So
much of the inspiration for my work, On the Threshold, comes from the
notorious Amityville murders of 1974. Chances are that many children growing up
in the 1970’s found the murders to be disturbing and unforgettable.
When the tragic Defeo family moved
into their famous house, it is my understanding that the father named their
home “High Hopes” and set up a friendly sign stenciled with those very words.
What many fail to grasp is that the song from which the name derives is not so
much a song of hope as it is a song of futility. Specifically, the song tells
of a determined ant trying to move a rubber-tree plant—something plainly
impossible. My profoundly-personal feeling is that the father unconsciously
knew that it was futile for him to think that he could remedy his son’s
antisocial tendencies by moving the family to a beautiful house in Amityville.
This might also help to explain why the father chose to paint the house a
somber black. One other note: the father had the “High Hopes” sign written in a
Gothic, Germanic-looking script. Could it be that he had already noticed the
fact that his antisocial son loved loud, violent WWII movies? More to the
point, the father must have at least unconsciously noticed that when his son
watched those loud, violent movies, he did not identify with John Wayne and the
Americans. Rather, the son rooted for the Nazis.
At any rate, so much of my work
deals with the workings of the unconscious mind and the wisdom and knowledge
stored there. That thematic topic runs throughout the text and is augmented by
the fact that one of the protagonists just happens to be a film critic who
employs phenomenological film theory as a means of understanding the workings
of the unconscious mind. The novel had to include such a character, though—and
looking back at the Amityville murders, it is no mystery why.
Before Butch Defeo committed the
murders, he watched a movie on the late show: Castle Keep, a WW-II
picture starring Burt Lancaster. Could it be that the movie appealed to
something in the murderer’s drug-addled unconscious mind? The movie tells of
Hitler’s army storming a Belgian castle. Plainly, the murderer identified with
those German soldiers tasked with the violent conquest. And if that’s true, the
murderer’s unconscious mind could very well have equated his father with those
holding authority over the castle—both the Belgian count and his friend, the
American officer portrayed by Burt Lancaster. In short, as the murderer watched
the movie that fateful night, he came to equate the castle, the setting for the
movie, with the family house there in Amityville.
Let’s remember, too, that as the
murderer watched the movie, he watched it at full volume. He did this because
he enjoyed the violent sounds of war. This is important because the cacophony
must have weighed upon the family’s collective unconsciousness as they slept
and heard the terrible clamor. By the time, the murderer burst into their rooms
and demanded that they roll over onto their bellies, the family was already in
a state of something like shellshock. As for why the murderer would demand that
the family members roll onto their bellies, this, too, is no mystery at all:
the murderer made such demands only because he could not bear to look upon
their faces and to risk eye contact in that moment he pulled the trigger.
One other point that is important to
understand: following the commission of the horrible crime, the murderer took
it upon himself to trim his beard in a distinctive way—and in a way that he had
never worn it either before or since. The question is why. Here’s the answer:
in trimming his beard in the way that he did, he made it look something like
the way the Belgian count wore his beard in the movie. In a sense, when
the murderer trimmed his beard, he was telling himself that he had conquered
the castle and that he was in charge now and that he would be the count from
this moment forward. Again, though, the point is that the murderer
unconsciously saw his own experience in the movie. His conscious mind saw a
WW-II picture that fateful night, but his unconscious mind detected the
archetypes that spoke to his own condition.
These aforementioned themes abound all
throughout my work. Without a doubt, the WW-II film, Castle Keep,
predetermined the decision to set my tale in a castle. (In the interest of full
disclosure, I named my castle after the building where the English Department
meets at my alma mater, Hiram College.)
Most
important of all, the idea of phenomenological film theory has always informed
my thoughts on the unconscious mind. Ultimately, film theory ignited my
obsession with Plato and his idea of inborn knowledge. Deep down inside, I’ve
always know that the resolution to the riddle of the universe exists within us
and has always been there.
Excerpt:
Autumn, 1907: late one morning, some kind of torrid, invisible beast seemed to wrap itself all around Fingal T. Smyth’s body. Each one of his toes twitching fiercely, he exited the castle and scanned the distant, Scottish Highlands. Go back where you came from. As the entity wrapped itself tighter all about his person, Fingal blinked back his tears. I’m melting, I am. Aye, it’s the heat of fusion.
Gradually, the beast’s heartbeat became audible—each pulsation. At the same time, too, the illusory heat of transformation emitted an odor as of oven-roasted peppercorns dissolving in a cup of burnt coffee.
Over by the gatehouse, Fräulein Wunderwaffe appeared—the little German girl wearing a plain-sewn robe and square-crown bowler. In that moment, she no longer seemed to be a sickly child of seven years: her inscrutable expression resembled that of a wise, indifferent cat.
Perhaps even some kind of lioness. Fingal cringed, and he recalled a fragment of conversation from three weeks earlier.“She suffers from a most unnatural pathology, an anguished, maniacal obsession with cats,”
Doktor Hubertus Pflug had explained. “Ever since the poor girl was a baby, she has always regarded it her fate to one day metamorphose into a glorious panther, for she believes herself to be ein Gestaltwandler. Do you know this word? It means shapeshifter and refers to someone who possesses the power to take the form of anything in nature.”
The heat radiated up and down Fingal’s spine now, and his thoughts turned back to the present. Aye, it’s a change of phase. I’m melting into a chemical compound. Despite all, he greeted the girl and willed himself to flash a grin.
Fräulein Wunderwaffe did not return the smile. Hand on heart, the little girl drew a bit closer.
Then, as the hot, animalistic presence undulated all across Fingal’s body, the little girl’s eyes grew wide. Until the little girl’s expression turned to that of a vacant stare.
A moment later, her feet pointed inwards, she removed her hat and undid her long, flaxen hair.
Again, he cringed. “If you’ve noticed something, ignore all. This hasn’t got anything to do with you.” A third time, he cringed.
A most ethereal, lyrical, incomprehensible hiss commenced then: from the other end of the winding, decorative-brick driveway, each clay block shining the color of blue Welsh stone, a sleek Siamese cat with a coat of chocolate-spotted ivory had just appeared. And now the creature raced toward his shadow.
As he looked into the animal’s big, searching, blue eyes, the chocolate Siamese studied the off-center tip of his nose. Then the animal turned away, as if to compare the peculiarity with that of some disembodied visage hovering in the distance.
Out upon the loch, meanwhile, a miraculous rogue wave suddenly arose—and now the swell crashed against the pebbly strand.
Not a moment later, a cool flame crawled across Fingal’s throat. The strange fire rattled, too—not unlike the sound of fallen juniper leaves caught up in the current and dancing against the surface of a stone walkway.
Crivens. By now, the alien, pulsating presence held him so tight that he could barely breathe.
Before long, he fell to the earth, and as the dreamlike flame continued to move across his throat, he rolled all about—until the illusory sensation of cool warmth wriggled and twisted and dropped into his neck dimple.
He crawled over to the little girl and grabbed her ankle. “Get on up to your physician’s room, eh?
Please. Go on and wake Doktor Pflug and tell him what’s happened.”
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