In the eighties, horror movies were everything. Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and a thousand more. My room was covered with pictures of zombies, Rambo, Sabrina, a Lamborghini Countach, and people with their heads exploding or their faces melting off. Those movies influenced me so much that I ended up making myself a glove just like Freddy Krueger’s.
I don’t know how, but a friend and I decided that making this glove was the most important thing in the world. But we had to do it right—made of metal, not the plastic crap they sold you in magazines. We collected every photo we had and studied the details. The glove was brown, with six-inch blades like long metallic fingernails. But what was interesting was that the blades weren’t just extensions of the nails like everyone thinks. They were at ninety degrees on top of each nail. That was super important to get right.
Armed with that knowledge, our first idea was to grab a ready-made glove and somehow attach some knives to it. My friend went to his mom’s closet and stole a ski glove. It was white with diagonal blue stripes, like they’re supposed to make you more aerodynamic or something. We went to the kitchen, grabbed some bread knives, and tried sticking them on with tape. I put the glove on, and honestly, I didn’t know much about design back then, but I suspected this wasn’t turning out like the movie version. Making the glove was going to be harder than we thought.
My mom got me the fabric, but someone had to sew the glove. Who knows how to sew well? And this wasn’t just sewing—this was making it exactly like the movie. Hollywood level. I asked everyone and my aunt Estela said she’d do it. That it was easy for her. I’m always suspicious of people who brag too much, but she was in the fashion world and I didn’t know anyone else, so I went to her place. She measured my hand and then it was time to wait.
Two days later she calls saying she’s done. That fast? I ran to her place and in the elevator I kept praying—please, please let it be done right. I imagined the family drama if she’d ruined the fabric—not being able to complain because she was my aunt, because she did it for free. But when I saw it I couldn’t believe it. It was perfect! The shape, the strings on the side to tighten it that gave it that psycho vibe. It was so well made that I even started comparing it to the one in the movie and mine seemed better. Now we just had to attach the blades.
We tried everything. Hammering metal plates to mold them to the glove, cutting metal with scissors until our hands bled. It was a complete failure. Finally fed up, my friend said the only way was going to be welding the metals together and then attaching them to the glove. He was right.
The next day after school I went my town’s Industrial Park—really just two crappy streets with a couple of warehouses. Totally deserted. I thought about leaving, but in one of the warehouses I heard what sounded like a saw. I got closer and saw a man cutting wood. He was measuring something. Honestly he didn’t look like an artist and to make this glove you had to be an artist. He looked at me with a face like: what the hell do you want, kid? I left.
About a week went by and we didn’t know what to do with the glove anymore. It was good, but without the blades it wasn’t cool. I started thinking maybe I wouldn’t be able to pull this off. That we’d forget about the glove and in two years I’d find it in a drawer and just feel like a failure. Like I’d missed this great opportunity and now I was trapped, and I’d hate everything—people walking down the street, everyone for being so basic. My usual thing. But one afternoon, while we were playing a videogame at my friend’s house, his mom came home. She saw the glove and her eyes lit up. “This is so well made! Who made this for you?” she said, totally amazed. We told her everything and she said that at the solar panel company where she worked there was a man who could weld it for us. Damn, and she’s only saying this now? But what if he ruined it? It was super risky to just hand it over blindly to anyone. What if the welder was some basic dude and he ruined it? But it was either give it to him or leave the glove in a drawer forever. We told her a thousand times that the blades had to be at ninety degrees on the nails and we gave her the reference photos, praying that please, he’d do it right. And she took it.
At school I spent the days thinking about the glove. I imagined the man welding it—sometimes he did it right and I was blown away. Other times he did it wrong and the glove came back broken, burned, and ruined forever. And other times he was doing it right but someone interrupted him and the glove got lost and my friend’s mom came back apologizing saying she was sorry and that she’d buy me another one and I’d get pissed because it was impossible to buy anywhere and she didn’t understand. I spent the entire week like this.
Then one day my friend calls me. He had the glove. I ran to his house, saw the glove, put it on, and looked at myself in the mirror. It was perfect. The blades at ninety degrees on the nails, the melted metal, it looked amazing!. It gave serial killer vibes. I was dying of happiness. I had Freddy Krueger’s freaking glove—the finished thing, exactly like the one in the movie. Maybe even better. It was perfect—well, almost perfect. The tips of the blades didn’t actually pierce. The guy who welded it, I guess as a precaution, hadn’t used sharpened metal. If you stabbed yourself it was more like hitting yourself with the back of a knife. But I fixed that easily. I took it to a knife sharpener and it turned out mega lethal.
Finally! I told myself. I have Freddy Krueger’s glove! But now that I had it, I didn’t know what to do with it. I went to the bathroom mirror. Posed with the glove to the side, held it over my face, snapped it open suddenly like—you’re dead, asshole! I turned the light off and on quickly imitating those flashes they do in the movie. And after half an hour I got bored. So now what? I had to get more people to see it. Should I bring it to school? No way, some stupid teacher would probably think it’s dangerous and take it from me. I could dress up as Freddy, go out on the street and I don’t know, chase people. But I don’t know, if I did that it would confirm the rumors that I was crazy.
Then one day a group of friends planned to go to Tivoli World, an amusement park near my house. And I thought it would be a good idea to bring the glove. Inside the park was the “Terror Passage,” which was like a haunted house you walked through and actors dressed as zombies, Freddy Krueger, Dracula, Frankenstein, or the girl from The Exorcist would jump out to scare you. I’d been in like fifteen times and knew it by heart. My logic was that if the Terror Passage people saw the glove and how well made it was, maybe something would happen. Like I’d go, they’d see my glove and then they’d invite me to some meeting room where everyone would admire it and ask me how I made it. And the word would spread in their entertainment world until it reached Steven Spielberg who’d then send a message saying my glove was incredible. And that would make the newspaper headline: “Boy Makes Freddy Krueger Glove That Amazes Steven Spielberg.” And as a gift they’d let me enter the Terror Passage for free forever.
We got to the park entrance. I had the glove hidden under my shirt, tucked into my pants, and I tried not to move too much so I wouldn’t stab myself in the stomach. My friends told me I was crazy trying to get that past park security, that the glove was a “deadly weapon,” that they were definitely going to take it from me and a thousand other things cowards say. One of them had a free pass, so I followed him to try sneaking in. We went to a side door with a security guard. My friend showed him a paper and the guard let him in. I smiled at the guard and walked right in. Super easy.
First we went to the roller coaster. It wasn’t big, but it was pretty scary from how broken down it was. It creaked the whole time and if you stood up you could die decapitated. I didn’t get on because of the glove. Then we went to the bumper cars. My friends were having fun, but I waited outside. I didn’t feel like stabbing myself. And finally we went to the Terror Passage. They put us in a group alone, just my friends and I.
The first actor was a really tall guy with a deep voice that was super impressive. He chose one of us as the guide and told him the usual: “Knock on the door three times.” I knew the script by heart, but damn, I loved it because it was like being in a movie. I put myself at the end of the group because I knew from experience that the actors got closer to you if you went last. The first room was like a cemetery, with tombstones, fog, and a zombie that came out of a tombstone behind you. Then the old woman from Psycho sitting in the chair. My friends were scared shitless, but I prided myself on having almost no fear. And then, the girl from The Exorcist, who I had a special relationship with because I once dressed up as Father Karras who saves her in the movie.
We were getting to the part where Freddy Krueger comes out, so I put on the glove. First we saw the silhouette, with a light projecting his shadow on a white cloth. Just like in the movie. The light stopped flickering and he came out with his glove to scare us. We ran, but I knew he had a shortcut and was going to appear in front of us again. I put the glove on. Freddy Krueger appeared in front of me, pulled out his glove to scare me, and I pulled out mine—my glove is better! And I don’t know why, but he slammed his hand against my metal blades. He bent my blades and everything. Damn, I thought, with all the work it took to make and now this guy almost breaks it. Why did he do that?
We got to Dracula. He moved on a platform above us, but I saw he was moving weird, more agitated than normal. When he passed over me he kicked me. It hurt, but at the same time I was happy because it wasn’t the script they always followed. We got to Frankenstein and as he was getting up I heard in the background: They’ve cut Paco! They’ve cut Paco! Frankenstein had metal chains and started hitting us with them. “Hey, be more careful,” a friend said. And he hit us even harder. We got to the final stretch. Crossing a bridge in some kind of jungle. I knew at the end there would be the guy with the chainsaw from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and then that’s it. The exit. We crossed the bridge and when we got to the end I suddenly see Dracula. “The one with the blade,” he said. “Who’s the son of a bitch with the blade?” My friends didn’t hesitate to look at me. Traitors. They let them out the door and Dracula came toward me. “Take it off,” he yelled at me. Take it off quick. I tried, but it took time because it fit super tight. I finally managed to take off the glove, Dracula grabbed my arm and pushed me through a secret door.
We entered a dressing room—where the actors put on makeup and got dressed. I did it, I thought. After all this time admiring them, I got to see the other side of the Terror Passage. Paco, the guy who played Freddy Krueger, was holding his bloody hand. I was in total admiration mode, fascinated by everything I was seeing. Dracula brought the glove to Paco and I thought, now’s when they’re going to be impressed. But he just left it there on the table and nobody said anything. Paco came toward me with his bloody hand. “Look what you did to me,” he said. Look! He showed me his palm and I saw he had a good cut about an inch long. I made a face like: well, it’s not that bad. The girl from The Exorcist was smoking a cigarette sitting with her legs crossed. “The cops,” she said. “Let’s just call the cops.” Paco looked at me with hate and frustration. He went to sit down again, the guy was sweating like crazy, looked like he was trying not to explode while they bandaged his hand. What about my glove? Weren’t they going to talk about how well made it was? Dracula went to Paco and said something in his ear. It was like they were deciding what to do with me. A few seconds passed and Dracula came up to me. He grabbed my arm and pushed me through a door. “You’re very lucky.” And he slammed the door shut.
When I came out I saw my friends waiting for me, sitting down. One was shaking his head with that little smile saying: you again. Always you. I told them what happened and we decided to leave the park before they changed their minds and called the police.
Months later, the friend who I made the glove with was at the Sports Center. He started talking with a guy about basketball and stuff and it turned out he was one of the actors from the Terror Passage. The one who played the guy from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He told my friend he remembered that day very well. He explained that there were two Freddy Kruegers in the Terror Passage. One comes out first, scares you, you run away, and then you find another one in front of you. To copy the effect from the movie, obviously. But what sometimes happened is drunk tourists would take the glove from the first Freddy, and when the second Freddy saw my glove he thought I’d stolen it from the first one. That’s why he slapped at it to take it from me. He talked with my friend for like forty minutes and gave him some advice for me. That I shouldn’t have brought the glove to a public place and other boring stuff like that.
And the glove? What happened to the glove? They threw it away. And they weren’t amazed by how well made it was? They threw it in a trash can and that’s it. What a disappointment. All this time I thought they’d have it on display as something super valuable or that they’d started using it for the show.
At school the rumor spread about what I’d done and everyone talked about it like they were experts. “Who would think to make a glove like that” they said, it was clear they were going to take it from me, it was super dangerous. And some kids asked me if I learned my lesson, if I learned that you don’t do that. What lesson. What I learned is that I can stab Freddy Krueger and they can’t.
