The Dead, and God Bless Them

(continued)

by John O'Toole

Leaving Meg and their mom to convene in Meg's bedroom. Arty, with nothing better to do, cleaning up the breakfast dishes, then following them in. Meg standing in her white nun's habit on a straightback chair, their mom taking last minute stitches in the hem. The needles, which she used to casually hold between her teeth, now just as casually stuck in her left arm. He had of course known for months of Meg's decision, the finality driven home now with an ax upon seeing her, for the first time, in her flowing white habit. No more meeting her for lunch at McDonald's. No more watching their favorite TV shows together. The two of them snuggling on the couch, Meg telling Arty for the umpteenth time how much he truly looked like Dart McGuinn.

Meg took her final vows at three that afternoon, the hour symbolic of Christ's time of death. Thunder in the distance, as though the distant mass of buildings were collapsing one by one. The sky lighting up like a water-damaged dome as the head nun and her two lieutenants came careening in their pink Cadillac off Wentworth Boulevard, the beat-up old sedan plowing through the waist-high grass into the small clearing of grey, hard-packed dirt, in which Arty, Meg and their mother had gathered, at the foot of Meg's so-called Bridal Tower, upon which she was duly raised (Sister Mary Arbogast punching the UP button), Arty and his mom craning their necks (his mom gripping her head with both hands to keep it from falling off) to follow the hospital bed and its holy occupant as they rose ten stories to the top of the cross-girdered shaft. Meg out of sight now. There to wait in the wind and light drizzle for the Lord Almighty to have His way with her.

It happened that night. Some nuns had to wait years, even decades, for God's holy member to strike from above, the hapless brides meantime fed intravenously, spending their days and nights in deep meditation. After the ceremony (Magnificat, rosary, flowery hymns to the Virgin, a gruff bit of chitchat from the horse-faced head nun and her stocky assistants) Arty's mom, without a word, indicated, with by now familiar body language (turning away, then back like an uncertain dog to its master), that she really ought to be returning to her grave for the night. Arty, for once completely managing to forget his physical aversion to corpses, embracing her now, daring to plant a warm kiss on her cheek, or what was left of it. The reason for his sudden affection, the horrifying fact that this would be his first night utterly alone.

Which explained why, around 9 p.m., he was seated in his yellow slicker, cross-legged in the little clearing, its hard-packed dirt turned to mud by the rain, his head back, eyes raised to the top of Meg's tower, its girders, pimpled with raindrops now, exposed by all-too-frequent lightning flashes, the eyes of the apartment buildings staring down at him in dumb silence, the lights of Wentworth Boulevard winking through the tall grass. Arty wondering if it would do any good to climb the hell up there and carry her down, at least chat awhile, maybe bring her up a snack. Well, rescue was out. They would just make him return her.

He was mentally preparing a snicky-sncak menu when the lightning bolt struck, a big cliched zigzag that shattered into bluish sparks at the top of the tower, flames leaping up like marionettes jerked to life by strings.

He was on his feet and running before he could think. Probably why, instead of punching the DOWN button (wouldn't have worked anyway), he spat in his dripping hands and started up the cross girders. Fingers soon freezing in the cold, driving rain. Numb now, grasping blindly for dead-stops in air, the hardness of steel a comforting sign till, eyes on his sneakers, on the mud lot below, his hands started cramping, forcing him to hook one arm across a girder and dangle there, sneakers in mid-air now, free hand shaking to restore circulation. Then again upward. Lightning exposing the merciless girders, their crisscrosses now resembling scowls, bared teeth. The thunder God's warning. GET YOUR OWN GIRLFRIEND! I SAW HER FIRST!

Three floors to go now. Arm hooked solidly, he rested again. A lightning bolt winged the boy, prodding him on. Last three floors not as hard as the others. Getting his second wind. Runners knew it well, a mental and physical euphoria that murmured YOU WERE MADE FOR SUCH EXERTION. Adrenaline pumping, he at last reached the top, Meg's hospital bed a bale of wet ash. Her body miraculously preserved, except for the cavity, dark as a grave, where her heart had once beat.

The sight of which caused him to scream, lose his grip and go plunging ten stories to the cold mud below.

Whether or not the Buddhist monks had awakened him, he couldn't be sure. But there they were humming their midnight mantra. Mmmmm mmmmm... His mouth full of mud, his eyes all at once cool and burny with the stuff, he marveled, mucky-minded, that even though the ten story fall had failed to kill him (miracle enough), his face-down communion with the earth had failed as well. How long had he lain there? Long enough to suffocate. Scrambling to his feet without thought of broken bones, he wondered why nothing ached, why everthing worked as though fresh from the factory. Reeling a bit, not from dizziness, rather a stiffness, the sort you would expect from a brand new bike, or a baby doll or can opener. The mantra not of monks but from the traffic on Wentworth, the obligatory midnight cars cruising in their sleep. Arty glanced up at his sister's tower. Flames long since doused, the corpse and bed still smoldering. The rain had stopped. That was something, he decided. Not enough, though. Not nearly.

The tall grass tickled his face as he plodded in a B-line toward the building, hands at his sides, not bothering to brush aside even the razor sharp Judas Blades, some of them quite capable of slicing off his ears. He remembered how, as children, he and Meg would play "Jungle Safari" out here, Arty in his pith helmet and safari jacket, Meg in a dashiki made with bedsheets, on which she had crayoned a colorful pattern of wild jungle flowers. The Judas Blades slicing through her left eye that time, blood like a jungle bird plunging. The screaming girl running ahead of him across the narrow gravel alley with its junked cars and baby buggies, up the grey wooden staircase that seemed to chomp the building's dark brick like a huge set of dinosaur teeth. Up the stairs to the third floor back porch, through the door, as in happier times, the apartment full of cooking smells, laughter of relatives, Grandpa Galt playing his tiny Irish flute, Aunty Banana (a.k.a. Aunt Aunt) rattling the dishes in the sink with a meaty-footed jig.

Arty now timidly opening the door, afraid and oddly shy of the nothing inside, as though it were a long-lost, surly old uncle, or Patty Ann Mullinger, his one and only date, who had spoken not a single word that entire grueling evening and in fact, when asked by Arty for the time by her new designer watch, had stammered and choked up and puked in his lap.

The nothing seemed to throb now, as though the walls had been pumped full of compressed air. Threatening to burst as Arty sat soaking off the mud in a hot bath and wondering what it might feel like to drown in pink bubbles. The bubble bath compliments of Meg's little dresser, the bottom drawer well-stocked with scented soap and perfumres, Ice Blue Secret, Clearasil, Scope, lotions and powders and a huge tray of eye shadows, all the colors in a palette that would have done Renoir proud. Her Boyfriend Survival Kit, a trousseau of sorts, laid away before she had decided to forsake mortal man for the Big Boy who sent lightning bolts through her heart.

Arty nudged the cold water faucet on with his big toe. Drowning bad enough, no need to scald himself. His back slid down the curved porcelain, smoothly as a seal down an ice flow, his bony shoulders disappearing beneath the water's edge like the smokestacks of a sinking steamer. Head alone afloat now, the captain preparing to go down with his ship. The first bubbles bursting noisily from his mouth like school children racing out to recess. The soapy water rushing his sinuses, Arty raised a finger to his nose to stop a sneeze, heard a key turn in the front door lock.

Kicked at the tub's bubble-blistered front slope, his torso consequently looming up like a sea monster, Arty coughing water, in the process blowing pink sister-bubles in the air.

Leaping from the tub, toweling down, pulling on his ratty brown bathrobe. Nearly slipping off his feet on his way out the door.

To find her standing there, her white habit dripping like snow in a thaw. White veil clinging like thin sugar-icing to her close-cropped devil's food hair. There was, of course, the deep, charred hole in her chest; otherwise Meg looked nearly good as new. In time she would rot. In time so would he. But for now they would do, for each other if for no one else.

"Well, don't just stand there," grinned Meg. "Turn on the TV. I'll make us some popcorn."

"There's a rerun of 'Oh, Mr. Haversham!' tonight."

Meg touched his cheek, her finger warm as a puppy's tongue. "Did I ever tell you," she said, reeling slightly. "You look exactly like Dart McGuinn."