{"id":4359,"date":"2009-01-16T23:02:22","date_gmt":"2009-01-16T23:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/?p=4359"},"modified":"2009-01-16T23:18:49","modified_gmt":"2009-01-16T23:18:49","slug":"strip-ouija","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/strip-ouija\/","title":{"rendered":"Strip Ouija"},"content":{"rendered":"

By S. Craig Renfroe, Jr.<\/p>\n

She takes down the Ouija board, hidden away as if it’s valuable\u2014not even a classic Fuld, but a cheap 70s Parker Brothers, though she or someone has decorated it with cut-out pictures of creepy children pointing to the sky or just looking glum.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet’s ask the spirits, shall we?”<\/p>\n

\u201cReally?” I say. \u201cThe spirits have nothing better to do? Eternal damnation, that kind of thing?”<\/p>\n

\u201cAren’t you worried about your soul?”<\/p>\n

\u201cNot especially.” My grandmother had become increasingly concerned. A ninety-four-year-old ruining my rare visits with pleas for me to attend church, the tiny Baptist place full of well-wishers and jovial brimstone. She kept telling me I’ll never know when the Lord will come.<\/p>\n

She moves our glasses of Pinot Grigio to make space on the coffee table.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’re drunk,” I tell her.<\/p>\n

She smiles.<\/p>\n

We had met online at one of those e-dating sites, but I fear she had the wrong impression because I had lied on my profile, saying things, like \u201cI’m caring”, or implying things, like that I’m single. I had been tripped up by just how many women ask me point blank if I’m married, and, to my credit, once asked, I always admit to it. Due diligence should be rewarded.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet’s start simple: will Jim here burn in hell?”<\/p>\n

The planchette, the plastic marker shaped like an upside-down heart with a clear, circular window in the middle, sits there on top of a particular sullen little girl, her face all anticipation of the disappointments and defeats of adulthood. Until finally, I nudge the thing toward the positive response.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop it,” she says.<\/p>\n

Then she pulls it her way toward the big NO. After a little tussle, we stalemate between the two.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooks like it remains to be seen,” she says. \u201cAll right, your turn.”<\/p>\n

\u201cStrip Ouija?”<\/p>\n

She squints and one eye twitches. \u201cSpirits, should we play strip Ouija?”<\/p>\n

The marker sits still in the no-man’s-land between our hands, but then slowly moves to cover the YES.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we play?” she asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ll each ask a question we disagree on and have these spirits so bored they’re hanging out here tell us the answer. The person who didn’t agree with the spirits has to remove one article of clothing. A serious piece, too, none of this ‘each earring counts’ bullshit.”<\/p>\n

\u201cYou assume we’ll find something to disagree on.”<\/p>\n

\u201cShould there be sex on the first date?”<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.”<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,” I say.<\/p>\n

The planchette does a lot of hesitant movements but finds its way to YES. I know that the Ouija board actually works on a simple conceit: that our unconscious mind has some control of our motor system, like whatever monitors our blinks, or the way body language gives away our only-partially-known desires. So, even though it may surprise our conscious minds, it’s still us sending the messages, not the hereafter. And, though she said no, she’s willing to have a go tonight. She smiles and pulls her sweater off, her breasts safe in a dark green support bra. She has freckles on her stomach.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour turn,” I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould there be thoughts about commitment on the first date?”<\/p>\n

\u201cDo we even need to say where we stand?”<\/p>\n

She smiles around her wine glass.<\/p>\n

Our hands, posed pensive over the plastic marker, remain still. I give it a few seconds more before I start to ask for a redo, but it does inch its way, slowly, to stop at YES. I’ll be damned.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake it off, baby,” she says.<\/p>\n

I unhitch my belt and make a show of whipping it, daring, through my pants, though it gets snagged. I toss it to the side, but she keeps looking, expecting more. \u201cThat’s it,” I say. \u201cOne article.”<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I don’t think so,” she says. \u201cNot from the man who ranted on and on about earrings not counting.”<\/p>\n

\u201cFine, fine.” I pull off my polo shirt. \u201cBut you’ll pay for this.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s a hairy chest.”<\/p>\n

So is yours, I stop myself from saying. \u201cIs it fair that women have to shave more areas of their body than men?”<\/p>\n

\u201cNo!” She screams and startles herself, checking behind her, as if the neighbors might bust through the door.<\/p>\n

Light fingers, like we’re not even touching it. I stare at the little, lost girl. It really is an old picture, cut from a book or newspaper, maybe. She must be long dead. Or very old. That old where people wish you were dead so they could stop thinking about you.<\/p>\n

\u201cFine,” she says. The planchette has found its way to YES.<\/p>\n

She surprises me by cradling her breast in one arm and bending the other behind her, unhitching. The bra falls loose, trapped by her arm. She pulls down each strap. Then, almost anticlimactically, she drops the bra. Her breasts, free, smooth and freckle-free, droop a little, more playfully than saddened.<\/p>\n

\u201cNice,” I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there alien life in the universe?”<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.” No.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m shocked. I read you wrong on that one. I was sure you’d be all cynically skeptical.”<\/p>\n

\u201cMore agnostic but leaning toward believing.” At least, unsure enough to not risk losing my pants first.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould women have breast implants?” she asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ll take the bait.”<\/p>\n

We reach for the planchette, she misses a little, touching my hand, letting a finger linger before getting set. It flutters over to NO.<\/p>\n

One button unbuttoned and one zipper unzipped. The kakis collect at my feet and I pull my socked feet out, careful not to let my boxers gape.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpirits, should she take off her pants next?” I ask.<\/p>\n

It slides straight over to YES. She does a pirouette standing and almost falls. Steady again, she unsnaps and unzips and wiggles the jeans to the floor. Kicking the legs free is more of a problem, and she collapses into giggles.<\/p>\n

She takes another drink of wine, her face flushed, her eyes almost glazed enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, it gets interesting,” she says. \u201cIs a spirit, something larger than ourselves, communicating to us through the Ouija board?”<\/p>\n

I concentrate; not on my fingers, but in my mind, I see the inverted heart move to the NO. I block everything out so that it takes a moment to realize the planchette isn’t moving to the YES or NO, but the letters, slowly sliding over them and pausing on certain ones, then repeating.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop it,” I say. \u201cJust yes or no.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not doing it.”<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, you are. We are. We’re the ones moving it.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you’re as much to blame.”<\/p>\n

It spells it out again. J-U-N-E, back to the middle, J-U–. I pull my hand off the planchette.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is it?” she asks.<\/p>\n

I think about grabbing my clothes, running in my boxers out of the apartment, but where is my belt? And my boxers’ fly, the fly doesn’t have a button. \u201cIt’s my wife. June. I’m married.”<\/p>\n

Instead of her face collapsing in sad shock or uplifting in homicidal rage, she smiles. \u201cSo am I.” She gingerly gets up and totters over to a small desk, I figure to retrieve her ring or a picture. When she returns, she drops unceremoniously a bible on the Ouija board.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs this a sermon?” I ask. \u201cI mean, do you have room to talk?”<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I’m married. I’m a bride of Christ.”<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a nondenominational wedding.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m a nun.”<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,” I say, \u201cyou’re not.”<\/p>\n

She’s already tottering away again, talking over her shoulder. \u201cIt’s the habit, always the habit. My order doesn’t wear it, but here.”<\/p>\n

Now, she hands me a picture with her and some poor people. She’s dressed matronly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s what I wear for people who want the tradition.”<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you haven’t taken your vows, or whatever. I don’t know the protocol.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI have. It was exciting and they were excited to have me. Nuns are dying out.”<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you’re a nun, and you were going to, you know,” I say. \u201cI’m cheating on my wife and you’re cheating on God.”<\/p>\n

\u201cGod is all forgiveness. People, however, are not. You should go back to your wife.”<\/p>\n

I pull up my pants and search for my belt. She makes no effort to cover herself. I’m fiddling with my shirt and keeping my eyes on the Ouija board. \u201cDid you decorate it that way?”<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was young. I could talk to God even then.”<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it was God taking off your clothes?”<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are married.”<\/p>\n

At the door, she tells me to go home, but not to do anything stupid, like confess to my wife about this or the others\u2014she just assumes, accurately but presumptively, there have been others. She suggests I ask my wife to reaffirm our vows. She tells me God loves me, and leans in, still naked from the waist up, to hug me, which, I suppose, is a kind of proof.<\/p>\n

\"s-craig-renfroe-jr2\"ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong>
\nS. Craig Renfroe, Jr.<\/strong> is the author of the short story collection You Should Get That Looked At<\/em>. His work has appeared at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, 3:AM Magazine, The Pedestal Magazine, Monkeybicycle <\/em>and others. He teaches writing at Queens University of Charlotte and blogs at I Don’t Know What I’m Talking About<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"s-craig-renfroe-jr2\"\u201cStrip Ouija?\u201d\u009d She squints and one eye twitches. \u201cSpirits, should we play strip Ouija?\u201d\u009d The marker sits still in the no-man’s-land between our hands, but then slowly moves to cover the YES. \u201cHow do we play?\u201d\u009d she asks. \u201cWe’ll each ask a question we disagree on and have these spirits so bored they’re hanging out here tell us the answer. The person who didn’t agree with the spirits has to remove one article of clothing. A serious piece, too, none of this ‘each earring counts’ bullshit.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

By S. Craig Renfroe, Jr<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}