CW: violence, unhealthy Relationships.
I’ve been marathoning classic horror movies with my teenage daughter. Talking with her about how we both came to love the genre set off a rumination on the impact of a childhood of horror.
My little brother once chased me through the house with an ax.
He was joking, mostly. But it certainly didn’t feel like a joke at the time.
He plunged forward with a guttural battle cry at the start of the chase. His face sanguine, veins pulsing with rushing blood. Through his anger, he still had enough control to throw in creepy one-liners. I don’t have a clear memory of what he said. Some insult à la Freddy or Ghostface? A classic along the lines of “I’m going to get you little girl”?
Laughter.
• • • •
I’m not saying this kind of thing will happen if you raise your kids on slashers and Stephen King adaptations, but you should know that it’s in the realm of possibility. Maybe don’t fill your kid—I accidentally typed “kill” originally; definitely don’t kill your kid—with violent imagery presented as the height of cool and then leave your anxious, depressed tween in charge of said youngster.
• • • •
He was very young; mid-way through elementary school, barely graduated from t-ball. It was the year I’d started wearing a lot of black, drawing anarchy symbols in the margins of my middle school notebooks.
I think he grabbed the ax from the shed so I wouldn’t rat him out for breaking a window. Or maybe it was the time he’d nicked my journal and threatened to read passages to my crush up the street, though I’m not sure how that situation would have escalated into him chasing me. Maybe it was both: he started with journal blackmail and when I overpowered him and won it back, he stalked to the unlocked shed in the backyard. I can’t say with any certainty. Whatever the argument that kicked off the scene, it was banal. Though again, it certainly didn’t feel that way at the time.
• • • •
Memory is untrustworthy. You rewrite the scenes in your mind each time you access them. I haven’t spent much time mulling over this interaction, so while there isn’t much left to access, what remains is fairly reliable, as these things go. Traumatic memories sear in our minds, but we are also prone to suggestion.
• • • •
The only vivid memories from the scene lingering in my mind: the frames with locks on the front door. I can no longer judge those endlessly running final girls for not being able to get out of the house the most obvious way—my fingers also couldn’t work a simple deadbolt and door chain combination in the panic of the moment. The pressure of time. The ax coming ever closer. Muscle memory amnesia.
Too much adrenaline, useful for ignoring pain or lifting something beyond your means, but killer for fine motor control. Sometimes you really do have to run up the stairs.
• • • •
How did I calm him down? How did it end? Did he get in the biggest trouble of his life? Did the adults believe me?
The entire scenario does sound far-fetched. Unreliable, especially coming from a daydreaming bookworm. The kind of lie you’d expect from a kid who marathoned slasher sequels and kept a binder full of infamous killers through history. That would have been easier to believe than the alternative: my little brother chased me with an ax.
The only other person who can corroborate my story is my brother himself. Though I know he lied like his life depended on it at the time, we can laugh about the truth now. But the details are equally fuzzy for him.
• • • •
Don’t worry about my brother. He seems to be a fully adjusted adult now, the danger of him becoming an ax murderer passed.
I, on the other hand, chase nightmares. Whether they are used for catharsis or corruption is up to the audience.
