Open Mic Night at Westminster Cemetery

by Mary Amato

  NEFFIE: My sister was buried with her sewing kit. So we have a needle, thread, and several lovely handkerchiefs to embroider.

  The sisters hold up their handkerchiefs, every inch of them covered with delicate stitches.

  VIRGINIA (dryly): I was buried with a poem. Lot of good that did me.

  From Sarah’s expression, Lacy can see that she would have appreciated a poem. Sarah catches Lacy looking at her and quickly diverts the attention by pouring more tea.

  SARAH: This tea set was buried with Mrs. Watson in 1899.

  EFFIE: Because we have so little matter in our world, most of our residents are willing to share what they have.

  Lacy looks down at the lace shawl Sarah loaned her and realizes how generous it was for her to share it.

  From inside the crypt marked Watson, which is where Sam is perched, a voice calls out . . .

  AGNES WATSON: I’m happy to hear you’re still enjoying the tea set. It was an extravagant act on the part of my dear husband to bury me with such valuable items. Most people are selfish and want to keep or sell the belongings of the departed, but he knew how much I loved that tea set and wanted me to have it in paradise.

  Another voice calls out from the same crypt.

  ALFRED WATSON: It was the least I could do. I wanted to imagine you having tea with the angels, darling.

  AGNES WATSON: Although it didn’t quite turn out that way, did it?

  ALFRED WATSON: No, it didn’t. Not yet, anyway.

  AGNES WATSON: How is the tea tonight, Sarah dear?

  During the Watsons’ comments, Owen dutifully rises from his spot and walks toward the crypt. Although the leaves do not crunch under his feet, the footsteps of the Dead can be felt by other residents if they are heavy enough, and Owen’s steps send booming vibrations through the earth, which Lacy feels right through the soles of her own boots.

  AGNES WATSON: I feel you coming, Owen. I’m sorry. I’ll be quiet.

  ALFRED WATSON: Right-o. No need for a Suppression, Owen. I’m buttoning up the lips right now.

  Owen returns to his post.

  EFFIE: I miss the Watsons. Such a lovely couple.

  NEFFIE: Quite.

  The voices of the Watsons make Lacy wonder about the other souls buried here. Lacy walks around the cemetery, silently reading the names on the crowded tombstones and crypts.

  LACY: Are you guys it? The only ones who aren’t Suppressed?

  SAM (careful to look at the others and not at Lacy when he speaks): Here’s a fact you might not know. Out of the 178 residents at Westminster, ten of us rise on a regular basis, 130 are Suppressed, and the other thirty-eight choose to sleep.

  LACY: Choose to sleep?

  EFFIE: There’s not much to do up here. Is there, Neffie?

  NEFFIE: If you get frustrated or angry or depressed, you run the risk of getting strikes. Because of that, I do believe that many people find that it is safer to stay asleep. Don’t you agree, Effie?

  LACY: Stay asleep all day and all night? How is that possible? I’d go insane.

  VIRGINIA: I would, too, frankly.

  DR. HOSLER (to the sisters): We do have a lot of Sleepers. They hear the midnight chimes and tell themselves to go back to sleep. It’s not that hard. But like those here at the table, I prefer to rise.

  The others nod. Lacy looks at the collection of residents sitting around the sarcophagus with their teacups. This group represents the risk takers? It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

  LACY: So, the best I can hope for is either to sleep or to drink ethereal tea and be constantly worried about breaking a rule every night for possibly all of eternity?

  The residents look at one another. Finally Virginia speaks again.

  VIRGINIA: An accurate summary.

  LACY: Oh my Go—I’m already going crazy and I just got here. You guys have been here for over a century.

  Lacy continues her walk, telling herself that there must be a way out, when a tombstone toward the back catches her eye. She walks over to read the inscription.

  LACY: Samuel Henry Steele. 1848–1865. Beloved son. Brave soldier and hero who died in the Civil War.

  The cemetery is small enough that Sam and the others can see and hear. Embarrassed, Sam hops off the crypt on which he was sitting and walks toward her.

  SAM: You don’t have to read that.

  LACY: It’s yours?

  Lacy notices the tombstone next to Sam’s is marked Gertrude Parsons Steele.

  LACY (reading): Gertrude Parsons Steele. 1819–1898. Beloved wife and mother, virtuous, honorable, generous, and kind. Forever loved. Forever remembered. Forever leading the way to righteousness.

  Still perched on Poe’s monument, Raven leans over and points the tip of a wing feather into his beak as if he is gagging.

  LACY (turning around to look at Sam): Oh my Go—sh. Mrs. Steele is . . .

  SAM: My mother.

  Raven starts whistling Berlioz’s “March to the Scaffold.” The Spindly sisters giggle.

  VIRGINIA (cuttingly): Of course, if you’re related to Mrs. Steele, you may not have to worry as much as the rest of us.

  A current of discomfort runs through the company, and Sam turns gray. Virginia has alluded to something about which none of them has ever spoken: twice Sam has deserved a third strike—once for profanity and once for taking off his jacket and trying to rip it in half—and Mrs. Steele conveniently didn’t hear or see either transgression. Although not in Sam’s control, these oversights on the part of Mrs. Steele bred an edge of ill will toward Sam, even from those who essentially sympathize with him. Since then, Sam has walked the line with extra caution, afraid to break a rule lest his mother show him any more favoritism.

  Although Lacy does not know this backstory, she can feel the tension and guess the problem. Lacy’s best friend in elementary school was the son of the school’s principal, and she remembers how mercilessly he was teased about it. Sam has the worst of both worlds, she can see. Not only did he have to put up with having Mrs. Steele as a mother in life; he is stuck with her in the afterlife.

  Lacy tries to give Sam a sympathetic smile, but he is staring at the ground. She looks down, too, and another grave catches her eye, marked HENRY JONATHAN STEELE.

  LACY: Is that your dad?

  SAM: I don’t remember much. He died when I was young. He chooses to sleep.

  I don’t fucking blame him, Lacy thinks.

  EFFIE (calls out to him in a loud whisper): Samuel, I think that’s fraternizing.

  Embarrassed, Sam quickly turns away from Lacy, hurries back, and climbs up to his perch on the Watson crypt.

  Lacy looks at the group, all of whom quickly resume drinking their tea. Each of them looks lonely and sad. Virginia doesn’t love Cumberland. Lacy can tell. She’s just using him to keep from being bored to death. Cumberland hates himself for his cowardice. Lacy sees it in his eyes, even though he tries to pose like a stud. Dr. Hosler is dying for stimulation and misses teaching. Poor Owen, forever on duty and off to the side, is suffering from forbidden love. At least the Spindly sisters have each other and their embroidery, but the way they sit on the edges of their seats . . . they clearly crave more excitement. And then there’s Sam.

  Lacy watches Sam pull out his journal to write something down and the way he’s sitting, hunched over, legs crossed, melts her. If it weren’t for his dated uniform, he could be a friend of hers from school, and this makes her imagine the two of them together. Quite naturally, she imagines them in scenes from her former world. There they are talking and eating at Crimmson’s Café. There they are walking through Druid Hill Park and around the Inner Harbor. There they are at her favorite bookshop. There they are at Tenuto’s, getting ready to perform at the open mic, holding hands under the table to give each other encouragement.

  From there her imagination takes her home and she can see herself sitting just like Sam is now, except on her own bed. It’s late and she’s about to fall asleep, but she wants to capture the night in her j
ournal, so she props her three pillows behind her back and pulls her blue-and-purple quilt over her lap and she writes. She stops every now and then to look at the curtainless window with its slice of the moonlit sky and her lyrics and poems that are taped all around the windowsill.

  Her sister Olivia is there, too, in her own bed behind the batik print cloth that they suspended from the ceiling two years ago to divide the room. Olivia’s bedside light is on and the lamp is glowing orange through the colorful cloth. Although she and Olivia fight, Lacy likes it best when Olivia is there at night, on the other side of the curtain. Olivia is quick to laugh—especially when she is reading or scrolling through the messages on her cell phone. Lacy doesn’t need to see what makes her laugh. She just likes the sound of it.

  Below them both is the sound of their mother playing the keyboard with her headphones on. She has a habit of playing before bedtime, says it relaxes her after spending all day dealing with crap at work and then grading her students’ problems at night. Although the keyboard speakers are turned off and Lacy and Olivia can’t hear the notes, they can still hear the sound of their mom’s fingers against the keys. She has been playing slowly, which she always does at first, but now the light tapping is getting stronger and faster. She’s switching from whatever calm melody she was playing to a pounding thing of her own invention. Some inner beat is taking over and she’s starting to really hammer out a rhythm. Lacy stops writing in her journal and looks up. She knows what’s coming next.

  And there it is . . . as the pounding grows louder and faster, the crooning starts: their mom’s wild and strange humming that bubbles up from somewhere deep inside her soul and that she assumes no one else can hear.

  As the humming grows louder and more dramatic, Olivia lifts up the curtain and rolls her eyes. “There she goes again!” She drops the curtain and Lacy laughs. It’s their secret, and although they pretend it’s annoying, they would never tell their mom for fear that she would stop.

  Lacy laughs again and lifts the curtain to say something back to Olivia, but her hand moves through the air and she blinks and sees a bleak, gray tombstone instead. She turns, and the full view of the cemetery comes over her like a wave at the same time the memories of her warm bedroom rush out and away. Grief pulls her to her knees.

  Sam and the others look.

  Her eyes are wide and frightened and flooding. Her lip trembles, and as she looks helplessly at Sam, she lifts her empty hands, and it is as if everyone can see that in them she is somehow holding up the enormity of her loss. Everything she loves has floated away. Death has stranded her, has stranded all of them. Sorrow rings out from her silently, like a sound that is so intense it can only be felt.

  LACY: I want to go home.

  The sound of her sadness hits Sam and the others hard. It seeps into the earth and hits the Suppressed and the Sleeping, too, and all of their souls vibrate. They are pulled into their own dark wells of grief, but they are also pulled together in one well of empathy.

  No one speaks or moves. Lacy starts to cry. At the sound, Sam looks back up. Her face is raw and real. He wants to comfort her, but he remains still. Lacy can feel Sam’s spirit reaching for her and yet restraining itself, and the fact that her new friend has to hold back turns the wave of grief inside her into something sharp that seems to cut her throat. She tries to keep still, but her body rocks forward and she sobs. Ethereal tears, she notices, aren’t wet. They gather in her eyes and when she blinks she can feel them rolling down her cheeks, but they’re unlike any substance she has ever felt, like tiny, silk-filled drops of air. She sobs louder. The sound is naked and quiet and human and unbearable.

  They want to cry, too, every single one of them, for everything and everyone that they have lost, for everything and everyone they still miss, but the old habits push them forward and they mistakenly do what most well-meaning people do: they distract attention from the gaping wound with flimsy, irrelevant words. Paradoxically, it’s those who commiserate the most with Lacy who are the first to speak. Their voices are fragile and tentative. They don’t mean to minimize Lacy’s feelings. They just don’t know what else to do.

  SARAH: More tea, anyone?

  EFFIE: Thank you. I’m still half full, dear.

  NEFFIE: I’ll take a spot.

  DR. HOSLER: Look at that. The moon is almost full.

  They all look up, as if gazing at the moon will give Lacy the privacy she needs to pull herself together.

  Cumberland gives Virginia a half-hearted nod and retires into his crypt; Sarah pours Neffie’s tea.

  Instinctively Lacy drags the back of her hand across her tear-drenched face, although her hand doesn’t dampen. Sam cannot stand to see her like this, on her knees, crying. Longing to say something that might bring her some measure of comfort, he slides off the Watson crypt and approaches her. He speaks into his cap, which he holds in his hands, because he is afraid that he will break down if he looks into her eyes.

  SAM (whispering): Westminster is a quiet place to write poetry. I’m just saying that because I thought I heard a mention of poetry earlier . . . As long as you don’t get that third strike, you can stay here with me . . . Not with me. You can stay here like me . . . That’s what I meant. You can stay here like me and write poems. I’m not saying that I’m a poet or anything, I’m just—

  Sam stops. He is a failure. He doesn’t know how to talk or what to say. He is about to apologize when Raven suddenly flaps his wings in a warning. The residents freeze as Mrs. Steele and Maria emerge from the catacomb portal.

  On Maria’s face is a look of pity. On Mrs. Steele’s is a smirk. Mrs. Steele claps her hands and calls out.

  MRS. STEELE: Gather around, everyone. Mrs. Clemm has an important announcement to make.

  Scene 4: Job Assignment

  It has been decades since there were announcements to be made at Westminster Cemetery. Now, Mrs. Steele takes a position on the front steps of the church and pulls Maria up to join her so that she can be seen and heard—hardly necessary given the small size of the cemetery and the even smaller size of the crowd. It’s just the regulars—Sam, Sarah, Dr. Hosler, Virginia, and the Spindly sisters—who gather, standing at the foot of the steps. Cumberland doesn’t venture out of his crypt. Owen remains sitting in his usual position on the side, although he is not noticed. Raven, perched on Poe’s monument, can see and hear it all.

  Dreading whatever is coming next and hesitant to join the group, Lacy takes a seat on a tombstone, which is a dozen paces or so away from the front steps of the church. But then she catches Sam’s eye for just a moment and he changes his position, stepping farther from his mother and closer to her, and that little act of solidarity gives her the strength to stand and face the women.

  Mrs. Steele scowls at Lacy and turns to Maria.

  MRS. STEELE: Go right ahead with your announcement, Mrs. Clemm.

  MARIA (looking as if she wants to crawl under a large rock): As President of the Committee to Assign Committee Assignments, it is my duty to inform Miss Lacy Brink that she will be . . . President of the Termite Collection Committee.

  There is a collective gasp. Sam, Sarah, Dr. Hosler, and the Spindly sisters all turn and give Lacy sympathetic glances. Even Virginia winces.

  MRS. STEELE (smiles): I think the job will be inspirational. She should get started right away.

  SAM: What about letting her sing the Welcome Song? That would be a good job—

  MRS. STEELE: Shh! We have chosen a job that needs to be filled.

  LACY: What is the job exactly? Or is no one allowed to talk to me?

  MRS. STEELE: The President of the Termite Collection Committee goes from grave to grave every night collecting and disposing of any termites that have entered into the wooden coffins of the residents. Our coffins are our beds. We don’t like them to disintegrate. For those of us in more permanent structures—such as caskets made from cement or stone—it is not so much of a worry. But those of us in wooden coffins are often plagued with termite infesta
tions.

  At this, an arm pops straight up out of a grave marked Mariah Johnson. Lacy can tell by the white lace sleeve and the elegant glove that the resident is—or was—rich. Her hand is cupped and Lacy can guess what she’s holding.

  LACY: But I thought the Dead couldn’t touch anything of the Living. Wouldn’t that include termites?

  DR. HOSLER: Termites enter inside our coffins and so become part of our world. Remember that whatever is inside our coffin goes through a transformation process.

  Lacy walks over and looks into Mariah’s cupped palm. A handful of translucent larvae roil and wriggle. Lacy’s stomach turns. Mrs. Steele has deliberately found the most disgusting job for her and forced Maria to assign it, no doubt in an effort to make Lacy so frustrated she will scream and get her third strike. More arms with cupped hands pop up.

  Determined not to let this woman win, Lacy brushes the termites from Mariah’s palm into her own and then turns and smiles at Mrs. Steele.

  LACY: I’m not afraid of a few bugs. What do I do with them?

  MRS. STEELE (smiles): You eat them.

  Horrified, Lacy drops the bugs.

  LACY: What the hel—(she catches herself)—lo.

  Sam runs to her side and starts collecting the termites before they can crawl back into the earth.

  LACY (whispers to Sam): Can’t I just toss them over the gate?

  MRS. STEELE: We have found that eating them is the most effective way of making them disappear.

  DR. HOSLER (shrugs): It’s true. If we throw them over, they just come back. Eating them seems to decommission them for good.

  EFFIE: Mr. Hirston was our last termite-collection president, wasn’t he?

  NEFFIE: He didn’t last long, if I recall. Wasn’t he Suppressed for disorderly hysterics after just three nights?

  SAM (making a futile plea to his mother): We have been getting along without anybody in that role for a long time, ma’am. People have been eating their own. I don’t mind eating them.

  Sam pops the termites he had picked from the ground into his mouth.

  MRS. STEELE: Samuel!