The chilling account of Cornelius Garner, a former slave from Virginia, interviewed in 1937, sets a haunting stage:
“De only Ku Klux I ever bumped into was a passel o’ young Baltimore Doctors tryin’ to ketch me one night an’ take me to de medicine college to ’periment on me. I seed dem a laying’ fer me an’ I run back into de house. Dey had a plaster all ready for to slap on my mouf. Yessuh.”
This chilling testimony, unearthed during the Federal Writers’ Project in the sweltering summer of 1937 in Durham, North Carolina, introduces us to a terrifying figure in African American folklore: the “Night Doctors.” Our narrator, Mr. Bisset, a black interviewer for the project, arrives in Durham to document the fading memories of former slaves. However, his journey quickly veers into a darker, more sinister narrative, intertwining historical research with a macabre personal agenda.
Encounters in Durham: Unveiling the Whispers of “Night Doctors”
Bisset’s initial experiences in Durham highlight the pervasive racism of the Jim Crow South. Facing blatant discrimination at a local motel, he eventually finds lodging with a black butcher. This encounter underscores the segregated reality of the era and sets the stage for the stories Bisset is about to uncover. Mama Elsa, a local cook, and Miss Maddie Shaw, an elderly former slave, become key figures in revealing the lore of Night Doctors.
Miss Maddie Shaw, a ninety-seven-year-old woman with vivid memories of slavery, initially resists sharing her experiences, offering instead a glimpse into the brutal realities of plantation life under Miss Emma Payne and her husband. It is when Bisset mentions “Night Doctors” that Miss Shaw’s demeanor shifts, revealing a deep-seated fear. She describes Night Doctors as beings who “snatch away slaves to ’speriment on,” taking them to “a great white dissectin’ hall, big as a whole city, and cut you open right dere and show you all yer insides!”
Mama Elsa, while more skeptical, reinforces the common understanding of Night Doctors as figures of terror in black communities. She recounts tales of Night Doctors using “black bottles full of ether or needles to prick you with” or “plaster round yo’ face” to capture their victims for experimentation. She suggests the myth might have been propagated by white masters to control slaves, but also hints at a deeper, more unsettling fear connected to the legend, especially in light of recent mysterious deaths in Durham.
Bisset’s Dual Identity: Interviewer and Something More Sinister
As Bisset delves into the folklore of Night Doctors, the narrative subtly reveals his own disturbing parallel activities. While outwardly engaged in collecting oral histories, Bisset is secretly a murderer, targeting white individuals he deems deserving of punishment for their racist actions. His meticulous preparation, the white suit and surgical instruments, and the clinical detachment with which he dissects his victims mirror the terrifying image of the Night Doctors from folklore.
The first victim, the Chanford Motel proprietor, becomes a specimen for Bisset’s morbid curiosity. He justifies his actions not as mere revenge but as a quest for knowledge, a “search within the reek of bile and organs.” This chilling scene establishes Bisset as a figure who embodies the very terror associated with Night Doctors, blurring the lines between folklore and reality.
The Quest for Hate: Seeking the Source of Fear
Bisset’s interest in Night Doctors transcends mere academic curiosity. He reveals to Miss Maddie Shaw that he believes in them, not just as folklore, but as something real and powerful. He confesses his “great search” is for hate itself, believing Night Doctors might hold the key to understanding and perhaps even controlling this destructive emotion.
Miss Maddie Shaw’s extended narrative about Jeremiah and his encounter with Night Doctors deepens the mythos. She describes Night Doctors as beings who can “come right in under the door!” and communicate through “whisper talk.” Their motive, she claims, is to feed on suffering, particularly the immense suffering of enslaved people. “It’s our sufferin’ dey want!… Ain’t nobody seen more pain and sufferin’ in these parts than us poor slaves.” This explanation elevates Night Doctors from mere bogeymen to entities feeding on the historical trauma of slavery.
Entering the Realm of Night Doctors: A Descent into the Supernatural
Driven by his quest, Bisset follows Miss Maddie Shaw’s cryptic instructions, seeking the “dead Angel Oak” in the woods. This journey marks his transition from observer to participant, from investigator to seeker of forbidden knowledge. The Angel Oak, described as “squat and bone white,” becomes a portal to another dimension, a grotesque gateway into the realm of Night Doctors.
Bisset’s visceral experience entering the tree – cutting through “red pulp” and “fleshy interior” – is a symbolic rebirth, a gruesome initiation into the world he seeks to understand. He emerges into a “gargantuan” hall of white stone, a sterile, silent space that defies earthly dimensions, the “great white dissectin’ hall” from Miss Maddie Shaw’s tales.
His encounter with the monstrous centipede-like guardian and the towering, featureless Night Doctors themselves is a descent into pure horror. These beings, devoid of human characteristics, represent an alien intelligence, beings who operate on principles beyond human comprehension.
The Price of Knowledge: Offering Hate and Becoming the Conduit
Captured and subjected to a terrifying examination, Bisset confronts the Night Doctors. He understands their purpose: to “read” him, to comprehend the hate he seeks to offer. The graphic description of his dissection, mirroring his own acts of violence, becomes a horrifying form of communication. He “sings” to them of hate, of racial violence, of the “daily rituals of humiliations and oppressions” of the South. His suffering, his visceral experience of being dissected alive, becomes the explanation of hate they seek.
In the end, Bisset returns transformed. He has given “all of me” to the Night Doctors, becoming an empty vessel, a conduit for their influence in the human world. His final encounter with Miss Maddie Shaw confirms his metamorphosis. He is no longer just Bisset, the interviewer; he is something else, something intertwined with the terrifying legend he sought to understand. He collapses, not in defeat, but in a final act of transformation, “flattening like a rat as I squeeze beneath the door,” mirroring the Night Doctors’ ability to slip into spaces unseen, a chilling embodiment of the folklore he has embraced.
The story of “Night Doctors” remains a potent exploration of fear, folklore, and the dark undercurrents of American history, leaving the reader to ponder the true nature of hate and the terrifying entities that might feed upon it.
