Werewolf Radar: No Woman No Criot
By Nate Balding
Art by Josh Keyes
Published Issue 130, October 2024
A myriad precedents have been set for stories where the travails of coming-of-age are represented by otherworldly forces. Buffy, Wednesday, Harry Potter and The Blue Balls of Angst. Sure, the last one is slash fanfic (Hermione Granger/Luna Lovegood causes a great deal of confusion in the timely throes of an updated Jane Austen). But they nonetheless draw back an essential fear of the hormonal unknown and speak to the generation currently vise-gripped by biology most foul.
So it should come as no surprise that in October 1979 an entire school actually had what the police deemed a riot. Cause of riot? Why, Satanic possession, natch. Because when the Lord of All That Exists Unholy whether on Earth or in Hell wants to raise an army, he’s thinkin’ troubled teens and not, say, all the burned-out souls suffering from severe PTSD having been in, y’know, an actual army. It just makes sense.
While seemingly devoid of logic there may be some reasoning to Old Nick’s summation of the students of the Miami Aerospace Academy. A) It’s in Miami. He lives there nine out of 10 months in any given year. Slightly more during the television run of Miami Vice, during which the consultations of the Prince of Darkness provided every other plotline involving a speedboat. It’s common knowledge that Satan loves speed (synonymically, even — you’d think more of the daguerreotypes about him would involve an alchemist offering him a hot Erlenmeyer flask and a “smoking pipette,” the gross lightbulb of the late alchemical era). B) The Academy was being run by a narcissistic lunatic named Evaristo Marina who fled Cuba with a price on his head and demanded his staff and students refer to him as “El General.” A position which he had not previously occupied during the Cuban Revolution, but just kinda figured he would have gotten away with it too, if not for Castro and those meddling kids. He once coached teen soccer though, so basically the same thing.
Marina’s plan for the academy was to introduce what he called “Cuban discipline” — he’d been General Director of Public Order back on the island, and if that makes you think he’s both a casino strongman AND a violent cop, you’re completely correct. Full marks, now report to the paddlin’ room to make sure you keep those grades top-notch. The Academy was operated under — instead of educational theories — authoritarian rules. Marina hired an all non-accredited teaching staff who were essentially given full leeway to treat students (many of whom were already delinquents sent there in lieu of juvenile sentences) however they felt was necessary to maintain rule of. Well, not law, per se, but there’s no doubt everyone felt like they couldn’t be touched by the police. Not even in a bad way that almost gets the cop in trouble, but no DA will touch it (that’s probably a movie, right?)
You may be starting to see the maelstrom of ingredients for a “riot.”
However, it was also 1979 and Satanic Panic was in congruence with a rise in atavistic spiritualism and there’s a reason the Miami News would call it the “Ouija Riot.” Prior to the October 25th events that, to this day, are being referred to as “inspired by demonic possession,” many of the youths gathered for a pre-Halloween spook ‘em party where, allegedly, kids broke into groups to read tarot, contact spirits via Ouija Board (the second most nefarious product in the Milton Bradley universe after Monopoly) and a few choice games of Bloody Mary. It was one of these good time bathroom and broomsticks that would establish the mental state of a young girl when, terrified, went screaming from the bathroom. Other party-goers, assuming she’d actually summoned Bloody Mary, also fled the house. As with all great scary stories involving the Devil, concrete evidence is lacking and only the most trustworthy rage-filled teens with the deep-seeded, nihilistic sarcasm of the abused are available for quotes.
Following is a short account of events from the 25th:
The 13-year-old girl who’d been scared shitless by her experience with a mirror in the bathroom — correctly in direct defiance of everything Oingo Boingo stood for — became visibly upset. Her teacher thought to attempt hypnosis (granted, this “fact” was only found in one documentary and nowhere else, so pour yourself enough grains of salt to create a magical barrier with which to take this). That further unhinged the girl who fled to the bathroom (maybe not the ideal location for avoiding Bloody Mary), where she broke down into tears. Several friends followed her from the classroom. The girl claimed to have been made evil, levitates — yes, levitates — while in another classroom unattended teens start jawing off and get into a fist fight. One of them — the demonically-enhanced one with the strength of 10 men — is defenestrated through a second story window, landing on either the top of a bus or directly on the asphalt. What followed, according to yard disciplinarian Josef Wolf, was an “exorcist-style head turn,” and several administrators attempting to restrain the boy, who repeatedly rebuffed them.
Meanwhile, the entire school had gone insane. Doors were being torn off of hinges, lockers overturned, windows shattered. Some students had been led upstairs in the hopes of avoiding the random violence of the kinderkrieg. After approximately 3-and-half hours it subsided, with kids offering police and firefighters the vague excuse that they’d been taken over by supernatural forces. And not the ones that famed UFO enthusiast Ariana Grande titled a song for. These were definitely real.
Or, maybe — just maybe — starting a disciplinary academy where you offer to take juvenile offenders off of the hands of the state is sort of a great recipe for a bunch of people to flip the fuck out every once in awhile. The world may never know.
Have questions about the paranormal?
Send them to werewolfradarpod@gmail.com or on Twitter: @WerewolfRadar.
It’s a big, weird world. Don’t be scared. Be Prepared.
Nate Balding is a freelance humanoid who occasionally manifests in print and can most likely be seen at Werewolf Radar. Should you wish to hear him manifest audibly you can do so at the aforementioned Werewolf Radar’s associated podcast on Spotify and Apple, and if anything ever becomes humorous again, on a variety of stand up stages around the nation. If you’re truly craving further content there’s always @Exploder on Twitter — even if it is only a form of digital self flagellation at this point. His one thing that he considers actually accomplished was this time he was published in the journal Nature and then later collected into a volume called Futures from Nature, still available in places that have things.
Portland-based ecosurrealist Josh Keyes’ work has been described as “a satirical look at the impact urban sprawl has on the environment and surmises, with the aid of scientific slices and core samples, what could happen if we continue to infiltrate and encroach on our rural surroundings.” His painting style often includes narrative and the illusion of constructed worlds. Keyes’ style is reminiscent of the diagrammatic vocabulary found in scientific textbook illustrations that often express through a detached and clinical viewpoint an empirical representation of the natural world. Assembled into this virtual stage set are references to contemporary events along with images and themes from his personal mythology. See more on his Instagram.
Check out Nate’s August Werewolf Radar install, I’m Dreaming of A Fright Christmas, and Josh’s August Back Cover, Drift, in case you missed, or head to our Explore section to see more Werewolf Radars of the past.