Raising Cain

Mr. Larsen, my fourth grade Little League coach, told me I was evil one afternoon after practice. I was waiting for my mother to pick me up. He was waiting with me in the parking lot, loading the team’s equipment into the back of his van. A flock of birds had gathered by the snack bar, feasting on whatever hot dog remnants and spilled Red Hots they could find, and I had just pitched a rock at them to make them scatter. My coach looked at me with trepidation and I smiled back sheepishly.

"You frighten me Dave," he said without a hint of sarcasm. I thought it might have been a joke but the look in his eyes displayed genuine fear. He reached for a bag of baseballs that were near my feet, careful not to accidentally touch me. "There’s something not right about you."

I tried laughing it off, but the more I looked at him for a sign that he was pulling one over on me, the more creeped-out he was by my presence. He shook his head and added somberly: "I think you’re evil."

I thought about the birds by the snack bar and wondered if I had unwittingly injured one of the poor guys. I hadn’t intended to harm the flock of birds, it was just an adolescent impulse. But the way he carried himself made me think this wasn’t an aimless observation. He had thought about this for a long time.

Mr. Larsen went to the same church as my family. He and my father, in fact, volunteered as ushers every Sunday, while Kevin Larsen and I served as altar boys, sneaking sips of wine from the stash of bottles in the sacristy before Mass. My father and Mr. Larsen had both coached our baseball and soccer teams growing up and the Larsen family lived in the next neighborhood over. There always seemed to be a friendly competition between Mr. Larsen and my father. Our families were alike in many ways except that the Larsen kids all went to Catholic school while my father’s brood attended public school. This made the Larsens more religious than us and was surely a thorn in my old man’s side. He was very proud of being a Catholic, a feeling not necessarily shared by the rest of the family. He had wanted my brother and sister and I to go to Catholic school but thanks to my mother’s malignant memories of the nuns and her own Catholic schooling we were saved from this fate. And now to add insult to injury my father would have to deal with the knowledge that he had raised a son borne of malice and villainy.

When my mother pulled into the parking lot, she and Mr. Larsen exchanged pleasantries, but I could sense he felt sorry for her, having to raise this demon child. She was Rosemary and I was her baby. I quietly climbed into the car and didn’t speak during the ride home. As we drove, I reflected on my entire life. I had spent my years up to that point serving on the side of Good. I didn’t think I had ever done anything to warrant such an observation, but to be perfectly honest I did suddenly feel a lot cooler.

Instead of being the kid who couldn’t hit a single ball and cried uncontrollably every time he struck out, I was now one of the wicked, possessed of the power to invoke fear in our elders. My life had been a ruse, an unconscious ploy to hide my true nature.

When I got home that evening I locked myself in the bathroom and stripped naked. I was looking for the mark of the beast which must be hidden somewhere on my body. I have a small red birthmark behind my left ear and while it wasn’t the 666 configuration I had anticipated I decreed that it must be my infernal stamp of approval.

While this devil business was new to me I now had a degree of confidence that I’d never had before. I have always been an athletic joke, a bumbling klutz incapable of performing even the most minor physical activity without looking like a complete ass. This is my lot in life and I’ve learned to accept my limitations. But for a child in America, having an aversion to athletics for whatever reason, is like walking into a den of wolves with several rare steaks strapped to your face. You’re just asking for a tough time. And that is why I cried every time I struck out, which was every time I went up to bat.

But now that I was in league with Satan, it didn’t bother me as much. Perhaps I could harness the powers of darkness that surged inside me and use them to hit a home run, or at the very least to be able to catch a pop fly. I would show everyone that I wasn’t an incompetent fool to be laughed at. And those that continued their taunting would find their family home besieged by a plague of locusts. The possibilities were endless!

Unfortunately I had no knowledge of how to use my talents. I would have to bone up on incantations and spells if I was to become a real practitioner of the Black Arts. That was a lot of work for a ten year old. And finding that sort of information in 1984, long before the advent of the Internet, was a daunting task. Alas, my date with Mephistopheles would have to wait.

That night, after watching The Twilight Zone with my family, I ran up to bed before anyone else. I waited in the darkness at the top of the stairs for my mother and brother and sister to come up to bed. As they all trudged up the stairs, my siblings whining to stay up just one more hour, I readied myself. I knew they couldn’t see me hiding in the darkness and when my mother reached for the light switch I had to suppress a giggle. When the light flicked on I screamed at the top of my lungs and lunged forward like a zombie. The three of them shrieked and bumped into each other. My little brother began to cry and clung to my mother’s arm. She yelled and swatted at me with her free hand as I made a mad dash for my room and jumped into bed. Yes, I was evil. And it felt oh so good.