by Sara Gran
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.
It stopped right in front of me. I couldn’t move. I was sure I was hyperventilating. Just then I heard a noise to my left and I screamed.
Ed. Just Ed, coming home.
I SAW her again in a dream that night. I was sitting on the sofa, listening to the tap-tapping, like I had been that evening. I looked down at the floor and I saw a pair of feet. Small, perfect white feet that seemed to materialize from thin air.
I looked up. Above me I saw a bright, black eye. She was standing right in front of me, and yet it was as if I was looking through a keyhole. I couldn’t see her all at once. I saw a pert white nose, and then in a separate view the pink lips wrapped around pointed white teeth. If I looked down at her small white foot I lost sight of everything above the knee. If I looked at her hand all I saw was a hand, with long unpolished nails.
“Don’t fight, Amanda,” she said with her pink lips.
The room went black. I was falling, slipping down out of myself into a warm damp blackness. She took me to the crimson beach. We lay on the sand and watched the fish jump in and out of the ruby sea. Here I could see her clearly, as a whole.
“I choose you,” she said.
“You’ll never leave?” I asked.
“Never,” she said. “Nothing can get me out.”
She put her arms around me and pulled me tight against her. Our ribs crushed together and our hipbones slammed and she pulled me tighter until I couldn’t breathe, I was choking, and my spine met hers, vertebrae against vertebrae.
I DIDN’T BOTHER TO READ the rest of Demon Possession Past and Present right then. But I did put it on the bookshelf instead of returning it like I had planned. It was too late, I reasoned, for the other book to be useful now anyway—the project was due in a few days, and it would never get here on time. Besides, maybe someday it would be good for a laugh.
AND ANOTHER funny little thing I noticed. After that night, that dream, I never heard the tapping in the apartment again, and neither did Ed.
ON SATURDAY morning we decided to drive downtown to run a few errands. Ed had run out of his allergy pills. He didn’t need them every day, but they were important to have on hand in case he came across an errant cat or a renegade strawberry. I needed a bottle of hair conditioner and had also been thinking about a new toothbrush. We had been meaning to start checking prices on dishwashers—the old one left a thin layer of grime inside the coffee cups. And there was a Tibetan restaurant nearby where we liked to get lunch. In the car we bickered over which drugstore to go to. Like all couples we had developed our own language, a shorthand of associations and memories.
“Are we going to the Italian?”
“Too expensive. Want to go to the crazy lady place?”
“They don’t have my conditioner there. How about the place with the socks?”
“I hate that place. How about the big place?”
“Which big place?”
“The new one, near the crappy French restaurant.”
“Which crappy French restaurant?”
“The one where we went with Marlene, and she got the soup with the—”
“OH! Right, right, right. Near the Tibetan place.”
“Right.”
“Sure, let’s go there.”
In the big drugstore, a quarter of a city block, Ed waited on line to fill his prescription while I found my toothbrush and then my conditioner. With time to kill, I browsed the cosmetics section. I was looking at a cute red lipstick when Ed found me. He had his pills. We paid and left to go to the Tibetan restaurant for lunch.
On our way out of the drugstore we heard a rapid, high-pitched beep.
“Step back.” A teenage security guard ordered us back through the alarm. Ed and I rolled our eyes at each other and stepped back into the store. After a nod from the security guard we stepped back out.
Beep-beep-beep.
The guard waved his hand for us to step back in. We stepped back in.
“Open your bags, please.”
We rolled our eyes at each other again. Ed opened his bag, which held the pills, toothbrush, and conditioner, and fumbled in his pocket for the receipt. The guard nodded approval and then turned his attention to my purse. I held it open with an exaggerated sigh. He peered down into the bag and poked a hand in to rummage through the contents: wallet, keys, scraps of paper, change purse. After a quick minute he pulled his hand out, a black tube of lipstick held between his thumb and forefinger. It was sealed in clear plastic and had a wide white alarm strip wrapped around it.
“You have a receipt for this?”
I stared at him, shocked. “That’s not mine.”
“I’m going to ask you to come with me, ma’am.” He put his hand on my arm to lead me toward the back of the store. I pulled my arm free.
“Get your fucking hands off me!”
The guard looked at Ed and me. “Do you want to tell me how this lipstick got in your purse?”
“I have no idea,” I told him truthfully. “It must have fallen in. I was looking at it, but then I put it back. Seriously, I have no idea. Look—” I opened my wallet, which held a few hundred in twenties. “Do you think I would steal a four-dollar lipstick?”
“It’s in your purse,” he said.
“Listen,” said Ed. “We’ll pay for it. How’s that?”
“But I don’t even want it!” I protested.
Ed ignored me and looked at the guard, a come-on-we’re-all-men-here look. “I’ll pay for it.”
After a dramatic pause the security guard nodded. He escorted us back to the cashier, where Ed paid for the lipstick, and then we left.
Outside the store we looked at each other in astonishment, shaking our heads as we walked towards the Tibetan restaurant. I lit a cigarette and for once Ed didn’t scowl.
“I can’t believe it,” I said. I really couldn’t. “I haven’t stolen anything since seventh grade.” When I was twelve and my stepmother said I was too young for makeup I went on a shoplifting spree, ending when I was caught red-handed with a contraband eyeliner.
“Maybe he put it there,” said Ed. “Thought you wouldn’t put up a fuss.”
“Why would he want to do that?”
We were silent for a moment, contemplating the possible motivations of a rogue security guard.
Ed shrugged. “It must have fallen, like you said.”
“Yeah. I guess when I put it back in the dispenser it fell back out.”
“It must have.”
“Must have.”
“Yeah. It must have.”
First Ed burst out laughing, then me. Almost arrested in the drugstore, over a four-dollar lipstick I hadn’t even wanted! We told the story again and again to friends and coworkers, and even to Ed’s mother, over the phone. It was too funny. Hysterical. And even funnier was that at the end I was glad to have the lipstick; it was a dark, brick red that I never would have bought, far from my usual neutral, pinkish brown, but for the rest of that summer and fall I wore the red lipstick almost every day and when it ran out, in mid-November, I went back to the same drugstore and stole another tube.
LEAVING WORK A FEW days later I walked by a hole-in-the-wall bar between my office and the train. I had walked by it a hundred times before without a second thought. Suddenly I wanted a drink. One drink, I thought. Just one. It had been years since I stopped into a bar, alone, for a drink. I stood in front of the door. It looked filthy inside. One drink, I thought. Just one quick drink.
An hour later I was on my third tequila, sitting at the bar with a man whose name I had instantly forgotten when he introduced himself to me. He was about my age, with short, scruffy black hair and an appealing, slightly wrinkled face. His arms were wrapped in tattoos; Japanese goldfish with bulging eyes and a mermaid with a sweet face and waves and waves of water in between. This was the kind of man I liked in my early twenties, before I met Ed.
“How about four,” the bartender said. I nodded. The man I was sitting wit
h smiled. He had a once-in-a-lifetime smile. The bartender gave us two more drinks.
I looked around the room. Mostly men, mostly tattooed like my drinking companion. A band was setting up or breaking down in one corner of the room.
“You can drink,” the man said.
“I can,” I answered, but I didn’t feel drunk at all. Just happy to be out, having fun.
I GOT home late and Ed, naturally, was worried and angry in equal parts. I didn’t bother to apologize, or even make up a very convincing lie.
“Worked late, hon.”
Edward sulked, sitting on the sofa in boxer shorts and an undershirt. “I was worried. You could have called.”
I ignored him and went to the bedroom to undress. In a red kimono I walked back to the bathroom and drew myself a bath, ignoring Edward again when I walked through the living room.
Let him worry, I told myself. Let him see what it’s like, sitting alone, watching the clock, waiting for your spouse to come home. I lay down in the hot water and poured in half a bottle of lily of the valley bubble bath, a birthday gift from Ed I had been saving for a special occasion. My spine and neck relaxed in the soft hot water. I knew we would have a fight after I got out of the bathtub. Ed would ask what my problem was and I would say I didn’t have a problem and he would say I was sure acting like I had a problem. Then I would say I guess the problem is that you think one member of the household can come and go as he pleases while the other has to account for every minute of her time. And he would say where the hell were you tonight. And I would say at the office, like I said. Call and check if you want. And he would look at the phone on its little desk by the bookcases, sitting there like a slug, and then look back at me. Forget it, he would say. Fine, I would say. Fine, he would say. We would go to bed chilly and wouldn’t warm up again until the next morning, or the next evening over dinner.
TWO WEEKS later. Another night at home. Another take-out dinner, shared late. We had made up from the last blowout but there was still a chill between us, a polite caution that replaced affection. After dinner we sat on the sofa together and disappeared into our separate worlds. A documentary about World War II was on television. Summer had come on quickly and it was so hot in the loft that Ed, who dressed immaculately even at home, left his usual summer cotton pajamas in the dresser and wore just a clean pair of white-and-blue-striped boxer shorts and a white undershirt. I had on a thin camisole and another pair of his clean white-and-blue-striped boxers. Edward flipped through a magazine. I flipped through a book on midcentury furniture design.
I lit a cigarette. Edward gently rolled his eyes. We had made an agreement that I would keep smoking in the loft to a minimum, a concession to Ed’s tragic allergies. I ignored him. I smoked and looked at my book, half listening to the television. The cigarette was in its usual place between the first and second fingers of my right hand.
I thought, What if I stuck Edward with this cigarette?
Everyone has thoughts like this from time to time: What if I burned my husband? What if I pushed him off this cliff? What if I jumped off this roof? The thought came into my head and then disappeared just as quickly. I lifted the cigarette to my lips for a last drag. Then, in my mind, I took it down to stub it out in the little white custard cup I used as an ashtray. Very nice, French, we had gotten a set of six as a wedding present, I don’t remember from whom. I do know that I never before or after made a custard. In my mind my hand moved towards the table and snuffed out the cigarette in the little white cup. My fingers, with a chipped brown manicure, were at my lips, the brown filter suspended between the first and second fingers of my right hand. I took the last drag and then released my lips. I assumed my hand would move down to the table and put out the cigarette.
It didn’t. Instead my hand made a quick turn to the right and stabbed the burning cigarette into Edward’s leg, an inch above his left knee.
He screamed. I screamed. I ran into the kitchen for ice and Edward kept screaming. He jumped up from the sofa screaming bloody murder.
“Shit! Fuck! What the fuck did you do that for? What the hell is wrong with you?”
I was speechless. Edward sat back down, still cursing. I sat next to him and held a bag of frozen peas over the burn. The screaming tapered off into a muttering, and then silence. He closed his eyes and leaned back.
“What happened?” he asked, after a few minutes. He wasn’t really angry. Just shocked.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Of course you didn’t mean to,” he said. “I know that.”
“I don’t know what happened. My arm just moved. I didn’t mean to. How’re you feeling?”
“Terrible,” he answered. “It hurts like hell.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” He reached over and ruffled the hair on top of my head. “It was an accident.”
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you too,” he answered.
“I don’t know what happened. It’s like it moved by itself.”
“Maybe it’s tendinitis. Julian’s wife had it in her shoulder and she couldn’t even hold her arm up. It used to just flop all over the place.”
“I don’t think so.” I told him. “My shoulder feels fine.”
“You twitched,” said Edward. “A spasm.”
I knew it wasn’t tendinitis. My arm hadn’t flopped. It hadn’t slipped, it hadn’t twitched, it hadn’t fallen. It had moved by itself. It had moved with a controlled movement away from the ashtray and towards Edward’s leg.
Edward didn’t say anything, and neither did I. There was nothing to say.
THE DAY after I burned Edward, I took Demon Possession Past and Present down from the bookshelf and took the little quiz again. Not that I took it seriously. Not that I for a moment believed anything so ridiculous as that a demon or devil was influencing my life.
Are YOU Possessed by a Demon?
1. I hear strange noises in my home, especially at night, which family members tell me only occur when I am present.
2. I have new activities and pastimes that seem “out of character,” and I do things that I did not intend and do not understand.
3. I’m short and ill-tempered with my friends and loved ones.
4. I can understand languages I’ve never studied, and have the ability to know things I couldn’t know through ordinary means.
5. I have blackouts not caused by drugs, alcohol, or a preexisting health condition.
6. I have unusual new thoughts, or hear voices in my head.
7. I’ve had visions or dreams of personalities who may be demons.
8. A psychic, minister, or other spiritualist has told me I’m possessed.
9. I have urges to hurt or kill animals and other people.
10. I have hurt or killed animals or people.
This time I scored a five.
0-3: You are probably not possessed. See a doctor or mental health professional for an evaluation. 3-6: You may be haunted, or in the early stages of possession. Do not be alarmed. Seek a spiritual counselor for assistance. 6-10: You are possessed. Consult with your spiritual counselor immediately. You may be a threat to the safety of yourself and your family.
I read a bit more:
Some other signs of possession include a change in appearance and changes in personality that may be so subtle even those close to the victim may not be able to pinpoint the difference. Generally speaking, an overall increase in aggressive behavior is to be expected. However, until the very late stages of possession, the victim continues with his daily life largely intact ... A sudden psychic ability is almost always present, and is in fact one of the first definite signs to look for when in doubt. Another common characteristic is the insatiable need to be desired by members of the opposite sex.
LEAVING MY hairdresser’s the next afternoon, I ran into a woman I knew. Bernadette Schwartz worked at Ed’s company. She had been a model when she was younger and she still looke
d like one, tall and stunning with perfect long chestnut hair. I knew her a little, through company Christmas parties, and we stopped to say hello. She gave me a good hard look.
“What is it?” she asked. She peered at me with huge brown eyes, now ugly and accusatory.
“What’s what?”
“You. Did you get work done?”
“Work?”
“An eye lift or something. Or maybe your teeth. You look different.”
“Huh.” I looked at myself in a mirror across from us. A mirror behind us was reflected into the first and I saw a fun-house, an infinite number of mirrors, each with a picture of me. I did look different; as if I had had a good night’s sleep, or even a year’s worth of good nights. My skin was bright and my eyes shiny. My whole face was plumped up, all the little lines of thirty-four smooth as satin.
“I know,” said Bernadette, “you’re regnant!”
I rubbed my eyes and shook my head and then looked back at the mirror. My own true face, a little haggard, now looked back at me. Bernadette frowned.
“New haircut?” she ventured, less sure of herself now.
“Just a trim,” I said. “Must be the weather. This humidity, it’s always good for my skin.”
WHEN I got out of the train station that evening the German shepherd was waiting as usual, sitting quietly as I’d trained him to do. The routine was he wouldn’t stand up to give me a kiss (the one untoward act I allowed him) until I had given him his first biscuit. I went to the corner where he sat waiting. Usually his tail would be wagging by now and there would be a big drooling smile on his face. But he sat, moping, as if I hadn’t shown up at all. He looked away from me and then right through me. I took a biscuit, shaped like a cartoon bone, out of my purse and held it out to him.
