Fire was the first of my tricky things, most people need matches. What I thought as a small kid was whatever I can do. Also every kid thinks all families are pretty much like their own family. I was not different in that way I thought. I did think my parents had a favorite kid, and that I was in my family that chosen child, but they didn’t distill love, there was family fear instead. The reasons I seemed not to get killed was because the other children were hated more than me. Mother seemed always pregnant, and I had many brothers and sisters who died, they died very often. More than anything as a little kid I knew it was important to keep living. Above all else, living on, breathing was best. I always considered myself the most favored, and lucky child because I slept in my parents bed with them. They didn’t always pay attention to me, and did the thing together that I guessed then was to make more children, but I got to sleep where other kids in my family were not – their bed. If they weren’t up drinking all night and partying with their friends, well they were in bed doing adult excerises.
Even from the very earliest time of my awake life I knew I wanted to keep living. My brothers and sisters died or disappeared as we constantly moved in California, Texas and other places. I didn’t know much about most places, and neither did my siblings. They were dumber than me, and at my under 5 age, I knew very little, and the stuff I knew I wasen’t sure of, not positive of.
I did know that life is dangerous, my family was mostly made up of 12 children and 2 adults. We went everywhere in one big car, and one big motor home. We always had different cars and motor homes, but one parent drove one, and one the other. Often the vehicles were different colors. They were always being painted, and the tags changed.
From one day to the next I had sisters one day, or little brothers and we would go somewhere else without them. When I said, “Where’s Jim mother?” She would often say, “Dead,” or just, “He’s gone away.”
“Where did he go mother?” I would say, really I often asked.
“Cold dead as a piece of chicken, or slice of ham.” was another usual reply. It made you wonder how long any of us would live.
When I kept asking questions about the disapearances father would say, “Be a good little boy and we won’t feed you to a demon,” Mother would critize him when he talked like that to me.
The thing was that all my parents friends were demons. I met all of the demons, and they were always proud of their horns and were always letting me feel them under their hat, or hair. Many of them were also proud of their tails, and as a little boy, for some reason or other they wanted me to look at those apendages. They would say, “See how long it is Lucus.” Or, “Isn’t it grand and bushy?”
I didn’t praise them much because demons are disagreeable creatures, and not very likeable. I thought they singled me out because I slept with my parents. Where ever we traveled they would just know we were there and come visit. They were never normal looking, even though their clothes were normal, upscale, but rugular clothes. If you looked closely at their eyes, they were blank looking, hundred year old eyes. A demons nose can also give them away, they can flare not in a human way. They don’t often do it (the flaring) around normal people. My family was far from normal.
The major topic of demons, imps, and other things that made you gasp and pull your hand back, well the talking point was eating children, and the ‘things’ were not really humans. Where ever our family stopped to defraud churches there appeared demons and more children to join our family. All the children claimed to be my parents children. I think they were mostly orphans who were identified as belongings to my family. They were boys and girls of all ages, but mostly under eleven years old. When your little and are always getting new children in the family, and then they die, and more arrive, well that is normal family as you see it. Many of the new children never went to school, but where ever we went I was enrolled in school with sometimes one or two sisters, Marie and Beth. I think they were my real sisters, born of my mother. Maybe there were others, but I tried to forget most of the faces. I know they would be disapearing soon.
One intresting thing about my family was that many of my sisters really liked me. I think my mother and father were somehow as scared of me as I was of them, but growing up I was a loved child with so many sisters, but I was not loved by my family to any extent at all. Some sisters would die all along our motor home routes, and as we left trailer parks. No one keeps up with kids in such places. As brothers and sisters don’t go on trip, then others would go on those trips, then others would take their places. Marie and Beth would always say, “Best to not think about where they are now.” Early on I didn’t know what other ’so called’, brothers and sisters were thinking, but I knew the minds of Beth first and then Marie.
In every new town my parents would dress in cleric outfits and go and get jobs in churches. That was a big joke with every new bunch of demons. There are some demons everywhere, they have all kinds of jobs, but they mostly are lawyers and political leaders. the worst ones, with the longest tails, and biggest bad jokes, are ministers who have the very big churches. They call them mega churches, and they sing the loudest and are loud in their sex making activities, during parties. I watch things like that, peek in.
I seemed to always know that the demons, my parents, or I could die, but I just knew it would have do be by fire. I don’t think I could drown. Like other kids I held my breath in a tub of water, or a swimming pool, or river, and I never had to really come up for air like other kids. That was not something I talked about, but it was true.
If I was naming my good tricks at age 3 it would be how long I could possibly hold my breath, and my hand fire trick. I didn’t do it all the time, but it was one of my earliest tricks. I could hold out my open hand and think, ‘Fire and flame rise up,’ it always obeyed my mind. And my hand was never burned by my flame.
I think I remember my mother’s first reaction when she saw my palm flame, it was, “Shit Mortimer,” (at one time she called my father Mortimer) all our names constantly changed, “He’s not supposed to be able to do things like that!”
“What the fuck do we know Magna. We are only on earth here as his babysitters.”
“I’m honored to be it’s mother,” she said, “but he could get us exposed if he burns down a kindergarden.”
“No more fire tricks son!” Mortimer said, “or else!”
Well I didn’t know what, ‘or else’ could mean, unless it meant, ‘or be eaten.’
After that I only did my hand trick with Marie and Beth. They both thought it was a grand trick, but swore they wouldn’t tell the parents. I did start small fires around me by thinking that a coat on the ground would burn, or a field of corn near a filling station would burn while I was drinking a coke, and eating a hoo hoo cake in our motor home. One problem was in my early fires. I could start them but not stop them. I could keep them away from me, but once they started flaming and cracking I couldn’t stop or slow them down, and I didn’t care.
There is nothing as exciting as a big fire — the smoke and the way people run around screaming at each other. I like the smell of a building or forest burning, both have their own delight in me. Fires are marvelous and the very best kind of night light. They light up a better world, and leave the earth ready for a new beginning. Fires are the best and fascinated me before I was involved in girls. In some ways great girls seem like very lit fires. I didn’t feel that way when I was under five, but later it all became clear.
I was about six years old when we left California for Texas again. It all looked about the same to me, (land, hills, places where people lived, and were buried), but I went with my father for a day at the church when he was stealing money for a , ‘leave town with the cash getaway’. I was all dressed up in a suit with shiny shoes, and a hat all black like dad’s. I had been to church before. One preacher that day I remember was dressed like dad and me. He left us with a pile of keys, and said, “I’ve got to go catch those fish for Christ Mortimer buddy. Lock up where your finished.” We were finished about 20 minutes later, after the other guy was gone. It’s not hard to carry out paper money. I helped carry small packages. We didn’t even get out of the car when we got home, but mother sent out to our car two new girls. One needed braces, and one had way too much hair, brown hair. My favorite girls at six were girls with golden shiny blond hair. It was not those two. They were both older than me, maybe 8 and ten. Mother followed dad in the motor home down the roads. We didn’t take the interstate roads because there were pictures of moving traffic there, dad said. We were traveling so no one would know where we went.
Before we even left our California campsite I heard in my head Marie and Beth screaming way down near my nose. Marie said, “Lucus they killed me and I am meat for the demons! Sliced meat for their table.”
We were driving down the road when I said to dad, “Where are Beth and Marie?”
“In the motor home stupid son. Where do you think they would be?”
“They tell me that they have been killed for demon meat.” I said, I was not calm in saying it, and I guess I screamed. “They were the very best sisters. I loved them!”
“That’s a pile of shit son. Maybe they stayed behind, we can’t carry every girl we get with us. We just have 2 damn drivers. Can’t you open your eyes?”
He was screaming at me, so I knew they were both dead — they said, “We are dead and being eaten Lucus.” Then the girls in the backseat began moaning and crying after I said what I said. Father screamed at that, almost losing control of the car. We swearved around on the road, thank goodness nothing was coming.
I know Texas was spelled with five letters, and I read the sign when we got there. My parents never used maps, but they always knew where we were going. This time it was a huge old wooden house on the top of a hill. We parked behind the house, and hid the motor home and the car. Some demons were already there in Zepher Cars. Most demons drove the best cars. Mother was alone in the motor home, when father took the metal bar to the back door of the house to break the lock. We broke into the hill house, that was a regular usual thing — breaking in.
The house had a fridge with nothing good in it. But all the demons brought food and liquor. We had 12 children in California and in Texas there were only the two new girls that the demons took in a room and killed. I never saw girls killed before, but maybe because I was six the demons wanted me to see. They didn’t say, “Look here Lucus while we slit these girls throats,” but they grabbed the girls, and I peeked in, and saw knives flashing as they cut up the meat.
I didn’t know those girls, and with new kids I tried not to even remember their names. But I heard Beth and Marie in my head all the way from California and they screamed at me, “Get away Lucus before they cut you up to. We were stronger than you and they sliced us like turkeys.” It was Beths voice, softer and she calmed down a little after supper and said, “Use your fire trick on them after they are drunk late at night Lucus dear brother. We love you dearly and think they should burn in a big fire. It will save you brother and be a revenge for our digestion.”
Beth was always in my mind and knew my heart, knew that I would have burned them all up before except that children were all around them and the kids would also burn. I thought it would make a cracking fire to burn a hundred demons. In my mind I expected each of them to really pop like cherry bombs.
I had a supper of vegetables and then when the male and female demons were dancing upstairs in the old house. I was outside under a big tree waiting for them to get really drunk, demons were real drinkers, and they would drink all they brought. Mother and father never worried about me when the demons and imps were celebrating a new place. It was always like a housewarming. Tomorrow there would be more children, but tonight there were screams and jokes, about God and burning nuns tied to stakes. I heard the house furniture being broken upstairs as they screamed, yelled and pissed.
I started the fires on the steps going upstairs and at any open windows. I wanted to stop it all and escape. Who really knew what a mad demon could do to little me. Of course I didn’t even need a match. I did it all from underneath the tree, where it was a pleasant heat and a large light. Then I ignited everything around the furnace, and that was a gas furnace and it blew up like fireworks on the 4th of July. My favorite holiday. The night sky turned red, and I wondered if demons had blood in them. If you want to hear screams, real screams, burn up a big demon. They tried to jump down the stairs and fell into the furnace pit and roasted. I think mother and father roasted inside the pack of girl stuffed, liquored up, horned, and bushy tailed creatures. I laughed under the tree, and finally fell asleep.
A farmer came the next day, and turned me over to social workers, who took me to an orphanage in Texas, and looked for my relatives. I didn’t have any that I knew of. All I knew were demons in every town we had been in. I didn’t want to be left in their care. So I finally said there may be some in California. I lived in California orphanages also. Those were such better places than I experienced with my parents.
Written by Ray Cates e-mail: rcates216@aol.com
Mailing address: 2505 NW Magnolia Ave. Ocala, Florida 34475
Fax number: 1-352-629-1573
