Last Saturday, I got invited to an exorcism at a liquor store.
Well, the exorcism wasn’t at the liquor store; I was at the liquor store when the invitation was extended to me. The exorcism, supposedly, was to take place in this new church in an old warehouse in the West Bottoms.
It is a church whose exterior decoration consists of a vinyl banner, the artwork of which I mistook to be the promo for a tattoo parlor until I read the text, part of which features the ambiguously Orwellian slogan “Freedom is Waiting.”
So, I was waiting outside the liquor store, minding the bicycles while my friends were in getting some beer for later in the evening, when I was approached by two very strange kids. At first, I mistook them for Mormon Missionaries, as they had that wide-eyed, well-scrubbed, slightly-frenetic/slightly-dazed demeanor, but it was a boy and a girl, rather than two boys or two girls.
At first, they were just like, “hey, what’s up?” and I figured they were going to try to touch me for gas (beer) money, but instead, they made me an offer that was damn hard to refuse.
And before I carry on, I need to mention that both of them had pronounced and matching lisps. I don’t know why, but both of them thpoke about ath dithtinctly ath Thylvethter the Cat.
So this young couple were all like, “hey, whath going on?” and I was all like, “Not a lot, just babysitting the bikes while my friends are in the store.”
Weird Lispy Kids: “Cool, cool. Are you riding for thome cauthe?”
Me: “‘Cause it’s a nice afternoon’s all.”
WLK: “Yeth, it thure ith. Thay, if you’re free later on, you thould check out the thervithes at the new church down here. They’re pretty itenthe.”
Me: “Intense? How so?”
WLK: “They’re really powerful – thometimeth thome thcary thtuff happenth. Latht week, they actually performed an exorthithm. It wath like nothing I’ve ever theen before!”
At this point, I was of two minds:
1. Back away slowly, make no sudden moves.
2. Encourage the crazy people to make with the crazy for my personal amusement.
I’m sure you can guess which choice I made.
The Lispy Kids waxed enthusiastic about the strengths of their “pathtor,” on how strong he was in his faith, how much he believed in and preached from the Bible, and so on. They got pretty wound up at this point and decided that it was just too mean to keep all of this spiritual joy to themselves.
They invited me to the “thpethial thervithe” that was going on that evening, wherein heavy proceedings were promised.
I had to reply with a “regrets,” as we were beering up for Stupid Movie night. Also, I had serious doubts as to the entertainment prospects of sitting in on an exorcism as a Godless Infidel. Because I’m not a Believer, I expect my experience of the exorcism wouldn’t be nearly as powerful as that of the Lispy Kids.
I’m pretty sure I’d find myself sitting on a hard bench or chair, waiting for some windbag to get done sawing on about Jesus and shit before some delusional dillweed or perhaps a planned accomplice came up to the front and started acting all growly and thrashy as the preacher-man shook him around a bit and hollered out some “Spiritus Sanctus Klaatu Barata Nictu” mumbo-jumbo and threw the poor sod to the ground, apparently drained of all demonic force.
In short, I anticipated the experience to be exceptionally tedious and taxing all credulity.
Not unlike: