The Demon (38 page)

And Linda

could only watch and worry and pray. She knew, not only from Harrys previous reactions, but primarily from a deep, inner conviction, that it would be useless to talk to him, to ask him what was wrong. So she watched, in silence, as some unseen force ate away at the man she loved. She seemed almost hypnotized by the slow and steady change. When they talked to each other, it was as if his voice was coming through a tunnel and there was a stone coldness in the sound of his voice, and she felt, so deeply and painfully, that he was not really a part of the conversations, that his thoughts and attentions were somewhere else.

 
The one element that made her resolve to stay, no matter what, was simply that she knew, instinctively and absolutely, that there was not another woman. It was a thought she did not have to battle simply because it did not enter her mind.

 
From time to time she would try to build the resolve to smash the barrier that was being created between her and Harry, but somehow the impetus could not be sustained and a strange and unfamilar type of lethargy set in, and so she could only watch and worry and pray.

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It was not until March 16 that Harry realized St. Patricks Day would be on a Saturday. He had looked at that date on many calendars a hundred or more times these past weeks, yet it was only now that the day of the week registered in his haunted mind. Saturday! My god . . . Saturday!!!! His stiffened body almost dissolved in a flood of relief. He could stay home. He did not have to be in the city. He did not have to op near the parade. He could keep himself locked in the house. Did not have to go near the station, or even hear a train. He was safe, at home. He heard the phrase go through his head and he almost chuckled, safe at home.

 
He was a little more animated at breakfast on the morning of March 17, far more so than he had been in many months. Linda reacted immediately and hummed to herself as she prepared breakfast for her family. Harry ate more that morning than he had since— Linda could not remember when. He had a couple of eggs, Canadian bacon, home fries and toasted English muffins. Harry Jr. had the same thing as his father though not as much.

It almost looks like eggs Benedict.

 
Yes, smiling, I guess it does. Its just sort of spread around and lacking a few things. Its delicious. Isnt it, son?

Yeah, Dad, it sure is.

 
The light laughter and chuckling continued as the children finished and went to watch their cartoons. Linda and Harry sat at the table drinking coffee and chitchatting for the first time in so long that it seemed beyond Lindas memory. The sun was not only shining outside today.

 
Harry Jr. yelled excitedly that there was a parade on television, hurry, hurry. Harry and Linda joined the children and watched the diminutive mayor, who had been made an honorary Irishman, complete with green teeth, lead the parade down Fifth Avenue. There were endless lines of drum majorettes in green skirts, green boots and green hats twirling green batons; and the people jammed along Fifth Avenue, watching the parade, had their green ribbons and pins and pennants announcing ERIN GO BRAGH, and green ties and green socks,

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and, Harry was certain, there was someone with green underwear and before the day was over he would undoubtedly display his finery. And, of course, there was the inevitable fool or joker or rotten Protestant with an orange tie, who, before the night was over, would be covered with his own blood.

 
Harry chatted, sipped his coffee and laughed at the inanity on the television screen, but his chatting and laughter grew progressively more derisive, then steadily decreased until he was completely silent and was grinding his jaw and clenching his fists as he stared at the dumb fucking donkeys with their goddamn pope-loving bullshit, and he felt like yelling at the television that if they chased the fucking priests out of Ireland instead of the harmless snakes, the people would be a lot better off, especially if they spent their money on food and birth-control pills instead of whiskey and that corrupt and insidious church and asshole parades where all they did was prance up and down the street like the aborigines they were, especially those green-hearted men in blue who loved nothing better than to get some poor, hopeless and helpless black man or Puerto Rican and split his skull open with their clubs for no reason at all other than that they felt like doing it, and dump the body in a garbage can and then push an Abe Relies out the window so the important people in the city wouldn't be inconvenienced and .. .

Im going for a walk,

and

he walked through the trees, his trees, his own private and personal woods—yet again, yet again, yet again—trying to fill his screaming head with the sound of birds and fill his eyes and his knotted and screaming body with the new, green life of spring, but somehow the green was still bullshit and his gut and loins ached and twisted with weakness and he could still hear the dumb fucking drums pounding and pounding as those rotten cunts kicked and twirled, and goddamn it he had

trees
You hear that? Goddamn, motherfucking trees

and theyre mine, every motherfucking one of them, and I dont need any goddamn parade and green booted broads—yet again

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and where are the birds, goddamn it, why dont they sing???

Sing, you sons of bitches, sing—yet again, yet again—do you hear me???? SING!!!!

Why, in Gods name, wont

you sing to me? Please. O, please, sing to me. Fill my head with song and drown out the screeching of the crowds, those monstrous crowds all jammed together, jammed together so tightly—yet again—that a man could not even fall to the ground—yet again—if he were to faint or have a stroke or—yet again—No! NO!!!!—yet again—please . . . please . . .

He

knelt on soft green moss and looked at his hands and at the trees whose branches were crowded with new leaves and buds, some more yellow than green, the sun shining on their crisp-ness, and looked up and through the many limbs reaching and stretching through space, and at the light slanting through, and started to raise his arms, then dropped them and got to his feet—yet again, yet again, yet again, yet again—and walked through his woods, touching the trees and caressing them, trying desperately to fill his head with the sound of the birds he knew were there (he could see them, goddamn it, why was he still hearing that asshole crowd?), and he put his arms around a white birch and hugged it and pressed it to his breast—yet again, yet again, yet again—and clung to it desperately as he tried to still the yelling and pressing closeness of the crowd with the serenity of his woods, but he could feel the bodies tugging and yanking at him and feel the sick turmoil inside him while his head yelled, screamed and pleaded for peace, and he felt the soft, cool whiteness of the birch against his cheek and the sorrow welled up in him until he once more felt like he was drowning in the flood of his own fears, and he yelled at his woods HELP ME! GODDAMN IT, HELP ME! And he hugged his birch tighter and wondered why it did not help: how can all this be mine and it does not make it better? Behind me theres a house, a beautiful house with a loving family, and my gut is filled with rats and maggots that are chewing me

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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. . . .