The Demon

by The Demon

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  up alive. A garden, my own woods with a stream, and inside Im churning with broken bottles and rusty tin cans. It doesnt help. Nothing helps. What else is there??? And Harry clung more desperately to his birch, his lovely, young white birch— yet again, yet again, yet again, yet again, yet again—feeling the rottenness of decay growing within him and trying to spit it out but only able to endure the foulness with which it filled his mouth, yet again. . . .

  Linda smiled and hummed her way through the day, and the house was filled with warm sunshine until Harry came back from his woods. Linda watched him walk to a chair and sit, and she went hollow inside. Everything turned gray and proceeded to get darker. She continued to function through the day, feeding the children, washing faces and answering questions listlessly, feeling somehow that it was all part of a hopeless sham and berating herself for having allowed her hopes to get so high so easily. She just could not seem to keep from hoping, but now some force far greater than she, seemed to be mocking her.

  The stifling grayness affected the children too. They rebelled against Lindas bristling swipes with the face cloth and started bickering with each other, and Mary started yelling and whining and crying incomprehensibly, and Linda yelled at them and asked Harry Jr. what he was doing to his sister? Nothing. Im not doing anything—Mary screamed and stomped her foot—Be quiet, for Gods sake. Harry, you leave your sister alone—But I didnt do nothing—Mary screamed something—I did not, you liar—Dont call your sister a liar—Well she is— And you leave her alone—But I didnt do—Mary screamed louder and louder—Didnt, didnt—If I have to come in there, youre going to be sorry—Mary screamed and screamed and screamed—Give me that, you brat—Thats it! I am not going to tolerate this any longer, and Linda slapped them and sent them to their rooms and they continued to yell from behind closed doors and Linda tried to pour herself a cup of coffee and she was trembling so badly that she spilled the hot coffee on her hand and dropped the cup and she started shaking so

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  violently she had to lean against the wall to support herself, then she went into the bathroom and leaned against the closed door and wept

  and

  Harry wished—yet again, yet again—to krist he could do something about what was happening ... anything about anything, but all he could do was listen to his grinding jaws and clutch the arms of his chair and feel the world slowly—yet again—crumble and melt into itself like the face that occurred in the night.

  Things got progressively worse the following week. The bickering and screaming and crying and yelling seemed to start even before Harry got out of bed, while he was still trying to fight his way back to sleep and not wake up, but the noise forced him from the bed and by the time he got to the breakfast table it had reached a peak and then suddenly abated slightly as he sat down, and Linda spoke softly to the children and encouraged them to eat and be quiet and leave each other alone and Mary didnt like her cereal and Harry Jr. toyed with his and spilled some on his shirt and Linda shook with rage but controlled herself and wiped the cereal off his shirt and ominously told him to be careful and to hurry and finish his breakfast or he would be late for school and he said he didnt like the cereal and then yelled at Mary to stop kicking him and kicked her and Mary yelled and started crying and kicking and Harry Jr. yelled and started kicking and Linda yelled at them to shut up, and Harry sat drinking his coffee staring straight ahead and Linda stopped their kicking, but they continued to yell and Harry Jr. said he didnt want the cereal and threw his spoon down and Linda told him that he had better stop and start eating and he yelled NO, NO! and Mary started screeching and Harry Jr. continued whining and Linda yelled at them and Harry suddenly slapped his son and knocked him off the chair

  Instant silence as Linda stared in shock, her mouth hanging open, and Mary blinked rapidly and Harry Jr. looked up in astonishment,

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  his silent mouth open, the marks on his face becoming angrier and angrier as he lay on the floor frozen, seemingly not breathing, as was everyone else, then Mary started to whimper with fear and Harry Jr. scampered and half crawled to his room before starting to cry and howl and Marys whimpering grew louder and louder and Linda instinctively put her arms around her and stared at Harry in bewildering astonishment and Harry got up, his head screaming, and pleading for forgiveness but unable to speak or comprehend, and he saw Lindas eyes and the pleading question in them and wanted to shout I DONT KNOW WHY! but could only avert his eyes as quickly as possible and leave.

  Yet again,

  yet again, yet again, yet again—Harry tried to relieve the turbulence within him but there was nowhere he could direct his mind, and he could not keep it a blank. It jumped and jumbled from women to those foul-smelling traps he had ended up in, and his nose burned as he relived the stench, and he was dragged through the offices and his petty pilfering, but that was a bore and ineffective and he was dragged protesting back to the subway platform and Times Square—yet again, yet again—and the face melting into itself with its mouth hanging open in an agonizing and silent scream and the face of his son, the screaming red marks of his hand on his face, his mouth open and the silence stabbing through Harry— yet again, yet again, yet again—and it seemed as if there was no place for Harry to go without animating the agony within him, and no matter how hard he fought against it he continued to find himself on the subway platform and walking through Times Square and his sons eyes burned him and everything inside him started sinking and he could not swallow away the foul leaden taste in his mouth and he tried to turn away from those images but they persisted and he would feel the guilt torment him and ooze through his pores and trickle down his sides and back in an agonizing insectlike crawl—yet again, yet again, yet again, yet again, yet again—and the Wall Street Journal didnt help nor could he become absorbed in the

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  scenery flickering by through broken fences and telephone poles and wires or in the sudden darkness of the tunnel as the train plunged underground, and the people seemed to be crushing up against his cab so that he was almost tempted to walk part of the way up to his office to avoid the elevator but forty-three floors were too much so he endured the ride finding it more and more difficult to breathe, and when he got to his office he closed then locked the door and sat at his desk uncomfortably conscious of his damp clothing irritating his body and still feeling crushed, sitting behind his huge desk in his large luxurious office, and he looked over his shoulder and through the huge window at the city and drew the drapes and tried desperately to dispel the forces that were crushing him but he could not find any defense against them, almost thinking of praying but quickly shoving the embryonic thought into some dark corner and trying to break loose from the tightness by inhaling deeply but unable to breathe deeply enough to break through the constriction and relieve the irritating oppression in his chest—yet again—and his son looked at him and the finger marks smoldered their way into his flesh and Harry grabbed his head and shook it and moaned low as he fought the suffocating feeling, as he forced air down his throat in staccato gasps and he trembled and fought his way through the day by forcing himself into his work again and again and again and again and again, yet again. . . .

  He seemed to age daily, almost hourly, the week preceding Palm Sunday. The haunting pressure within was almost equalled by the pressure without from work. A multinational organization was attempting to weaken, and ultimately destroy the corporations international syndicate. Harry, and the other members of the board, knew that he could develop the necessary strategy to preserve the integrity of the syndicate, but speed was of the utmost importance. There was a cutoff date, April 15, and if the reorganization plan was not ready by then, everything Harry had worked so hard to create through the years would suddenly disappear and the firm would be in financial chaos. And so he tried to continue to resolve his inner

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  conflict by abandoning himself in his work, but that too was steadily eroding as
a solution. He still managed to work, but his haunted mind made a mockery of him. He not only worked with lethargic ineptness that was incredible for him, but was constantly aware of the terrors in his mind, the terrors that were eating away at his flesh and boring into his bones.

  He had lunch with Walt and Clarke Simmons every day that week, and each lunch started in exactly the same manner: How is it coming, Harry? Fine, nothing to worry about, and he would cringe inwardly as he heard himself lie, and he prayed that he would survive one more lunch so he could get back to the sanctuary of his office, resolved to attack the job with his former vigor so there really would not be anything to worry about. And then they would ask him how he felt, You dont look good at all. Well, I seem to have a slight touch of something, but its all right. It will pass.

  Walt and Clarke were concerned when they looked at Harry, who was obviously fighting some sort of virus, but they just reminded themselves that he could do the job—he had in the past and there was no reason to think he wouldnt now.

  Harry accepted the song of the tracks and allowed it to lull him into an almost pleasant drowsiness. He ignored the papers —yet again, yet again, yet again, yet again—and allowed the clacking to drone through him. When he stood up to get ready to leave the train, he no longer stretched his neck up and his shoulders back, but strained to his feet and hunched forward like a man two inches taller than the ceiling.

  A feeling of hopelessness and terror seemed to precede him, as he trudged up the walk to his house.

  Linda tried to occupy her mind by keeping busy and taking care of the children, and fought with herself not to ask or tell Harry anything. The most painful things for her were her feelings of hopelessness and lack of power. She desperately wanted to help the man she loved, the man who was slowly deteriorating before her very eyes, but though she constantly racked her brain, she could find no answer. No answer for

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  Harry—or herself, but she knew she had to stay and keep trying.

  Harry remained mute when he went to bed, trying desperately to ignore the fact that Linda was getting thinner and more haggard-looking each day, until he yelled himself awake in the middle of the night, sweat stinging his eyes, and tried desperately to breathe and destroy the image that hung in front of him, the image of that goddamn face melting into itself and the mouth hanging open in that dreadful silent scream . ..

  and

  then his sons face drifted from the mouth, eyes staring in questioning horror and faint wisps of smoke drifting from the finger marks in his cheek . ..

  and then he would become

  aware of a hint of light somewhere in the darkness behind the melting and constant faces, a light that seemed to be an eternal distance away yet he sensed that it could instantly blaze in front of him and suck him up in its vortex. And he fought against the light, trying to deny its existence as it slowly dragged itself closer and closer like some hulking creature with a twisted or crushed leg and he tried to scream it back and out of existence and the faces continued to melt into themselves until he was once more awake, wiping the stinging sweat from his face and sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to ignore the darkness that surrounded him and equally afraid of the light, clinging desperately to some semblance of strength, but the terrors in his mind simply mocked him and he sat crushed between the powers and fears of light and darkness until he fell back exhausted and slept for a few pitiful hours, then dragged himself from bed to start another day like the one before that would end in a nightmarish night like the one he had just survived.

  For Linda White the days were barely tolerable. The sun was bright, the sky clear and new life was budding and blooming everywhere, yet there was no joy in her life. Easter had always been a special time for her, and she had been looking

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  forward to buying an Easter outfit for Mary, but now she had to force herself to go shopping and then she just bought the first thing that seemed to fit.

  The children, too, had been looking forward to Easter. This would be the first year that Mary would be aware of her Easter basket and she was all excited about the Easter bunny; and Harry Jr. was looking forward to the Easter vacation and stay-over visits with both sets of grandparents, but the forbod-ing atmosphere in the house was dulling the sharp edges of their joy.

  Linda tried to shop to get baskets, jelly beans, chocolate rabbits and marshmallow chickens, coloring for eggs and the other Easter goodies, but kept putting it off one more day, unable to find or create the necessary energy to go and so she stayed in the home she so dearly loved and cherished, feeling more and more trapped the more she procrastinated, and more and more depressed, telling herself that tomorrow would be different.

  Palm Sunday came into being with a bright sun, a clear sky and the refreshing coolness of early spring. Linda and the children were outside, and Harry sat alone in the house half hearing and half ignoring the television that was telling him about the events of the day.

  He started to focus his attention on the television as he heard the phrase, special program, repeated a few times. Then the screen was filled with people crowded on the street. Thousands of them. Harry could not tell where they were, but wherever it was, it was absolutely packed. And there seemed to be a park in the background. He was suddenly and intensely curious about the reason for all those people being there. And then he became aware of the voice of an announcer informing him that it was Central Park in the background and he was looking down Fifth Avenue, and the building the camera would focus on from time to time was a hospital, the same hospital Harry had spent a few days in. He stared at the endless mass of people, his curiosity increasing—and, as you can see, there are literally thousands of people here on this

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  glorious Palm Sunday waiting for the appearance of Cardinal Leterman. Some people have been here for hours, getting here early so they could get a good vantage spot from which to view the Cardinal. And this is, indeed, a beautiful day for a homecoming—can you get a shot of the park, Phil? Yes, thats it. As you can see there is green everywhere and even the ducks in the lake seem to be aware of the solemnity of the occasion as they glide across the surface of the water. It is a truly beautiful sight, the gentle rolling softness of the grass and the magnificent skyscrapers in the background with the blue sky and those white clouds rolling by and— O, yes, isnt that a beautiful scene, the buildings and sky reflected in the water of the lake—the camera kept coming in until the screen was filled with the familiar lake and the background clearly reflected in the water— Wait, there seems to be some activity in front of the hospital, ladies and gentlemen. Cardinal Leterman may be coming out now—the camera focused on the entrance to the hospital— I can see—yes, yes, there he is, ladies and gentlemen—a roar suddenly burst from the crowd and the people were jumping up and down to get a better view and others were on the tops of cars and everyone was screaming and most people were waving crosses of palms— theres an aide opening the door and the beloved Cardinal Leterman is standing just outside the hospital waving to the people, smiling, and it looks like there are tears rolling down his face as he reacts to this unprecedented and absolutely incredible and spontaneous outburst from thousands of people of all faiths. And that is one of the most marvelous and significant things about what is happening here today, ladies and gentlemen. This demonstration of love—just listen to them—and affection for one of the most revered and respected men of the cloth in the world is not based on dogma or theology or even religion, but is an outpouring of the hearts of people of all faiths: Protestants, Jews as well as Catholics, and people of other faiths and, I am sure, those who profess none in particular. This certainly is an unequalled testimonial to the life of love, devotion, kindness and service that this man has lived

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  these past seventy-five years. As you can see there are endless flashbulbs going off, and the people are so eager to demonstrate their love and enthusiasm for this great, great man that it is taking a strong fo
rce of New Yorks finest to protect Cardinal Leterman from his admirers— Wait just a minute, ladies and gentlemen. He is raising his hands for silence, a hush has fallen over the crowd, and as you can see on your screens there are tears of love and gratitude— Ladies and gentlemen, Cardinal Leterman...

  My fellow children of God . . . My life has been filled with countless riches through the blessings of Jesus Christ, our Lord, but surely this day must be the richest of the rich. Truly my cup doth run over. Surely no man can be more blessed than I, and surely no man can be less deserving than I for I am no more than a sinner. No more or less, perhaps, than anyone else, but still a sinner. Yet our merciful God in heaven has bestowed upon me countless gifts, including the gift of life, and has shown me a way of life whereby I can, in my small and humble way, try to glorify His name. And though I am not worthy of His gifts, I can but accept them and say may Thy will be done and not mine, and hope, and pray, that I may be an instrument of His peace. ... As you know, just sixty-four days ago I was stricken with a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital, where I was pronounced dead on arrival . . . yes . . . dead! Yet today I am alive through the grace of God and the ministrations of the dedicated and devoted men of medicine. And how fitting it is that I should once more walk these beloved streets on this day, this day that commemorates the ride of our Savior, Jesus Christ, into the holy city of Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, aware that he was reaching the end of his ministry on earth. It came to pass that he was betrayed and suffered on the cross, and endured the Passion, so that we might know that through death in Christ we may all find eternal life. I am today a living miracle. A man back from the dead . . . Next Sunday, Easter Sunday, is the most important day in all Christendom when we celebrate the triumph of life