A Man Slips On A Banana Peel Copyright © 2020 by Ralph Robert Moore.

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Published in Black Static #76, Sep-Oct 2020

Twenty years ago, when Mary and I were still working in ceiling-lit offices in Dallas, we were driving home one night on 75 Central, an eight-lane highway running north and south through the city, when hands on the steering wheel I realized there was something other than a car on the road up ahead. I was expecting to only see traffic, so it took me a moment to realize what was rolling and bouncing from lane to lane up ahead was a huge bundle of cellophane.

As we got closer to its bouncings I slowed down, trying to anticipate if it was going to roll across our lane again, to avoid it. Which is when I realized there was a motorcycle caught up in the cellophane, both tumbling over and around each other, but now a motorcycle helmet also appeared, and what was left of the cellophane turned into a human body, tumbling head over boots over and over again down the highway, sometimes above, sometimes below, his motorcycle, until both landed for the last time on the lane.

I pulled up behind the body, braking to keep the cars behind me from running him over, my right thumb punching on our car's hazard lights. The motorcyclist rose to his feet, looking confused. A young Latino, fortunately with his helmet still on. His only apparent physical wound `a long, ruby abrasion on his left forearm. He must have thrown his forearm out in front of his terrified face as he hit the pavement and started bouncing at fifty miles an hour down the road. I asked him if he was all right. He stared through me, going into shock. Brown irises widening. A woman raced over from where she had parked in the breakdown lane. Said she was a nurse. Looked him over quickly, then walked him over to the shoulder, watching where his feet stepped.

I don't know what caused his accident. I don't know if a car hit him, or if he looked in the passing lane, saw nothing, and started passing, colliding with, for example, a straight-backed chair that fell off the bed of a pick-up truck, landing in the middle of the lane, where a straight-backed chair isn't supposed to be, and so was, therefore, unexpected.

Sometimes we can't see what is right in front of us, because we don't expect to see it.

If a giraffe walked its tallness past the windshield of your car at a red light, I guarantee you, you wouldn't realize it was a giraffe at first, even though you know exactly what a giraffe looks like. Because no one expects to see a giraffe walking past their front windshield.

A psychotherapist who's just had a book published is looking forward to a family vacation. During that vacation, he's going to be interviewed on live TV by Good Morning America, one of the most popular morning news shows. Just before he leaves on vacation, he agrees to accept a new patient, a particularly needy individual.

The patient finds out where the doctor is vacationing, and shows up at his home on the eve of the all-important live TV interview. Charms his way inside. Ingratiates himself with the psychotherapist's family, to the point where, after a heavy rainfall starts just as the patient is about to leave, the psychotherapist's wife invites the patient to spend the night in their home. Sleeping in their young son's room. That night, the patient teaches the young boy a number of new swear words.

The next day, the patient is asked by the TV show's producer to sit in, on camera, during the psychotherapist's live interview. He easily dominates the interview, becoming its star, the doctor in the shadows.

Gradually takes over the family. The psychotherapist ends up in an institute, and the patient? He starts dating, eventually marries, the psychotherapist's beloved sister, the one person the psychotherapist holds most dear. At their wedding, the psychotherapist loses it, babbling.

So, an effective horror movie, right?

Except it wasn't marketed as that.

It was marketed as a comedy.

What About Bob?, starring Bill Murray as the needy patient, Richard Dreyfus as the psychotherapist.

We laugh at the film's victim, Richard Dreyfus, because we're so well manipulated by its writers (Alvin Sargent, Laura Ziskin, Tom Schulman), and director (Frank Oz). What About Bob? is presented as a comedy, signaled time and again by cinematic touches we associate with comedies, from mug shots to traditional comedic musical cues given on the soundtrack. But it's actually a horror film. Bob destroys the psychotherapist's family, and at the end destroys the psychotherapist himself.

It doesn't take much to turn horror into comedy, or comedy into horror. Go on YouTube and you can find videos that recast Dexter as a situation comedy, or the American version of The Office as a horror series, simply by adding the appropriate music for each genre, and carefully choosing the scenes highlighting the show.

Because both genres often deal with the same subject matter.

Life is unfair.

Do you know who said that?

President John F. Kennedy, during a press conference on March 21, 1962, regarding Army reservists being called up to serve in Vietnam.

Life is unfair.

And look at what happened to Kennedy.

Horror and comedy are often overtly mixed. Reanimator. Evil Dead 2. Return of the Living Dead. Everyone's in on the joke. Pass the popcorn. Pass the joint. Pass the guy with a goatee, sneakers up on the coffee table, pointing at the 4K screen, parsing a subtle Easter egg.

But here we're talking about horror that is so well-hidden most viewers don't see it. They only see the white mask with the sides of the lips upturned into a grin.

Horror can be in your face, the alien's visage leaning its dripping open jaws closer and closer, closing in on Ripley's pulled-back head, but horror can also hide. May smile, and smile, and be a monster.

A sub-genre of horror, horror disguised as comedy. Little studied, because it conceals itself so well. But it's out there.

A man slips on a banana peel (and as a side note, why the fuck do we refer to the footwear someone puts on in the privacy of their own home, especially elderly people, who are far more susceptible to broken hips if they fall, 'slippers'? Isn't that the ultimate bad name for a product? Shouldn't the manufacturers be calling them 'grippers', or 'safeties', or something else more reassuring?)

Someone walks into a tree. We laugh. But can you imagine that person's pain? Their humiliation? Their loss of faith in their own competence? Of course not. It never occurs to us to do so.

If the victim falls from a great height, the top of a ladder, ending up with broken bones, and broken bones are never fun, the itching deep under the white cast signed by friends in different-colored inks is excruciating, we laugh even louder.

That's the genius of this hidden sub-genre of horror. It features people absolutely devastated by the events in the story, but does it in such a way that we are distracted from the agony they're feeling. We're manipulated to where we laugh at other people's pain.

Ben came home from his doctor's appointment looking worried. "What's the matter?", his wife asked. He took a deep breath. "The doctor told me I have to take one of these pills for the rest of my life." His wife turned down the volume on the TV. "So what? Lots of people have to take pills." Ben nodded. "I know. But he only gave me four pills."

And we laugh. Don't give a moment's thought to Ben's horror. It's a joke!

What About Bob? made me laugh quite a few times. I thought I was watching a comedy. I thought I was seeing a big ball of cellophane.