Evil and Angels, and the time Kathryn saw Jesus
J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
It’s the night before Halloween, and my dad and I are waiting for the sun to set so we can send the kids through the haunted barn.
I’ve watched this old barn come down bit by bit, first by age and disrepair, and then by Dad who removed each pine board, post, and beam, burning and selling off the wood until the only thing left was the stone foundation, which he capped with a shiny steel roof.
We’re drinking beers outside his shop, another tired post and beam structure with a big rusty sliding bay door and dirt floor, and we’re goofing around with a realistic wig I bought from Value Village––he’s the second person to say I look like Dana Carvey in it. We start quoting the Master of Disguise, and we laugh and agree that it’s an underrated movie.
“Become another person. Become another person. Become another person.”
In some ways, my dad became another person on this old farm nine years ago, when he left my mom and moved in with Kathryn and her four daughters and newborn granddaughter, Elana. I don’t think he changed who he is—in a lot of ways, by leaving, he just stopped acting like someone he wasn’t.
Elana sits down and says she’s going to be a serial killer for Halloween, and Dad starts listing the names of boxed cereal: Shreddies, Corn Flakes, Rice Crispies…
What is that wailing sound?
My six-year-old daughter is sobbing about something her brother did, slowly walking towards me in her bright purple witch costume, clutching a big pointy hat—her face contorted and exaggerated for dramatic effect.
I squeeze my beer can and clench my teeth.
“Man, the kids are driving me crazy today with their screaming and getting at each other's throats every time I leave them alone for more than a minute.”
My dad looks at me and laughs.
“I remember when you guys were young and thinking, ‘I can see why people snap and kill their families.’”
He’s told me this before.
Did we really cause him that much frustration when we were kids? He did a good job of hiding it.
I could ask him what was going on at the time to cause him to think like that, but instead, I throw the conversation into outer space where it’s hypothetical and impersonal–where it can’t hurt either of us.
“Yeah. You hear these stories about people losing it and killing their kids, and it’s not hard to imagine. A single mom loses her job and doesn’t sleep for three days and she’s got kids and a newborn baby–her husband is gone. The thread of sanity is pretty thin.”
My dad says, “I remember praying, God, why am I thinking like this?” His tone turns slightly goofy, “This is not a good way to think.”
I tell him about a book I picked up recently, A Serial Killer’s Daughter, a memoir about a woman who finds out in her twenties that her dad is an infamous serial killer. I’m still not sure why I bought that book.
Kathryn joins us and we get talking about generational trauma and the Devil.
She says she believes in evil, but not in evil personified. She doesn’t believe in the Devil. Something about the idea, she says, seems to allow people the excuse to not take responsibility for their own actions.
I nod. “The Devil made me do it.”
“Exactly.”
I watch her pinch the end of her cigarette and bend down and crush the remaining embers into the gravel driveway.
“It reminds me of a Calvin & Hobbes comic I read when I was a kid,” I say.
“‘Do you believe in the Devil?’ Calvin asks. ‘You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?’ Hobbes says, “I’m not sure man needs the help.’”
*
We wander over to the front of the house. The exterior lamps light up the back of Kathryn’s messy bun and her green long-sleeve shirt with the three buttons and frayed collar. A splash of white paint across her abdomen reminds me of her oil paintings that hang in the studio on the other side of the wall.
“When I was a little kid,” she says, “I remember my parents and grandparents talking about children dying in Africa. There was something terrible happening over there at the time, some sort of famine or something—and these grownups were talking about how the poor kids were going to hell because they didn’t know Jesus.”
She puts her hands out towards me, fingers pointed up as if to press a large pause button, and she looks me in the eye, “This is gonna sound weird.” She laughs and looks at the ground.
I shrug and smile, to try to communicate that this is a safe place for weird stories.
“I went to bed that night, feeling upset about this, and Jesus came into my bedroom and sat on the end of my bed.”
I slowly nod.
She laughs. “And I asked him about these kids, and whether He was going to send them to hell, and he said ‘Well, what would you do?’ And at that moment I felt like oomph—like my mind blew wide open and I was, like, okay. I don’t need other people to tell me what to think.”
I’ve heard enough stories from friends experiencing things like this that I’m more interested than surprised. “That’s pretty wild. Were there other times when things like that happened?”
She turns to her daughter, Katie who’s been quietly standing with us. “Can I bum a smoke?”
Katie pulls a pack of cigarettes from her black hoodie and the silver tinsel halo suspended above her head bobs and shimmers in the dark. Kathryn lights the cigarette and her face glows orange and sinister, momentarily revealing her age.
“Okay, so, when I was around twenty I was taking a shower—getting ready for work and was just feeling the water coming down on me. And I looked up and saw Jesus right there.” She points straight ahead into the dark. “And he went and reached out and shot light into me—like into my face.”
She laughs, and the laugh turns to a soft smile.
“It was like this burst. And the crazy thing is, I got dressed and ready to go and I didn’t feel like being around people, so I didn’t take the subway to work. I walked to work. And the whole time I felt like I was floating. And when I got to work— this is really crazy—when I got to work, I was walking through the hall, it was at an architecture firm, and I was walking through and looking into the offices and saying good morning to each person as I walked by. I passed one guy’s office and looked in and said ‘Morning, Dave.’ And as I walked by, he was like “‘Whoa! Get back here. What happened to you?’”
“I said ‘What do you mean?’”
“He said ‘Your face is glowing. We’re going out for lunch and you’re gonna tell me what happened.’”
“And so we went for lunch, and I told him.”
“What did he say?” I ask.
“You know, I don’t remember what he said. I just remember him saying there was like a glow coming from my forehead.” She holds her hands up and makes a rough circle around her forehead, the cigarette dangling between her fingers.
*
I follow Kathryn into the barn, through the rugged entrance, past a white sheet streaked with a smear of fake blood. Cartoonish ghosts float from century-old beams hewn into shape by hand with an axe over a hundred years ago.
We stand on the dirt floor next to the wagon with the little white cooler gag gift I bought my dad for Christmas one year.
HUMAN ORGAN
FOR TRANSPLANT
Someone’s placed tiny skeleton hands reaching out from under the lid.
Kathryn says, “I used to see angels all the time. Every person had at least one or two angels with them. And so, I’d go to a birthday party and there would be like twenty people in the room because I’d see each kid and the angels, so it felt like a lot of bodies in the room.”
“Could you tell the difference between the angels and, like, the concrete world?”
“Yeah, I could.”
“What did they look like?”
“It’s hard to describe. Have you ever seen Turner’s paintings of angels?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“Okay, well Google ‘Turner angel paintings’ and that’s what I remember them looking like. Not with wings, but I remember seeing those paintings for the first time and thinking maybe he had seen angels.”
“Cool.”
“When I was between eight and ten, a dad who lived across the street from us died. He had a few young kids, and he passed away. And I remember some neighbourhood kids coming over and knocking on my door to play something— it was probably something horrible like Cowboys and Indians—-I don’t remember what it was. But I looked across the road and down the entire road was a line of angels, and they were singing. It was the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. I remember saying ‘How are we supposed to play’—-maybe it was dodgeball or something like that—-‘How are we supposed to play with all of them standing there?’ And as the kids turned to look behind them, that was when I realized—”
“They couldn’t see what you saw.”
She nods.
“And I ran inside and called for my mom. She was dusting—that was a thing back then—-and she came out with her dusting rag and I pointed across the road at them, like ‘look-look!’ and she said ‘Oh, that’s nice.’”
“That’s when I realized it.” Kathryn goes quiet for a moment, staring into the dimly lit corner of the barn.
“You know what’s really sad? That was the last time I saw them.”
She looks at me.
“That was the last time I ever saw angels.”