, black people, and babies scare me,” he said, sticking to the voice and tilting his head like a serial killer. I’d never seen the clown on break. He probably masturbated between the walls while hovering over rat traps. The idea of a clown in a jail wasn’t even authentic. The Wolfman in jail makes so much more sense. Like I got brought in as a human and a full moon happened. The only way Blackface Clown Baby would be in jail is for a hate crime.

“Did Jack see this?” I asked.

“No, I have another master . . .” he said.

Before going further, I thought I should try to create some tiny bond with him so he wouldn’t kill me.

“Want some gum, man?” I asked.

“What does evil want of candy?” he said.

It was going to be a long day. We started up and the room was working well. I’d set up the plebes by growling at them while trying to reach past the bars, and the clown would pop out with an evil “Hee hee!” at the end. The clown definitely got some weird looks, but no one said anything.

Until a black family came in. It was a dad with his son, about ten years old. As soon as I saw them, I wanted to say, “I am so sorry,” but stuck to the werewolf thing.

“Grrrrr, let me out!” I said. The boy was scared and the dad smiled at me. Just as they were about to take their last step out of the jail, the fucking clown jumped out.

“Jigga-
boo
!” he yelled.

He scared the shit out of both of them but the dad changed his attitude in the blink of an eye.

“Oh, hell no. You’re fuckin’ dead.” He lunged his arms between the bars, but the clown was just out of reach and laughing at him. The boy started to cry and wanted to leave.

“You think you can do that shit? You calling me what? Say it again!”

The clown kept laughing, making the dad more angry.

“I’ma wipe your face off with your ass, son!”

The clown danced around in a circle.

“Wolfman!” the dad called to me. “What color are you?”

I was silent. I just wanted to avoid getting my ass kicked. The good thing about the Haunted Jail was that the bars were real. We entered from behind the set, which made me relieved the dad couldn’t get in.

“Oh, don’t tell me, you some white dork. You’re gonna stand here with this motherfucker and not kick his ass?”

“I’m really sorry,” I muffled through my mask.

The clown kept laughing and said, “I’m not! Tee hee!”

“Daddy, I want to go,” the boy cried.

“We’re not going until Wolfman here punches this motherfucking piece-of-shit clown in the face.”

“Man, I can’t do that,” I said.

“Oh, you some racist too, then,” the dad said.

The clown did a little evil walk up to me.

“Doooo iiiiiit. Yeah, c’mon. Punnnnch meeee,” he said.

“Fuck yeah, Wolfman,” the dad yelled.

The clown kept doing the serial killer head tilt, saying, “C’mon, c’mon.”

“Man, I’m sorry, he’s fucking insane. But I’m not gonna punch him,” I said.

“Wolfman, if you don’t punch him in the fucking face right fucking now, I’m going to the parking lot and waiting all night for you to come out, and I’ma show you my baseball bat. You ready?”

“Yeah, dooooo iiiiit,” the clown said.

The boy started cheering for me to hit the clown too.

How was I going to explain this to Jack when I’d get busted? I didn’t want this to fuck me up at the Castle. Or start something with the clown that could equal being stalked and dismembered.

“I can’t,” I said. The clown relaxed his stance and let out a “Pfffft.”

I looked over at the boy, whose sadness grew with every second I didn’t lay the clown out. Then over to the dad who looked down at the boy. The clown laughed at me and that did it—I kicked him square in the balls, dropping him to his knees. The clown moaned as the dad and son cheered.

“Alright, Wolfman! Even better! You’re not racist,” he said before adding, “White dork,” on his way out.

It mellowed the clown out for the rest of the day and he even acted a little scared of me. It was an easy shot, but I still felt like a badass doing it. And glad he wasn’t gonna eat my face off later. I hoped.