The Demon

by Hubert Selby Jr.

  soon the body was reaching out and grabbing Harry and pulling him with it.

  And then a new plague was visited upon him, or rather wormed its way up from the depths to his consciousness. A faint whisper that became a roaring certainty. He could feel it throbbing through him and for the briefest of moments he tried to fight and deny it, but then he simply surrendered to the undeniable fact that he was going to do it again. It was inevitable. With the acceptance of this came another realization: there would be no satisfaction in doing it the same way again.

  Harry encountered great difficulty in thinking about how it should be done the next time. After thinking about it for a moment or two he started to get nauseous and even trembled slightly. Then he became aware of the reason why it would not work doing it the same way again. Not enough personal involvement. There had to be more personal contact. Yes, that was the solution. He had to be personally involved. More completely involved.

  Once again the excitement of anticipation pushed aside the tension and anxiety and he felt free. But there was an inner knowledge that he could not think about it too long, that if he did, those old feelings would be back to plague him.

  This last thought was frightening because there was one more inescapable fact that he was forced to accept: each time those old feelings came back now they were much worse than they had been the time before. He knew, too, that he had to try to keep them buried, at any cost, because if he did not, they would destroy him. Beyond any doubt they had to be controlled.

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  2O

  When all the other matters had been clarified, he knew almost instantly where and how the next one would happen. He watched people crowd into the elevator and he knew it would happen in a crowd. He did not even think of a subway. He had not been in the subway since that day.

  But there were many places that were almost as crowded. Places in the open. The stadium after a game. Many places. But there was only one place that was truly in the heart of everything. One place that was crowded almost twenty-four hours a day. One place that was known all over the world. The perfect place. Times Square.

  And it would be with a

  knife. Very long and very sharp. He had to penetrate the thick layers of winter clothing before penetrating the body. It should be neat and clean. With the abundance of winter

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  clothing there should be no evidence of bleeding. A chefs knife of some sort. He would carry it in a thin paper bag. Yes, that would be perfect. Conceal the knife. And be inconspicuous. Never be noticed. Should probably be someone tall and big. Can hide behind him. Never be noticed. I dont know? Maybe thats no good. Perhaps the knife should go up high. Bump into someone walking toward me. Try for the heart. Can—No. Thats no good. I would be seen. Even someone short would mean I would have to raise my hand. No. That wont work. No room to really move in the crowd. Must be a simple thrust. Someone too short and the knife might get tangled with the ribs. Must be careful. Must penetrate immediately. No room for maneuvering or time for probing. A thrust. Quick. All the way in. Yeah, deep. Deep. Try and hit bottom. Feel it against the sides. Warm and soft. Twitching. Moist. Then wet. It will have to be from behind. Someone big. A twelve-inch blade should do. Deep enough for anyone. Under the ribs. And up. Lean on it with my weight. Feel his body tighten. And moan. Breathless. Panting and moan. Yes. From behind. A quick thrust. Deep. Can hear it go in. All the way in. ...

  He continued to think and plan, the lump in his chest getting larger and larger until he could hardly breathe. He could feel his face flush and his legs and stomach tighten and knot, and he knew that his legs would not support him if he tried to stand. He had to stop indulging in the thrill of the plan and start to put it into execution.

  He spent some time in a cutlery store carefully inspecting its assortment of knives. When he decided on the one he wanted, he had them put it in a plain brown paper bag.

  He walked unhurriedly through the crowds in Times Square until he saw the man he wanted. He was big and broad and was wearing the clothes of a hard hat of some kind. His jacket came down to his waist and did not look too thick. He walked close behind him. He was about a head taller than Harry. He walked aggressively. Harry looked at the bottom of his jacket. He could see the broad, thick belt the man was

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  wearing. He would have to be careful not to hit the belt. Right above it. Excitement pounded through Harry and almost blinded him. He could hardly move. He wanted to wait for the right time, but he knew he could not wait much longer. The people continually bumped past him, and every now and then some one would get between him and the hard hat and he would have to quicken his pace and weave in and around people in order to get back in the right position. He could feel his arms and hands trembling as he rushed to get closer. He had to keep swallowing hard. The intensity was rapidly reaching the point where he knew he would slowly fold in a bundle on the street. They crossed the street and he had to run quickly around a car that was slowly moving through the crowd; he bumped into the car, and the driver jammed on his brakes and yelled at him, but he continued after the hard hat, limping for a few moments. Then there was a sudden surge of people and they were pressed tightly together and Harry grabbed the handle of the knife with both hands and jabbed it in the guys side, just under the ribs, at an upward angle, leaning against it with all his weight and hearing it crunch in. He seemed to be leaning against him forever. He could feel the people around him, he could feel the body stiffen and jerk up and back and could hear the deep-throated moan and could even feel the heat from the body and could feel his hands cramping around the handle of the knife and could feel the edge of the jacket rubbing against his knuckles and smell the cement and sand on the jacket, and he knew he was all the way in, all the way in, and the body was starting to lean heavily against him and he knew that he had to let go of the handle and move away but somehow he could not seem to do it and it seemed like he was there for hours but he still clung to the handle feeling the hard hats pulse throbbing through to his hands and the man leaned more and more heavily against him and he finally slid his hands off the handle and stepped aside as he saw the hard hats hands twisting and grabbing at air and heard the moaning roll through his head and down into his gut and he bumped into someone rushing by

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  and spun aside and continued along Broadway concentrating as hard as possible on maintaining a normal pace in the evening rush of people hustling through Times Square on their way home and he was aware of a bit of commotion behind him as he heard the dull sound of something hitting the sidewalk and a few, Hey, look out— Whats a matta, ya drunk or somethin?, and he continued through the crowd feeling the blood pulse behind his eyes and fighting to keep his knees from buckling and feeling on the very brink of exploding. . . .

  His

  heart was still pounding as he rode home. The wheels were clacking loudly, done again, done again, and he was answering going home, going home, and when he got home, he went right into the shower and stayed under the water until it was no longer hot enough, just letting it bounce and roll off him and trying to ignore that little irritation in the back of his head but unable to because he knew it was true, that he would have to do it again, and he could feel the beginning of a plague in the pit of his gut and he knew it was only a matter of time, a short time, before the demon would be eating him again and he would have to find some way to relieve himself of the twisting tension and gnawing anxiety.

  The battle within himself for control of himself started much sooner than he had anticipated. After the subway incident it had been many, many months before he had started squirming again, and it had been about a year before he had had to do it again. This time it was only a matter of weeks.

  He no longer had control over when he thought about what he had done. Most of the time he could suppress it with his work, but at other times it was suddenly in front of him, and now he was constantly turning the hard hat around to get a look at his face or, worse, there were
times at night when from the blackness of his sleep a face drifted before him or simply suddenly occurred and just hung there with a mouth open in a silent groan, the features constantly melting into each other and changing while remaining the same. He would struggle to scream it away, but felt himself pinned to the bed

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  in a painful and grotesque silence until he finally yelled himself awake and sat on the edge of the bed, nodding and grunting away Lindas questions and attempts to comfort him.

  In spite of himself and his constant battle, he found himself thinking of the next time and tried to shove the idea out of his mind and to pull a shade down from some place in his head to cover it, but then his mind would thrust him in the midst of the crowd watching the St. Patricks Day parade down Fifth Avenue and he would feel the muscles in his toes tighten and curl and he could hear his teeth grind and feel the sharp ache in his jaws as he fought against the image but it continually came back to haunt him and he dropped the paper bag in his hand and tried to shove his way through the crowd but the damn bag was always back in his hand and the handle seemed to have been molded especially for his fingers, it seemed to be imbedded in them as if it were growing out of them, and no matter how hard he tried he could not rid himself of the dreaded knife and he put his hands behind his back and pushed through the crowd, but he could still feel the knife, and he attacked the work on his desk until the image of the parade and the bag became obscured in the dark corners of his mind and sometimes nonexistent . . .

  and then he

  would sit on the train at night and feel and hear the drumming of the train: it is done, it is done . . . with a blotter, with a blotter ... done again, done again .. . going home, going home . . . done again, done again, done again, and again, and again, and again . . .

  and he knew that the face would come in the middle of the night and hang in front of him and constantly melt into itself while remaining unchanged with that horrible mouth hanging open in an agonizing and silent scream and gradually he became more and more afraid of falling asleep, thinking that staying awake was the only way to fight it, and he stayed awake later and later reading a book or pretending he had important work that had to be done, or just lay in bed with his eyes forced open waiting to just pass out and hoping

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  that would keep him from seeing the face, but he still saw it not every night, but often enough to be afraid of sleep, afraid not only because of the agony in the face, and the silence of the open mouth, but because he knew that one night the mouth would speak, to him, and he did not want to hear what it had to say, and so with the passing of each day, and night— and again, and again, yet again, yet again, yet again—he felt more and more haunted, and looked more and more haunted and started looking constantly at the calendar, counting down the days until St. Patricks Day, when those goddamn assholes had to put on their green ties and dumb fucking hats and eat that watered-down corned beef and cabbage slop and get drunk and piss green, and as the days and weeks passed he started looking like a man ravaged by a rare and insidious disease as he fought to stay awake and pull a curtain down over the dark corners of his mind again, and again ... yet again....

  And Linda

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

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

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

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

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

  It almost looks like eggs Benedict.

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

  Yeah, Dad, it sure is.

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

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

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

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

  Im going for a walk,

  and

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

  trees You hear that? Goddamn, motherfucking trees

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

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

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

  Why, in Gods name, wont

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

  He

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