If he’d known, I think Professor White would have thanked me. I had saved his job, his marriage, and his family. He didn’t owe me anything for it though. I’d do it again and again for any relative of Travis White. For some reason, taking a life to spare one didn’t bother me. A need for my service did not present itself again all summer long. School was back in session this fall and Danyele Child was like a forgotten graduate. The urge to kill again had been growing inside me. I thought about practicing on a boy from the park, appeasing my need to play God. But I waited.
Helen had nothing else to live for. She’d said so herself many times since Justin left. So, I pondered what to do about that. It would be too risky to try to get all of her into the boiler room, at the same time at least. But if I took a bag or two of trash to burn each week or once a month, what’s the harm in that? There is a crawl space beneath the trains in the basement, but I couldn’t keep her there for too long. I don’t want her in this house with her ghostly spirit nagging me like she does in this world. In death, she’d probably still make me pick up after her.
Death was too easy of an answer, but we all reach a point in life where it’s the only answer, the final one. I didn’t see any problem with it coming a little quicker for Helen. School was out again for Christmas, and the boiler would still be on for at least two more months. So, I had some time to think about it. I still needed to come up with a diversion, a story to tell the police and the last of her living relatives. I’d be the first suspect; the husband always is. Maybe I could turn myself in and just go to prison. Three meals a day, no bills to worry about, and no job to go to doesn’t sound too bad. At my age and with the life I have lived, what else is worth being on the outside for? Or I could stage a suicide. Everyone knew she was depressed. The array of medication she ate everyday could be an easy accidental death by overdose.
On the television, Scrooge was stumbling through a grave yard to escape the Reaper. He falls over a grave and the Reaper stands over him. The name on the tombstone of the grave presents itself with a flash of light. It is Scrooge’s grave, but I seen Helen’s name there in my mind. I see my face beneath the black cloak standing over her like Death at her side.
I smile. A burp escapes me and rattles my stomach. The taste of Greer’s chicken gizzards lingers on my tongue, mingled with the savory thought of freedom from the burdens that could be lifted from this life.
Travis
The sky looked cold and pale that day. Frost covered the grass outside, twinkling like confetti after a party. The sun was rising lazily in the sky, painting it with beams of orange which no one seemed to care about. Pumpkins had grown faces and ghouls had collected candy at neighbors’ doors a few nights ago. The cool breeze of autumn and the rain of crisp leaves had lasted only for about two weeks. Winter was falling upon us fast.
Potted plants still adorned my neighbors’ balconies like pets forgotten in the cold. Some drooped and sagged from the weight of the frost that had crept up on them in the night. Justin and I would have had coffee on the balcony on a morning like this. It was a tradition I had continued now without him, but the icy chill in the air chased me back inside only after a minute or two.
It had been a long hot summer which seemed like time was standing still for me. Justin had only been gone for a few months. Sitting in my car that morning, waiting for it to warm up and defrost the windows, was a frigid slap in the face that time would keep moving forward no matter how bad I wish it could go in reverse.
I cursed myself for trekking back home for the weekend without a coat. I thought this would be a week of chilly mornings cured by hot coffee or an extra blanket on the bed the night before. I wasn’t ready to give up my short sleeve shirt closet space to sweaters, jackets, and long sleeve sweatshirts still packed away from last year. I couldn’t believe I was running my car heater in November. Yellow and red leaves danced behind the car as I pulled out of our apartment’s drive and headed toward the highway to home. I still say our when referring to the things that Justin and I shared. It didn’t sound so lonely.
I was going home because Stuart’s Monuments was supposed to set Justin’s headstone later that day. Hopefully, this was the last burdening reminder that still lingered and felt undone. I never considered Justin’s death a burden, but all the tasks that followed it were just that. Justin had no will, but it’s amazing what legalities and bills we are tied to which try to keep a hold on us in this world, even after we are gone. He only had two credit cards, which were easy to contact. One of our cards had both of our names on it. I left his on it just so it would appear on the bill each month. I would eventually have it removed, but I liked seeing it there for now.
Our lease and utilities were in my name, but I had to call the finance company concerning his car. Manny and Helen didn’t want it and could not afford it. A part of me wanted to keep it, but I didn’t need two cars. Two months passed before it was finally repossessed. There had been notices of late payments in the mail. I called each time and had to tell them Justin had passed on and they could pick up the car. I had to call Helen to get her to fax a copy of his death certificate to some office, but I doubt she ever did. I wasn’t home when they took the car, but our apartment’s leasing office stuffed a notice in my mailbox which had been left when they picked it up. DECEASED was the reason across the bottom of the card.
Manny had called just days after Justin’s funeral to tell me Helen refused to go with him to Stuart’s Monuments to pick out a marker for her son. She thought they couldn’t afford it and should just wait a year. Manny did not want to tell her about the money I’d given him, so he called me instead. I’m glad he did. I almost expected him to waste the money on something else.
“I can’t do it, Travis. I’m no good at these things,” he said on the phone.
“Thanks for asking me to help.”
“You knew him better than Helen or me. You should pick it out. He’d want you to.”
“I’ll come this weekend.”
“I can give you back the money,” he said.
“No, just keep it. Why don’t you come with me?”
“You really want me there?”
“Sure. Go by Stuart’s and see if we need an appointment. If we do, meet me there around noon on Saturday.”
Manny didn’t show, but he’d written a check to me and left it with the clerk for when I arrived. I walked around the nameless graveyard, an outdoor showroom of markers and headstones to choose from. I was content now that this task had been left entirely up to me without Manny and Helen lingering in the background and waiting to override my choice.
“Instead of the music notes, we can add a cross or a rose for free,” the clerk told me when I’d gone inside to confirm the order.
“Is that some kind of a sale or special?” I asked.
I wasn’t interested, just curious.
“No. They are just easier to engrave,” the clerk said.
I appreciated her honesty.
“I’ll stay with the music notes,” I said.
“Suit yourself, but this check Mr. Black left isn’t enough to cover the black marble,” she said, waving the check in front of me daintily between two fingers as if it were dirty.
“Mr. Black isn’t paying for it, and besides, that check is made out to me.”
I snatched the check from her fingers and tucked it into my wallet.
“Do you need to set up a payment plan then?”
“Do you take cash?” I asked with a stern tone, becoming annoyed with the clerk’s preconceived notions that I couldn’t pay for the marker.
“We do.”
I paid for it in full and got a courtesy call weeks later telling me the stone was ready and when it would be delivered to the cemetery. I had not told any of my family I was driving up that weekend. Although I did pack an overnight bag, I had not made up my mind if I would stay or not. I wanted to go to the cemetery alone and see the marker for the first time by myself. I prayed they’d spelled his name correctly and got the dates right.
And, it had never happened before, but I liked the idea of driving home to take care of business and not feel obligated to pay a visit to Mom, or to one of my brothers or sisters. The best way to avoid it was to not tell them I was coming, despite having talked to Mom the evening before I left. It was like I was having an illicit affair, but instead of driving to a neighboring strange city to see someone privately, I was going back home where everyone knew who I was. I was a spy; fearful I might pass Sebastian on the highway or even worse, run into someone. But I took the chance anyway and told no one I would be there.
This would be the first time I visited Justin’s grave since the day after his funeral. I did not know how I would feel seeing his grave with his name now in its permanent place. I wanted to see it by myself, but afterwards, I might want to jump back in my car and just drive the two hours back to the apartment, not needing condolences from anyone. I was still grieving, but I did not want anyone standing there beside me while I sobbed, if I cried at all. I didn’t want it to be like his funeral all over again. This time needed to be different because I’d have him all to myself.
Like old times.
A narrow rectangular shotgun house was across the street from the cemetery. The yard was dead and overgrown, and the faded paint on the house was peeling. A spray-painted cardboard sign on the front lawn advertised ROSES FOR SALE. I expected to see a street peddler, but no one was outside and I didn’t see any roses. A faded neon sign in the window blinked FLORIST. Flowers had not crossed my mind until I reached the street where the cemetery was. I parked in the gravel driveway and walked up the front steps. Clay pots with crispy dead wilted things looking like they once were plants adorned the front porch. Maybe the florist had gone out of business.
A sign on the door said to ring the bell, and a large bell hung on a red rope around the door knob. I hesitated but rang it anyway. A tiny dog barked from behind the door and scratched at the threshold. After a few seconds, I turned to walk away and had just made it down a few of the steps when I heard the door creak open behind me.
“You wanna buy roses?” a slow child’s voice asked behind me.
I turned to find a small black boy’s face pushed out between the door and the frame. He had a finger in one nose and was holding a small dirty poodle back with his other hand. The poodle growled ferociously.
“I think I have the wrong house,” I said, trying to dismiss myself as I continued backing away to my car.
“Who is it, Bud? Who’s there?” a frog-like voice called from behind the boy.
Just then, a fat hand pulled the boy out of the way and pushed him behind the door. A small toothless woman whose skin resembled a burlap sack appeared. She was wearing a floral print dress that reminded me of bed sheets on a clothes line blowing in the breeze. The fabric pulled at every wrinkle in her fat little body hiding beneath it. Her hair was silvery white and pulled back in a bun. Her round eyes were distorted behind her thick coke bottle glasses.
“You need somethin, sweetie?” she asked in a soothing grandmother tone.
“I saw your sign about the roses,” I stuttered.
“Sho’nuff! C’mon in an’ I’ll fix ya right up!” she exclaimed.
Standing aside, she held the door open for me and welcomed me in with a gesture of her hand and a nod of the head. She instructed Bud to take the “damn poodle” in the back. The smell of sweet vanilla incense immediately filled my nostrils, covering me with a sense of pleasantry. A black pot bellied stove in the middle of the room warmed the heavy air. I held my hands over it to feel its soothing love. The old wooden floor creaked beneath my feet like a haunted house or an old one room church decaying in the backwoods somewhere.
The ambience of the old lady’s shop was like an ornate dried flower arrangement with its brown, red, and orange flowers in various sized vases all around the room. Faux pumpkins were nestled in shelves lining the wall next to colored glass trinkets and porcelain figurines. A tall freezer hummed behind the counter. Filled with large budding roses, it was an anomaly amongst the comforting décor of the little room. The old lady stepped behind the massive work counter and opened the freezer. She took out a dozen yellow roses and began wrapping them in cellophane.
“Boy, why you wear your heart on the outside today?” she asked.
“Excuse me.”
I stepped away from the stove and walked over to the station where she was working.
“You missing somebody?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
I felt like I was blushing, but it could have just been the heat from the stove. She didn’t seem to take notice.
“They across the street?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Ain’t been there long.”
I mistook this as a question.
“No, ma’am. Not too long. Their headstone was delivered today.”
“I bet it’s purty. You gonna be needing these then to dress it up a bit, eh?” she asked handing me the yellow roses.
“I was thinking red.”
“He say he don’t want red.”
“I’m sorry?”
“He say he want yellow roses.”
I stood there for a moment studying what she had just said. It sent chills down my spine. The lady just looked at me kindly and grinned. Her cataract glazed eyes looked through me.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Red say you love him. He know dat already. Yellow rose be his favorite. You should know dat.”
I did know it. Never taking my eyes off her, I reached for the flowers and took them from her slowly. I reached into my pocket with my other hand and retrieved a fifty dollar bill and laid it on top of the counter. I felt her finger touch my hand gently as the flowers were exchanged between us. She took the money and tucked it into her pocket.
I stood there unable to move. The little old lady walked back around the counter and touched me on the shoulder. She escorted me back to the front door.
“Thank you for the flowers,” I managed to say to her as we stepped back out into the cold.
“Thank ya for stopping by today,” she said.
“I’m glad I did.”
I slowly walked down the stairs and had just made it to the car door when the old lady called out from behind me.
“Boy!” she yelled. I turned and glanced at her from over my shoulder. “JB say thank you. Thank you for everything.”
Reluctantly, I turned and looked in my car. I looked at the front lawn of the little shop. I studied the cut off broom sticks stuck in the ground to hold up the cardboard roses sign, expecting to find hidden cameras or someone crouching in the grass waiting to yell surprise. What joke was someone playing on me? How did anyone know I was here? There was no one there except for the wind. I looked back at the little woman standing on the porch with her hands folded across her belly. The look on her face read, “I told you so.”
“Tell JB I love him,” I said.
“You just did.”
I nodded with a smile of content and got into the car. No one had ever known I called Justin “JB” except for the two of us. I leaned over to lay the roses on the passenger’s seat. When I looked back up, the front porch of the tiny flower shack was empty. The old woman was gone. Tears made my eye lids feel heavy, so I closed them for a second or two before pulling out onto the highway and crossin
g to the cemetery entrance.
I was anxious and still overcome with shock from what had been said at the flower shop. I decided to stop by my father’s grave first. I’ve always envisioned cemeteries like giant silent parties where I’m searching for someone I know amongst a bunch of faceless strangers. My father was surrounded by his parents. My grandfather went before I was born. He died from a black widow bite on his ass while going to the outhouse. Dad had a brother and a sister beside him, along with some uncles and aunts I’d never met. His brother fell into an empty well when he was only three.
My father’s headstone was a double stone with my mom’s name and birth date already engraved on her side, an empty seat being held for her at the party. Our last name, WHITE, adorned the back side in deep block letters across the middle. Intricate crosses and roses bordered the corners where their names were. I wondered if they got those for free.
The fall arrangement fastened across the top of the stone today was bright and clean, large silk sunflowers with tufts of wheat under them and orange berries. They looked so new I wondered if Mom had already been here this morning before me.
As children, Mom sometimes brought us here on my grandparents’ birthdays or for Mother or Father’s Day. She’d let us help her hang an arrangement over the top of their stones. She’d kneel down and pull some of the plastic leaves and silk flowers out of the way so it didn’t hide their name. If an old arrangement still hung there from our last visit, faded and wind-beaten, she removed it to take home with us.
Ellen would pick it up and hold it in front of her, pretending to be a bride. Sometimes she plucked the yellowed flowers out and gave them to us to stick behind our ears. Ellen called us Roman Soldiers and the flowers were our wreaths of honor.