The Exorcist

  “Why don’t I get you some coffee?”

  “Don’t be fatuous, darling! I want a drink!”

  “You’re getting coffee.”

  “Oh, come along, ducks,” Dennings wheedled in a suddenly gentle voice. “Just one more for the road?”

  “The Lincoln Highway?”

  “Now that’s ugly, love. Truly. Not like you.” Looking pouty, Dennings pushed his glass forward. “ ‘The quality of mercy is not strained,’ ” he intoned; “no, it falleth from heaven like the gentle Gordon’s Dry Gin, so come along now, just one and I’ll be off and that’s a promise.”

  “A real one?”

  “Word of honor and hope to die!”

  Chris appraised him, and then, shaking her head, she picked up the bottle of gin. “Yeah, those priests,” she said abstractedly while pouring gin into Dennings’s glass; “I guess maybe I should ask one or two of them over.”

  “They’d never leave,” Dennings growled, his eyes reddening and suddenly growing even smaller, each one of them a separate, particular hell; “they’re fucking plunderers!” Chris picked up the tonic bottle to pour, but Dennings testily waved it off. “No, for heaven’s sake, straight, can’t you ever remember? The third one is always straight!” Chris watched him pick up his glass, gulp down the gin, then set the glass back down, and with his head bent, staring into it, he muttered, “Thoughtless bitch!”

  Chris eyed him warily. Yeah, he’s starting to blow. She changed the subject from priests to the offer she’d received to direct.

  “Oh, well good,” Dennings grunted, still looking down into his glass. “Bravo!”

  “To tell the truth, though, it kinda scares me.”

  Dennings instantly looked up at her, expression now benign and paternal. “Twaddle!” he said. “You see, my baby, the difficult thing about directing is making it seem as if the damned thing were difficult. I hadn’t a clue my first time out, but here I am, you see. There’s no magic involved, love, just bloody hard work and the constant realization from the day you start shooting that you’ve got a Siberian tiger by the tail.”

  “Yeah, I know that, Burke, but now that it’s real, now that they’ve offered me my chance, I’m not so sure I could even direct my grandmother across the street. I mean, all of that technical stuff!”

  “Oh, now, don’t be hysterical! Leave all of that nonsense to your editor, your cinematographer and the script supervisor. Get good ones and, I promise you, they’ll have you smiling through. What’s important is your handling of the cast, the performances, and at that you’d be marvelous, my pretty; you could not only tell them what you want, you could show them.”

  Chris looked doubtful. “Oh, well, still,” she said.

  “Still what?”

  “Well, the technical stuff. I mean, I need to understand it.”

  “Well, for instance. Give your guru an example.”

  From there, and for almost an hour, Chris probed the acclaimed director to the outermost barricades of minutiae. The technical ins and outs of film directing were available in numerous texts, but reading always tended to fray Chris’s patience. So instead, she read people. Naturally inquisitive, she would juice them, she would wring them out. But books were not wringable. Books were glib. They said “therefore” and “clearly” when it wasn’t clear at all, and their circumlocutions could never be challenged; they could never be stopped for a shrewdly disarming, “Hey, now, hold it. I’m dumb. Could I have that again?” Books could never be pinned, or made to wriggle, or dissected.

  Books were like Karl.

  “Darling, all you really need is a brilliant cutter,” Dennings cackled at the end; “I mean a cutter who knows his doors.”

  He’d grown charming and bubbly, and seemed to have passed the threatened danger point. Until the voice of Karl was heard.

  “Beg pardon. You wish something, Madam?”

  He was standing attentively at the open door to the study.

  “Oh, hullo, Thorndike!” Dennings greeted him, giggling. “Or is it Heinrich?” he asked. “I simply can’t seem to keep the name straight.”

  “It is Karl, sir.”

  “Yes, of course. I’d forgotten. Tell me, Karl, was it public relations that you did for the Gestapo, or was it community relations? I believe there’s a difference.”

  Karl replied politely, “Neither one, sir. I am Swiss.”

  The director guffawed, “Oh, yes, of course, Karl! Right! You’re Swiss! And you never went bowling with Goebbels, I suppose!”

  “Knock it off, Burke!” Chris scolded.

  “Or went flying with Rudolph Hess?” Dennings added.

  His manner cool and unperturbed, Karl turned his gaze to Chris and asked her blandly, “Madam wishes?”

  “Burke, how about that coffee, huh? Whaddya say?”

  “Oh, well, fuck it!” the director declared belligerently, abruptly getting up from the bar and striding out of the room with his head bent forward and his hands clenched into fists. Moments later the front door was heard forcefully slamming shut. Expressionless, Chris turned to Karl and said tonelessly, “Unplug all the phones.”

  “Yes, Madam. Something else?”

  “Oh, well, maybe some decaf.”

  “I bring it.”

  “Where’s Rags?”

  “Down in playroom. I call her?”

  “Yeah, it’s bedtime. Oh, no, wait a second, Karl! No, never mind. I’m going down there myself.” She’d remembered the bird and was heading for the stairs to the basement. “I’ll have the decaf when I come back up.”

  “Yes, Madam. As you wish.”

  “And for the umpty-eighth time, I apologize for Mr. Dennings.”

  “I pay no attention.”

  Chris stopped and turned partway around. “Yes, I know. That’s exactly what’s driving him nuts.”

  Turning back around, Chris walked to the entry hall of the house, pulled open the door to the basement staircase and began to descend. “Hi ya, stinky! Whatchya doin’ down there? You got that bird done for me yet?”

  “Oh, yes, Mom! Come and see! Come on down! It’s all finished!”

  The playroom was paneled and brightly decorated. Easels. Paintings. A phonograph. Tables for games and a table for sculpting. Red and white bunting left over from a party for the previous tenant’s teenage son.

  “Oh, honey, that’s so great!” Chris exclaimed as Regan grandly handed her the figure. Not quite dry, it resembled a “worry bird” and was painted orange, except for the beak, which was laterally striped in green and white. A tuft of feathers was glued to the head.

  “You really like it?” Regan asked, grinning broadly.

  “Oh, honey, I do, I really do. Got a name for it?”

  Regan shook her head. “No, not yet.”

  “What’s a good one?”

  “I dunno,” Regan answered, lifting her hands palm upward and shrugging.

  Lightly tapping her fingernails against her teeth, Chris furrowed her brow in exaggerated ponder. “Let me see, let me see,” she said softly, mulling, then abruptly she lit up and said, “Hey, how about ‘Dumbbird’? Huh? Whaddya think? Just plain old ‘Dumbbird’!”

  Reflexively covering her mouth with a hand to hide the braces on her teeth, Regan snickered and vigorously nodded her head.

  “Okay, it’s ‘Dumbbird’ by a landslide!” Chris declared triumphantly as she held up the sculpture in the air. When she lowered it again, she said, “I’m going to leave it here to dry for a while and then I’ll put him in my room.”

  Chris was setting down the bird on a game table a few feet away when she noticed the Ouija board there. She’d forgotten that she had it. As curious about herself as she was about others, she’d originally bought it as a possible means of exposing clues to her subconscious. It hadn’t worked, though she’d used it a time or two with Sharon, and one other time with Dennings, who had willfully steered the plastic planchette (“Are you the one moving it, ducky? Are you?”) so that all of the “spirit messages??
? were obscene, and then afterward blamed it on “cunting evil spirits!”

  “You been playin’ with the Ouija board, Rags, honey?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “You know how?”

  “Oh, well, sure. Here, I’ll show you.”

  Regan was moving to sit before the board.

  “Well, I think you need two people, honey.”

  “No ya don’t, Mom; I do it all the time.”

  Chris was pulling up a chair. “Well, let’s both play, okay?”

  A hesitation. And then, “Well—okay.” The child had her fingertips lightly positioned atop the planchette and as Chris reached out to position hers, it made a swift, sudden move to the position on the board marked NO.

  Chris smiled at her slyly. “ ‘Mother, I’d rather do it myself’? Is that it? You don’t want me to play?”

  “No, I do! Captain Howdy said ‘no.’ ”

  “Captain who?”

  “Captain Howdy.”

  “Honey, who’s Captain Howdy?”

  “Oh, you know: I make questions and he does the answers.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “He’s very nice.”

  Chris tried not to frown as she began to feel a dim but prickling concern. Regan had loved her father deeply, yet had never shown the slightest reaction to her parents’ divorce. Maybe Regan cried in her room; who knew? But Chris was fearful that her daughter was repressing both anger and grief and that one day the dam would break and her emotions would erupt in some unknowable and harmful form. Chris pursed her lips. A fantasy playmate. It didn’t sound healthy. And why the name “Howdy”? For Howard? Her father? Pretty close.

  “So how come you couldn’t even come up with a name for a dum-dum bird, and then you hit me with something like ‘Captain Howdy’? Why do you call him that, Rags?”

  Regan giggled. “ ’Cause that’s his name, of course.”

  “Says who?”

  “Well, him.”

  “Oh, well, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “And what else does he say to you?”

  “Stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  Regan shrugged and looked aside. “I dunno. Just stuff.”

  “Well, for instance.”

  Regan turned back and said, “Okay, then, I’ll show you. I’ll ask him some questions.”

  “Good idea.”

  Setting the fingertips of both her hands on the heart-shaped beige plastic planchette, Regan closed her eyes tightly in concentration. “Captain Howdy, don’t you think my mom is pretty?” she asked.

  Five seconds passed. Then ten.

  “Captain Howdy?”

  No movement. Chris was surprised. She’d expected her daughter to slide the planchette to the section marked YES. Oh, what now? she fretted. Some unconscious hostility? She blames me for losing her father? I mean, what?

  Regan opened her eyes, looking stern. “Captain Howdy, that’s not very polite,” she chided.

  “Honey, maybe he’s sleeping,” said Chris.

  “Do you think?”

  “I think you should be sleeping.”

  “Ahhh, Mom!”

  Chris stood up. “Yeah, come on, hon. Uppy-uppy! Say good night to Captain Howdy.”

  “No, I won’t. He’s a poop,” muttered Regan sulkily.

  She got up and followed Chris up the stairs.

  Chris tucked her into bed and then sat on the bedside. “Honey, Sunday’s no work. You want to do somethin’?”

  “Sure, Mom. Like what?”

  When they’d first come to Washington, Chris had made an effort to find playmates for Regan. She’d uncovered only one, a twelve-year-old girl named Judy. But Judy’s family was away for Easter, and Chris was concerned now that Regan might be lonely for companions her age.

  Chris shrugged. “Oh, well, I don’t know,” she said. “Somethin’. You want we should drive around town and see the monuments and stuff? Hey, the cherry blossoms, Rags! That’s right, they’re out early this year! You want to see ’em?”

  “Oh, yeah, Mom!”

  “Well, okay! And then tomorrow night a movie!?”

  “Oh, I love you!”

  Regan gave her mother a hug and Chris hugged her back with an extra fervor, whispering, “Oh, honey, I love you so.”

  “You can bring Mr. Dennings if you like.”

  Chris pulled back from the hug and looked at Regan quizzically “Mr. Dennings?”

  “Sure, Mom. It’s okay.”

  “Oh, no, it isn’t!” Chris said, chuckling. “Honey, why would I want to bring Mr. Dennings?”

  “Well, you like him, don’t you?”

  “Oh, well, sure I like him, honey. Don’t you?”

  Looking off, Regan made no answer. Her mother eyed her with concern. “Baby, what’s going on?” Chris prodded.

  “You’re going to marry him, aren’t you, Mommy.”

  It was less a question than a sullen statement of fact.

  Chris exploded into a laugh. “Oh, my baby, of course not! What on earth are you talking about? Mr. Dennings? Where’d you get that idea?”

  “But you like him, you said.”

  “I like pizzas, but I wouldn’t ever marry one! Regan, he’s a friend, just a crazy old friend!”

  “You don’t like him like Daddy?”

  “I love your daddy, honey; I’ll always love your daddy. Mr. Dennings comes by here a lot ’cause he’s lonely, that’s all; he’s just a lonesome, goofy friend.”

  “Well, I heard…”

  “You heard what? Heard from who?”

  Whirling slivers of doubt in the eyes; hesitation; then a shrug of dismissal. “I don’t know,” Regan sighed. “I just thought.”

  “Well, it’s silly, so forget it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now go to sleep.”

  “I’m not sleepy. Can I read?”

  “Yeah, read that new book I got you.”

  “Thanks, Mommy.”

  “Good night, hon. Sleep tight.”

  “Good night.”

  Chris blew her a kiss from the door and closed it, then walked down the stairs to her study. Kids! Where do they get their ideas! She wondered if Regan had connected Dennings somehow to her filing for divorce. Howard had wanted it. Long separations. Erosion of ego as the husband of a superstar. He’d found someone else. But Regan didn’t know that, only that Chris was the one who had filed. Oh, quit all this amateur psychoanalyzing and try to spend some more time with her. Really!

  In the study, Chris had settled down to read “Hope” when, halfway through it, she heard steps and looked up to see Regan coming toward her sleepily while rubbing a knuckle at the corner of an eye.

  “Hey, honey! What’s wrong?”

  “There’s these real funny noises, Mom.”

  “In your room?”

  “Yes, in my room. It’s like knocking and I can’t go to sleep.”

  Where the hell are those traps!

  “Honey, sleep in my bedroom and I’ll see what it is.”

  Chris led Regan to the master bedroom and was tucking her in when Regan asked, “Can I watch TV for a while till I sleep?”

  “Where’s your book?”

  “I can’t find it. Can I watch?”

  “Oh, well, I guess so. Sure.”

  Chris picked up the remote from a bedside table and tuned in a channel. “That loud enough?”

  “Yes, Mom. Thanks.”

  Chris placed the remote on the bed.

  “Okay, honey; just watch it till you’re sleepy? Okay? Then turn it off.”

  Chris turned out the light and then went down the hall, where she climbed up the narrow, green-carpeted stairs that led to the attic, opened the door, felt around for the light switch, found it, flicked it on, and then entered the unfinished attic, where she took a few steps and then stopped and slowly glanced all around. Press clippings and correspondence in boxes were neatly stacked on the pinewood floor. She saw nothing else. Except the rat traps
. Six of them. Baited. Yet the space looked spotless. Even the air smelled clean and cool. The attic was unheated. No pipes. No radiator. No little holes in the roof for entry. Chris took a step forward.

  “There is nothing!” came a voice from behind her.

  Chris jumped from her skin. “Oh, good Jesus!” she gasped, turning quickly and putting a hand to her fluttering heart. “Jesus Christ, Karl, don’t do that!”

  He was standing two steps down on the staircase to the attic.

  “Very sorry. But you see, Madam? Everything is clean.”

  Still a little short of breath, Chris said weakly, “Thanks for sharing that with me, Karl. Yeah, it’s clean. Thanks. That’s terrific.”

  “Madam, maybe cat better.”

  “Cat better for what?”

  “To catch rats.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Karl turned to walk back down the stairs and soon was lost from Chris’s sight. For a time she kept staring at the open doorway as she wondered whether Karl had been subtly insolent. She wasn’t sure. She turned around again, looking for some cause of the rappings. She lifted her gaze to the angled roof. The street was shaded by enormous trees, most of them gnarled and entangled by vines, and the branches of one of them, a massive basswood tree, lightly touched the front third of the house. Was it squirrels after all? wondered Chris. Must be. Or maybe even just the branches. Recent nights had been windy.

  “Maybe cat better.”

  Chris turned around and stared at the doorway again. Pretty smart-ass, are we Karl? she reflected. Then in a flash her expression turned pertly mischievous. She went down to Regan’s bedroom, picked something up, brought it back to the attic, and then after a minute went back to the bedroom. Regan was sleeping. Chris returned her to her room, tucked her into her bed, then went back to her own bedroom, where she turned off the television and went to sleep.

  That night, the house was especially quiet.

  Eating her breakfast the following morning, Chris told Karl in an offhand way that during the night she thought she’d heard one of the rat traps springing shut.

  “Like to go and take a look?” Chris suggested, sipping coffee and pretending to be engrossed in the Washington Post, while, without any comment, Karl went up to the attic to investigate the matter. As he was returning a few minutes later, Chris passed him in the hall on the second floor. His gaze straight ahead, he was stolidly walking without any expression, in his hands the large Mickey Mouse doll whose snout he had pried from one of the traps. As he and Chris passed one another, she heard him mutter, “Someone is funny.”