That Time Candy Tried To Kill Me

(Or) The Day I Nearly Died Watching Hobbits

(This is a short essay I penned earlier this year about brushes with death, inspired by our very strange, shared experience of coronavirus. Thankfully, since then, Covid seems to be on the retreat, and God willing, it will continue to fade into the background and we can finally begin to rebuild what fell down over the last couple of years. I hope you enjoy this regaling and I invite you to share any experiences you may have had along your way. There’s nothing like a near death experience to throw things into perspective! Enjoy.)

—Start—

I’ve had brushes with death over the years, some more sobering than others. There were near misses at 80+ mph. Exotic infections. Bullets whizzing by close enough to hear the pitch of the note as the air bent around my ear.

Covid has me considering mortality in ways that I hadn’t in recent memory. The uncertainty around this virus is enough to make any thinking person consider their place on earth and how and when they themselves will kick the bucket. For me, it’s guided long lost memories to the surface, recollections of tiny bouts, flirtations if you will, with dying.

There were likely countless instances that went unnoticed because I was asleep or had my back turned. But for our purposes here today I will stick to the memory that floated to the top of the tub during this collective gas-filled bath time: The day I nearly died watching Hobbits.

The societal bluster that has been 2020, 2021 and now into ’22 has me considering mortality in ways that I hadn’t in recent memory, but in retrospect these considerations were themselves more bark than actual bite. Then of course we have the ever present ego-death running concurrent with deep psychedelic states, but that is another conversation … I think.

The “Lord of the Rings” was written by JRR Tolkien between 1937 and 1949 but the animated film by Ralph Bakshi was released in 1978 and it was during a family outing in (circa) 1983 to see this film when my mother saved my young life. If I’m remembering correctly it was a double feature with the animated LOTR and the 1971 documentary film “On Any Sunday,” and now that I’m writing this down I’m feeling like whoever decided that this movie combo was a good idea was either high or just didn’t care.

I remember so much about this day; the darkened room, the muted whispers, the bouquet of buttered popcorn mixing with processed sugars and the aroma of the sticky floor like some off-brand American incense, the crinkling of the plastic packaging around me as hungry teenagers tore into their snacks, the gentle honking of the plastic straws as they moved up and down in iced-filled soda cups, the damp cushiness of my seat and the way it squeaked as I pushed my feet against the one in front of me. But the two details most burned into my mind are my “Dukes of Hazzard” coloring book that accompanied me that afternoon and the Werther’s Originals hard caramels that 7-year-old me loved to hold in my cheek as I watched movies.

I made it through “On Any Sunday” a little bored, but thankfully I had my little TV show coloring book to occupy me while 1970s motorcycle people flew around in the dirt. Nothing against dirt-bike culture; I was just more into colors and cartoons in that moment. “Lord of the Rings” even started out well enough because I put my coloring book down at my feet, cracked open a Werther’s and settled in for the journey to Mordor. It wasn’t long into the film when the hard candy found its way into my windpipe. Frodo and Samwise hadn’t even fully left the Shire yet as they had just run into Pippin and Merry at the outskirts. It was the scene when the four hobbits take shelter from the Black Riders in the exposed roots of the giant tree that things went badly for me. Startled by the terrifying Nazgûl on horseback, I gasped and felt the yellow oval pull into my throat, lodging squarely into where air normally flows freely.

It felt like a door slammed shut, like an already dimly lit room somehow got even darker. My breaths went from slow, unconscious rhythms into sharp, shallow stabs that almost hurt as I tried to “huh-huh” them out. I stood up and banged on my chest.

“Sshh” from behind me.

I grabbed my mom’s shoulder and squeezed it hard.

“Ssshhh!” From behind me, “ssssshhh” from beside me. And suddenly thwap! on my back as my mom attempted the first excavation of the small golden intruder. I now knew she was aware of my plight, but it offered only a small consolation because my hands were starting to claw at my throat. It was a terrifying feeling. The loss of oxygen mixed with a growing chorus of shushing all around me was disconcerting at best, and the little flecks of sparkling light at the corners of my vision were an increasing insult to this unfolding injury.

“Ssshhhh! Sit down!” from in front of me as my mom quickly spun around behind me and made a ball out of her two hands, placed them dead center in my abdomen and pulled into me. I doubled over and felt her reverse stomach punch again and I almost felt limp as my vision descended to the floor where my Dukes of Hazzard coloring book lay. Then just as suddenly as the whole ordeal began, it ended with a tiny pop! and a “huuuuuehhh” as a geyser of vomit rocketed out of me along with that fucking Werther’s Original Child Killer Candy, all onto my then most favorite coloring book, turning it from something bordering on meaninglessness and ephemerality into an object that I could now never forget.

Today, decades later, as I ponder that little orange soft book cover, this object that featured two fictional good ol’ boys, and their beloved muscle car that donned a Confederate flag and was not so subtly called the General Lee, three things occur to me ….

Maybe I was too young to be eating hard candy, though the sheer ease of its reverse trajectory into my windpipe leads me to believe that I was likely not the first person, large or small, to suffer such an occasion. Next, who the fuck makes a double feature out of "On Any Sunday" and the animated "Lord of the Rings”? It WAS the early ’80s and summer matinee programming maybe wasn’t a high priority for the teenaged staff of the dinky theater we patronized at that time, but … come on. And finally; vomiting onto a little racist coloring book and leaving it there was maybe an appropriate ending to that part of my pop culture indoctrination. I missed the rest of the movie, as my mom shuffled me out of the theater into the hot, bright sunlight of midsummer Woodland Hills, but what I missed of Frodo and Samwise’s adventure in Middle Earth that afternoon I gained in time left here on this earth. Thank you for buying me some more time here, Mom, and I think I switched to Mike & Ike’s after that.

Brandon Boyd

Los Angeles, CA.