Things that scared me, in the ‘70s by Sean Murphy

Moe from the Three Stooges with his black and white aggression, and instinctively

understanding the utility of violence in vaudeville and silent acting; the pointed finger in your

face, one slap predicting another, and so on.

That thing on the jar of Elmer’s Glue, having no idea it was a cow; not yet cognizant of things

like cause, effect, and the food chain (and would I have been horrified to know that the Jell-O

powder we scarfed at swim meets was pulverized horse hooves?).

The angry encyclopedia of early American history written in the countenances of both the

Quaker Oats guy and, of course, Uncle Sam—these hoary white icons who enforced the rules

they made, stern and never less than certain about their own inevitability.

The way a freshly caught sunfish’s fin would stiffen as I went to retrieve the hook, those

glistening barbs capable of turning dying prey into predator, and not quite grasping the life

lessons regarding desire, fulfillment, and self-destruction.

My second grade teacher, who seemed impossibly old, smelling of mothballs—at once ancient

and archetype, her obvious wig, her dusty exhaustion, and the barely concealed contempt with

which she held the kids in her class.

The cartoon psychopath in the Hawaiian Punch commercials and, again, an instinctive

apprehension of those sadistic men in suits who determined that their mascot brutalizing people

was good marketing (and worse still, that it was).

When my friend’s mother’s nipples would occasionally emerge beneath the middle-aged

constraints of her t-shirt; me too old to need nursing but still too young to understand I wanted

them in my mouth for entirely different reasons.

The way it sounded, in church, when dozens and dozens of solemn voices reverberated (never

entirely in unison) with the same script, an exercise in rote affirmation that always seemed like a

vinyl record skipping, out of reach from across the room.

My father when he took his glasses off: seeing his eyes without those shields like looking out a

window during a thunder storm and smelling the rain as well as hearing it—no screen between

recognition and perception.

Myself, catching my own eyes staring back from the mirror, wondering who was seeing whom,

wondering if God was also watching, and if all this stuff about souls and the Holy Spirit was a

mystery, a blessing, or something worse.

Sean Murphy has appeared on NPR's "All Things Considered" and been quoted in USA Today, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and AdAge. His work has also appeared in Salon, The Village Voice, The New York Post, The Good Men Project, Memoir Magazine, and others. His chapbook, The Blackened Blues, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. He has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and served as writer-in-residence of the Noepe Center at Martha's Vineyard. He’s Founding Director of 1455 (www.1455litarts.org). To learn more, please visit seanmurphy.net and bullmurph.com. His twitter and insta are @bullmurph and @1455LitArts.