‘The devil gonna get you.’ Oh man, how many times did we hear that line or, ' he’s down there in hell pulling at your feet.’
I was baptized Catholic then kidnapped evangelical and absorbed a double whammy devil dip.
This guy hung around like a bad stink. I’d see him in my dreams – he’d fly by and sneak a look in my bedroom window – laugh on the rooftop and slap the pigeons silly. I was scared shitless.
Kids have a way of seeing everything in amplified fear Technicolor.
Through the years the red runner lost most of his mystique. When you wage that much war and cause so much grief the color fades.
Those Sunday morning ministers spent to much time with the guy. They talked about him every weekend liked he’d drop by for a late night dinner and helped fill in a few pages of the next day’s text.
We had a preacher whose head would near explode with devil trash talk. “God be my witness stuff.” Then he’d march in some dictator from Panama and ask we give money.
Then one day the teen years roll in and you start thinking of Mr. D in comedy terms and try to spook your friends. “ Why don’t you go over and peek behind the cellar door’ – then pop out and scare the person nutty or recite stories of the undead. Scary stuff.
The eighties sort of back paged Mr. D – horror films came with more abhorrence than imagined, the work of Hollywood suits. I can’t watch any of those 'saw me up' episodes or blood bowls of mutilated body dip. I know the devil wouldn’t do that – he was into fry panning.
Today Mr. D has no credibility. Special effects and real life have neutered the poor ape. We now have something more frightening in our midst - we have bankers and lawyers!
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