William Blatty - The Exorcist

"Mary Jo, I'd love to have you back. I mean it. You're a fascinating person."

"Well, at least I'm the nerviest person you know."

"Oh, come on. Listen, call me. Please. Will you call me next week?"

"Yes, I would like to hear how your daughter's coming on."

"Got the number?"

"Yes, at home in my book."

What was off? wondered Chris. There was something in her tone that was slightly off-center.

"Well, good night," said Mrs. Perrin, "and thanks again for a marvelous evening." And before Chris could answer her, she was walking rapidly down the street.

For a moment, Chris watched her; and then closed the front door. A heavy lassitude overcame her. Quite a night, she thought; some night... some night...

She went to the living room and stood over Willie, who was kneeling by the urine stain. She was brushing up the nap of the rug.

"White vinegar I put on," muttered Willie. "Twice."

"Comin' out?"

"Maybe now," answered Willie. "I do not know. We will see."

"No, you can't really tell until the damned thing dries."

Yeah, that's brilliant there, punchy. That's really a brilliant observation. Judas priest, kid, go to bed!

"C'mon, leave it alone for now, Willie. Get to sleep."

"No, I finish."

"Okay, then. And thanks. Good night."

-"Good night, madam."

Chris started up the stairs with weary steps. "Great curry, there, Willie. Everybody loved it."

"Yes, thank you, madam."

Chris looked in on Regan and found her still asleep. Then she remembered the Ouija board. Should she hide it? Throw it away? Boy, Perrin's really dingy when it comes to that stuff. Yet Chris was aware that the fantasy playmate was morbid and unhealthy. Yeah, maybe I should chuck it.

Still, Chris was hesitant. Standing by the bedside and looking at Regan, she remembered an incident when her daughter was only three: the night that Howard had decided she was much too old to continue to sleep with her baby bottle, on which she had grown dependent. He'd taken it away from her that night, and Regan had screamed until four in the morning, then acted hysterical for days. And now Chris feared a similar reaction. Better wait until I talk it all out with a shrink. Moreover, the Ritalin, she reflected, hadn't had a chance to take effect.

At the last, she decided to wait and see.

Chris retired to her room, settled wearily into bed, and almost instantly fell asleep. Then awakened to fearful, hysterical screaming at the rim of her consciousness.

"Mother, come here, come here, I'm afraid!"

"Yes, I'm coming, all right, hon, I'm coming!"

Chris raced down the hall to Regan's bedroom. Whimpering. Crying. Sounds like bedsprings.

"Oh, my baby, what's wrong?" Chris exclaimed as she reached out and flicked on the lights.

Good Christ almighty!

Regan lay taut on her back, face stained with tears and contorted with terror as she gripped at the sides of her narrow bed.

"Mother, why is it shaking?" she cried. "Make it stop! Oh, I'm scared! Make it stop! Mother, Please make it stop!"

The mattress of the bed was quivering violently back and forth.

II: The Edge

.... In our sleep, pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.... ---Aeschylus

CHAPTER ONE

They brought her to an ending in a crowded cemetery where the gravestones cried for breath.

The Mass had been lonely as her life. Her brothers from Brooklyn. The grocer on the corner who'd extended her credit. Watching them lower her into the dark of a world without windows, Damien Karras sobbed with a grief he had long misplaced.

"Ah, Dimmy, Dimmy..."

An uncle with an arm around his shoulder.

"Never mind, she's in heaven now, Dimmy, she's happy."

Oh, God, let it be! Ah, God! Ah, please! Oh, God please be!

They waited in the car while he lingered by the grave. He could not bear the thought of her being alone.

Driving to Pennsylvania Station, he listened to his uncles speak of their illnesses in broken, immigrant accents.

"... emphysema... gotta quit smokin'... I ohmos' died las' year, you know that?"

Spasms of rage fought to break from his lips, but he pressed them back and felt ashamed. He looked out the window: they were passing by the Home Relief Station where on Saturday mornings in the dead of winter she would pick up the milk and the sacks of potatoes while he lay in his bed; the Central Park Zoo, where she left him in summer while she begged by the fountain in front of the Plaza. Passing the hotel, Karras burst into sobs, and then choked back the memories, wiped at the wetness of stinging regrets. He wondered why love had waited for this distance, waited for the moment when he need not touch, when the limits of contact and human surrender had dwindled to the size of a printed Mass card tucked in his wallet: In Memoriam...

He knew. This grief was old.

He arrived at Georgetown in time for dinner, but had no appetite. He paced inside his cottage. Jesuit friends came by with condolences. Stayed briefly. Promised prayers.

Shortly after ten, Joe Dyer appeared with a bottle of Scotch. He displayed it proudly: "Chivas Regal!"

"Where'd you get the money for it---out of the poorbox?"

"Don't be an asshole, that would be breaking my vow of poverty."

"Where did you get it, then?"

"I stole it"

Karras smiled and shook his head as he fetched a glass and a pewter coffee mug. He rinsed them out in his tiny bathroom sink and said, "I believe you."

"Greater faith I have never seen."

Karras felt a stab of familiar pain. He shook it off and returned to Dyer, who was sitting on his cot breaking open the seal. He sat beside him.

"Would you like to absolve me now or later?"

"Just pour," said Karras, "and we'll absolve each other."

Dyer poured deep into glass and cup. "College presidents shouldn't drink," he murmured. "It sets a bad example. I figure I relieved him of a terrible temptation."

Karras swallowed Scotch, but not the story. He knew the president's ways too well. A man of tact and sensitivity, he always gave through indirection. Dyer had come, he knew, as a friend, but also as the president's personal emissary. So when Dyer made a passing comment about Karras possibly needing a rest," the Jesuit psychiatrist took it as hopeful omen of the future and felt a momentary flood of relief.

Dyer was good for him; made him laugh; talked about the party and Chris MacNeil; purveyed new anecdotes about the Jesuit Prefect of Discipline. He drank very little, but continually replenished Karras' glass, and when he thought he was numb enough for sleep, he got up from the cot and made Karras stretch out, while he sat at the desk and continued to talk until Karras' eyes were closed and his comments were mumbled grunts.

Dyer stood up and undid the laces of Karras' shoes. He slipped them off.

"Gonna steal my shoes now?" Karras muttered thickly.

"No, I tell fortunes by reading the creases. Now shut up and go to sleep."

"You're a Jesuit cat burglar."

Dyer laughed lightly and covered him with a coat that he took from a closet. "Listen, someone's got to worry about the bills around this place. All you other guys do is rattle beads and pray for the hippies down on M Street."

Karras made no answer. His breathing was regular and deep. Dyer moved quietly to the door and flicked out the light.

"Stealing is a sin," muttered Karras in the darkness.

"Mea culpa," Dyer said softly.

For a time he waited, then at last decided that Karras was asleep. He left the cottage.

In the middle of the night, Karras awakened in tears. He had dreamed of his mother. Standing at a window high in Manhattan, he'd seen her emerging from a subway kiosk across the street. She stood at the curb with a brown paper shopping bag, searching for him. He waved. She didn't see him. She wandered the street. Buses. Trucks. Unfriendly crowds. She was growing frightened. She returned to the subway and began to descend. Karras grew frantic; ran to the street and began to weep as he called her name; as he could not find her; as he pictured her helpless and bewildered in the maze of tunnels beneath the ground.