Mischief Night – Friday, 1987

    It was another Friday in that long ago and misremembered 1987, October 30^th. Mischief Night, or Devil’s Night as some of the more alarmist voices were already starting to call it. All Hallow’s Eve Eve… The threshold of the threshold.

    “We should go out to the cemetery and watch for Satanists,” Dave suggested. “They’re bound to be out, right? Getting ready for the great ritual, the high holy Samhain.”

    We were all together again – in the attic space above Dave’s family apartment that we’d claimed as our own. The television was on, some eurotrash horror film called The Sweet Terrors of the Succubus, but we’d grown bored of it and lost track of the plot, such as it was, and we were casting about for something to do. Dave’s mom had suggested that we could help her make rice crispy treats for Halloween trick-or-treaters, but we’d declined.

    She also brought up a small box of Halloween decorations – mostly paper cutouts of skeletons and ghosts and witches. “Mom,” Dave whined. “That’s kids’ stuff. It’s corny.” She smiled and left the box anyway and Micah was sorting through it. He hung a few of the spiders and skeletons from the ceiling.

    “If we wanna go to the cemetery,” I said, “we’re going to need to call Allison.”

    “No, dude,” Dave said. I’m not exactly sure why Dave didn’t care for Allison. He called her “Yoko.” I told him that was uncool, and he shrugged. Anyway, Micah was already dialing the phone. Dave saw it. “Dude, no.” Micah handed the phone to me.

    “Hey,” Allison said. “Whatever it is, I’m down.”

    “Trip to the cemetery,” I told her.

    “On Mischief Night? Groovy.” I could hear her grin through the phone. Twenty minutes later she was in the alley behind Dave’s apartment, and we were sneaking down the back stairs.

    “How’d you get the car?” I asked as Allison drove us across town towards the Resurrection Cemetery. “You don’t have your license yet, do you?” Dave and I were in the back seat. Micah was up front with her.

    “No. Beth and the parentals are out of town. They’re taking her to visit one of the colleges she’s interested in. They don’t know I’ve got the car.”

    I nudged Dave with an elbow to the ribs. “Well, thanks for driving us to the graveyard. It’s cool you’re coming.”

    “Actually,” Allison said without taking her eyes from the road, “It’s a cemetery. Though we use the words somewhat interchangeably. Cemeteries are larger and not connected to a church. Graveyards are smaller and associated with a church.”

    “Cool,” Micah said.

    “Same’s true of coffin and casket,” Allison continued. “We use them to mean the same, but they’re different. Caskets are rectangular with four sides. Coffins are tapered with six sides.”

    “Cool,” Micah said again. I don’t think I’d ever heard him so verbose.

    Allison turned off the headlights and parked the car a ways up the road. “Quiet now,” she warned. “We don’t want to attract attention.”

    But she needn’t have bothered. The place was dead. Bad pun, I know. I know. People had been there but now it was only us and the remains of someone else’s party. We shone our flashlights around the scene and saw the remains of their revelries. There was trash everywhere. Empty beer cans and vodka bottles, empty cigarette packs and cigarette butts. Dave found a used condom and Micah found a stray shoe and a very large black bra. There were a few broken candles scattered around one tombstone and lots of pieces of paper blowing around in the grass.

    Dave stepped on one to stop it from blowing away. He picked it up and read from it. “It’s from the Bible,” he said. “This page is Isaiah. ‘My heart falters, fear makes me tremble; the twilight I longed for has become a horror to me...”

    That caught my ear. “That’s… I recognize that one. Why do I know that one?” I looked at Allison for help. “It’s so familiar. Why do I know that passage?”

    “Beats me,” she said. “But maybe we should clean this up. I mean, we just can’t leave it like this. It’s so…”

    “Disrespectful,” I suggested.

    “Ugly,” Dave said at the same time.

    “Yeah,” she said to both. “I think Beth’s got a trash bag in the back of the car.”

    So we spent the next half hour walking between the graves, using our flashlights to find the trash and detritus left behind by the unknown revelers and mischief makers. We worked methodically in silence to gather up all the Bible pages and beer cans and other assorted debris. Dave used a small branch to pick up the used condom and to drop it in with the rest of the trash. We nearly filled the bag.

    When we finished, we gathered around Micah who was pointing his flashlight at a headstone with a pile of small stones on top. We watched in wonder as Micah added one more stone to the pile.

    He pointed his flashlight at the grave marker again and said, “My uncle.”

    LEVI ABELMAN – 1932 – 1984
    BELOVED HUSBAND – DEVOTED FATHER

    Allison turned and hugged him. And we all sat there in silence on the ground.

    “It’s like that song by This Corpse Alive – Dark Gethsemane,” I said as we sat together there at Micah’s uncle’s headstone.

    Early hasten to the tomb
    where they lay
    this lifeless clay
    all is solitude and gloom.

    We huddled together in silence for several minutes. Not speaking. Not moving. Just listening and thinking. After what seemed like a long while I asked a question. “Do you ever wonder if this is all there is? I mean, these bodies. This flesh… This life. There’s more, right?”

    Dave nodded. “But what is it?” I asked again. Now he looked slightly panicked. Micah shook his head and shrugged.

    We went out that night looking for performative blasphemy, all the satanic rituals of death in the Resurrection Cemetery, but we found something like the meaning of life. Or at least the right questions. And that’s still the question. All these years later. Is this all there is? All our assumptions about life and death and life after death and life after life. Spirit disembodied, removed from the material and the physical. A presence without weight and a weight without presence. Is there more? Are we more?

    “I don’t know what comes after life,” Allison said. “But whatever it is, it’s not worth much without love.” She placed another small stone on Micah’s uncle’s headstone.

    That’s when the police rolled up and turned on the flashing blue and red lights.

    “Shit! We’re busted,” Allison hissed.

    “Should we run?” Dave asked.

    “No,” I said as I stood. “He’s probably already got the license plate from the car. Even if we ran, he’d still track us down.”

    “Okay, you punks. Just hold it there. Don’t move,” called out the police officer as he turned his powerful flashlight on us. “Every year it’s this same damn thing. You kids come out here on Devil’s Night to topple some gravestones or spray paint pentagrams all over everything.”

    “Sir,” I said raising my hands over my head. “We’re not satanists. We came out to see satanists, but we didn’t find any...”

    “But they were here,” Dave interrupted. “They left their trash all over everything.”

    “We just cleaned it all up,” Allison finished the explanation. And Micah pointed to the trash bag at our feet.

    “Open that up and let me see,” the officer instructed. Micah knelt down and opened the bag wide enough to see inside. The condom was still right there on top of all the beer cans.

    The officer spoke into his radio, “This is Richardson out at the Resurrection Cemetery. You got anything on that license plate?”

    “Negative. No tickets or outstanding warrants.”

    “All right kids. Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to haul ass out of here before I have to arrest you for trespassing. You’re going to go home. Straight home. And I’m going to file a report saying that I didn’t find any evidence of satanic mischief out here tonight. Which not only saves me a lot of other paperwork but has the added blessing of being true. Now haul ass.”

    We took off running for Allison’s car. But he shouted again, “Hold on, hold on! Take this trash with you.” Micah ran back and grabbed the bag, and we all beat feet for the car.

Rituali de Sangue - Friday, 1987
Twilight at Saint Gerald's - Another Friday, 1987
Exorcism Live - Another Friday, 1987

Exorcism Live, Another Friday, 1987

    I was lying on my bed, listening to music Allison had given me when Dave and Micah showed up. The music had captured me; it was totally unlike the metal I usually listened to. One entire side of the cassette was a song by Brian Eno – thirty minutes of drifting synths. Just drifting. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling drifting. Almost floating even.

    I thought about her – Allison. Since the event at the hospital she hadn’t been allowed to drive Beth’s car anymore. She was grounded, but not really in trouble. Her parents – all of our parents – were so relieved that we were safe that they implemented only token punishments for our poor choices. But still, she wasn’t allowed to drive anymore. Not till she actually got her license anyway. We hung out at school more often since the hospital. Walked the halls between classes together. That’s when she’d given me the mix tape.

    “You should expand your experiences,” she said.

    So I was listening to this music of nothing, this melody of air and moonlight through the headphones. I didn’t know how to hear it but there was something profound there.

    And that’s when the guys came in. We were at my place instead of the unfinished attic above Dave’s family’s apartment, but we were at my place almost as often as Dave’s. They kicked open the door and Dave yanked the headphone cable from the stereo. The sustained lilting of the airy melody flowed into the room.

    “What’s this shit?” Dave asked.

    “It’s a mix-tape Allison gave me.” I tossed him the cassette case with her handwritten titles.

    “Brian Eno?” he read. “Never heard of him. Sugar Cubes? Mississippi John Hurt? Carter USM?” he looked up from the list. “Are these songs or bands or what?” He continued reading. “Herman’s Hermits? Herman’s Shitting Hermits? Don’t your parents listen to that crap?”

    Micah pushed the stop and eject button on the cassette player, removed the tape and handed it back to me. He shook his head, “No.”

    Dave pulled out one of my This Corpse Alive albums. We were really into them. I still listen to them. The percussive pounding began immediately:

    Creeping in unnoticed
    The ungodly! The ungodly!
    Creeping from the remotest
    The ungodly! The ungodly!

    “No. Not that one” I objected. I was still feeling the ambient drift of the Eno song and I couldn’t handle the throbbing metal just yet. “Play the next track.” Dave moved the needle and suddenly the distorted guitars and drums were replaced with somber, if somewhat dissonant strings layered with gravel voiced mournful vocals.

    The righteous dies and no one cares
    In these evil days. These evil days.

    That song moves me. Even still. I can’t hear it without trembling a little. But back then, back in 1987 when we were fifteen, we were smart kids doing dumb things. Or dumb kids listening to good music and watching bad movies. That wasn’t the plan for this Friday night though. No. We’d planned that dumbest of teenage pranks – the prank phone call.

    In preparation I’d gone back to the University library and found a copy of Anton LaVey’s Satanic Bible. The librarian at the desk wouldn’t let me check it out though. “Stolen too often,” she told me. So I had to make xerox copies of the pages I wanted. The librarian eyeballed me the entire time to make sure I returned the infamous text before I left.

    Don’t get me wrong though. We weren’t satanists or anything. We just thought all that occult stuff was interesting. We read some of Aleister Crowley’s ceremonial magik, we looked up ancient summoning spells. We tried some of those, but never had any luck with them. And I read some of Anton LaVey’s books. Some called him “The Black Pope,” others called him the “evilest man in the world,” but to me he just sounded like Ayn Rand with pentagrams and black candles. Boring really.

    But armed with these devilish provocations we were going to call Bob Larson’s Talk Back radio program. Larson was one of those televangelists – though he was on the radio, not television in those days. His show was a crack up. Talking to teens about Satanism and ritual Satanic abuse and all that hype. He was a showman, always asking for people to donate money to his ministry and pitching his books and tapes. He was loud. He was abrasive and abusive, often shouting down his guests, telling them to shut up so he could rail against them. His voice was high pitched and pinched, and even more so as he became riled up. We turned off the record player and turned on the radio and tuned in the program just in time to hear the beginning of his show.

    “Good evening, America. Welcome to Talk Back with Bob Larson. I’ll be here for the next hour talking about what’s on my mind and hearing from you about what’s on your mind. Tonight we’re talking about teenage satanists. If you’re a teenager and you’re involved in Satanism or the occult dial me at 1-800-821-TALK. Call me. Maybe you’re into witchcraft. Maybe you’ve been involved in some sort of ritual sacrifice. Maybe you’re a member of a black metal, death metal band. Or maybe you want out. Maybe you want to be set free. Call me.”

    Dave was already dialing and talking to the call screener. Trying to get us in to the show as Bob continued on the radio.

    “Satan promises power. Power over parents. Power over school authorities. And even power over God. Is it a passing phase? Or are these teens committing to the rituals and a lifestyle that will take over and consume them? Do they have the devil in them? Is it Lucifer or Belial, or Leviathan in them? Why are teenagers turning to Satan? Call me. Talk to me. We’ve got a young man from Bloomington, Indiana on the phone.”

    “We’re on! We’re on!” Dave said thrusting the phone at me.

    “So you’re a teenage satanist?” I heard Larson say in the phone earpiece and on the radio and I was momentarily confused. “How long have you been duped by the devil?” Dave thrust the xerox LaVey quotes at me. Micah turned down the volume on the radio a little.

    “Do you kiss the ring of Satan? Hello? Are you there, caller?”

    I suddenly found my voice – not my regular voice, but the mewling, growling voice I used to crack up Dave and Micah as we read Crowley and LaVey. “Gather around me, Oh! Ye death-defiant, and the earth itself shall be thine, to have and to hold!”

    “My, what a lovely singing voice you must have,” Larson quipped. “So you’re a teenage satanist. You’ve obviously read The Satanic Bible…”

    I interrupted his spiel, “Too long the dead hand has been permitted to sterilize living thought. Life is the great indulgence – death, the great abstinence. Therefore, make the most of life, here and now!”

    “Caller, what’s your name? And how old are you?”

    We’d prepared for this. “Call me Liber Samekh,” I said, not dropping the voice. “And my minions, Cernunnos and Draugor are here with me.”

    “Are those your witch names? Your ritual names?”

    “Yes,” I answered and kicked at Micah who was wheezing with laughter on the floor, holding his yarmulke on his head with one hand. 

    “And do you and your minions listen to heavy metal, black or death metal music?”

    “We do. We follow This Corpse Alive. They’re the greatest.” I was getting off track a little. Dave shoved another page in front of me, jabbing his finger at a highlighted quote. I read it, putting all the menace I could into my cracking, teenage voice. “Behold the crucifix; what does it symbolize? Pallid incompetence hanging on a tree.”

    Larson was incensed. “Liber Samekh, Listen to me. Liber Samekh, I won’t allow blasphemy on my show. This is my show. Listen to me! Listen you’re getting into something that you can’t control. You don’t know…”

    I interrupted him again, louder and more forcibly. “Say unto thine own heart, ‘I am mine own redeemer.’”

    “Begone, Satan” Larson started shouting. “I bind and cast you out of this boy. I bind and cast you out of this child. I bind and cast you out in the name of Jesus…”

    He probably went on like that for some time, but we were laughing too hard to hear him. It was dumb and childish, of course. Puerile. But it was fun and funny. We were reading Crowley and LaVey and all that other rot, but we never bought into the “Satanic Panic” of those years. Bob Larson was a carnival barker. Anton LaVey was little more than an egoist. But one thing still stands out from those years – that song by This Corpse Alive still haunts me.

    The righteous dies and no one cares
    these evil days. These evil days.

Rituali de Sangue - Friday, 1987
Twilight at Saint Gerald's - Another Friday, 1987

Toward Sodom – Another Halfhearted Conversation with a Real Troll

    He comes around to harangue and harass, he insults me and belittles my faith and then he disappears. For a while. I go on about my life. I work. I write. I watch bad movies with my wife. And then he returns for another round or two of abuse.

    “I don’t know why you put up with him,” my darling says to me. “He’s a troll.”

    “Ahhh,” I nod and smile, “but he’s my troll.”

    She stares at me for a second or two and then says, “That makes no sense and you know it.” She laughs. I laugh.

    But he’s here again today. He catches mes as I’m working in the yard, raking leaves and pulling weeds. and he’s another argument for me. One I wouldn’t have expected.

    “Lot was selfish,” he says to me without preamble.

    Like I said, compared to some of his previous maneuvers this assault seemed indifferent. Insubstantial Inconsequential. Unnecessary, even. Like he wasn’t even trying anymore.

    “You mean when his uncle Abram offered him his choice of land for his flocks and herds?” I ask to make sure I understand what he’s asking. “Genesis chapter fifteen or thereabouts?”

    “Thirteen,” he nods. “Yeah. Lot was the selfish one. He was greedy and should have allowed his uncle, the patriarch, have the good land. He was greedy and he resisted his uncle’s authority.”

    “How does Lot’s acceptance of Abram’s offer make him a rebel? And Abram had taken the good land, wouldn’t that have made Abram the selfish one?” I ask, but I am already too late, Gunner is moving on.

    “Lot settled in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent toward Sodom.” He claps his hands. “Toward Sodom!”

    “We have no indication that Lot or any member of his family participated in the sins of Sodom – which were not homosexuality but rape, and inhospitality, selfishness and a lack of concern for the poor. The fact that God sent angels to rescue Lot and his family should indicate that he was not…”

    “Aha!” Gunner claps me on the shoulder with his meaty hand. “He pitched his tent toward Sodom, Jeff. You can’t get around that. Towards Sodom!” he shakes his head back and forth as he retreats back to his pickup truck.

    “Bye, Gunner,” I say waving.

    “What was that about,” my darling says from the door of the house.

    “I have no idea,” I say and go back to pulling weeds.

An Imaginary Conversation with a Real Troll (the first of the series) 
I Will Not Fight the Argument (the second)
Supermarket Wrestling (third conversation)
Do You Even Pray (the troll returns)
All Means All (A fifth conversation)
The Doctrine that Cannot Be Challenged (sixth conversation)

A Sixth Imaginary Conversation with a Real Troll – The Doctrine that Cannot Be Challenged

    “Hey Carter!” came a shout and I knew who it was without turning my head, which was good as I was experiencing a wash of vertigo at the moment. I’d come home from work and took a moment to relax, sitting on the porch with the feral cats who hang out near our house. We feed them and they allow us to pet them. Sometimes. Anyway, I’d spent a few minutes petting and talking to the one we’ve named Sorrow, but he took off. He’s skittish. I would have gone inside myself but, as I said, the vertigo.

    “Hey Carter!” came the shout again.

    “Gunner, it’s been a while. Where’ve you been?” I didn’t really want to speak to him. He’s a bit of a troll, always trying to rile me. Always read to condemn me. But I try to be patient. I try to put up with him even if I wasn’t feeling right side up.

    “Where’s your American flag?” he asked as he stepped up to the porch. “You’ve got a Palestinian flag, a skull and cross bones pirate flag, and a queer pride flag in your window, but no American flag and I’m just wondering why you hate America so much.

    Yeah. That’s usually how it goes with Gunner. “Patriotism is the doctrine that cannot be challenged, eh Gunner?” I said with my head still between my knees. “As it happens,” I answered him, “my American flag is safely folded and put away in a closet somewhere. I have plans to get it out for flag day.”

    “To put it up?” he grinned. “Excellent. I knew you'd come around eventually." “No,” I said. “Not to display it. To wash it. I’m going to sit on the courthouse lawn with a bucket of soapy water and spend the day washing the flag. I’ve made up a sign to take with me. Stained with Oil. Stained with mud. Stained with War, Stained with Blood. We are not the good guys.”

    His grinned disappeared. “You know, Carter, there are three heavens, but none of them are yours.

    Another wave of vertigo washed over me and I closed my eyes to keep from spinning. It’s the end of the world – alive or dead, doesn’t matter. We’ve got to move fast while national security concerns are still beating. There are opportunists waiting and grasping for exploitational exposure. Which is just another method of murder. Clean and simple kill counts. The lower depths of darkness rule here. It is not enough for the burning fire. Not enough for the burnt offerings. The god of this land is not placated without death. Blow it up. Burn it down. It’s a rigor mortis policy long past its prime. It’s all in the CIA monitoring and redacted FBI files.

    “All the nations,” I said after the vertigo receded. ALL the nations – this means you, this means us – are as nothing before God, Gunner. Nothing. And no American exceptionalism, no rugged individualism, no protestant work ethic will make a damn bit of difference. That flag is nothingness and emptiness.”

    “You’re such a hypocrite, Carter. If you really thought that you wouldn’t have that terrorist Palestinian flag in your window.”

    I nodded slightly – too much motion might have triggered another wave. “You could be right, Gunner. I’m a messy bundle of contrarian contradiction. What can I say?”

    Gunner huffed and waved me off before storming back to his noisy pickup truck and driving away. I watched him roar away.

    Sorrow poked his head out from beneath the porch and meowed at me. “Yeah, buddy. Hang on. I’ll bring out some food for you,” I said as I stood and went inside.

Consider the Pilgrim

    Do not be thrown to confusion, with a drunken feeling in your mind. Contaminated. Do not be alarmed. Do not be deceived, but in the air with holy hands immortal, and your face to godward be ready for the storms, and gales, and wind. The Day of the Lord (green to gold and gold to black) comes with flaming fire.

    Consider the pilgrim, the bacterial smell of sweat upon him still who the Lord still loves. He suffers tribulation, as you know. Called to glory of the road. Keeping the traditions of the way. To sail upon the ocean and stand upon the sand. Ceaseless steps and ceaseless hope.

    Consider the gardener - sweet mock orange, hyacinth, allium, phlox, and hollyhock. Buzzing, ringing in the soil, listening to the sun – slender sunbeams and yellow flowers in the lawn. The message spreads quickly. Received with blooms of honor.

    Consider the baker and the brewer, both with the scent of yeast. Life and rising bread. Cast your bread upon the water and draw back sweet dark ale to encourage and strengthen you in every good word. Every good deed.

    Be thou saving everything, Lord, be merciful to your people. The Lord of peace himself.

    This is my own writing.