In 1678 my Great many time over Grandfather John Stebbins was allegedly murdered by witchcraft in Northampton, MA. That or a log rolled on him randomly. One of them. Either way, someone must have been angry enough at him to make them think he got the stink-eye.
We know that the Puritans were a little zealous on the superstition front. It was probably something simple like an actual homicide. I am wondering what the other circumstances around the "witchcraft incident" that lead to this interpretation of his demise and, if I were of the same frame of mind in this day and age, would I come to similar kind of conclusions in my life now. For instance, there was this week and a half in June......
In mid-June a couple whom I knew growing up exploded.* That is to say, their home blew up with them in it, blowing their house and,well, them across the banks of the Delaware River. I wasn't particularly close to them but their death was so sudden and horrible that for a quick moment I just didn't know how to react. It wasn't in my wheelhouse of bad things. And this paved the way for the rest of June. In Puritan curse credo, this would be the ominous warning not having that much to do with you, just enough to make you feel disturbed.
We were in the middle of packing up our apartment. I knew it wasn't going to be simple but, holy monkey in a hand basket, Batman....we had soooo much stuff. And our new apartment was tiny compared to the old space. Purgatory is paved with moving boxes. No matter how much I packed, there was more. And there was a continual presence of contractors in our space readying it for future tenants. No privacy while I yelled at our belongings that seemed to multiply themselves. Like they were cursed.
The husband was working three jobs. Two in one university and another 110 miles away at a blueberry farm where he was starting up a winery. Even if Jay was more available, he had been very ill, a bronchial thing that made him sound like Brenda Vacarro in a roomful of smog. He packed his office up but there wasn't a whole lot of time for much else while he was giving final exams and when he moved, he hacked away like his lungs had rocks in them. Cooties....or witchcraft?
About this time my hair started breaking off. It had gone through phases but now it was snapping off at the part where the color started in earnest. The top back of my head began to look like a poorly mowed lawn. It ain't the pox or warts but still hex-y, not sexy**.
My daughter was a 14 year old moving from the only home she knew since she was six. She is a good kid, helping as much as she could but she was also enveloped in the emotional dysplasia blues. There is no way I could tell her to cheer the fuck up given the circumstances. The onset of gloom was continuous and grating. And every person who ever perused the horror section of Netflix knows that there is always a brooding teenager when the evil eye is upon a home.
We were waiting on payment for the husband's summer position, depending on one large check. In the meantime, huge bills were piling up. Fortunately, the circus guild money guy producer (yes, circus) agreed to meet me with a check for a show I was performing in once a month. On the way to the designated central location, I noticed the brakes on our Yaris weren't engaging properly. By the time I got to Somerville, they were barely working at all. I coasted in and called the husband. He came down and followed me back to the MA apartment while I drove as slow as you possibly could without getting rear ended by one of those infamous testy Boston drivers. Three hundred dollars later, I was mobile. So we have near-ish death experience by bad brakes (1970's murder program plot line, anyone?) AND loss of much needed money. Extra curse-y with a side of Murder She Wrote.
We rented a moving truck and spent the morning loading it. I had to move-us interruptus to go to a very necessary rehearsal. My writing partner and I had revamped the circus show script and it was the only time that the director was available to meet before the show that was going back up in 4 more days. After I got home, we continued to fill it up until we couldn't function any more, woke up the next day, loaded it more and then drove off to VT. We started unloading it and then the husband fell off the moving truck and broke his foot.You heard me. Broke his foot. If that don't smell of demons pushing people, I don't know what does.
The moving truck was positively pregnant with large heavy old furniture and I was alone with it. I started thinking of ways pieces could be dismantled so that I could do it by myself. I went to the only two people whom I knew well in the Pioneer Valley/Southern VT area and was rescued by Scott (of Jennifer and Scott) at 10 pm, removing the stuff that scared me most. And the next morning when I was again scheming on how the hell I was going to do this again more, Scott texted me and told me he had taken the day off and was coming back. It's things like that that prevented me from running a muck across Interstate 91. One could say we were rescued by incredible selfless kindness....or one could say that I pulled Scott into the curse with me. Mercy, I didn't think two humans could sweat that much.
We had to keep the moving van an extra day, costing us more. We also had to cancel a team building event that Jay and I were both booked on to make desperately needed money. The husband's summer position was done and we had to wait for the end of the summer for the elusive check. The money is bleeeeding! Curses love money loss!
We did do a second scheduled event the day after that in Cape Cod, driving from VT instead of the sleeping on air mattresses in MA as planned. He was in a lot of pain but got through it. He took the Pontiac with cruise control, driving with his big ole air cast back to VT. I pulled into our soon to be former MA town and felt the brakes of the aforementioned Yaris starting to lose their power again. DAH-DAH-DUHHH! (That's a musical sting).
I drove the car straight to the garage down the street from our house where it had just been. I explained that I needed the car inspected in order to get the registration that was due as well as rectifying the insidious brake issue. I walked home, continued to finish the last of the stuff in the apartment and did battle with the concept of where the hell do you throw this stuff off with only three garbage cans for two apartments plus recycling. I had run to the dump twice already and donated belongings ruthlessly. It was endless. Again, magicked reproducing belongings.
In the meantime, the husband has been informed that our large lump sum check is going to be taxed as if single payment is the same as a bi-weekly paycheck for an annual salary, putting us in a tax bracket that I only dream of visiting. We were going to lose another 600 dollars because "that is just the way the school does it." His payment for the summer was going to cover the Amex bill and rent and that was just about all. This is when I really did start wondering if someone had busted out a Ouiji board to call the dogs from hell out on us. Cue the Why Me, Gods.
When I return to the garage the next morning, the car was inspected but the brakes, due to an error in communication from within, were not examined. I try to explain that I had to be at pre-show tech rehearsal followed by two performances and was supposed to drive to VT after the show. A stressed out looking mechanic took a look at the brakes. He showed me even more damaged brake parts. It was going to cost about another 300 dollars. This is when I sat on the floor next to my car and began weeping. Poor mechanic. Sucked into my potential curse drama.
The car would have to stay at the garage. We would have to find some money somewhere. The trains stopped running 5 minutes after I get off the stage. I had no car, no money, no sleep, no way home, no idea of where anything in my life was with the exception of my family and my costume (which I was terrified of losing so kept with me) and the massive mound of garbage in my former apartment. I was physically and mentally beaten from multiple layered potential curse effects.
The tech rehearsal was a disaster (for me) due to my inability to complete a sentence. The shows weren't as bad as the rehearsals but that ain't saying much on my part. I dropped lines. I had no energy. My timing and focus weren't just off, they were in a whole other town. And if you were to put the whammy on me, this is where you get me good. Besides my family, my performer's ego is the belly of the beast. Thwupt (that's an arrow flying)....right into my soul. See? Puritan me would have been swarming the neighborhood looking for someone to hang (pardon the pun) it on. Ruination! Find Satan's minion!***
But in the end, the curse rarely stays a curse if you let it ride out. The husband drove back on his broken foot and picked me up after the show. I met him somewhere. I can't remember. It is lost in the blur. The car did get fixed the next day. My mother-in-law bailed us out and the mechanic didn't charge us for labor because they had missed it the first time (and because I am an uncomfortably messy cry-er). Months later I am still unpacking but at least I know where my underwear is and the air quality is better. Our finances will get better because we did move. I finished up the last show in this run in August knowing all night that it was really be my last because the June one was so unforgivable. And I did what I would have anyway, my best. I went out with a bang, rose to the occasion, glad that I can't remember the show that I failed because there is the perk in exhaustion and mild brain damage.
So I wonder if sometimes a hex is just the fulfillment of a person's inability to find the silver lining in something? After all, my little story up there is rife with helping hands and kindness. It's harder to find it with Grandpa Stebbins what with him being under a log and all, but still.....in his religion, he is in heaven right now. And he doesn't have to worry about witches any more. So was it a hex or was it just the quick bus to the Pearly Gates?
*This is by no means meant to make light of an incredibly tragic event that took the lives of two very lovely people who were nothing but kind to me the 35 or so years that I have known them. It is merely the uh-oh moment when things started to unravel.
**Self-indulgent humor to make myself laugh
***And I did get fired from the circus for bad acting. Which is awful because normally I am a really good character actor but great because I find saying that sentence a little hilarious.
