This is a story my father used to tell me and it has three characters in it, at least as he told it, and they were a Demon named Matty, an Angel, named Susan, and a Man named Garen. Well, now that I remember the story the man had a boy, about seven — I assume about seven because I was about seven when my father told me the story — and this boy’s name was Dubuku. So four characters – a Demon, an Angel and a pair of humans, father and son.
The thing to know about the Demon Matty was he stalked the prairies looking for people to humiliate and to degrade and to enslave. And the thing to know about Garen was that he was not supposed to have had a chlid. Where he lived, not just anybody could have a child — there were rules, you had to have a certain amount of social standing, and Garen did not — he actually lived with his parents. So when he briefly met Dubuku’s mother and they had a kid, he was barely even allowed to see the kid. And he felt terrible. He thought — I don’t care what my mother and father say, Dubuku is my kid. And he read a lot of books about making it across the prairie to the ocean and he decided I’m going to do that. And if a demon kills me, a demon kills me. I just can’t live this way.
But what happened was that the Demon Matty caught him and he didn’t kill him because what did hte demon Matty live to do, my father asked me?
Humiliate.
And?
Enslave?
And?
Degrade.
Yes, my father said. He was very tall, like two feet taller than me (my dad was six four) and he had a lot of horns and sort of sharp crusts on his body — he was naked — and on his back was a cage that he could make very hot. So he grabbed Dubuku and put him in the cage and heated him up. And the kid would cry and scream. And the Dad had to do whatever the demon wanted because he didn’t want his son to be hurt. So he’d be doing all sorts of stuff you do when you’re a demon’s slave — humiliating degrading stuff — all so he could help his son. And sometimes Matty would let Garan try to rescue his son but it was just a trick — the cage was too tough — he’d pretend to be asleep and Dubuku would be crying and Garan would try to break the cage and get him out and then he’d open his eyes and laugh and just roast the kid for an hour and let the father watch. As a punishment. And to humiliate him. To show him — you think you’re a good Dad but you’re not. You can’t even help your kid.
Well this blog post is getting a little long, reader so I will tell you — who was the angel? Who was the angel Susan? Susan appeared to Garan one night at night as a sort of glow over the prairie, and a thunder of the buffalo kicking the ground there she was a beautiful woman all made of light with blonde hair and she said the thing that gave Garan his freedom.
I knew because I knew my Dad it was not — how to kill the demon. My Dad didn’t believe you could kill demons.
She said to him — Garan, Dubuku is not your son. Dubuku is a creature created by Matty and snuck into your life back at home in order to trick you into going into the prairie and becoming his slave. He is not your son. He is not a boy. He is a demon creation, the same way they make tangles out of hair, or frogspawn out of foam. He is not a boy, he is not your son, you don’t need to worry about him.
Garan left while the demon was asleep, while the boy was sizzling for some minor infraction and he made it to the ocean.
What kind of story is that my wife said to me? Why did he make the demon punish the man by torturing a son? Why would he make the angel teach him not to love his son? Why would the demon be the one who makes you care about your son and the angel be the one who makes you not care about your son? What kind of father would teach that to his son.
I always defend my father. So I defended him then. Against my wife. She was quite upset.
“I think he wanted me to know it is hard to tell who is a demon and who is an angel.” And I went for a long drive.
When I came back from my drive she had forgiven me (or maybe forgiven my father? Or agreed with me? I don’t really remember) and we went to sleep. But before I went to sleep I wondered whether my father was the demon my wife had said he was, or the angel I thought he was, or maybe, perhaps, the man. Or the boy? Who can say. He’s gone and there is nobody left who knew him well enough to ask.
Eric Linus Kaplan 