BY TONY ZIMBARDI—LE MONS

SCARY STORIES

“Papa,” Jamie asks, “wanna hear a scary story?” “Sure.” Jaime and I are in the car alone on the way to get a haircut. From his car seat he begins. “Once upon a time, there was a family, a Dad and a Papa, and their sons and they had all just gotten married.” “Uh-huh,” I reply. “One day, from out of the bedroom closet popped the Chucky doll, and he had a knife in his hand.” “Oh no,” I exclaim. “And he cut off Jaime’s leg, and then he cut off Edward’s arm, and he cut out Papa’s eyes, and he sliced Dad’s throat and killed them all!” “That was a pretty scary story. Where did you learn about Chucky?” I ask. “In my old house, the one with the other family.” I sigh. Another reminder that they had a life and memories, long before us.

“Now you tell me a story Papa, the one about the doll.” “Once upon a time there was a brother and sister, the brother had found a big, life-sized doll in someone’s trash. The doll had messy red hair and a green velvet dress.” “Tell me more, Papa.” Jaime’s totally into this story, although he’s heard it before. “Well, because it was two days before Halloween, the brother thought it would be a good idea to make her look dead for their haunted house. So he poured ketchup all over her to make her look bloody and rubbed dirt all over her to make her look like she’d just returned from the grave.” “She sounds really scary,” he offers.

“The next day, the brother and his sister were in their basement when they heard three knocks at the rear basement door.” “And then what happened,” he asks breathlessly. “‘Go get it,’ the brother says meanly to his little sister. She goes to the back of the basement and the brother hears a scream, a blood-curdling scream, and she runs past him and up the stairs crying to find her mother.”

“What happened next,” Jaime asks. “Well, the boy walks very slowly to the back of the basement and peeks ‘round the corner to see who was at the door.” “Who was there,” he asks. “Standing in the doorway, her arm raised in the air, as if she had knocked on the door herself, was the doll.” Jaime pulls his shoulders inward, his little closed fists pressed together in feigned fright. “Did the doll knock at the door?” “No sweetie, the doll didn’t knock at the door. Your grandpa Tony put her there to teach me a lesson. He didn’t like what I had done to the doll, and hoped he would scare me into never doing it again.” “Did he?” “Well, the doll story is the reason why your grandpa Tony never tried to teach me a lesson again, and why your Aunt Darlene, to this day, will not go into a basement alone.“

In the next installment: More family tales.

Tony Zimbardi, Psy.D., is a psychotherapist in private practice in West Hollywood. More of his writing can be found at drtonyzimbardi.com.