To the Child Who Wasn't Believed

CW: Broad references to child abuse, domestic violence, sexual themes

“They'll think it was me. They'll think it was poor old Uncle Birdie. Ah, if you could have seen it, Bess, down there in the deep place, with her hair waving soft and lazy like meadow grass under flood water, and that slit in her throat, like she had an extra mouth. You're the only human mortal I can go to, Bess. If I go to the law, they'll hang it on me. Sweet heavens, save poor old Uncle Birdie.” — (Night of the Hunter, 1955)

THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

A couple of years ago, I saw Night of the Hunter for the first time. It is about children (and adults) who live in fear of not being believed.

The first hour of the movie is a nightmare.

Reverend Harry Powell, a mass murderer who parades from town to town pretending to be a man of God, marries John and Pearl’s widowed mother, Willa. He puts on a humble, kind facade in public and terrorizes the children in private, trying to make them share the whereabouts of the $10,000 their father left them.

The children try to tell their mother what Powell really wants, but she scolds them for it repeatedly.

“John, you always make up that lie.”

Even Powell knows the power dynamics at play, taunting John with “Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s your word against mine. It’s me your mother believes.” Before stabbing Willa to death in their bed later that night.

Powell makes up a story about Willa leaving town to explain her disappearance, but John knows something worse has happened to his mother. After all, Powell has threatened John with a knife on more than one occasion.

But John is little, with no witnesses, no proof. He only has his own experiences and a terrible feeling.

Who can he tell? Who would take the word of a child over the word of a renowned and trusted preacher like Powell?

He races as fast as he can to his only adult friend, Uncle Birdie, who is unconscious. John tries to wake him, but he is too drunk to lift his head. What John doesn’t know is that Uncle Birdie has already found his mother’s dead body at the bottom of the lake. Under the impression that everybody would blame him for the murder, Uncle Birdie drank all night instead of going to the police, which means John is completely alone.

Once John realizes this, he takes Pearl and they run away. Powell follows the siblings on a horse as they travel downriver in a boat, in what is one of the most bleak and haunting parts of the film.

John and Pearl spend many nights running, and all the while Powell is hunting them, frequently singing a haunting religious hymn that can be heard from a great distance—

What a fellowship, what a joy divine
Leaning on the everlasting arms
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine
Leaning on the everlasting arms

Leaning, leaning
Safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning, leaning
Leaning on the everlasting arms

All the while that they’re being chased, John and Pearl run into a couple of adults. But they say nothing of their plight. They have learned that most adults are useless, and worse, that some adults do not care enough about children to believe them.

Finally, John and Pearl find refuge with Ms. Cooper, a strong, powerful woman who loves children. They find a sense of safety in her home… until Powell shows up asking about John and Pearl, claiming to be their father.

Ms. Cooper senses something is off about Powell. She is extremely skeptical of him and asks several questions, trying to catch him in a lie. Her suspicions are confirmed when John doesn’t respond to his “dad.”

“What’s wrong, John? What’s wrong John? John, when your dad says ‘Come’ you should mind him.”

John, with a look of triumph on his face, declares “He ain’t my dad.”

Ms. Cooper pieces it together immediately.

“No. And he ain’t no preacher, neither.”

The next time she appears on screen it’s with a shotgun, pointed at Powell’s face.

All because of one simple sentence from a child.

No questioning.
No badgering.
No shame.

In Ms. Cooper’s eyes, John is an equal. He is believable. He is trustworthy.

The first time I saw this movie, I sobbed.

It was not my adult self sobbing, but rather all of the child versions of myself who felt like nobody would ever believe me.

CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES AND CORE BELIEFS

When I was six years old, I was the first one through the door after a grocery shopping trip. I ran through the hall and turned the corner into the dining room. To my horror, a strange man I did not know was sitting in a chair at the table. I screamed and ran to tell my mom.

She was scared. Anxious. I could feel it as she followed me back into the dining room.

But the man was gone. The only thing out of place was my mom’s jean jacket hanging from the same chair at the table. Had the jean jacket deceived me?

My mom asked if I was sure someone had been there, and if I was, she would call the police. I told her I must have just been seeing things. This ended up being true. No one was there.

I remember feeling embarrassed and ashamed for pointing out something that wasn’t actually there. For inconveniencing someone with my fear. And even worse, for being wrong.

This is the earliest memory I have of being an unreliable narrator, of not being believable. It is one of my core memories.

I was too young to understand that just because my eyes play tricks on me sometimes doesn’t mean I’m a liar. Too young to tell myself it’s okay to express discomfort or fear when I don’t understand something (even if I discover later that there’s nothing to be afraid of).

The simple feeling of being afraid or uncomfortable is enough to say something. I didn’t know that.

Instead, I walked away feeling like adults didn’t trust me. I needed to keep my fears and discomfort to myself unless I was absolutely certain. I couldn’t inconvenience my mom, who had three kids and a newborn, about things that weren’t real when she already had so much going on.

These core beliefs—that I couldn’t be trusted and that I shouldn’t express discomfort or fear, even if it was the truth—would end up wreaking irrevocable damage in my life, and in the lives of others.

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I stayed silent when I witnessed and experienced domestic violence. I stayed silent when a relative slightly older than me exhibited predatory behavior that made me and my other cousins feel uncomfortable. I was silent when I witnessed a child being molested in Primary.

During each of these events, everything inside me was screaming that something was wrong, that I needed to tell someone.

But the core beliefs were just as loud.

You are not believable.
You are not a trustworthy person.
If you bother an adult with this and you are wrong, you will be in huge trouble.

I knew I would hear fear and anger and doubt in an adult’s voice when they asked the inevitable question, “Are you sure?” And that scared me.

So I filled my own screaming mouth with sand and said nothing as I buried each experience alive.

LESSONS FROM THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

I did not have access to trustworthy adults growing up, and if I did, I would not have known how to talk about what was happening.

John found Ms. Cooper while he was still a child, and felt safe enough to tell his story after a few months. I found my Ms. Cooper when I was 21, and felt safe enough to tell him everything 4 years later.

After that, it was a snowball effect of finding people I trusted enough with my story and sharing it with them. One of the hardest and most rewarding experiences of my adulthood has been sharing my story with people who believe me.

So what do we learn from The Night of the Hunter?

You are a reliable narrator.

You are believable.

You always have been.

Never mind that people are not always capable of listening to your story and showing up. Never mind that people who abuse and enable abuse like to paint victims and whistleblowers as liars.

You are believable. And the right people will believe you.

And if you are surrounded on all sides by people who would sooner paint you to be a “whore of babylon” or a “liar” who is going to be thrust down to hell, it’s time to run.

Run, like John did, until you find a kind old lady in a warm house who cares about you and sees you for exactly who you are.

“John, you know when you’re little you have more endurance than God is ever to grant you again? Children are man at his strongest. They abide.”

Sometimes you have to be that kind old lady for your child self. Hold your child self tight and tell them you believe them. Tell them how wonderful they are and that without them you would not be here.

And when the vile, awful voice starts singing that taunting hymn outside the house at night, I hope you’ve healed enough that you can be the gentle voice from inside the house who sings confidently in return:

Lean on Jesus
Lean on Jesus
Safe and secure from all alarms
Lean on Jesus
Lean on Jesus
Leaning on the everlasting arms

When the cruel voice calls from the dark, “Figured I was gone, huh,” and says “I want them kids,” you do what Ms. Cooper did.

Shoot the sinister voice, kick it out of your house, banish it forever.

And comfort the child inside of you that’s hurting.

"It’s a hard world for little things” says Ms. Cooper.

But it’s a little easier when you’re believed.