by Karen Hall
“Has he shown any signs of abnormal strength?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Spoken any foreign language he’s never studied? Exhibited telepathic ability or aversion to religious symbols?”
“They didn’t mention anything like that. Just these minor disturbances and fits of temper.”
“So what makes you think he’s possessed?”
“I didn’t say I thought it,” Michael said, losing patience. “They think it. Look, if you’re not interested, just say so and I’ll call someone else, but somebody has got to do something, because whatever is wrong with this kid, these people are going through hell and no one is doing a damned thing to help them!”
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, then Bob asked, “How old are you?”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing, really. I’m just surprised.”
“At what?”
“You got a lot of spunk for a Jesuit.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Michael asked, though he knew exactly what it meant. Curso, like most parish priests, thought of himself as in the trenches and therefore superior to the order priests. To him, a priest who belonged to a religious order was someone who sat in an ivory tower and wasted time writing his latest PhD thesis on some obscure, esoteric, and irrelevant subject. Secular priests resented the Jesuits in particular, because they thought the Jesuits considered themselves better than anyone else. Which, of course, they did. (The truest description Michael had ever read was a quote from Denis Diderot: “You may find every imaginable kind of Jesuit, including an atheist, but you will never find one who is humble.”)
“Give me the address,” Curso said. Michael gave him the address and detailed directions. “What’s that,” he asked, “forty-five minutes on the expressway?”
“About that.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you there.”
“When?” Michael asked.
“In forty-five minutes.”
“Are you kidding? This time of day, it’d take me forty-five minutes to get to the Midtown Tunnel, not counting the forty-five minutes it would take me to get a cab. I was thinking maybe first thing tomorrow morning . . .”
Bob chuckled. “There you go. Now you sound like a Jesuit.”
“I’ll get there as soon as I can,” Michael said, and hung up, already hating Bob Curso and wondering what the hell he’d gotten himself into.
At the house, Kevin and Maureen had their lists of incidents and witnesses spread out on the table, ready for Bob’s perusal. He ignored it all and asked to see Danny, alone. Michael waited with the Ingrams in the kitchen, telling them what he knew about Bob, which wasn’t a lot. Bob hadn’t been in Danny’s room ten minutes when he returned to the kitchen.
“Father, we’ve been writing everything down,” Maureen said, “in case you have any questions.”
“I don’t have any questions,” Bob said.
“Then . . . you think we’re right?” Kevin asked, afraid to hope.
“No,” Bob said. “I know you’re right.”
At that moment, Michael concluded that Father Bob was, in the kindest estimate, some sort of occult-obsessed drama junkie. (But then, it probably wasn’t easy to find a calm, rational person with a strong exorcism-conducting résumé.) Michael didn’t see how Bob could hurt anything, though, and there was still the outside chance that he could help. Kevin and Maureen were so thoroughly convinced Danny was possessed, they’d probably convinced Danny that he was possessed. For all Michael knew, the theatrics of an exorcism might be enough to convince Danny he was cured.
The bureaucrats had given them the runaround Bob had expected, and then some. They put Danny through weeks of psychological tests, physiological tests, interviews, and various other forms of torment. When the bishop finally exhausted every stalling method he could think of, he sent Michael and Bob to the cardinal. They did the whole dog-and-pony show and left more than a hundred pages of test results and documented incidents. The cardinal promised to get back to them as soon as possible and reminded them how busy he was.
Bob, who’d been through it all before, was frustrated but not surprised. Michael was dumbfounded. What on earth could it possibly hurt for him and Bob to dress up and throw around a little holy water? “The guys in the red hats don’t like to be bothered by thoughts of the supernatural,” Bob said. “They’re afraid it’ll make people think they’re not serious politicians.”
Another week went by. Danny’s fits were becoming more violent and lasting longer. It was clear that if he wasn’t already, he would soon be a threat both to himself and to everyone around him. It was also clear Kevin and Maureen weren’t planning on doing anything other than waiting. There was no point in suggesting they move on to another potential remedy.
At the end of the week, Michael called the cardinal. It took two days to get him on the phone, for which he did not apologize or offer an explanation. He did explain that he had sent the reports to an independent psychologist for “further evaluation.” Dr. Brennan was on vacation for a couple of weeks, but he’d look at them as soon as he got back.
Michael had gone ballistic. “We don’t have a couple of weeks! We don’t have a couple of days! Something has got to happen now!”
He might as well have been talking to concrete. The cardinal just kept repeating his refrain, showing no sign of even hearing Michael, much less taking him seriously.
The next morning, Michael got a call from Maureen. The night before, Danny had attacked Kevin with a fireplace tool, leaving a gash in Kevin’s forehead that had taken eleven stitches to close. Danny fled the house. When he returned, in the early hours, he claimed he didn’t remember doing it. He’d been in his room ever since, but Maureen was afraid to even be in the house with him. Michael hung up and called the bishop.
“Michael, I have been as clear as I know how to be. There is a very definite way a thing like this is handled, and it’s being handled. It will proceed at its own pace.”
“Yeah, well my thing’s got its own pace, and it’s not waiting for you! I’m telling you, if we don’t do something right now, something serious is going to happen! Someone is going to end up dead!”
“Then take him to a psychiatrist.”
“He’s been to a hundred shrinks! If there’s one thing that’s obvious, it’s that he doesn’t need another damned shrink!” And if you’d get off your royal ass long enough to go sit in a room with him, you’d know that . . .
“The experts will make that determination. Meanwhile, I’ve heard all I want to hear about it, and I’m sure you have more than enough work at the magazine to keep yourself occupied.”
Late that afternoon, Michael and Bob had a long talk over a pitcher of beer. Bob knew what he was going to do. He was going to proceed without the Church’s authorization. He wanted, and needed, Michael’s help. At that point in his life, other than the occasional dicey article and a bad habit of running his mouth too much, Michael had never been anything but a good soldier. The thought of being involved in an illicit undertaking did not appeal to him. But there was a prospect that was much worse: the way he would feel if he said no and something awful happened. He agreed.
Michael had been naïve enough to assume that “yes” meant “give me the text and I’ll read the responses.” To Bob, it was a license to begin indoctrination procedures.
They took a cab to Bob’s church. Bob led Michael to a classroom just off the fellowship hall. He instructed Michael to have a seat in one of the chairs, then Bob went to the green chalkboard up front. He picked up a new piece of chalk and broke it in half.
“Remember Venn diagrams?” he asked.
“I remember hating them,” Michael answered, his mind flashing on connecting circles with shaded areas and letters, and identities like “all attorneys named Sam who drive BMWs.”
“This isn’t complicated,” Bob said, drawing a small circle on the board. “And it will hel
p you to have a mental image.”
He drew an M inside the circle.
“Mind,” he said, as if that was supposed to make sense to Michael. He drew a larger circle around the M circle. He labeled that circle B.
“Body,” Bob said. “Home of the mind.” He drew another circle, intersecting the B circle, and labeled it W.
“Will,” he said.
“Whose theory are you diagramming?” Michael asked.
“Mine,” Bob said. He drew a larger circle around the W and B circles and labeled it S.
“Soul,” Michael said, getting the direction, if not the point. Bob nodded.
“Now,” he said, “Father Bob’s Crash Course on Possession Theory.” He smiled; he was enjoying this.
“Is there going to be a quiz?” Michael asked.
“The final exam is tomorrow morning, and this is the only chance you’ve got, so pay attention.”
Michael smiled and nodded. Bob’s face became deadly serious. “Most people think there are four stages to possession.” Most people? Most people would have you committed. “I see the actual possession stage as a couple of phases, although it’s all a continuous process,” Bob continued, returning to the board. “The first stage is infestation,” he said as he wrote the word on the board, then began to draw another diagram.
“D for demon. Don’t worry about what he is or how he came to be there; we don’t have the time, and it’s not important right now. During the infestation phase, he hovers here, on the periphery, looking for an entry into the body and therefore the will. There are a lot of physical manifestations at this point. Things the Ingrams described: lights turning on and off, toilets flushing, drawers opening and closing. Also, unidentified sounds: scratching, banging, hissing. The demon is stalking its prey. The point is to make the potential victim disoriented, off balance . . .”
Bob went to the board and drew again. “The next stage is obsession,” he said.
“The victim having been weakened, the demon starts to move in. Invades the soul, weakens the body and the will. Physical manifestations decrease, usually. Most of what is going on at this point is now going on inside. The victim feels agitated, anxious, ill-tempered, has trouble sleeping. People around him will notice a personality change, often a drastic one. The demon’s influence starts to manifest itself in the actions of the victim. Danny’s mood swings, outbursts. Older victims lose their defenses against old vices or pick up new ones—various addictions, mainly, which weaken the consciousness and consequently the will. All of which helps the demon accomplish its goal—to weaken the victim; mind, body, and soul.”
Michael nodded. He couldn’t believe he was sitting here with a straight face, listening to a lecture on the operating patterns of demons. Part of him—in fact, the vast majority of him—had never believed any of this, even when he was begging the bishop to let them proceed with the exorcism. There was another part of Michael, though, to which all this hocus-pocus made some kind of sense, even rang true—as if it were something he remembered from another time, another place.
At the board, Bob was drawing again.
“What I call first-stage possession,” Bob explained. “The victim still retains full consciousness at all times, but he is strongly invaded. He might start to hear voices, maybe even see things.”
“Like what?”
“Bizarre animals, part human, part goat or pig—demons are very partial to cloven hooves, don’t ask me why. Sometimes they’re winged. Sometimes they’re reptilian. Sometimes there’s nothing but a vague black cloud. People who’ve seen it describe it as blacker than any earthly black.”
People who’ve seen it?
Michael’s mind flashed on a commercial he’d seen for some reality-based (yeah, sure) mystery show: two men in overalls, with thick Ozark accents, describing the crashed UFO and dead aliens they’d chanced upon in the woods: “Four were layin’ on the grah-yund.”
Bob was still talking.
“ . . . more sounds. Smells. The victim is assaulted in all his senses, even in his dreams. Dreams become violent and deeply disturbing; they cast a pall over the victim’s waking hours, as well. The point of all this is to exhaust the victim and weaken his will until the demon finds what is known as an ‘entry point.’ ” He stopped for a moment, giving Michael time to take it all in; then he went on. “We’d be here all night,” he said, “if I tried to explain that to you. The simplest way to put it is that the victim is weakened to the extent that he does something—he commits some act, of his own will, that aligns him with the Evil. Evil can never gain an entry without an invitation. It might pound at the door to provoke the invitation, but the victim himself is the only one who can open that door.”
Michael wanted to ask what kind of action the victim had to take—what had Danny done, for instance—but he had a feeling it was another “we’d be here all night” question.
“Then,” Bob said, solemnly, “there’s stage two. That’s where we are now.” He stopped to draw it.
Whether this was a lot of medieval hogwash or not, Michael felt an involuntary shiver as he watched Bob extend the “demon” circle to encompass the circles of body, mind, and most of the will.
“Now the demon has full access to the victim’s body and will. The victim will suffer blackouts, because the demon can move in and go into business for himself. That’s what happened to Danny last night, when he attacked his father.”
“He said he didn’t remember it,” Michael said, putting it together.
“He didn’t remember it,” Bob said. “He could have passed a polygraph saying he didn’t do it, because he didn’t do it.”
Michael sat back in his seat. This was starting to make sense, which didn’t make him feel better.
“This little sliver”—Bob tapped a crescent-shaped area of the “will” that remained free of the “demon” circle—“we’ll come back to that.” He began to draw again. “Last diagram,” he said.
“Perfect possession. What we’re trying to save Danny from. The demon, having invaded the victim’s body and will, takes complete control. Once that happens—” He shook his head. “There’s nothing you can do but hope someone locks them up before too many people die. Because that’s all the demon wants—to destroy everything in its path. Death for the sake of death. Evil for the sake of Evil. What is it you Jebbies say? ‘For the greater glory of God?’ Whatever is the exact opposite, that’s what the demon wants. To spit in God’s face. To destroy humanity, God’s creation. To destroy life.”
Bob walked back over to Danny’s diagram.
“Here’s what’s vital,” he said. He pointed to the “free” sliver of “will.” He shaded it in with the chalk, drew an arrow to it, wrote will on the board, and underlined it three times.
Bob tapped the shaded crescent with his chalk.
“Will,” he said. “Will is the heartbeat of the soul. Through will, we can choose to align our souls with Good or with Evil. Danny’s will is still alive in there, but it’s weak. An exorcism is like a quadruple bypass of the will. We’re the surgeons. We have to get in there and make the will strong enough to fight back. Ultimately, there is nothing we can do but strengthen the will. The choice is Danny’s. Danny, with his own will, must choose to deny Evil and realign himself with Good. The important thing is, it’s through the will that we can save Danny.”
He shook his head, disagreeing with himself. “No. God can save Danny. We’re just there to do a job.”
Bob put the chalk down and dusted off his hands. The room was agonizingly quiet. After a moment, Michael spoke.
“I’m still a long way from believing any of this,” he said.
Bob nodded, apparently unfazed. “You know the thing the recovery groups say, about taking the action and letting the feelings follow? ‘Act as if,’ they say.”
“Yeah . . .” Michael replied hesitantly, not sure how it applied.
“Just promise me you’ll ‘act as if’ you believe it between now and tomorrow morni
ng. By the time you find out you do believe it, it’ll be too late for shoring up.”
“You sound pretty confident that I’m going to find out.”
Bob nodded, with a self-satisfied chuckle. “That’s the easy part,” he said.
Michael let it go. He could tell there was no point in offering an alternative hypothesis.
“We’re going to hear each other’s confessions,” Bob said. “Then I want you to go home.” His tone was different; solemn. “Go home and pray. Say Mass. Do whatever you do—just make sure you’re as strong as you’ve ever been when you walk into that room tomorrow morning. Give yourself enough time to sleep, too. Get as much sleep as you need to feel good. In fact, sleep like a baby.” He smiled, a sad smile. “It’s the last chance you’ll ever have.”
Michael kept a straight face and nodded, “acting as if” he didn’t think Bob was a certified fruitloop. He went home, put himself through the motions of “shoring up” ritual, as promised, and went to sleep. Though he tossed and turned and woke up frequently, he slept more peacefully than he knew. In fact, he slept just as Bob had ordered. Like a baby, he slept unaware of the full extent of lurking danger. Like a baby, he did not suspect any vulnerability in the forces protecting him.
THREE
“God, Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ . . .”
Michael stood over Danny’s bed, dressed in his official exorcism attire (though why the demon should care what color stole he had on, Michael couldn’t fathom). He had the Roman Ritual open in front of him; he listened to Bob’s voice and waited for his cue to respond.