Can You Hear Me Now

Eating chocolate cake in a bag.

John Lennon

I have an interesting background. Mom and Dad were born in the coal-mining area of Pennsylvania. Dad’s parents emigrated from Poland and Mom’s grandparents came from Poland (grandfather) and Czechoslovakia (grandmother). I was born and raised in Arizona and became an amalgamation of the American Southwest, Eastern Europe, and Western Pennsylvania. Growing up, I pronounced some words in the funny accent of Mom (e.g. a hard G at the end of words like king), and was equally comfortable eating tacos, enchiladas, pierogis, gołąbki, makowiec, and chrusciki.

One of the most obscure cultural touchpoints came from Dad. Whenever my siblings and I were misbehaving (which was a very loose concept when it came to my father), Dad would threaten that the man with the bag would come to the house and take us away. Where he would take us was never made clear, but my childhood brain was certain that it was someplace awful.

It wasn’t until many decades later that I came to realize that this man wasn’t simply Dad’s creation, but someone who was probably passed down to him from his mother and father. Thanks to the Internet, I found that Sack Man is a boogieman found in cultures all across the world.

Dad’s Polish version went by several names, bebok, babok, or bobok, but at our home, he was never referred to as anything other than the man with the bag. That was enough for young Andrew’s mind to conjure up all sorts of images of a frightening, child-snatching demon. Like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, there was a time when the man with the bag was very real to my siblings and me.

Fun fact: The man with the bag has a more famous cousin named Krampus. Legend has it that Krampus is Santa Claus’ evil brother. Instead of bringing the good children presents on Christmas, Krampus punishes the bad ones by beating them with birch rods. Krampus has appeared in quite a few movies over the years including the recent Dwayne Johnson film, Red One.

Myth or Reality

Many of the fairy tales I grew up with can trace their origins to real-life people and events. Fables as far fetched as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Rapunzel are actually based on true stories, but they are often much darker than the renditions our mothers read to us at night or what Walt Disney put into his movies. Rather than history, the re-imagined versions have become metaphors and ways to teach morality, and they typically had a much happier ending than the original stories.

For example, the historic Rapunzel (in reality her name was Barbara) refused to blindly marry the men her father brought to her so he built a tower and locked her up in it. Instead of hair, Rapunzel/Barbara would lower a basket to be filled with food and water. After Rapunzel/Barbara attempted an escape, she was beaten, mutilated, and beheaded by her father. There was no happily ever after in this story.

Research the origin of just about any familiar fairy tale or nursery rhyme and you will find similar tales of suffering and cruelty. Woe to the children in those stories. The irony that the Brothers Grimm are responsible for preserving so many fairy tales is not lost on me.

When the curtain has been drawn
and the room is bathed in the emptiness of silence
when the darkness of night creeps beneath the door
and the weight of all things unresolved and unsettled
presses hard upon your chest like some gigantic stone

When the wishes of fools and believers
fearfully fade into the shadows

Enter the night demon
a thief of sleep and well-being
gnawing away until all that remains
are the pieces of a dream that cannot be saved

Terror at the Doorstep

I have been unable to find an historical counterpart to the man with the bag, so instead of looking backward, I decided to look at the world around me today.

To an immigrant child, is the modern day ICE agent all that different than Dad’s boogieman? Like the man with the bag, ICE agents come into homes, churches, and schools to carry children to frightening places. While they’ve upgraded the bag to a black van, don’t they accomplish the exact same thing?

Ignoring the horror of an ICE deportation, the ongoing psychological impact on undocumented children cannot be overstated. Just as the man with the bag was a figure of dread and terror, so too are ICE agents for many young people today. The threat of deportation hangs over them like the sword of Damocles, making every day a struggle to feel safe and secure. Unlike Dad’s boogieman stories, though, ICE agents are not mythical figures. They have real power and authority, and their actions have very real consequences.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Matthew 25:35

The man with the bag may be a scary fairy tale from my childhood, but the reality of what ICE agents are doing is all too real. Until we can find a way to rationally address immigration (something Congress has been loathe to do) and treat these families with the dignity and respect that all humans deserve, we will continue to perpetuate a culture of fear and terror that has no place in our society. What we are doing today is no different than the tactics of the Nazi Gestapo. This is not who we are supposed to be yet here we are.

The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Leviticus 19:34

We can do better. We must do better. Join me in demanding a stop to this horror movie.

Thank you for reading.

Equinox Man

Twelve hours of darkness
twelve hours of light
as he entered so he lived

Poised on the knife’s edge
between control and chaos
a crossword puzzle where half the squares are black

What horrors hid in your shadows
what fears crowded your mind
in the twelve hours of darkness
and the twelve hours of light