Read an Excerpt
A Natural History of Hell
Stories
By Jeffrey Ford Small Beer Press
Copyright © 2016 Jeffrey Ford
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61873-119-7
CHAPTER 1
The Blameless
They were sitting at their respective ends of the couch, drinking coffee. He was telling her about a cucumber salad he'd made a few days earlier, and she was going through the day's mail, half listening. In the midst of him reeling off his newly invented recipe, she held up a square envelope and set her coffee down on the table next to her.
"A wedding invitation?" she said, cutting him off.
"Who's it from?"
"The people up the street."
"Which ones?"
"The Crorys."
"I have no idea," he said.
"Three doors down and on the other side. Remember, we met them at Canoe Carnival. Ina's a secretary at the high school and he's some kind of engineer." She opened the envelope and took out a card.
"Who's getting married?"
"It's for their daughter, Grace."
"She's not even out of high school, I don't think."
"It's not a wedding. It's an invitation to her exorcism."
He laughed. "Get outa here."
"'Dear Tom and Helen, we hope that you will be able to attend our daughter Grace's Spring Exorcism' ... It's at their house on Sunday, May 7th at 7:00 p.m. Two weeks from tomorrow."
"What?"
"This is big now, exorcism," she said. "Haven't you heard about it?"
"No."
"Yeah, people are getting their kids exorcised for whatever ails them."
"What do you mean?" he said.
"You know, if your kid doesn't listen, is screwing up in school, hanging with knuckleheads."
"You mean sex, drugs, and rock and roll?"
"Basically. I heard it on NPR. A few evangelical groups started and then it spread. Now people who aren't even religious are getting it done. It costs like a grand to have your kid spring cleaned."
That s crazy.
"Which is why we should go. I want to check it out."
"Are you serious?"
"It'll be interesting and we can meet some people."
"I have zero interest."
"You're going," she said. "You were just sitting here five minutes ago carrying on about some fuckin cucumber salad. You need to get out of the house."
At 6:30 on May 7th, she put on a turquoise dress; matching shoes and jewelry. She told Tom that she tried to pick a spring color. He dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans, and she said, "It's not a funeral, you know." He said, "We'll represent cosmic light and darkness." She shook her head, sighed, and left the room. He changed his shirt.
It was raining so they took the umbrella. Helen held it over both of them. As they made their way up the street, she pointed out through the dusk that the daffodils and lilacs were budding. Tom noticed that the lawns were going green. There was a softness to the breeze. The street light reflected a sheen off the wet asphalt and the scent of worms was everywhere.
There were cars parked in front of the Crory's house, on both sides of the street. As they approached, they saw a man and a woman on the door step. He was ringing the bell.
"That's Jake and Alice" said Helen.
"It's not too late to go home" Tom said.
"Go ahead," she told him. "I'll go by myself."
"Say the devil shows up?"
"The invitation says there'll be punch and finger sandwiches."
"I hope they appreciate that I wore my pink, button shirt."
"How could they not?"
A middle aged blonde woman answered the door. "So glad you could make it," she said in a high pitched voice laced with gin. Her dress was the same color pink as Tom's shirt.
"Hi, Ina," said Helen. "You must be pretty excited."
"Well," she said, "yes, but we need to keep a lid on it. You know, to retain the religious dignity of things."
"Absolutely," said Tom.
When they entered the living room, everyone turned and stared. After eyeing Tom and Helen up and down, a few neighbors nodded and waved and turned back to their conversations. Helen's friend, Alice, who was also a nursing administrator, came over and said hello. They worked at different local hospitals but they knew all the same people. In an instant they were off on a conversation about work. Tom spotted a guy holding a beer, and went in search of.
In the kitchen, he found a cooler and his ex-assistant soccer coach, Bill Stewart. The two had bonded years earlier through losing seasons over the fact that neither of them had ever played or knew anything about soccer. Tom chose a can of Rolling Rock from the cooler, opened it and looked quickly over his shoulder to make sure they were alone. "Ready for the Exorcism?" he asked.
Bill leaned against the sink, arms folded across his chest, beer in his right hand. "I can deal with religion, but this is like some kind of Children of the Corn shit," he said.
Tom laughed.
Bill took a drink of beer and said, "You know, with these people, everything's an infraction. If you sneeze and fart at the same time, you're cut out of the rapture."
Tom milled around, had a few beers, and checked in with Helen, who was talking baseball with Oshea, the owner of the service station. Nothing seemed pressing, so he sat down in a chair at the end of the food table and watched the goings on. Right next to him he was surprised to find a bowl of cucumber salad. He had a small plate. "Better than mine" he thought. While he ate, snatches of conversation popped out of the surrounding storm of voices. From one of them, he learned that when the cashier at the pizza place had her kid exorcised there was shot gun vomiting and bed shaking to beat the band. From another he overheard that there was now a 24-hour exorcist service in the tri-state area.
"The devil's busy," thought Tom. And then Grace made her entrance. She was wearing what looked like a young girl's communion dress, all white, sleeveless, satin and crinoline, with a pair of white, patent leather shoes. Her brown hair was twisted into an intricate single braid down her back and on top of her head rested a wreath of tiny white and violet flowers. How different she looked to Tom compared to the last he'd seen her.
He'd been driving by the recycle center down town around Christmas time and noticed a tall, lanky kid jumping up and down and flapping his arms. He realized it was the Zeck's son, from around the corner. Morrison was his name. As Tom passed he saw the reason for the goofball antics. The Crory girl was sitting on a low wall, rocking back and forth, laughing. She had a cigarette going, her hair hung loose. Her eyeliner and mascara were copious and black. Tom remembered that the sight of them had made him smile.
Unlike that winter day, she now seemed embarrassed, and her face was scrubbed clean, and shone like a polished apple. He hardly recognized her. She was pretending to be calm like a bride on her wedding day. In less than a second, a crowd drew around her. Tom heard Helen whispering in his ear, "Slow down on the beer." He turned and she was standing next to his chair.
"I'm just trying to retain the religious dignity of things," he told her.
"Grace looks beautiful, doesn't she?"
"Almost as lovely as you."
She lightly smacked him in the back of the head.
He pointed to the cucumber salad and they laughed.
"You know," Tom said. "I see people giving her cards. Do they actually have, like, cards for this now?"
"I have one in my purse for her."
"What's it say?"
"Congratulations On Your Exorcism. I didn't go for the funny ones. It's very tasteful."
"How much are we giving her?"
"Fifty."
"Jeez, she'll clean up."
Helen went and got the card, and Tom stood. They slowly made their way toward the crowd of well-wishers. Before they could get anywhere close to Grace, though, Mr. Crory appeared. It was the first they'd seen of him. He stood stiff and smiling, dressed in a powder blue pajama suit with bow tie.
"Escape from Hugh Heffner's closet," Helen said from the corner of her mouth.
"Dig the smoke tinted circular lenses," said Tom.
There were visible beads of sweat on Crory's forehead. He said, "Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, the exorcist will be here any second. I ask that when he arrives you all back off to that side of the room, in front of the window. You must remain as quiet as possible throughout the exorcism. If you need to leave, please use the back door which is through the kitchen. Ina and Grace and I want to thank you for joining us." Everybody applauded. When he was finished, he went down the hallway and returned with a cot, which he set up in front of the fireplace. The final touch was a puffy pillow the size of a cloud in a cream colored pillow case.
There was a loud knock at the door. Ina said, "It's him," and finished off the remainder of a martini. A rumble went through those assembled. Some smiled vaguely and the rest wore expressions of guilt.
"I wonder if I can take pictures?" said Helen, holding up her phone.
"Just leave the flash off. Who'll know?"
Ina led the exorcist into the living room. He was a short, heavy-set guy in a baggy black suit. Dark beard and hair going gray. Mr. Crory shook hands with him, and Ina gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She then turned to the neighbors and said, "This is the Reverend Emanuel Kan. He's the High Holy Blameless from the local chapter of God's Church Before the Flood of Mankind." During the crowd's applause, Helen whispered, "Check those brows." Tom did. It was as if the reverend had half a handle bar mustache over each eye.
The Crorys backed away to join the crowd, and it was just Grace and Emanuel Kan. That name made Tom giddy and brought him to the very edge of laughing out loud. The reverend set his black bag down on the floor and took the girl's extended fingers in his hands. He looked into her eyes and said, "Are you ready now?" in a regional dialect, neither south nor north. She put on a very slight smile and a tear ran down her cheek.
"Aww," said voices in the crowd. They were promptly shushed by Mr. Crory. Grace nodded to the reverend, and he released her hands. "I'm going to remove some evil spirits from you today employing Serenithy, the language in which angels dream, and then I'll bring to bear the righteous weapons of the Almighty, who has whispered to me through my eyes the number four. And so I will take a demon from your left eye, one from your right ear, one from your mouth, and then one from lower down. The last will be the most difficult, but you'll get through it. You're young and strong." Grace smiled and nodded, and then he took her fingertips again and led her to the cot.
"Starting to get creepy," said Helen.
Out of his black bag the Blameless one took a plastic bottle of water, a cigarette lighter, a pack of Marlboro, and an eight inch hatpin. He set these items down on the seat of an empty chair, and then turned back to the cot. "Comfortable?" he asked Grace. She nodded. "You will soon be in a trance," he said. "Don't try to listen to what I'm saying. Instead, think of the sound of my voice as water, flowing upward into the land without worry." He turned to face the gathering, opened his mouth, and out came a string of gibberish, startling in its speed. More followed like blasts from an uzi. Tom heard somebody behind him ask quietly, "Is that Latin?"
He knew enough Latin to know it was instead just nonsense. Like bad scat singing. Phrases like "dippy doop" and "fa fa fa fa fa fa fa" were a giveaway. The reverend trod in tight circles, always turning his head so as to keep his imperious gaze trained on the crowd. Just when Tom was ready to slip out into the kitchen for a beer, Kan suddenly broke from his little circle with a move that became a slow, loopy dance. He was all over the place, back and forth, side to side, movement minus style and rhythm. At one point he bent his forearms in toward his chest and waved his elbows like a chicken. Through all of it, the gibberish poured forth.
"Ridiculous," said Helen.
"I've had enough, but you gotta get a shot of this guy before we go."
"I've got like a dozen of him already."
"Let's blow."
"OK," Helen said, but Grace opened her mouth and groaned in an echoing underground voice that was chilling. Tom moved closer to Helen and took her hand. The place was dead quiet. Even the reverend went silent. Another groan came. Her entire body was trembling and one steel leg of the cot tapped a code on the hardwood floor.
Emanuel Kan lit a cigarette, picked up the hat pin, and addressed the crowd. "Watch closely," he said. "I am now going to evict from Grace's left eye, a demon known as the Skitterby, Prince of Illicit Visions. This should go quickly now." He took a drag of the cigarette and held it in the corner of his mouth while walking backward toward the cot. He turned, leaned over the girl and blew a stream of smoke into her face. Quick as a snake, his free hand shot out and it appeared he was pinching Grace's vacant left eye. As he slowly withdrew his pincered fingers, Tom and Helen and the rest noticed a bright blue blob, an amoebic form the size of a plum with wriggling almost-limbs and a pointy head trapped between the nails of his index finger and thumb. The Blameless let it squirm for a moment before stabbing it with the hat pin. The instant it was impaled, it shattered like a blue glass bubble.
"That was a trick, right?" said Tom.
"I think he's like a magician," said Helen.
"Looked pretty real for whatever it was."
A few people applauded and Mr. Crory angrily shushed them. Emanuel Kan removed the cigarette from his lips and took a slight bow. "That was easy enough," he said. "Next I will extract the mouth demon, Verbopolis, and the ear demon, Waxion. In one swift eviction. I will take them both out through the mouth. Not too many exorcists can perform this double demon pull. Look for a red figure and a green figure." He put the cigarette back in his mouth and took a deep drag. As he approached Grace, she gave a pitiful groan and belched. He swept low and blew smoke down her throat.
His arm shot out and those pinching fingers entered her open mouth. His wrist twitched once, and he withdrew two more writhing blobs. Their colors were brilliant. The red one growled and the green wore a jellified smile. "Verbopolis and Waxion, ladies and gentleman," said the reverend. He jabbed the needle through both at once, and they burst into Christmas glitter. "We will now have a fifteen minute intermission before we descend into the lair of Moxioton."
Everyone in the living room headed for the kitchen. Ina was already there, dashing off a martini. Tom and Helen got beers and then stepped outside on the patio where there was an awning and two chairs. The light rain tapped above them.
"Psyched for the lair of Moxioton?" said Tom
"The whole thing's disturbing."
"You wanna split?"
Helen took a drink and shook her head. "No. I'm going to go back in there and watch and if something crosses the line, I'm going to call the cops."
"What line?"
"My line," she said.
"How's he doing those little creatures?"
"I don't know. Instantly inflating balloons?"
"Is that a real thing, instantly inflating balloons?"
"I don't know," said Helen. "I'm a product of the Age of Reason, though," she said.
I'm with you."
"All I know is we're getting old and the world is weird," said Helen.
"Fucked up," said Tom and put his arm around her.
Tom and Helen maneuvered their way back through the crowded kitchen. Words of bewilderment and awe were in the air. Ina was dashing off a martini. Jake was darting his pinched fingers at Alice's mouth. She was giving him a look of disgust. In the shadowy corner of the dining room, Bill Stewart was asleep in a chair, his arms folded across his chest. They made it back to the living room and took a spot a little closer to the fireplace. Grace was still intermittently groaning, her stare still blank. The crowd soon came in from the kitchen. Crory lectured about silence and the room quieted down. Everybody heard a toilet flush, and, after, the footsteps of the Blameless approaching from the hall.
His first order of business was to check on Grace's condition. He spoke his gibberish to her for a few seconds, and she panted. "She needs to get heated up," the reverend said over his shoulder to the crowd. He danced erratic for a dozen steps, stopped only a few feet from Tom and Helen, and spoke. "Moxioton, The Granee Champio of negative entities," he said. "This spirit of destruction, spirit of grief, is an aggregate of Grace's sins, both real and imagined by herself and others. A powerful demon that once removed will leave her feeling five pounds lighter."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Natural History of Hell by Jeffrey Ford. Copyright © 2016 Jeffrey Ford. Excerpted by permission of Small Beer Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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