A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven

by Corey Taylor

  Trouble kicked up dust before we had even moved a scrap of furniture. A very nice lady from the Des Moines Register (our local paper) called me to do a “little interview for the Real Estate section.” I obliged and babbled for a few minutes. She thanked me for my time and hung up the phone. Two days later the front page of the newspaper read, “Slipknot Singer Buys House in Historical District.” It went on to show a photo of the house and gave the fucking address. It also quoted me as saying, “Besides the blood sacrifices on Thursdays, it would be a relatively quiet life in the neighborhood,” which is really the way to cultivate new friendships in an area full of people who most certainly will be scared to death of the big bad rock star moving in. I was livid. I called the newspaper, and the nice lady I had done the interview with said that her editor had decided to make it a front-page story. No one considered the fact that I would have to deal with hundreds of fans just stopping by to say hello or bug me for an autograph, which they did. I was in the driveway one day when the same car full of drunken idiots drove by ten times screaming, “SLIPKNOT! YEAH!” My neighbors were less than enthused.

  But that did not stop me from thoroughly loving the place. The house was wonderful. The basement was finished, with an old-time brass bar. The first floor consisted of a mudroom walkway, which opened to the dining room; kitchen just off of the dining room and the main hall; the living room to your left; and off of that was the solarium, an enclosed and heated patio added fifty years after the house was originally built. The second floor had the four bedrooms, of which the master bedroom had a door that opened to a sort of veranda on top of the solarium. The third floor was a finished attic, replete with a bathroom of its own. In fact, all the floors had bathrooms. It seems since 1905 people have always needed easy access to a place to leave a shit. The attic gnawed at me. I never felt comfortable there. It was always either completely cold or horrendously hot. I chalked it up to a one-hundred-year-old house and its many idiosyncrasies.

  I had not lived there very long before a presence made it frustratingly clear we were roommates, not out-and-out owners.

  I was putting dishes away in the kitchen. The sun was pouring through the windows, and I had a good CD in the old boom box. You guys remember what a boom box is, right? A boom box is a ghetto blaster. Fuck’s sake, you have no idea what a ghetto blaster is either? A ghetto blaster was the original thing you played music on, when music came on things like cassette tapes and CDs as opposed to megabytes and downloads. You played these ancient bits of entertainment on a CD player of some sort, not a computer. These CD players—and I might just blow your mind on this one—were either components for a home stereo system or portable radios that also had the ability to play CDs. The latter is what is known as a boom box or ghetto blaster. That is what was in my kitchen that day playing music. If you feel like doing some research on these now-defunct relics of industry, Google “stuff before you were born.” Or better yet, Google “modes of playing music back when music was worth listening to.” An even better search would be “how you listened to music when there was no possible way to fucking steal it and spread it to the rest of your thieving dick-stain friends.”

  Sorry—I am a bitter old man who does not care about your feelings. Suck it.

  As I was saying, I was putting stuff away in the kitchen. Mind you, at the time, I was not one for domesticity. I was usually the one who would pull up a bucket of chicken and veg on the couch for a month or seven. But I was excited—I had never had my own home before. Yes, I had my own apartment and had lived on my own for a long time. I had even spent a long time living on the streets. But I had never been a homeowner. I never even thought that would be an option. Here I was, putting dishes away in a house that had my name on it. This was my house. This was my castle. I felt great. That feeling diminished slightly when a vase was shoved off a counter not five feet away from where I was standing. That sort of thing tends to knock the sugar off of your doughnut. It scared the everlasting out of me. My heart crawled back into my chest after plummeting into my asshole temporarily. I cleaned up the shattered glass and went back to what I was doing, with a watchful eye for something else to happen.

  I settled into a nice routine of balancing growing pains with the self-fulfilling prophecy of home ownership. South of Grand is a stone’s throw away from the urbane of the urban city, but it was set against an expanse of forest that stretched clear back past where the last bit of property ended. As a result of this, packs of crazy deer ran through the front yard all the fucking time. It became a bizarre version of Logan’s Run whenever it was time to put the trash out on the curb. I remember someone running the canisters down to the street, turning around slowly, and finding him or herself surrounded by eight or nine of these wild cocksuckers. It was apparently chilly that night, because these deer were snorting out foggy breath through their flaring nostrils in an intimidating manner. There was a tense moment when a buck with huge antlers bent his head like he would lash out, but a car happened to drive by and they split up, running into the night like a bunch of four-legged burglars looking for another score. Since then, I do not fuck around with wildlife—I just keep my bat close by.

  The paranormal action stayed mundane for some time—that is, if you can call “unseen hands pushing heavy crystal vessels off of high places” mundane in the first place. What is more, it was random—nothing would happen for a few days, and then doors would slam off and on for twenty-four hours. Friends would come over for dinner only to have their hair pulled later while sitting and talking. I would hear running up and down the stairs at all hours night and day. Then it would stop . . . nothing. The lapse would last long enough that I would forget about these things, only for the strangeness to return tenfold.

  For the most part, however, the activity seemed to be consigned to the third floor. I would hear pacing, slow and steady, treading the floors of the attic above. But the real testimony came from the people who stayed on that third floor. Things were just very wrong on that level of the house. Whether they were just staying overnight or they were living in the attic for an extended period of time, guests would hear voices in the early hours when no one else was awake. They would see out of the corner of their eyes dark shapes moving in the peripheral spaces. Worse yet, they were being physically assaulted in their sleep. One friend woke up with long, thin welts up and down her legs. It looked like someone had taken a pen or a pencil, heated it up, and smacked the shit out of the skin. Another friend discovered welts in the shapes of strange letters and writing. One of the other troubling factors was that everyone who slept on the third floor looked pale and drawn, white as a sheet and unrested. They all seemed like they had a vitamin or iron deficiency, floating slowly through the house like ghosts themselves. I was horrified—what in the sheer, silky fuck was going on up in that damn room?

  To be fair, my attention was in other places. Griffin was a handful as a baby, and I spent most of my time feeding him, singing to him so he would take a nap, or keeping him from crawling off a ledge once he became mobile. Remember, I was in and out of town on tour a lot—in fact, I had to leave for the first Stone Sour tour only ten days after he was born. So I was with him every chance I could get. I would get up with him for his nightly feedings, putting on a movie downstairs and placing my son on a pillow so I could prop him on my lap and give him his bottle. I cannot tell you how many times I let that poor kid watch Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn while I fell asleep with a bottle in his mouth. That could be one of the reasons he is so crazy today, so maybe it was a good thing. I was trying to be a good dad, or what I thought constituted being a good dad, seeing as I had no practice of my own and no basis for comparison because I had no father growing up. Because of that, my son and I developed a bond that has thankfully lasted to this day. He is My Boy, and he makes me proud.

  It was while I was with my son as a tiny little guy that my first physical confrontation happened with the shadowy residents of the Foster Manor. Until that point I had listened to t
he descriptions from the people hanging out on the third floor with fascination—I had never experienced anything like that. I did not doubt them—I mean, the evidence was right there on their bodies, for fuck’s sake—I just had nothing to identify with from that side of the coin. As far as I was concerned, as long as Griff was okay, I was minding my own business. I gave little thought to these issues as I watched my son in the mornings, feeding him and making sure he stayed out of dangerous chemicals while occasionally singing him to sleep in his swing.

  One morning I was carrying him down the stairs to make him a bottle. It was early—the sun is not your friend after four hours of sleep. But as a dad, your job in the early years is really just the survival of your kin. So fuck sleep—grab the moo juice. I figured I would get him settled and put on some TV, relax, maybe even nap while he napped. It seemed like such a simple plan. I was spacing out, heading down the stairs, focused on getting to the kitchen, when I was pushed from behind. I felt it right in the middle of my back. I was pushed so hard, my chest shoved straight out. It surprised me with its force. I found myself falling down the stairs with my son in my arms. The only thing I could do was twist my body in midair so I landed on my back with him on my chest. It knocked the wind out of me, and I bounced my head on the hardwood floor. My boy started screaming instantly. I lifted my eyes up to where I had just been, and of course, as always, there was not a soul in sight.

  Now I was fucking pissed. I was on fire—a pissed off German Irish bastard who was ready to break shit with a cricket bat in order to protect his kid from danger, even if that meant going crazy and doing something stupid. I could feel my teeth gritting and my knuckles popping. My jaw hurt from flexing and my eyes were dry from staring down molecules because there was nothing else around for me to mean mug. By Grape Soda, I was dying for some action! I needed to bypass caveman mode and go right to Machiavellian evil. Something had threatened the brood, and I wanted to torture it until it felt as helpless as I did at that moment, trying to calm down a little boy who had just flown through the air and not of his own volition. I wanted war like a monger lusts for power, and I set out to find it on my own.

  So one night when the boy was at his grandmother’s house, I got drunk and went into the attic to challenge the invisible slits to a fight.

  I know: this was a colossal waste of time and effort. But this was 2003, which was during what I call my Dark Period. So my idea of fixing a problem in those days was to chug whiskey and smash it to bits with a hammer, only to wake up much later with a headache and a much bigger problem. But no matter—it made sense to me, so it made sense, full stop. I charged drunkenly up the stairs and started yelling at fuck all. “Come on, ya cocksuckers! I am ready for you now! Let’s see how fucking tough you are when a guy is looking! And when he is not holding a fucking toddler!” That was pretty much the routine for a couple hours before I got bored and wandered back down the stairs to eat cold fried chicken. I can feel how impressed you are by that very male display of domination. I also cook bacon without wearing a shirt. Fuck the hot grease—I feel nothing but manly hunger! When no one is looking, however, I do apply a nice salve to the tiny burns. That shit feels like microscopic knife wounds.

  I know what you are thinking, so I will answer your question: no, nothing happened that night. I did spill my drink all over the place, thus spending an entire afternoon trying to get the stain out. All hail the mighty warrior . . . dude guy. So much for alcohol and bravado; in this instance pathos goes out the window with subtlety and wisdom. But when something happens to me and mine, I freak out like a maniac. You do not poke the fucking bear. The Shadow Man is lucky I could not get my hands around his supposedly scrawny neck. I would have wrung him out like an old dishrag full of suds and evil. My anger eventually dissipated, and I got back to doing constructive things like rolling down the hill in the front yard with Griffin clinging to my chest and laughing his ass off. But I still got some sand in the craw about that whole situation. What is the statute of limitations on being fucking pissed at a ghost? I might have to do some research in the Library of Congress on that one.

  It was not all bad in the Foster Manor. Even though I was having difficulties in my relationship at the time, there were some good times as well. I watched my boy swim in our hot tub when he was still very small, his arms clad in Pool Buddies, which are essentially inflatable cuffs for your upper arms so you can float. He absolutely loved it. The only problem was that he loved it so much that he only ever wanted to swim in the hot tub. Even when he got older, all he wanted to do was jump in and out of the jacuzzi. There sat a massive pool for him to swim back and forth in, but he would not have it. He just liked doing ridiculous cannonballs into the hot tub. It was not until much later that we were able to coax him into “the big-boy pool.” Now the kid is a damn fish; it does not matter what time of year it is, all he wants to do is get in the pool. Even when I let him get in when it is a bit cold and his lips turn purple and blue, he gets very upset when my wife or I insist on his departure into the warmth of the house. I do not know where he gets his stubbornness from sometimes . . .

  You! Yeah . . . YOU. Shut your inner mouth.

  There were some good grown-up times as well. I can remember a fairly inebriating evening of cocktails and shenanigans that was going swimmingly—a party for the professionals, if you will. Unfortunately there is a giant lapse in my memory around this point, but I do recall coming around in my kitchen, standing at the sink, and eating the smallest BBQ sandwich I had ever seen with no pants on. I do not know where my pants went. I do not know where the sandwich came from. All I know is it was very cold in my kitchen and pants would have been a good thing—especially with all the partygoers saying goodbye and staring rather rudely. But as far as I was concerned, my house plus my kitchen equaled my prerogative. There were nights of wonderful games like Trivial Pursuit and Scene It. One night some friends and I learned how to play Texas Hold ’Em, and I got cleaned the fuck out by those same prick-like friends. At least they left me with a shirt I could wear. Things would seem normal for long periods. I would only hear fleeting things about other experiences up on the third floor.

  Also the damage perpetrated in this house was not always consigned to the spiritual wrecking crew. There was a night when the kids were at Grandma’s house and we had some friends over for a few tee many martoonis. Around four in the morning I was trying in vain to get those friends to simply crash at the house; it was clear they were too inebriated to drive themselves home. After a round of arguments and a sneaky exit, these stalwart friends ended up driving backward through my front yard and colliding dangerously with a telephone pole. Another foot to the right and they would have taken out my neighbor’s mailbox. On a different occasion someone ran around my house during a Halloween party, spitting beer all over my walls. It may have been years ago, but if I find the son of a bitch who did it, I just may dig a pit and toss his or her body in with a nice little lye bath for good measure. It is probably the same motherfucker who stole one of my black Gibson Les Paul customs I had stashed in the basement so no one would see them. God, I hate thieves as much as I hate cold coffee sometimes.

  One day Griffin’s grandmother was taking the trash down to the corner so it could be collected the next morning. As she was depositing the receptacles at the curb, a big white van pulled up full of Japanese tourists with cameras. They climbed out of the vehicle and immediately started taking pictures of her and the house. Needless to say, she was a little perturbed and asked what the hell was going on. They explained to her that they had been sold a “Map of Slipknot” at the airport, so they had rented a van to take them around to snap souvenir pictures. Griffin’s grandmother waved them off, and I tried to warn the other band members that weirdness was coming their way in the form of a van full of tourists.

  Oh and by the way, just so I can put to rest some scuttlebutt that has been spread across the landscapes of Facebook, Twitter, and even the desolate frozen wasteland that is still Myspac
e: I HAVE NEVER DONE DRUGS WITH ANY PERSON IN ANY OF THE BATHROOMS IN ANY OF THE HOUSES THAT I HAVE OWNED, LIVED IN, OR OTHERWISE. I do not know where this shitty sordid rumor started, but apparently there are a virtual host of assholes in Des Moines and other places that claim to have done all kinds of chemicals with yours truly while sequestered in one of my commodes. I have thrown many a party, even one that included wild livestock and a crash helmet (that was one hell of a birthday, I will say), but I have never imbibed or offered any illegal controlled substances with or to any people since 1989. The only thing other than alcohol I have ever partaken in was weed and mushrooms, and both of those were in Holland and Los Angeles. So all you mother fuckers who keep passing that brag around like a blow-up doll at a frat squat can just let it go because it is absolutely not true. However, there were two different times when cocaine was offered to me in a bathroom, but both those times were in Los Angeles as well. Ironically, both of those times involved well-known actors; one was at the old Viper Room (while said actor was trying to chat up a Puerto Rican boy in an attempt to get him to come home with him) and the other was deep inside our old friend from a few chapters ago, the Mansion. So just to sum up: I have never done any drugs in any of the bathrooms located in any of my old or current houses with any individual, alive or dead, but I myself was offered drugs in a couple bathrooms by B-List movie stars amid strange goings-on and whatnot. I hope this clears up any confusion in that land of facts and truth, the Internet.

  As you may have read in my previous book and as I have said in interviews, it was right around Griffin’s first birthday when I, quote unquote, “started to get my shit together.” What followed was a three-year period when I did not touch a drop of alcohol and I started to get my focus back on work, family, and responsibility. That is hard shit for someone who has made a bloody mess of a lot of things, but you just have to keep slogging at it until it gets a bit more tolerable. So during this time frame I had that first conversation with Griffin about the Shadow Man. This was a very new development; up until that point there were really just the odd brushes with invisible antagonists. If anything, every once in a while you would see something quick and abrupt in the corner of your eye. But when a father hears his son describe “a man in the corner who keeps me awake,” you bet your fat ass I take it seriously.