The Exorsistah

by Claudia Mair Burney

  “Jesus,” I said. I don’t even know why I called on the Lord, but his veneer cracked. One tiny twitch. A hint of a smile. Then the Ray-Bans came off my eyes.

  I didn’t see nothin’ but beautiful. If I thought his body was fine, with the blinders off, he got downright brilliant.

  “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,” slipped out of my mouth, and Asa turned into something made out of light.

  “Jesus,” I whispered.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I ain’t talkin’ to you,” I wanted to say, but my voice left. A force pushed me to my knees. I heard music inside of me. Energy unlike anything I’d ever experienced surged in me. I didn’t mess with drugs, but this had to be what it was to be high. I couldn’t speak so I thought, Jesus, help me.

  Asa took my hand, and it was like every infatuation I’d ever felt. Vibrant. Alive. Consuming. He lifted me from my knees. Caressed my hand.

  I heard a bell. The sound crashed in my ear destroying the peace—the hotep—I felt. The noise opened my throat enough to fight whatever was taking me over.

  “The blood of Jesus is against you,” I said. “I plead the blood of Jesus.”

  All of a sudden, I saw a legion of faces shimmer inside Asa’s, like images of light projected onto a glittering blank white screen.

  Someone touched my arm. “Chiara” broke through the light.

  I snapped to attention. “Francis?”

  He frowned. “Are you okay?”

  I looked around. “Where is Asa?”

  “Who?”

  “Asa. The brotha I was talking to.”

  “I didn’t see no brotha. But I felt something. And it wasn’t a man.”

  I pulled away from Francis, looking for Foxy Brown. An older African-American woman appeared and asked if I needed help.

  “I’m looking for Asa.” A wave of nausea hit me.

  “He’s not working today.”

  “But I just saw him. The woman with the Afro went in the back and got him for me.”

  “Honey, Asa won’t be in till tomorrow. I’m the only person working in the store today.”

  I looked at Francis.

  “It’s time to go, Emme,” he said.

  I wanted him to fuss, but everything Francis said in the car on the way back to Detroit was calculated and quiet.

  “How did you know I was there?” I asked.

  “You were gonna be at Jamilla’s or at our house. Until I saw the bag in the room on my desk. I know you MapQuested the directions. Where else would you be? What were you doing?”

  “I wanted to see the bookstore.”

  “Whole truth, please.”

  “Whoever Asa is, he’s the reason she’s possessed.”

  He stared out the windshield. Scowled at traffic. “The Asa who the employee said wasn’t there.”

  “You felt something.”

  “From the time I discovered the MapQuest directions, I burned rubber gettin’ to you, girl. What is goin’ on?”

  “I think I saw my first angel of light.”

  His head whirled around. “Angel of light, like, in a bad way?”

  “The Bible doesn’t talk about them in a good way! Francis, he was magnificent. I don’t know what he did. Maybe he bilocated. Maybe he was there in essence or something. I can’t even explain it, but whatever it was that happened in that store blew my ever-lovin’ mind.”

  “I didn’t see anybody. I just felt you were … not yourself.”

  “Francis, that thing, whatever it was, forced me to my knees. It was like it tried to make me worship it.”

  “And you think he, or it, had something to do with Jamilla?”

  “You gotta bring her to me. I need to know exactly what she did with him. Because if he put on her what he put on me, she ain’t have a chance.”

  “I’ll bring her,” he said, grimly.

  True to his word, Francis, by some miraculous favor, brought Jamilla to his house. We knew exactly when Mother Nicole would be praying. The Liturgy of Hours was how she kept time. Vigils is the night watch. Lauds are prayers around breakfast time. Prime is just before you start the workday, and Terce is like a midmorning prayer break. Then there’s a kinda meditation-like time at about lunch hour called Sext. It’s like a boost to help you finish your day. As the shadows lengthen, urging you toward evening, there’s None, and Vespers is the evening celebration. Compline is the now I lay me down to sleep prayers.

  Francis smuggled her into the house during Sext, while Penny Pop was busy fixin’ lunch. We hid her in his room.

  “Let me talk to her alone,” I said.

  “You can’t.”

  “I have to.”

  “Emme, no.”

  “She won’t talk if you’re around.”

  “It could be dangerous.”

  “Then pray and listen, and do that thing you do.”

  He hesitated.

  “Please.”

  He crossed his arms defensively. “I’m gon’ be right by this door. Praying. And doin’ that thing I do. You better hope this works.”

  I didn’t even bother to respond.

  I shut the door and looked at her. The dark circles were darker. Her skin chalky and dull. She still stank. She sat on the chair, and I was glad because I could disinfect a chair more easily than a delicate quilt. I felt unreasonably angry and disgusted at her. “Does Asa work at Hotep?”

  “How did you—”

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  She looked down at her hands.

  I sighed. “Did you have sex with Asa?”

  She shook her head. “I just kissed him.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “I’m not. Or if I did do that, I don’t remember.”

  “Aw man, Milla. I can’t believe you didn’t tell anybody that. He could have drugged you. Shoot. He is a drug.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I paced the room. Wild-minded and full of rage. “He didn’t take you to a Catholic church, did he?”

  More silence.

  “You better talk to me, Milla. How am I ’sposed to fight for you, when you ain’t even straight with me?” I started talkin’ to myself. “We ain’t goin’ out like that. You are not gon’ be the one drooling in a corner of the crazy house. And I sho’ ain’t gon’ put you in the ground because you let the enemy take you out.”

  I got in Jamilla’s face. “I’m ’bout to set it off in the devil’s kingdom for you, and if you ain’t for me, you’re against me. So, spill it!”

  “I don’t know what kind of church—”

  “You’re lying. You can’t even get inside a Santeria service without being initiated. That’s why you couldn’t give me a name. It’s some kind of secret society. And I’m sure, if you’ve only seen a Catholic church service in a movie, you had to know when they sacrificed Toto on the altar you weren’t in Kansas anymore.”

  Tears streamed down her face.

  “What the heck is he, Milla!”

  “He’s a man, but he’s got powers.”

  “I noticed.”

  “He’s a god, Emme. An elevated man. You never told me about a demon like him. You said they be ugly. He ain’t ugly.”

  “I ain’t never seen a demon like that!” I yelled. “It was a whole different kind of evil. A beautiful evil, full of promises and hope for … what? You don’t even know. And if you slept with him, he may have deposited something in you. I don’t know. It’s too deep for me. How am I supposed to help you? I don’t know what to do with something that … I don’t even have a word for.”

  “Pure,” she offered shyly.

  “Pure evil,” I said.

  I yanked open the bedroom door and asked Francis to take her home.

  I spent the night on the floor of the church, crying out to God.

  Francis filled the next two and a half weeks with spiritual boot camp. I didn’t have to worry about spending time alone with Francis. For all practical purposes I was alone whenever I was with him.

&
nbsp; He found replacements for all his gigs and cut out the studio time. Our day began with a quick shower followed by the morning office—the first of the seven canonical hours. I kept time to the rhythms of “seven times a day do I praise Thee.” Matins, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. And all kind of prayer from the rosary to the Jesus Prayer in between. Father Rivera prayed with us if his health allowed. Mother Nicole, Francis, and I gathered in the All Souls Sanctuary for every office—without fail.

  I missed the easy way Francis and I kicked it when we first met, but now my soul had wings and soared. I hadn’t even felt that good living with Kiki. I guess because with her my spirituality had been passive. Now I actively participated in my spiritual growth.

  On Sunday, even when he didn’t feel well, Father Rivera celebrated mass. Francis and I couldn’t share communion with the All Souls folks. On those days we prayed a special prayer together to receive Christ and ask him to stay and dwell within us always.

  Francis and Mother Nicole went through the entire Psalter. Both of them had it memorized. I was so gonna memorize the Psalms too, when all this was over.

  Late at night I studied for my GED. Mother Nicole helped if Father Rivera didn’t need her. One particularly bad night, she had to take him to the emergency room. I didn’t have much left to review, but math was harder for a right-brained poet-girl like me. Francis paced around that night, nervous and agitated. Probably afraid. He stayed away from me until about midnight. Then he knocked on the bedroom door flexing his brave front like I’d buy it.

  “Need help with the math?”

  I didn’t have the heart to turn him down. “You feel like it?”

  “I’m straight.”

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  He sat down on the bed while I sat at the desk. Picked up my GED preparation manual and flipped through the math section. “I was smart in school. I quit because my mother died. I was practically a math whiz, Chiara.”

  He hadn’t called me Chiara since the morning I told him about what could happen with Jamilla. I thought I’d tease him about it. “So, I’m Chiara again, huh, Francesco?”

  His head snapped up. “Francesco?”

  “You didn’t think I wouldn’t Google Chiara, did you?”

  “So how did you find out who she is?”

  “Took a minute. It sounds kinda like key-air-ruh. I got a friend named Kiera, so I’d spelled yours wrong. I tried looking in Spanish dictionaries. All kinds of stuff. Then finally I got the spelling right. One day I found a singer named Francesca Chiara, and then I remembered the night the devils attacked me. Your father said, “Take care of your girlfriend, Francesco. I Googled Francesco and Chiara after that, and who did I find? Saint Francis of Assisi, also known by his Italian name Francesco, and Clare of Assisi, also known by her Italian name, Chiara.”

  He threw his hands up in mock surrender. “You got me.”

  “He was like a father to her. Is that what you want for us?”

  “Some people believe he was in love with her. Or at the very least, he was tempted by her.”

  “He honored her. He hardly even spent time with her.”

  “I understand why.”

  He lay back on the bed. Put the book on his chest. Finally, he said, “The first time I called you that was in Walgreens. Do you remember?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I think at that time I wanted a friend. Somebody I could share the things of the Spirit with. No, I didn’t want to be a father to you. I wanted to be a holy friend.”

  “Now you are. Are you happy?”

  “I got more than a holy friend, Chiara.”

  I lay my pencil down and turned toward him in my chair. “Did you get a spiritual daughter?”

  “Nah. You’re too hardheaded for that.”

  “Do tell.”

  He leaned on one elbow. “Chiara was very beautiful. All the Poor Clares were when the order started. A lot of them came from noble families.”

  “Your point?”

  “Maybe my point is I think you’re fine.”

  I laughed. “I guessed that.”

  “Maybe I called you Chiara because I thought it was safer. That if I thought of you as this holy, spiritual friend, I wouldn’t let lust get the better of me.”

  “That must have worked for you.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You’ve always been a gentleman.”

  “That doesn’t mean I haven’t had an errant thought.”

  “So what did you do about that thought?”

  He turned over to face me, propping his cheek on one palm. “I talked to a certain priest about it.”

  “No wonder he treated me like I was the whore of Babylon.”

  “I’m no virgin, Emme. Those barbs you think were aimed at you were for me. All of them. He was trying, in his own way, to keep me from making the mistakes he made. I mean, at first he was salty with me about bringing you home. He thought I was messin’ with his head bringing someone who looks like Mama home. That was hard for him. He had it in his head that I wanted to remind him of what he missed. But it was never that.”

  “What was it, Francesco? Because I’m not sure what you want from me. You say one thing, then another. You say one thing and do another.”

  He rolled back over and stared at the ceiling. “To be honest, I want everything. I wanna be a priest who has a woman.”

  “Mother Nicole says Orthodox priests have families. Protestant ministers have families.”

  “I’ve had this conversation a million times with Mama Nick. Emme, the Roman Church is my heritage. She’s my mother—mother church. I have to embrace her.”

  “But what about the things you said about creating something new in deliverance ministry? You think Rome is gonna allow an exorsistah?”

  This time he sat up, probably ready to rumble because I’d put him on the spot. He couldn’t retreat inside his head because my questions kept challenging him. “Come on, Emme. It’s not like you even want to be that. All you did was resist until you thought Jamilla’s life was in danger.”

  “That’s not true. I got busy as soon as I knew she was involved.”

  “And if it hadn’t been Jamilla?”

  I gave him that one.

  “You don’t even share my dream. How could you even bring it up?”

  “I’m not sure you have a dream, if you’re purposely going to go somewhere where you know it’ll be squashed. Who took on Rome, Francis? The saint you’re named after? I’ve been reading your books about him ever since I got here. That’s one reason I’ll never call you Frankie. I love Saint Francis of Assisi. He changed the church, but at what cost? He died too young, disillusioned about what his order had become. And the Roman Catholic Church—just like all the rest of them in the world—stayed messy.”

  “He didn’t ‘take on’ Rome. Emme, he held the Church up! Just like Pope Innocent dreamed.”

  “Until his shoulders drooped from the weight and he died.”

  “You don’t understand what this means to me, X.”

  “I understand that you’re a musician. I understand you’re a former bad boy tryna find a way to make up for not just your own sins, but the sins of your father. Mother Nicole doesn’t think you have a vocation to be a priest. She thinks you’re confused.”

  “And what do you think, X?”

  “I think you’re afraid. You’re at war with yourself because you want to be who you are, and you aren’t quite sure if it’s okay to do that. I understand it, because that’s me, too. All day long.”

  “You are yourself.”

  “I’m a fragment of myself, Francis.”

  He gave me one of his ever-present heavy sighs and got quiet on me. Francis absently thumbed through the math book for a few minutes until finally he asked, “What are you trying to figure out here?”

  He was talking about the math.

  “I’m trying to figure out if you love me.”

  “We’ve k
nown each other for three weeks, Emme.”

  “I know how I feel, even though it’s only been three weeks.”

  He put his attention back on the math book. “Algebra? I’m great at algebra. Need help with that?”

  “I love you, Francis.”

  “What are your weaknesses? That’s what we need to pump up. And keep in mind that math is only one part of the test. If you’re smart—and you are—you’ll pass it. Go easy on the Ebonics during the English parts.”

  I turned back to the desk. “Apparently you’re my weakness.”

  I’d taken a huge risk and told him how I felt about him. Now it was out there. I gave him a chance.

  That was it for me. I determined that I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of seeing me cry. I’d have to pray that my feelings changed to become a God kind of love for him. Maybe I could be his Chiara, after all, one day. And maybe eventually it wouldn’t hurt to know that we’d never be more than that.

  Eventually.

  We studied quietly for the next hour. He actually helped me get through the hardest part. At about eleven thirty he stood, stretched. I knew our night was over. That may have been the last long conversation I’d ever have with him. And he blew it.

  I tossed out, “I’m leaving on my birthday.”

  “Fair enough. Where will you go?”

  “I don’t know yet. But I’ll go without anyone being after me.”

  I got out of the chair. He took a step toward me, and I took one toward him. We faced each other, inching closer until we were close enough to kiss. I wondered what it would feel like to press my lips against his. My heart pounded at the thought of it. The thought gave me boldness and I flirted with him despite my earlier resolve. “I can’t leave without you giving me a present.”

  I stood so close to him I could hear that his breathing had changed. His heart rate must have skyrocketed, like mine. He licked his lips and my stomach dropped to my feet.

  “What would you like?”

  “It ain’t another pair of boots.” I moved forward a little more. Now all he had to do was lower his mouth to mine.

  His hands went to my hair. He slid my ponytail holder off with one hand, while the other tangled into my soft mane.