Jesse was visiting his grandma with his mother, aunt and uncle when the apartment tower's alarm began to ring. Smoke filtered out of the elevator shaft and fire fighters arrived. A huge man in full gear pounded at the door shouting, "Everyone out, now!" However, Jesse's grandma was too weak to leave so Jesse's mother, stayed behind with her. Jesse was rushed out without even his snowsuit. His aunt carried him down the stairs, through a lobby filled with panicking seniors into a freezing December night. He watched from a transit bus parked on the street as fire fighters hurried to put out the fire in a lower floor apartment. Only later was he returned to his mother and grandma.
His reaction? Intense interest.
"Tell about the fire," he'd say. Lisa and I would tell the story emphasizing his favourite parts; how the fire started from clothes hung too close to a closet lightbulb; how the fire chief came onto the bus; how Lisa dropped his snowsuit from the balcony to his uncle who stood waiting in a snow drift.
A few hours later he'd bring it up again. "Tell about the fire." One of us would tell the story again. And again when he asked at bedtime. And when he saw his aunt or uncle or grandma. "Tell about the fire," he'd say insistently as the memory returned.
He kept it up for weeks, to a lesser extent for months. If we skipped a part, he'd correct us. He knew the story perfectly. That was not the point. Jesse needed us to tell it over and over again in our rational comforting adult way as he listened and reimagined every scene. He needed us to replace that frightening and recurring memory with a sensible story. So we did and he was perfectly fine. That taught me a great deal about the power of a well told story.
His next trauma was our fault. It was a couple years later with the cottage full of family friends. We had a heavy meal, some light talk and rented a mindless movie; one the kids could also enjoy, a goofy, spoofy comedy with a cartoon look, Mars Attacks. The plot was pure loony tunes but with some obligatory sex and violence. Dumb turned dumber as the googly eyed Martians obliterated the welcoming soldiers and media. Then they performed ridiculous body part switches on kidnapped earthlings and a Chihuahua. Soon they were shooting up Congress, cowboy style. The irony was forced. The stereotypes were boring. The movie seemed to satirize itself as much as it did those 1950's space alien movies. We adults saw right through it.
Jesse saw right through it, too, only with the clarity of a five year old. He saw that the Martian faces were skulls with blood shot eyes. He saw that the Martian turned people into smoking skeletons and that everyone was helpless against them. He looked past the clownish acting and the irony. He felt the power of the original space alien movies and he became terrified.
We turned it off immediately. He seemed to forget it.
A few months later, he saw two minutes of the same movie at his cousin's and he fell apart. He was plagued with nightmares that kept us all awake every night. He couldn't even dim the lights in his room. He kept imagining aliens in the daytime as well. He couldn't even say their name. They were "the A word". That taught me a great deal about the power of a badly made movie.
We tried everything: talking it out, shaping aliens out of plastercine, drawing them, inventing silly songs and stories about them. Jesse made signs for his door; Aliens Keep Out!, Aliens! Get Hair! We described how the movie ended with the Martians destroyed. Nothing worked. Or everything worked eventually. After a fretful six weeks the fear moved off like a passing storm. Jesse was again his cheerful, confident self.
This spring with Jesse turning six, we decided to treat ourselves to Disney World, a place where fantasies turn real and fantasy characters can be hugged and photographed. I suppose we hoped to share the magic in reverse, becoming less real and more like a family of wholesome Disney characters. I was so psyched up I even decided what our favourite memories would be. All we had to do was get there, take the photos and pay by Visa.
Once there, everything was splendid from Mickey's Toon Town Fair to It's a Small World till we blundered into the dark side of Disney.
Alien Encounter warned it might frighten small children. We didn't believe the sign. We were wrong. We entered a tense drama that climaxed with the audience being restrained in seats as a huge reptilian space creature smashed into the room. Pitch blackness, flashes, smoke, hissing water and mass shrieking as the beast hunted among us. Jesse came out pale as a ghost, mumbling about "the A word". Aliens.
The next day was no better. Honey, I Shrank the Kids flung a 3D snake in our faces and hundreds of ghostly rodents under foot as the floor quaked in the dark. We had to carry Jesse out halfway through the show.
He would not enter another attraction. All he could do was sit slack jawed on a bench feeding peanut butter to the ants.
"Let's see The Wonders of Life" I suggest after a half hour
"How about The Living Sea?" Lisa asks.
"A toy? A milk shake? A waterslide?" We'll offer anything.
"No," he says. "I want to keep feeding the ants."
"Great," I tell Lisa. "We travel all these miles and spend all this money just to turn our kid into a basket case. We aren't just bad parents, we're dumb parents."
Eventually Jesse agrees to a choo choo ride. We spot the little train making a couple turns then disappearing behind a fake mountain. I check that Jesse doesn't think it's too fast.
When we get on, we realize the choo choo is a roller coaster. The ride is very fast, very steep. We are jolted and shaken so violently that I shut my eyes and slide to the floor. I grip Jesse as my stomach is wrenched from side to side. I quit breathing altogether and focus on Lisa's screams. When it's over, I can get out but I can't quite walk. Lisa is trembling. An attendant retrieves my hat.
Jesse grins. "Were you guys scared?" he asks.
"Of course," we say, "weren't you?"
"No!" he laughs.
"Jesse!" says Lisa. "If you weren't scared by that ride, then Martians are like... like marshmallows!"
"Martianmallows!" says Jesse.
And he's been perfectly fine ever since. In fact, he's getting kind of cocky.
THE END