Boyfriend from Hell (31 page)

“I have to see him right away. It’s an emergency.”

“Your name is?”

“Veronica Delaney.”

“Oh, right.” The woman unlocked the door. “We can call him up. He lives nearby.”

The church worker led Ronnie into a small, cluttered office, dialed a number, and handed the phone to Ronnie.

“Father Connolly—”

“It’s Veronica, Father. I’m at the church. I have to see you right now!”

“My goodness. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

She sat on a worn upholstered bench in a dimly lit waiting area outside the office. Father Connolly hurried in and she greeted him with an explosion of her torment.

“I almost killed a man last night, Father! I went running in the park in the middle of the night and I didn’t know I was doing it, like other times I blacked out, and then I saw what I was doing. I was choking somebody. The man could’ve died, I could’ve killed him, and if I could do that, then maybe I killed Randall Cummings. I was there, I was at his place the day he died, and he died from being choked to death, so it could have been me. Evil is in me. Father. I’m going out of my mind. We have to have an exorcism. We have to do it right now. You have to do it!”

He took her by the hands and said, “Veronica, I’ll try to help. But what you’re looking for can’t be something
done
to you. It has to be something from
within
you.” He put his arm around her gently. “Let’s go into the chapel. It would be a good thing.”

The chapel was a small, simple space in the annex portion of the building; basic artifacts for worship and a few pews. Father Connolly led Ronnie to sit in the first pew.

“What can get you through is faith. Faith in God. Faith in your essential goodness.”

“I lost my faith a long time ago.”

“You had it once, when you were a little girl. You have to find it again.”

The office worker entered, flustered.

“I’m sorry, Father. This man insisted—”

Richard brashly entered the room with a look of amusement at the entertainment value of the proceedings.

“Hello, Ronnie.”

“Father, this is the man!”

“What are you doing here?” Father Connolly said. “You’ve been stalking her?”

“I wouldn’t call it that. I’m a friend of Ronnie’s. And she was very—abrupt with me. I wanted to say to her, you can’t get rid of me so easily once you let me in, so to speak.”

“Father, make him go away.”

As Richard stood there, imperious, amused, Father Connolly studied him, trying to take his measure.

“What kind of behavior is this?”

Richard looked at him patronizingly.

“Who are you to ask?”

“Get out of here,” Ronnie said. “Father!” she appealed.

Father Connolly studied Richard in his arrogance.

“If he is the demon in your life, I’m afraid you’re the one who has to will him away.”

Suddenly, Randall Cummings’s assistant Cosmo Pitalis materialized, dressed in black, white-faced. He was livid.

“You killed Cummings.”

“No,” Ronnie said, terrified.

“You were angry with him and you snapped. You grabbed him by the neck, the last thing he expected, and it caught him off guard. He began to gag, and he couldn’t catch his breath, and you choked him to death.”

“I didn’t!”

Pitalis was gone, Ronnie saw just the two of them, Father Connolly and Richard. She was breathing rapidly, panicked.

“Say good-bye to yourself, Ronnie.”

“What is your purpose here?” Father Connolly said. “Leave this chapel!”

“And then? I’ll only follow her somewhere else. This is the confrontation, old man. Are you up to it?”

The man in the box suddenly materialized in front of Ronnie.

“You tried to kill me, you crazy bitch. If I didn’t trip, I’d be dead. Crazy killer bitch!”

He was gone, but she saw the scene in the park unfold again, her choking him, him falling backward.

She was shaking, overwrought.

“It’s over,” Richard said.

“He’s playing with you. You have to pray to God to give you the strength to deal with this.”

“Your mind is never going to be the same.”

“I don’t know who you are, but you might as well
be
Satan,” Father Connolly said. “You’re the purest embodiment of evil I have seen in a long, long time.”

“Is that a fact?” Then he turned to Ronnie. “Sad, isn’t it, when you have a good mind and it goes?”

“Don’t listen to him. Pray, Veronica. The words will lead you back to your faith and give you strength. Our Father, who art in heaven …”

The black cats suddenly appeared, hissing, scrambling through the chapel, in and out of the pews, under her feet. She screamed in terror. She was cold, shivering. She was holding herself in fear, feeling her strength dwindling. The cats vanished.

“Give in, Ronnie, let go,” Richard said. “It’s not a bad life, having people take care of you.”

“Don’t let him get to you. Say those beautiful words, Veronica. Our Father, who art in heaven …” He kneeled and looked into her eyes. “Your faith is deep within you. It never left. Find it and it will lead you out of this.”

Struggling, barely audibly, she said, “Our Father, who art in heaven …”

“Hallowed be thy name …”

“Hallowed be thy name …”

“Go on.”

“Give in, Ronnie, give in.”

Where Richard was standing, she now saw the dark angel, winged, menacing.

“No!”

“The words will lead you.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Thy kingdom come …” She was shivering, disoriented, her eyes darting, looking for what terrible thing would happen next.

The dark angel was gone, Richard was back.

Father Connolly took her hands in his, willing her. “I remember that special little girl you were. Come now. Pray with your old priest.”

She was in the car again. Her father turned, took his eyes off the wheel. A crashing sound, then shattered glass.

The stained glass window of the chapel disintegrated. The glass shards struck her face. She touched her hands to her face and then saw her hands were covered with blood and she screamed. She couldn’t take it any longer. She felt weak, fading.

“Game’s over, Ronnie. We can bring an ambulance for you and you’ll be fine. You and Claire Reilly will be fine.”

The blood was gone. The stained glass window was intact. Richard came toward her and patted her on the arm condescendingly.

“Ready, Ronnie?”

Father Connolly shoved him away.

“Don’t you touch her! Veronica, look at me. For your mother, who loved you so much. Give us this day … You can do it. Do it for her. Give us this day …”

“Give us this day …” in a weakened voice, “our daily bread.”

“And forgive us …”

“And forgive us,” haltingly, weakly, “our trespasses as we forgive those …”

“Yes, go on.”

“… who trespass against us.”

“It won’t work, Ronnie. Satan is real. Too strong for this.”

“And lead us …”

“And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil,” she managed to say, her voice barely audible.

“Say good-bye to the world as you knew it. Your mind is going to belong to Satan for as long as you live.”

She felt herself slipping away. If she let go of the reality of this place, and of herself, it would finally be peaceful.

“That’s right. Give in to it.”

Father Connolly took his cross and placed it in Ronnie’s hands. He closed her hands over it and shook her hands hard to get her to focus on him.

“God’s light is your beacon. Follow that light. It will lead you to everything good and true about you. Concentrate with every ounce of your soul and follow God’s light. Follow the light, Veronica. The light of your God when you were a little girl.” Weary, she shook her head no. “You can do it. You have to try.” She looked at him, at his soulful face, and closed her eyes.

She began to see a faint light. It began to grow stronger, white, incandescent. Images played in and out of it. She saw Nancy and Bob, the three of them were laughing together. She saw children’s faces, the children from the recreation center, and she was with them. She saw herself as a child. She was about six. She carried a flower, a dandelion from the park, and she gave it to her mother, who was overjoyed at the sight of her. She tried to absorb it, that her mother was so resplendently happy with her, that the joy in her mother’s face was so radiant. For her to have made her mother so happy had to mean something. She opened her eyes and Father Connolly was with her, holding her hands over the cross.

“Pray to God in your own words. Pray with your heart.”

“It’s pointless. Satan owns you now.”

“Find the God of your childhood. Pray, Veronica, pray.”

Gripping the cross, she cried out, “Lord, please save me. I pray to you to save me. I didn’t kill my mother. Mommy, Mommy, I’m so sorry. But it wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t kill you. I didn’t kill anybody. I’m not bad. I’m not bad!” She wept profoundly, her body rocking.

Slowly, as if a fever had broken, everything began to come clear, where she was, the chapel, Father Connolly, Richard.

She turned to Richard in his imperiousness. “You evil bastard. Get the hell out of my life!”

“Look at this,” Richard said.

“It was you from the beginning. You sent the black cat. All that was you. Well, now you can get the hell out of here!”

“Really, now? If that’s the way you want it.”

“That’s the way I want it.”

He turned to leave, but with a last thought. “I’ll still be around.”

“Not with me you won’t.”

Arrogantly, calmly, he walked out of the chapel and she watched him go.

Father Connolly took Ronnie’s hands in his.

“He can’t hurt you anymore. You’re too strong for him, you and God.”

She was emotionally and physically drained and he brought her into his office and guided her to lie down on his couch.

“You’re the special person I always knew you’d grow up to be.”

He placed a blanket over her and she soon fell asleep.

Santini and Gomez never reached Nancy as to Ronnie’s whereabouts. In Staten Island, Beattie Ryan, the retired mail carrier whose religious beliefs originally led her to join the protest against Randall Cummings, underwent a challenge to her faith. She was watching television and Ronnie’s face appeared on the screen—wanted in connection with Randall Cummings’s murder. She called her priest for guidance and he suggested the Christian thing to do was contact the police immediately, and he was obliged to do so, if she did not. She located a number that had been given to her by Santini and called, the call routed to Rourke. She told him she had allowed the detectives to be misled as to the circumstances on the day of Randall Cummings’s murder. John Wilson was not with her the entire time. He left their position across the street and went into the church a few minutes after the girl came out, the girl who was wanted. Wilson was inside for a while and after he rejoined her he told her that he took care of it, that they wouldn’t have the evildoer to worry about anymore, and instructed her to say they were together the entire time. He told her he had done “God’s work.”

John Wilson was taken into custody for the murder of Randall Cummings.

Ronnie awoke and came into the office where Father Connolly was sitting with the secretary and a young man; a church volunteer whom Father Connolly called to drive her home. She asked to use the phone and dialed Nancy at work.

“It’s me.”

“Ronnie! You were in the news! They were looking for you! But they just said they arrested someone named John Wilson!”

“John Wilson.”

“Where are you, are you all right?”

“I’m good. Everything is good. I’m in my childhood church. Can’t beat the old favorites.”

As Father Connolly led her to the car, she said, “I can never thank you enough. This is beyond thanks.”

“The best thanks you can give me is to take a little advice. Now that you found it again, keep your faith. I venture it could be as important as your computer.”

Father Connolly continued along the street to a local coffee shop. He hadn’t eaten breakfast in the rush of the morning. Standing on a street corner was Richard, talking on his cell phone. He ended his call as the priest approached. The two locked eyes.

“You’re pretty good, old man,” Richard said.

“It
is
you, isn’t it?” Father Connolly asked.

He didn’t answer. He smiled and walked on.

Avery Corman (b. 1935) is an American author best known for novels that inspired hit movies such as
Kramer vs. Kramer
and
Oh, God!
Corman has written powerfully of divorce and family, as well as midlife crisis and the experience of living in New York City.

Corman was born on November 28, 1935, in New York City. His parents were working-class residents of the Bronx, and they divorced when Corman was a young child. Corman moved with his mother and sister into the apartment of an aunt and uncle, who were both deaf mutes. Complicated family dynamics and the challenges of communication would come to be prominent themes in Corman’s later work as a writer.

Corman attended DeWitt Clinton High School and then New York University, from which he graduated in 1956. After a short career in magazine publishing, Corman began writing humorous pieces for small magazines. He spent more than ten years cobbling together an income as a freelancer before completing his first novel,
Oh, God!
, in 1971. The story of a writer who becomes a messenger for God after an interview on Madison Avenue,
Oh, God!
was made into a hit film starring George Burns in 1977. Next came
The Bust-Out King
(1977), a caper novel, quickly followed by one of Corman’s best-known works,
Kramer vs. Kramer
(1977). The novel depicts the toll divorce can take on parents and their children, and helped change the landscape of divorce and custody in America. The courts, and divorcing spouses, began to view divorced men’s participation in their children’s lives more positively. The novel’s film adaptation, starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep, was released to overwhelming acclaim, and went on to win five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.  A French language stage adaptation of the novel,
Kramer vs. Kramer
, by Didier Caron and Stéphane Boutet, was produced in Paris in 2010 and subsequently played in other French cities and in Geneva, Switzerland. Corman then wrote his own stage adaptation of the novel, which has been optioned for a Broadway production, and for productions in several foreign countries.