Dirt Lullabies

by Jeremy Megargee

  We just sit there for a moment, saying nothing.

  When fate seems intent on fucking you in every conceivable way on the worst possible days…

  There just isn’t much to say.

  Chapter 6

  Roman

  Two days later I lost my job, as my father predicted. I received my last paycheck from the grizzled cemetery owner as he watched reruns of Tales from the Crypt on the little TV in his back office while simultaneously shoving generic potato chips into his mouth.

  I asked him about the possibility of keeping me on into the winter months for general maintenance around the grounds, little odd jobs and things like that. His response was a perfect representation of the kind of man he was.

  “Ain’t nuttin to do with the dead in winter except let em freeze right along with everything else. Can’t save wilting flowers and ain’t no work to be done after November. See ya next spring, kiddo.”

  He knew I was facing hardships. He just didn’t give a shit…

  At this point in my life unemployment was the last thing I needed, but regardless of what I needed…

  It’s what I got.

  Chapter 7

  Roman

  There weren’t many jobs in Rust Valley, West Virginia. The gradual economic decline certainly hadn’t helped matters, but even when the economy was stable this town never really offered a great deal of options. Most of the steady work came from the few remaining coal mines and Strickland Steel, the only steel mill for miles around.

  I couldn’t let that dissuade me though. I went from shop to restaurant, filling out as many physical applications as I possibly could. I’d heard the coal mines weren’t hiring right now so that possibility was already off the table. I made a special trip out to Strickland and spoke to the foreman there, and he promised to keep my name in the running if one of the entry level positions opened up.

  It wasn’t the search that was hard. If anything I enjoyed the search, it kept me busy, made me feel like I was contributing in some very basic way. It was the waiting game that killed me. When you’re without steady work all the power relies solely in the hands of the employer…and sometimes it feels like they’re dangling you over the rushing current of a river, and you never know if they’re gonna drop you in to drown or pull you back up to safety.

  It’s that not knowing that makes the process so damn frustrating.

  I spent hours in the library just banging out online applications until my fingers were sore from typing. This wasn’t a question of finding some part-time job so that I’d have spending money for video games or new clothes or whatever…

  This was a question of survival.

  I needed to do everything I possibly could to keep my head above water. I could feel the pressure closing in on me from all sides, the image of my little family flashing across my mind every time I filled out a new application or spoke to a new uncaring manager about the possibility of finding work.

  The lights, the heat, the water, the phone, the car, the food…

  It all kept adding up, it all kept eating at me.

  I had to do my part to fix this before it veered off into the realm of the unfixable.

  My mother had given me one of her prized possessions earlier that day. It was a diamond ring with the tiniest black flaw in the middle. A family heirloom that had come down the bloodline from her great-grandmother, something mom cherished. It broke something in me seeing her give that up. A little fragment of my soul, shattered shrapnel that seemed to grind against my emotions.

  But I knew what we were up against, so I took that ring and got into the Buick, a temporary hard tire replacing the one that had blown out a few days ago. I drove to that grimy pawnshop; I went to that sleazy pawnbroker while swallowing my pride but still determined to not be swindled.

  Mom’s sacrifice would buy us some time, and time was something we desperately needed right now.

  He had his jeweler take a look at it and I was just about to start haggling price when the ring was placed back into my hand, the pawnbroker already turning away.

  They had no interest in it.

  The diamond was a fake.

  Chapter 8

  Roman

  I got home late that night, the headlights blaring across the barren dirt driveway leading back to the house. We lived in the middle of nowhere, a few mobile homes lining the road at random intervals, some occupied, some simply abandoned. Ours was the only actual “house” in the neighborhood (if you’d even want to call it that) It was a mutt in every sense of the word. It had been cobbled together and remodeled time and time again, styles clashing and ramshackle partitions added on over the years by previous owners.

  It was like a house that had no idea what it wanted to be, hadn’t really discovered its identity yet. The last rebuild had been sometime in the early 1970s according to the landlord. He also told us that there had been many houses on the property long before that, some of them torn down, others burnt down…and they were just rebuilt over the old foundations over and over again.

  Sometimes half-charred walls or crumbling chimneys were even recycled and incorporated into the rebuild, the most striking example of this a random chimney that juts out from the wall of my bedroom despite the fact that there’s no fireplace to be found in the home. Not anymore, at least…

  It was outfitted with baseboard heat, but it seemed like the old heaters malfunctioned or didn’t work properly at all because the house was always freezing from late November straight through the winter months.

  I wasn’t looking forward to returning home empty-handed, the ring shoved down into my front pocket. I considered lying about why the pawnbroker wouldn’t bite, but what could I say? The emotional value my mother had invested into this ring was priceless. I couldn’t even fathom trying to tell her that it was worthless; it seemed a conversation I just didn’t have the heart or the energy for right now.

  I decided I’d try to stall. I’d tell her that particular pawn shop was closed today and we’ll have to try again another time. Maybe in the meantime I’d find the mental strength to sit down with her, look her in the eyes…and tell her the truth about the “diamond” that had been passed down through generation after generation of Harlans on her side of the family.

  Maybe I’d even manage to do it without my voice croaking.

  I pulled up in front of the house and killed the engine, taking a moment just to sit in the car and decompress a bit. I wound down the window, letting the wind lash at me as a lit up a fresh cigarette.

  I felt suddenly very tired, exhausted even.

  I don’t know why…but I started thinking about that dream again. The corpse in the dirty brown suit. The decaying mouth that spoke nothingness. That tombstone marked with riddles.

  I shook my head and flicked the cigarette out the window, pausing to open up the car door and then slam it shut again.

  I headed towards the front door with my hands shoved down deep into the pockets of my jeans, my head hanging low against the wind.

  I wasn’t in the mood for haunts tonight.

  Chapter 9

  Roman

  Helena Merrick was the kindest mom a guy could ever ask for. She went above and beyond to give me the best childhood possible despite our less than fortunate situation. There were moments I remember when food was scarce, but there was a never a moment when I went to bed with hunger pangs in my gut.

  She did what was necessary to ensure the health and well-being of her family. Sometimes it was seeking out government assistance or taking a trip down to the local food bank, she bit back her pride in exchange for the ability to provide.

  Just like dad she had worked hard since she was a young girl, but dystonia hit her fairly early in life and limited her mobility considerably. She took various medications to combat the disorder but the involuntary muscle spasms still tormented her, usually in the form of her head tilting uncontrollably to the left for seemingly no reason at all.

  The disorder pained her but it n
ever broke her. The Harlan side of the family has deep roots in the oldest parts of West Virginia, and almost all of the family members are known for rawboned toughness. My mother was no different.

  I sat with her in the little living room, struggling to find the right words to describe how the day had went. I tried to sound optimistic about the job hunt.

  She listened quietly, those minute muscle contractions coming at steady intervals but never impacting her concentration.

  Even approaching her golden years, Helena had beautiful features, a face with heart-like curves. The wrinkles only added more character to her expressions, more depth to the warmth of her smile. Her eyes were the palest green, catlike and hypnotizing. My eyes are the same shade, only a bit darker on the spectrum.

  “How about Strickland? They taking anyone on?”

  She seemed mildly curious when she asked this, trying to hide the hopeful lilt in her voice and doing a pretty good job of it.

  I almost didn’t even notice.

  I could only shake my head in uncertainty, my hands clasped between my knees.

  “They said they’d keep me in mind. You know the turnover rate is high down there. There’s a pretty good chance something might open up soon…just a matter of time.”

  I think I did a decent job of sounding hopeful too. I flashed a smile to drive away the dispirited feeling in my heart, and it seemed to satisfy her, or at least charm her enough to move away from the topic.

  “And the ring? Fetch a good price?”

  I’d managed to skirt that topic too up to this point. The little white lie about the pawn shop being closed was already forming on my lips, seconds away from being articulated by my tongue.

  But before I could even begin to reply…

  Every light in the house snapped off all at once.

  Chapter 10

  Roman

  I held tight to the brief hope that maybe someone had hit an electric pole somewhere down the lane. I tried convincing myself that maybe there was a problem with the breaker box or something like that. But deep down inside I knew the cold, hollow truth.

  My mother’s words served only to solidify that truth.

  “Those bastards…I told them we’d pay them when we could…”

  She trailed off and I could just make out her darkened form, already starting to shiver a bit as the heat slowly dissipated from the house.

  “This is wrong what they’re doing to us. Parasites trying to suck us dry, don’t they understand that?? I told Braham they’d do it, he didn’t believe me…not when it’s this cold out, but…”

  She started stammering, the frustration robbing her of words.

  I sat down next to her, my arm stretching across her shoulders to give her what little comfort I could. There was a woolen blanket stretched across the back of the couch and I paused only to unfurl it and wrap it around Helena’s shoulders. She pulled it close around her throat like a shawl, her fingers trembling.

  We’d been up against it before. Even as a kid growing up I remember seeing the occasional disconnect notice lying on the kitchen table. I remembered overhearing desperate, hushed conversations after I’d gone to bed at night. We lived in another part of town then, a little apartment where the walls were thin and voices carried.

  I’d lie there staring at the ceiling with a tattered Goosebumps book cradled to my frail chest, listening to Helena and Braham exchanging ideas on exactly how they’d manage to pay the electric bill that month.

  Sometimes they’d have to borrow from extended family or work extra shifts but in the long run the bill always got paid. It was like watching them on a teeter-totter struggling to keep on the side of stability and avoiding the impoverished darkness waiting on the other side. I was just a kid then…and it made me feel so helpless.

  This was the first time in all of those years of struggle that the utility company actually shut the power off for nonpayment though. Somehow it made it feel more real. It opened my eyes to just how bad our situation was becoming, that gradual slide into destitution seeming to pick up speed at such an alarming rate.

  I found a flashlight in one of the bureau drawers, had to smack my hand against it a few times to keep the illumination from flickering off. The batteries hadn’t been replaced in a long time.

  I shined it towards Helena, keeping the light lowered to avoid shining it in her eyes. She was wringing her hands together in her lap, her shallow breathing seeming especially loud now that the house was totally silent and devoid of all the white noise of household appliances.

  “Do we have candles?”

  “Not up here. I remember seeing an old box down in the root cellar when we first moved in though. I don’t even know if the wicks are still usable, son…”

  We never went down into that root cellar. It was a dank, ruined old place and there was just no reason to go down there. We’d lived in this house for years now and the only time I can remember even seeing it was during the brief tour the landlord took us on when we were still considering renting the place.

  And even then I only got the smallest glimpse of the interior. Small, cramped. A floor composed of dirt and dust-coated cobwebs hanging from the termite-eaten support beams. There were a few old boxes down there left over from previous owners.

  “It’s better than nothing.”

  I took time to pull on my heavy black overcoat, my grip on the flashlight tightening.

  “We’ll get through this, mom. Just try and stay warm…be back in a minute.”

  I offered my mom what I hoped was a reassuring smile before exiting through the side door of the house. The wind greeted me with icy kisses and I was less than thrilled to see that a light, steady rain had started falling from the starless sky.

  A few droplets caught in my eyelashes as I started off towards the root cellar.

  I blinked them away.

  They felt like frigid tears oozing down my cheeks.

  Chapter 11

  Roman

  The only entrance to the root cellar is near the back of the house. It’s surrounded by a swampy little area overgrown by all manner of invasive plant life. Ivy creeps along the outer walls, gnarled willow trees loom overhead, their limbs hanging downward like deformed hands with terribly long bark-encrusted fingers. It’s dark and shady even on the sunniest of days and moss covers the aging concrete blocks that lead down to the door.

  Little streams of groundwater travel down from farther up the hill and all of the runoff leads to the swampy section of earth, feeding into it and giving rise to the vegetation. Just getting to the door is like venturing into a claustrophobic maze of branches and shrubbery and I have to struggle to keep the sharp edges from reaching out and tearing lacerations into my face.

  It’s even harder on a night this black and cold, my only solace coming from the weak beam of a flashlight that might not last much longer.

  The door is small, child-sized. The wood is rotten and mildewed and the hinges so rusty that when I open it a few flaky screws simply fall to the dirt floor.

  I’m over six feet so I have to bend way down to pass through the threshold, my shoulders stooped and my neck craned forward. I felt the sticky, nasty sensation of cobwebs collecting in my hair. It was so musty down here, no fresh air to be found, only the scent of soil and some cloying odor that I couldn’t really identify.

  My eyes began to water a bit and I had to swallow back some of the saliva that had collected in my throat just to avoid choking on it.

  The root cellar was fairly barren, an extremely small place. I swept the flashlight from side to side, the flickering light taking in the confines. The floor was hardened dirt, a few broken cobblestones here and there where someone must have tried to cover it but never finished the job.

  The walls were comprised of old, moldy wood. A few support beams jutted out from the earth here and there. The few boxes that remained down here were piled up in one corner.

  I became aware of an intensely cold draft coming from somewhere, even col
der than the air outside…but I couldn’t detect where exactly it was coming from.

  I headed towards the boxes, reaching out with the tip of the flashlight and pushing back the crumbling cardboard lids. I had noticed a few old snake skins hanging from some ragged holes in the cellar’s low ceiling so I was wary about my exploration of the boxes. The last thing I needed right now was to open up a box and have a serpent spring forth and sink needle fangs into my flesh…

  Some of the boxes were empty, some contained broken nicknacks. Finally I came across the one I was looking for. A box filled with fat, stubby candles. The wax was an ugly yellowish color, but they looked like they’d light up okay.