It being the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the work schedule for Gretchen and myself was somewhat lighter than a typical Monday. This was good, because not only did it mean there was time for me to meet with my brother-in-law, Hank Palikowski, and his sister-in-law, Shannon, it also meant there were fewer regular clients in the reception area for them to give the willies to. Dressed in their usual survivalist outfits, the pair of them regularly prompt the security desk in the lobby to call and alert Gretchen of their impending arrival and inquire if DC Police backup might be required.
“We have to talk,” Shannon declared as they strode into my office.
“Back there,” Hank whispered as he nodded his head in the direction of the door behind my desk. In a moment, the three of us were seated in the TS/Q secure room situated off the corridor to which it leads.
“Before we get started on whatever got you to drive down here to DC from the wilds of West Virginia,” I began, “may I remind you of your responsibilities as reasonable adults? Hank, hardly a month goes by that my sister Rose doesn’t tell me how difficult it is raising your prodigious Catholic brood without a father figure, and frankly, I’m tired of standing in for you. And your husband Arthur,” I reminded Shannon, “may be a man of few words, but even he lets me know that if I should speak to you, then I should tell you that it is his fondest wish that you and Hank abandon this Quixotic mission of yours and return to Fairfax, there to resume your roles as his wife and beloved brother, furthermore…”
“We’re not here to chew over the past!” Shannon indignantly interrupted. “When Obama assumes complete dictatorial powers, as he inevitably will, thus fulfilling the Prophesy of the Antichrist, then Rose, Arthur, and even you, Tom, will get down on your knees and thank Hank and me for preparing a safe haven for you and the children during the End Times! Now, if we can please move on to the urgent matters which brought us here to the Belly of the Beast, Hank and I want to discuss matters of extreme spiritual importance!”
“Okay,” I relented, “never mind. What is it?”
“The boy who came back from Heaven!” Shannon shot back self-righteously.
“You mean the book of that title?” I ventured.
“No!” Shannon shouted. “I’m talking about the boy!”
“Would you care to translate?” I asked Hank.
“Um… well,” Hank stammered as he made unsure glances in Shannon’s direction, “what Shannon is talking about is, uh… well, sure, yeah, there’s been a book called that – The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven – but what she means is, she’s worried about the boy who wrote the book.”
“Alex Malarkey?” I sought to confirm.
“Yeah,” Hank murmured, “that’s him.”
“Never in the history of modern commercial Christian literature,” I observed, “has the name of an author been so ideally suited to their subject matter.”
“I’ll have you know,” Shannon huffed, “that Malarkey is a very respectable Irish name! It’s from the clan O’Maoilearca, who migrated from Tirconnell to Connaught after the Protestant English invasion in the seventeenth century and even today, there’s plenty of Malarkey in Sligo, Mayo and Galway!”
“Of that,” I assured her, “there is little doubt, either here or in Ireland. But what about this Malarkey kid, anyway – it’s no secret he recanted his story last week; he said he made the whole thing up. How did it go – quote, ‘I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth. Anything written by man cannot be infallible.’ It’s widely believed most of the… you’ll pardon the expression… malarkey presented in The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven was invented by the child’s father, Kevin Malarkey, a self-styled ‘Christian counselor / therapist.’ And it seems that the child’s mother claims Alex has never received a dime of proceeds from sales of the book, which is rather remarkable when you consider that it was on the New York Times bestseller list, sold more than a million copies, and therefore must have made some considerable bucks for somebody. Whether that’s the kid’s father or the publisher, nobody seems to know, but all that money had to go somewhere. Evidently, a best-selling book about your trip to Heaven does not an earthly bank account make.”
“This isn’t about the money!” Shannon insisted.
“That’s easy for you to say,” I japed. “You aren’t a quadriplegic who requires round-the-clock nursing care.”
“It’s about the reality of Heaven!” Shannon yelled. “Don’t you see that?”
“Frankly, no,” I replied. “Care to explain?”
“That little boy,” she began, “was in a terrible traffic accident…”
“In which it seems,” I pointed out, “that his father was driving.”
“So what?” She objected.
“Guy’s kid gets messed up in a traffic accident, guy writes book about the kid’s trip to Heaven and back, guy makes a bundle…” I speculated. “Sounds a little bit… fishy, don’t you think?”
“The Lord,” Shannon proclaimed, “moves in mysterious ways!”
“Nothing mysterious about making a boatload of money off a bunch of gullible suckers,” I noted. “It happens all the time.”
“Look, Tom,” Shannon demanded, “after that terrible accident, the child spent two months in a coma, and when he awoke from it, he told how he was rescued by angels and brought to Heaven. There he saw the Gates of Heaven themselves – to him, they appeared tall and white, with glistening points of light. Inside the Gates, he experienced spiritual perfection and spoke with Jesus Christ. Later, he met Satan, who entered Heaven through a portal which leads to Hell, and who tried to blame the child for the accident. But the Lord was steadfast with the child, and when Alex returned from Heaven to the land of the living, he knew the Glory of God and told others of his sojourn in Jesus’ Celestial Realm.”
“Him and a bunch of other people,” I observed, “including Marvin Besteman, who wrote My Journey to Heaven: What I Saw and How It Changed My Life; Dale Black, who wrote Flight to Heaven; and To Heaven and Back by Mary Neal; Don Piper’s 90 Minutes in Heaven; and then there’s Nine Days in Heaven by Dennis Prince; 23 Minutes In Hell by Bill Wiese; and about six dozen others. A lot of them made the New York Times bestseller list, too. Strange thing, though, how many contradictions and inconsistencies there are in all those amazingly detailed descriptions of Heaven. When you compare them, it looks just like a drum circle of New Age Wiccans describing their psychedelic experiences or a group of Jungian graduate students discussing their dreams. In my humble opinion, it’s a shame all of those Heavenly Tourism travel writers aren’t named Malarkey – at least then, there would be some truth in advertising involved.”
“That… child… actually… went… to… Heaven… Tom!” Shannon screamed. “The Dark One has caused him to recant the Holy Truth!”
“Excuse me?” I replied, digging my little finger into my ear canal to assuage the tingling sensation caused by Shannon’s outburst. Poor Arthur, I thought – imagine that woman applying those lungs at that decibel level in favor of the cause that the garbage should be taken out. He must love her dearly, it occurred to me, that he should implore her to return to his company after she had so determinedly removed herself so far from his earshot.
“Shannon is convinced,” Hank quietly informed me, again with nervous glances in her direction, “that, um… the reason Alex told everybody he made everything up is… ah.. well…”
“Spit it out, damn it all!” Shannon hotly interjected with a scornful look at Hank. “He’s possessed by demons! Satan sent them to take control of his mind and make him lie in favor of the Forces of Evil and Atheism!”
“You really think so?” I retorted. “Isn’t is just as likely, instead, that after maturing from a six-year-old kid who would go along with anything his mendacious and greedy father would suggest, to a young man who had read the Bible, Alex Malarkey felt genuine and sincere pangs of Christian conscience for having participated in the promulgation of what amounts to a reprehensible act of fabulism that could only serve to mislead otherwise pious Christians into misguided belief in perilous theological falsehoods?”
“No!” Shannon growled, fixing her eyes on me with that burning determination that only a True Believer can muster. “Alex Malarkey is possessed! He is possessed by demons from Hell at the express orders of Satan Himself! And.. something… must… be… done… about… it!”
“Such as what?” I challenged.
“Um… well, Tom,” Hank said in a rather timid voice, “that’s why I drove Shannon down here so you could talk to her. You see, what she wants to do is…”
“Exorcism!” Shannon shrieked. “That boy needs an exorcism!”
“And you want to perform it?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she confidently affirmed. “But he…” she continued, indicating Hank, “won’t help me unless I can convince you it’s the right thing to do!”
“You’re not going to have much luck with that,” I informed her.
“Why not?” Shannon demanded. “I understand the situation! I know the circumstances! And I’ve been practicing the ritual for the last five days!”
“She has,” Hank confirmed with a wince. “Pretty much all the time. At all hours. And kind of loud, too.”
“I’ve absolutely perfected the delivery!” Shannon proudly announced. “There’s no way any demon could possibly resist me! What have you got to say to that?”
“Well,” I responded, “first of all, you lack the necessary credentials to diagnose demonic possession.”
“Credentials?” Shannon snorted derisively. “What kind of [expletive] credentials do you need to see that somebody is possessed by the Devil?”
“For starters,” I slowly intoned, “you need full qualifications as a medical doctor specializing in the practice of psychiatry so as to be capable of ruling out mental disease and manifestations of neurosis.”
“Who needs that,” Shannon countered, “when the kid obviously went to Heaven and now he’s doing the work of Satan by denying it?”
“And there’s the second point,” I noted. “You lack the necessary Doctorate of Theology to render a professional judgment as to whether the child is, in fact, furthering the causes of Lucifer, nor whether, if he is in fact doing so, his actions do not result from exercise of free will rather than supernatural influence.”
“Oh come on, Tom!” Shannon scoffed. “Where the [expletive] are these MD shrinks with Doctor of Divinity degrees you’re talking about who go around diagnosing demonic possessions?”
“The Jesuits and Augustinians,” I replied, “have more than enough of them, actually. You’re a Catholic, Shannon, and even if you’re one of those weird charismatics who like to hang out with Evangelicals, Pentecostals and barefoot, snake-handling hillbilly Baptists, you still should know that Exorcism is a Sacred Rite which can only be performed by a priest – in practice, several of them. And it occurs to me – going to an exorcism without Holy Water is like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Tell me, you weren’t expecting to perform an exorcism without Holy Water, were you?”
“No,” she spat. “Of course not!”
“And from where,” I prodded, “were you intending to obtain Holy Water?”
“She… uh… we… that is, we were planning to…” Hank interrupted.
“We’re going to steal it from a church!” Shannon blurted.
“How?” I inquired. A protracted silence ensued.
“We… um… ” Hank resumed, “well, actually, Shannon suggested… that we siphon out a baptismal font… uh… so we’d be sure to have enough.”
“Shannon,” I admonished, “it’s a damn good thing Hank brought you down here to discuss this issue with me, because, although I understand how upset you are about being disillusioned by this recent turn of events, you must realize that if anyone besides a priest performs – or attempts to perform – an exorcism, they are engaging in witchcraft.”
“Witchcraft?” Hank gasped.
“I am not a witch!” Shannon howled.
“But definitely a banshee,” I asserted, once again assuaging the intense tingling in my aural canal with the distal phalanges of my left and right hands. “You can’t escape logic, Shannon. Only a priest can perform a valid exorcism and you are not a priest. As a matter of fact, you can’t be a priest, because you are female.”
“Well then,” she thundered, “it’s high time the Vatican did something about that!”
“Let’s not change the subject,” I chided. “You start splashing stolen Holy Water around Alex Malarkey and you’re a witch, Shannon. It’s an open and shut case – you will be the one doing the work of Satan, not that poor unfortunate kid. And it will get you excommunicated faster than you can say ‘apostate heresy.’”
“Excommunicated?” Shannon muttered, staring dejectedly down at the table.
“If you don’t believe me,” I suggested, “on your way back to your bunker in West Virginia, why don’t you stop by your church out in Fairfax and ask your old priest? I’ll bet he will be surprised to see both of you.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Shannon hissed at me as she rose and exited the TS/Q cube.
Hank waited until the door to the corridor outside was completely closed. “Thanks, Tom,” he sighed. “There are plenty of things I would be willing to do in the name of God, but casting demons out of somebody in a wheelchair just isn’t one of them.”