Newark, New York
1964
My sister and I are laying on the floor in front of the TV, leafing through my latest Adventure comic, following the exploits of The Legion of Super Heros. I have an adolescent crush on Saturn Girl — a tall, full-figured blonde (well, they’re all full-figured). Debbie hates comics, but she delights in playing the role of annoying little sister and as such launches an endless stream of questions that I do my best to ignore without smacking her. Her eyes brighten up when we come to the mail order page.
“Oh Donnie, let’s buy something, can we?”
I look over the possibilities, but see nothing of any real interest. There’s the usual collection of junk — magic snakes, body building lessons, money back guitar lessons, X-ray specs, and Grit newspapers. “Nothin’ any good,” I say but Debbie is unconvinced.
“What’s that,” she says pointing to a small advertisement in the lower right-hand corner near the vampire blood offer. I suggest this instead, but she insists I read her ad.
“It says, ‘Krazy Fun House. Enjoy hours of entertaining, safe, and educational fun watching sea creatures hatch from their own eggs and live in their very own happy, fun house. Money back guarantee.’ It sounds like a rip-off.”
“Let’s get it. Please.” I look at the price, $3.95, about two weeks of allowance for fake sea creatures. Probably won’t hatch anyway and Dad will have a fit if I ask for that much money so close to Christmas.
“Look I only have two dollars. If you can come up with the other two, I’ll order it. okay?”
I figure I’m safe; Debbie is always broke. She sprints up to her room and returns with a recent birthday card from which she extracts two crisp new dollar bills. Trapped by my own incompetence, I agree to order Krazy Fun House the very next day.
Three weeks later a package containing three small envelopes finally arrives in the afternoon mail. The end of Christmas break is only days away and I hope that this might provide some modicum of entertainment, however lame. I sit in a Felix the Cat trance in front of the TV when my sister, all bounce and giggles, plops the package down in front of me.
“Open it,” she says and just as I am poised to tear into the brown paper wrapping, my mother calls.
“There’s someone here to see you ,” she says.
“Who is it,” I ask shortly; Debbie frowns and flops down on the floor next to me.
“A friend from school, Scott.”
I think a moment — who the heck is this guy? Then I remember hovering over the drinking fountain in school for my daily ration when he runs up from behind, nearly knocking my face into the tepid stream.
“Hey, watch where you’re going,” I yell at his disappearing figure.
He rounds the corner, then reappears after several seconds and belts out, “Oh, is it?” in a squeaky voice so silly that even I’m embarrassed.
Somehow I manage to avoid all his best efforts to be my buddy, at least up to this point, and now trapped as I am, I have no choice but to be congenial.
“Take your shoes off,” I say greeting him at the door. My mom snarls at my lack of manners, but Scott is delighted and simply says, “Oh, is it?” in the same ridiculous voice he used the first time we met.
“Yes it is!” I yell back in the same obnoxious tone. He looks at me and grins. I grin back and from that moment on we are best friends for life.
So we traipse back into the den where my sister sits waiting patiently, clutching in her hands three envelopes of Krazy Fun House magic powder. Scott and I open one of the envelopes. I shove the other two in my pants pocket, and pour over the instructions.
“Reads like it was written in Chinese,” says Scott.
“Very perceptive, hiney-head.” But he’s right. The “Made In Taiwan” label suggests that what was once eloquent Chinese has been badly translated. Nevertheless, we puzzle out the major steps: “Locate container big enough to hold four quarts water, place Krazy Fun House at the bottom of container, add four quarts cold water (water must be cold), open envelope containing Magic Sea Creatures, use one teaspoon of Magic Sea Creatures powder, save the rest for hours of fun!”
Three pairs of eyes stare into a lifeless container holding four quarts of cold water, the Krazy Fun House, and a teaspoon of Magic Sea Creatures. We are huddled around a small table on top of a floor register waiting for something to happen.
“You got ripped,” says Scott.
“We have a money back guarantee,” retorts my sister, but I know we’ll never see that $3.95 again.
“Lemme see this stuff,” says Scott grabbing for the open envelope containing the rest of the Magic Sea Creatures.
“Don’t mess with it, Scott,” I say somewhat aggravated and grab it back.
“Don’t sweat your kidneys,” he threatens and snatches it out my hand once again, but his grip is loose and the envelope sails through the air and lands on the heating register, the entire contents falling through the grill and into the furnace below.
“Nice going,” I say, lacking a proper insult. Scott slings more choice epithets, insisting that it didn’t make any difference anyway as it produced no Magic Sea Creatures whatsoever. My sister has lost all interest, deciding instead that making a snowman outside has more potential fun, leaving Scott and I to clean up the Krazy Fun House and Magic Sea Creatures.
Debbie doesn’t last long outside. The bitter cold soon forces her inside where she joins Scott and myself huddled over the large living room heating grate. We trade dirty stories as my sister giggles with phony innocence and threatens to tell my mom. Scott is in the middle of a particularly graphic description of our sixth grade religion teacher’s ass when my sister emits the most piercing scream. I look at her, surprised that a sound of such intensity could escape those little lungs. Just as I am about to ask what the problem is, three large, vaporous creatures swoop over us, laughing like creations out of a Max Fleisher cartoon. Debbie screams again and bolts out of the room, one of the phantoms close behind. It seems harmless enough, but my sister will have none of it. She scurries past the living room sofa, trips over the magazine rack launching scores of Reader’s Digest magazines and finally out the front door. My mother, noticing my sister’s sudden attack of mild insanity, strides into the room, armed with a severe warning, but upon seeing the herd of cartoon ghosts, stops dead in a state of panic.
She somehow manages to squeak out the words, “What is going on here!” before the curtains suddenly come to life. They wind around her legs, pick her up and start tickling her mercilessly.
We can’t answer, being diverted by a pair of end tables which have suddenly sprouted wings and race about the room, chasing a hat-stand and bouncing pole lamp. The enlivened furniture carries on like drunks at New Year’s as they play tag with us and one another. Scott spars with my mom’s desk, fighting off paper missiles with a talking ruler. My mom screams for us to get out of the house, but I am too occupied by circus acrobatics with galloping chairs. Both Scott and I howl with laughter.
“What’s the problem?” I ask my mom, but I don’t think she sees the humor in the situation at all.
We hear a loud BOING! as my mom snaps out of her initial shock and grabbing both Scott and I, fights off an animated household, dragging us roughly into a snowy street where a large crowd including a contingent of Newark police have gathered, seemingly in awe at the spectacle of a house suddenly come to life. Our house is now some huge, animated creature — the windows massive eyes, the front door a gaping, snickering mouth.
A police sergeant yells through an amplified bullhorn, “Everybody back.” Someone from the local newspaper drives up and starts snapping photos. The whole house begins rocking to some unheard music causing several of the women on the street to scream. My next door neighbor faints. The crowd backs further away just as my Dad pulls up in his yellow ’62 Caddy. He screeches to an abrupt stop, jumps out of the car and scans the crowd until finding Scott and I, our feeble attempts to look innocent obviously failing.
“Damn shittin’ kids,” he mutters then bolts into the house, Scott, myself, and several neighbors close behind.
Once inside he is faced with a menagerie of animated furniture and household appliances. “What in the Christ happened?” he asks, swatting away a flying magazine.
“I don’t know exactly, ” I explain. “We had some of this Krazy Fun House stuff we ordered from a comic book, and Scott accidentally spilled it down the heating grate, but I don’t see how…”
My dad gives me a sudden look of understanding then runs across the room, deftly avoiding a slithering throw-rug, and down the basement stairs. We follow and gather around the furnace, and stare in disbelief: the heating pipes all glow and sway like branches in a stiff breeze, cartoon flames shoot out of a grimacing, cast-iron mouth licking the rafters, the huge, cylindrical body jogs in place.
“Enough of this,” my father says. He hurries over to the electrical panel and pulls the main breaker. Instantly the lights go out and in the dim sunlight filtering down through the small windows, we watch the happy furnace slow its wild dance to a waltz, finally reverting to a lifeless mass of machinery once again.
Upstairs the house in shambles as everything must have suddenly dropped dead in its place. The crowd outside applauds as the house has apparently returned to a more typical inanimate state. My dad surveys the damage and grumbles something about insurance and whether it covers this sort of thing. He finds the empty Krazy Fun House envelope and reads the instructions.
“Says here to keep away from extreme heat,” he scolds. “So that explains that. All you kids ever think about is fun, fun, fun,” he says very seriously. “Let’s see how much fun you have being grounded for two weeks.”
I feel in my pocket for the remaining two envelopes and figure that somehow we’ll survive.
|