Back in 1974 there was this crazy movie of the week on TV called Bad Ronald.  It’s about a momma’s boy who asks the hot cheerleader out on a date.  She rejects him, and while walking home he runs into her sister.  The sister taunts him into a rage, Ronald pushes her backwards, and she fatally hits her head on a cement block.

His overprotective mother comes up with a crazy plan:  Hide her son in the spaces between the walls of her house, wait until the heat blows over, and then flee the country together.  She has plans for Ronald to become a doctor, and nothing is going to stand in the way of that!

While waiting for the heat to blow over, the mother dies during an emergency operation and the house is sold.  A new family with a very attractive daughter moves in, with Bad Ronald watching from peepholes and leaving his hiding place to grab a bite from the kitchen.  With no where to go, Bad Ronald loses his sanity and hilarious hijinks ensue in the house.  The movie culminates in a horrific ending that can only be called surreal.

I think there’s a Bad Ronald living in the crawlspaces and walled off bathroom of my brainstem.

In the movie, there’s an interval where the new family thinks the house is haunted.  Bad Ronald moves about in the walls at weird hours, bumping and scuffling.  He borrows objects, eats from their fridge, and peers in on them giving them the feeling they’re being watched.  It’s actually a nifty idea, if a little creepy.

The movie just sort of popped into my head from memory.  So of course I had to look it up and recall my feelings about it when I was five years old.  Then I was reading through my dream journal, and one entry (which I had forgotten about until now) struck me as relevant.  In the dream a voice told me that My Mirage was protecting my shadow, a scary child living underground.

I believe I’ll be leaving a hot dog and glass of milk out for my Bad Ronald.  A boy’s got to eat!  Then maybe, just maybe, we’ll go out for some exercise.  I’ll point out the birds and the flowers.  See what he thinks.