That’s my boy. Frugal, and a green thumb to boot.
Carnival stared into the grave. He cast his thoughts deeper down, deeper down, waiting for some kind of answer. He had to think about swimming. Time was a river and life was a stream and death was just a deeper hole in the ocean. He looked down. Down and down, deeper and deeper,
You have company, boy. Open your eyes.
“She always did like flowers.”
Carnival looked up, startled. A little old man stood above him. Carnival hadn’t heard his approach. He was that deep into his trance. For a moment he thought it was Olaf. The guy he’d just wheelchaired into infinity.
Not Olaf. This one’s alive. He wants to tell you something.
Carnival stammered a few words about paying respects.
Listen to him. He wants to tell you a bad love story.
“You’re awfully young to be a friend of Eva’s. Are you a relative?”
Think up your own story fast, boy, and tell it back to him.
“Neither,” Carnival stammered. “It’s, um, a hobby of mine. Gardening. I like to share the flowers, you know?”
Ha. Like a racing snail, nailed fast to a frozen rock. Truly, I am dazzled.
Carnival knelt in the grave dirt, waiting for the old guy to begin yelling for a policeman. The old guy smiled back, a study in pensive thought, like a constipated Grandpa Walton. I’ve fooled him, Carnival thought.
You couldn’t fool a three week old kitten with a spool of thread and a bowl of warm cream.
The old guy kept smiling. Maybe he did a little gardening himself. He even looks a little like a garden gnome – a short little teapot of a man, with a set of big made-for-grinning cheeks.
“That’s real nice of you. Eva would sure appreciate it. She always liked flowers, especially when they came with young men.”
He spat on the dirt. “The old slut.”
Carnival began stammering again. “Uh-uh-uh, she a friend of yours?”
Ho. Silver tongued devil. Mischief maker Loki should take notes from you in invisible ink.
The old guy snorted. “She was my wife. I loved her like anything, but I wouldn’t call her a friend.”
Let him talk. Let him tell you his story. Your tongue could use the rest. So could your brain.
“My name’s Jim. I was a trucker back then. Long haul. On the road most of the time.” He shook his head slowly. “Eva was my life line. No matter how far I traveled, she always waited at the end of the road. It was love, you know? I would have done anything for her.”
“So what happened?”
“She got lonely, I guess. I came home one night. Early. I found her and my best friend. Fucking Eddie Brown.”
Carnival couldn’t tell if the old man was using the f-word as an adjective or a verb or maybe both.
“The two of them, dead in a fire. Faulty wiring. Whole place went up like a dry cigarette. They never woke up.”
You see. I told you. Another bad love story.
There was something wrong. The old man wasn’t telling it like a memory. He was telling it like an eye witness.
“She cheated on you?”
Jim shrugged.“Her and Eddie died in the bedroom. The way they burnt, they weren’t wearing too many clothes.”
“And you killed them?”
Another shrug.
What else would you to a cuckolding wife? You slit their tongue. You notch their ears. You open their throat and piss down their lungs. See if all that blood makes the flavor of betrayal taste any less bitter.
“They burnt up. Like I said.”
“So why are you telling me?”
“Yeah. Funny isn’t it? Don’t know you from Moses, yet I can’t help myself. It’s like somebody else is doing the steering.” He smiled ruefully.
Carnival opened his mouth and a half a dozen words fell out.
“You killed her, didn’t you Jim?”
Ha! Such a Matlock of a man. Perry Mason is spinning in his grave.
For a moment Jim looked like he was fighting it. Then he smiled, peaceful, and let Carnival have it. Not that Carnival wanted to hear.
“Yeah I killed her. Come home, caught the two of them together. They were into it hot and heavy. I just made it a little hotter for them, was all.”
He grinned. For such an old man, it was a nasty sort of grin. He went on talking. “What the hell, it happened thirty years ago. They can’t prove anything. Besides, half of those who saw or know anything are dead. Pretty hard talking to dead witnesses.”
Ha. He’s talking to the right Gypsy, for sure.
“They can track evidence that far back.”
He spat on the ground a second time to show his disdain.
If he keeps that up you won’t need to water the geranium.
“You watch too much television.”
“I’ve heard that.”
“Besides, what’ll you tell the police if you do report me? How will you explain whatever you’re doing to her grave? Desecrating a grave, that’s an offence, and you didn’t do it no thirty years back.”
“I was planting a flower. It’s a hobby.”
“You ain’t no gardener. Even I can see that. You ain’t got near enough dirt under your fingernails.”
He has a point. Be careful he doesn’t stick it in your neck.
“So you’re just telling me, figuring I can’t say anything?”
“You’ve got trusting eyes. And I been keeping my mouth shut for thirty years.”
“So you killed her, and yet you still come pay your respects.”
The old gnome gave another little shrug.
“She’s family. Who else are you going to talk to?”
Carnival had heard enough. It was time to get done what he’d come for. If he couldn’t use Eva then he’d settle for Jim. He leaned his mind out and pushed hard.
It was easy.
“Are you there, Momma?” Carnival asked.
Carnival looked at Jim, square in the eyes.
That’s when he saw her. Moving beneath the skin of Jim’s eyes like a drowning woman caught beneath the ice. It figured. She’d been there all the time.
“Hello Momma. Come on out. It’s been way too long.”
Chapter 18
Momma and Company
“Momma?”
She pushed closer to the surface. Carnival saw her moving beneath the old man’s skin. She was wearing make-up. Momma was always so proud even in the afterlife. Her lips were black and rotting beneath the paint. She’d been dead for a lot of years now.
You talk to her. I’ve got nothing to say. Reunions just give me a belly ache.
The old wife murderer kept talking. Momma comes through him, loud and clear. It was like watching a channel on a tired television when another channel tries to cut in. His lips moved one way and Momma said something else.
“Hello, my Val. How wonderful to see you.”
Momma was always big on pleasantries.
“What’s with the true crime episode?” Carnival asked. “I didn’t need to hear all of that confessional crap.”
“Confession is good for the soul,” Momma said. “Guilt’s like bad blood. It needs to come out. I just gave him a little push, was all.”
“Some push. You hit him like a Mack truck.”
“Some targets are easier to hit than others,” she said. “So how have you been? I won’t ask you about your father. I feel him there but he won’t talk.
Try and make me. I’m a tortoise, safe in my shell.
“Look Momma, I need help.”
“And it would hurt you to chat? Mister big shot gypsy. You’re no more a gypsy than I’m the abominable snowman. Like your Poppa called you. Parched rat.”
It was true. Carnival was half Gypsy. Mom loved to remind him of where he’d got his non-gypsy, from her. Gypsies count through the mother’s lineage, to be certain. You couldn’t tell who your Poppa was, now could you? The Rom were realists.
“That’s poshrat, momma. Means half bl
ood. And that’s what I got to see. I got to see you about blood.”
The old man began to fade. Carnival felt himself getting dragged deeper into the vision, closer to the past like a drowning beetle circling a drain. Now he was sitting in the back of Poppa’s caravan. His vardo. A bruised and dented red Dodge truck with a makeshift camper mounted in pack. Poppa was up front, driving. Momma sat in her bed in the camper, her big cat on her lap. She looks a little like Doctor Evil.
“So you’re seeing someone. What’s her name? She’s a good girl, I hope.”
No Momma, is what Carnival thinks. She’s not a good girl. She sucks.
And not in a good kind of way.
“Her name is Maya and she’s a long way off from being a girl, Momma. A whole lot of years have flowed away under that bridge.”
“My Galahad. You’re trying to save her, aren’t you? She’s a vampire. Did you know that?”
That’s the good thing about talking to the dead. They know all the secrets already. There’s lots of time for gossip in a graveyard.
“The teeth and the torn throat kind of tipped me off,” he answered.
“How’d you get so sucked in?”
He gave her his best shrug but on Momma shrugs were wasted. She sat there with nothing but time on her hands, just waiting for the truth to come out of me.
“She got to me, Momma.”
“Do you love her?”
Carnival thought about it. He knew the answer without even speaking.
Momma felt his answer before he spoke. “You love her? A vampire?”
That’s the trouble about palavering with the dead. You had to watch what you’re thinking about, so it didn’t leak out of your ears.
“I told her I did. I’m still not sure. Not sure about anything.”
“She got a name?”
“She calls herself Maya. I told you that.”
She snorted.
“You don’t listen, why should I? Read your books, boy. Even I know that Maya means illusion.”
“It means a lot of things, Momma. In Japanese it means “night rain”. In Arabic it means “splendid” or “hard working woman”. In Hindi, Maya is the divine creative force behind the universe. I looked it up. I know.”
Momma snorted again.
“She’s quicksand and you’re walking around with rocks in your pocket. Be careful Galahad. The mulla are hungry for a lot more than blood.”
Momma was right. Momma was always right.
“I know. It’s crazy.”
“So what’s crazy? Who’s to say? Him?” She pointed upstairs. “He built a world in seven days and figured a rush job would turn out all right. Now that’s crazy.”
Listen to her, boy. Your Momma would know about nuts. She’d been nuts for a long time before she died. She talked to cats like they listened.
“Lots of people talk to cats,” Momma said. “Lots of people talk to the dead as well.”
Who said I was talking to you?
“Lots of people don’t make them answer back, Momma,” Carnival answered for his Poppa.
“So what’s wrong with that?” The cat asked back.
The room began to spin. Now Carnival was lying on the floor of Momma’s tent, next to her death mat. She was hanging onto one leg of a chair with a twisted ancient hand while he hung onto the other, trying to give her what strength he could. Carnival knew this memory as well. This was when Momma was dying. The gypsy lay there dead out of doors. In a tent or a lean-to. It’s bad luck to die in the vardo. In the wagon. It brings bad luck to the family.
“So what should I do?” Carnival asked, hanging onto the leg of the chair, seeing Maya’s eyes looking out from Momma’s, behind Jim’s.
The chair is between us so Carnival doesn’t touch her. It’s bad luck to touch the dead. They’ll suck you down under like a drowner grabbing for one last chance at life. Gypsies know nothing but bad luck.
“So what should I do?” he repeated.
“Maybe you should talk to your father. He knows more about death than I do.”
Now Carnival saw Poppa. Pushing past him and kicking the chair out between Carnival and his Momma. Scooping up Momma like she was nothing and carrying her out of the tent, before she can tell Carnival anything else.
In the vision, Carnival tried to stand. Tried to stop Poppa. Then everything changed. Olaf’s face swam up like that shark in Jaws. Like a big bald judge. “You killed me,” Olaf said The boom in his voice flattens Carnival like a skinned pancake.
And then it was over.
“You’re not even listening,” Jim said.
Carnival looked up. He was back where he’d started, lying on Eva Miller’s grave, staring up at her husband. He stood over Carnival hanging onto Carnival’s trowel. He’d picked it up while Carnival was trancing out.
“I been talking, first time in years.”
He started slow, but next he’s yelling; ropes of saliva tying his words together, little missiles of spit baptizing each pronouncement. “I told you everything, and you didn’t hear a word.”
What had the old man said to him while he’d been talking to Momma, Carnival wondered. That he had a secret basement crammed full of dead Siamese twins? That he liked to masturbate in buckets of hot creamed corn? Whatever he’d confessed was lost to Carnival. Something in the transfer between the dimensions of the living and the dead. He couldn’t know for sure. He’d only been dead once. Carnival tried to say something to the old man, but he might as well have been talking to the wind. Carnival couldn’t remember a damned thing he’d said.
The old man raised the trowel like a knife.
Carnival thought about a lot of things in that half a half second. He thought about grabbing for the trowel or grabbing for his jackknife or maybe just letting the old man cut his heart out and bury it next to Eva.
Nothing mattered. Momma was right.
Open your eyes, boy.
“Weren’t you listening?” Jim yelled.
Carnival made his mind up. He would talk to Poppa. If he lived long enough he would talk again to Poppa. Face to face.
He looked at Jim with pity and a little understanding. “Bury your own dead. It’s all a man can do with his memories.”
Jim slammed the trowel down into the dirt, hacking at it like he was hacking thirty years of rope and memories. Hacking at the geraniums and hacking at the dirt, cursing and howling like a moonstruck wolf.
Carnival stood up. He left the old sinner kneeling there in the dirt, hacking at something he could never cut free. Maybe he’d kill himself. Maybe he’d run amok and kill a half dozen presidents. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
Night was falling. Carnival had to think about supper.
Time to feed your family, boy.
He headed out of the graveyard, wiping his hands on his jeans, figuring the dirty work was over. Dreading the wet work that lay ahead. Not knowing what was going on behind him.
Hindsight’s a blind bear that bites you in the ass.
He should have known that his Momma couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Chapter 19
Momma’s Brand New Bag
Momma looked up from her in-between world; straddled between the graveyard she’d been called to and whatever lay beyond. There were birds singing above her. To Momma’s ears and eyes these were a choir of heavenly angels. The sulfurous dung they dropped was nothing more than a few scattered nuggets of celestial confetti.
“Are you listening, God?”
That was one thing about Momma that never changed. She never thought small. If she was going to talk to anyone, they’d damn well better have some kind of authority.
“It’s me talking. Your best girl.”
The lights of heaven shone from a pair of distant passing headlights. Gabriel’s trumpet echoed in the blast of a car horn; the pearly gates stretched along a highway ramp. None of these images surprised Momma. She’d lived most of her grown life on the open road from the back of Poppa’s caravan. The road w
as her life heading out beyond and trailing behind.
She’d been dead a long time but time means nothing to the dead. It was all one long moment that happened as quickly as you remember, or as long as it took to forget. She pondered what Carnival told her about the vampire. The whole thing seemed a little too easy to Momma. A little too convenient. She had to help him of course. He was just a boy. In Momma’s mind he would always be just a boy. But what could she do?
“What do you think God?”
A dirty white seagull landed on the old woman’s tombstone. The gull stared at Momma with eyes as hard and gray as a pair of matching BB pellets. It flapped its wings once, and took off, shooting a long tubular squirt of dirty stuccoed bird turd.
Momma nodded, as if she understood.
“Yeah. Me too. It’s all crap. But I have to help my little Val.”
She should have known better. She’d lived so long with Carnival’s father, in the back of that truck, that her spirit had become forever trapped in that roaming Romany world of magic, mystery and murder.
Heaven held no welcome for her, no more than her parent’s home.
Not that there was that much difference. Not the way she was raised. Her father had crucified himself daily as a kind of lifelong guilt trip, without even the benefit of air miles. He used the god-book like a stepstool to look down on his whole family. Even himself. His wife and children, verbally nailed up as examples like sacrifices hung to a blind uncaring god.
It was foolish. He thought his sternness could burn out the stain that history left upon his bloodline. That could never happen. Momma and her momma before her came from a line of witches far more powerful than any Gypsy. Momma’s grandmother’s grandmother conjured in Salem. She’d survived the massacre thanks to her spell work. Not even Cotton Mather could have sniffed out the smokescreen that fourth great grandmother lay down.
And the line went farther back than that. Momma’s ancestors were real witches. They didn’t just pose and mutter. They didn’t dance and they didn’t fly on broomsticks. They didn’t even call themselves witches. That was a tag that someone else dreamed up.
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