“Where are we going?” he asked, and lightly touched a ringlet of her hair.
“The church over on Gebble Street.”
“That’s a crappy area.”
“That’s our church,” she said, and made a stern face.
“How about we make a detour to the lake and you can test my manhood?” he said, and laughed.
“Are you high?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m tired. I was asleep when you called.”
She sighed, and from that point on it was silence until they pulled into the church parking lot.
“I can’t go in with you,” she said. She opened her door. He also got out and met her at the front of the car. She put her arms around his waist, and he leaned back against the hood.
“I know this is beat,” she said, “but it means a lot to me.” She looked up and he smiled. She put the side of her face against his chest.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” he said. “I’ll sit the dead like my father sits the bowl.”
“Seriously,” she said.
“I’m all about it.”
The next thing he knew, she was closing the front door of the church behind him. He stepped into a dark alcove, and a sudden smell of incense and old wood made his spine twitch. Luke looked through the open doors and down the aisle before him, past the rows of darkened pews, to the altar — white marble, crowded with statues, and holding the candlelit coffin of Gracie. He took a deep breath and moved toward the light.
Between the first pew and the altar, there was an empty folding chair set up next to Uncle Sfortunado’s.
“Hello,” Luke said too loud, sending echoes everywhere.
The old man turned and stared through thick glasses. He wore a gray cardigan dotted with cigarette burns. His beard was a week old and white as snow; his hair, crazy. “Gaduche,” he said, raised a trembling hand, and farted.
“Good to see you again,” said Luke.
“This is who I get to sit the dead?” said Sfortunado, shouting into the dark. He grimaced. “The cat makes the owl bleed. ”
“Darene’s father told me to come.”
“Yeah, yeah.” The old man waved a trembling hand in front of his face.
“My condolences about Gracie,” said Luke.
Sfortunado laughed and pointed at the altar. “Go tell her you’re sorry,” he said.
Luke got up and slowly ascended the three steps to the coffin. Gracie came into view, a deflated balloon made of dough. She wore a white dress, a giant version of a little girl’s party rig, pale green lipstick, and her blond hair helmet was slightly askew. A hand grabbed the side of the coffin. Luke started and then saw it belonged to Uncle Sfortunado, who stood beside him.
“Looks like shit,” said the old man. “What do you think?”
Luke stalled by rubbing the back of his neck. Finally he said, “Well. she’s dead.”
Sfortunado shrugged and nodded. “This is true.”
“What happened to her?”
“Something bad.”
Luke went back to his chair. Sfortunado mumbled a few words to Gracie and then announced, “She smells like flowers.” He threw his head back and laughed loud. The echoes rained down, and Luke considered splitting. The old man hobbled back to his chair and less than five minutes later was asleep.
Luke studied the statuary on the altar, elongated marble figures in the throes of agony gathered in a semicircle, at the center of which hung a large golden sun made of gleaming metal. He took out his cell phone and texted Darene. “Wt relign r u?” Uncle Sfortunado was swaying slightly side to side, snoring, his arms folded across his sunken chest. Darene’s reply came back. “No txting. C u @ dawn.”
Time stood still in the candlelight, and Luke listened to the church quietly creak. The rapid scuttling of some tiny creature echoed like a whisper from the shadows. Somewhere something was dripping. It didn’t take long before the creepiness gave way to boredom. They should have a TV set up here, he thought. Eventually his mind turned to Darene.
They’d been together since the previous autumn, junior year. Whatever her culture was, it demanded an old-fashioned formality between kids their age. They went to all the parties together, movies, some concerts, but she insisted he meet her family and attend the holiday and birthday gatherings at her house.
Both his male and female friends told him he was pussy whipped, but he didn’t care. Darene’s hair, ringlets of black springs that seemed alive, her smooth dark complexion, her green eyes and unabashed laugh, canceled all of their scorn. She definitely knew her mind, and yet he wasn’t particularly good at school or good-looking by anyone’s standards. The whole thing was a mystery he enjoyed pondering.
Luke’s memory returned to that night at the picnic table by the lake for quite a while, and then he checked his phone for the time, sure that at least a couple of hours had passed. He discovered that not even a half hour had gone by since Sfortunado had fallen asleep. Taking a cue from the old man, he put his phone in his pocket, folded his arms across his chest, and closed his eyes. As he began to doze, a putrid stench, the first stirrings of which he attributed to Uncle Sfortunado, slowly overcame the aroma of old incense and pervaded the place. Gracie’s not embalmed was his last thought before sleep, and then he dreamed of going naked, late, to the SATs.
Gracie’s not embalmed was the first thought he had upon waking suddenly at the touch of someone’s hand upon his shoulder. The church was freezing, and that death stench was now thick as perfume. He looked over and caught a burst of adrenaline upon seeing a revolver in the old man’s wobbling hand. Luke made a move to bolt, but Sfortunado’s eyes got big behind his glasses, and he brought his finger to his lips. He waved with the gun toward the altar. “The squirrel claws my heart,” he whispered.
Luke tried to get away, but the old man grabbed his wrist. “Fashtulina,” he said, and touched the gun to his chest. He released his grip on Luke’s wrist and turned to face the altar.
“Okay,” said Luke, reluctantly sitting back in his chair.
“She’s got it in her blood,” whispered Sfortunado.
“What’s in whose blood?” asked Luke.
“Gracie,” said the old man. “Every fifty years or so, one of us Cabadula is born with the gritchino in the blood. You can’t tell till they die. But this one” — he pointed at the coffin — “I always had a feeling.”
“Gritchino,” said Luke.
At the sound of the word, Sfortunado touched his yellowed left thumbnail to each lens of his glasses and then kissed his middle finger. “The breeze. Do you feel it?” said Sfortunado. Luke could feel a cold wind in his face. The candle flames danced wildly. “It’s freezing,” he said, teeth chattering, and he noticed his breath was now steam.
“The wind of eternity,” said the old man. He pointed with the gun again, toward the altar. Luke looked up to see the lid of the coffin slowly closing. “What the hell,” he said. He wanted to run but was paralyzed with fear. The wind increased, whipping around the church and screeching above in the darkened dome. Luke was shivering. Uncle Sfortunado was shivering, but when the coffin lifted slowly off its platform, the old man stood and brought the gun up in front of him.
The coffin, as if lifted with invisible strings, rose six feet off its platform. Then it began to move through the air like a slow, wooden torpedo. As it swept by above and out over the pews, Uncle Sfortunado aimed and fired at it. He pulled the trigger three times, and the echoes from the shots and splintering wood careened everywhere. As Gracie passed into the dark toward the front of the church, he said, “Fasheel,” and tapped his forehead with the barrel of the gun.