If you get off I-75 south of Erie Shores, Michigan, where a faded billboard in a cornfield with faded corn begs you to get off and see Schafer’s Rock Palace and Exxotic Fireworks, then drive past Schafer’s Rock Palace and Exxotic Fireworks, where you aren’t gonna be that thrilled by the faux rare rocks or the fireworks that are available anywhere now, you’ll see another faded billboard.
You can see the name Irving, because the billboard was custom built by “Hickory” Hank Mosely to say Irving above the main rectangle.
Underneath Irving, almost gone, once red, now the palest shade of barely discernible pink, it says Corble’s.
Next to Corble’s there used to be a fantastic illustration of a vampire, but someone cut those two large panels out, presumably to preserve the illustration.
Underneath the vampire it used to say Haunted Mansion.
Now it says, in spray paint:
Dilapidated Batshit Emporium.
It was never a mansion.
Irving Corble’s Haunted Mansion was six retired semi trailers with a plywood mansion facade that was supposed to look like a mansion. It kind of looked like the house on the hill above the Bates Motel if John Waters had drawn it in crayon.
The facade is gone. Irving sold it to a guy who runs a haunted house outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
The brush is overgrown around what was once the entrance to the parking lot, and a chain runs the width of the entrance to keep people out.
If you get off at the exit, and drive past Schafer’s shitty rocks and readily available fireworks, and see Irving’s old billboard, then the chain blocking the entrance to Irving’s old place, pull over, park on the shoulder of Yassner Road,step over the chain and walk in.
Do it.
You only have to walk about forty feet past the chain and you’ll see the semi trailers.
Past the trailers you’ll see a really dilapidated old modular home. It has a small porch, with bright, fresh yellow and orange flowers that look welcoming, but if you look closer, you’ll see one store bought and one hand painted sign that say:KEEP OUT.
On the side of one of the trailers are some wooden steps with faux spiderwebs and realistic but motionless rubber spiders.
In the brief heyday of Irving Corble’s Haunted Mansion,visitors paid 5 bucks a ticket to walk up those steps and wander through the connected semis, get frightened by live actors playing classic monsters and automated frights triggered by levers where patrons stepped.
Irving Corble would have loved for people to remember that he was Corpse # 2 in Revenge of The Swamp Demons,especially because he was the corpse that fell from the loft when the swamp demon began to destroy the barn.
Irving Corble would have loved for you to know he did that fall stunt in two takes.
But no one remembered the movie, though many people who met Irving Corble politely lied and said they did.
Walk up those wooden steps and knock, politely, on the door.
Do it.
Irving Corble’s Haunted Mansion had one thing that set it apart from all other haunted attractions, and that was ultimately what made the Monroe County Health Department shut it down.
When you knock someone will answer the door. It will be either Vlad, or Murphy, or Ivy.
Almost all of Irving Corble’s Haunted Mansion is intact, though Vlad turned the Brain Lab into a real, operable kitchen with a vent.
For ten bucks, or whatever you can spare, they’ll give you a tour.
Some of the levers that trigger the frights still work, and sometimes Murphy wears the old mummy costume because he likes it, and it’s pretty warm, and if Vlad is in the right mood, he’ll read you some of his goth poetry.
And if you don’t look like a cop or a dick from the Health Department, and you’re polite, Ivy will take you in trailer number four, where she has created a bat habitat.
Ivy will tell you all about the bats. There are hundreds of them, and she has names for some, and Vlad has written poetry about them.
Ivy was sixteen years old when they shut down Irving Corble’s Haunted Mansion. They released the bats, but the bats liked it there, especially with no patrons, and they kept coming back.
Ivy kept sneaking back in to hang out with the bats, and when she was eighteen she moved in.
Vlad baked Ivy a cake in the Haunted Mansion Brain Lab Kitchen for her 40th Birthday.
If you ask Ivy about Irving, she’ll tell you that she’s seen Revenge of the Swamp demons 415 times, and she always watches it on Irving’s birthday.
If you ask, Ivy will quietly tell you “Irving left us years ago,” and you will assume that he died.
But Irving didn’t die. He lives in the little modular home, and Ivy takes care of him.
He’s not sure where he is, but he seems happy, and content, and he loves it when Ivy brings a bat over to keep him company.
Irving spends most of his time in bed, because he’s 102 years old, and sometimes, out of nowhere, he calls Ivy “Susan.”
Other times, he’ll hear a noise, like kids lighting off Schafer’s fireworks or a truck blowing a tire on Yassner Road, and Irving Corble will say “Take 2” and roll off the bed.
Ivy picks him up and puts him back in bed, worried that the next time Irving is going to break a hip.But he hasn’t yet. Ivy thinks Irving might live forever.
So get off at that exit and go see Irving Coble’s Dilapidated Batshit Emporium.
Because Irving might live forever.
But you won’t.
***
If you like this story it would be great if you could show your appreciation with few bucks at Venmo:
Jimmy, you have led such a vast life, and possess such a vast imagination----------------your readers adore you vastly!!!
What an inspiring story!
It feels like a documentary and reads like an episode of 'You Are There'.
Made me want to make the drive.