In 1982, in that period between graduating University of Georgia and moving to Chicago, I lived at home in Martinsville. Happily for me, the Jaycees again set up their haunted castle at the old Koehler Warehouse. I might mention here that each chamber in the castle was sponsored by various community organizations, and the wonderfully twisted mad scientist chamber was sponsored by, of all places, First United Methodist Church of Martinsville, which I had attended since my youngest days. Apparently, the church needed some warm bodies to man the chamber one evening, and they called me to see if I might be interested. Indeed I was. When I showed up to perform the dastardly deed, I met Blake, a young gentleman from the church, who told me he had brought refreshments as well as a few props to add to the authenticity of the set. The refreshments consisted of a cooler full of cold beer, the props a cooler full of warm animal entrails, courtesy of a local butcher shop.
Inside the mad scientist chamber, I found all kinds of scientific instruments, a black light, a lab table, and a hapless victim — in this case, a department store mannikin that had been chained to the table. What we ended up doing was cutting out a section of the dummy’s abdomen, dumping all that lovely offal inside, and covering it with a sheet. A young woman of our acquaintance stationed herself under the lab table, well out of sight of our visitors. We had a huge butcher knife on hand to facilitate the vivisection.
As the first group of visitors filed in, I explained that my experiments required certain contributions from living human beings, at which time I brandished the knife. The young lady under the table unleashed a barrage of blood curdling screams, and I thrust the blade into the mannikin’s abdomen. Joyously, I began scooping out the entrails, much to the disgust of our unsuspecting visitors. Now, I wasn’t wearing gloves or anything, just some scrubs and an apron. We didn’t have hand sanitizer in those days, so once covered in blood and guts, I was covered for the duration.
The first couple of groups seemed enthralled by the show, and I was having a fine time of it. By the third or fourth group, those entrails had begun smelling right pretty, and it wasn’t long before the aroma began to wend all through the various nearby chambers. Blake wanted to take a turn performing surgery, so I handed over the necessary accoutrements and went off to find a roving monster costume. I think I ended up being a werewolf. It was a hoot, of course, but now and again, folks downwind would detect my presence by the slightly tainted air preceding me.
At the end of the evening, Blake and I drank the rest of the beer, swapped stories about our experience, and parted ways happy. However, when I got home, my folks took one whiff of me and suggested I leave and never come back.
That night marked the end of my participation in the Jaycees’ haunted castle. Not as momentous as my first experience in 1974, to be sure, but it was a memorable and wonderfully disgusting evening.
I would do it again in a heartbeat — though, this time, I would make sure to have plenty of sanitizer on hand.
