“You want to do it now?”
“Why not?”
One reason: With Christmas approaching, the halls of Oakdale Mall were teeming with happy shoppers carrying full wallets. But today’s shoppers were fickle. Any sort of disturbance would drive them online. They would probably never return.
The person in front of Assistant Manager Tony Nelson was another reason. Eugene C. Kilgore, self-proclaimed paranormal professional, was even more unappealing in person than his Facebook profile had suggested. Crumbs flecked his mountain man beard. His thick, square glasses magnified his beady eyes into black pits. As he spoke, he sniffed and wiped his sleeve across his mass of a nose. The sleeve was crusted over in several places, the knees of his khakis were worn thin, and a strange, sickly-sweet aroma hung over him. No one wanted to be packed into a tight space with him.
Mr. Kilgore coughed abruptly, sucked in a deep breath through his mucus-filled nose, and then repeated bluntly, “Why not?”
“You can get rid of the…presence?”
“If I can’t, you’ll need a priest.” He belched a staccato laugh.
“Wouldn’t afterhours be more convenient?”
“It causes the most problems at peak hours, you said. That’s when I need to engage it.”
Nelson hesitated.
Eugene snorted. “Never mind. Find someone else.”
“Okay, I’ll show you the place.”
“Good.”
Nelson, in his crisp suit, led Mr. Kilgore out of the office and into the halls of the mall. It was Saturday afternoon. The air buzzed with conversation, restling bags, teenage laughter. Mr. Kilgore walked beside him, and the shoppers maneuvered around them like grade schoolers around vomit on the gym floor.
The location of the trouble was at the other end of the building, near the food court. They walked in silence. There was nothing to say to a man like Mr. Kilgore. What would you talk about with him? His favorite gas station hot pocket?
Nelson tried anyway. “Do you perform such..removals…often?”
Mr. Kilgore answered gruffly. “No. Most ghosts don’t make a fuss. Just sit there quiet-like. No one notices.”
They finally arrived at the bench in question. Most of the other seating in the area was occupied, a woman and her child on one seat, a couple eating soft pretzels on another, shoppers pausing with bags at others. This one no one approached.
Nelson felt uneasy. He had never experienced anything here, but he had read the complaints. Invisible hands gripping, pulling; a weight on the shoulder; gravity increasing, dragging you in; a deep silence like being buried alive; and so on.
Mr. Kilgore touched the bench gingerly. He pulled a device from somewhere in his torn flannel. (Nelson could imagine the smell.) He waved it around, checking readings now and then. “Not a poltergeist. Trickier.” He knelt down, examined the surface minutely, licked it. He muttered and circled the bench on his knees. Nelson looked around. Surely everyone watching would think some homeless loon had snuck in past security.
“Mr. Kilg–”
“No,” the man barked. He lay down on the bench and closed his eyes. Nelson waited. Five minutes passed.
“Mr–”
“This will take time. Go away.”
Nelson decided he would not. He had hired this ridiculous hobo, and he was going to wait. He settled on a bench across the hall and watched. If the man fell asleep, Nelson would refuse to pay him.
A half hour passed. The crowd flowed around him. Nelson watched the shoppers. It had been a long time since he had just sat out here, observing. Each person was a snapshot of a life flitting by, a few frames of a spinning reel. Humanity, swarming in ones and twos, as families and friends, as wanderers and walkers and women on a mission. One could get lost in the procession, stop perceiving one’s own life and simply absorb the activity.
Mr. Kilgore was talking. He still lay on his back, but he gestured with his hands and the tone of his voice intermingled with the background noise. Then he fell silent for a long time, seldom speaking, just a few words here and there. He seemed to be listening intently.
Nelson watched him. Kilgore looked lost and not completely there, like an old man wandering the streets. But the longer Nelson watched, the more he began to ask questions of Kilgore. What was his family like? Did he have friends? Was he happy?
It had been nearly three hours when Mr. Kilgore finally sat up. His beady eyes shone, and he nodded to himself. Nelson walked over to him.
“Well? Is it fixed?”
“Fixed?” Mr. Kilgore inhaled deeply. “No, but he’s gone.”
“We’ll have to verify that before paying you.”
“I’m hungry,” Mr. Kilgore said. “I’m going to go eat.”
“Wait. What did you do? Exorcise it? You hardly did anything.”
Mr. Kilgore wiped his nose. “It’s not like that. He was just–look, sometimes they just want noticed. You don’t force them out. You listen to them. So I listen. Just because they’re invisible, doesn’t mean you don’t listen.”
Mr. Kilgore turned abruptly and walked into the food court, trying all the samples from the Chinese restaurants twice before settling on Taco Bell.