Sympathy for the Devil's Night
It's that time of year again—time for fraidy-cat stories about arson, vandalism and mayhem that will break out at sunset, as "Devil's Night," "Mischief Night" or even "Cabbage Night" descends.
This year, the city of Detroit, ground zero for Devil's Night horror, is reporting success with its "Angels Night" effort to mobilize 35,000 civilian volunteers (including ten members of the Motor City Blade Runners in-line skating club) to patrol neighborhoods. This has become a familiar story in recent years, with some variation on "Local patrols will take a bite out of Devil's Night" being a perennial thumbsucker headline throughout the Wolverine State—and elsewhere.
While nostalgia may have softened the memory of Mischief Night atrocities of yore, and the anti-holiday itself lingers on mainly as fodder for e-greeting cards slyly referencing the Boston Archdiocese scandal, the smoldering history of burned barns, cars and apartment houses remains. This may be why the Motor City is happy to install a 6-to-6 curfew for the three-day Halloween season, and police in such far-flung locations as Bennington, VT and crime magnet Morris County, NJ are happy to unleash Chief Wiggum-style crackdowns. In Bennington, where October 30 goes by the unscary name "Cabbage Night" and historians have to look back to the 1970s for serious arson reports, just the threat of a night of mayhem can send locals into a tizzy. "It's the only thing that oughta be outlawed … like the Fourth of July," Police Chief William H. Fox inexplicably (not to mention unpatriotically) tells the Bennington Banner. The only thing missing is bloggers insisting that the media are ignoring links between Devil's Night and Al Qaeda.
Happily, the police have things well in hand, and the wounds of Devil's Night are best treated with earnest service journalism about keeping kids safe in the Halloween season. More ominous is the increasingly popular notion that it's really October 31st, not the 30th, that was made in Hell—or worse, the Vatican.
"Hell House is designed to grab the attention of the sight and sound generation," says Rev. Keenan Roberts, impresario of a Hell House at New Beginnings Church in Wayne, MI. "It's a rock 'n' roll gospel and it reaches young people. It is the most dynamic soul-winning tool that I've ever seen. That's why it's taken off."
He's not exaggerating. North Texas, Bergen County, NJ, Pittsburgh, PA—Hell Nights, which scare the bejesus out of kids with playlets in which homosexuals, drug addicts and assorted riffraff suffer the tortures of the damned, are in full expansion mode. Roberts claims to have sold 500 Hell House kits in 47 states and 13 countries.
Of course, if you've ever seen a Hell House show, you know the real attraction is that they tend to be better produced and scarier than the traditional/consumerist haunted houses crafted by friendly local boozers at some Halloween house party. That's the ecumenical trap: High Church frippery brings in the crowds, which inevitably end up diluting the true believers. Don't be surprised if in a few years Hell Houses have morphed into the very thing they were designed to combat. Satan has a way of winning every holiday season.
Which may be why there's a tone of hopefulness in all the annual reports that this year's Devil's Night could be the worst one ever. "You never know what you're going to get," says Bennington Sheriff's Cpl. Chad Schmidt. And if you don't get anything, there's always next year.