Susan walked in our house last night, pissed. “That house around the corner with all the body bags in their Halloween graveyard now has a girl hanging from a tree. Hanging! Like a suicide or a lynching.”
Running out for a carton of half and half this morning, I drove by. I’m not sure what they are going for. There isn’t an obvious rope that I saw, so not clearly a hanging. I think the girl, by the looks of her, ten to twelve years old, long red hair, skinny as a rail, is hanging by string, but clearly by her neck. Her head cocks at an awkward angle, the rest of her body, limp and lifeless, like a dummy or a corpse, dangles straight down. Maybe she’s supposed to be levitating like Regan in The Exorcist.
Some people take Halloween too far. Decades ago, pre-kids and living in Washington DC, Susan and I went running on Halloween night. Living in a city, it can be tricky to find a safe and relaxing place to run, especially at night. We lived two miles away from the C&O canal—a 184-mile body of water adjacent to the Potomac River. It begins in Cumberland, Maryland near the western edge of the state and terminates in DC. Except for the half mile or so that extends into the swanky Georgetown neighborhood on the western side of the city, the canal is accompanied by a wide dirt path popular with runners, bikers and walkers.
On rare occasions, Susan and I would head to the canal for a nighttime run. On this night, equipped with flashlights, we ran out of the city on the desolate path, leaving the DC hubbub behind. The only remaining sounds were our huffing frosted breaths and an occasional car whining by on canal road fifty yards to the north. As we reached our turnaround point, something white caught our light beams ahead on the edge of the path.
We ran the extra forty yards and came upon a white cross hammered into the ground. At the intersection of the boards, someone had dolloped on a healthy, dripping splash of blood-red paint(?). A black and white photograph of a child was stuck in the center of the paint. After a gasp, a chill, and quick survey of the shadows surrounding us, Susan and I ran the thirty minutes back to our car. Every fifteen seconds, we looked over our shoulders to make sure no knife-wielding psychopaths stalked us.
A year later, as new homeowners, I hoped to impress our neighbors with inventive Halloween decorations. I mimicked the cross motif using red spray paint and photos torn from magazines, and I mounded leaves in front of the crosses like freshly buried graves. A few nights before Halloween, my neighbor Kevin, a serious, middle-aged dad with two preteen children knocked on my door. “Hey Jeff, those are some really scary Halloween decorations.” Instead of recognizing this as an admonishment, I took it as a compliment. On Halloween night, I relished in the droves of teenagers who stopped by for candy certain that we would be one of the good houses.
I stored those crosses in our attic for the rest of the year. Every time I climbed up there to retrieve some needed item, a glimpse of those creepy crosses leaning against the wall in the dim light caused my neck hair to stand on end. Slowly, across the course of the year, I began to understand the point Kevin was trying to make.
Maybe my neighbors with the hanging girl—who, like us all those years ago, just recently moved in—are zealous and overeager to make an impression. Maybe they’re clueless. Maybe they’re uncaring and meanspirited people. Regardless, I can’t believe there won’t be people other than Susan offended by their hanging girl, especially people who may have lost a loved one to suicide.
I thought about it this morning while I lay in bed. I decided that I won’t be like Kevin and say something to my neighbors. I sometimes express myself in ways that could be deemed offensive, and my neighbors should be granted the same privilege. But Susan is right, that decoration is pretty F***ed up.
Edited: Oops, never mind. My son Eli just showed me that it’s a scene from the TV show Stranger Things. Of course, if you haven’t watched that show, it’s just a girl hanging from a tree.
—
Previously Published on jefftcann.com and is republished on Medium.
—
Photo credit: Unsplash
Update: My neighbors took down the hanging girl. They either read this, or someone else complained, or maybe her head fell off. It all looked rather precarious from the start.