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RAMSEY NIX
FINAL JUDGEMENT
he bright red clay was a sign. When
it gave way beneath the soles of my
shoes, I should have known I was
treading toward an abyss.
A wide swath of red dirt is all that sepa
rates Highway 441 from the black-and-orange
decorated trailer offering "Final Judgement
Tours," a temporary roadside attraction just
north of Commerce. Like a mirage shimmer
ing in a desert of outlet malls and fast food
chains, the makeshift funhouse lured me off
the road. My husband and I thought it might
be fun to get spooked in a haunted house in
time for Halloween.
Twenty dollars later, we slipped through
the front door. In a pitch-black anteroom, a
television flickered to life. A narrator asked,
"If you died tonight, where would you go?"
The film showed an automobile accident,
a young woman on her deathbed and her first
glimpse of her final destination. Not a pretty
sight.
When the Grim Reaper arrived to take us on
our tour of hell, he didn't dwell long on pleas
antries. "I hate y'all," was all he said before
dragging us through a narrow passageway,
padded on both sides to simulate the feeling
of suffocation.
On the other side, amateur actors rattled
chains and screamed behind bars. Their cages
were labeled with signs indicating their sins:
drunk, pervert, suicide. "Please let us out,"
they begged.
"You wanna see what got them here?" the
Reaper asked us, as he pushed a door into a
well-lit living room. A man sat in a ^cliner,
basking in the glow of Internet porn on
his laptop. He yelled at his wife to get him
another beer, as his daughter studied physics
at the kitchen table.
"You might think he goes after the big cor
porations, but no, the devil preys on average
American families like this one," the Reaper
explained.
The next portal on our tour was a dimly lit
bar, where a redheaded teenager knocked back
a shot of booze. "We may not be promised
tomorrow, but tonight sure is looking good,"
she said, before breezing out the saloon doors
with a motorcycle helmet in hand. We found
her dead on the side of the road in the next
tableau.
Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust"
blared inside a bedroom, where a girl sat cut
ting herself. The Reaper handed her a pop-gun
and turned off the light. "Some of 'em make it
too easy," he said, after the shot was fired.
Following one last vignette involving oxy
codone, we finally met the man of the hour
(and his servant, Igor). With his gruesome
mask and Darth Vader voice, Satan made it
possible to imagine that we were, for the
moment, back inside a haunted house. "Tell
me something: Are you scared?" the devil
asked, before chasing us out of his lair and
into the arms of Jesus, in the most literal
interpretation of spiritual warfare imaginable.
Standing in his white robe, Bible in
hand, Jesus took advantage of this teaching
moment. He reviewed what we'd witnessed
and told us not to worry—that he had good
news. After reading John 3:16, he asked if
he could pray over us. My husband gave me a
look and a shrug, as if to say, "Why the hell
not?"
So, we bowed our heads.
his was my first encounter with a "hell
house," but apparently they are nothing
new. Fundamentalist Christian churches
have been operating them since Jerry Falwell
first made the concept popular in the late
1970s.
Deceptive advertising brings in plenty of
customers (and potential converts) around
Halloween. Hell house depictions of sin can
include abortion, pre-marital sex and homo
sexuality, so I suppose my experience was
tame by comparison. All hell houses sell the
idea that anyone who does not accept Christ
as their personal savior is condemned.
The Final Judgement House set up shop
on this patch of dirt for the first time this
October. Church member Leland Savage had
formerly operated a secular haunted house,
but he decided to put his trailer to "better
use" this year. Savage guesses that the attrac
tion had lured in approximately 700 visitors,
though he can't say yet just how effective the
ministry has been. "People fill out cards after
they get through, and we plan to follow up
with them by phone later on."
Does he ever question his methods of
church recruitment? "No," Savage answers.
"People have a lot more things to be scared
of," he says.
** men," Jesus finished. "Hell's that
TmL way," he said, pointing; "heaven's
Vthat way. You decide."
While our evening adventure should have
taught us not to trust facades, we chose
heaven. Had we known the door to hell simply
led outside, we might have taken the easy way
out.
The charade ended in heaven, where an
evangelical in plain clothes asked us to fill out
a recruitment form from Redemption Outreach
Ministries, the church Savage belongs to seven
miles north of Commerce.
"Well, that was weird," my husband
summed up when we got back to our car.
I tried, in futility, to wipe the red clay off
my shoes.
Ramsey Nix
Featuring Brian Reddy
Veteran of Broadway, Stage and Screen: 0 Brother
Where Art Thou?, Seinfeld, Buffy the Vampire
Slayer, Law & Order, The Bird Cage, The Good Wife, The
Gilmore Girls, and Casino /
Rne Arts Theatre
Nov. 3-4,8-11 @ 8pm, Nov. 6 & 13 @ 2:30 pm
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