| Blogs / Ramblings
1/29/2009 - Trapped In An Elevator
1/27/2009 - The Close Call
1/14/2009 - Tom McCoy
12/23/2008 - Political Science
12/09/2008 - Grinch
10/08/2008 - 30th Birthday
7/25/2008 - Installing Blinds
6/03/2008 - The Great Wall
5/30/2008 - Rudeness
5/22/2008 - Sick Days At Work
4/09/2008 - Home Warrantee
3/31/2008 - Animal Crackers
3/17/2008 - Green Beverage Day
3/05/2008 - I Should Write A Novel
2/26/2008 - The Evil Oak
2/18/2008 - A Tribute To My iPod
2/11/2008 - Criminology Textbooks
2/04/2008 - The Surgery
1/31/2008 - WDW Marathon Part V
1/25/2008 - WDW Marathon Part IV
1/19/2008 - WDW Marathon Part III
1/17/2008 - WDW Marathon Part II
1/16/2008 - WDW Marathon Part I
1/12/2008 - Marathon Details
1/09/2008 - Running From My Run
1/04/2008 - The Holidays
1/01/2008 - First Blog
Tom McCoy
In memory of Samurai Tom . . . Tom McCoy died.
Tom McCoy, the guy who nearly broke his neck doing his first ever backflip
at my birthday party.
Tom McCoy, the guy who shot Mickey between the legs in his first ever
game of paintball.
Tom McCoy, the guy who, years ago, broke his windshield while letting
his own brother hit him with his own car.
Tom McCoy. I can't believe he's gone.
Some of my fondest memories of my life involve a little craphole haunted house
called Skull Kingdom. I worked there in my early 20s, scaring guests for virtually
no money. Some people tell college stories, I tell Skull Kingdom stories.
A few weeks after I began my employment, so did Tom. He was in his late teens,
perfect fodder for minimum wage. Since he was the brother of our head makeup
artist, we had low expectations. Don't get me wrong-- Bill was a spectacular
make up artist, and a scary dude, but very few of us believed that his younger
brother and best friend Tom was hired out of anything other than nepotism.
This was not the case.
Tom was freaking amazing. As the first one to demonstrate how to climb the
walls in narrow hallways, he showed us all that paper plates can be the most
terrifying clown masks you will ever see. If he arrived early for his shift,
Tom would simply sleep in the coffin until his workday began. And unlike most
people who spend their days and nights in coffins, Tom was always eager to jump
out and scare to piss out someone.
I worked many nights with Tom at Skull Kingdom, and rarely did I have more
fun. It turns out that scaring coworkers was even better than scaring customers.
We climbed up into the ceiling panels, dumping cups of water onto unsuspecting
friends. Well, former friends at least.
But Tom was no ordinary scareactor (rhymes with "character"), he
was also surprisingly ambitious. Noticing that we all worked in the castle,
he was the only one to realize that castles need swords. At the age of 19, he
officially opened his own licensed and incorporated business, Samurai Tom (not
to be confused with Samurai Jack, a show on cartoon network that began several
months later).
Working out a deal with management, he sold decorative and functional swords
in the gift shop of Skull Kingdom. Customers who screamed too loudly while in
the castle were finally able to purchase a sword in order to regain their sense
of confidence.
Tom and I took a few road trips out to Texas. Sometimes with friends, other
times not. Our vacation was spent working in a Haunted House Park somewhere
outside of Dallas. We stayed with a friend, sleeping in hammocks in the attic
of the main haunted house. Each morning, the last person to wake up would have
the misfortune of their hammock being chopped down from the ceiling. I can honestly
say that because of Tom, I became a morning person, waking up before anyone
else.
He was always encouraging; always showing us that we can do so much more with what we have. He taught himself Portuguese, bought his own braces, and founded multiple enterprises. With his successful sword business, Tom turned out to be one of my very best
customers for website design. He was so impressed with my work, that he went
on to learn how to do it on his own, teaching himself coding languages and flash
animation.
In the years since Skull Kingdom went out of business, we grew apart. Tom founded
a successful website design and hosting company, frogmonster.com. He was so
good, in fact, that he would later hire me as a consultant for some of his larger
projects.
For nine years, Tom had been one of my closest friends. But like all close
friends, life sometimes got in the way. Tom joined a band, moved on with his
life, and moved out of town to go to school. The last time I saw him was a year
and a half ago, when a few of us got together to pose for pictures in front
of a closed Skull Kingdom.
They bulldozed the place the following week.
I will never forget Tom, nor the influence he had on my life. I have an easier
time picturing him wearing that paper-plate clown mask than with a normal face.
I wouldn't have it any other way.
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