On Monsters and Lessons
We heard the folk tales growing up. They were made into books, comic books and movies. To kill the monster is no easy feat. The werewolf is impervious to all weapons except a silver bullet. Only that metal seizing its bloodstream can kill it. To kill the blood-sucking vampire for all eternity is a perilous task. You must drive a stake through the monster’s heart. Garlic and brandished crosses only slow down the stalking fiend.
We dressed up as the creatures on Halloween. So much of what impressed us about them was precisely their near invincibility. Such was the strength of their malice and the depth of their threat that ordinary attempts to kill them failed. They were dogged, persistent beasts and this was a great part of what made them so terrifying.
Pop culture generated new variations on the evil monster so hard to kill. For my generation, this was manifest in the horrible Jason from the Halloween movies. His face obscured by an impassive white mask, his height towering and his gait inhuman, shooting him or clubbing him with a baseball bat might knock him down, might even knock him unconscious, but as the dissonant music peaked, Jason would rise back up with a kind of posthuman determination to kill the innocents.
And yet when it came time for the country of the United States to definitively kill the dogged, soulless, stalking monster who was preternaturally driven to destroy the nation… the people did not learn their lesson. Donald Trump slithered toward the White House on a golden escalator, vomiting bile about immigrants. He fomented hate, and the disease in his psyche compelled him to convince people that cruelty, taunting and humiliation were how they should relate. When plague came to the country, he dithered, fearing what telling the people the truth about the threat might do to his chances to continue his rule. And a million people died.
His rule did not continue. He was voted out. But just like the beasts from tales of horror, he did not relent. He feigned believing that he had won the election. He did not walk away. Because it is not in the nature of these monsters who harbor a howling void within to walk away. He broadcast his grotesque and vengeful hatred and it was enough to convince thousands to storm the Capitol on a brisk January afternoon to halt the counting of the Electoral College. But he was finally repelled and kept outside of the city gates… for a while.
And so, like the wolf stalking the steppes that ring the city, he paced and fed his resentment and feelings of betrayal. For three years, he receded from sight — not entirely, but enough for people to forget his menace. While he was in office the first time: two impeachments, no convictions — the monster had his defenders in the grand, domed white building in the Capital. While he was out of office, feckless men like Attorney General Merrick Garland let him slip the noose. The monster was wily. Cunning. He dodged other cases, always prevaricating and delaying.
The people were not vigilant. And after four long years, he rose back up and broke through the wood slats of the front door. He crossed the threshold and roared. He would now have his chance to finish his reign of terror and he licked his lips.
The people had seen all the movies and heard all the stories. And yet when they had the chance to finish off the lumbering, odiferous, demon-haunted beast dedicated only to killing them… they had missed their chance.
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Postscript: This story should have ended. The plodding beast should have been permanently vanquished. Instead, the tale continues. But even in our compromised and debilitated state, we must rise to permanently defeat the fiend once and for all. And we shall.
