“Funhouse” by Anita Allen
Our house is crooked, the way old houses often are. One corner has settled and dragged everything else along with it. We grew up walking with a slight tilt, the way sailors might. When my father finally got around to levelling the upstairs floor, we all thought we were going to fall over the banister.
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One of the first funhouses to appear was at Coney Island in the 1900’s. The house was named SUSANNA. If our house had a name, it would be called DEN OF INIQUITY.
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We go to God’s House every Sunday. My father roughly holds my chin, a cigarette wedged between his fingers, as he rakes the comb through my hair. The smoke makes my eyes water. Cleanliness is next to godliness.
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We rarely turned the lights on. He didn’t like the brightness. Instead, we navigated like moles, using all of our senses to find safe passage. In the darkness of the kitchen two red dots bob and flare as they take a drag from their cigarettes. I hear her imitating me in a high, squeaky voice, “Stop it! Stop it!”. They both laugh and the dots look like comets in the night sky. I turn around, climb the fifteen creaky stairs and crawl back into my bed that is levelled by a stack of books under one corner.
***
Most funhouses employ the same features: sections of floor that undulate up and down or side to side, an array of distorting mirrors, jets of compressed air that shoot randomly, a ‘barrel of love’ that dares you to walk through it without falling down, and a viewing area where patrons can watch and laugh at new arrivals as they attempt to navigate the house.
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In my Father’s house there are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. John 14:2
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I am walking through the kitchen on my way outside to meet a friend on a sunny afternoon. Her face is pressed against the screen door, smiling. My father is sitting at the table when he asks me to cut the grass. I said, “Sure. I’ll do it later.” And I meant it. His fist strikes like lightening. The kitchen fills with watery shooting stars. I look toward the screen door and my friend has vanished.
***
The church ladies sit in pews, their apple doll faces floury with peach powder. Old men move stiffly in their suits and shiny, squeaky shoes. The Sanctuary stinks of sulphur, of rotting carnations, leftovers from a funeral earlier in the week. We learn all the ways we are unworthy. I am an excellent student.
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Funhouses seek to distort conventional perceptions and startle people with unpredictable physical circumstances within an atmosphere of whacky whimsicality.
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The Renfrew Fall Fair was the most anticipated event of the season. The midway boasted The Scrambler, The Octopus, the Tilt-a-Whirl and a Fun House. Too nauseous from the spinning rides, I decide to explore the fun house. In the dim light, I watch my distorted reflection move along tilted corridors. I enter a darkened room that appears to have no exit. Suddenly, I am awash with sweat, hot tears prickling my eyes. I want to call for help but my voice refuses to work. I hear laughter all around me and sparks race up my arms, down my legs, while I stand frozen in place, a clenched fist where my heart should be. A group of teens burst through a panel that was a hidden door. I follow their laughing bodies out into the autumn night air. My ears are ringing. I feel the earth tilt and spin.
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Whimsical: capricious, fickle, inconstant, changeable, variable, unstable, mercurial, volatile, erratic, impulsive, temperamental, quirky, unpredictable.
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My body is reflected back to me, Picasso pieces from the wall of mirror tiles in the bathroom. Installed in the 1970’s, they have an ochre pattern that looks like lichen. At a certain angle according to the mirror on the wall, I have three breasts and a chunk missing from my right thigh. There are no full-length mirrors in the house. My body image is informed by these tiles.
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Some funhouses feature a spinning disc in the floor. When someone wanders onto it, it spins faster and faster until the centrifugal force hurls the patron into the padded walls.
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I keep having this dream. I am walking through a new home and I discover rooms I didn’t know about. There is always something terribly wrong with these new spaces. Sometimes water is pouring through the ceiling and I am desperate to repair the leaks before more damage occurs. In another version of the dream, dread slides through my body like quicksilver and the doors slam, the beds levitate and I am flung into the wall like a ragdoll.