Momma and Randall
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the novel or film versions of "The Exorcist". The characters are the same, but the names and physical characteristics have been changed. The background of Georgetown, and of the newscast in Northern Iraq, I am using from the actual original versions, and for that, I give credit. I also give credit to my friends, family, and other sources who have taught me love is a very great gift.
Momma looked at her son and spoke, for the first time all day, stern, sad, and determined.
"Randall, I am not going anywhere. This is my home. I gave birth to you here, twenty-nine years ago, may God bless the memory of your Father Michael in Heaven. I have root here. I will no leave. That is that."
Randy sighed deep, his short, yet thick forearms stretching over the miniature dining room table, set aglow by a lone streetlamp covering guard outside the fifth floor.
"Fine, Momma." He sighed again, and some tears emerged behind his thick white eyelids, lingering, then dousing the red and white checkered tablecloth.
Momma gasped and half-ran to her shaking, whimpering son. What a fine son I have, thought Momma Rosalie Sebastian, as she wrapped her huge, dough-like arms around the treasured hero of her own Randall Joseph Sebastian. _A priest! An unhappy priest. Maybe he would have been better actor. _ Momma giggled soft at the thought, tucked her large, downy white panda head down near her son's and gave him a soft kiss on his left cheek.
"I love you, Randall. Please, do not cry. Do not cry. I am not mad. I am just old, determined Momma, like always."
This time, Randy let loose a rather loud chuckle, in spite of his own worries. "Oh, Momma!" He rose up out of the large wooden chair, which had been purchased by his father, Michael Thomas Sebastian, in 1945 in Rome, and began to dance with his Momma to the Italian music playing from the large radio which rested in a shadowed corner of the kitchen.
"Oh, Randall, how long a time it has been since we have danced! I remember as a young boy, oh, as a young boy, we could not take you anywhere! Your father, you and I would be walking on a beautiful day and church bells from the Catholic church would ring and that would send you on a dancing display! Oh ho, how I remember. Do you remember? Does my Randall remember?" Momma asked with great pride.
Of course Randy remembered, but it was his job to shake his large panda head in a gesture which meant "no".
"Oh, Randall, you tease, you tease!" Momma sighed in love and admiration for her beautiful young priest boy. Momma remembered well Michael his father and how handsome he had been the first time, and every consecutive time, all the way to the grave. The wedding at the beautiful oak tree park where they had first met had been more than a dream manifested; she felt that God Himself had come down and had selected both her and Michael as His most treasured creations to live long forever.
Momma and Randall sang and danced for another five minutes, and followed with a genuine curtsy and bow. Then, Randall lifted his big Momma up and guided her to her favorite wooden rocking chair with the great plush emerald cushion against the back and bottom for her to recline in a comfortable manner. In the top left corner of the back cushion shone the initials MTS, in brilliant gold leaf cursive. The opposite corner represented RJS, and down the very center of the back, in great six inch letters of the same gold leaf, with beautiful white lilacs and doves swaying and dancing around the trio, spoke MRS, for, of course, the one and irreplaceable Momma Rosalie Sebastian.
"Momma, would you like some warm milk?"
"Aaah, my Randall. Yes, but first, sit with your Momma. Sit, and talk with me. Do not you have to leave so soon?"
The music from the radio gave way to the 9 p.m. newscast, highlighting world events. "And, tonight, in Northern Iraq, an artifact has been found, this time, of unknown origin, says. . ." "Randall, would you please lower the volume?"
At the request, Randy's large saucer-like ears perked slight, for his Momma loved to have the radio up loud, for company always. "Sure, Momma." He rose and passed through the dark kitchen, where the looming radio played sentinel next to the toaster, the AM/FM dial glowing dim, and gave the volume dial a quarter turn to the left.
"Momma, would you like some warm milk?"
"Thank you, Randall. Yes, and you shall take some, too."
"Yes, Momma." Randy rummaged through the cabinets above his head and found a small saucepan. Searching through a busy refrigerator, he found a carton of Super's milk. Super's milk, he thought. This has been in our family as long as dancing to church bells and curtsying and bowing, mused the waiter son.
In a few moments, Randy had re-entered the cavernous living room, placing with a gentle clatter the plate and cup on his Momma's sidetable. A new sense of silence had been introduced into the warm cave of his and his Momma's home.
Momma began by sipping some warm milk, and then spoke. "Randall, are you not happy? Your friend, Tony, he come by and he say he see you wandering far near government buildings of D.C., with great frown, and tears. Tears, always. What is wrong? Please, tell your Momma."
At the words leaving his Momma's throat, a heavy blush grew on the small white spots on his large, for the most part, black cheeks. A fume of anger and embarrassment crept into the cold stone of his sad eyes.
"Is Tony a spy now, Momma?"
"Randall! You say no such thing, no such thing is true. Tony walks by the White House every day, and he see you almost every day. You must catch the G train, yes? He catch the D, from out near Baltimore."
Randy sighed through his nose, placed the small, white cup of warm milk down beside him, and ran both heavy paws through his thick hair. Anthony Paul Stephens had been Randy's great friend since they had met in the second grade. Affectionate to a fault, Tony had stopped to assist Randy when he had dropped his cloth bag full of school books in the middle of deep traffic one day at P.S. 39. "Hi, my name is Tony. Looks like a mess on your paws. Care if I help?"
Anthony was a rather spectacular individual, who had always been deemed for athletic greatness. His 7'1", 260 pound frame, had intimidated Randy the first time they had met in that screwball hallway that cold September morning in 1951.
"Wow, you're tall!" gasped Randy, in great awe of Tony's almost supernatural physique.
An ivory timberwolf, whose family had moved from Northern Canada almost two decades before to Georgetown, Anthony Paul Stephens was an unusual breed. At the age of 7, to be 7'1" and 260 pounds was, indeed, some freak offshoot of God's amoebic-moving mind.
"Yeah. I play basketball."
"I bet."
"Do you get teased?"
"Oh, when I do, I slam dunk them, and that solves the issue, in most cases."
At the words, Randy laughed out loud, as if such a notion of handling an unwelcome situation was unthinkable. Tony joined him, and the two had become inseparable since, like blood brothers, living and dying together through every situation.
But this. . . thought Randy, this was altogether something different. It felt different behind Randy's eyes this time.
"My Randall, do not be upset. Please. . ."
With a sharp spat, Randy almost rose from his chair, but managed to keep some composure. He, of course, had great love and respect for his Momma, but he felt betrayed.
"Momma, I am fine."
"You are not fine, Randall. I saw at dinner tonight, you did not touch your spinach lasagna which I made because I know you were to come. You love your Momma's spinach lasagna. And then, then you lose bad at gin rummy? Twice? Not like you, no, no, not like you, Randall. You cannot fool your Momma, Randall Joseph Sebastian. Your Momma may be not as quick as she used to be, but she is no fool."
Randy again sighed and, with a decision of surrender to his Momma's will, stretched back in the chair. "Momma, I am not happy."
A tired and great smile spread through Momma's lips, her large, amber eyes resting over her son's, sitting a few feet from her own. "Ah, yes, my son completes my knowledge. Please, Randall, why are you so unhappy?" She leaned over, her large three hundred pound frame reaching towards her priest son, her great breasts heaving against the cooking apron she had worn so many years, having had fed her Randall since the joyous morning of his wondrous birth. She felt so proud then, and ever so now.
"What makes you so unhappy, Randall?" asked Momma again, her round ears perked, her beautiful eyes opening wider, needing to hear her son confess, from priest to Momma.
Again, Randy sighed, and he closed his eyes tight. He always closed his eyes tight when in frustration, and now he felt a strange mixture of frustration mixed with a rising sense of courage deep in his soul. He felt scared, scared and embarrassed.
"Momma. . .Momma, it is so hard."
"What, my Randall? What is so hard that you cannot tell your Momma?" Outside, a car horn beeped loud and shouts from the street below, which sounded so low, now loomed large in the vacuum of this thick question and answer conversation.
"I need to get out, Momma."
"What you mean, Randall? The priesthood? Aaah."
At the words, Randall leaned back and shut his eyes again. The desolate pleas of salvation from his "parishioners", the cries and the tears, the wounds, oh, the wounds of inescapable, ancient emotional battles, and those nights, those nights when endless walks past the White House seemed to grow more miserable within his mind. Who was in charge here? thought Randy.
"Yes, I knew it. I knew it all along, Randall. The priesthood. I have never been to tell you often your wrong choices, but you should have been actor. When you played King Richard in Robin Hood in eighth grade, everybody loved you. Magnificent, I will never forget the entire audience rose and shouted, and pleaded for your encore. Your father and I, oh. . .I will never forget. And, then, you become priest."
"Yes, Momma, I become priest. Now, agnostic priest."
"Ah, well, agnostic, atheist, Christian, Muslim, we are all loved by the same God, are we not?"
"Yes, Momma."
Randy, in spite of his own grief, could not resist a small grin, and turned right to look at his Momma's beautiful amber eyes, plush locks of hair highlighting their grace even at her old age.
"Momma, how was I so blessed? How was I so blessed with a Momma like you?"
Momma shook her head slow. "Oh, Randall, the real question is, how am I so blessed to have such a wonderful and exquisite son such as yourself?"
Forty-five minutes later, Momma Rosalie Sebastian was tucked into her twin sized bed by her priest son, Randall Joseph Sebastian. Mother and son, the union of source and continuation, of that rare and sparkling love brought about by a God whose love for agnostic, atheist, Christian, and Muslim, shone through the light of the lamp by the endtable nearby. Above Momma's sleeping head, her soft snores coming from almost underneath the extra-large pink comforter that had been made by unknown merchants somewhere halfway across the globe almost sixty years ago, a picture of his father, Michael Thomas Sebastian, adorned in a blue suit with gray tie and his golden hair parted neat across his all black head, except for the spots around his eyes, which were a fine white, stood guard.
The radio in the kitchen was turned up to Momma's respectable volume. She could sleep through a hurricane, considered Randy, and smiled again. Twisting low the light, he reached into his right pants pocket and pulled out five fifty dollar bills. I do not need money, had exclaimed Momma many years ago, but her son knew better. Placing them under the surface of the lamp, he bended over, gave his Momma a soft goodnight kiss, and made ready to leave. As he turned around and opened the front door with a soft pull, he heard his Momma whisper.
"I love you, Randall."
As he stepped into the narrow, shadowed hallway, ready to slide the door shut, he whispered through the space, "I love you, Momma. See you soon."
Locking all three locks, he made a left turn and started to walk tall toward the narrow elevator. With a soft sigh, he looked back and smiled.
Oh, Momma, thought Randy. How I love you. Oh, thank you, how I love you.
The elevator door opened and shut, sending Randall Joseph Sebastian down to the street.