by Tim Marquitz
Vomit spilled free, bitter and cloying, its harshness ravaging his throat. He could feel his ribs grinding together and spied the crimson that stained the bile. Morgan coughed up the last and turned his chin up at the sound of a passing helicopter. Its black shape hovered over him for a moment and then drifted off with hesitance, coming at last to float a short distance away from where Morgan lay sprawled in the dirt. For a moment, he wondered at its purpose and then his memory returned.
His heart fluttered as he remembered their flight: Raul, the van, the border. He looked to where the helicopter had retreated and spied a growing mass of people. He recognized them and sunk defeated into the sand. They wore the uniform of the EMP, badges and weapons reflecting the sunlight. He’d been caught.
Tears welled up and blurred his vision as he watched the swarm of dark-suited officers and waited for it to all be over. He thought of Karen and wondered if maybe she’d been right to take her own life, after all. No, he still couldn’t picture that, but there was little difference now. He was broken. With grim satisfaction, Morgan doubted the EMPs would want him for the reclamation farm. They’d have no use for him anymore. His only hope was for a quick death.
He glanced up expecting the officers to be on top of him, but they remained at a distance. They hadn’t moved. Morgan wondered at their hesitance. They milled about, pointing and talking amongst themselves, but still none advanced. Did they intend to let him bleed out? He followed the line of officers and found his answer when his gaze settled on a battered, roadside sign.
Bienvanidos a Reynosa!
Morgan stared for a moment, letting the words trickle through his mind. A cold sweat broke across his forehead when their meaning sunk in.
He’d made it! That’s why the EMPs had stopped. He was in Mexico. A triumphant smile split his bruised lips. He was free.
Voices behind him drew his attention from the American side of the border. He craned his neck, doing his best to ignore the stabbing pains that ran through him.
A young, Hispanic man stared into the wreckage of Raul’s van. He shook his head as he looked to an older, white male circling nearby. “They dead.”
“There’s one over here,” the older man said, coming to stand over Morgan.
“Help me.” Morgan pointed at the blocking device with his good hand. “I came to work.”
The man ran his hand over his graying goatee, dark brown eyes staring without blinking. “You don’t look like you’re in any shape to work, to me.” He nudged Morgan’s wounded arm with the tip of his boot.
Morgan hissed, worming away with pained jerks. “Please, I’ll heal. I made a deal with Raul.
“That feller back in the van?”
“Yes.” Morgan nodded. “Yes, that’s him.”
“Well,” the man sniffed and looked to the van and then back, “Raul’s dead, buddy. Whatever deal you had with him is too.”
“But, I—” Morgan started, his sentence severed by the look in the man’s eyes. “I’ll work for you then. Whatever you need. I swear.”
The man laughed. “Ain’t got no need for a cripple, but I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll take you to the city with us.” He waved the young man over.
Morgan sighed. Someone would help him in Reynosa. He’d get better and get a job. Relief flooded through him as he laid his head on the sand and closed his eyes. Until now, he hadn’t dared dream of a life after today, but he was free of the Imperial States. Free of the system he’d mistakenly put in place. He could start over.
Dirt crunched beneath the heels of the young man as he came to stand alongside Morgan. “You want him in the truck, jefe?”
“Yeah, we’ll take him into town.” He gave a quiet chuckle. “Didn’t you say your uncle needed a new kidney?”
Cenotaph
Originally published in Four in the Morning 2012
I used to believe Hell was a place sinners went when they died, but I know better now. Stick around long enough and life becomes your Hell. It doesn’t wait for you.
No man should outlive his children…especially not his grandchildren, but that’s what I did. Been to ten funerals all told in the last forty years, and each time another piece of my heart was torn from my chest and put in the cold ground to be covered over by dirt. All the pieces are gone now. Nobody bothers to ask about them anymore, it’s been so long. Even the photographs on the mantle have yellowed, the edges darkening in their frames, but the memories are still there; still sharp.
That’s the worst part, I think.
It takes me ten minutes to crawl out of bed each morning, my arms and legs tingling something fierce, the joints swollen and damn near fused together, but the past is there waiting for me every day. Like a little pup whose whole existence is its master, the memories pounce me the moment my eyelids creak open, dowsing me in the wet and sloppy kisses of sorrow before I’ve even had a chance to wipe the drool from my chin. If that isn’t Hell, I don’t know what is.
I turned seventy-three last week, and aside from the automated phone call from my insurance agent wishing me a happy birthday, it was the same as every other day since Rose and the kids passed on. Empty.
I’d eaten my customary chocolate cupcake just because Rose always made such a big deal out of the little things. Even stuck a candle in it for her, but I couldn’t bring myself to light the thing. I was afraid of what I’d wish for. Probably more afraid it would come true.
Ever since I laid Joseph to peace, the last of my grandbabies—though he was hardly a baby anymore at twenty-one—there hasn’t been a reason for me to stick around, but here I am. Old Doc Johnson says I’ll likely live to a hundred and ten, but I certainly hope not. I’ve been counting the minutes since Rose left me, and it’s like they’ve stopped moving since Joseph died. There’s nothing but gray days ahead of me.
I miss the color already.
Morning came as it always did, and I awoke with a start. Stiff and sore, the weight of my nightmares bore down on me. Not even coffee could chase the chill from my bones, but I got up like I do every day. It’s hard to break the habit. I read the paper and tried to forget as I shoveled down a bowl of cereal, wishing Rose was around to make me something warm. I’m a lousy cook; never got the hang of it.
Rose would sing—at least that’s what she claimed it was—while she puttered about the kitchen. Used to set the dogs to howling, she did. Didn’t know a damn thing about notes or pitch, but she made up for it with enthusiasm, drowning out the clang of her pots and pans with sheer volume. I always figured I’d have to replace the windows at some point, but they held up, despite it all.
Now the kitchen was like a tomb. All the happiness and warmth it resonated with when Rose was alive had faded like the flowery wallpaper she had put up so many years back. A deep gloom had settled over the kitchen; the whole place, for that matter. Her voice was the voice of our home, our babies the heartbeat. They’d gone still, and all that was left was the corpse of the house—and me, both too stubborn to give in and die.
It’s not that I didn’t want to, mind you. I thought about it every day, but death had its own agenda. It would take me when it was time, and not any sooner. Worse still, I could never bring myself to end my life no matter how much I wanted to. I had no doubts Rose and the kids were in Heaven waiting for me, and they’d be there when my time was done. That wouldn’t be the case were I to kill myself. God doesn’t look kindly upon suicide, and I couldn’t bear to lose them forever.
I’d waited this long, I could wait a little longer. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
The words tasted bitter this morning. Our youngest son, Callum, would have been forty-three today. He’d be here now if the city hadn’t shut down the 8th Street fire station in an effort to save money. Callum survived the crash that pinned him in his car, but the airbags that saved his life malfunctioned. They didn’t deflate like they should have. They squeezed the air from his lungs and smothered him in his seat as he hung upside down. By the time the resc
ue workers traveled the extra five miles from the Saginaw station, Callum was gone.
He didn’t have a scratch on him.
At the viewing at Whitaker’s Funeral Home, I clung to his children, Joseph and Clare, as though I might drown were I to let go. Callum lay peaceful in his casket. He looked asleep, and I kept expecting him to open his eyes and sit up. He never did.
Malcolm Whitaker, the funeral director, helped us to the car, doing his best to console us. His kind words were measured and calm, but they fell on deaf ears. There was no room in my heart for solace. All I could think of was Callum. We left the funeral home after seeing him for the last time. Callum was buried at Evergreen Fields the next day. Clare passed just two months later, and I laid Joseph in the ground the following fall after he took ill with a strange malady. That was six years ago. I haven’t been to the cemetery since.
I think it was probably guilt that woke me this morning. Though the images have mostly faded now, my head was filled with visions of my children, swirling about in the darkness. They stared at me with hollow eyes and cried out in silent screams. Rose wept in the background, cradling handfuls of dirt as tears of crimson streamed from her eyes. They rained down on the grave beneath her, staining the earth black in their wake.
I remember her looking up at me, terror carved in the lines of her face as she was pulled from my dreams by clawed hands. Though I couldn’t hear her, I felt her speak my name.
My chest ached as I recalled my nightmares, my heart bouncing inside. My lungs burned for air. I sat in my chair a long while, the paper crumpled in my hands, trying to catch my breath as the room wavered about me. I knew then I was being called. I needed to see them; all of them. It had been too long.
After my second cup of coffee, bundling warm against the cold November wind that sliced the air like razors, I left the house. The musky scent of a fireplace filled the air as I went to the car. Traffic whizzed past me on the highway on my way to Evergreen Fields. Set at the far edge of town, the cemetery welcomed me with the gaping maw of its open gates. Fall had settled in early this year and cast a pall across the sky. The trees that lined the driveway were withered and stooped as if the weight of the sky bore them down. Golden brown leaves cascaded from the gray branches, showering the car as I drove underneath. I could hear them crunching beneath the tires as I made my way into the interior of the cemetery.
Coming here always took my breath away. The cemetery had an old-fashioned feel to it. Unlike most modern graveyards where the markers are flush with the ground to make it easier for the grounds people to cut the grass, Evergreen was a sea of marble monuments. Stone angels stared at me with sightless, somber eyes as I passed, the background a skyscraper horizon of marbled rock stretching out as far as I could see. Yellowed and brown, the earth stood in defiance of the cemetery’s name. It had never been truly green, I don’t think, but it had always been well maintained. The gardens were free of leaves and clutter, the roads patched and smoothed as soon as any pothole started to appear.
It was like traveling back in time by coming to Evergreen. Nothing visible had changed since I’d last been here. Everything was in its place. Birds chirped in the trees as I climbed gingerly out of the car, using the door to support myself until my legs relaxed and could do the job. Tiny little fences separated the various gardens, each donned with euphemistic names like Prayer and Belief and Faith, meant to offer a little more than a means to tell them apart. Our family plot resided in Hope, though judging by the number of monuments dotting its dour landscape, there was little of that left here.
I wound my way through the raised stones, stepping carefully to avoid the flower arrangements that littered the garden. Most were plastic; their colors drained by the sun and drooping against the yellowed grass, but there were a few vases full of fresh flowers scattered about. Their scent mingled with the earthy musk of pine trees and the moist earth, bringing the only signs of life to the desolate emptiness that was the cemetery. Early as it was, I appeared to be the only soul treading the lonely earth of Evergreen Fields. I could hear the muffled echoes of machinery rumbling off in the distance—most likely the grounds workers starting their day—but I couldn’t see anyone. It’s not like they needed to hurry, I heard myself mutter.
The smile that creased my lips slid away as I came across the first of the headstones that marked our family plot. It was Clare’s. Her inscription stared out at me, taunting me with her youth.
Beloved Daughter and Grandchild
Clare Evelyn Masters
Forever Loved
1986-2004
She had died far too soon, her heart too delicate to withstand the burden it had been made to bear. Her brother Joseph lay beside her. Close in life, I felt it only right that they be just as close in death.
I staggered over the rough ground as I moved to the next grave, the plot layered in loose dirt that crunched underfoot. Brown spots stood out all across the garden, raked flat and smoothed in what appeared to be an effort to level the graves. My feet sunk into the dirt just a bit as I looked to where Callum rested with his wife, Katherine. Their marker proclaimed their eternal love for one another and for their children, to which I could attest.
As I moved on to view the rest of the graves, my heart fluttered. My lungs felt tight against my ribs and the familiar sting of tears came to my eyes. Gathered here within a thirty foot square was everyone I had ever loved: Katherine and Callum, Clare and Joseph, Melissa and Aaron, Kim, George, and Beth, and of course, my darling Rose.
Monument after monument, their names dredged up the pain of their loss, my mind buried with them in the darkness of my sorrow. I could no longer clearly remember the smiles or laughter, the Christmases spent opening presents or the Thanksgivings hunched over the dining room table as me and the boys watched the game. There was only the sadness dredged up from the bitter lake of my memories. All the light from their lives had gone. I could feel the void of it inside, a deep black well of mourning that devoured me as though it were a cancer.
I had been wrong this morning. It hadn’t been guilt that brought me here today, but yearning. The dead had no desire to suffer the presence of the living, with all their noise and bluster. We were nothing but a reminder of all they’ve lost, and what they can never have again. Staring at the headstone of my wife, my name engraved at her side imploring me to join her, I knew that then. It wasn’t the call of my family I’d answered, but the sound of my own resignation with life. Death had summoned me to Evergreen Fields for it knew what truly lie within my heart. Here amongst the graves I felt at home for the first time in years. I belonged here amongst the dead, but it was not yet to be.
Tears chased the chill from my cheeks as my loneliness washed over me. The wind lapped at my sadness, drying it before it could reach the earth. This was why I had stayed away for so long. There was no comfort to be found here, only the reminder of an inevitable fate that had been denied me so long by a God whose unknown purpose kept me from my family.
I stumbled to the car and left Evergreen behind without looking back. I couldn’t bear to. My day would come, but it wasn’t here yet. If I were to stay any longer, I’d never leave.
Misery clung to me as I drove through the gates, a cloying bitterness that sat like a stone in the bottom of my stomach. Every breath was a battle between my sobs. I had hoped to ease my burden with the visit, but all I’d done was tear open the wounds I hadn’t even realized had begun to scab over. It was as though my family had died once more, the world crashing down on top of me. Images of their funerals flashed before my eyes, blurred into a single moment of torment as I headed for the highway.
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Father Conlen’s words bounced inside my head, visions of dirt tumbling into the open grave to signify the end.
And they will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
It was all too much.
I jerked the wheel and whipped the car off the onramp without signaling. The bl
are of horns and the screech of tires erupted behind me, but I didn’t care. All I could see was the neon sign that beckoned from the side street, promising salvation by the liter. I turned into the strip mall parking lot and pulled to a stop in front of the Colonial Liquor store.
It had been ten years since I last took a drink—the night of Rose’s funeral, in fact—but if ever there was time in my life where I needed the cold comfort of an anesthetic, it would be today. Even in my state, I wasn’t so foolish as to believe there was a cure in any of the bottles I could see on the shelves through the store windows, but I was only looking for a bandage. Something to cover the wound and slow the bleeding just long enough for things to settle. Jack Daniels didn’t have the answer, but he knew well enough how to avoid the question.
Out of the car, I saw my reflection in the glass of the storefront. My eyes were swollen and red, my cheeks shiny in the morning light. There was a pathetic look of defeat engraved upon my face; the same look I saw in the mirror every day as I shaved. I dropped my chin and looked away, sickened, wiping my eyes to clear away the worst of it as I reached for the door. It swung open and a shadow fell over me as I stumbled forward; straight into the man who opened the door.
“I’m so sorry,” I muttered, my voice raw. “I wasn’t—“ I looked up and my heart froze in my chest, my words dying on my tongue.
“It’s okay, sir,” he answered, but I barely heard him, the whole of my focus on his face.
“My God. Joseph?” There before me, dressed in a dark suit and tie, and just as young as I remembered, was my grandson.
He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. The name’s Michael Banks.” He stuck his hand out and smiled. “General Manager of Colonial Liquors.”
Out of instinct, I shook his hand, but I couldn’t feel it, my own numb. I could only stare, taking in every detail of the man’s face, unable to think of him as anyone but Joseph. His eyes were the same emerald green as Joseph’s, set beneath the soft blond of his eyebrows and the wildness of his short, curly hair. It was like staring into a photograph. The same nose and lips I’d known since he was born were there before me, even the jagged scar on his cheek was there. He’d gotten it while I watched him, tumbling from the couch and striking the corner of the coffee table. It had to be him.
