Dear Pam And David MacNeill

Dear Pam and David MacNeill,

Sorry for letting your children watch The Amityville Horror.

This was in 1986 at the house on Long Beach Island that you and my parents had rented with a bunch of your other friends. I shouldn't even have been there. I didn't want to be there. I was not supposed to be there. I was supposed to be at home, at my parents' house, where I had been given the responsibility of staying unattended for the week.

Of course, being fifteen years old at the time, I had a party on the very first night. I'd had parties in my parent's absence before-over winter weekends during the school year-and been able to clean up well enough before they returned to avoid getting caught. But this was in the summer, and the party got bigger and more out of control than the others had. A door got broken; Kool-Aid was made with beer on the kitchen floor; a metal fork was microwaved, causing a flash of light and a booming explosion that knocked the microwave off the counter onto the Kool-Aid-covered floor. (Amazingly, it still worked when I set it back up and plugged it back in. But I've guiltily wondered for years whether or not this might have had anything to do with my parents getting cancer later. Probably not. We lived in New Jersey; chances are they both would have gotten cancer anyway.) Bottles broke in the pool. Peanut butter, somehow, ended up all over the living room curtains. No one died, that was lucky. But after spending a sad, hung-over next day trying to make repairs and hide evidence, I realized that I was going to have to fess up this time. I called my parents, who were understandably unhappy to hear the news, and my dad drove home to pick me up and bring me down to Long Beach Island, where I was to not leave the house for the rest of the week.

It was a pretty bad punishment. Anywhere my family was was absolutely the last place I wanted to be at that point in my life. (I was deeply committed to teenage disaffection.) The other kids that were there-your children, my sister and four or five others-were all at least five years younger than me. You guys and the other adults gave me some good-natured teasing upon my arrival ("Why wasn't I invited?!") that I was too sullen and embarrassed to take with good-natured. To add insult to injury, I learned that some of you were going up to the roof deck to smoke pot after dinner every night-which had the devastating effect of making me feel less cool than my parents' 45-year-old friends. I spent most of the week alone in a room listening to L.L. Cool J's Radio. But not even on a big-woofer box that I could have played at volumes intended to offend older ears. Just on my Walkman.

One night I was in the TV room, flipping channels to find something to watch, when Sarah Landy and my sister and your two boys, Devon and Jordan came in. Sarah was probably ten. Devon must have been eight or so, my sister seven, Jordan maybe five. There was only one TV in the house, so I stayed sitting there and tried to pretend they didn't exist. It turned out The Amityville Horror was on. Thinking back, it might have been somewhat intentional-I might have chosen to watch it to get them out the room. I think I may have warned them that it was a scary movie. But they stayed and I absolved myself from any responsibility. I wasn't there to baby sit. I was trying to mope.

The kids became transfixed, as kids will do in front of a television, especially if they're watching something they think they're not supposed to be watching, and it was quiet, which I liked. It had probably been half-an-hour-and I don't know if it was the buzzing of the flies or when the statue falls on the priest in the church or when James Brolin sees his face in the fire or what, but little Jordan suddenly burst out wailing like an ambulance siren. He was inconsolable, totally freaking out, so Sarah got up and led him downstairs.

I knew I'd fucked up, and it occurred to me that I might be hearing more about it, but I was determined to play out what I saw as my role as the blasé no-goodnik. So when, you, Pam, came up to fetch Devon and my sister, and looked at the screen, and then at me, and said, "Real nice, Dave. Thanks a lot," I gave you a well-rehearsed "whatever" shrug and turned back to the TV.

So you have my sympathy, as well as an apology. I know I wouldn't like it much if some cranky fifteen-year-old showed up in the middle of my nice beach vacation and showed my kid that movie. If it's any consolation, I didn't sleep well at all that night. I kept seeing James Brolin seeing his face in that fire. That shit is terrifying!