The Devil You Say

Years ago, when I was just a young little brat, Devil's Night was something my friends and I looked forward to. We'd plot, plan and spend weeks squirreling away toilet paper and soap. When dark would fall on the 30th of October, we'd go out painting neighbor's windows with Dial soap. Sometimes, we'd T.P. trees in the neighborhood. Always, we'd torment ring doorbells of crotchety old neighbors then run like hell laughing all the way. That was about the worst thing we did.

As I got older, thankfully, I outgrew my mischievous ways. Devil's Night never went away though and over the years, it grew more and more sinister. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Detroit became renowned for Devil's Night and Halloween fires. During a period of 3 to 4 days, the city would burn. Sometimes, it was hooligans out to create mayhem. Sometimes the culprits were people in a community burning down nearby abandoned homes. Often, they'd neglect to take into consideration the weather or the proximity of adjacent structures that still had people living in them. Frequently, business owners used the guise of this notorious day to offload an albatross. There were always hundreds of fires over the course of this "holiday." The city landscape is dotted with many empty lots where the homes were burned to the ground. Firefighters worked their asses off during these periods and were kept so busy putting out nuisance fires like garage structures that they just couldn't keep up with more important dwellings.

This has never completely gone away though the actual number of fires has been drastically reduced. Victories are measured in actual fire calls which are down to levels that are almost normal for a regular night. Devil's Night is called Angel's night here these days and the city heavily recruits civilian volunteers (angels) to patrol the streets looking for vandals.


I'm not particularly looking forward to being out and about in the city today and Friday. I'm hoping for an actual reduction in calls for a hospice nurse or nothing but facility admissions. I'd rather spend my evening in a hospital than out roaming the streets. I don't care how many angels are out patrolling. This is no longer a day I look forward to.