Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

hostel in JanSport packs sharing a pot pipe and not caring who saw it. And there was a blond,tanned, breast-enhanced starlet-wannabe in hot pants and a belly shirt rollerblading in a gracefulweaving pattern between all these people...But it was Father Hennessy who was getting the stares.The Mexican lady in the purple scarf, shooing her little boy inside her husband's souvenirshop, stared at Father Hennessy and crossed herself as he passed, and somehow he knew that ifshe crossed herself it was not because he was a priest - but because he was a priest who didn'tseem right somehow. A Japanese girl took a photo of him. The drunken trannie staggered awayfrom him, looking fearfully over her shoulder.People know the cursed, he thought. On some level, they know.He sighed, going up the narrow steps crammed between a souvenir shop and a discountelectronics shop, that led to his studio apartment. He really should find somewhere else to live.But it'd taken him a long time to properly shield the place and they wouldn't let him do it at all inthe priest's housing.He heard his Filipino landlady talking in Tagalog to her husband on the flight above. Hehurried to unlock his door and get inside his apartment before she should catch him out here anddemand the rent. He was almost two weeks late again.He intoned his usual prayers on arrival, but it was hard to concentrate with the noise from thetelevision - he always left it on.The television on the end table by the bed, surrounded by a litter of bottles, sizzled with asnowy image of the Jerry Springer show. People shrieking at other people for the camera, theirfast-food-jowly faces contorted with rage. Those shows seemed to him as demonic, in their way,as any average possession case. But the case of the girl Consuela - that'd been something elseagain.Funny that John Constantine, no priest at all, could succeed where he'd failed. But then fewpriests could have succeeded on that one. Constantine was right. Something had been evenstranger than usual there.He took out his carrying pint, found it empty, and dug another bottle from his dresser's sockdrawer. He took a long pull of Early Times as he looked around the silvery, trashy box of aroom, thinking he'd have to come up with the rent or his landlady would be in here again bitchingabout what he'd done to her property. Every inch of the walls was covered with aluminum foil,double thickness; the moldering, yellowed stacks of newspapers and magazines teetered at fourand five feet high; the furniture was covered in crosses and mystical symbols he'd scrivenedhimself with a Magic Marker.John would want him to remove the foil. It blurred the astral signals. It all had to come down.He had a bad feeling about this. He should tell Constantine to go to-Well, no, he shouldn't tell him that. But he should just say no to surfing the astral planes,scrying for occult significance in the papers - it'd bring the Snufflers down on him. And he wasvery much afraid of seeing the Snufflers again...."Got to do it," he mumbled. "Owe John. And he's gonna give me money. Pay the rent."There was another reason to. Low as he had sunk, Hennessy still sought ways to serve God. Hesuspected that Constantine was one of God's chess pieces - counterintuitive as that might seem attimes.Dreading the thought of removing his protections, Father Hennessy put his hand to the amuletaround his neck - and then remembered it wasn't there. He took it out of his pocket, looked at it,and reluctantly set it aside, hanging it on the television's rabbit ears. He turned the TV off, tookone last pull on the bourbon, then went around the room, tearing down the aluminum foil.The voices of the damned began almost immediately.