Summer Fiction

Issue date:
June 26-28, 1998

Ouija

What started as a lark -- letting a bunch of New Agers channel his father on a Ouija board -- ends in complete terror.

here were four makeshift altars in the eat-in kitchen of the Third Eye Temple of Light, and the guttering plumes of scented smoke had my older brother wheezing like a calliope.

"The Atlanteans came here on a mining expedition," the high priest or warlock or whatever, a guy named Roy Konicki, said, "and the mistake they made was to stay and intermarry with Earthlings."

The two other members of Roy's temple, both women, nodded in solemn agreement. On the wall behind them was a mural that incorporated Isis, Osiris, Nostradamus and Leonard Nimoy.

"Could we lose the incense?" I asked apologetically. "My brother's got asthma."
Bobby, as usual, just sat there sulking, his presence as dense and oppressive as a dredge full of wet sand.

This "tutorial" visit was a goof, a gag, a birthday gift from my employees, and the only reason I had brought my brother along was that my wife didn't like being alone in the house with him, listening to him stomp around in our attic, where he was temporarily living with us -- again.

"What is it you're looking for?" inquired Enid, the high priest's girlfriend, a heavyset woman with a perpetual expression of tentative kindness in her eyes. She sat directly across from us at the dining table.

"I'm not sure," I said, then saw the Ouija board propped against the VCR.
The other woman, Sarah, as gaunt as Enid was round, tracked my gaze. "Is there someone that you'd like to speak with?"

The board was a Parker Brothers model, the numerals and alphabet printed in an arch above the word GOODBYE, YES and NO posted in the upper corners. The planchette, a tear-shaped wooden pointer, sat parked at the bottom, both Enid and Sarah resting the middle and index fingers of their left hands lightly on the bulbous rim.

"Don't be nervous," Sarah said in a soft rasp. "Who do you want to reach?"
I wanted to request -- why not? -- an audience with our dad, but I felt that I needed my brother's permission since I always thought of him as more Bobby's father than mine, the guy having died in a head-on with another drunken driver when Bobby was already 13 and myself barely 6. In fact, my only real sense-memory of him had been his habit of cupping the side of my face with his sandpapery hand when he came through the door at night; that and the accompanying husky-brown scent of whiskey.

I also remember that directly after the funeral, at which my brother cried harder than anyone, my mother took us to the nearest liquor store, bought a pint of Fleischmann's, Dad's preferred brand, and made Bobby chug it all down right there on the street. It worked, I guess: Bobby is a lifelong teetotaler, but he was such a casualty in so many other ways.

I turned to my brother, but before I could get the words out, the planchette was on the move.

HAIL

"Hail ..." Roy, standing behind the women, read it out for us. "And to whom do we have the honor of speaking with?" addressing the board in a stiff, overloud voice.
THEYKNOW, the women calling it out this time, the planchette sliding briskly from letter to letter.

Bobby turned his head and began studying the spines of some books and videos on a nearby shelf.

IAMHERE, the three of them recited in an alert monotone. TALKTOME

"Do you know who this is?" Enid asked.
I shrugged, vaguely embarrassed.
"Say hi,'' Sarah suggested.
"Dad?" I murmured, talking to a board.

IAMHERE

"He's here. OK." Sarah grimaced, half-twisting her upper body. "He's right up on my shoulder. I hate when they do that."
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Bobby read from a video label.
"Talk to him," Enid said again.
"What was Mom's name?" I asked, feeling like a jerk.

MATA

"Mata?" Enid and Sarah asked in tandem. It was close enough to Martha to make me reach for Bobby's arm. He refused to turn away from the videos.
"What was our sister's name?" asking the board directly now, not feeling so shy about it.
The planchette flew to the word NO, then continued to embroider the board, the women either pushing or riding, their eyes riveted to the letters, calling them out in that focused monotone.

LETUSTALKONLYGOODTHINGS

Our sister, Theresa, had died at age 3.
"Oh, man ..." Sarah complained again, using her free hand to massage between her neck and left shoulder. "He's just sitting up there like it's a barstool."
The planchette took off.

BOBBYIAMSORRY

They all looked to my brother, who stuck his hands in his front pants pockets, his breath escaping in a hiss between his teeth.

Then, JOHNIAMSORRY -- my name.

I leaned back, and stared at my hands. OK, he's here. Or someone's pretty good at this, good at reading us or whatever. But let's say he's here. And then it hit me. I didn't have anything I really wanted to say to my dead father. I just never really knew the guy.
"Whoops," Sarah said as the planchette moved again.

BOBBYIAMSORRY

I had the distinct sense of having had my mind read, my father dismissing me, moving on.

BOBBYBOBBYBOBBYBOBBY

"Whoa," Sarah said. "He really wants to talk to you."
"We should go," Bobby said hoarsely.

NONONONONO the planchette began repeatedly stabbing the high right corner of the board, the women moving as if they were holding on to a jerking rope, the violence of it making me sick with fright.

TALKTOMETALK TOMETALKTOME

"He's getting all upset," Enid said mournfully. "They get that way when they're called up like this. They don't understand."

IAMHEREDONOTLIETOMEDONOTCLOSETHEDOOR

"They don't understand what ..."
"Your dad sees himself in this room right now, just like you and me," Roy said. "It's very confusing. Very frustrating."

ICANSTAYICANSTAY

"How long has it been since he passed over?"
"Thirty years?" Looking at Roy as if he were a doctor, a specialist, my breath was coming high and sharp in my chest.

TALKONLYGOODTHINGSBENROFARIMO

"What?" Sarah scowled. "What's he ... slow down!"
The planchette began moving faster, too fast to read.
"Thirty years," Roy mused.

ROWNITDONTNONREF

"He's freaking,'' Enid said calmly.
"Slow down!" Sarah yelled again. "We can't ... hey!"

IAMHEREIAMHERE

"Thank you," Sarah said with a tinge of sarcasm.
A cat minced out of a bedroom.
"Great," Bobby said, taking a hit of asthma spray. "Cats."
"What's your father's name?" Roy asked.
"Bobby," then, "Bobby Senior."

Roy took a step back from the table, cleared his throat: "Bobby? If you look around you, you should see, somewhere near you, another spirit, an older spirit named Caleb. Go to Caleb, find him and he will help you understand what is happening to you right now. It is very important that you find Caleb."

"He's not listening," Enid said as the planchette became a blur again. "He's way too agitated."

My fear became tempered with a twinge of anguish.
"Talk to him," Roy said. "That might calm him down."

"Don't be afraid," Enid said. "He can't hurt you."
"He's your father." Roy again. "He loves you."
"OK, that's it," Bobby said, rising.

NONONONONONO

"I love you," I said under my breath.
"Great." Bobby muttered, heading for the door.
"I should tell you, if you leave now, like this ..." Roy said somewhat regretfully, "he'll most likely go with you."
"Whatever." Bobby left the apartment. The planchette shifted into high-speed gibberish.
"What do you mean?" I asked, my voice floating a little.

"Just, going home tonight?" Roy touched my wrist. "If, in the car, or in your house later, if you feel something, a presence, you'll know what I'm talking about, don't be afraid, and don't be embarrassed. Just talk to him like you'd talk to anybody else. He's your father. He just wants to be with you."

"I apologize for my brother,'' I said numbly.
"Please ..." they waved me off, as if this kind of walkout happened all the time. Most likely it did.
Bobby drove us back down to the city, no talk, eyes on the road.

I tried to sense a third presence in the car, but as far as I could tell there was nobody here but the two of us. I had been badly spooked in that apartment and so I was surprised that instead of feeling relief at being free of this paternal specter, what I felt instead was a sense of emptiness and disappointment. Even as a kid, I don't think I ever really missed my father, felt the loss of him, but I was feeling a little bit of that now, and I guess I should have been grateful for that.

"Hey, Bobby? Whatever that was up there ..." I reached for one of my semi-annual cigarettes. "You want to hear something pathetic? I couldn't think of anything I wanted to say to him. Dad. It was like, I don't know ..."

"Aw, Johnny ..." Bobby said thickly, affectionately, in a voice not quite his own. When I turned to him, his eyes had an uncharacteristically tender, almost liquid gleam.

"Johnny ..." he said again, reached and cupped the side of my face with an icy, rough-skinned hand.

"Dad?" The word a feather, the world a shattered clock.

"Dad?" Bobby, mocked me now, his quick little head game having rocked me to the core.

"Little Johnny ..." he hissed through clenched teeth, then added in a voice brimming with tears, "Everything is always so easy for you, isn't it?"