1.Abraham Amsterdam was a Jewish boy who grew up in a Jewish suburb.
Abraham was like any other Jewish boy from a Jewish suburb.
Sometimes he was quiet. Other times he was loud.
Sometimes he was funny. Other times he was serious.
Sometimes he was hungry. Most times he was very hungry.
And he was nervous all the time.
Many things made Abraham nervous.
His dad. He liked to yell.
The bullies at school. They liked to scare him.
The girls at school. They liked to laugh at him.
The teachers at school. Well, not all of them. But some of them liked to yell just like his dad.
His own reflection. It made him want to puke.
That was thanks to his mother’s side of the family, who had given him a fat round ass.
That was also thanks to his father’s side of the family, who had given him a huge egg-shaped head with stupid curly hair.
He tried to straighten his stupid curly hair by brushing it back.
This gave his hair the shape of something between a pompadour and a motorcycle helmet.
This made his head look even more like a stupid giant egg.
Also a big thanks was owed to cheddar cheese, the eating of which had given Abraham a double chin that would morph into a triple chin whenever he opened his mouth to eat, speak, or laugh.
Let’s see . . . What else made Abraham nervous?
Ah, yes.
Gym class. Because that’s where Abraham had to run.
Abraham hated running.
Abraham’s feet were turned out like a duck’s.
When Abraham ran his legs would spin behind him.
His fat ass and helmet hair would bounce clumsily.
His open mouth would pant as his chins drooped.
All the kids would point at, laugh at, and imitate Abraham.
Kickball was the worst.
In kickball the kids were particularly vicious.
Not just in how they skewered Abraham’s run.
But also in how they mocked Abraham in his kicking of the ball.
Rather than kicking the ball in the normal way with his toes, because Abraham’s foot was turned out, he kicked it with the side of his foot.
Giving all the kids a mini duck-foot preview before the main event of the Duck, Duck, Goose base run. And as he kicked and ran you never heard a group of children laugh harder.
Yes, all of these things made Abraham nervous.
Very nervous.
But the thing that made Abraham the most nervous . . .
The thing that made him more nervous than his dad . . .
or bullies . . .
or girls . . .
or teachers . . .
or even kickball . . .
The thing that made Abraham the most nervous was . . .
the demons in his head.
Abraham didn’t know how the demons got there. Or where they came from. Or how long they had been in his head. But they were there.
Their bodies were made of shadows. Thin and muscular.
Their eyes were candy-cane red. Their mouths were orange from the furnaces that burned inside of their skulls.
They had two big horns.
The demons would speak to Abraham. All day, every day. And when the demons spoke, Abraham would be transported to the chamber of his own mind: a giant room at the center of which sat a large throne made of skulls. Surrounding the chair was an inferno. The floor, wall, and ceiling all covered in flames. Burning everywhere. Just like hell. Hell was in his head. And in his head the demons danced.
The demons did not dance out of joy.
The demons danced out of pain.
They danced.
They did not laugh.
They danced.
They did not cry.
They danced.
They danced.
They screamed.
They danced.
And when they danced they spoke. Their voices were the worst voices Abraham had ever heard. They filled his inner ears like an orchestra of broken instruments and goats screaming. Sounds that made him feel as if cactus needles were being pushed under his fingernails.
They danced.
The demons would dance and while they danced they tortured Abraham with words.
“You’re going to die young.”
“You don’t love your parents.”
“You’re gay.”
“When you die you’re going to hell.”
“You will never know love.”
“Your dreams will never come true.”
“None of this reality exists. Not your family. Not your dog. Not the kids at school that hate you. You are alone in the world. You are the only person. Everyone else is an illusion being created by a monster that absorbs everything you think you see when you’re not looking at it.”
“You have AIDS.”
Yes.
Words of torture.
Threats of possible truths.
Unwelcome guests knocking on the door of Abraham’s potential nightmarish future.
The only way to keep them from becoming reality was to do exactly what the demons said.
The demons had Abraham’s full belief that if he did not do exactly what the demons said, nothing good would ever happen for him and everything terrible would happen to him.
Abraham could not step on cracks.
Abraham had to knock on his bedroom door three times before entering.
Abraham could not look at the number thirteen.
Abraham could not put his hat on the bed.
Abraham could not enter or exit the back seat of the car from the right side.
Abraham could not eat a grape without peeling it first.
Abraham could not watch TV with his feet touching the floor.
Abraham could not pet the dog with both hands at the same time.
Abraham could not brush his teeth without first reciting the full Pledge of Allegiance.
The demons’ words were a ceaseless infection. Every waking moment was devoid of peace. Upon opening his eyes each morning, his mind was crammed with the demons’ voices. Threat upon threat upon empty promises of darkness and doom, which seemed quite far from empty.
They danced and screamed, assuring him it would always be this way. Assuring Abraham he would never be free.
Then came the day.
It’s not easy to pinpoint what the difference was from this day than any other day. It’s not clear what made this shift in Abraham come about. It’s not certain what transformed Abraham’s fear to defiance the second he opened his eyes. However, for some reason, on this day, Abraham awoke and decided he had had enough.
On this day, unlike all other days, Abraham did not wait for the demons’ invitation to enter the hellish chamber of his mind. Instead, Abraham transported himself to face his tormenters.
As always, the chamber was on fire.
As always, the heat of the fire burned, but it did not burn him.
As always, a large, menacing throne of skulls waited for him in the center of the room.
As always, he sat on the throne, positioning himself as the key audience of his own misery.
As always, the demons danced in a circle around him inside the fire.
As always, their screams made Abraham feel like his ears were bleeding.
As always, from the sea of these screams came an even louder scream.
A scream of a little girl being tortured, as if she was being torn apart. A scream that seemed to hang in the air. A scream that seemed to have its own ghost. A scream so engulfing that Abraham would have given up ever being happy again for the rest of his life if it meant he never had to hear it again.
This scream belonged to the Demon King. The Demon King stepped out of the fire, breaking through the dancing circle of all who served him. He looked like the rest of the demons. Except the Demon King was much taller and had only one horn. A gigantic horn that was larger than any other demon’s two horns put together.
As he screamed his scream of all screams, the Demon King glided closer to Abraham. From far away Abraham could already smell the repugnancy of his breath. The foul zephyr from his disgusting mouth wrapped around Abraham’s face just as the fire wrapped around the room.
The Demon King looked Abraham up and down. He then gave Abraham a long sniff.
The Demon King then spoke. “Nice of you to visit us, Abraham. But you know you are only to come if you are invited.”
Abraham sat up straight. He puffed out his chest. Trying to project that bravery was his best-kept secret.
“I can come in here whenever I want. It’s my head,” Abraham mumbled, immediately disappointed with himself. He’d hoped his reply would have been more of a battle cry, but the words seemed to stop inches from his face and fall into the fire.
At this the Demon King laughed a laugh worse than his scream.
“No, boy. It’s my head. It’s my head and it will always be my head.”
“You wish!” Abraham squeaked out.
Again, not the most poetically defiant statement ever uttered.
Again, the Demon King let out a blood-stopping laugh.
“No, you wish, boy. I don’t wish. I never wish. I do. I do and I say. And I rule. I rule you, boy. I will rule you till the day you die. Which will be very soon, at a very young age. For as I have said many times before, you will die young from AIDS, even though you’ve never had sex, used intravenous drugs, or had a blood transfusion. And at the time you die, you will never have known love. And everyone will be laughing at you at your funeral, because you’re gay. And then they will all disappear, because none of them exist. Not even your mother. You are alone in the world, Abraham.”
Abraham tried to push out his chest a little more to seem braver but all he could come up with to say was, “Why? Why say these things to me? Why can’t you all just leave me alone?”
Something had to be done. His comebacks, frankly, sucked. They weren’t even comebacks. They were whines. The same cowardly whimpers he’d meet any bully at school with. Abraham could only try to remain calm as he figured out a different path of operation. But, as always, Abraham’s mind was in a spin. He could hardly see a next step to take, a next word to say. Let alone strategize a whole other tactic.
To be honest there never was any tactic to begin with.
To be honest Abraham had never devised a tactic in his life.
To be honest the only tactic Abraham had was to repeat the flaccid question he had only seconds ago uttered.
“Why? Why say these things to me? Why can’t you all just leave me alone?”
The Demon King leapt and howled with malicious glee.
“Why? Because it’s fun, boy. It is so much fun. Well, not for you. But it certainly is fun for us. And no one will ever be able to stop our fun. Not you. Not your mother. Not even Dr. Heshel.”
Dr. Heshel. Ah, yes, Dr. Heshel. It’s funny. Abraham hadn’t even thought about Dr. Heshel yet today. Usually not a day would go by that Abraham wouldn’t wonder what Dr. Heshel would tell him to do.
Dr. Heshel was Abraham’s psychiatrist. Abraham had been seeing him for about a year and a half. Abraham’s mother heard Dr. Heshel speak one night at Abraham’s school about the signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder in children, and she liked him. She thought he could be someone to help Abraham. She wasn’t sure if Abraham had obsessive-compulsive disorder, but he might. And if he didn’t have that, he probably had something worse.
“I think you’ll really like him, Abey. I think he can really make you feel better. He’s got a real way about him. An energy. A healing way and energy.”
Abraham felt ashamed at first at the thought of going to a shrink. That was something that crazy people did. He wasn’t crazy, was he? He wasn’t someone who needed a Dr. Heshel, was he?
The demons certainly thought so. They constantly told him he’d wind up in a booby hatch just like his grandpa Mel, who had been in and out of mental institutions since Abraham’s mother was a teenager. Grandpa Mel thought he was a giraffe. One day Abraham’s mother came home to find him trying to eat a light bulb from the floor lamp, like it was leaves on a tree.
“I don’t want you to end up like Grandpa Mel, Abey.”
Neither did Abraham, and so he went to see Dr. Heshel.
Dr. Heshel was kind and made Abraham feel comfortable. He would never push Abraham to say anything or feel anything. He’d talk about anything Abraham wanted to talk about.
Dr. Heshel was warm.
Dr. Heshel smiled a lot.
Nothing seemed to shock Dr. Heshel.
Dr. Heshel had an ease to him that felt contagious.
Dr. Heshel liked to laugh and was also funny.
Nothing seemed to shake Dr. Heshel.
Everything about Dr. Heshel was absolutely top-notch in the shrink department. The only downside was that, more times than one, Dr. Heshel would fall asleep while Abraham was talking.
Make no mistake, Dr. Heshel liked Abraham. He did. But the fact was, Abraham bored Dr. Heshel at times.
The pathetic way he’d talk about the popular kids in school with reverence. These children who would not even come close to making any sort of mark in his life. Their names bled into each other in Dr. Heshel’s mind.
The pathetic way Abraham would go on and on about how much he loved macaroni and cheese, but he was also scared to eat it because of a family history of heart disease, but he still refused to stop eating it, and, even more annoyingly, refused to stop worrying about eating it.
Dr. Heshel had grown tired of “sort of screwed-up boys” like Abraham. These boys with petty, small neuroses. These were really the only kinds of patients he had. He wanted someone who was really crazy. A child off the deep end. Often, upon arriving at his office, Dr. Heshel would stay parked outside where he would sit in his car and pray, even though he was an atheist.
“Please, God! Bring me a whack job! A kid to really sink my teeth into. A kid who might very well be a future junkie or serial killer. Someone who I can save.”
Abraham was no such child.
There was nothing really that wrong with Abraham.
Sure, there were the demons.
Yet when Abraham talked to Dr. Heshel about the demons, it only bored Dr. Heshel more. The demons were obviously obsessive-compulsive thought patterns. So obvious that, deep down, Dr. Heshel knew Abraham even knew it. Dr. Heshel would have been much more excited if Abraham thought there were actual demons in his head. Now that would have been something to really get into. Alas, it was all just a big laborious verbal trip to Obvious Metaphor City. All Abraham had to do was ignore them. After all, they were just thoughts.
Thoughts can’t hurt anyone.
Abraham didn’t seem to take this in, though. He didn’t want to, yet he also worried about not taking Dr. Heshel’s advice. He worried that he might go crazy from the demons but at the same time knew they were just harmless thoughts, but at the same time felt bad about himself that he couldn’t just ignore him. The whole dance made Dr. Heshel wonder if he should find something else to do with his life. All this fear of AIDS on Abraham’s part made him wonder if he should work with AIDS patients. But that was too much. Dr. Heshel was prone to depression himself, and knew exposure to so much suffering would, in reality, be far too much for him.
So he’d stick with mostly normal and boring kids like Abraham and try to get them to see how silly their little problems were. Plus, it’s not like he disliked his patients. He liked Abraham very much. However, he would have liked Abraham even more if the little shit would listen to him for a change. He wished Abraham would listen to him when he told him to think of all his thoughts as subway trains that were passing through the station of his mind. Trains that he didn’t need to get on. He’d often say . . .
“Just don’t get on the train, Abraham. Just let it pass through the station.”
Dr. Heshel knew this hardly registered with Abraham. Dr. Heshel knew that Abraham only understood this intellectually. He knew that in order for it to be ingrained in Abraham, in order for it to have real meaning, he’d have to repeat it and repeat it often. You had to do that with Abraham. And so Dr. Heshel repeated it and repeated it.
“Just don’t get on the train, Abraham. Just let it pass through the station.”
In the last two sessions it seemed like the phrase was starting to get through. Abraham’s eyes started to brighten in that way that comes with a deep registering. They were almost there. Almost there for Abraham having a real tool to fight against the onslaught of compulsion. Their last session had been three days ago. In the following week, in their next session, Dr. Heshel was confident that Abraham would really hear him. Hear him in a way he had never heard him before when Dr. Heshel, once again, simply told him . . .
“Just don’t get on the train, Abraham. Just let it pass through the station.”
“Just don’t get on the train, Abraham. Just let it pass through the station.”
“Just don’t get on the train, Abraham. Just let it pass through the station.”
Abraham sat up with a start as Dr. Heshel’s voice echoed from the fire-laced walls of his mind.
“Just don’t get on the train, Abraham. Just let it pass through the station.”
The demons were laughing and screaming so loudly they couldn’t hear it over their own voices. The Demon King jumped up and down ecstatically, continuing his verbal attack. No knowledge of the weapon his victim had just been handed.
“I see the fantasies you have, Abraham. The fantasies of your death day. Of everyone at your funeral crying. Wishing they had treated you better. Missing you. Oh, Abraham, how delusional you are. There will be no one at your funeral. Not even a rabbi. No one will want to waste their time mourning such a pathetic person, and when your ugly body quits, one of two things will happen. You will burn in hell with us forever . . . or there will be nothing. A dreamless sleep for eternity. Dark emptiness.”
The Demon King laughed with such ferocity that, again, he did not hear the echo of Dr. Heshel.
“Just don’t get on the train, Abraham. Just let it pass through the station.”
For the first time Abraham really took these words in.
For the first time Abraham had clarity.
For the first time Abraham had a plan.
Abraham would not get on the train.
Abraham would just let it pass.
Abraham yawned and his head started to nod off just like Dr. Heshel’s did when Abraham talked too much about the demons, or the popular kids, or macaroni and cheese.
The Demon King noticed.
“What are you doing, Abraham?”
“Nothing,” Abraham mumbled, exhausted. “I’m real tired all of a sudden.”
“Tired?!” The Demon King had never heard such a word be blurted from Abraham’s mouth before. “Tired, huh?! Hmmmmm, maybe it’s AIDS?”
Abraham now was feeling the beginnings of something from the Demon King that he had never felt before. Something Abraham was sure he had felt himself many times. Just this one little decision to not get on the Heshel train allowed Abraham to take the focus off his own fear and take in who exactly was standing right in front of him. Normally, the threat of the demons’ words would drive Abraham to fight back or plead and run away and cry. But not having done any of that, he was really able to take in everything around him for what it was.
“Did you hear me, boy?! Answer me now!”
Something felt different about the Demon King. Something very different. He had changed in some way. Or maybe Abraham had changed. Or maybe nothing had changed and this was as it had always been and Abraham had just not seen it. Whatever the exact situation was, the Demon King felt different. There was a pause to him. There was a shakiness. There was a . . . “OH MY GOD!” Abraham realized. “THE DEMON KING IS ME! I AM THE DEMON KING!”
It was now clear what Abraham must do to defeat his foe. To defeat himself. And from the walls of his mind Abraham heard his own voice vibrate:
“Don’t talk to the Demon King. Talk to myself. Talk to me.”
A smile swept across Abraham’s face. A smile that almost knocked the Demon King down. He had never seen Abraham smile before. He didn’t even know he could. The smile felt like his own.
“What . . . ? What are you smiling at, boy? You think it’s funny what I’m saying?! Well, it’s not! You are very very sick, Abraham Amsterdam!”
“Maybe,” muttered Abraham.
The Demon King’s eyes widened almost to the size of his horn. “What?! What did you say?”
“It’s possible, I guess. Anything’s possible.” Abraham’s grin stretched even wider. “But not likely.”
“Not likely? How do you know it’s not likely?” The Demon King gripped his skull in what seemed to be an attempt to keep it from exploding in shock.
Abraham leaned forward. “How do you know it is likely? You’re not a doctor. Are you?”
“No . . . no, I’m not a doctor, but I can tell these things.”
“So you’re just guessing here?”
The Demon King was at a loss. “Maybe . . . Okay, maybe about this I am, but I’ll tell you one thing—you might not have AIDS, but you’re definitely gay.”
“Oh boy, I hope so.”
With this Abraham stood up. Looking taller than he had ever come close to looking before. And the higher he stood, the more the Demon King seemed to sink. Never had the ruler of the Dark Ones been in such a desperate spot.
“What?! But everyone will hate you!”
“I don’t know if that’s true. My uncle Richard is gay and everyone loves him. Sure, he’s got it hard sometimes, ’cause he meets a lot of horrible people like you, but other than that, he’s really one of the happiest people I know.”
The Demon King blinked as if this was all putting him in some sort of trance. “I . . . I don’t know Uncle Richard.”
“Oh, you’d love him.”
“Yes . . . yes, I’m sure I would . . . Wait! No! No, I wouldn’t. I don’t like gay people.”
“Why not?”
“Because . . . because they’re disgusting. They’re evil!”
“Evil? A demon is calling someone evil? That’s kind of rich. I mean . . . do you have a girlfriend?”
“Of course I don’t. Demons can’t experience love. Everyone knows that.”
“I bet you wish you could know what love is. Even just a little bit. But you can’t because nobody loves you. Nobody actually cares about you at all or wants to know anything about you. You think people hate gay people? Sure, I’m sure some do. But I’ll tell you what everyone hates much much more than gays . . . Demons. Everyone hates you. No one loves you.”
The Demon King froze.
“No, that’s not true. Why? Why do you say such things? Why can’t you all just leave me alone?”
Then the Demon King started to shake. Like an earthquake was going off underneath his skin. He tried to scream the quakes out of him but they were clenched. His screams could not escape his throat. Then, ever so slowly, the demon-dance circle began to close in on their ruler. This, as it turned out, was not to help him. This was to do something quite the opposite. They smelled his weakness and they were starved for it. With their shadow claws and teeth they tore into their sovereign’s vile flesh. However, as they did so, a strange thing started to happen. As they tore away, they themselves started to be dismembered as well.
Then they all turned to the one next to them, assuming the blame for their injuries lay with the other. They ripped into each other, and after mere minutes, there was nothing left of them but black bubbling goo messily spreading across the floor. And as the goo evaporated, the fire on the walls of Abraham’s mind died away.
Abraham sat there.
He sat alone in the room in his mind.
He listened to the silence.
He savored the emptiness.
He then laughed.
It was a laugh of many things.
It was a laugh of pride.
It was a laugh of relief.
It was a laugh of knowing.
Knowing that he had won.
Knowing that win was just for the day, or maybe the hour, or maybe the minute.
Knowing that tomorrow the demons would be back.
Knowing that he would have to do this all over again.
Knowing that he would have to do this all over again every day.
Knowing that he would have to do this all over again every day for the rest of his life.
Knowing that it was him.
Knowing that it was all him.