Doomed

With every bite I swallowed my fear and grew older. And fatter. In every mouthful I choked down my bilious guilt.

The Beagle book had taught me about turtle eggs, but the Bible book taught me about Jesus Christ, and Jesus seemed like the greatest ally I could ever gain in the battle against my do-gooder parents. What a summer this had been. I’d gotten plump… chunky… just awful, in fact. And I’d begun to love reading. And I’d killed a man. I’d killed my grandfather. And I’d learned discretion.

Yes, I might’ve been eleven years old and a secret grandpa killer, an upstate-hating, passive-aggressive snob, but I learned what discretion meant. That summer I learned discretion and reserve and patience: qualities my former-hippie, former-punk, former-everything parents would never acquire.

On Halloween day, I didn’t speak up when I spied my nana sneaking on tiptoe. I was pretending to take a nap on the parlor sofa when she crept to the bookshelf, and from the wall of books she untucked one I’d never noticed. Hiding the book in the folds of her apron, Nana Minnie carried it back to where she was packing my luggage.

Exhibiting enormous willpower, I did not eat the basket of orange-colored popcorn balls we’d prepared for the night’s trick-or-treaters.

When she wasn’t looking, I peeked into that same suitcase. Buried under my neatly folded sweaters in the bottom was the book. Persuasion by Jane Austen. A book I would cherish for the remainder of my own short life.

As the sun set on my last day in tedious upstate, a trickle of monsters staggered out of the dusk. Skeletons emerged. Ghosts appeared. They came carrying pillowcases and paper shopping bags. They took form from out of the shadows, their not-clean faces smudged with graveyard dirt, and their clothes shredded. Their hands smeared with blood, these zombies and werewolves stumbled toward where my nana and I stood in the farmhouse’s front doorway.

These lurching, swaying corpses, they shouted, “Trick or treat!” And my nana offered them popcorn pumpkins from a big wicker basket she held in front of her in both hands. Then a cough came, and not even two alligators later, another cough. She handed the basket to me and lifted her apron to cover her face. As the monsters picked through the orange balls, she stepped back into the parlor and settled on the sofa, gasping to catch her breath. In my arms the basket felt lighter and lighter.

Among that first wave of ghouls was a towheaded angel, a boy child whose placid face looked as smooth as fresh-baked bread. A lightly freckled brioche. His wispy halo of blond hair shone as pale yellow as butter melting down his forehead. False wings were tied to his back with a hank of rough twine, but their whitewashed cardboard was layered quite meticulously with the castoff quills of some indigenous farmyard goose. His cherubim hands carried a rude three-string lyre, and this he strummed as he bade, “Trick or treat, Miss Madison.” He held a pillowcase already bulging with red licorice and gummy bears. “Has the Good Book helped you in your time of loss?”

Standing before me on the porch was the ragged youth I’d met at Papadaddy’s funeral. My upstate version of David Copperfield. As before, I sensed my flesh calling to his. On that, my final night in my nana’s house, I yearned to cleave my eleven-year-old self unto him, but subverted the carnal impulse by offering, “Popcorn ball?” As added enticement I whispered, “They’re loaded with Xanax.” He looked confused, so I added, “It’s a drug, not an Old Testament king.” Gravely said I, “Do not operate farm machinery while under the influence of this popcorn ball.”

My rustic beau helped himself to several. Taking great lusty bites of sweet Xanax, he lingered a moment to ask about my summer. We discussed the Bible book. Finally, he bade me good night and took his leave.

To answer CanuckAIDSemily, no, I did not get his e-mail address; I rather doubt he’d have one. But while his feathered wings were retreating, dwindling in size as he departed down the dusty country thoroughfare, I called out, “It’s Festus, right? Your name is Festus?”

Without turning back, he waved his harp above his head in a lighthearted salute. And with that gesture of farewell he was gone.

Coughing out the words, my Nana Minnie said, “Don’t fret, Tiny Sweet.” From the sofa she coughed, “Everything is going to be all right.”

And I forgave her for telling her biggest untruth to date.

I stood alone on the porch in the gloaming dusk. That’s why my nana didn’t see someone new arrive: a scarecrow figure. Stopping at the foot of the porch steps was a gaunt old man. His cheekbones and chin were as craggy as the sculptures people carved with chain saws and sold in weedy vacant lots next to upstate gas stations. My worst nightmare made real, here was Papadaddy Ben standing at the ragged edge of the porch light. His eyes stared from behind the mess of his gray hair. Even as harpies and witches swarmed around him and climbed the steps, his eyes held mine.

The naturalist in me knew this was impossible. The dead didn’t come back. It happens, on rare occasion, that natural phenomena occur for which we’ve no ready explanation. The role of the naturalist is to take note and to record a description of said occurrence, trusting that eventually that rogue event will make sense. I mention this because the oddest thing happened next….

A smirking voice asked, “Popcorn balls?”

The question broke my trance. Standing at my elbow was a teenage boy dressed as an ancient Egyptian something. Nodding his head at the basket, he asked, “Not popcorn balls again. What’s up with this place?”

A Marie Antoinette of the ancien regime, gowned and bewigged, ascended the steps, demanding, “Yeah, what’s the deal with popcorn balls?” She was wearing fake Manolo Blahniks and carried a fake Coach bag.

Also in the Egyptian’s company were a Roman legionnaire… and a Sid Vicious punk with a safety pin poked through one cheek…. The four of them smelled faintly of sulfur and smoke. The punk’s hair was dyed electric blue and shaped into a Mohawk. He dipped his black-painted fingernails into the basket and lifted out a popcorn pumpkin, asking, “You have anything better, Maddy?”

Screening my mouth with the side of my hand, I whispered, “They’re loaded with Xanax.”

These people were strangers to me, but something about them seemed familiar. But not known. They were more like inevitable.

The Roman legionnaire winced at the sight of the orange balls and asked, “Do you know what these are worth in Hell?” He made a fist and knocked at his forehead, saying, “Hello? Earth to Madison Spencer… these are worth jack shit!”

Indignant, I asked the group, “Do I know you?”

“No,” the girl said. She was wearing blue eye shadow, and her white nail polish was chipped. Crassly oversize dazzle-cut cubic zirconia hung from her earlobes. The girl said, “You don’t know us, but you will soon enough. I’ve seen your file.” Her eyes fixed on my wristwatch, the girl asked, “What’s the time?”

I twisted my arm enough to show her it was after eleven o’clock. My nana’s coughs came between every sentence, between every word. And when I looked again for the scarecrow Papadaddy, he was gone. Vanished. None of the four teenagers took popcorn pumpkins. As they turned their backs on me and started down the porch steps, I asked, “Aren’t you a little old for this?”

The coughing stopped.

Without turning back, the Egyptian shouted, “Only by about two thousand years.”

Shaking his fist in the air, his index finger pointing skyward, the punk rocker shouted, “Remember, Maddy, Earth is Earth. Dead is dead.” Walking into the night, he shouted, “It won’t help the situation for you to get all upset.” And as they receded into the dark, I thought I saw another figure join them. This new person wore a calico apron wrapped around a gingham Mother Hubbard. The lady smoked a cigarette without coughing. The punk touched her elbow and she extracted a pack from her apron pocket and shook him out a butt. As she smacked her lighter against the palm of her hand and flicked it, the tiny flame showed her careworn face. She waved back at me, and the group of them disappeared down the road and into the Halloween night.

Eventually, when I stepped back inside the parlor door, only my nana’s body was left on the sofa. The best of her—her laugh, her stories, even her coughing—was gone.