by Green, Jeri
Humpty couldn’t afford it.
Forever and ever and for as long as the Earth lasted, Mama Eldon lay in her earthen bed looking up and watching the birds fly over, the clouds float by, the occasional flash of lightening, feel the raindrops and read HE, and HE only.
One little word. HE. And Mama Eldon was a she. The irony must have been incredible to Mama Eldon as she lay there. HE. Not even HE HE HE. Just HE. Two solitary letters etched onto a mesa of polished stone as large as the Grand Canyon. Humpty prayed that because he had not planted her by the hog pen or near the chicken coop, Mama was satisfied. She had her stone, but little else.
Humpty could only hope that for Mama – being stoned was enough.
Nothing to read and while away the time as you watched the clouds pass overhead and the stars pop out in their mantle of infinite darkness. Nothing to read but HE. But Mama never read while she was alive. Still, that was all the old lady talked about during her last months on earth. Why had Mama gotten some ridiculous notion like reading stuck in her craw?
Humpty broke a sweat remembering the steely look in his mother’s eyes when she talked of her final resting place. Haunting. Haints. Spirits. Ghosts. Bad omens and a mother’s curse upon the rest of her son’s mortal days. Humpty shivered.
He took his mother’s threats seriously. That’s why he only dared visit her grave once a year. His nerves couldn’t stand any more face time with HE than that.
And today was the day he would have to visit. Another year had already passed. You would think that Time would not fly by so quickly. It was cruel. It was wicked. Humpty had done the best he could. But he knew in his heart he had let Mama Eldon down. Now, it was time to face the old lady and hope her wrath had cooled.
As he drove to the cemetery, the butterflies took off in his stomach. His shirt was ringed with sweat stains. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Mama was going to haunt him for sure if it was the last thing she ever did. Humpty could feel it in his bones.
Humpty saw her in his mind as he stood in front of the massive stone and laid a single red rose down on its pedestal. He wanted to scream that HE was all he could afford.
Wasn’t the massive headstone enough?
It was as big as a semi. In a graveyard full of massive rocks, Mama’s stone stood out like a skyscraper in a backyard full of outhouses. But Humpty knew Mama, and he knew she was ticked. She was on a slow burn, Humpty imagined. Hers was an anger beyond reason. Humpty’s empty pocketbook had made her the laughing stock of all her neighbors in the graveyard.
Beanie Fugate felt Humpty’s pain. He knew something was eating Humpty. The man only visited once in a blue moon, but even then, Humpty wore his discomfort all over his face. He always looked ill whenever he dropped by to pay his respects. Beanie might not be the shiniest bean in the pot, but he wasn’t the dullest either.
So, Beanie made sure to work that section of the cemetery, rain or shine, whenever he saw Humpty Eldon’s beat-up, old pickup turn under the large, wrought iron arch entrance to Memorial Gardens. Hadley was a smart woman. She’d been to college. She had lots of book smarts, Beanie knew, but some things were just common sense. Like this thing about ghosts.
No matter how many times Hadley Pell tried to tell him there were no such things as ghosts, Beanie would never be convinced. Ghosts were real. It was just a fact of life. Like old Linnie Clay who was always passing gas and denying it.
It’s why no one would ever find Beanie working past dusk. Ghosts came out at night, when folks slept, when slithering things roamed the Earth, and evil spirits danced a jig on the clock tower of the courthouse on Main Street.
Roses are red and violets are blue. If you’re caught out after dark, then the spooks will get you.
There were some inexplicable things in this world that just were because they just were. No sense wasting brain power trying to solve them. Riddles. Like the sphinx.
Like some of the old hags who visited Lou Edna’s. They went to the beauty shop for some beauty. Did you buy it buy the ounce? Beanie didn’t think so. Pots of paint and buckets of hair dye couldn’t turn those prunes into good-looking women, no matter how hot and heavy you poured it on.
Like he said, they were because they just were.
And anyway, Beanie thought, why risk it? Hadley Pell might be right. There may not be such things as ghosts. But there were always two sides to every coin. And she could be dead wrong.
There were plenty of folks, from believers in these back hills to the educated intellectuals, who would agree with the second vein of thought. They believed ghosts were real. There were TV shows about ghost hunters. They may have seen them or felt their presence or something. Beanie’s head spun when he pondered such matters.
He may be dumb. Ghosts may not be real. But until he has some kind of proof he could hold in his hands, he would err on the side of caution.
Beanie wondered if this wasn’t Humpty Eldon’s problem. Beanie had a sixth sense about things like that, a hypersensitive radar that picked up on a person’s discomfort, embarrassment, or distress. Since the pulp mill accident, Beanie had had lots of practice being the butt of cruel jokes and others’ impatience at his slowness. Those things had honed his sense of empathy for others to a fine point.
So when Humpty’s rust bucket of a pickup rolled under the arched entry, Beanie made sure he’d be somewhere nearby Mama Eldon’s humongous monolithic memorial.
It was a big stone, thought Beanie.
The biggest on the lot.
It looked impressive sitting there. Kind of like the Titanic before she left port for sea. Beanie didn’t notice the H letter or the E letter. They were so small as to be almost invisible.
The shadow that the headstone made when the sun was low in the sky on a hot summer’s afternoon was awfully nice. When Beanie needed a break, he headed over to Mama Eldon’s giant sunshade headstone. That long purple shadow was the perfect place for a picnic lunch.
But Humpty didn’t seem to think so. He always looked like his stomach was griping him something fierce whenever he stood in front of that headstone. Maybe, Beanie thought, Humpty could just make out the faint whispers Mama Eldon was making from her grave. Did he hear her old brogans kicking at the lid of the pine box, signaling to her son that she knew he was visiting? Or was Humpty always suffering from a bad case of indigestion?
“Hey, Humpty,” Beanie said quietly.
“EYEIII!” Humpty yelled. “Beanie Fugate! You’ll give me a heart attack!”
“Sorry, Humpty,” Beanie said. “How ya’ doin’?”
“Okay, I guess. You keepin’ busy?”
“As long as grass grows and weed sprout up, I’ll keep busy.”
They stood looking at the towering stone.
Humpty coughed, like he had a frog stuck in his throat. His face was all wrinkled up like he was going to cry.
“Well, Humpty,” Beanie said, “I got work to do. Don’t mind me. I need to get back to it. Enjoy you visit. Good seein’ ya.”
Humpty just shook his head.
Beanie got a big bucket of water from the back of the golf cart he used while working in the cemetery. The golf cart was perfect vehicle for hauling tools or for tooling about the grounds. Not too large. Not too small. Not to complicated to operate.
Beanie kept an extra fuel can on the cart. He’d let the engine run out of gas once. Harvey hadn’t fussed when Beanie abandoned the cart to walk to the station for more fuel, but what if he’d let the golf car run out of gas at the end of the day. It would be morning before he could refuel it.
Beanie thought it would be disrespectful to leave golf cart parked among the graves overnight. Besides, it was an open invitation for any mischievous or golf-loving spirits to take a spin. Who only knew what ruin a ghost and a golf cart could do from sundown until sunup?
Even Beanie realized such things as fuel was an unnecessary necessity for a spirit intent on cruising among the tombstones at all hours of the morning.
Beanie
got his brush and bucket and began to busily scrub a nearby headstone.
“Beanie,” Humpty said, “what are you doing?”
“I’m de-birding this stone,” Beanie said.
“You’re what?”
“I’m cleaning off the bird poop, Humpty,” Beanie said.
“But, Beanie,” Humpty said, “won’t the rain do that for you?”
“Usually,” Beanie said. “Unless I got me one with OCD.”
“What’s OCD?” Humpty asked, having never heard of obsessive compulsive disorder.
“It’s somethin’ Hadley says I have sometimes,” Beanie said. “I think it means ‘old crow’s daiquiri or maybe old crow’s drunk.’
Humpty looked confused.
“I don’t know, either, Humpty,” Beanie said. “It’s what Hadley tells me when I rub her last nerve. She’ll say, ‘Beanie! Stop that. Your OCD will drive this old crow to drink.’
Now, I know that Hadley likes somethin’ she calls a daiquiri. She let me taste one once. I spit it right out in her kitchen sink. Nasty stuff, but Hadley swears them daiquiris is the best. And Hadley calls herself an old crow. I ain’t never seen her pickled but maybe that sweet syrup can make you tipsy. I don’t know.
“Anyway, I sometimes get me a crow flyin’ over with bad kidneys. That bugger will find him a favorite stone and aim for it every time. And not just once, neither. But over and over and over and over again. If that crow wasn’t such a OCD, I wouldn’t have to keep scrubbing off his favorite rock.
“The rain can handle a dive bomb or two from any bird, but a crow that’s OCD can coat one of these babies so fast it will make your head spin. I hate it when a crow is OCD.”
“Oh,” said Humpty, deciding it was better to let Beanie get back to his work.
Humpty stood there in front of that headstone for a few more minutes. The sound of Beanie’s brush scrubbing the stone reminded Humpty of his mother scrubbing on the old washboard.
Life was simple then, Humpty thought.
“Bye, Mama,” Humpty whispered, relieved that for another year at least, he wouldn’t have to stand in front of the giant headstone whose tiny two letters stared down at him making him feel like the bad little boy who had just tracked cow manure all over his mother’s newly mopped kitchen floors.
Chapter Thirty-One
Skip was driving his truck down the winding country road toward his land. He had had a rough day. First, he’d had to unpack the delivery trucks at Pixies. After unloading two tractor trailers of boxes, the compressor on the milk cooler had broken down, and he’d had to remove gallon after gallon of milk, storing them in the refrigerated cooler in the back of the store. He had had to restock the canned vegetable aisles and help Dorie set up a new display of washing detergent. His back muscles were sore, and he had the dull throbbing of a headache starting as he left work. He needed a break and some alone time and the soothing balm of nature.
Something caught his eye moving in the grass on the road side. Pulling the truck off the road, he got out and went to investigate. He saw what appeared to be an injured bird, a hawk of some kind, trying unsuccessfully to fly. He went back to the truck and looked behind the driver’s seat. He retrieved an old beach towel he had used last summer while tubing the river and brought it to the bird. Slowly, he bent down, speaking in calm, hushed tones.
“It’s all right, shhhhhh. Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.”
He gently wrapped the injured bird in the towel. He tenderly held it close to his body to prevent further injury. He went back to the truck. With the bird nestled under his arm, he drove back into town and on to Mega Park.
“Let’s get you to the animal shelter and see if they can fix you up. Don’t worry, it’s going to be all right. Just stay still,” he cooed.
Nearing the entrance to the park, he looked at the crazy clown. He could only shake his head. Why in the world somebody would think it was fun to walk into a clown’s mouth was something he had never figured out.
As a youngster, Skip remembered hearing rumors this site was cursed. Kids told stories of how the Indians once roamed the area. For the tribes, this was a sacred place. A holy place.
The Indians were forced off the mountains by pale strangers who were invading the mountains like locust. The tribes had vanished, but not before they placed a curse on the white strangers and on all who came after them.
Something remained here.
An uneasy feeling.
Something you couldn’t exactly put your finger on.
Something, perhaps, you never wanted to put your finger on.
The place was creepy. Rusty metal squealed when it was moved by the mountain breezes. Gates moaned and creaked on broken hinges. Doors slapped open and shut when nobody was standing near them. Winds whispered through the carousel pipe organ, creating an eerie, sad tune for the carousel animals. Those poor beasts with the fading stares, frozen forever in mid-gallop on a circular platform of rotting wood, were always going nowhere.
There were the stories, too. Lot of spooky stories passed down in the playground by kids of unexplained accidents, injuries, or deaths that had occurred through the years. Cars suddenly ran into trees, or into each other, on the many curves leading to the park. Nobody could explain why. More often than not the driver and passengers did not survive. More often that not, there were never witnesses. Only the wreckage remained, leaving more questions than answers.
Signs placed on the highway warning Danger Ahead Use Caution did little to stop the calamities. And the amusement park had seemed to be just as cursed.
Skip remembered tales of injured workers during the amusement park’s construction. A tree landed on one of the landscapers clearing the land for the project. One minute it had been standing tall. The next, workers looked to see it crashing to earth.
A chainsaw sliced into another’s leg. Someone fell off the roof of the big barn that now housed the animal rescue center. It seemed as if unexplained accidents or mysterious mishaps happened almost every day as the park took shape.
Was there a malevolent force at work here? Were the spirits of the dead aroused that a holy site had been violated? Ancient history? Superstition? Just bad luck?
Skip drove over the cracked asphalt and steered round a curve, glimpsing to his right just in time to spy the decaying skeleton of the killer coaster called The Blue Cyclone.
He tried to imagine the ride in its heyday.
It was easy to envision the snowy white and bright blue paint of the wooden railings gleaming brightly at sunrise. He could see the billowing, brightly-colored flags positioned along the railings of the ride snapping smartly in the mountain breeze and cheerily advertising the park. He could feel the excitement pulsate as the coaster’s cars slowly rose higher and higher into the clear blue sky. He imagined himself in the front seat. The coaster would be packed, filled with eager riders waiting to have the living daylights scared out of each of them. He could hear the metal clack, clack, clack, as the cars traced their way up to top of the highest peak, ran the short plateau, then fell at full speed straight down at a breakneck speed.
It was a sharp, harrowing drop that seemed to last forever, then a hard swing to the left, and a horizontal turn sharply into the next curve that switch-backed in the opposite direction. The echoes of screams and laughter rang in Skip’s ears. There was no hint of evil in his daydream. No trace of malingering wickedness or sense of tragedy just waiting to happen. The cars would be waxed to a blinding shine and the wheels underneath greased for speed. There was only pure fun permeating the crisp, mountain air.
“Man,” he muttered, “I bet you woulda been one heck of a ride.”
But not anymore.
The paint was peeling off the carcass of the coaster like burnt skin after a really bad sunburn. It was flaking off in sheets, exposing raw wood to the elements. It looked like the whole frame was sloughing and disintegrating and ready to collapse.
The wooden scaffold holding up the tracks was r
otting. The coaster’s framework appeared as flimsy as air. It was impossible to see how the coaster was still standing at all.
Boards barely clung on, hanging precariously in midair. Time and the weather were eating away the once proud structure as surely as a cancer eats a body. Slats between the tracks had loosened and fallen off, giving the ride a toothless appearance. The whole ride looked like a street bum who had been on the streets for way too long. The coaster was breathing its last. It was obviously inches away from crumbling.
Skip sighed. It was a sorry sight. But that was the way life was. Neglect and abandonment allowed Mother Nature to reclaim the area.
He drove around to the service entrance and buzzed in at the security gate. A voice he did not recognize acknowledged him, and the gate swung open. Skip parked and got of the truck. He gently cradled the wounded bird against his body. He was glad someone was still on duty after-hours.
“They are going to take good care of you, buddy,” he said. “It’s gonna be okay.”
The back door to the building opened, and a tall distinguished-looking man greeted Skip.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Wilson. What you got there, son?”
“I think it’s some kind of hawk,” Skip said. ‘I found it by the roadside. It can’t fly. I don’t know what happened. I was hoping you could help it. Where’s Ruth?”
“She’s somewhere in the back. Let’s see what we have here,” the vet said, gently taking the bird from Skip.
“She is a red-tailed hawk,” the vet said. “Looks like some of her feathers have been damaged.”
Ruth Elliot walked in from another room.
“Hi, Skip. Did you bring us a new patient?”
“Yes,” Skip said. “I found an injured hawk by the side of the road. I was hoping you could help it.”
“Well,” Ruth said, “let us check her out. We’ll see what we can do.”
Ruth saw Skip out as Declan took the injured bird to the exam room. Ruth watched him stroke the injured animal. They had first met at a veterinarian conference several years ago.
