Fear and Loathing in Witch City

By Liz Langley, AlterNet. Posted October 22, 2002.

You’re never supposed to be surprised in a New York cab, but even veteran Manhattanites raised eyebrows when we told them, “Our driver was a girl.” She was a delightful surprise, like opening your refrigerator and finding a lit birthday cake.

“Where are you going?” she asked cheerfully when we gave her the address of a car rental outfit.

“Salem,” we said. With all the dynamic, world-class entertainment available in the city, driving 204 miles to a place in history that was resonant with terror, sorrow and insanity seemed like a fun weekend.

“Is that where the witch thing happened?” asked Chatty Cabbie. Yes, we said.

“Do you think any of those people were really practicing the black arts?” No, we said.

But I liked how she said “the black arts.” It made it so cinematic, like there might have been puritan women, Goody Gumdrops and Goody Two-Shoes, who churned butter and knitted Bibles by day, but lurked around their neighbors’ barns by night shooting fire and typhoid from their long green fingertips.

But given this conversational diving board, Chatty sprung off the deep end into a pool of ideas about how there are people called Wiccas that her friends say worship nature, but some people believe in the black arts and some people think just wishing bad things can make them happen.

“Well,” she summarized, “Those people must have been doing something if they were accused of things like that.”

It was a good introduction to Salem. The girl had the makings of a witch trial judge.

Our rented Kia rolled into Salem, Mass. at dusk, the perfect time to hit “The Witch City,” as it is described on a 1912 postcard depicting a hag on a broom. We parked and wandered into the night. I expected to hear “Night on Bald Mountain,” playing from unseen speakers and for the branches of gnarled, black oak trees, planted perhaps by Tim Burton, to turn into grasping hands before our very eyes.

The first figure that greets you in Salem is Roger Conant, or at least an outsized bronze statue of him. Conant founded Salem in 1626, about 70 years before circumstance and wackanuts would make his town synonymous with mass hysteria, false accusation and fear. Noting the era’s fashion, it’s a wonder people didn’t hide under a table just from catching sight of themselves in a mirror: Conant’s swirling cape, sharp features and conical wide-brimmed pilgrim hat make him sharply resemble Margaret Hamilton in the Wizard of Oz. Fashion or not, if I saw people swooping down the street dressed like this I’d be wigged out all the time, too.

Despite this creepy centerpiece, there wasn’t anything scary about downtown Salem at night because -- and I say this with the disclaimer that we were on a 24-hour-trip to see witchy things and ignore all the lovely Cape Cod houses and maritime blah blah blah -- it’s quite touristy. Salem has discovered what so many towns and so many individuals already know: it’s easier to support yourself by being attractive than by being industrious.

This isn’t to demean modern Salem’s productivity, it’s just a fact of economic life that if, as a location, you have something that will bring tourists and their spending cash to you, you use it. And I know because I live in Orlando, which seems to have produced mostly hotel rooms since Disney arrived in 1971.

So, it isn’t strange that Salem is aware of the interest sparked by its history. What’s weird is the fact that people gravitate toward a history so fraught with tragedy. Most of us equate Salem with witches, which subconsciously means Halloweenie things, candy and parties. It sounds like fun. Then you get there and realize there you won’t get to see Witch Hazel cackling at Bugs Bunny and shooting off in a blaze of hairpins. Instead, you face events that took place in the real world, which means they’re going to be a letdown, and in this case, downright stomach-churning.

I didn’t realize this until I saw a picture of myself later standing in front of the Witch Dungeon in shorts and sunglasses, grinning like I’d just won a cute baby contest. The Witch Dungeon is an ominous black building that served as a holding pen for the accused. On a tour of the dungeon you learn that the cells were not only frigid, dark and rat-riddled, but that some were the size of coffins. I was standing in front of this building smiling like it was Miami Beach.

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