If I had any doubts about leaving the Christian College for Cambridge, the exorcism quelled them all. The whole dorm was abuzz about Christine, a usually quiet girl with good christian clothes and serious Christian hair. What was the matter with Christine? She wasn't quiet anymore. She had a look in her eye. She let her hair escape the bounds of her head and go all flyaway. her clothes looked slept in.
The whispering started in my dorm room. I shared with three earnest young women who liked going to chapel, even cute Kathy, who could date any boy on campus, but stayed true to her high school sweetheart, studying theology in another state. I don't remember them discussing it with me, but I heard them discussing it, like the three witches, from my top bunk. Above me was a bright yellow square of cardboard taped to the ceiling, in its center a small magenta square with a question mark. My attempt at abstract art.
I was the questioner. They were believers and I was spinning away from the well honed system. I heard them talking,"She's possessed of the Devil." "Yes, we have to do something." "It's so sad; let's pray."
They prayed, they did it in another room, having attracted a large following among the other students from our dorm, then from other dorms, then they brought in the teachers and preachers. There was going to be an exorcism.
Did anyone tell Christine? I never found out if she knew what was going on before it happened. I stayed in my top bunk and contemplated my question mark; it was early spring, the cherry trees were in bloom, the ice on the pond had long since made way for geese. I was busy composing the ad that would take me out of this holy madhouse and to the real world where I belonged, the world of hippies and folk music and civil rights.
The funny thing is I can't remember if they ever actually held the exorcism. I remember thinking "Isn't that a Catholic thing?" and "Maybe the poor girl needs a shrink, not an exorcist." And the movie hadn't even come out yet. When I think about Gordon College this is what I think about:
Ice skating on the frozen pond behind the school
Giving boys backrubs with the lights out in the small anteroom off the lounge in the student center, until they fixed the lights to be permanently on.
Getting my ears pierced by Vicki down the hall, who would later marry my old boyfriend Billy. She used a sewing needle and thread, and an ice cube.
Singing out for the weekend with Helaine Haaland who lived off campus, saying we were going to stay with her aunt and really going to Boston, where I first met Beatle and saw my first "art film" Wild Strawberries.
Getting caught sneaking into the dorm that same night because we didn't have anything to do after the movie and staying at the Y seemed dreary.
Shannon, my dream crush, who asked me out, but the day we were supposed to go on our date, it snowed so hard you couldn't get out of the dorm, and the next day he was sent away for stealing $200 from the tract box. He turned up two years later in Boston. (More about that in another episode.)
The exorcism and how it propelled me out of the school and out of the faith forever.
