Page 82 of Play Nice

“If it isn’t…a demon, then what is it?”

“Poltergeist. Restless ghost that forgets it was ever human. They’re more mischievous than malignant,” he said, patting my arm and staring at my chest. “This is good news. You don’t want a demon, trust me.”

“It doesn’t feel mischievous. It feels like…like it wants to isolate me. Make me feel alone. And insane.”

NEVER ALONE

ALWAYS

HOME

Hearing myself say it out loud, I realized I could be talking about my ex-husband and not whatever was living in my house. I wondered if I was projecting.

“Yeah, well,” the guy said, shrugging.

“What do I do about a poltergeist?”

“We could take care of it for you…” He went on to quote me his services for thirty-five hundred dollars.

When I told him I didn’t have that kind of money, he suggested I take out a loan.

“You don’t want to put your daughters at risk, do you?” he asked.

“I thought you said it wasn’t malignant?”

He shrugged again. “Still. Demons are more violent, but poltergeists are known to make physical contact. Yank hair, pull out your chair, things like that.”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

He gave me his card. “Call me. For anything.”

With a wink, he was gone.

The next names on the list were an older married couple from Maine, along with their son-in-law and another AV club–type lackey. They brought video cameras, and when I told them I would prefer it if they didn’t film, they bristled. They’d planned on interviewing me and my daughters, on filming inside the house, the entire excursion. They were putting together a documentary about themselves, about their adventures in ghost hunting. They hadn’t mentioned on the phone that their visit, their “services,” were offered in exchange for this. Permission to film, to be recorded, to open myself up to public scrutiny.

I was already under the thumb of my ex-husband, whose constant criticisms of me and my parenting had put me in such a state of anxiety and paranoia that it seemed particularly cruel for me to have ended up in yet another situation where I was being interrogated. Questioned about something I knew to be true. Put on trial for my behavior, my choices, my beliefs.

I initially refused, knowing any footage they shot could be used against me, but eventually I relented. They were at my doorstep, and I was desperate.

I gave them permission, signed a waiver. I was explicit in my instruction for them not to talk to my daughters, who I’d sequestered in the upstairs bedroom with a promise of a trip to the mall if they didn’t come out for an hour.

It didn’t matter. Cici left the room to use the bathroom, and the husband interviewed her upstairs while I was downstairs with the wife, explaining the laughter I’d heard the first night in the house.

“It’s obviously living in this room,” the woman said, shuddering as we walked into Cici’s bedroom. “Ooh boy. It doesn’t like that I’m here.”

She started to retch.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It doesn’t want me here!” she screamed. Her eyes bulged, turning from green to yellow, then they rolled over white. She stuck her tongue out at me. It seemed to extend too far, beyond what was humanly possible.

I backed out of the room, and she followed me, tongue wagging.

She started to laugh, and it sounded just like the laughter I’d heard that first night. The laughter I’d just been describing.

Her son-in-law was filming the whole time.

Thankfully, due to a series of lawsuits and scandals that plagued the couple in the months and years following their visit, this footage and Cici’s brief interview were never released. My ex did manage to get ahold of it, to show in court.