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She came into the bedroom.
“Trevor! Trevor! Wake up!”
“What?!” I said, playing dumb. “What’s going on?!”
“Come! There’s a demon in the house!”
She took my hand and dragged me out of bed. It was all hands on deck, time for action.
The first thing we had to do was go outside and burn the shit. That’s what you do with
witchcraft; the only way to destroy it is to burn the physical thing. We went out to the yard,
and my mom put the newspaper with my little turd on the driveway, lit a match, and set it on
fire. Then my mom and my gran stood around the burning shit, praying and singing songs of
praise.
The commotion didn’t stop there because when there’s a demon around, the whole
community has to join together to drive it out. If you’re not part of the prayer, the demon
might leave our house and go to your house and curse you. So we needed everyone. The
alarm was raised. The call went out. My tiny old gran was out the gate, going up and down the
block, calling to all the other old grannies for an emergency prayer meeting. “Come! We’ve
been bewitched!”
I stood there, my shit burning in the driveway, my poor aged grandmother tottering up
and down the street in a panic, and I didn’t know what to do. I knew there was no demon, but
there was no way I could come clean. The hiding I would have to endure? Good Lord.
Honesty was never the best policy when it came to a hiding. I kept quiet.
Moments later the grannies came streaming in with their Bibles, through the gate and up
the driveway, a dozen or more at least. Everyone went inside. The house was packed. This was
by far the biggest prayer meeting we’d ever had—the biggest thing that had ever happened in
the history of our home, period. Everyone sat in the circle, praying and praying, and the
prayers were strong. The grannies were chanting and murmuring and swaying back and forth,
speaking in tongues. I was doing my best to keep my head low and stay out of it. Then my
grandmother reached back and grabbed me, pulled me into the middle of the circle, and
looked into my eyes.
“Trevor, pray.”
“Yes!” my mother said. “Help us! Pray, Trevor. Pray to God to kill the demon!”
I was terrified. I believed in the power of prayer. I knew that my prayers worked. So if I
prayed to God to kill the thing that left the shit, and the thing that left the shit was me, then
God was going to kill me. I froze. I didn’t know what to do. But all the grannies were looking
at me, waiting for me to pray, so I prayed, stumbling through as best I could.
“Dear Lord, please protect us, um, you know, from whoever did this but, like,
we don’t know what happened exactly and maybe it was a big
misunderstanding and, you know, maybe we shouldn’t be quick to judge
when we don’t know the whole story and, I mean, of course you know best,
Heavenly Father, but maybe this time it wasn’t actually a demon, because
who can say for certain, so maybe cut whoever it was a break…”
It was not my best performance. Eventually I wrapped it up and sat back down. The