A Good and Happy Child (32 page)

r r r

We sat in a circle in the musty, dim living room at Tom Harris’s. Our host sat on the sofa; Clarissa, in her Sunday dress—a long, paisleyed hybrid of sundress and frock—poised on a stool like a prehistoric bird. She held a crucifix that Tom Harris had rummaged from a desk, but unlike Reval Dumas, she wore no stole. Meanwhile Uncle Freddie paced by the bookshelves, scanning the titles nervously. Tom Harris chewed his cheek distractedly as he reviewed the stapled pages of a leftover Reval Dumas prayer packet.
I asked him to leave these,
Tom Harris had said with a wink.
Had a feeling.
We sat in awkward silence; four friends with big plans, embarassed now that the moment had arrived.

“Come on,” burst out Freddie at last. “It’s getting late.”

“Should we postpone?” I said hopefully.

“Working tomorrow,” said Clarissa, shaking her head. “Family in town next weekend.”

“Oh, perhaps they could join us?” joked Tom Harris.

“This is ridiculous,” broke in Freddie. “Are we going to do this or aren’t we?”

“Clarissa?”

“We’re doing it,” she said. Then, casually: “Gentlemen, I need a moment alone with George.”

The two men exchanged a look, then in unison headed toward a back room, Tom Harris throwing off an afghan and creaking to his feet with the usual crutch theatrics. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said, thumping out of the room.

“I’ve done these before, George, as an assistant,” said Clarissa, still perched on her stool. “I’m not a neophyte. You don’t need to worry
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about that. What you need to worry about is holding tight to your brains, and staying cool.”

“Okay,” I said. So much adrenaline coursed through my veins, my muscles practically jerked of their own accord. My fingertips were ice cold. Clarissa’s body language, however, told me the conversation had not concluded with this pep talk. She seemed uncomfortable—a little girl caught in a transgression, squirming.

“
When
I’ve done this before,” she continued, “the enemy has a way of . . . drawing out uncomfortable secrets. As a way of humiliating the priest. Distracting him.”

I nodded. I’d seen it happen to Tom Harris.

“I just wanted you to know something,” she said, with difficulty.

“Namely, that I loved your father very much.”

“Thanks,” I said gratefully. “Y’all were good friends.”

“I mean,” she continued. “A little . . . more than that.”

I started to respond, then stopped.

“Nothing specific. Nothing to be ashamed of,” she said quickly.

“Nothing that he even knew about, or at least, acknowledged. Just . . . something I carried around. It was a good thing,” she concluded, with a slight smile. “A nice thing.” She added, as an afterthought: “Life and marriage aren’t always what you hope they will be, George.”

Thunderstruck that Clarissa Bing, my parents’ friend, married and mother of two, was telling me that she had been in love with my father, like a schoolgirl with a crush . . . I struggled to respond. What on earth did she expect me to say? “That’s—that’s okay,” I stammered. Clarissa regained her clinical tone. “I wanted you to hear it from me. The good side. In case it got perverted, or
used,
once we got started. No sense you doubting your practicioner halfway through.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, then.”

We sat there another moment.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Think so.”

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“Let’s give ’em hell.” She winked, and, without waiting for Freddie and Tom Harris to rejoin us, she immediately began the prayers.

“Save your servant,” she intoned.

I knew my lines. “Who put their trust in you.”

The three of them encircled me, in mismatched chairs, reading the rite in unison, but with a different mix of accents—none of Reval Dumas’s midwestern voice this time, but all southern, of different flavors: Uncle Freddie’s aristocratic Alabama pomp, Clarissa’s hint of Tennessee twang, and Tom Harris—a house of many colors, painted over with Ivy League, and the local Old Virginia, but underneath, very deep, an earthy, hillbilly burr. These voices made a strange kind of music—

reciting prayers full of images of terror and battle, yet with three varied and beloved instruments.

As before, I found myself lulled into distraction, following the voices, not the words. I felt funny being the object of this exercise when so clearly—I now considered with confidence—I had absolutely no need of the rite. Here I was
participating;
how could I, if I indeed had a demon inside, join in on the very prayers to get rid of one? The poltergeist, the vision, must just have been a hangover; farewell blips from my pre-Thorazine, pre–Reval Dumas consciousness, which would be erased by a wrestling match with Kurt and a few nights’ sleep. It was precisely when my mind turned to these pleasant thoughts that I felt a sudden spasm of dizziness, as if the room had shifted. I wondered, troubled now, whether I needed lunch, and whether this sensation signaled a hungry faint . . . And then I saw myself. I was sitting on the far end of the sofa. Upright, alert, listening. And then I looked down at myself—saw my thighs where they should be, my feet touching the floor, belly protruding slightly in a slump—on the near end of the sofa. I looked up again. There I was: spine straight, pleasant, congenial, prepared for a discussion. I was sitting on both ends of the sofa. How could this be happening?

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Tom,
I started to say, but found my voice died quickly away, inside my throat. Myself, the Other George, turned to me with a patient, indulgent smile, and put a finger to my—his—lips.
Shh.
I recoiled in horror and saw the others, too, had detected this sudden shift in body language. I saw Clarissa tug at her frock and Freddie shiver, and I realized that the room had grown cold—though I could not feel it—and knew that the moment of possession had come, just as when I had seen it take over Grace in her bed.

“Its name,” instructed Tom Harris.

“I command you . . .” read Clarissa. But her voice seemed flat, hollow, with none of the relaxed power and control that Reval Dumas showed. I felt a chill of terror shoot through me, as one might from the sidelines of a sporting event—a boxing match, one where people get hurt, shed real blood—watching a loved one, slack, unprepared, unconditioned, get into the ring with a pro.
No, stop it!
I shouted, but my voice died again, and this time Other George did not bother rebuking me. “. . . unclean spirit, whoever you are,” Clarissa’s voice seemed to squawk, she sounded birdlike now, weak, awkward, a joke, “that you tell me by some sign, your name . . . and the day and hour of your departure!”

Other George drew himself up, languid. “Why don’t
you,
” he said, indicating Tom Harris with a nod, “just ask me what you want to ask me.”

The experience was bizarre. I heard my exact voice—touched my own throat to make sure there were no vibrations there—come out of the apparition’s mouth. But I also saw a strange and subtle difference in demeanor and inflection. Just as Grace had taken on personas to suit her purpose—a snake, a party flirt—so did Other George assume the height of bored arrogance: a chilly upperclassman interrupted by freshmen, eager to be rid of them so he could return to more sophisticated labors elsewhere.

“Keep up with the rite,” exhorted Tom Harris.

Clarissa continued praying.

“You shouldn’t be doing this,” said Other George, with a sneer. a g o o d a n d h a p p y c h i l d

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Clarissa faltered.

“I mean
him,
” he nodded to Tom Harris again. “
Solicit not thy
thoughts. Mm mm mm,
” he tsked. “Are you
probing
into the
secrets
of the
universe
?” His voice dripped with oh-wow mockery. Clarissa resumed the reading. Other George sighed with boredom. “I said: Why don’t you just ask me what you want to ask me. Someone’s got to take me home. George’s mommy is waiting.”

I shook my head, trying to clear it. I focused all my concentration on my lips, my voice. “You’re not me!” I challenged him. My voice broke out into the air. The others reacted. Tom Harris pointed at the text, excitedly.

“George is there,” he said. “Read!”

They pronounced, in unison: “Tell me by some sign, your name and the day and hour of your departure!”

I crossed my legs testily, agitated. They were upsetting me. Or they were upsetting Other George—it began to be confusing.

“
Shut up,
” I—or he—snapped. “You want to know the secrets?

Fine.” He drew a deep breath, with a regretful air. “The first is what I know. I’ll begin with that.”

The others paused, listening.

“First . . . okay, follow me here and I’ll make it understandable. The first thing is, what I can tell you. And that thing is this: How can it jibe? If I know and you know, that’s what makes you and me tick. When we click, you’ll have a first glimpse of the thing I’ve been trying to tell you. Underneath all of it—follow me now—underneath it is, first things first, all of the secrets combined—names, hours, days,
his-
tory,
above all—what you’re really asking. I know, I understand; and first, I want you to understand, so, that’s why, I’m making it, simple, for you . . . to follow my
follow my words follow me I’M ANSWERING

YOUR QUESTION SO PLEASE PAY ATTENTION these notions are
mysteries and cannot be simply explained first but rather first no first no first
NOW no NOW no NOW no NOW I want you to understand that’s why
I’m speaking at your request of course but clicking and glimpsing are more
to it than that I WANT YOU TO FOLLOW ME
. . .”

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Clarissa’s prayers slowed to a halt under this battery of speech. I watched as her face pinched into the expression a child makes just before it bursts into tears. Tom Harris squinted, as if in pain, and instinctively raised a protective hand to his ears. Uncle Freddie’s cheeks puffed out. His face went scarlet. Sweat broke out on his forehead. I—

my body, my own inconsequential, seemingly weightless body—rose from the sofa in alarm. Uncle Freddie was having a heart attack. I had to stop what was going on. I had to stop the speech, that infuriating garble, and save my godfather . . . Uncle Freddie’s face swelled like a hyper-ripening tomato. But it was not a heart attack that was building. It was a typical Uncle Freddie expostulation.

“THIS IS NONSENSE!” he bellowed.

The fear and confusion blew instantly from the room like air from a balloon. Uncle Freddie dabbed his face with a monogrammed handkerchief, still puffing with annoyance, as if that onslaught of speech had been something he objected to grammatically above all else. The others stirred. The spell was broken.

Tom Harris recovered first.

“Tell me by some sign, your name and the day and hour of your departure!” he shouted, alone this time.

Other George slumped—a mix of disappointment and fatigue—

and his eyes went dull. He reclined on the sofa now, seemed to drift into sleep.

The three regained their unison, voices stronger now, on the offensive: “
Tell me by some sign, your name and the day and hour of your
departure!
”

Other George made no motion. I saw my chance.

“Just get up and leave,” I said. Other George and I seemed to be alone now, locked in some kind of seal of sound, together on the sofa. I heard the prayers, but they drifted to us as if through a closed door.

“Just go away,” I said. The phrases were pure middle school. But I didn’t know what else to say. I moved closer to him on the sofa. “Go away!” I said, with more conviction. I inched closer, then reached out a g o o d a n d h a p p y c h i l d

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and grabbed him. His soft forearm sank under my touch. Clammy, warm.
Is that what I feel like?
Other George flopped over toward me, as if I’d shaken someone in a dead sleep. I removed my hand, shocked. Had he passed out, somehow? Had we won? On instinct, but terrified, thinking of Reval Dumas’s brave hand-on-head blessing, I reached up, took his cheeks, turned his head toward me. The eyelids parted. The eyes beneath were a void. Empty.
It.
I drew my hands away in horror. No sympathy or character or even dead tissue lay there. Just shadow.
It.
At last I understood.

Other George flopped back to his corner. I saw its upper lip break out in a cold sweat. It mumbled, as if delirious. But I heard the words clearly, because its voice, I realized, came clearer to me than theirs did. It was half in my head.
Just ask me.

They paused.

“Just ask me,” it repeated, quietly. The three of them stared.

“That’s what we’re really here for, after all.
Tom.
”

Tom Harris went pale again, the way he had at Grace’s. Something caught my eye. A tiny white light, flickering behind the couch. A firefly? A reflection? I had a sense of foreboding.
No, Tom!
I shouted again, uselessly.

Other George’s voice hissed in my head, commanding, even as his figure lay sickly on the sofa:
Let him speak!
it hissed. It lolled its head toward Tom Harris, eyes opened now, and spoke aloud. “Go ahead,” it said softly. “Ask me.”

Tom Harris’s pallor deepened. I thought he might faint. The others seemed to draw back, leaving him to face the demon alone.

“Did you kill Paul?” he asked, hoarsely.

Other George smiled.

“You want to know what happened to Paul?” it asked. Tom Harris’s eyes narrowed suspiciously—too late.

“The best way to understand what happened to your friend Paul,”

said Other George, faintly bored now, but still superior—the upperclassman had become a campus tour guide for clueless parents—“is to see it.”

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That tiny drifting point of white light suddenly began to grow, from speck size to stamp size, from stamp size to hand size . . . then it rushed toward me, a crashing wave. The bottom dropped out of the sofa. I fell onto my back. I felt a choking heat. Sweat broke out over my forehead and back, even across my arms. The white light overwhelmed me. A voice spoke then, clearly. No longer fogged in, as Freddie, Tom Harris, and Clarissa’s voices had been.