Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

--Now, Constantine closed his eyes. "I saw things you shouldn't have to see, Angela...."And he remembered:--The boy Constantine on a city bus that barreled through the streets, rocking as it went. Someof the passengers on the late-night bus were human. Most. But some of the...There was an old woman, a baby, and two teenagers, a boy and a girl, sitting together - fine,except they all had leathery skin and tails that switched and twitched and mouths full of fangs.The baby bared its fangs and grimaced nastily at him; the teens grinned and licked their filedincisors.--Constantine turned to Angela. Hesitated."Go on," she said.She was listening raptly, but with a look on her face that made Constantine wonder if shebelieved him made him wonder if she'd started to doubt what'd happened in the apartment. Didshe think he was trying to con her? But then, she'd seen the flying demons; she couldn'trationalize those away. Though it was amazing what people could find "rational" explanationsfor..."My parents did what any parents would do," Constantine said softly, "when their kid tellsthem that he's seeing the souls of sinners in the streets. Seeing demons disguised as people.Seeing monsters. They showed their great fucking concern for me - by putting me in the mentalhospital."And he remembered:--The two men in white coats - big, bored but implacable - were dragging the fourteen-year-oldJohn Constantine onto a table, strapping him into the restraints even as he writhed in their grip,as he shrank from the straps they buckled onto his head, tried to shake off the electrodes thatwould give him electroshock "therapy."The doctor approached him and the boy screamed, seeing that the doctor had no face, no faceat all... just a mocking pink blankness and those horribly expressive hands, reaching for theequipment....--"Electroshock therapy…," Angela muttered.He nodded. "Very… therapeutic."She sighed. "They did that to Isabel, too. It never helped. But they kept doing it anyway."''The 'therapy' made it worse." He smiled ruefully.And then remembered the last step in the creation of the man he was now: "The last placethey sent me was run by the church...."--The sixteen-year-old John Constantine in the small, nearly bare concrete cell of a rectory.Crouched in a corner, as far as he could get from the priest in a surplice who stood over him,performing the ritual of exorcism, incanting the words, and flicking holy water on him...,"Reverend Father decided I was possessed .... "A second priest came out of the shadows in the corner of the cell - if bred by those shadows -and came closer, to watch with a secret glee, licking his lips, eyes bright... and covered withfeeding bugs, something far worse than cockroaches, for each had a parody of a human face: