Judy Teaches Me About Satan
10 Minute ReadIn 1980, when her husband was traveling for his job, Judy Scroggs introduced her son to Satan in the form of the TV Network Premiere of THE EXORCIST. I was 8!
That night, I sat under my covers praying that God would not let the devil take control of me. My family was only quasi-religious, dabbling in spirituality on various Sundays throughout the years. We sprinkled in a few “amens” here and there as my parents searched for their own beliefs and their own strength to stare God in the eye and ask for forgiveness. My father faced unspeakable obstacles while in Vietnam and somehow survived. I don’t know if he ever spoke to his god while he was knee deep in the jungle, but I’m positive that our representation in church was based on whatever courage he could muster to walk in and be judged that week. Sometimes he felt ready. Dressed in a suit, long sideburns trimmed and combed, shaggy hair parted on the side so as to see his “everything is great” facade of a smile. Kids dressed up, Laurie in a dress and Brian in a button up shirt, sitting quietly in compliance with the orders we were given. So many people would tell him how well-behaved his children were. Actually, it’s quite shocking on just how many people said those words and both of my parents loved it and would beam with pride and tell us in the car on the way home just how proud they were that we were good - which meant quiet. Before Facebook showed up allowing us to compete in the My Family is More Awesome Than Your Family Award, the only way you could judge your parenting was how well your kids handled the adversity of sitting still and smiling in the real world and how many people would fawn over you with amazement with words like, “how do you do it?” “They are so well behaved.” “Such a little a lady and gentleman.”
Some Sundays, Dad couldn’t face God’s judgement of his past and he would do his penance in the hard labor of working in his yard instead, which rarely ended well for any of us. He hid his pain behind sweat and cigarettes and positive messages he would quote from the various books he read by preachers of the church of Positive Mental Attitude. Men like Zig Ziglar, Joe Giard, Dale Carnegie, and Napoleon Hill fueled my father’s belief that he could win if he just woke up, put his two feet on the ground and said, “Today is going to be a great day!” When he couldn’t overcome, he would blame himself and tell me that his failures were because he didn’t try hard enough that week and he would set his mind to do better the next. I hated those men who spewed such lies. It was a time when America didn’t discuss mental health or PTSD. We didn’t call our soldiers heroes, but we didn’t spit in their faces, either. The country was neutral. It wasn’t until 9/11 that we decided everyone who put on a uniform deserved to be called Superman. My father fought his depression everyday. He believed those men, who made millions by selling books to other men who didn’t have anywhere else to turn. Positive Mental Attitude was his true religion. I would hear him, talking to himself in the bedroom, pumping himself up for the day. And when he couldn’t overcome his demons, I hated him for it. I often wonder if he knew it. Could he feel it or see it in my eyes? My disappointment? My anger? I was too young to understand what was going on and I’m sure I hurt him everyday.
My father spent his life in sales. He felt like it was the only way a man without a high school education could become a millionaire. So he traveled, a lot, driving in his car from state to state covering his territory, and this is when, my mother, lonely and scared, would make me her best friend. That’s how I ended up under the covers waiting to become possessed and praying to a God that I did not know or really believe in, but surely, if he was out there, he didn’t want a little boy to join the army of darkness. I think even the most atheist of us say a little prayer from time to time in the quiet moments when no one is around, especially if you think possession is a real possible outcome for your immediate future.
In 1973, The Exorcist was released in theaters the day after Christmas. Can you imagine if that happened today? The day after Christmas? The political hotbed around religion would be all over the news. The New York Times ran an article that reported people having heart attacks and miscarriages while watching the film. Miscarriages! But let’s be honest, that would be a once in a lifetime cinematic experience you would never forget. And my mother showed me this film. It grossed $441 million dollars! The reporter said that part of why the movie did so well was that a third of the crowd was black. He quoted a black woman who said that “a lot of blacks related to voodoo and witchcraft and that kind of devil stuff from Haiti and the Deep South.” Yikes. This reporter went to one theater in New York, so I doubt he could really argue that all of the audience around the world was 1/3 black, but he did. I’ll have to unpack that later. The film held on to the record for the highest grossing R-rated horror film until the 2017 release of IT. That’s 44 years! It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and was the first horror movie to ever be up for Best Picture.
So, there I was, lying in bed, my head buried under the covers, my breath moistening the sheet that I held so close to my face that I was practically eating it; short, shaky breaths echoing through the cataclysmic deafening of the vacuum of sound that was always sucked out abruptly as soon as you flipped off the light. That sound is heard and felt by all kids around the world. We share that fear. When you grow up with a father with PTSD, fear is part of your constant and you are scared all of the time, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but at night, it was a different kind of fear and my dark room was unbearable. My bed was approximately 10 feet from the light switch, too far to jump and I was not quick enough to bob and weave through the darkness towards my bed without getting eaten by whatever lay in wait. I would stand by the door, my finger on the little white pointer poking out from the wall, that little white switch of horror, counting down from 10, hoping I could build up the courage to make a break for it before I hit 0 and had to flip it. I was like a high jumper, moving my body back and forth ready to take off as soon as my soul told me it was time. I always zig zagged like I was being chased by an alligator so the monsters couldn’t predict the precise spot that my foot would hit the floor and then I would jump, diving and sliding under my covers where it was safe, because every kid knew the one absolute rule. Nobody can hurt you under your covers. You had to be fully submerged. It took practice. I worked on it during the day when I was safe and I had worked out all the kinks.
Basic Rules to Getting Under Your Covers Without Getting Eaten:
Always jump with your non-dominant foot so your dominant leg is available to kick anything that jumps out.
Always wear socks so you have no friction from the sheets. A sweaty foot could catapult you over the bed and to the other side, crashing your little body onto the floor, spraining your neck and leaving you vulnerable to the creatures that lay in wait in the abyss of under the bed.
Always have your hands free to grab the covers and immediately pull them around your body. That means, any stuffed animals have to already be under the covers waiting for you. Put them deep under there where your sheets are tucked in under the mattress and they can’t squeeze through. I lost a stuffed monkey one time when I slid and inadvertently kicked him over the side. Mr. Bojangles was a good friend and he gave his life for me.
And lastly, once you know all the covers are secure with no gaps, close your eyes and listen until all the creatures of the night get tired and slither away.
But now, on this one day in the year of Xanadu, I had just learned about things not just on this earth, but things that come from hell. Literally. The only demons I had known were the ones my father had brought home from Vietnam and even though they scared the shit out of me, his head never spun around. No matter how scared I was of Dracula or Frankenstein, my parents would tell me not to worry, those creatures were not real. Maybe. I had never seen one of these creatures, so it was plausible, but I lived in the bible belt where good and evil were discussed all the time. The concept of Satan was very real. Every church spoke about him and the evil he did. “That’s just the devil taking you down the wrong path.” Well, that’s totally bearable as long as the wrong path is you lying to your parents. But I just watched this El Diablo possess a human and spin her head around and stab her vagina with a crucifix, so that path felt a little different, like a path I never wanted to walk. They couldn’t say that this creature wasn’t real. In fact, my mother doubled down and told me that it was based on a true story.
So, on February 12, 1980, I sat under covers praying that God would not let the devil take control of me. And as the night crept along, I became sleepy and started to let my fears drift away with my dreams. Suddenly, my bed began to shake. Just a little squeak, but it was enough to zip me right back into reality. I looked at my windows, then my closet. Nothing. I stared at my footboard and intensely watched for hands that might be creeping up. Then the bed shook again and I threw myself under the covers, closed my eyes and froze. The bed shook harder and harder and my mouth opened to scream, but nothing came out. I started to hyperventilate. Tears welled up and my face tightened, my words like gravel in my throat, scratching the skin and blocking my airways until finally I found my voice and screamed, “Mom!” The squeaking of the bed suddenly stopped and was replaced by a woman’s laughter. I took my head out of the covers and immediately looked on the floor where my mother was on her back laughing hysterically. She had just crawled in on her hands and knees or maybe it was her belly so I wouldn’t see her. I could picture her crawling in on her belly, being ever so quiet, excited about the joke she was getting ready to play on her 8 year old son. I started bawling and she just laughed and laughed.
“You should see your face. I got you so good.”
I put my hands out so she would hug me, but she couldn’t get off the floor. The laughter had become so great, it was like gravity and she laid there for what felt like an hour. Finally, she sat up and looked up at me. “Oh, stop crying. It was just a joke. I’m just playing with you.”
“Why did you do that,” I asked.
She said, “You have to learn to take a joke. I knew you could handle it.”
Then she stood up, bent over and gave me a hug, gathered my stuffed animals all around me and said, “Get some sleep. You have school in the morning.”
This became a running theme with my mother over the years. I use to tell this story at parties and people would laugh. But when I told it to my therapist, her mouth was agape and then she said, “Ummm, that’s fucked up.”
And I said, “Which part?”