At Least They're Committed

“Deliver us from evil.” I pray that every day and sometimes twice a day, thus one can only guess how many evils I’ve been delivered from during this year alone. Certainly more than I’m aware of — and I’m aware of many.

I might have gone too far this time. I have been delighted by my grandsons’ intrigue concerning creepy things and I now fear I’ve overdone it. The latest addition to Tripping Raul’s Private Halloween Village is startling even to me — and my No. 3 grandson is now coming in the back door to avoid my decor.

Rats, I feel bad.

Speaking of rats, the only one I have on display is a single plastic rodentious skeleton — note I said ‘plastic’ and made up a new word. After the last round of poison, there’s bound to be a few rotting corpses hidden about the yard somewhere (sad) but we’re hoping they don’t find their way into the display.

I do have the screeching, Slashing Bat hanging from the eave on the porch, the Crawling Creepy Woman who has been around for a decade, and Jim, the mad scientist who evidently isn’t for sale anymore because I can’t find his link. Nor can I find one for the upside-down hanging, talking vampire, Cliff. Drat. But, yes, our latest resident is Desmodus, named after a genus of vampire bat, who definitely is the most shocking of all. Even the dog freaks out.

Damn my rotting hide. Unwitting overkill with well-intentioned jump scares, it would seem.

The reason I adopt these creepy critters is because I’d like to get across to my grandkids, and maybe friends and family in general, that things can’t be evil. They can be ugly, they can look frightening and move crazily, they can startle the fuck out of you, but they’re not evil. Humans are evil.

All right, most humans are not — most are caring and good and empathetic and some are even generous! But some people just fucking suck. And a lot of those fucking suckers absolutely believe they’re entitled to behave this way and tell themselves (and anyone who they can get to listen) that they’re brilliant, or wholesome, or godly people or that people are impressed by them or that pink is a flattering color to wear. Some go through an entire life without realizing that they’re only ‘popular’ because of what they have — be it money, a title, clout — vs. who they are. (Which is slightly hilarious if you think about it. Emperor’s New Clothes, and all that.)

I wonder if all the evil in the world were to just disappear how many people would be left on Earth? Ninety percent? Eighty? Ten? Wouldn’t that be lovely? How many uncivil, self-centered, thoughtless pricks and Karens could we be rid of? Always excuses for their incivility, always someone else’s fault despite creating their own problems.

Evil isn’t something that can be caught, like a disease, or manifested in any way other than to be conjured by someone evil.

It is conceivable, I concede, that things can become evil, if you believe in that stuff. You know, how they say old mirrors, antique dolls, circa 1800s phonographs and black velvet paintings of Elvis can absorb evil souls or spirits. Dunno. I have never come across anything that struck me that way. The Chucky movies were certainly a fun take on that! Does anyone else find a young Brad Dourif TOTALLY hot?

But I digress. Back to evil people:

It’s incomprehensible that anyone could be in love with and dote over an evil person. Yeah, I get it. They want to ‘save’ them, reform their souls and set them along the right path (which would mostly entail following their path, which could breed its own form of evil). Or maybe they’re weak or stupid or evil themselves (do evil people love?). No matter. I used to believe that I could save people, but it doesn’t work. They have to want to be a good person, to purge their own evil and nobody — definitely not me — can do it for them.

On that note, however, yes, there is such thing as a necessary evil. I should know because I am one — I seem to draw out poison, stir things up, sully the polluted sunset so it can no longer hide from the Light. Despite what these stupid movies want you to believe, a necessary evil doesn’t include sacrificing an innocent to save a larger number of people. (I suppose Jesus is the exception to that, but it is still unfathomable to me that humans could do that to Him and thus it makes me wonder why God deemed us worthy of saving.) It’s more like, hey, this person is a piece of shit and they can’t hide it around a necessary evil who inadvertently and unwittingly exposes them and they suffer the consequences of their evilry. (That’s like devilry without the ‘D!’ I like it!)

So, alas. I’ll lay off the creepy-ass animatronics for the sake of my grandchildren. Although I did promise the older boys I’d get Lil Skelly Bones, so maybe I’ll stop after that. And I keep hoping Spirit Halloween or Lowe’s or Home Depot will deliver me a Chupacabra and/or a striking rattlesnake. But definitely after that.

There’s just nothing like the exhilaration of being delivered something macabre and totally unevil. (Another new one!) Humans are terrifying, and hiding in the sanctuary of these dark, creepy-as-shit toys is a welcome sanctuary.