with no face

Story time!

When I was four or five, we had an infestation of slugs in our back garden. My parents were trying to grow some vegetables, and to keep the slugs away from the plants they decided to put out shallow dishes full of beer. Of course, that's not what they told me.

"Why are you putting beer in the garden?" I asked.
"It's for the Tomato Man," said my father instantly, in the same genial tone he uses for ninety-eight per cent of everything he ever says. "The Tomato Man and his Four Hippopotami."
"Why are you leaving him beer?"
"Because otherwise he won't make the tomatoes grow. We have to leave beer for the hippopotami."
"But if there are four hippopotami, why are there only three dishes?"
"One hippo has to keep watch."

This all sounds ridiculous and adorable, except that the more I thought about this story the more terrified I was. I would lie in bed at night, listening for them. My immediate reference for hippos was a set of brightly-coloured ones that had been strung across my pram when I was smaller and had now been passed down to my baby brother. I pictured three hippos, each in a different jaunty primary colour, drinking beer from the dishes in the garden under the cover of night, while the fourth one stared unblinkingly up at my window, waiting for any sign of movement. And if he saw anything, I imagined, he would alert the Tomato Man.

(This sounds SO RIDICULOUS. But this is what it was like being Baby Jen.)

Some nights I couldn't sleep for thoughts of what might be on the other side of my window if I ever dared to pull the curtain back before the sun came up. I'd decided what he looked like; a large tomato head with vines for body, arms, and legs, large flat leaves for hands and feet. I would picture it over and over again (with the same horrified fascination as Supposedly Adult Jen reading the Wikipedia pages of films too frightening to actually watch and then feeling sick for weeks). I could see myself tripping over to the window and pulling back the curtain. The slightest twitch would have alerted the hippo on watch, and by the time the curtain was fully drawn he'd be there, huge tomato head millimetres from the glass, staring at me with his featureless face.

I have been known to judge potential friendships in large part over whether they understand the terror of being stared at by a man with no face. I've now moved past this as an appropriate test, but it's still interesting to ask people. Is the stare in the eyes, or in the intent? If it's in the eyes, then you have nothing to fear from the goddamn Tomato Man, but if it's in the intent? You are never getting away from that stare. He can't blink, he can't turn his attention elsewhere. You can't distract him. You can't break his gaze, because it isn't there. I've been afraid of being watched since then, but fear of being watched by a person, a monster, whatever, has never been more intense for me than the fear of being stared at by something with no face at all. Yes, I'm still aware it was a tomato.

I kept this completely to myself for years, because to say something aloud gives it power. I got so used to keeping it quiet that it stayed a secret long after he lost his grip on me. It must have been at least a decade if not more before I told my dad about my childhood fear of the Tomato Man.

"What?!" he said, in the exact same tone as he'd told the story in the first place. "It was just some nonsense about tomatoes and hippos!"
"You know about my imagination, Dad."
"Well, yes, but hippos and tomatoes?"
"Anything can be scary."
"I didn't mean to scare you! I was talking nonsense."
"Man with no face, Dad. You conjured up a staring man with no face."
"...good grief."