Whispers in the Night Page 21

  “I still don’t get what would make demons possess a bunch of old folk.” Jake laid down the remote, only to pick up a cigarette. The smoke curled up around him. A defiant gleam in Jake’s eyes seemed to dare Daniel to come up with something even close to rational.

  “It’s the deal we made. It wasn’t easy coming to a detente that would allow us to . . . accommodate demons. They need a home in a host body to give them rest and allow them to express themselves in the physical world. Remember, they’re spirits. Wandering about is like hanging out in a desert. I remember a story in the Bible about a demon called Legion.”

  “ ‘For we are many.’ ” Jake tamped his cigarette into a cracked, black ashtray. Something about his casual sureness gave Daniel pause.

  “Right. He and Jesus crossed paths and Legion asked if Jesus was there to torment him . . . them before the appointed time. Jesus said no, but he was going to cast them out from the man the demon had possessed. Legion begged to be put into a herd of pigs, so he was. The same principle’s at work here. To be frank, senile people have little left of their minds to offer much resistance. For all we know, they may suffer from a preexisting mental or spiritual problem that the demons merely took advantage of.”

  “That’s where I have a problem. You can’t tell me that all of these crazy old people are demon possessed. Some of them are just sick or old. Look here.”

  He grabbed a few of the patients’ charts from the nurse’s station. Some patients were brought in for Alzheimer’s, some had become noncommunicative, some physically abusive. Senile dementia, hallucinations, simple schizophrenia, history of seizures—theirs were a veritable laundry list of sundry ailments.

  “Not every case is possession, but it’s possible that some of the diagnoses of mental disorder could be,” Daniel said.

  “So what would you do?”

  “That’s easy. The Bible kept it simple. All we’d have to do to exorcize the demon is—”

  “We? Oh no, my brotha, you been misinformed. We ain’t doing shit. Ain’t no way I’m about to go up against no pea-soup-spitting, head-spinning mothafucka.”

  It amused Daniel to see Jake slip from his professional persona when he got worked up. Somehow it reassured him, like they were connecting on a personal level. Daniel pressed on. “C’mon, Jake, we have to do something.”

  “There’s that ‘we’ again. Call me funny, but if a bunch of demons ain’t bothering me, there ain’t no need for me to be bothering them. If all I have to do is wipe they ass and get them a drink every now and then, I’m Mr. Status Quo.”

  “It’s kind of our responsibility . . . as nurses’ aides. You see, once the demons have found a home, they act like anyone else and hang on for dear life. Unfortunately, they also torment their victims and try to kill them.”

  “That sound you hear is my bullshit detector going off. Is this why you wanted to work here?”

  “What would it take for me to talk you into this?”

  “You don’t have enough words. Shit, English don’t have enough words.”

  “Even if you saw . . .”

  “Even if I saw what?”

  (“How’s Aaron?”) The floor alarm cut off whatever reply he might have had. Only a resident wandering through a restricted exit could have triggered it. Ms. Mayfield stood before them, more horrible given the humor of her filthy appearance. She had covered her gown in her most recent bowel disgorgement, but she paraded about like she was the height of fashion. Having bathed in a bed of her own ordure, she was a sour bouquet of sweat and excrement.

  “Where you going, Ms. Mayfield?” Daniel asked.

  “I wanted to be where everything was happening.”

  “You know I’d come get you if anything happened.”

  “By the time you get me, everything will be over last year. It’s cold in here.”

  “Go lie down, then, sweetie,” Daniel said.

  “I can’t. It’s thundering something fierce.”

  “When it thunders, the angels are rolling out the rain barrels, and when it rains, one of them done dropped a barrel or two and bust it.”

  “What do devils do?” she asked.

  Daniel chuckled.

  “You’re different from the others here. What do you do when God’s promises fail you?”

  “They won’t,” Daniel said. “I know . . .”

  “You know very little. We know. Black was right about you, you wear your story like a poorly chosen hairstyle. You grew up in church parroting your parents’ faith. You’d done it for so long, dressed it up in clothes of youth group and mission trips that everyone thought it was the genuine thing. Even you. Except on those dark nights when you fear that you have nothing to call your own. Thus, no matter how often you fall on your knees, you lie in bed terrified that you’ll be left behind. Don’t tell me what you know. I’ve been there. Sang with the hosts. Seen Him. There’s no room for faith here.”

  No one understood. He barely understood. These creatures were an offense before God. The idea of Jesus’ miracles terrified him. They weren’t miraculous, they were unnatural. He’d grown up sympathizing with Doubting Thomas. When Jesus returned from the dead (returned from the dead!), even then some didn’t recognize him; as if their minds refused to accept it. The horror, the abomination. Thomas said he wouldn’t believe until he saw the Christ’s wounds for himself. So he stood there, tracing the open gash along Jesus’ side, his fingers feeling the torn flesh, still struggling to believe.

  Like Thomas, Daniel feared that even had he put his fingers through the pierced flesh of Jesus’ hands, he still wouldn’t believe. Better to submit to the authority of his church elders, those who better understood such things, and trust in them. It was somehow easier to trust in principles, their clear (and safe) black-and-white tones. The demons, their presence, their reality threatened to unravel it all, to color his world in faded-blood shades of sepia.

  The windows of the sullen yet formidable building stared at him with a stern blankness. Daniel listened to Mahalia Jackson finish her dirgelike rendition of “In the Upper Room,” keenly aware that his shift had started ten minutes ago. He’d been working at the Regional Healthcare Facility for under a month.

  A chill wind rocked the car.

  (“How’s Aaron?” )

  With Mahalia’s last note, Daniel walked duty-bound to the front door, scourged by the biting fall wind. The mournful quality of the dingy, amber-colored walls increased his anxiety. Holiday decorations, reminiscent of the ones his fifth-grade teacher used to do, hung in feigned cheerfulness.

  The first-floor nurse’s station stood abandoned.

  The elevator door waited, its doors agape with expectation. The car rose with a tenuous tremble, as if old, insecure muscles strained to pull it up. He stood near the back, part of him bracing for the impact sure to come when the cables snapped. The elevator stopped a foot shy of the third floor out of spite. The stale, fetid air of looming death greeted him.

  He felt a singular sense of disquiet. Two aides had already quit that day, one leaving a note that read “I will never be back again in life.” The smell wafting about the halls was particularly stomach-turning, probably due to the addition of his own anxious sweat. He focused on his enemy to keep his nausea from overflowing. Jake whispered into the phone at the nurse’s station; the frustrated look on his face screamed that his baby’s mother must’ve been needling him about his responsibilities. A horrible howl came from the room Sh’ron exited from.

  “Mr. Black was going through some of the barrels looking for a shirt,” Sh’ron started. Neither he nor Jake even glanced up, but she continued anyway. “I’m thinking about tying him down, before he goes through everything and makes a mess.”

  Daniel wished that the state would do an inspection tonight: Regional would be shut down for sure. He realized that only he, Jake, and Sh’ron were on as aides. That would be great except that they were it for all three floors. The lone nurse in the building spent her evening running back and fort
h among the floors. Her standing orders were that if the residents gave them any problems, tie them in restraints. State regs be damned, Daniel guessed, when they worked this short.

  Sh’ron had a broader definition of residents giving her problems: All the residents in her hall were tied down. They would probably stay that way, unturned and unchecked, until it was time to wake and dress them. Daniel wasn’t up for idle chatter tonight, though. Behind the nurse’s station, his right knee danced up and down with its own nervous energy.

  “Is it me, or do the residents seem extra agitated?” Jake asked.

  “It’s him.” Sh’ron thumbed toward Daniel.

  Daniel’s doubts picked at him like an unhealed scab, needling him with the Devil’s voice. How long could he tread water believing, not believing, as he did? He wanted to surrender to the doubt, let the insecurities rush over him like a quick slice across his wrist and give in to the gentle caress of the abyss. He needed the church, the danger of community, to feel real. Yet he knew he was cut off. Something within no longer worked, connected, leaving nothing in him for belief to latch on to. No love to fill those empty spaces, those cancers of his faith.

  “I’m going to go pray over Ms. Mayfield,” Daniel said.

  “No, Daniel, wait.” Jake grabbed his arm.

  “Look, all I’m going to do is pray for the demons to leave in the name of Jesus Christ. If it works, fine. If not, all I’ve done is pray.”

  He would have his answer: Would God’s might truly protect him?

  Daniel crept into her room. The last sharp stabs of light from the hallway faded with the door closing behind him. The parking lot lights spilled through the curtains. Daniel noticed a few facedown picture frames along her dresser. He flipped them over to see that every picture of Ms. Mayfield, even photos that caught only a thatch of hair or a passing elbow, had been circled. Probably done during her last lucid moment to remind herself that she wasn’t forgotten.

  “Who’s there?” she stirred.

  “It’s me, Ms. Mayfield.”

  “I keep hearing voices in my head.”

  “Have you ever prayed against the voices?” he asked. She flinched as if in pain. “I mean, have you ever thought about talking to Jesus about your . . . problems?” She continued to grow uncomfortable, writhing slightly, and quietly wincing.

  “I don’t want to pray. I don’t like it,” she muttered.

  “That’s okay, you don’t have to.”

  He laid his hands on her and prayed. Trying to sound stern, yet compassionate, he exhorted the demons to leave in the name of Christ. Her hands fell to her chest, her head rolled to the side, and she fell into a deep sleep. He peered at her face: peaceful and melancholy.

  “It’s all futile, you know,” Mr. Black said from behind him. “You feel it? The wisps of that fragile thing you call faith escaping through your fingers. You don’t know what to do with your terror, shame, and grief.”

  “What do you want from me?” Those bloodshot yellow eyes, those veiny egg yolks, followed his movements.

  “Hurm. It’s what you don’t want. You don’t want to have to think, to struggle with reality. You don’t want God, not really. You want something that will make you feel good, something bigger than you to lose yourself in. Something safe. God is none of those things.”

  “I’m doing His work. There’s Ms. Mayfield. Her soul’s safe now. She won’t be joining you in hell.”

  Ms. Mayfield’s eyes sprang open. She spoke through a contemptuous grin of utter, hostile malevolence. “Let that belief comfort you at night, but know this—hell is empty. We have no more a wish to be there than you. We just want to live in peace. To feel.”

  Daniel backed away from her. He felt movement behind him, a shifting among the shadows. Mr. Black opened the window. His flabby jowls made him look all the more like the Devourer. He gestured for Daniel to join him. “Tempting, isn’t it? To jump in, unthinking, and embrace the decrepit whore you call faith. Pimped out to a God that doesn’t listen to you. The irony is, if you find proof, you no longer have faith. Then what do you have?”

  Daniel wanted to escape, be free of the constant harangue. He leaned forward, peering out the window. The sidewalks loomed far below him. He wanted to let go. Nothing made sense to him anymore. Nothing about the world that he lived in felt right. The way he lived, the way he moved, down to the core of his being—God seemed so far from him. The tattered edges of his faith clung to life like a man residing under hospice care. The weight of Mr. Black’s glare pressed in on him long before Mr. Black spoke again.

  “It’s the ultimate test. The final answer to all of your questions.”

  Daniel mouthed the words to the Lord’s Prayer, and it lodged like a cold stone in the pit of his stomach. His mind tried to latch on to something to anchor him. Reading the Bible first thing in the morning used to bring him such simple comfort. Now it was like reading the love letters of an ex-girlfriend. The prayer died on his lips. He doubted it would be answered anyway. For that matter, he doubted if he would be heard. He doubted if there was ever a hearer in the first place.

  Daniel keeled forward through the window.

  He didn’t make a sound as the pavement rushed to greet him.

  “What the hell’s going on in here?” Jake rushed in. He joined Mr. Black at the window.

  “Hurm. Seems someone’s been asking the wrong questions,” Mr. Black said, “had himself a bit of a fall.”

  Jake stared down at Daniel’s broken body. “May you be in heaven a half hour before the Devil knows you’re dead.”

  Mr. Black handed Jake a dollar.

  “Oops, too late.”

  Wet Pain

  Terence Taylor

  I once saw a sign on a pillar in a New York City subway station, WET PAIN, written in bright red block letters on glossy white card stock. Back then I thought it was a joke or mistake, meant to read WET PAINT, but maybe I was wrong; maybe it was a warning of a different kind and I just missed the point because I didn’t know enough to understand what I was reading.

  That’s how I feel about what happened to my good buddy, Dean, that I saw the danger signs all along but never realized what they meant, what they really warned me about. Not until he opened my eyes and I saw a side of the world I never wanted to see.

  It all started when Dean moved back to New Orleans.

  We met almost five years ago, on a job.

  Dean was master electrician and I was tech director for a live multimedia press conference announcing the UPN Network’s new fall season. The client reps for the ad agency handling it were assholes, cut corners in all the wrong places, so we had to cover each other to survive. We worked together on floor plans for his lighting and my video equipment to do what they wanted with what they gave us, and made it through a two-week job from hell without killing each other or anyone else.

  We stayed in touch. No one expected a white reformed redneck from New Orleans and a black gay geek from Park Slope like me to become best friends, least of all us, but we did. We were opposites in taste, education, upbringing, everything but how we saw the world and thought it should work; Dean called us “twin brothers of different mothers. . . .”

  I made regular treks out to New Jersey for dinner with the family, but didn’t know his wife, Lynn, was a black girl from the Bronx until my first visit almost a year after meeting Dean. I must have looked surprised when a stylish black woman opened the door instead of the suburban southern belle I’d expected. A short Afro crowned a dark pretty face, big gold hoops hung on either side of her broad smile. She feigned shock when she saw me, raised her eyebrows, and widened her eyes as she turned back to yell at her husband.

  “Omigod, Dean! You didn’t tell me he was a Negro!”

  I loved her immediately.

  After dinner we discussed Dean’s colorblindness over beers on the back porch while their three-year-old, Milton, an only child then, ran around the yard in circles. Dean was built like a truck, six feet tall capped with a mi
litary-style crew cut. Lynn was small, compact; she nestled under Dean’s free arm on the couch while we sipped beer and the two of us talked about her husband like he wasn’t there.

  “Dean says since he doesn’t care about race he sees no reason to bring it up. I think it’s passive-aggressive. You just know he only married me to see if it would kill his cracker family. . . .”

  “Worth it, even if I am stuck with her,” Dean said with a grin. She smacked him lightly. He winked at me, took a deep swig of beer.

  “Anyway. I say ignoring color implies something’s wrong, when difference should be recognized and celebrated,” finished Lynn.

  “Just sounds like a cheap way for them to get off the hook to me,” I said. “ ‘Black people? What black people? Everybody looks the same to me!’ ”

  “Yeah, I get it.” Lynn slapped Dean on the thigh with a grin. “No black people, no reparations! ‘Slavery? What slavery? We don’t owe you shit!’” We laughed like coconspirators, while Dean waggled his empty bottle until Lynn passed him another beer.

  “Y’all need to keep me on your side,” he said as he twisted off the cap. “We remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. . . .”

  “Smart-ass,” said Lynn. “He quotes King, but doesn’t fool me. Shakespeare said even the Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”

  “Never marry a teacher,” laughed Dean. Lynn kissed him hard, and he kissed her back; they kissed a lot, had an easy affection for each other I envied.

  Between jobs I’d hang with Dean at his place or mine, kick back, knock down tequilas, and take apart the world. Most of the time we talked by telephone. I had a headset that let me chat with both hands free while I drew floor plans at home on my Mac. He’d call on his Bluetooth earpiece from location while his crew set up lights and we’d burn up free long-distance by the hour while we both worked.