Being relatively free, then, and not out of contact with the exorcist, the victim of the “familiar” must be active in his own exorcism. He, in fact, must be the final source of his own liberation by accepting the healing and salvation from God. And, in this sense, the exorcee in such a case is the one who enables the exorcist to complete his work.

Mark spent quite a lot of time explaining to Jamsie this peculiarity of his forthcoming exorcism, Jamsie, like many others, had never reflected on his freedom. Free will was just a vague and abstract term for him. It took Mark a good deal of explaining to get Jamsie to understand that he had to exercise an option. This was the basic option of free will. Mark could only indicate to Jamsie when he should make a tremendous effort of will. Only Mark would be in a position to know the precise moment at which Jamsie could most effectively make that choice.

A peculiarity of this exorcism had to do with a ploy of Ponto’s that had the same mischievous quality about it as many of the antics that had worn Jamsie down so much. The exorcism could be performed only after the sun went down. In fact, it was not always possible to start immediately at sundown; Ponto might not respond or appear for quite a while. And it was not possible to continue the exorcism after sunrise. This was not considered by Mark to be characteristic of this type of possession-just a mark of malice on the part of Uncle Ponto and his “superior.” The night held terrors for Jamsie from which he was free during the daytime. That was a plus for Ponto and his “superior.”

On the other hand, during daylight hours, Mark had ample time to consult the psychiatrist who had dealt with Jamsie. He also had Jamsie thoroughly checked by a doctor of his own choosing.

The psychiatrist remained in his unwavering conclusion that Jamsie was not suffering from anything like paranoia or schizophrenia. And finally during the exorcism itself Mark found that the Uncle Ponto. Jamsie saw and heard informed him accurately about things which Jamsie could neither have known nor guessed.

Each session of the exorcism took place in a basement room of the rectory where there was virtually no probability of interruption by the outside world. Jamsie sat on a kitchen chair at a table except for the last portion of the exorcism. The assistants were four in number: a younger priest Mark had pressed into his service, two young friends of his who worked in a law firm together, and a local doctor whose judgment Mark felt he could trust.

Jamsie’s exorcism lasted over five days.

Mark always began each session with the Salve Regina, a prayer to the Virgin, and he ended with the Anima Christi, a prayer to Jesus. Only in the last two sessions were there any violent objections channeled through Jamsie to these prayers.
 

The first three sessions of the exorcism were full of irrelevant discourses by Uncle Ponto (all put into words by Jamsie). Mark bided his time and was certain he could afford to wait. He knew that sooner or later Uncle Ponto would break down and his “superior” would have to intervene.

This is what happened in the fourth session.

The time was 4:15 A.M., just an hour before sunrise. Mark had started the fourth session a little after midnight. He had pounded Ponto with questions through Jamsie for four hours, but Ponto had dodged them with prattling and nonsense.

At this late moment in the session, Mark saw Jamsie straighten up in the chair and look to one side. To Mark it was obvious: Jamsie was seeing more than Ponto now. This was the first flaw, the first sign of weakness, the first indication Ponto’s “superior” might be coming to his aid. Maybe Mark’s pounding with questions had not been so wide of the mark after all.

Mark’s mind raced back over his most recent questions and hammerings at Uncle Ponto. He could think of only one thing that might have evoked Uncle Ponto’s “superior.” In answer to a spate of nonsensical remarks on Ponto’s part, Mark had said in tones of utter disdain: “We have now come to the end of your intelligence. You have no more defense and no more explanations why this human soul should become ‘familiarized’ by you. You are repeating yourself. You are a nothing and worse than a nothing compared to the power of Jesus. In his name I tell you: you have to go forth and leave this person and go back to the one who sent you. You and he are defeated by Jesus.”

“It’s the Shadow, Father,” Jamsie was staring, almost transfixed. The eyes of the pathetic young prostitute of nearly 30 years before, staring at the man in the shadows at the foot of her bed, seemed to stare for a moment from Jamsie’s face, so similar was the look.

Mark went on inexorably. “You are completely at the mercy of Jesus, you and all associated with you. Jamsie, however, is protected. You have no greater one, no one to make up for your stupidity.”

He glanced at Jamsie: “What is it, Jamsie? Tell me! Quick!”

Mark was afraid Jamsie would be stilled by fright, or by some power Ponto held over him, or-as had happened in other such cases-that Jamsie would fall unconscious before he could clue Mark in.

“He’s talking rubbish, Father,” Jamsie answered with difficulty.

Jamsie began to draw short breaths, as if breathing was now difficult for him. Then he started to cringe and draw into himself. His hands went to his neck as if to support his head. His face turned red. The doctor looked at Mark but made no move yet. The two young assistants stirred, ready to jump to Jamsie’s aid. Mark quieted them with a gesture, then went on.

“We think Jamsie had better die with the blessing of the Church than live on in such a condition.”

“No! No!” It was Jamsie, repeating for Mark what Ponto said, but with great difficulty. “I cannot fail. I must have my home. They will not allow that Person . . .” Jamsie broke off and started to gag and choke.

Mark went on. “We think Jesus, the Lord of all things, is coming to expel you, you puny and filthy being, expel you and send you back defenseless and stupid where you came from. Jesus cannot be opposed.”

Mark stopped. Jamsie’s eyes had closed. His hands fell to his sides in a helpless gesture. He started to slither from the chair to the floor.

“Quick!” Mark said to the assistants. “Get him on to the cot.”

As he slipped off the chair, Jamsie’s body lodged between the chair and the table, resting not quite entirely on the floor. His fists were clenched and held tightly to his neck, his head was sunk on his chest, his shoulders hunched, his knees bent, his toes splayed out straight and rigid. He was a twisted mass of hard angles and awkward curves. At first, the assistants and Mark thought Jamsie had merely got jammed at a difficult angle between the chair and the table. But after a moment’s effort and examination, they realized that they could not budge his body. It was heavier than anything they could move. They shifted the chair and table away. Jamsie fell heavily to the ground as if drawn by an invisible magnet. Throughout all this his eyes were open and staring sightlessly.

Perspiring and helpless, the assistants looked up at Mark.

He held up the crucifix and in a loud voice said: “I command you, Ponto, I command you in the name of Jesus! Let go of this creature of God. Cease to pin him to the ground. Let go, I command you!”

Jamsie’s body suddenly loosened. His head lolled to one side, his eyes turned upward until only the whites showed, his hands unclenched, and his arms rolled to his sides lifelessly.

Quickly the assistants picked him up and laid him on the cot.

“Tie him down,” said Mark. Then to the doctor: “Take a look, Tom. Just make sure, will you?”

The doctor checked Jamsie’s pulse and looked at Mark forebodingly. “Take it easy, Mark. He’s very low. I have no means of knowing how low without more thorough checking. Take it easy.”

Mark nodded. He knew he was close to a break in Ponto’s resistance. He motioned to them all to stand back. He took the holy-water flask from the young priest and, raising his hand, faced Jamsie as he lay on the cot.

Mark sprinkled holy water on Jamsie in three deliberate gestures- he looked like a man throwing a grenade each time. And each time he pronounced in quick succession the words of his greatest reproach. He was addressing the “superior.”

“Lurking Coward. Filthy Traitor. Defeated Rebel. Come out from behind your miserable secundo, your toady. Come out. And be shamed once more. Once more be defeated by Jesus. Be thrust into the Pit.”

As his assistants saw him at that moment, Mark had completely changed. Up to this point, he had spoken softly, cautiously, every word and expression coming out of him after a weighty pause. Now he seemed suddenly to be a foot taller. At the same time he seemed coiled up. His face was hard; his mouth barely opened as he spoke; and, on the tape, there is a sudden, unexpected sense of onslaught and fierce hatred and contempt in Mark’s voice.

In answer to Mark, there came a slow and very weak moaning from Jamsie. It gradually picked up in speed and volume, growing higher in pitch and deeper in resonance. Jamsie’s body shook and vibrated beneath the leather straps holding him to the cot.

“Or are you a secundo of Jesus also?” Mark continued in the same deadly tone. “A real secundo of his triumph? Traitor and Father of Lies, promiser of vain victories? Are you also broken by . . .”

Mark got no further. His gibes had hit home. Through Jamsie’s open mouth all present in the room could now hear distant and mincing words, each one peeled out of some acidulous throat, licked by a contemptuous tongue, and thrown in a leisurely and deliberate fashion at their ears like sharp darts of scorn. They all felt that scorn. And they all feared.

“Clot of mud. Little puppy of fucking animals. Talking beast. Praying with one end and excreting with the other. Depending on mercy. Asking for forgiveness . . .”

The contempt was like burning acid to those listening.

“. . . smelling like a dunghill. Rotting into a juicy cadaver. Be silent! Retire! Leave this animal to us, the Most Hi-i-i-i-i-i-i-gh. . .

” The one syllable of the last word was strung out in a long note that had a wailing quality of regret. Mark noted it, and took the only way out: attack.

“Declare yourself, in the name of Jesus!” A long pause. Jamsie’s face was bloodless, drawn. The young priest was about to say something when that voice spoke again.

“We have never yielded to any power. And we will never . . .”

“Then we will begin the exorcism, the cursing out of you, the expulsion of you and all of you in the name of . . .”

“No-o-o-o-o-!” Again, that long-drawn-out wailing note. The voice had lost its contempt. There was a sudden urgency in it, almost a craven note.

Mark had broken a hole in the attack, he knew, and he jumped in with both feet.

“Your name!” Mark’s command came before that long wailing “No” was finished.

“Names are for ...”

“Your name! By the authority of Jesus’ Church, your name, I say!” Mark was not shouting, yet his voice filled every part of the room.

“We are . . .” Again the wailing note, but this time with a growl-like resonance. “We are all of the Kingdom. No man can know the name. We are alllllllll . . .” The “1” echoed and echoed until it finally died away.

“What shall we call you then?” Mark was still insistent. “In Jesus’ name, what name will you obey? In Jesus’ name, what name will you obey?”

“Multus-a-um. Magus-a-um. Gross-grosser-grossesste. Seventy times. Seventy-seven Legion. All . . .”

“Multus? Shall you obey this name, in the name of . . .”

Mark was interrupted by Jamsie. He was suddenly awake, his eyes wide open and bloodshot, his body pushing against the straps, his legs kicking.

“Sit on his legs,” Mark said. The two assistants did so.

“UNCLE PONTO! UNCLE PONTO!” Jamsie was screaming at the top of his voice with a desperation that froze them all. “UNCLE PONTO! DON’T GO. IF YOU GO, WHAT WILL THEY DO TO ME? UNCLE PONTO! UNCLE PONTO!”

Mark drew back and thought quickly.

Jamsie continued blabbering incoherently. Then, in a lower tone, as if wearied by his recent efforts: “Yes . . . thought you were after my . . . no, please . . . don’t do that and . . . night . . . radio with Jay Beedem . . .”

Mark was thinking. He turned away. The others could see his face cloaked over in a withdrawn look. For a few seconds he seemed to be elsewhere, to be totally abstracted from the situation. Then he rounded unexpectedly like a whiplash, his voice rising in anger.

“Multus! Multus! Answer us in the name of Jesus. Answer! Answer! By dismissing Ponto! Answer!” Mark waited for a moment. Then he repeated his command.

“Answer! By dismissing Ponto! Answer!”

Jamsie’s eyes clouded over, his head fell back, his body went limp. Mark had his answer. He knew: to all intents and purposes Ponto was gone; he was now dealing directly with Ponto’s “superior.” Mark’s aim now was clearly to get all the information he could from that “superior,” to find out in particular as much as he could about the tangled lines of the attempted possession of Jamsie and thus clear the way for a successful expulsion of the evil spirit. Multus, like all evil spirits, could not stand the light of truth.

The doctor pried open one of Jamsie’s eyes, felt his pulse, and nodded slowly, warningly to Mark.

Mark fired out a series of questions.

“When did you start working on Jamsie?”

“He was chosen before he was born.”

“When did he know you were after him?”

“He knew long before he knew he knew.”

“How did you gain entry to him?”

“He wanted it. Those who might have taught him otherwise, we corrupted. But he chose to be entered. Only one opposed us.”

“Who?”

“He never knew him.”

“Who?”

“His father’s father. He was given that role by . . .” The voice wailed away in the same regretful note of sorrow.

“By whom?” Mark insisted. No answer.

“By whom?” Mark repeated the question, and added: “Or shall I tell you by whom?”

“By that Person who is beyond notice by us. By the Claimer of all adoration. By the one who never received and will never receive our adoration . . .”

“Did you make Jamsie see the ‘funny-lookin’ face’?”

“No. His protector. We would never frighten him away. We are more powerful than that. It was his protector trying to warn him.”

Now the tone had changed. A new truculence had entered it. Mark heard it and whitened. He had presumed too much. The voice continued gratingly. It was as if the owner of that voice saw Mark’s discomfiture. A hail of sharp questions rained down on his ears, and his mind started to boggle under the weight of the images they evoked.

“Do you think you have escaped us, Mushroom-Souper? Do you think that one of these filthy whores didn’t change you? How many times have you lusted after them? Remember the Harlem house and the seventeen-year-old? Remember when she shoved her pussy at you and you saw the black hair glistening on those tawny thighs? Remember your hard-on? Ha! Ha! Priest! You fucking priest! You little burning cock! Ha! Ha! Your prayers were of no avail then. And your Virgin with her lily-white conception was of no avail. Or did you remember to tie the rosary around it and hold it down? Remember! Remember? Remember your wet dreams? We do. So we do. And you do! Don’t you think a bit of you belongs already to us? Prieeeeeeeeeest!”

Mark was beaten temporarily. He staggered back. And then he saw Jamsie: both eyes open, his mouth split in a wide, full-toothed grin. He was listening and laughing. Mark got the message. Ponto and his “superior” were leaving. The young priest tapped Mark on the shoulder and pointed to the window. Thin pencils of sunlight were pointing in from the outside. Another bright and hot day had started.

Mark heaved a sigh. Another half hour, he thought, and he would have nailed down the “superior.” “Okay. Let’s wrap it up for now, until tonight.” He had recovered his nonchalance. “We meet at 10:00 P.M. sharp. Get some rest. Tonight’s the night.”
Then they did what they had done each day before this. Mark recited the Anima Christi, Afterward, he went upstairs and said his Mass. The four assistants took turns watching over Jamsie. In an hour or so after that, he woke up with no memory of what had happened the previous night.

On the last night of the exorcism Mark had a plan to precipitate events if Ponto delayed very long in coming. He had a trump card up his sleeve. There was a certain risk in playing that card; and in what he proposed to do he was incurring dangers on himself as well as on Jamsie.

But the alternative was almost as stark and forbidding. Jamsie was getting progressively weaker in his resolution to undergo the rite of Exorcism, to resist, to survive. He could collapse completely at any moment. He could, indeed, fall into a comatose state as a prelude to an early death-Mark had known such cases-or he could emerge in a state of complete shock. In either condition, Jamsie would be inaccessible. And Mark himself would be left forever with a nagging doubt about Jamsie’s fate. There would be no way of knowing if he had become one of the perfectly possessed, immune to any touch of therapy, isolated from any saving intervention, trussed, mummified, and locked away safely by the evil power that possessed him perfectly. Or if he had gone insane in a strictly psychological sense of the word. In any such condition it would be impossible to know how much he perceived of the other world, or if he could pray and exercise his belief and thus cooperate with God’s grace for ultimate salvation.

Mark fervently wished to avoid the dubious and dangerous character of such an ending to the case of Jamsie Z.

Mark’s trump card lay in a fact that had emerged during his routine inquiries about Jamsie and his general background.
Jamsie had been baptized at home by his grandmother over the kitchen sink. He had been born in a very weakened condition. The attending doctor had despaired of his survival, and his very pious Armenian grandmother had baptized him, because she feared the priest would be too late. From what Mark could find out, there was a reasonable doubt that Jamsie’s baptism had been valid.

Jamsie’s grandmother had known very little English and she certainly did not know the words of baptism in English. It was she who had poured water over his baby head. But, it appeared, the Irish midwife who was helping Lydia, Jamsie’s mother, in the childbirth, had pronounced the words of Baptism.

If this were so, then the Baptism had indeed been invalid. The same person who pours the water must pronounce the words. Otherwise, no Baptism of that kind is valid. The baby is not baptized, has not become a Christian.

To create even further doubt, the parish priest, who had finally arrived much later, never bothered to correct the doubt and baptize Jamsie provisionally. Such “conditional baptism” is usually conferred in such cases. But, for whatever reason, apparently this had not been done.

Now Mark proposed to baptize Jamsie. Instinctively, as an exorcist, Mark knew that the “rejection” of Evil Spirit implied in Baptism of an adult was something a mere “familiar” could not handle. The “superior” would have to intervene in a new way in order to protect the common interest of “familiar” and “superior” alike.

And then it was Mark’s object to attack the peculiar bond between the “superior” spirit and its “familiar” spirit. That much done, Mark would no longer have to deal secondhand; he would have the “superior” in the open-not temporarily as in the previous sessions, but as the “responsible party,” so to speak. From then on Mark could handle things as in a more “normal” exorcism.

Having spent, therefore, one hour waiting for Ponto to come, Mark had Jamsie lie down on the cot, where the assistants strapped him securely. He now proceeded with the Baptism, Jamsie answering all the queries which are put to an adult person about to be baptized, reciting the Creed and making other professions of faith.

This went on for a short while in relative calm, until Jamsie broke off in the middle of a sentence. His voice changed, and he said quickly to Mark: “He’s coming back. He’s in a terrible state.”

Uncle Ponto was obviously with Jamsie. Mark’s plan had worked that far. He arid his assistants listened to one end (Jamsie’s) of a bizarre conversation and tried to guess what was said at the other end (Uncle Ponto’s).

“I will not have you in my life.” Jamsie was looking over to the door of the room. He was silent for a few seconds. Then he spoke in a waspish tone. “What happens on Jupiter and what I could do with much money-a million bucks-is all hogwash. I want to be left . . .”

Now Jamsie was looking at the ceiling, now at the window, now over toward the door again. “That won’t help at . . .” His face flushed with anger. “But why should I be afraid to die? Others have had to go.”

Mark and the others continued to listen in silence. Evidently Ponto was in a bad state.

Jamsie broke in: “Mark says Jesus said you’re a goddamn liar and . . .” Interrupted, Jamsie looked over in the corner and scowled. “I’ll talk about what I damn well please, and listen . . .”

Then something happened of an abrupt and quite unexpected nature. Jamsie’s eyes grew larger, the whites of the eyes shone. His face seemed to cave in, to lose some substantive strength. He shrank back on the couch, into himself.

Mark was by his side in an instant and laid his hand in Jamsie’s. It was a prearranged signal between the two of them. Jamsie had time to press Mark’s fingers lightly, then he started weeping and sobbing.

“It’s no use.” His fingers let go of Mark’s hand. “It’s no use. I’m finished. He’s back. They’re all back.”

Mark took the crucifix and started immediately. When he did, Jamsie seemed to go to sleep suddenly, his jaw sagging, spittle running down his chin.

“Multus!”

“Mushroom-Souper!” The words were pronounced with a velvet smoothness, but icy cold.

“Multus! Answer us. It is you and no one else?”

“Mushroom-Souper, you ludicrous little pigmy. We have our mark on you. All this hocus-pocus will not keep you or him that belongs . . .”

“Multus! Answer us!” Mark had the spirit where he wanted it. “Jamsie’s ‘familiar’ is Ponto. Why do you say he belongs to you? Who are ‘us’ then?”

“You smelly ones walk around in bodies of slime and mud and muck. You say one, two, three, four hundred, seven million, a trillion. Ha! Ha-Ha!”

“Multus! Is Uncle Ponto you? Are you Uncle Ponto?” “We are spirits. There is no one, two, three, four, hundred, seven million, a trillion. We are kinds and species. We are spirits! Powers. Dominations. Centers. Minds. Wills. Forces. Desires.”
 

“Answer in the name of the Church. Answer the questions of Jesus’ authority. Are you Uncle Ponto?”

“Yes! Ha! Ha! No! Ha! Ha!” The laughter froze the blood in the listeners’ veins. It was a rollicking sneer of contempt, no fun in it, no humor. Then: “Ponto is us without the intelligence of the Claimant.” There was a trap ready to spring on Mark. But Mark knew better than to ask who the Claimant was. Claimant, Master, Prince, Leader-it all came down to one being: the supreme intelligence of evil which had led and which leads all intelligences in revolt against the truth of God. Mark never felt in all his life that he wanted a direct tussle with that personage. Deep instinct of his own limitations held him back from such a step.

Instead, Mark pursued his urgent quest of uncovering the relationship between Uncle Ponto and the Shadow. “But Uncle Ponto uses his own intelligence on his own account.”

“Never.” The definitiveness of that word hit them all. “Ponto’s intelligence is subordinate to you.” “Always.” The answer was a stony blow. Imperious. Curt. “And Ponto’s will?”

“Those who accepted, those who accept the Claimant, have his will. Only his will.

Only the will. Only the will. The will of the Kingdom. The will of the will of the will of the will of the will . . .” The voice faded down from a curt, domineering tone to a sniveling, breathed whisper and died away. Mark detected the sudden influx of fear in it. The young assistant priest also caught that note of fear, and, in a kind of victory yell, he leaned forward with a sudden ebullience: “Hit them hard, Mark!”

Mark rounded on him, his eyes blazing. “Shut your mouth!” “That is right!” came the mincing tone. “That is exactly right! But
our quarrel is with you, Priest! We have years to deal with this little virgin and to show ...”

Mark broke in. “You will speak when questioned. Only then. And you will tell us in the name of Jesus,” Mark thundered, his annoyance with the young priest’s mistake filling his voice and channeled at the spirit, “you will tell us: Jay Beedem, has he consented to your power?”
There was complete silence. Only Jamsie’s breathing could be heard. Mark had never met Beedem, but he figured oddly in Jamsie’s story, and Mark’s nose caught a strange scent there, even from a distance. He needed to know if there was an essential connection Beedem had with Ponto or with his “superior” that affected Jamsie.

“Jay Beedem,” insisted Mark. “You will tell us when . . .”

“No.” It was summary and definitive. “We will not tell you anything, Priest.” Silence again.

“By the authority of the Church and in the name of Jesus, you . . .”

“That Church and that Person have no authority over Jay Beedem. He is ours. Ours. Ours. Ours. The Kingdom. Ours.”

Mark drew a deep breath. This was not new for him, but it always gave him a sinking feeling to find out that someone was protected by summary evil, protected even from the touch of grace. He knew better than to pursue the subject. Once before, about ten years before, he had tried. And the onslaught that ensued had interrupted the exorcism (which someone else had to start all over again and finish), and left Mark literally dumb and deaf for about five weeks. Something vital had almost died in Mark that time. He had challenged Evil Spirit on its own secure ground.

He switched to another tack. “Your funny-looking face: what was the purpose of that?”

“The funny-looking face was not our doing. We do not frighten those we prospect.”

“What result was effected by showing Jamsie that face?”

“By it, his protector wished to acquaint him with the face all take on who belong to us . . .”

“Was it this,” Mark interrupted almost involuntarily, “that stopped Jamsie at the reservoir? That face?” There was no immediate answer.

Mark got the faintest hint of something strange happening to the others in the room. He glanced quizzically at his young priest; his face was beaded with perspiration. Mark paused.

Then all four assistants flung their hands to their ears, their faces screwed up in expressions of pain.

“Mark, for the love of God, get them to stop that whistling!” the doctor was shouting at the top of his voice. “It will stun us.”

He and the other three started to moan in pain; then all four were shouting and screaming, their heads and bodies turning this way and that, backing away from the cot where Mark stood beside Jamsie’s inert body.

Mark took a step toward them, but quickly withdrew. He tried again, and again withdrew. Every time he stepped outside a certain invisible circle around the cot, his ears were assailed by the most horrible and deafening hail of high-decibel sound.
As his four assistants writhed and withdrew slowly, they were looking at Mark, imploring help. He made animated gestures to them indicating that they should keep backing away. They did so until finally, within a foot or so of the back wall near the door of the room, all four suddenly stopped writhing in agony. Their faces lost the lines of pain and concentrated effort.

They looked at Mark finally as though across a huge distance filled suddenly with silence and fog. While Mark could see them clearly, he could not hear them at all. On their side, they could only hear Mark and see his lips moving and his hands gesturing in a distorted fashion. It was like looking through frosted glass into a sunlit room; they saw everything, but unclearly.

Rooted to the opposite side of the room with their bodies to the wall, it was through this weird medium that his four assistants saw Mark’s final settling of Jamsie’s exorcism. It was a shadow play of horrors for them.

They saw Mark’s figure turn partially away from them to face Jamsie’s body on the cot. They saw Mark lift the crucifix. They saw his lips move and at first heard nothing. Then, as from a great distance and through a low, rumbling noise like a continuous avalanche of pebbles down the side of a mountain, they began to hear his voice.

“. . . shall be as we bid, because it is in the name of Jesus that we bid you answer us. Was it the face that stopped Jamsie from suicide?”

Another voice, the one with the mincing words, broke through in a guttural tone, sharp, decisive, cold, inimical. “Are you interested in that funny-lookin’ face, Priest? Would you like to see it yourself?”

“Answer our question,” was Mark’s rebuttal to that invitation to be curious. “Answer it!”

“Yes. Ye-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-es.” The voice was grating out the sounds grudgingly. “It was that face. We are always present when inferiors are about to make a killing.”

“So every time you were present, Jamsie’s protector endeavored to let him see that face?” There was no answer to this.
Mark went to another point. “Why did you allow Jamsie to see the . . . the . . . the Shadow?” Mark stumbled over that one, and then regained his composure. There had been moments in his own life when he had been about to make some important decision and, he now realized with a little shiver, there had been some sort of shadow present. He had always put it down to something else. But the wisps of memory disturbed him now. Those moments had been during his, bouncy, jaunty days, his “scenario” days, when everything had to have a logical and describable cause, and it was all very simple.

“We did not. Notnotnotnotnotnot.” The word was a thump of sorrow and regret and dreadful aching. Mark felt it. He went on, pressing his questions, still holding the crucifix high.

“Why did a common look exist between the Shadow and Uncle Ponto and Jay Beedem and the pimp and many others; why did a common look exist?”

Mark could see a change in Jamsie that his four assistants could not see through the haze that kept them apart. Jamsie was now wide awake, but his eyes were not on Mark. They looked up to his left. Mark was careful to note this, but he kept looking steadily at Jamsie. He repeated his question. He was getting closer.

“Why the common look? Is this another part of your evil stupidity?”

“Beyond our control.” The words came with difficulty. “We also . . . must submit ... in material things, we . . . also bound . . . Person beneath contempt holds . . . holds . . . holds . . . holds . . .” The voice started to get slurred. “Ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-l-l-l-l-l-l-dsdsdsdsdsdsdsdsdsdsds” The voice died away in an angry buzz until there was no more sound.

“Why the common look?” Mark kept staring at Jamsie, looking for any hint or clue in his reactions.

Still pinned to the opposite wall, Mark’s assistants were suddenly horror-struck. They shouted and screamed in warning to Mark. He could not hear, but continued to face Jamsie.

At first what they saw seemed vague, a bulky shape, rearing up behind Mark, much like a cat standing crookedly on its hind legs, front paws lifted, claws open and spread-eagled, ears flattened against its head, mouth opened to hiss.

They heard the distorted rumble of Mark’s voice as he continued the exorcism. There was nothing they could do but watch and pray.

“What do you place in those human beings so that they get that look?”

And the voice came rasping out in a slow, steady tone: “Obedience to the Kingdom. They give their will. We fill the soul. What’s inside peers out willy-nilly . . .”

Jamsie, still strapped down, had raised his head from the bed to stare at the threatening form behind Mark. It was constantly weaving back and forward, turning from left to right as if seeking something. But to Jamsie it was less like a cat and more like a man swathed in heavy, black clothes. Mark, intent on watching Jamsie, did not follow the direction of his gaze.
“You have to come out.” Mark began his final pounding at the spirit. “You have to manifest yourself and leave this human being. In the name of Jesus!”

The assistants, all still at bay, could see both faces-Jamsie’s and the darksome figure’s-contorting at this moment. “And not only you, but your inferior and slave, your Uncle Ponto. Him and all who go with him. Out! I say! Out with all of you.”
Mark’s assistants were now in utter panic. All they could see was the menace to Mark from behind him. They tried to move forward against the excruciating rain of sound.

“We will never rest until we avenge ourselves on you,” the voice was saying, “we will leave this miserable blob of muck dead when we go.”

“Life and death are not yours to give or take. They belong to Jesus.”

Jamsie started at that moment to scream, wild hysteria in his voice.

Mark’s ears were filled with that scream; he held the crucifix and prayed out loud, using only two words: “Jesus! Mercy! Jesus! Mercy! Jesus! Mercy! Jesus! Mercy! Jesus!”

Then his ears were hit by the agonizing screams of the four assistants: they had left their sanctuary-prison against the opposite wall, had penetrated the space between the wall and the cot where Mark stood beside Jamsie, and were once more writhing under the impact of the torture that stabbed at their eardrums.

But even through the din of Jamsie’s shouts and his assistants’ screams, deepened by his own praying, chanting voice, Mark heard one sound that reassured him and gave him hope.

It was the rattling of the pebble avalanche that had never really ceased, but now became more defined. It was a hubbub of wordless voices and senseless syllables all running together and splitting each other in fragments, interrupting and fractioning and changing each other, an undistinguishable medley of sorrow, regret, foreboding, agony. It persisted in rising and falling waves, then started to build up and up to a crescendo.

Mark took his cue: it was the confusion of defeat and rout. He hurled the words of his power at it all.

“In the name of Jesus! You must depart! Unclean ones! There is no room for you! No dwelling in this human being. For Jesus has commanded: Go! And you go! Go! Go!”

Mark remembers clearly stopping at this point. He did some quick thinking. By now the possessing evil spirit should have been sufficiently weakened and Ponto’s grasp on Jamsie sufficiently diluted for Jamsie to make his fatal and all-important choice.

Mark bent down near Jamsie’s ear, speaking in a gentle, firm tone. He remembers almost word for word; it was the choice that always came in some way. “Jamsie! Jamsie! Jamsie! Listen to me: Now! You have to choose! You have to make a choice! Either you take a step in trust. You renew your faith. Blindly, mind you, blindly. Or now you yield to Ponto and to all of Ponto’s friends. Jamsie! All of them, Jamsie! In the name of Jesus, choose! Now choose, Jamsie!”

In his turn, Jamsie recalls that at this moment he woke up to the confusion around him. Gradually, as in a thinning haze, he began to make out dim figures besides the Shadow behind Mark, and he saw zigzag gestures, the ceiling and the walls of the room; he felt the pressure of the straps across his chest, middle, and legs. His mouth was dry, he remembers, but he was breathing easily.

Farther away from the bed, he could not see anything except as a fuzzy gray-black background-the closest comparison Jamsie can give to describe that blurry background is what he saw when he once tried on the very powerful eyeglasses of a friend who was almost blind. Everything blurred together and seemed to darken.

Closer, he could see the figures of the assistants as they held their ears and struggled with that deafening whistling noise. One was staggering. Two had fallen to the floor. One was standing upright, moving slowly and agonizingly toward him.
Still nearer to him, he could see two or three single figures, together with a multitude of shapes and forms. Ponto was there, but some infinite distance away. Jamsie could not understand this: Ponto was near, yet far. He seemed to be all squeezed together as if his body was boneless and someone had caught it in an invisible clothes wringer narrowing his girth, splaying his limbs, bulging his eyes. And his look was no longer merely importunate and mischievous. For the first time it was nasty, Jamsie felt, nasty, bitter, hating, desperate all at once.

Ponto’s agony seemed to be multiplied by a whole river of forms and shapes-torsos without heads, heads without bodies, arms and legs without a trunk, fingers without hands, toes without legs, bellies without a body, genitals floating free, long plaits of gray and yellow hair-all wreathing and snaking fitfully, aimlessly around Ponto in zigzag tracery.

Closest to him of all, except for Mark, Jamsie saw the Shadow. It loomed up above him with a superhuman stature. It was neither black nor gray nor white but an indefinable amalgam of shifting darkling shades, much like the smoke from wet coals-never still or calm, but ruffled and rippling irregularly. Head, shoulders, hands, mouth, eyes, feet were clear enough to be perceived, but not clear enough to be described.

Jamsie heard Mark’s voice then, gentle, firm, finalizing.

“Jamsie! Now is the time to choose. Remember! I told you. You! You choose. You have to choose. Of your own free will.”

Somehow or other, Mark’s voice was reaching Jamsie in spite of the din and the distracting gyrations and febrile jumping of all those forms.

“Choose! Choose! Yours is the choice. Now!” Mark’s unhesitating syllables clung to Jamsie’s memories.

Jamsie could not see Mark’s face as Mark bent down to speak in his ear, but the Shadow’s features were clear. A kaleidoscope of expressions passed over that face. Jamsie began weakly to remember. Where had he seen this expression? That expression? The next one? The last one? They all seemed different, yet they all seemed to be the same. Then Jamsie realized that the various changing expressions were repeating themselves over and over again, coming and fading and returning in a carousel set to the din and shouts and screams. “Choose! Choose!”

It was Mark’s voice again. Jamsie turned. He tried to make out Mark’s face. He could not. From forehead to chin Mark seemed to be faceless. But he still heard Mark’s voice.

Then his memory began to clear. The expressions became more familiar. Yes . . . yes . . . that was his father’s, Ara’s . . . and that one Uncle Ponto’s . . . the pimp’s ... Jay Beedem’s . . . Jay Beedem’s?” , “Choose! Jamsie! Choose!”

Then, interspersed with the changing faces, Jamsie began to see the other funny-looking faces he had seen in all the years back to his childhood, 1960, 1958, 1957, 1949, 1942, 1941, 1940, 1939, 1938, 1937, 1933. And he began to see that his fright for all these years had been a form of fascination, that even while running away from the “funny-lookin’ faces,” he had been inviting them, that he had wanted to be found by them!

Inside his deepest self another movement started, beyond his willing. The desire to be rid of that fascination. But there was still the agonizing fear and doubt. “If I stopped looking at that carousel,” Jamsie today describes his feelings at that point in the exorcism, “I felt I would cease to exist. I would die, die, die sort of thing.”

Then his fascinated gaze faltered and flicked away from the carousel of faces for an instant over to Mark’s face.

Mark was no longer faceless for Jamsie. He did not have the features Jamsie knew as Mark’s. Still, Jamsie knew, they genuinely belonged to Mark. Another puzzlement for Jamsie.

He peered at Mark, staring at the eyes and the nose and mouth. The colors of his face were beginning to glow and shimmer in old gold, in tarnished silver, faded blue and brown and yellow. Jamsie half-feared to find some phase of the “funny-lookin” face” on Mark, but there was none. And he had no fear or fright. Another emotion, other thoughts were coming to Jamsie.
Mark’s voice reached him again. “You must choose, Jamsie.”

Jamsie glanced again at the Shadow. In all its bulk and in every weaving curve of its changing face and figure there was now a certain cringing. Jamsie read hesitation there, even as he found himself fascinated always by the changes.

Jamsie began to look back and forth from the Shadow back to Mark, then at the Shadow, slowly at first, then quickly. And Mark’s insistent “Choose. Make your choice, Jamsie!” came to him again and again.

Suddenly he understood. He was free. No one would force him. No one could. He was free-to go on immersing himself in the changing horrors of the Shadow, or to look at Mark and make an opposite choice.

He started to gaze steadily at Mark; and in that look he knew he was choosing.

There were no words on his lips. He had no sentence in his brain, no concepts in his mind about that choice. He was choosing, merely because he chose to choose; and, choosing thus, he was freely choosing.

And as the thrust of his choice gathered strength within him, he began to recognize the new lines and shades in Mark’s face: all the traits of goodness and joy and freedom and welcome he had ever known in others-Lydia and Ara of years ago, Lila Wood, the old icon at home in New York-all were there as so many frames, as mirrors reflecting an immense beauty and joy and peace and unshakable eternity.

Slowly Mark’s features became clear, Mark’s solid features, tense and granite-like, his eyes closed, his hand still raised holding the crucifix. The Shadow was receding like smoke from a cigarette being dissipated in the air. And with it all the noise and din was fading away weakly into silence.

Over Mark’s face there was a film of fine suffering drawn tight like gauze. Jamsie was stung with compassion. Mark had said to him: “If we get rid of the Enemy, Jamsie, I will be the last to feel the lash of his tail.”

Mark had lost sight of Jamsie by then. He was in his own travail, his own agony, his own payment of pain.

It was the young assistant who described the change in Jamsie. There was no more hint of struggle. A great calm filled Jamsie’s features. Mark’s voice still boomed, even though the noise had died away. Mark was repeating again the two words: “Jesus! Mercy!”

The young priest knew that Jamsie was free at last. He unbuckled the straps that held Jamsie down on the cot.

“Mark!” Jamsie shouted to the exorcist as he rose up from the cot. “Father Mark! I’m free!” Jamsie touched Mark on the arm. “Father Mark!” He took Mark’s hand and felt the icy cold of those fingers. He stood a few moments waiting.

Then finally Mark lowered the outstretched arm which held the crucifix. His eyes lost the glassy stare; he blinked and Jamsie saw the look of recognition returning in Mark’s eyes. And Mark saw in Jamsie’s eyes and on his face an expression of peace and lively hope which had never been there since he had known Jamsie.

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