There are hundreds of priests and shamans in the world who can banish a demon or drive out an evil spirit, but there is only one unexorcist—only he can call the devil back, coax an evil to return.
He rents an office space on the corner of Martin Luther King Blvd and Peace Avenue where there have been six shootings already this year, above an Asian fusion restaurant with a sign outside celebrating the Year of the Dragon even though it’s the Year of the Cock, but the owners are too lazy to change it and the clientele are too white to know.
You knock and he barks for you to come in without rising from his tiny desk. The dust is so thick in the cluttered office you wonder if he ever gets up, if he hasn’t always been there in that cramped space with the broken blinds and the blinking neon sign outside that is supposed to say Ramen but the R burned out and now prays off-and-on all night long but nobody hears.
He motions for you to sit on the opposite side of his desk. You leave no footprints on the dusty floor.
He has a voice like a bad New York bagel—over-boiled and chewy—when he asks if you brought what he requested.
You place a heavy bag of Canadian coins on the desk, the only payment he accepts. He says it’ll be the only currency that matters soon. The way he says it, like a weather forecast from two years in the past, you don’t know whether to shiver or laugh.
Next you pull out a pack of unfiltered Pall Malls, open but still full, one cigarette turned upside down for luck.
The unexorcist told you to collect something precious to the person you wanted to unexorcize. You didn’t know what else to bring.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “It won’t be the person. Just the pain.”
You nod.
He tells you he needs time to prepare the ritual and sends you to get some noodles. They give you two bowls for free, payment for the time he banished a yokai from the walk-in.
The only notable difference when you return to the office is an ice cold Rolling Rock sweating anxiously on the desk and the lucky cigarette from the pack is now behind his ear.
You watch as he eats with a confidence you can’t imagine possessing, seemingly unconcerned with the broth that flicks from snake tongue noodles onto the assortment of disheveled papers on his desk.
He waits until his noodles are finished before chugging the beer, until the silence, unbroken but for the slurping sounds, is awkward and the bottle has ceased crying and given in to the shock of room temperature.
“Kung pow!” is all he says before flipping the cigarette from his ear and lighting it with a skull-themed Zippo.
He smokes it like a baby nursing, never removing his mouth, slowly suckling until the filter is ringed with a blush of flame. When he’s finished he breathes the smoke into the beer bottle like a dragon giving CPR before slapping the cap on. You swear you can see tiny faces in the bottled smoke.
A moment later he asks, “Shall we?” as he stands to brush what seems like weeks' worth of crumbs from his lap.
He doesn’t speak on the car ride to the nursing home, but he turns on the radio and changes ceaselessly between the stations while obliviously humming a Statler Brothers’ tune. You want to tell him to stop, it’s unbearable, but the dissonance reminds you of your parents arguing on family vacations and you just can’t.
It’s after hours at the nursing home and the security guard stops you to say “no visitors,” but the unexorcist flashes his wallet and hums that Statler Brothers’ tune and the guard hums along and nods and nods and nods.
You find your father in a chair in his room, like always, mouth open, threadbare arms slack like untied shoelaces. His eyes are milk and memory, and even when he sees you he’s looking at something else. He still wears a ring that matches a scar on your forehead. The man can’t remember to shit in a pan but his fist closes every time someone tries to take that ring.
The unexorcist raises an eyebrow and you motion for him to begin.
The process is simple, barely a minute. The unexorcist removes the cap on the bottle of smoke and breathes the blackness back in. He grabs your father, presses down slightly on his already gaping mouth, and kisses him. A moment later the unexorcist is pumping his lungs into your dad’s like a bellows. Flecks of cherry and fire glow through the thin parts of their faces and darkness blooms from one to the other like ink in a bath.
The unexorcist staggers back. Your father coughs and chokes. It reminds you of mornings when you were young when he’d cough so hard before his first smoke you worried/hoped he’d die. When the fit subsides, his eyes are filled with sharpness, malice, an alertness you haven’t seen in years.
The voice isn’t right. Too deep, distorted.
But the words…
The devil curses you, says you’re worthless, it’s going to kill you. You’ll never be anything. It’s going to fuck you up. You’re in a world of hurt now, cunt.
You cry because you never wanted to hear those words again, because you couldn’t stand to live without ever hearing them again, because this being is nothing like your dad and you can’t tell the difference.
You hate that you missed him almost as much as you missed hating him.
You’re on your knees. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“I’m sorry.” The unexorcist places a hand on your shoulder. You cry harder still, because with that one touch, the unexorcist is now more of a father to you than yours has ever been.
