by Brian Corley
“Actually, I may take the next three days off now that my life depends on it. I’ll call in sick tomorrow,” I replied.
“That makes sense, Jonah. I’ll make sure to tell the bosses I saw how ill you were,” she said.
“Thanks, Debra—"
“That you had diarrhea and were in terrible condition.”
“Diarrhea … Debra, what? Don’t—” I tried cutting her off.
“She’s right. No one questions diarrhea, Jonah,” Max interjected.
She looked at me with a wizened grin. “OK then, I’ll tell everyone you have diarrhea.”
She shut the door and started the car. Max and I watched her drive away and stood in silence.
“Am I supposed to believe she knows so much about this stuff just because she’s Wiccan—”
“Shut up, Max.”
“That’s just the diarrhea talking, Jonah. Make sure to stay hydrated.”
Chapter 7
We walked back inside and discovered that Willard had indeed smashed out the glass from every picture frame holding one of his memes, so we cleaned up the mess and started crafting a plan of attack. Debra warned us about Willard being able to overhear us at night, so we implemented the cunning deception of whispering. We figured we would know if he was close because it got cold when he was near.
Max decided he would stay up as late as he could playing video games and talking as loudly as possible while I went to bed to catch some sleep. I would need some rest over the next few days. Once I shut the door, my room was pretty quiet, so I wasn’t sure why Willard said we were too loud. Then I began to wonder if he was in the room with me.
Was it colder than normal?
I turned on my TV and tuned it to a home-improvement channel. Even though I liked most of them, for some reason, I was always able to sleep through their shows. Plus, everyone on those shows was either off-the-charts upbeat or annoying—sometimes both. Either way, I was pretty sure Willard would hate it and leave me alone. We had a deal: three days.
I woke up the next morning inspired and determined—nothing like a death threat to keep you on your toes and focused. Hopping out of bed, I made my way to the kitchen to find the coffee maker off again. He wasn’t breaking the deal by doing that, but it was definitely a dick move.
I manually started the coffee maker and poured a bowl of cereal that I took with me to the living room. Then I unlocked my phone and brought up a search page.
OK. Hmm … now, what to search for?
Psychics seemed like a good place to start, so I took screen shots of the names and contact info for the top results with micro breaks for cereal. Madame Lisette, Jake the Spiritual Life Coach, Mistress Zoe and her team of Psy-kicks (looks like a martial arts mash-up there—I’m into it).
I finished my cereal and dialed the first number. No luck, left a message. They weren’t open at a quarter till seven in the morning. Second number: strike two, left a message. Third time was the charm though; on the fifth ring, someone answered out of breath.
“Mistress Zoe,” loud breathing, “and her,” breathing and a swallow of air, “team of Psy-kicks. How can I help you?”
“Zoe?” I asked.
“No, this is Tammy. Are you looking for Zoe? Are you calling for a reading or a class schedule? If so—”
“I’m calling about a ghost problem.”
“What? Say again, please?”
“Ghost, I have a ghost problem. My house is haunted, and I’m looking to do something about it.”
Muted laughter on the other end of the line.
“Please, this is serious.”
“Fine,” Tammy presumably pulled the phone six inches away from her face, “Zooooee! Zooooee!” I think she covered the receiver with her hand, although not well. “Got a call for the crazy side of your business … says his house is haunted.”
I could hear a whispered argument on the other side of the line.
“Hello,” a new voice said, “this is Zoe. Sorry about Tammy, she’s new. She’s my cousin’s friend and a great kung fu instructor, but she needs to work on learning the other side of the business—you don’t want to hear this—I’m sorry, how can I help?”
“I have a haunting. We’ve had a few séances, and now the ghost has given me three days to move out, or he’ll kill me.”
“What’s your address?” Zoe asked, down to business. “Exorcisms cost $400 for the first attempt, $300 for each subsequent attempt. Cash only. We can be there at 8:30 p.m.”
The word attempt didn’t exactly instill confidence, but I needed to try something. I gave her my address and more details about the previous séances. The rest of the call remained strictly professional with Zoe asking about the size of the house, my history, and more details about my encounters with Willard so far.
I hoped this worked because I only had $1,900 left in savings and I still wanted to eat if I made it past the next three days.
Exorcism? I thought those were just for demons.
I snapped my fingers and entered a new search. I wasn’t Catholic, but if even half the movies I watched were true, I was sure a priest would be willing to help, and probably for free. I hit the shower and changed into my Sunday clothes. I was going to church.
“Hey, keep it down out there. I was up all night.” A muted, whiny yell surfaced from behind Max’s closed door just as I was leaving my room.
“You’re not going to work today?” I responded, walking over and leaning into the door.
“No, I just called in and said I had diarrhea. Didn’t even question it. Kim just said, ‘Gross. Stay home,’ and hung up.”
Huh. Not sure who Kim is, but maybe diarrhea really does work every time.
“Are you going out?” Max asked, still in that annoying, whiny tone.
“Yeah—need anything?” I replied.
“Can you get some waffles?”
“You got it, anything else?”
“Juice.”
“OK, bud, anything else?”
“No.”
“OK,” I said.
“Jonah?”
“Yeah, Max?”
“Can you get the waffles with blueberries?”
“Yeah, Max.”
“Thanks, Jonah, you’re the best.” His voice trailed off, and I assumed he rolled over and went back to sleep.
“OK, buddy,” I said.
I pulled into the parking lot of Austin’s largest Catholic church, St. Raphael’s. I’d met a priest from there before and thought he was cool but rude. That said, I’d take rude over St. Michelangelo’s—they just like to party.
I walked into the nave—which I had to look up as I was a recovering Southern Baptist. We had sanctuaries, classrooms, and basketball courts.
The actual experience of being inside the church was new to me, but I’d seen a lot of movies where people go to these churches, so I walked over to what I recognized as confessionals. I stepped in, closed the door, and waited. Soon, I was joined by a priest.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” I began.
“How many days since your last confession?” a voice replied from behind a screen. I could pretty much see him. This wasn’t like the movies at all.
“All of them, I guess. This is my first time,” I replied.
“You’re Baptist, aren’t you? What did you do?” the voice from behind the screen accused. Sounds like he had some sort of history. Wonder what that’s all about.
“Nooo. I’m not Baptist,” I answered, which was technically true because I hadn’t been to church in a while. There were some great morning shows on Sunday, and I liked to party. OK, mainly the morning shows, and I liked to go to an early spin class.
I continued, “I haven’t done anything, per se, except buy my first house, which turned out to be haunted, and the ghost threatened to ki
ll me in a couple days.”
“OK, get out.”
“I thought this was your thing though. Don’t Catholics do exorcisms?”
“We do, but demon possessions, not ghosts. Try Jake the Spiritual Life Coach.”
“I did.”
“You did. Really?”
“Yes, I called Jake but wasn’t able to get hold of him. I did reach Mistress Zoe and the Psy-kicks, though, and they’re coming over tonight.”
“Sounds like you’re on your way then. I used to work out with them before they hired a new kung fu instructor.”
“Yes! Tammy, she’s the worst.”
“Awful. Completely unprofessional. Hey, Father Chandler, could you be any slower?”
I laughed, “Could this be any weirder?”
“Get out.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it. It’s just kind of fun to say.”
“No, I mean, get out. Let’s go get some coffee, and you can tell me your story.”
I shook Father Chandler’s hand as we exited the confessional and followed him for what seemed like half a mile through the church to their own nicely appointed little break room with stained wooden walls and a huge Gothic arch in the ceiling. He poured coffee into a plastic foam cup and offered it to me, then motioned to a station of sugars and creams. I took it black.
He sat down in a comfy, overstuffed leather chair and invited me to sit in an identical chair across from him.
“So, you have a ghost problem,” he started, taking a sip of his coffee. “Tell me about it.”
I gave him the details about us moving in and the window cracking, making a mental note to fix that if I made it through this whole thing.
“Red currant candles, you say?” he asked rhetorically,
musing over his personal mug of coffee. “That’s a nice touch.
I like those.”
“So, can you help?” I asked.
“Yes. First, don’t use Ouija boards. You are inviting trouble. You could call a demon, and then you really could use my help. Second: move.”
“I can’t. I just sunk everything I have into that house.”
“No, it’s not that you can’t; it’s that you won’t. There’s a difference.”
“So I should just leave it for someone else? Put them in danger, have them sink their savings, hopes, and dreams?”
Father Chandler looked down at his cup, appearing to contemplate my question.
“You could rent … No, you’re right. I understand, Jonah. I just can’t help you. Demons get scared when we show up. We’re bringing the light of God with our faith, and they hate that. They were cast out of Heaven and can’t stand to be reminded of what they’re missing out on—it’s too much. What you’re dealing with is an ex-accountant who sounds like a total asshole.”
“You can say that?”
He laughed. “I wish I could be more help, but I tell you what I will do—I’ll pray for you.”
“Thanks, Father,” I said, standing up. “I appreciate you taking the time with me this morning.” I shook his hand as I made my way out.
“Anytime, Jonah, you’ll be in my prayers.”
I noticed a bank of candles outside the chapel on my way out, so I stopped and lit one before I left. The faint smell of melon filled the air. Max was right. It was nice.
Tess Keller came through her door, waving, as I pulled into the driveway around noon. I rolled down the window. “Hi, Ms. Keller.”
“Hi, Jonah, so glad to see you’re feeling better. I understand you weren’t feeling well earlier.”
I gave her one of those weird, confused smiles, where there’s about a millimeter of space between your top and bottom teeth.
“Uh, what?”
She shook her head and waved a hand as she stepped closer to the truck.
“Max told me,” she began, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Max told me about the di-uh-ree-uh.”
Freaking Max. What the heck? Wow, one trip to church and my language sure did clear up. I noticed Ms. Keller was holding a casserole dish. Please be cobbler, please be cobbler.
“So I made you this peach cobbler,” she said.
Yes! My favorite.
“Thank you, Ms. Keller, that is so sweet. We enjoyed the last one so much.”
“Max wrote me the most delightful note when he returned the dish. I’m just so glad to have you boys as neighbors.”
Max strikes again. Way to show me up, buddy, but that was really nice. He always was one of the most secretly kind people I’d ever met.
“Thanks again, Ms. Keller, I need to get in and take my meds.”
I looked down at my stomach and made an awkward face, which happened to be a great move because she handed the cobbler right over. Seriously, does diarrhea get you out of anything? I waved goodbye to Ms. Keller and pulled all the way up the drive.
Max was on the floor eating a cheeseburger when I walked through the door in the kitchen. I set his waffles and juice down on the counter and gave him a stern look. He looked back up at me blankly. I looked at him, then at the waffles, then back at him again.
“Sorry, man, I forgot,” he said.
“Blueberry waffles—I had to go to three stores.”
He sucked in air through his teeth and offered me half his burger. I didn’t really go to three stores.
“Oh, and Ms. Keller next door made us another cobbler. It’s in the truck.”
Max was out the door almost before I could finish my sentence. Hustling back in, he took some plates out of the cabinet, slid over to the freezer and grabbed some ice cream, then moved to open a drawer. And closed it. Opened another drawer, and closed it. So on and so forth around the kitchen. Then again, backward. He looked at me.
“Huh. Where’s my big butcher knife?” he asked.
“Max, that’s not the knife to use.”
“Oh really? Show me a book where it says what knife to use for a cobbler.”
I pointed to the top of the fridge where Martha Stewart’s visage smiled down at us from the cover of a cookbook my sister gave me as a gift a few Christmases ago.
“It says that in there?” He looked at me skeptically, eyebrows raised.
As I took a bite of burger, Max looked at me sideways, then from another angle, eyes squinting.
“OK, OK. You win this round. So what utensil do I use, Mr. Disciple of Martha?”
“Please,” I said, “call me Jonah. Mr. Disciple of Martha is my father.”
“Cute.”
“Use a spatula. Also, I was bluffing. I have no idea what’s in that book. My sister gave it to me and I never read it.”
“Still, I need to find that knife. It’s Japanese and expensive,” Max said.
“I know … it’s a great knife,” I said, watching Max expertly cut squares of peach cobbler out of the casserole dish. “Oh, look how much better that spatula is working for you—and it’s such a fun word to say—spatula.”
“Spatula,” he said.
“Spatula.”
“Hey, Jonah, maybe you should think about leaving. I’m staying at Dean’s for a couple weeks until I find someplace to land. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you sleeping on his floor.”
Dean Calhoun was a friend of ours from college. He dropped out and left for culinary school in Austin, from which he graduated, and he now worked as a cheese monger for a high-end restaurant downtown. Nice guy, someone you could always count on if you needed something.
I never really had anything bad to say about Dean, except, “Dean smells like cheese.”
“Well, yeah, that’s his job.”
“What if you start smelling like cheese, huh? You want to smell like cheese? There goes Max. He just walked behind you. How did you know it was Max? Because he’s the only one that smells like cheese at a law firm,” I said.
&nb
sp; “You’re going to get killed by a ghost,” Max said. “Those are real words coming out of my mouth. I know I was encouraging you to stand up for yourself earlier, but do you understand how strange this is? Do you remember Poltergeist? They left. Not soon enough, but they left, and then their house got sucked into a vortex. Do you want to get sucked into a vortex?”
“Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“Do you know what a vortex is?”
“Jonah, of course I know what a vortex is.”
“OK, Max, just explain what a vortex is. Maybe I don’t know.”
“Screw you, Jonah. I’m just trying to help.”
“I know, I know.”
I calmed down and took a bite of burger. I chewed it. It was good. This place really got the portion right, and the pickles were amazing.
“Hey, I called some people to help tonight. They’re coming over for an exorcism. Is this P. Terry’s?” I asked.
P. Terry’s was an Austin institution with cool midcentury-modern-designed spots all over town. Great burgers, shakes, and fries.
“Yes. Isn’t that for demons?” Max asked and handed me a plateful of cobbler.
I warmed it up in the microwave. “P. Terry’s? No, it’s for everyone. I don’t know. They seem to think it will work, and don’t worry about the house, Max. It’s not built on a burial site—we’re just haunted by the ghost of an asshole.”
After finishing off my half of the burger and a truly excellent piece of cobbler, I sat on the couch and scoured the Internet for plausible ways to evict a ghost from your house. Max spent the afternoon putting his things back into boxes and garbage bags for his move over to Dean’s.
“Mind if I use your truck to move this stuff?” Max asked, holding two garbage bags of laundry.
He was just inside the front door with his hand already turning the knob, which meant he was using my truck whether I said “yes” or not. I realized he was wearing a new T-shirt with one of his Willard memes screen-printed across the front.