The Only Thing Scarier Than A Spook

This was supposed to replace the usual pillowcase crammed with candy, the candy I hid in my room to be like Claudia from the Baby-Sitters’ Club, the candy my brother hoarded piece by piece for the rest of the year. This was supposed to be an adequate reward for singing hymns and pretending to be “Native Americans who converted to Catholicism,”  instead of dressing up and going door to door. Six little chocolates, squeaking in their cellophane wrappers at the bottom of a neat white bag.

As we complained all the way home, my father tried to soothe us by promising to buy more candy. As if candy gotten without fun, without costumes and walking around in the spooky night air, was the same thing at all.

A few evenings later, my siblings and I raided the dress-up box and made our own costumes. Then we pooled our bags of candy and went door to door in the upstairs hallway, to my brothers’ room and then to mine and to my sister’s, pretending to Trick or Treat. We took turns being the adult handing out candy or the child in costume, until the candy was re-distributed; then we went downstairs, still in costume, to eat it.

My father was amused.

My mother was not; she was horrified. She screamed at us. I was used to seeing her angry about something or other– when the Catholic school gave us stuffed witches and vampires at the school Halloween party, when my brother wrote a love note to his crush, when the little boys two houses down threw apples at our house as we sang hymns with the windows open. But I hadn’t seen her this furious in a long time.

“We were NOT TRICK-OR-TREATING this year!” She howled. “We went to the HARVEST PARTY INSTEAD! I thought you understood that!”

“They were just playing,” said my father. “I thought it was cute.”

But my mother hand already launched into her usual diatribe about how disobedient we were, how other children never pulled anything like this, how she just thought that if she raised us with Catholic values we’d never do anything like this. We were, as usual, spoiled brats. She went on until my siblings had gone to hide in their rooms and I was standing in the kitchen, balling my fists in rage, wishing I could cry out to God for justice but knowing that God always sided with paranoid grown-ups who had harvest parties instead of letting their children Trick-or-Treat. My mother had Charismatic gifts, after all. She fell over backwards when she was prayed over, and she had the gift of tongues. That meant that God was on her side, didn’t it?

The tantrum ended, as the most severe tantrums sometimes did, with me breaking silence to scream vicious things back at my mother, and my mother taking the van and driving away to spend the evening somewhere else. Sometimes, after a tantrum, she stayed away for several hours. Sometimes she checked into a hotel and stayed all night. Sometimes, if it was my father she was angry with and not us, she took us with her to a hotel, and we got to swim in the hotel pool and eat at a restaurant. Tonight, though, it was us she hated. She left by herself, and came back after bedtime, still seething.

More than fifteen years later, I finally realize that she wasn’t just angry. She was terrified, and the fear made her angry. She was scared into feral panic– scared of the devil, scared of boogiemen to which the impulse she called God left her vulnerable in order to test her, scared of losing her children to spooks and pagans and “witchcraft” and herself going to hell for neglecting our formation.

I haven’t had contact with her in years, but I wish I could see her again to tell her I know her secret. I understand now. I understand that she was afraid.

Then again, perhaps she herself didn’t know.

The only thing scarier than a spook, is people who are afraid of spooks.

The only thing scarier than the devil is the false god of fear and compulsion some misguided Christians worship, because they’re scared they’ll be fed to the devil if they don’t.

May the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of perfect Love which drives out every fear, turn our hearts from our idols and back to Him.

Now, let’s go out and enjoy the holiday.