Rob Zombie - Lords of Salem

It made him jittery just being there. No, these three were hardly his audience. And they clearly hadn’t read the book—not even a page! They hadn’t even said anything about the specifics of the book to him. Herman, who had spoken to him the most, had gotten the title wrong. It was all Francis could do not to groan when that happened, but he’d held back and just gently corrected him, just like Alice would have told him to do. No, this was already a serious disaster.

There was a commercial on, for Anderton Auto. Those crooks! He couldn’t imagine that anybody who would be interested in his book would get their car repaired at Anderton Auto. Even the commercials were telling him he shouldn’t be here.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned over, saw Herman’s face. Man, that guy had a big head. “Ready?” Herman said.

He shrugged, not sure what to say.

“Calm down, man,” said Herman. “We ain’t gonna bite. Just be yourself. It’s gonna be all right.”

The commercial wound down, slowly fading into the background. The woman, Heidi, put on some headphones, leaned toward her mike, and began to speak.

“That’s right,” she said, her voice expressing an enthusiasm that couldn’t be read in her face. “Anderton Auto is now open on Sunday. Anyway, if you’re just tuning in, we’ve got a guest in the studio. We’ll be chatting with Francis Matthias, author of the book”—she paused, looked down at the book in front of her—“ Satan’s Last Stand: The Truth about the Salem Witch Trials. ”

At least she’d gotten the title right. Maybe it’d be okay after all.

“Hello,” said Francis. “Heidi, I am happy to be here.” He winced. Two minutes in and he already sounded stilted and uptight, like he had a stick shoved up his ass.

“Heidi, may I?” asked Herman.

Heidi rolled her eyes. “Yes, you may,” she said, her voice revealing nothing of the eye roll.

Herman grinned, turned toward Francis. “So, Francis, tell me exactly how many people were actually executed during the Salem Witch trials.”

He opened his mouth to answer, but that other Herman, White Herman, cut in. “And more important,” said White Herman, “were any related to Dr. Frankenstein?”

He felt his blood start to boil—they just weren’t taking this seriously! But Alice, he knew, would want him to keep his cool. He took a deep breath and then responded.

“A good question, Herman,” he said. “Approximately twenty-five in all if you include accused witches who died while in prison…” He thought he might end it there, but both Hermans were looking at him, waiting for him to go on. Ah, what the hell, he thought. “And as far as I know, none were of any relation to Dr. Frankenstein.”

Whitey laughed. “Twenty-five? Are you serious? I thought there must be hundreds. I have to admit I’m disappointed by that number and especially by the non-Frankenstein lineage.”

How was he supposed to answer that? He just stared at the microphone.

“Professor Matthias,” said Heidi, “correct me if I’m wrong here, but wasn’t Dr. Frankenstein only a fictional character?”

“Yes,” he said, thankful for the correction. “Yes, I believe he was. And the book Frankenstein didn’t appear until nearly thirty years after the Salem Witch trials.”

“So what you’re saying is that the book Frankenstein was based on the Salem Witch trials?” said Whitey.

“Um, no,” said Francis, confused. “I wasn’t suggesting that at all. There’s no relation between the two.”

Whitey laughed. Am I being toyed with? wondered Francis. Or is this man just an idiot? He wondered if he should have said something else, or if he should go on now, but Heidi was already asking a new question.

“Hang with me on this, because it might seem like a ridiculous question,” she said. Oh no, he thought, not a promising start . “Were there any quote unquote ‘real witches’ in Salem in the seventeenth century?”

He cleared his throat. “Well, today we have a large group of practicing Wiccans living in Salem, which is a positive, earth-centered religion. They sometimes refer to themselves as white witches. It might seem strange to think they would gather here, at a site where witches were persecuted in the past, but they claim to be curing the place of the evil that took place here. But I assume you mean…”

He let his voice trail off. He wasn’t sure he wanted to get caught up in this sort of conversation. It wasn’t really what his work was about. It was a historical examination, for God’s sake, not some hippy-dippy mystical speculation.

“You know,” said Heidi, “classic witches with actual powers of some sort? Any of those?”

He shook his head. “Sorry, no. There is no such thing as witchcraft. Witchcraft is nothing more than psychotic beliefs brought on by a delusional state of mind.”

“So, nothing.”

Hadn’t he said just that? Couldn’t they move on to something else? He sat there staring at her, shaking his head, but she wouldn’t ask another question. He imagined Alice at home listening. She’d be disappointed. He wasn’t playing the game; he was messing it up.

He made an effort. “Nothing,” he said.

But the woman wouldn’t let it go. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe she wasn’t the nice one after all.

“Not even the teeny-weensiest incident of supernatural activity ever occurred?” she asked. Even the way she asked he found belittling, an assault on his dignity. No, it had been a huge mistake to come on the show. He could see that now. He never should have agreed to do it.

When he spoke again, there was a harshness he couldn’t keep out of his tone. “I thought I was quite clear the first time you asked,” he said. “You can ask me again, but the answer is still no.”

But still the girl didn’t stop. What was wrong with her? “How can you be so sure?” she asked. What was she, someone with aspirations to witchhood? He was losing his temper now.

“I can be sure because I am a reasonable person,” he said angrily. “I do not believe in supernatural nonsense any more than I believe in Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.” He turned toward Whitey. “Or Frankenstein for that matter.”

“Whoa, my brother,” said Herman. “Don’t be ragging on Frankenstein. I’ve got film fest tickets to move.”

But Frances was going now and couldn’t stop. “In fact,” he said, stabbing his finger toward Heidi, “the idea of ‘real witches’ as well as the mindless cinematic trash like Frankenstein versus the Witchhunter —”

“Witchfinder,” interrupted Whitey.

“Witchfinder, whatever,” said Francis. He took a deep breath. “This inane garbage completely undermines the social importance of the witch trials themselves. Can’t you see that? That is exactly the problem with this country. Everything has to be a joke or a headline. History means nothing anymore.”

His anger was starting to run out of steam. He tried to calm down and wind it up. “History isn’t about the past,” he claimed. “It’s about defining who we are in the present.”

When he finished there was silence. Maybe he’d gone too far. He felt a little stab of regret; he’d promised Alice that he’d get her the tickets she wanted, but there was no way he could do that now, not with the tirade he’d just given them. There’d be hell to pay when he got home.

Heidi was looking at Herman, who was looking back at her, gesturing for her to go on. She lifted her shoulders and shrugged, gestured back to him. White Herman was deliberately not looking at either of them, staring down at his soundboard. No, he’d gone too far.

Finally Heidi spoke. “So which are we, then?” she asked. “Descendants of witches or descendants of murderers?”