Giving Back the Dead
by Stephen CavittFor most of its length the Altoona is a small, shallow river, littered with rocks you can step across without getting your feet wet. It rushes down Blackbird Mountain, white and murderous, with whirlpools and boulders, but it levels out above the farm country and picks its way disdainfully through the cow pastures and pesticides. Trout live in the headwaters, which are so clear the pebbles shine like pennies. But the muddy water south of the dam is slow and fetid, home to catfish, old tires, tennis shoes, and a couple of teenagers who threw themselves off the Kinnikack Bridge, weighted with stones. It is not the kind of river you want to drink from, or even look at long. You get ideas. Dissatisfaction hangs over its banks like a fog. Anger drifts into town, rising over the river bottom and floating down Main Street in a cloud. More than one tourist with a fly rod and a fishing hat has stepped into a deep hole and drowned here. The river keeps its secrets. It kept ours, until now.
When the dead emerged from the river, their tattered clothes were covered in mud, and reeds clung to them. They looked like turtles climbing out of the river bottom in the spring, their eyes old and empty. My grandfather sat on the sofa, dripping water, and stared at the TV without comment, like it was yesterday he drove his truck off the bluff, the brakes snapping like poplar branches in winter, then giving out entirely on the steep grade. He sat through two episodes of I Love Lucy before he opened his mouth. Then a trout fell out, silver and brilliant.
"It's not what you expect, being dead," he said. "There are no choirs. I have yet to see an angel." The trout flapped its tail against the mahogany coffee table, its gills heaving in the coarse, dry air. "I thought I'd give it up."
My brother poured him a bowl of Cheerios. When he lifted the milk carton, my grandfather said, "Make mine dry. I've had all the wet I can take."
My first thought was, My parents will kill him. It took two lawyers and a fistfight to settle his will, and they had no intention of giving back the money, or his house on Polk Street, which they had rented out. I told my grandfather this, but he said, "I'm done with that. I'll live with you."
Kevin handed him the Cheerios, and the old man ate them one at a time, holding each up to the light and squinting through the hole like it was a miracle.
"It's the little things you miss," he said.
I missed a lot of things in the weeks that followed. I missed my cat, who arched his back and fled when Grandpa entered a room. I missed my bed. Grandpa slept in it, and the sheets were soaked. I curled up on the floor, but the cat crouched on my chest and gave Grandpa the evil eye while I slept. Every time the old man turned over, the cat dug his claws in my chest.
I missed my friends, who had their own problems. It turned out a lot of bodies were in that river. Even the dead who didn't drown somehow found their way to its banks and showed up dripping on somebody's lawn. The living spoke in whispers. Tension crackled down the telephone lines. The water in the pipes tasted bitter. The whole town lay under a purple haze that stretched from horizon to horizon, and under it the dead muttered, telling the stories of their deaths over and over, like it was the only thing on their minds. We couldn't send them away. Where would they go? Back to the river, back into the ground?
I didn't know what to do with the dead, but I had an idea where they came from. My friend Selena was a witch. I never saw her with a black cat, or a broomstick, or sparks flying from her red hair. She never glowed or talked to ghosts, but something weird went on in her house, just the same. Her mother read palms and tarot cards and sold herbal teas. She grew the herbs in coffee cans in the backyard between the fence and the clothesline. She left the laundry and the spells to her daughter. Selena was fourteen, like me, but her eyes were older. They were the eyes of an old woman, or an animal. She never looked right at you; she looked to the side, like she saw things you didn't. She was tall and thin, and she had been teased unmercifully when she moved to town. A few of the bullies got chicken pox. One broke his leg. Another disappeared for days and was found in Mr. Tipple's pasture, eating grass and suckling with the calves. I doubt Selena did it--the boy was never right in the head--but after that people left her alone.
I couldn't avoid her, because I was her math tutor. Selena was a good student, but she couldn't do algebra. When she opened her textbook, her face went slack and pale, and she gritted her teeth and shook her head. After the first few problems she threw down her pencil and burst into tears. We worked on equations three days a week in the parlor while her mother's sign, a red neon hand, glowed through the cracked blinds. Selena was good company--smart, with a sharp sense of humor. She liked old movies and chicory coffee, and her skin, which showed between her cutoffs and her tank tops, was pale and veined, like the underside of an aspen leaf.
I liked her, but she was lonely, and if anybody had called up the dead, dredging the bottom of the river for company, it was Selena. The dead are not picky--you should have seen who my grandfather brought home from his morning walks--and they would not shun her for seeing things the living couldn't. Maybe the dead saw them, too. Maybe they needed company as much as she did.
I should have known it was her, all along. I rode my bike to her house, turning the headlight on. The dark fell early now. By three o'clock it was black as midnight. I leaned my bike against the back of the house and let myself in. Selena was in her room with the door locked. I heard muffled voices before I knocked.
"Just a second," Selena called.
The floorboards creaked. The closet door opened and shut. Selena opened the door with a weak smile. "I forgot you were coming," she said.
I sat on the bed. She turned the radio on. Bruce Springsteen poured into the room: "Everything dies, baby, that's a fact. Maybe everything that dies will someday come back. Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty, and meet me tonight in Atlantic City."
Selena sat beside me. She wore her hair in a ponytail, but a few strands curled over her ear, damp with sweat. I wanted to tuck them behind her ears and rest my hands on her shoulders and kiss her, but I couldn't think about that now. I had a mission.
"You have to stop this," I said.
"Stop what?" She looked around the cluttered room.
Muddy footprints led across the carpet to the closet. I could hear giggling and elbows thumping the wall. It was hard to hide the dead. You couldn't keep them quiet. They didn't care if they got caught.
"You have to stop digging up the dead," I said.
"But they're sweet. They tell good stories. And they don't hate me."
"Nobody here hates you. They're just afraid of you."
"You're not afraid of me, are you?" She edged closer on the white daybed. The closet door opened a crack. The dead were spying on us.
"No," I said.
"You know I'm going to fail math," she said. "Why do you keep coming?"
"Everybody else is boring."
"Is that the only reason?" She looked me in the eyes until I turned away.
"Who else would dredge up the dead for company?" I said.
"I wouldn't have to if you came over more."
"You know I'm not allowed to date," I said.
She pushed her hair behind her ear. The very strand I wanted to lift with my fingers. A muted baritone voice came from the closet. "For Christ's sake, just kiss her."
Selena rolled her eyes. "Come out, you guys. He knows."
The door opened and a dead mayor and a pastor spilled into the bedroom.
"We were just trying on clothes," the pastor said. He pulled a pink sweater from the closet and held it over his chest. "Is this my color?"
The mayor laughed. He had a bottle of wine. They were drunk.
"You gave them wine?" I said.
"It's my mother's. They found it."
"Does she know they're here?"
She shook her head, wide eyed.
"She's not much of a psychic," I said.
"She sees what she wants to, like anybody."
"Are you going to send them back?"
"When I get bored."
"Selena, they're dead, and they're dripping on everything."
Her friends looked apologetically at the wet carpet.
"Nothing's perfect," Selena said.
"Why can't you make friends with the living?" I said.
"You're the only one who'll talk to me."
"You should throw a party. Let them get used to you."
"What would we celebrate?"
"Giving back the dead. Everybody could bring their dead. We could have cake, and you could send them back."
"Why should I?"
"It's your fault they're here. How did you do it?"
"The dead are never far away." She waved her hand. "You just need a couple stones and some incense."
"Couldn't you get a dog if you're lonely?"
She took my hand. "You worry too much, Barry," she said. Then she kissed me.
The dead applauded. I couldn't help thinking they had more fun with her than with me. My grandfather just sat in his easy chair with a blank stare, his cold blue eyes as empty as water.
"We'll have the party, and I'll send them back, if you dance with me," Selena said.
"You'll send them back?"
"I promise."
The dead sobered up. Their faces soured. Selena turned to them and hugged them. "I love you, but he's right," she said, and the dead grew grave and patted her shoulders.
"You do what you have to, honey," the mayor said.
The pastor stepped close to me and said, "You take care of her. We'll be watching." He handed the sweater to Selena, and they left, sneaking downstairs past her mother, who was holding an unsuccessful séance for a rich couple from out of town.
Since it was my last week with him, I had more patience with my grandfather. You don't get a chance to tell people goodbye the way you should. Death lurks in the bushes. It drops from the ceiling. It crawls through the drain. It catches you unaware. The brakes snap, and it's over. Knowing he was leaving, I asked him for advice. I told him I wanted to be a paramedic, so I could save people from car wrecks and heart attacks. I wanted to keep them from dying.
"You're just putting off the inevitable," he said.
It's a terrible thing to say, but the dead get on your nerves, like anybody. By Saturday the line at Selena's house stretched around the block. The living and the dead crammed into the little yellow house. They spilled over into the backyard, straining the swing set. The picnic table splintered. They kicked over the coffee cans, spilling soil and herbs on the grass. The smell of crushed sage rose over the yard and drifted down to the river. The clouds lifted, and as the sun struck us, the living and the dead shimmered, like we were all underwater.
Stephen Cavitt is a graduate writing student at Georgia College and State University. He has worked as an environmental educator and journalist. He can be reached at StephenCavitt@aol.com.