The Occupied Page 4

  “He never came out and said it. Wanted to keep it hidden, I guess. Just implied a lot. Like there were these, I don’t know, artifacts or something that fell off a shelf and broke, but he insisted he never opened the case. Like it was spirits or something. He even gave me a book about all this weird stuff he was into.”

  Augie was getting cranked. “What did it say?”

  “The book?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey, school’s out. I’m not giving you a book report.”

  “But it talked about, like, ghosts and stuff, right?”

  “Not exactly. Just about the world of spirits. And how to connect with them.”

  Augie was starting to laugh. But not funny laughing. More like laughing at the thought of something that was indescribable. “And that dude died in that house down the street, where some weird invisible force had knocked down his glass jars or pitchers or whatever and busted them.” He took a second to think about what he had just said. Then, “Hey, you’ve got the keys to his house.”

  “That’s right. So?”

  “This is awesome. I say we hustle on down there and look around.”

  I hesitated.

  He started taunting me. “What’s the matter? Scared?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Well?”

  “Okay,” I said, taking the dare. Then I upped the ante. “How about we go over there, but even better, let’s see if we can pierce the supernatural veil . . .”

  Candles were lit and the little thin book was in my hand. Augie and I sat on the floor of Mason Krim’s musty living room, our only light coming from the flickering circle of candles.

  Augie was on a roll. “Let’s go, big daddy.”

  I flipped through the book until I found the page I was looking for. But just then I felt a caution, like a personal smoke alarm going off inside. So, hedging my bets, I said, “No need to go through all of this.”

  “No backing out now,” Augie countered. “Got to do it all.” He grabbed the book out of my hand and looked at the page where I had it opened. Then he spoke up, mangling the pronunciation of the heading of that section of the book—Incantation. And he looked at me again, and I gave him the go sign.

  Augie started to recite the Latin phrases. I had taken Latin as my language class for two years, but I don’t think he knew that, and I didn’t tell him. I just let him bungle through the words out loud. I wondered silently in my head whether that still counted as a real incantation or not. Or whether it was something else, something internal and having to do with the intentions of the heart that mattered, and if so, if that was the real hinge that would swing the door open to whatever was waiting on the other side.

  He finished and handed the book to me. “It says here that everyone has to join in. Otherwise it won’t work.”

  I knew what was next. What I was supposed to do? I looked around because I was hearing sounds, but I knew what it was. The wind was picking up, and the maple trees outside of Krim’s house had not been trimmed, so the branches were scraping against the windows.

  “Get on with this,” Augie whispered.

  “Okay.”

  In the flickering candlelight I said what I was supposed to say. It was simple. At the end, I spoke out in a loud voice. “Is anyone there? Is anyone listening?”

  Then I said it again. “Is anyone there? Is anyone listening?”

  Augie was stone still, his eyes half-closed, like he was listening real close. Waiting. I don’t know how much time went by. Maybe several minutes. Neither of us said a word. In my mind I knew that one of us had to blink, had to call the game to an end. But neither of us did.

  Then a deafening noise. We jumped. It was the jangling of a telephone.

  I was startled. Augie went bug-eyed. It kept ringing, and ringing, and ringing. I thought, Why doesn’t it stop? Why is it still ringing?

  Augie tried to get to his feet, but in the process he kicked over one of the candles. The telephone kept ringing with that obnoxious, tinny, jangling sound, and it wouldn’t stop. I pointed to the candle that was burning sideways on the floor and yelled to Augie, “Put out the fire!” Then I leaped over the candles toward the sound.

  I found the telephone at the other end of the room on a small table. I let it ring once more, hoping it would end. But it didn’t. Another ring. I put my hand to the receiver and picked it up.

  I never said hello. On the other end there was a voice. A masculine voice. What the voice said was very simple and sent a chill over me like someone had dropped ice down my shirt: “Is anyone there? Is anyone listening?”

  I couldn’t move. Augie looked at me and recoiled at first, as if my face was melting. Then he jumped over to me, almost tripping, and grabbed the phone out of my hand. He put it to his ear and stood there for the longest time, listening and not saying anything, his mouth half open. I could faintly hear a voice on the other end, but none of the words.

  Finally he placed the receiver very slowly back onto the base.

  I needed to know. “Who was that? What did he say to you?”

  At first Augie wouldn’t say. I asked him again. Then this smile came over his face, almost like the smile of Mason Krim that would creep me out.

  Finally, after staring out in space, he answered. “It was Casper the Friendly Ghost. He says hi.” Then Augie burst into a belly laugh. He always did have a weird sense of humor.

  Augie never asked me what I had heard on the telephone. And despite my asking him several times that summer what he had heard on the other end of that call, Augie would never tell me.

  6

  When Bobby Budleigh arrived back in town after working at his church camp, he looked me up. Augie was out of town for a family reunion and Dan was at a guitar clinic, so it was just Bobby and me. I was driving my Ford Fairlane with the top down and the radio blaring. Bobby loved my convertible. He was sitting in the passenger seat, bobbing his head to Poison’s “Fallen Angel,” tapping his hand on the side of the car.

  “You like that stuff?” I asked.

  Bobby went along with my penchant for rhythm and blues, but his pop music tastes ranged wider than mine. Instead of answering, he just stared at me with a comical smile on his face, then burst out singing the Poison lyrics at the top of his lungs: “‘Just a step away from the edge of a fall. Caught between heaven and hell.’”

  It got me thinking about something. So I turned down the radio. “Bobby, you ever think that heaven and hell stuff is really real?”

  “You know what I think? It’s more real than you and me and the wind blowing through our hair. Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

  I nodded and swallowed. “Augie and I . . . One weekend while you were at camp, we snuck into Mason Krim’s place and . . . I don’t know. Had a séance or something.”

  Bobby waited a bit, but when I stayed silent, he flipped the radio dial all the way off. “And?”

  So I told him. About the book and the candles and the incantation . . . and the phone call.

  Bobby lit up. “Oh, man, you’ve got to talk to Rev. Cannon. He’d be the perfect person.”

  “Perfect for what?”

  “He does exorcisms.”

  “Shut up,” I catcalled.

  “Not kidding.”

  “Really?”

  “True. I think it got him into trouble with the synod.”

  “The what?”

  “Our church, Good Shepherd, is part of this Lutheran organizational thing—a synod. Rev. Cannon is our pastor. I think the higher-ups didn’t dig his being an exorcism stud. And his preaching about the devil and all that. Some people left the church. It was a big deal.”

  Part of me was interested. Another part wanted nothing to do with Bobby’s church. I let it go.

  But Bobby didn’t. “I’m telling you, you ought to talk to him. He’s been to South America. Cast out demons down there in the jungle. Really amazing stuff.”

  “Okay. Let’s go over there. Sometime,
maybe.”

  “He works on his sermons in his study at the church on Saturdays.”

  I threw him a nasty look.

  Bobby laughed. “I’m just saying . . . but if you’re freaked out about it, fine. No problem.”

  I wasn’t one to pass up a challenge. “Fine. Okay. Where is the church again?”

  Twenty minutes later I was sitting across from Rev. Cannon, a man in his late fifties with a square face and wire-rimmed glasses, who was seated against a backdrop of floor-to-ceiling books. He was in his shirtsleeves, wearing a clerical collar.

  Bobby did the opening, describing everything that I had told him. I was surprised how he got it all right, down to the smallest detail.

  After Bobby finished, Cannon ratcheted up the solemnity by scrunching his forehead and folding his hands on his desk. “The devil is real, you know.”

  I shifted in my seat and looked out the window. “I’m kinda new to this stuff . . .”

  “No mistake. The devil, the prince of the air, is real.”

  “If you say so.”

  “No. God says so.”

  It was just the opening volley in the conversation, but already the reverend was bringing out the big guns. I was stymied for a comeback.

  Cannon said, “Satan is a dark lord who commands legions of demons under him. When he tempted Jesus in the desert, it wasn’t a metaphor. Nor an abstraction. The devil is an existing personality of intense evil. And young minds like yours are easy prey.”

  I had a single thought. Get me out of here.

  But he kept it up. “The Word of God is clear. Read it for yourself.”

  I saw an opening to throw a curveball and I took it. “I heard your church is sort of upset about all the devil stuff you talk about, though.”

  He paused. I could see in his face something like, Well played, lad. He countered with, “We’re Lutherans.”

  “Yeah, I guess I knew that.”

  He pressed the point. “Martin Luther himself felt so oppressed by the devil that he threw an inkwell at him.”

  “Did he hit him?” I never missed an opportunity to smart off. And I knew I had scored because Bobby was red faced, trying to hold back a snicker.

  But Rev. Cannon wasn’t fazed. Instead he asked, “You consider your activities that Bobby described here, your dabbling in the supernatural, a small thing?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Then you’d better take care with those kinds of ‘small’ things.”

  I waited for the big finish. The rim shot from Rev. Cannon. A version of what Bobby had perfected on the snare drum. I figured it was coming and I was right.

  Cannon ended with, “Small fires consume big forests.”

  Bang. There it was.

  Walking back to my car, Bobby asked, “What’d you think?”

  “Strange.” I was still trying to untangle Rev. Cannon’s metaphor about the forest fire.

  “Thing about Rev. Cannon is, you always know where he stands.”

  “Right. I got it. He hates the devil.”

  Bobby stopped walking, just short of my Fairlane. He turned and gave me a look that was almost paternalistic. “Yeah, but assuming the devil’s real, and I pretty much think he is, then I wouldn’t want you tangling with him. You could get messed up, majorly.”

  “Look,” I said. “I know there might be some kind of supernatural something out there. I’d like to know what it is. But do you actually think the devil’s sneaking around, plotting bad stuff? I mean, come on, really?”

  Bobby gave me a big grin. “Forget what I think. I stick with what God says. Just be careful with what you’re doing. I don’t want my buddy Trevor getting turned into a zombie.”

  7

  By summer’s end The Assault was no more. Everyone had scattered. I was getting ready for New York University and Dan Hoover was already situated at Juilliard. Because our schools were both in New York City, I naively figured we could easily hang out together. I guess I pictured that mega-metropolis as simply a bigger version of Milwaukee, the closest “big city” in our part of the country. Nor did I realize how all-absorbing college studies would become. And I was determined to shake off any small-town stigma and show all the city kids what I could do.

  Bobby was on his way out west, after getting a science scholarship to the University of Idaho. He was a smart kid, so that didn’t surprise me.

  Augie was the only one hanging back in the hometown, going to the community college. His girlfriend, Susan Cambridge, was attending Stout. Augie planned on going up there to visit her on the weekends.

  During the first months of college, the rigors of school were overwhelming, and I had little time for anything else except for binge drinking whenever I could pay a senior to buy booze for me and my fellow freshmen. Strangely, pot was easier to come by, but by then alcohol had become countercultural and therefore preferable from my standpoint. I liked being contrarian.

  Then in November, just before Thanksgiving, I was in my dorm room when I received a call. I was shocked to hear Marilyn Parlow’s voice on the other end. She had enrolled at Sweet Briar, a small women’s college in Virginia. She said offhandedly that she had just returned from a short trip and would love to catch up with me in New York some weekend.

  “Really?”

  She clucked her tongue. “You sound surprised.”

  I needed to exude nonchalance. “Well, I’m pleasantly surprised. Great to hear from you. Yeah. I’d love to see you.”

  We worked out a date in three weeks. She would take the train up. I told my dorm roommate, Gary, that I would need the room that whole weekend. I knew I was putting him out, but Gary’s family lived in New Jersey, so it wasn’t that big a deal for him to go home and visit the parents while I entertained Marilyn.

  There was another benefit that Gary provided. He had an uncle who used to work at the legendary Bitter End, which wasn’t too far from campus. So when Marilyn showed up on the Saturday of her visit, I had already arranged for a table for Marilyn and myself. I had to pay Gary forty bucks for the privilege, but it was worth it.

  I didn’t tell Marilyn where we were going. When we strolled along Washington Park and into Greenwich Village and finally onto Bleecker Street, and when she recognized the famous blue awning over the entrance of the folk-rock club that had hosted every celeb music group ever worth listening to, she was visibly impressed. We stayed until after two in the morning listening to a blues group called Hard Road, and then we cabbed back to my dorm. I had a bottle of wine stashed in my sock drawer, which we quickly dispatched.

  But during the visit Marilyn seemed different. She was a naturally beautiful girl, but she was wearing too much makeup and harboring an edgy attitude. And there was a sadness there too that I couldn’t put my finger on.

  During the conversation in my dorm room, we sat next to each other on my bed, downing the bottle of wine, drinking it out of coffee mugs. We made only small talk. Discussion about classes. Schools. Plans. No deep discussions about life, or death, or the “supernatural dimension” that I had raised with her on the hill at Makeout Point the summer after graduation.

  I asked her where she had been on the trip that she had vaguely mentioned in her phone call.

  “Out west,” she said.

  “Yeah, but where out west?”

  “Idaho.”

  That was a kick in the shins. “You mean you met up with Bobby?”

  She gave a labored smile. “Yeah. It was so nice to connect.”

  Now it was a punch in the kidneys. “I always thought you had a thing for Bobby.”

  “Don’t be that way.”

  “What way? I’m just calling it the way I see it.”

  She stood up, a little unsteady, and started unbuttoning her blouse. “Let’s make love.”

  I would later question the “love” part. But my hormones doubled up with my fascination with her, and it drove me forward. After we finished with our encounter, unemotional and mechanical, I lent her my bathrobe, escorte
d her down to the bathroom, and guarded the door until she was done, then whisked her back to my room.

  She pulled on her underwear and climbed into Gary’s bed. “Good night.”

  I was at a loss for words. What was going on? I tried to make conversation, and she gave me only one-word responses. Finally I laid it all out. “Why did you come up here? Why did we just have sex? I don’t understand any of this.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Really.”

  She had turned on her side, away from me, and stayed there for a long time until she answered at last. “I have a question for you.”

  “Fine. What is it?”

  “Is it wrong for a woman to love two men?”

  I answered in a flash. “Only if you don’t choose.”

  She left New York early the next morning. She changed her train ticket to get out earlier. That was the last time I would ever see Marilyn Parlow.

  I finished the semester with top grades, though most of my straight-A mentality was just habit. I probably thought more about Marilyn and Bobby than about all of my coursework put together. I stayed in New York through the Christmas break. I know it broke my mom’s heart, but I couldn’t countenance seeing Manitou again. I made plans to meet up with Dan on Christmas Day, but he had to cancel when he got picked up for a major concert at a midtown cathedral, so I spent the holiday with a bottle of blackberry brandy. When classes started up again, at least I had some distraction.

  Then in February, right around Valentine’s Day, I got one last call on the phone from Marilyn. A bolt of lightning. The sinking of the Titanic.

  “Trevor, I’m pregnant.”

  I cursed the news.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll get rid of it. I’ll take care of everything. Just wanted you to know.”

  The coward in me accepted that. Didn’t challenge it. Didn’t offer to be there with her. Never suggested that we think this over. Never considered that she was carrying a human life and that it was ours. Nothing.

  I tucked it away. Life would go on. School. Lectures. Research. Papers. Grades. Binge drinking. Friends. More drinking. Eventually getting serious about future plans, and beginning to think about pursuing law school after graduation. But Marilyn never fully disappeared from my mind. Nor did my friends, nor Mason Krim, nor the strange way the supernatural veil, previously opaque, had become frighteningly transparent in Krim’s house . . .