Supernatural vigilantism

I hexed someone when I was 13.  This style of revenge may or may not have been influenced by the movie The Craft.

My mother's boyfriend was the sort of timeless asshole that no one wants for a step-father.  Self-importance, manipulation, toxic emotional issues and an unchecked temper were among his lesser qualities.  I had hated him instantly, and he knew it.  Our relationship was a power struggle; I was the mutinous pre-teen, he was the selfish adult who resented the presence of a prior child.  We fought constantly.

Problems had been escalating between he and my mother.  Although he had been sober when she met him, he had returned to bouts of problem drinking, which exacerbated his temperamental moods and combative behavior.  It was my best friend who suggested I find an alternative means to destroy him.

I've been interested in occult matters for as long as I've been able to read, but had never really considered witchcraft to be a viable hobby.  I had by this time rejected organized religion, but was otherwise fairly superstitious and possibly hoping that there might be some other natural force to take the place of religion.  At the same time, I was skeptical enough to be unafraid.  I planned the hex.

I bought a tiny glass bottle with a cork stopper and hid it in my room for a few weeks. The next time he made me angry, I went to his bathroom and removed loose hairs from his brush.  I needed to burn them, but wasn't sure how, so I grabbed some nail polish remover and a spoon.  I put the hairs in the spoon with a little pool of the remover and set it on fire while I watched after school TV in our den.  I blew the flame out before the noxious fluid could evaporate, poured it into my bottle, and corked it.

After that, I took the bottle outside and dashed it hard against a concrete paver in our yard while reasoning diplomatically that he had brought this on himself.  The bottle shattered into thick wet shards, which I kicked into the lantana.

I solemnly confided the story to my best friend the next day at school.  She was impressed; normally her role was to be the rebel and I was the square, and she hadn't believed that I would do it.  We both felt a little apprehensive of what was to come.  When a week passed without incident, I began to suspect the curse to be a dud.  Not enough hair, maybe.  Or maybe I should have said a little incantation.  Or done it at midnight, or on a full moon.  Something.  With no apparent curse activity, I soon forgot it.

A year or two later, I started to more actively read about the history of witchcraft (depressing) and the contemporary state of it (embarrassing).  I read about various rituals for various effects, and remembered my little curse.  I was thinking about how it hadn't worked when I remembered the timeline afterwards.

Shortly after that day, probably 1-2 months later, my mother's boyfriend fell and fractured his leg.  This was his "good" leg as he had lost the other one below the knee in a motorcycle accident years before.  The temporary disablement had badly increased his drinking and shitty temper, which erupted in a terrible fight with my mother in which she finally ended the relationship.  Breaking his last good leg and getting dumped and evicted did seem like a crop of unusually bad luck...

Naturally I refuse to allow one way or the other that my two-bit little kid hex was the catalyst to his misfortune and ultimate removal from my life, but the events certainly were timely, and I enjoy the story.  They say that people committing malicious magical deeds are subject to three times the damage that the hex inflicts, a sort of three-eyes-for-an-eye spiritual punishment for bad behavior.  I have no way of knowing if I received this rebuke from the universe for my hex, because I entered high school immediately thereafter, and untangling the regular troubles of that age from those inflicted by supernatural policy would be impossible.  I never tried any such thing again.

But just in case, make it a policy that you don't end up in anyone's bottle, especially not one belonging to a pubescent girl.

I'll be productive tomorrow. I have done nothing today but watch the L Word. Disappointing turn of events for Alice and Dana, tell you what.

So ever since I grudgingly replied to my father's facebook friend request (it just felt weird), I have been eagerly perusing all of HIS friends' profiles. People so tightly involved with my childhood, none of whom I have seen in years. I was so happy that friending my dad allowed me to see the photos of his gentle giant bff, Big Don.

Big Don is about 6'7 and at his largest weighed about 400 lbs. It wasn't fat, though. He was simply a wall of man. He frightened people everywhere he went with his bald head, chest-length black beard, biker attire and, of course, general stature. This is made all the more enjoyable by the fact that he is the most polite and charming man on the planet.

For years, we spent most Saturday nights at his place. The kitchen table was picnic style, a massive slab of rough-hewn wood which was always strewn with food, bike magazines, antique guns and whatever other ephemera he was playing with at the time. I would sit at the table, 6, 7, 8 years old while my dad and the other guys drank and talked. Sometimes they would lower their voices or break into code while I sat there trying to stack cards or bullets into pyramids. Don's kids were either much older or much younger than I was, so there was no one to play with.

His garage usually contained more of the same, plus bikes, antique maps, animal skins, and, once, a bucket containing 4 deer legs, salted where they had been severed. Horror. He had purchased an old Wurlitzer from a flea market at St. Francis where it had been used by the nuns. It was dusty and grimy and I taught myself to play easy songs on it during the long summer nights. One night I learned Dixie, and played it jauntily once I had figured out the keys. Don perked up and said, "Yer playin' my favorite song!" I love him.

All culled from the FB:

Big Don in the 70s.

My parents in the 70s.

Early 90s. This is the Big Don of my memories.

My godfather in Vietnam. Unfuckinbelievable. When I learned what godparents were supposed to signify, I prayed nothing would ever happen to my parents.

Chas and one of Don's kids. I had a crush on him. He rode an Indian, smoked Kools, dressed like a greaser, rolled his packs in his sleeve, and slept with high school girls.

Chas again. I hear he's rather lewd and misogynistic, but he treated me with such courtly sweetness that I simply can't imagine it. Although, come to think of it, I do seem to recall his regular reminder to "call me when you're 18." I suppose I would have been about 8 at the time.