Owl Dreams

by John T. Biggs

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Sarah said, “You’re a hero.”

  But Robert heard, “You’re my hero.”

  She knew it just a microsecond too late. Words like hero have the emotional impact of a meteor strike. Sarah understood exactly what would happen next.

  Robert would blush. He’d fidget as much as their fast walk through the dark cemetery would allow. He’d sputter a halfhearted denial. But after all that, he’d believe every word.

  Simple creatures. Men think of ships, cars, weapons, the sea, of everything big and important as a she. Even the biggest bad things have women’s names. Does anyone believe hurricane Bob could have wiped out New Orleans? The poor bastards live for female adulation, especially the young ones. They cosign loans, lie under oath, commit crimes. Most of them would die for a woman’s post mortem praise. Sarah learned all about men at her mother’s knee.

  She’d have to handle Robert with care. Stepping into Dr. Moon’s magic dust had been an unambiguous act of heroism. But he wouldn’t have done it for a man.

  A complement here, a word of praise there, and pretty soon he’d be hooked, a Sarah-junky, willing to do anything for a fix. Maybe he was already there. Lucky for him she was nothing like Marie.

  Robert sang while they walked.

  Out of tune, unrecognizable lyrics, but Sarah didn’t object. Silence was the enemy. If Robert stopped singing, he’d fill the silence with words he couldn’t take back, and they didn’t have far to go.

  They found Hashilli’s SUV about a hundred yards away from the Indian Baptist Cemetery.

  “Downwind,” Robert said. “If he parked upwind, I would have been warned.”

 

  Sarah opened her shoulder bag. She ran her right hand around its interior, shoving the contents into a chaotic jumble. After a minimal amount of swearing, she produced Hashilli’s keys.

  “Let’s look inside.”

  No splotches of blood, bits of fiber, or spools of duct tape; the kidnapper had transformed the interior of the SUV into an evidence free zone. Even the child seat he used to transport stolen babies was gone.

  Robert pointed out the brand new shovel in the cargo space. Had Dr. Moon intended to do a little grave robbing of his own, or was he planning to convert a recently dug burial plot from single to triple occupancy?

  “Like hiding a tree in a forest.” Robert didn’t bother to explain the thought process behind the statement. His style of logic seldom withstood the transition into language.

  Sarah retrieved the shovel. She tested its weight. “Robbing graves is man’s work.” She handed it off to her partner in crime. “Ask the wind if you don’t believe me.”

  “The wind stopped talking when Hashilli’s powder hit my face. I don’t hear anything. Not even a whisper.”

  “It’ll wear off,” she told him.

  Robert stood quietly in the dim light of the crescent moon testing the sharpness of his shovel’s edge, mulling over his limited knowledge of pharmaceuticals.

  “Drugs never last forever.” Sarah tried to sound more certain than she felt. Drugs didn’t last forever, but sometimes their effects were permanent. Like vaccinations that altered the immune system and recreational drugs that remodeled the architecture of the brain. Ecstasy, methamphetamines—could Hashilli’s powder be like one of those?

  “Time to go,” she said. “It’s getting late and we still have a grave to rob.”

  They made their way around monuments, mausoleums and shrubbery until they reached a recently dug grave with a headstone that identified its occupant as Roosevelt Washington.

  “This is it.” Robert’s voice had a rough unpleasant edge familiar to Sarah. She’d heard that quality in her own voice as a small child, every time her mother abandoned her to the care of strangers.

  “It will all work out.” She solidified her promise with a gentle hand on Robert’s shoulder. “It always does, if you keep your wits about you.”

  “As if I have any wits to keep,” said Robert. “I haven’t become sane, you know, just because I don’t hear voices.”

  A recovering schizophrenic, and no support group anywhere. Sarah wanted to tell him sanity was grossly overrated. She wanted to tell him character was more important, and intelligence and empathy. An undergraduate anthropology student knew that much.

  “For most of history,” Sarah said, “Sane people believed in spirits, angels, demons, ghosts, and magic.” She directed Robert’s attention to the graveyard with a sweeping gesture she had seen on a television game show.

  “Carefully landscaped city real estate, occupied by corpses,” she said. “Arranged in boxes so they’ll face the east when they sit up to greet Gabriel’s trumpet on judgment day.”

  Sarah Bible, graveside philosopher, quoted her favorite Paul Simon song. “Still Crazy after all these Years.” The title said it all. She couldn’t tell if her words made Robert feel better. Probably not, but at least he’d stopped complaining.

  “Now dig.” She pointed to the grave. “We haven’t got all night.”

  Robert checked the place on his wrist where a watch would be if he owned a watch. “What’s the hurry? Dr. Moon is safely locked away, and Roosevelt Washington’s not going anywhere.”

  A sound like padded sledgehammers interrupted their conversation. The muffled-hammer-noise thumped a line across the graveyard grass, moving in their direction with alarming speed.

  A booming sports announcer’s voice told them to stop what they were doing. The sound echoed off of granite tombstones making it difficult to choose an avenue of escape. An African-American man as massive as an offensive lineman but not quite as tall as Sarah lumbered out of the darkness. He was full of rage and rhetorical questions.

  “Can’t a black man be left in peace to molder in his own grave?”

  Molder? Freaking out seemed Sarah’s best option at the moment, but she hadn’t decided what form that should take. Standing motionless was good for snakes and rogue grizzly bears. Maybe it would work for a graveyard apparition.

  “How many people do I have to chase away from this man’s final resting place? What did Mr. Roosevelt Washington do in life that justifies this treatment?” The big man shook his head in disgust and was prepared to rail on for another several minutes about disrespecting the dead, but he stopped as soon as Robert called him Baron Saturday.

  Roosevelt Washington’s advocate fixed his gaze on Robert and lumbered a wide semicircle around the would-be grave robbers, forcing them to turn their faces into the light of the crescent moon. Sarah tried to keep her eyes on the man’s face, but his stump pads were a powerful draw on her attention. His abbreviated limbs reduced the length of his stride, which made him appear to be running even though he moved no faster than a brisk walk. His pads drummed against the graveyard sod in a pattern that reminded Sarah of a beating heart.

  “Two white men have called me by that name.” The volume of the big man’s voice dropped several decibels, well out of the acceptable range for accusations.

  “If I’m not mistaken, you were the first.” He paused long enough to draw a breath and move two paces closer. “If I’m not mistaken, you spoke to me from the bottom of this very grave.”

  Robert looked from Baron Saturday to Sarah.

  “I see him too,” she said. “He’s not the product of bad brain chemistry.” She took a step backward as Baron Saturday moved forward. She would have taken another if she hadn’t backed into Roosevelt Washington’s tombstone.

  “I’m real enough,” said the legless apparition. “I’m no Baron. No kind of heathen African God either.” He turned his attention back to Robert.

  “My name’s Big Shorty, but I already told you that.”

  A monster with a funny name. Simultaneously accurate and disrespectful, an unfortunate combination. Sarah doubted she could say this man’s name and not append it with a nervous laugh.

  How fast could Big Shorty run if it came to that? She wondered if Robert could keep up with her.

&nbs
p; “Big Shorty, sir.” Sarah said the three words quickly and then bit her lip to the point of bleeding. She composed herself for as long as it took to draw two breaths made uneven by suppressed laughter.

  “Big Shorty, sir, we mean no harm.” She could have made that statement with more conviction if her companion wasn’t holding a shovel.

  “Twice in a week,” Big Shorty said, “people have brought shovels to Roosevelt Washington’s grave.”

  “What is it you people want? Is it those cast-off names his parents gave him? White folks haven’t used those names for most of a hundred years.”

  “Can’t take them back,” Big Shorty said. “Not from a dead man.”

  Robert held his hand up as if Big Shorty were a teacher who would look his way when it was time for him to speak.

  “I put a paper in Mr. Washington’s shirt pocket,” Robert said. “Sarah and I have come to get it back.”

  “Folks put letters into their loved ones’ pockets all the time,” Big Shorty Said. “Reading material for the grave. A note for Saint Peter on judgment day. What family does is family business, but when a crazy white man puts a paper into a dead black man’s pocket, I take it out.”

  Sarah wondered how often that policy needed to be enforced, but she didn’t ask. The two men had reached a testosterone-fueled rapport and she was now effectively excluded. A discussion between a recovering schizophrenic and a graveyard apparition was the very essence of man talk, and she was happy to be left out.

  It didn’t take Robert and Big Shorty very long to reach an understanding. Sarah understood why. They were both certifiably crazy. In a matter of a few minutes they were fast friends. Big Shorty promised to give Robert the paper he had hidden in Roosevelt Washington’s pocket. The exchange would take place at Big Shorty’s home, right there in the cemetery.

  Sarah could hardly wait.