My aunts, Louisa and Irene, sometimes hosted what I can only call seances in their apartment. These usually took place on Sundays, partly because Sunday is a universal holy day, but also because my older sister, Cachie, and I spent all day in church so there was no danger of us being exposed to what my mother considered to be nothing short of Satanism. Even my father, who certainly shared his sisters' beliefs, would make himself scarce on Sundays. There was, however, at least one time when Cachie and I had to spend a Sunday at my aunts' house when they held one of their little get-togethers. I don't remember the specific circumstances, but there we were.
Guests started to arrive, mostly older neighborhood women whom I didn't recognize. As soon as the first of them arrived, Aunt Luisa hastily ushered us into the spare room at the end of the apartment. As she was closing the door, she regarded us with a grave expression and whispered ominously that, no matter what we heard, we were not to leave the room or even open the door. Not creepy at all.
Although we had never been around a séance before, Cachie and I were no strangers to what we thought of as demons summoned and set loose. It was quite common in our Pentecostal church. Sometimes, when the presence of God hung over the congregation and drove everyone into spasms of exultation, some poor soul would cry a mournful wail that was heard above the din. Immediately, the pastor would spring from behind the pulpit, flanked by elders with bibles in hand like first responders for Jesus. The crowd would part as the afflicted individual writhed on the floor, frothing on the linoleum. If it was a woman, the elders would throw blankets over her legs to preserve her modesty. All over the congregation, heads would bow, arms shot up, swaying as they cried out to the lord, hollering hallelujahs. Tambourines would jangle and men would sporadically clap their hands together as if applauding God. Women would shed intense tears.
My mother would bend down and harshly whisper for me to keep my eyes closed and pray, lest the devil spirit leap from its host and into me. I would desperately scrunch my eyes shut and join the swaying and hollering, terrified at the ease with which a devil could inhabit my body, but mostly scared of the embarrassment of thrashing about in front of everybody.
Inevitably, the demon would be overpowered and cast out in Jesus' name. The formerly possessed man or woman would fall into a faint as the triumphant congregation shouted praises and went back to their singing with heightened enthusiasm.
I had witnessed this kind of display many times. Of course, curiosity would get the better of me and I'd have to peek out of one squinted eye, looking for a glimpse of green pea soup shooting out of someone's mouth so I could tell my friends about it the next day at school. I was not skeptical, though. I knew with certainty that demons existed. Mom told me that demons were synonymous with spirits, therefore, my aunts were summoning demons in the next room while Cachie and I huddled in the corner of the bedroom that was farthest from the front door.
There was no television or radio - this was long before these things became standard bedroom issue. The only sounds we heard were the muffled waxing and waning of supplicating moans; lamentations from the other side of the door. Periodically we would hear Aunt Irene's voice above the others, strident and guttural. Sometimes she rasped in a language we couldn't identify. We associated this with speaking in tongues, but clearly, this was Satan doing the speaking. When she switched to familiar Spanish, her voice took on a wailing, plaintive tone, as if the act of channeling spirits was arduous and painful. We heard chimes and smelled incense, a pungent combination of burning leaves and rubbing alcohol. Everything about this situation terrified us. Cachie whispered desperate prayers while I clung to her like a buoy in shark-infested waters. It felt like forever.
But we were kids. There are limits to how long kids can huddle and this was just taking too long; certainly, longer than Sunday school would've been. We got bored.
Cachie poked me in the shoulder. With a pinched expression on her face, she dared me to peek out the door and describe what I saw. I emphatically balked. I had no intention of letting evil spirits take over my body just to satisfy my silly sister's curiosity. But then, with a smug expression, she played the “buck buck, chicken” card. I was powerless against her superior tactics.
She prodded me in the small of my back over and over, punctuating each poke with a hushed, "go!" I noticed she was keeping a safe distance from the door, though. I inched on tiptoes towards the door, holding my breath as if the sound of my heavy breathing might alert the Satan worshipers in the next room. I looked back at Cachie hoping for a reprieve, but I got none. Instead, she frantically waved me on.
The bedroom floor tended to creak. The doorknob rattled. I barely moved but I finally reached the knob. With sweaty hands, I clutched it until my knuckles turned white. I turned it slowly, ready to bolt at the slightest change in the tenor of the chanting. I wondered what I might do if such a thing happened. We were on the third floor, so the window was out. Maybe I would simply freeze in place and wait for them to burst through the door and force-feed me a demon.
The door opened a few inches. Cachie wasn't cajoling anymore. She had scooted to the far edge of the bed with her back against the wall, wide-eyed and lips pressed tightly together. With a resigned sigh I steeled myself and peeked through the door, which was open just wide enough to fit one eye.
What I saw in the next room surprised me. There were no naked women with devil masks cavorting around a bassinet holding a red-eyed Satan baby. The fully clothed women held hands around a table with lit candles in the middle. Their heads were bowed. What we thought were moans and groans were simply the sounds of quiet prayer. What our imaginations told us was speaking in tongues was only Spanish. The entire scene was oddly reminiscent of a prayer meeting at my mother's house. I turned to report this to my sister with relief. It wasn't at all what we expected. Maybe Mom was wrong about the goings on in my aunts’ house on Sundays. We could relax.
Without warning, Aunt Irene raised her head and wailed at the top of her lungs. The other women didn't seem surprised, but I almost peed myself. With the door slightly ajar, her voice filled the room. I wanted to run, crazily thinking that the window didn't seem like a bad idea after all, but I couldn't move, Aunt Irene was arching her back and craning her neck so tightly that it seemed her veins would snap and whip around the room like fire hoses. The prayers rose in volume and intensity but none of the women opened their eyes. Perhaps, I thought, they'd heard my mother's admonitions on how to avoid possession. Clearly, I had not. Helplessly, I kept my eyes open.
Irene suddenly bent at the waist. Her chest hit the tabletop with startling force then She threw herself back in the chair, howling. Petrified, I watched as she repeated the back and forth motion of her torso with increasing speed and impossible strength. It was as if her waist was on a hinge. Aunt Louisa released the hands she was holding and raised her arms swaying from side to side rapturously. She began to call out a word I didn't recognize. Some of the others followed suit. It might have been a name, Elegua? I wasn't sure. They were all unperturbed by Irene's crazy motions. Apparently, for them, this was normal, just another Sunday, but I'd never seen anything like this, and I'd seen many a possession in church. Still, on the very bright side, I hadn't been possessed…yet. Devils hadn't jumped out of my aunt and into me although my mouth was opened wide enough that they could have.
Something touched my shoulder.
I don't know how I didn't scream. Instead, I took a deep inhale of breath like I was trying to suck all the air out of the room. My sister had come up behind me. She wasn't trying to scare me. She wasn't laughing. She could see over my head into the séance room.
Aunt Irene's spasms ended abruptly, and she hung her head over the table. Her hair framed her face, having come undone from all of the hairpins that had held it in place. She planted her hands on the tabletop before her and breathed in great gulps of air. Everyone else at the table leaned in, newly opened eyes wide with greedy anticipation before she began to speak.
I don't remember what she said and, frankly, I'm glad I don't. She spoke Spanish so I didn't understand every word but that didn't matter because I stood transfixed by the way she spoke. Her eyes were tightly closed as she leaned forward. She pushed her words through gritted teeth as if she were an unwilling participant. Every syllable was growled, every movement spoke of anguish but everyone else in the room was euphoric. Some were crying.
Just beneath my paralyzing fear, in whatever part of my psyche was able to look at this objectively, I was confused. These horrible women, including my aunt Louisa, had not only known what would happen to Irene, they rejoiced in it. And Irene herself, who appeared to be in distress as she delivered her foul message, had knowingly offered herself as the vessel by which corruption and pain spoke. This had to be devilish, I thought. I was witnessing the kind of thing I had only ever read about in Chic pamphlets. The entire tableau, Irene, Louisa, the women around the table with their candles and incense, everything hurt my understanding of how things worked. I went to church five times a week, twice on Sunday. The spiritual battle spoken of there was a dim concept for me, just filler in an otherwise pedestrian sermon. My mother's admonitions were received in the same way I paid attention to her warnings about walking backward. But here, from the dubious safety of a spare bedroom, was I witnessing actual Principalities and Powers?
I was way too young to fully grasp these things. I was hanging on to understanding with the tips of my fingers, but I knew what was happening in the next room felt wrong. It was off and my mother's warnings were validated.
My aunt spit out the last part of her message and slumped in her chair, visibly exhausted. The prayers rose to a fervent crescendo before subsiding until, one by one, the ladies calmed and smiled at each other, satisfied by the message Aunt Irene had brought them. Gradually, they moved from the table and Louisa ushered them into the kitchen for refreshments. Irene, now alone in the room, raised her head with a long, drawn-out sigh and ran a hand through her hair. After a minute or two, she rose and followed the others.
A few minutes later, Cachie and I finally moved, stiff and tired, coming down from our terror. We sat on the edge of the bed without speaking until we heard the last of the neighborhood ladies leaving and Aunt Louisa returned to let us out of the room. Her body language offered no inkling that she knew what we'd seen as she offered us leftover Italian bread with butter. We both declined.
I was about ten years old when this happened. Fifty years have passed. I'm an atheist now, a rational man. I don't believe in the supernatural. I believe everything my sister and I saw and heard that day can be explained. But I have to be honest, with myself and with you; As I type this story, the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. I'm ten again, filled with the stories my mother told me, the movies “based on true events," books by William Peter Blatty and I admit it's all too easy to fall back into the superstition and fear of a ten-year-old boy. So, I have to wonder, if it happened today, at sixty years old, would I take the Italian bread with butter?