by Неизвестный
When Jamsie asked if he could use any other name, Mark said with a laugh that he could, but that he would find only that name effective. Mark explained the essence of Exorcism—what it meant, and its effects in the possessed. Finally Mark told Jamsie to call him: “Night or day. Wherever I am, wherever you are, whenever it happens to be, I'll come immediately to you. But don't delay, if once you decide I can help with Exorcism.”
When Jamsie got home that night, he could not sleep. But Ponto did not appear.
About a month later, when Jamsie went for his yearly medical checkup, the doctor told him that all was well except for his heart. He should be careful of too much excitement. The doctor prescribed some tablets and regulated Jamsie's diet. The doctor asked him if he was worried about anything. Was there anything preying on his mind?
Jamsie was surprised at the sharpness of the doctor. Yes, he admitted he was very preoccupied with personal matters. The doctor recommended that Jamsie think about consulting a psychologist-just to chat over things, relieve the strain a little. He gave Jamsie the name of a man whom he could personally recommend.
Jamsie thought over the matter for about a week. He could not accept Mark's conclusion that Ponto should be exorcised-not because he did not believe that Ponto was a disembodied spirit, or “anyway partially disembodied,” he thought wryly, but because he could not face up to daily life without Ponto's disturbances.
But then he began to wonder why he liked such disturbances. Because Ponto's possession of him had already gone a certain distance? That was what Mark thought. Or because, as he preferred to think, Ponto was the one relief in an otherwise bleak landscape—and, into the bargain, a marvelous stimulus for his work? Or was this precisely the trap Ponto had laid for him? All the lines crisscrossed in confusion. And the confusion only got worse when he began to have all sorts of doubts about Mark's judgment and intentions. These priests were always looking for converts anyway, he thought. Yet Mark sounded so sincere. Perhaps, after all, a talk with a good psychologist would be helpful.
All that week, Ponto did not appear.
It was when he was driving to his first appointment with the psychologist that Jamsie heard Ponto for the first time in eight or nine days.
“The shrink's all right, Jamsie. He's a good man; and you go and do what he says. But if you would only listen to me and do what I want, you would need no shrink.” Jamsie went anyway.
The psychologist recommended by his doctor passed Jamsie on to a psychiatrist colleague. Jamsie spent over 18 months in therapy, but the results were terribly disappointing.
The therapist started off by warning Jamsie that his psychological condition was precarious indeed. He needed extended treatment. But after about six months, the therapist reversed his judgment. He said he could not find any genuine psychological imbalance or abnormalcy in Jamsie. All of Jamsie's accounts of Ponto, the therapist said, were concocted holus-bolus by Jamsie, were deliberate inventions. The damned thing was a hoax, and he for one didn't think it was funny. Jamsie finally persuaded the man that this was no hoax, and went on earnestly with therapy for another year. But finally, when it was clear that there was no appreciable change for the better, Jamsie gave up on psychiatry.
During this period of therapy Ponto appeared regularly and with his usual behaviorisms, but he never really distressed Jamsie. In fact, Jamsie was glad to see Ponto. He seemed more real than the therapist and all his analyses. And, as Ponto remarked to Jamsie one day, “You and I, Jamsie, are one, real flesh and blood; but that shrink lives in his head. Now I ask you: Which is the better off?”
Toward the end of Jamsie's treatment with the therapist, Ponto seemed to grow impatient, as if he had a deadline to meet in Jamsie's case. More and more, Jamsie found that Ponto's thoughts, reactions, feelings, memories, intentions were present to his consciousness, even when Ponto was not visible. He began to experience two sets of thoughts and feelings—his own and Ponto's. He always knew which were which, but he literally had no privacy of mind.
Amazingly enough, except for an occasional clash with Jay Beedem, who always treated Jamsie with marked coldness, Jamsie's work continued to be excellent. But by November 1963, internally, inside Jamsie, life was becoming unbearable.
Jamsie remembers clearly that it was from December 1963 that a new desperation began to take hold of him. Ponto did not let up. He kept devising new antics and developed the habit of appearing in Jamsie's apartment at the end of the day and not disappearing till Jamsie went to bed. He chattered on and on, usually urging Jamsie to do something-quit his job, take a trip, hate this person or that-but'. most often to “let Ponto in.”
Jamsie remembers one incident clearly. He had returned home one evening very late. Ponto appeared on his living-room table and spent about an hour juggling words and phrases and colored lumps of sound—or so it seemed to Jamsie—in the air. Then, as Ponto grew more intense, he developed a chant that grated terribly on Jamsie, a sort of “rhythm and grunt.” He repeated a word over arid over with a little rhythmic grunt after it each time. “Let me in,” he would begin, Then over and over and over: “Let-uh! Let-uh! Let-uh! Me-uh! Me-uh! Me-uh! In-uh! In-uh! In-uh!”. The staccato beat was torture to Jamsie. He finally screamed at Ponto to stop.
In the months following, Jamsie was treated to repeat performances along this line, sometimes once a week. Each time, Jamsie would be to silence Ponto reduced to shouting and screaming in order Neighbors complained regularly about the noise.
Very late one particular evening in December of 1963, after having had his nerves jangled in this way by Ponto for too long, Jamsie could hardly believe it when Ponto was finally quiet for a while. Jamsie soaked up the badly needed tranquillity.
But rather soon he began to hear a new sound. He listened intently. I le could hear Ponto's voice clearly, but it seemed to be caught up in a babel of other voices similar to Ponto's.
He could not tell what was being said. There was a lot of laughter and many exclamations. But the whole thing reminded him of how sometimes he used to listen to the radio in his home of the 19305 and get nothing but a rising and falling stream of static together with indistinct and far-off voices.
As Jamsie strained to hear, there was a pause and silence. Then Ponto's mincing voice from the kitchen: “Jamsie, would you mind if some of my associates and family joined us? After all, we are going to get married, aren't we? And soon, eh?”
The babel of voices started again and seemed to be approaching the door of his living room.
Jamsie froze for a second; then, seized by a blind, rushing panic, he stood up and dashed out the door, got into his car, and sped as fast as he could to the Golden Gate Bridge. His mind was numb, but his emotions were in turmoil. He felt cold, unwanted, persecuted, desperate. He could not take any more of it. He wanted out. He stopped in the middle of the bridge.
“It's no use, Jamsie.”
Jamsie knew the voice. God! He could have cried. There he was, balanced on the damned guardrail.
“It's no use, my friend. You and I have much to do before your life ends. Why do you think I am to be your familiar? So that you die voting? Don't be a fool!”
Jamsie turned away. For the first time he had the feeling of being beaten by Ponto. He made his way slowly back home. There was no hurry. He did not know what to do anyway. He thought aimlessly of Mark. But what the hell, the shrink hadn't helped. What could Mark do for him?
Ponto did not appear again that night, but it was a very brief rest for Jamsie. The nighttime had always been a great source of strength and recuperation for Jamsie; and even though Ponto had been encroaching a little more all the time, there had always remained some hours at night when Jamsie was alone, relatively at peace, and could rest. Ponto had never stayed the entire night without asking Jamsie's consent.
But now Ponto insisted: they had to be intimate. What he meant by that Jamsie was never sure. But it did mean he would spend nights in Jamsie's apartment. And with a significance that escaped Jamsie,
Ponto wanted him to consent. They were going to be married, weren't they? They were going to make the whole thing legal, weren't they? Ponto said, grinning in his crooked fashion.
After weeks of badgering, Jamsie was ripe to make a drastic decision. Anything would be better than this torture. Should he finish it all by suicide? Or would it be better to telephone Father Mark? Or should he just give in to Ponto and see how things worked out?
The worst of the badgering sessions with Ponto occurred on February i. Ponto installed himself in Jamsie's bedroom. Jamsie spent the night stalking up and down his living-room floor, making coffee to stay awake, arguing in a loud voice with Ponto, weeping continuously, smoking and drinking intermittently. He could not get rid of Ponto. And he could not make up his mind. He needed time. It was the pressure on him by Ponto to make a decision that was crushing his spirit.
Finally he decided to make time for thinking and analyzing it all. He would ask for a leave of absence from the station. During the leave he could go over all the events of the last few years, consult with the psychiatrist again, see Father Mark, and get sufficient control of I himself to form some decision about a wise course of action.
When he arrived at the station early the following morning and went to see Jay Beedem to request a few days' leave, his difficulties took a new form.
Beedem spoke without lifting his face from the notes he was reading. Beedem had noticed the increasingly peculiar behavior of Jamsie over the last few weeks, he said. Beedem did not think a leave • of absence was the solution. Of course, Jamsie had some overdue vacation days coming to him. But Beedem felt that, if Jamsie continued creating a tension among the other station employees, there I could be no other alternative but to fire him. The tone was neither friendly nor unfriendly. Neutral. Very cold. Impersonal.
Jamsie still thought he could get through to Beedem if he could just give him some idea of the dimension of the personal problem that was torturing him. But when he tried, Beedem broke in slowly and emphatically: “If you cannot make right decisions in personal affairs, you cannot be trusted with matters that involve our clients and our listeners.”
Then Beedem lifted his head for the first time since Jamsie had entered his office. Jamsie looked for some spark, any inkling of hope for himself. Beedem's eyes were blank. Really blank. No metaphor. They could have been made of colored glass, except that, unlike glass, they did not reflect the office or the objects around them or the light from the windows.
Jamsie knew then that there was no use trying to get through to Beedem. He said something about catching up on the vacation days he had missed. Beedem bent once again over his notes.
As Jamsie closed the door on his way out, he threw a quick look back: Beedem was sitting bolt upright in his chair, eyes fixed on Jamsie, glaring steadily. Beedem was looking through him, Jamsie thought. Was that a look of hate and sneering contempt in Beedem's eyes? Or was it simply the natural reaction of a harried station manager to yet another personal problem of an employee?
Going down the corridor to his office, Jamsie tried to remember some of Mark's after-dinner conversation with him. He seemed to be the only one Jamsie had met who was sure he had a bead on Jamsie's problem and what to do about it. But nothing was clear to Jamsie now. He sat down at his desk. He tried to clear his mind. He wanted to go over everything that had happened to him since he had taken up work at the station. His thoughts were in a maelstrom. He could not think logically. Words such as “good,” “evil,” “Satan,” “Jesus,” “Ponto,” “marriage,” “possession,” “free will” twirled and tumbled around inside his head. He could not straighten them out. Then “Beedem” began bobbing up in front of his mind. Beedem? Just like that, with a large question mark. “Jay Beedem? Jay Beedem? Jay Beedem?”
“Jamsie, I've got the schedule for next month worked out.” It was his producer, Cloyd.
Jamsie looked up stupidly and muttered: “Jay Beedem?”
“Oh, he's seen it. It's okay. We're all set. Wanna see it?”
Jamsie took the schedule. But he could not concentrate on it now. “I'll call you, Cloyd,” was all he could manage.
When he was alone, he tried again. It was no use. He could see Mark's face, Jay Beedem's face, Ponto's face, his own face, Ara's face, Lydia's face, Cloyd's face. And Jay Beedem's again, with that look of contempt and hate. But they were all question marks now.
Slowly Jamsie began to calm down; and he tried to get some questions in order, at least. Was Mark right, and was he being invited to be possessed? Was he possessed already? Was Mark just another priest trying to make a convert out of him? Or maybe somewhere along the line the shrink had been right? Was he paranoid or schizophrenic? Making it all up?
Still restless, his thoughts switched back to Beedem. What was he anyway? Just another stupid, heartless jerk? No, this guy had something else. And he had it in spades. Until today, when Jamsie had happened to glance back, he had never seen Jay Beedem display an emotion. Nothing from inside. He had never even seen him really laugh.
He started to think more about Beedem as a person. What did he know of him? Beedem was a natural salesman. He could speak in 10,000 different tongues and tones, so to say, when he wanted to sell something. He had a vicious wit and could turn without warning on anyone and cut them down mercilessly in public. He often used four-letter words as if they were gilt-edged securities to guarantee the authority and accuracy of what he said. The women at the office shunned him. Some had slept with him once—but no one ever repeated the performance. He was either feared or despised, even when he made people laugh.
Uncle Ponto still never appeared when Beedem was around. Ponto appeared everywhere else, goddammit, Jamsie thought bitterly. Why not whenever he was with Jay Beedem? Why not today, when he could have used a little of that glib coaching?
Some strange edge to Beedem worried Jamsie. He was angry, sure. But that wasn't it. He just couldn't get it together in his head.
Then all of a sudden Jamsie was distracted from his thoughts about Beedem. It had been a long time since he'd worried about it, but now he felt he had to solve the old puzzle of the “look,” the “funny-lookin' face.” Great! As on that crazy night in Cleveland, he was sure now he was on the verge of discovering what he had “been told about it.” For the first time in years he tried desperately to get all his memories together, in order to piece the fragments into a composite robot sketch. Time and time again, as he sat at his desk, he thought he had it. His knuckles were white as he gripped the arms of his chair in the effort. But each time, the bits fell away from his bidding. He sat hunched up in his chair, laboring at this mental sketch; and slowly, bit by bit, the fragments started finally to fall into place and stay put.
After some time, Cloyd stopped by Jamsie's office again. He found Jamsie in extraordinary efforts of concentration, groaning and muttering to himself. When he could not get Jamsie's attention, he became frightened and ran for help. He found two station engineers, and together all three of them watched Jamsie, wondering what they should do.
Jamsie, meanwhile, was totally absorbed in his effort. He Vas on the very verge, he felt. But, at once, all the fragments fell apart into a long, jagged line at the end of which were Jay Beedem's unsmiling eyes. Then, again in a lightning flash, the line of fragments seemed to pour out his right ear, make for the window, and disappear up into the blue midday sky. The last trace he saw of it was Jay Beedem's face, for once broken by an ear-to-ear grin, trailing off at the tail end of the retreating line.
Jamsie clapped his hands to his ears. He was shouting, a tangled, throaty gust of protest and rage.
Finally he heard Cloyd's voice coming from a great distance: “Jamsie! Jamsie! Are you okay? Jamsie! Wake up!” He felt three pairs of hands on him, and he looked into the frightened faces of Cloyd and the two engineers.
“What's going on here?” It was Jay Beedem, calm, dispassionate, annoyed, and bored all at once. He stood in the door and motioned with his hand to the others to leave. H
e told Jamsie almost paternally that he should take the rest of the day off.
Jamsie felt completely beaten. He had not solved anything. He had not understood anything. It was idiotic for things to start flying out of his head again. He had not even gotten a leave of absence. The rest of the day off! Thanks a lot, he thought.
He stood up drooping and bowed, almost in tears. Jay Beedem stood aside. Jamsie stumbled out of the office, down the corridor, and out it into the parking lot to his car. It was Jamsie's last day at the station. He would not see Jay Beedem again. But at that moment Jamsie could not think ahead for five minutes.
The moment he entered his apartment, he knew Ponto was there somewhere. There was that smell. . .
“Now, don't be angry, Jamsie,” the voice came from the hall closet.
“I'm going to remain away from you until you call me. Don't be angry. Just give the matter some cool thought.” Jamsie brightened slightly. But fatigue took over. He fell on the bed, and in a few minutes was fast asleep.
It was about seven o'clock on Saturday morning when he awoke quietly. He was sure that some sound had awakened him. He listened for a few moments. Then he heard a rustling and scraping sound from the closet where Ponto had been the previous night.
Jamsie grew tense and suspicious. What was Ponto up to now? He tiptoed over, stood listening a moment, then jerked the sliding door of the closet aside. What he saw galvanized him with a disgust and outrage he had never felt before, even in his worst times with Ponto. Ponto was sitting on top of the old icon, picking away at the bits of mosaic that composed the face of the Virgin. Already the eyes were two sightless black holes, and Ponto was working on the mouth.