By K. Bell
August 10, 2021
Spoilers for Split, Gerald’s Game, and Haunting of Hill House
At the doorway of my jujitsu instructor’s living room I proclaim, “Nerd!”
This is the first time I’ve dared to accept Jack’s invitation to come to his home for a cuppa. Despite having Jack as a jujitsu instructor for almost a year, my friendship with the war vet is new. Visually, Jack and I seem an unlikely pair: me with my green pixie cut and oxford shoes, waving a feminist flag, overeducated, and “queer as fuck,” and Jack, his body a catalogue of injuries from a lifetime of fighting, a marine in lifestyle and appearance with his military fade and combat boots. But together, we have enough meds to line several bookshelves, have had longer and more emotionally rewarding relationships with our therapists than with most other humans, and have all the paranoia of the deeply doped. (We share a few issues: PTSD, anxiety, depression, sexual trauma, persistent nightmares, self-harm behavior.)
“Such a nerd,” I tell him. “J.K., I am too.”
Frames from Marvel and DC comics, a watercolor of The Fellowship of the Ring, and a sketch of Batman’s hand around the Joker’s neck decorate the walls. Jack’s shelves are lined with graphic novels, comic books, science fiction, and horror.
He doesn’t offer me a seat on the couch because I recently told him I found his physicality intimidating. At the time, he was astonished. “What? I’m a teddy bear.”
He’s a 200-pound bulldog—broad shoulders, triangle waist, arms covered in tattoos, the eyes of Caligula, and the disinterested resting face of an Easter Island head.
I’ve only recently managed to make eye contact.
He has also told me stories of his bar brawls, biting noses, popping joints, and pulling ears, which I love hearing but make me think twice about sitting within arm’s reach.
But during martial arts practice, I noticed he too needed to leave class for a few minutes to reclaim a brain and body hijacked by anxiety. He would signal one of his blackbelt students, leave his belt and jacket on a bench, then quietly step off the mat and pace outside on the sidewalk in his bare feet, shoulders up to his ears, smoking like his life depended on it. Recognizing that flashbacks aren’t a reflection of age, gender, or physical strength was a revelation for me. I started to ask Jack questions about his healing process and coping mechanisms, first over text, then at a bar, both of us finding relief in our tiny support group.
Out of respect for my fear of humans, he has a chair set up for me in the corner of the living room, my back to the wall, several feet away from him so I can see him approaching and I won’t be surprised by anyone coming through the door. As a retired Army combat medic and Marine infantryman, Jack is intimately familiar with PTSD symptoms and wants me to feel safe.
While Jack brews coffee, I peruse his collection of King, Jackson, Rice, Barker, and Lovecraft.
“Are you a horror fan?” Jack asks, handing me coffee in a Game of Thrones mug.
“Survivor stories are cathartic.”
“I might have some books for you.”
Before I leave, he loads me up with Alice in Wonderland comics, retold through a horror H.P Lovecraft lens.
# # #
I was, until a few years ago, a horror neophyte, mostly because I’m a coward. (I was also a snob about stories, as if one genre of telling was a higher art than another—until I picked up Misery and couldn’t understand why was my heart pounding.)
Researchers postulate why some of us enjoy being scared, whether it’s out of mild sadomasochism, an outlet for what Stephen King calls our “anticivilization tendencies,” or simply for a rush of adrenaline. Horror also connects with viewers by showing us universal, cultural, or personal fears like being eaten alive or consumed by a pandemic. Hollywood has used the genre to reflect current events, comment on the real horrors of Vietnam (Night of the Living Dead, 1968), and reflect shifting attitudes toward sexuality during the AIDS crisis. I watch, as King would say, to dare my own nightmares. I embrace pretend horrors to “cope with the real ones.”
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