I Still Can’t Listen to That Piece of Music

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My mother was against us kids watching things that would cause us nightmares; and while I was truly terrified by the concept of the walking dead -- and even the faces one sometimes saw in wood paneling -- I continued to clamor to be frightened.

“For cryin’ out loud, Paul, don’t let the kids watch that crap!”

Our viewing of “crap”, more often than not, was the result of one or more of us slinking into the living room, down the flight of hardwood stairs around midnight on a Saturday, where we sat quietly on the floor until our dad noticed us.  “Horror Incorporated” ran from midnight to 2:00, a show hosted by a vampire that crept out of a creeking coffin and hosted movies like “The Werewolf” and “The Blob” and other shows that made us hide under blankets.

“Nothing wrong with a good flick, Mumma,” he’d say, shooing us back upstairs.

I was the only one in elementary school who used the word “flick”.

It was the early 70s, as I recall, and my parents were having a cocktail party.  Deviled eggs, pretty purees piped onto Ritz crackers, liquor that flowed like wine.  From my room upstairs, I can hear them tell stories, hooting with laughter, the music sliding up the steps and into my room.

I creep down, sit on the first floor landing, and listen in. 

“… so I says to him ‘wrecked him?  Damn near killed him!'”  The dining room and the kitchen, just out of view, roars. 

“Paul?  Paul!”

My mother has spotted me. 

My mother, dressed in early 70s finery, looks hip and ever-so-slightly blurry. 

“Pearl, you need – hic! – you need to – hic!”  She gives up, turns toward the kitchen. 

My father materializes.  “I got it, I got it,” he says. 

He looks at me sideways.

“I don’t want to go to bed,” I say. 

My father looks around, puts a hand on my shoulder.  “If I let you stay down here, do you promise to be quiet and not bother anyone?  Do you promise to go back up when I tell you to?”

I nod vigorously. 

I am guided to the sofa, its high, curved back to the swinging doors that lead into the kitchen.  I lay down, and he drapes a crocheted afghan over me, an orange and brown creation of my mother’s. 

“Don’t make any noise,” he says on his way back to the party. 

And the dining room double-doors swing open, swing closed with a whump-whump-whump.

In the dark, the glow of the stereo – a piece of furniture roughly the size of a twin bed – casts a flickering light on the walls.  The picture window in front of the couch looks out onto a good three feet of snow; and the naked shadow of trees in the front yard scratch at the sky with hard, gaunt limbs.

I wiggle down under the blanket, pull the blanket up around my ears – and the radio plays something that sends chills up my spine.

Tubular Bells.

It is the theme song for The Exorcist. 

Two a.m. is not the time for me to be thinking about this movie.  Just released, it's been the topic of much school discussion.

A ridiculously superstitious child, I start chanting Hail Marys in my head, a prayer guaranteed by a friend in the last town we lived in to ward off all manner of fright.  

The mix of music and the drunken laughter spill, coldly, from the back of the house.  Vampires, werewolves, the devil...  The trees bend and reach, the snow swirls against the window pane as the wind whistles through the tiny gap at the bottom of the front door. Hail Mary, full of grace – 

“Hey.” My dad sits down at the foot of the sofa. 

My heart leaps into my throat.

“Hey,” I say.

He sets his beer can on the end table. “You know what this is?  This song?”

“Sure,” I say. 

“It’s the theme to the Exorcist.  You know about that movie?”

“Yeah. Hey, Dad, you hear about that cat that found its way back from Montana?“

“Supposed to be a really scary movie, based on a true story.”  He pulls a cigarette from his breast pocket, flips open his Zippo.  His face glows as he inhales.  “Demonic possession,” he says, blowing smoke toward the ceiling.  “Can you beat that?”

“The cat lost a lot of weight but it’s going to be okay.”

“It’s perfectly normal to have questions,” he says. 

The theme song to my next nightmare slides up my back, bites the back of my neck.  “Sure,” I say.  “I just don’t feel like asking any questions right now.”

He claps a hand on my knee, squeezes.  Outside of the music, the room goes quiet.

“’Cause if you wanted to talk about possession—“

“Dad!  No!  I don’t want to talk about the devil!”

Laughter spills out of the kitchen. 

“I’m just saying,” he laughs, “that if you ever wanted to talk about demons or anything—“

I sit up.  “Dad,” I say, “I think I should go to bed now.”

My father stands, smiling.  “Let me get your mother,” he says.