She was dressed sensibly, sensible shoes.
Paul and Paul lurched, dripping, into the revelers’ midst. They both had suffered strokes in the past. One hand on each was cold and crabbed. Their eyes were bulging and clouded.
They weren’t going to tell any scary stories, not these two. Weren’t going to tell this crowd about the vanishing hitchhiker or the man with half a face. Or the ones about the boiled baby’s revenge and the body of water that likes to break little boys’ backs. They were just going to play a few games, give these tourists something to remember. What did they think life was, a vacation?
The travelers had been playing a game of sorts before the old buzzards’ arrival. They were secretly assigning zoomorphs to everyone present. Of course privately they all thought of themselves as cheetahs. There was not a single exception to this.
Paul and Paul had wide, rotting smiles. Once they had been young and vigorous. Clever. Handsome. Their lives before them. But they’d had to give it all up. It seemed to have been the deal that had been struck at birth.
The tourists made an effort to find them engaging. They so terribly wanted to be amused. They bought them beverages, having moved from Sheep Dip to Blimlets to Blue Skies by then. Blue Skies are gin, lemon juice, a dash of unflavored food coloring and half a maraschino cherry, if available. After a few Blue Skies it was clear to all that the two Pauls were the cabaret.
It all began innocently enough. They proceeded to engage their audience.
Each among them had to confess to a loss.
“I lost my skill at baking cakes,” one of them ventured.
“I lost a rucksack once.”
“A ring.”
“My hair.”
“My trigger finger.” The fellow raised his hand, and it was true. It was maimed. There was no trigger finger.
“My beech trees outside Lyon. Every one!”
“My driving privileges.”
“My husband.”
It was amusing how this had slipped in there, and they chuckled.
“My memory.”
They howled at this one.
“It’s true. Can’t remember…get everything mixed up!”
“You never know when the last time for anything might come!”
“Now we’re cooking,” one of the Pauls cried.
My breast…my potency…my beloved Skippy.
Time began to tear through there. Inside, their lives were passing as though in a single night. They longed for a nice Teeny-Tiny, you know, of the GIVE ME MY BONE! sort. For a spectral bridegroom or a brain on a stick, even a vampire or a cannibal. Anything but this deathly entertainment, these dreadful drinks, these hideous old gentlemen whom they were feeling more and more indebted and attached to. These Pauls, urging them on to even greater and more fearful acts of admission to loss. The time passing. The blackness pressing against the greasy windows. And the morning that had always come, delayed.
The Country
I attend a meeting called Come and See! The group gathers weekly at the Episcopal church in one of the many, many rooms available there but in the way these things are it’s wide open to everyone — atheists, Buddhists, addicts, depressives, everyone. The discussion that evening concerned the old reliable: Why Are We Here? And one woman, Jeanette it was, offered that she never knew what her purpose was until recently. She discovered her purpose was to be there with the dying in their final moments. Right there, in attendance. Strangers for the most part. No one she knew particularly well. She found that she loved this new role. It was wonderful, it was amazing to be present for that moment of transport. It was such an honor being there and she believed she provided reassurance. And she shared with us the story of this one old girl who was actively dying — that was her phrase, actively dying—and at one point the old girl looked at Jeanette and said, “Am I still here?” and when she was told yes, yes, she was, the dying woman said, “Darn.”
“She was so cute,” Jeanette said.
My fellow travelers in Come and See! listened to this with equanimity. Jeanette was as happy as I’d ever seen her — she doesn’t come every week — and enthusiastic as she shared with us how positive and comforting it is to witness the final voyage. She’s affiliated with the church somehow, she studied chaplaincy services or something, so she has a certain amount of access to these situations; that is, she’s not doing this illegally or inappropriately or anything.
I sincerely cannot remember the circumstances that brought me to Come and See! for the first time and why I continue to attend. I seldom speak and never share. I sit erect but with my eyes downcast, focusing on a large paper clip that has rested in a groove between two tiles for months. Surely the chairs must be folded and stacked or rearranged for other functions and the floor swept or mopped on occasion, but the paper clip remains.
Beside me, Harold — he’s sixty-three and the father of two-year-old triplets — says, “I believe we are here for the future, to build a better future,” blandly cutting off any communal amplification of Jeanette’s deathbed theme.
My eyes lowered, I stare at the paper clip. I dislike Harold. Triplets, for god’s sake. One day I will no longer come here and listen to these wretched things.
After Come and See! there is a brief social period when packaged cheese and crackers and cheap wine are provided. There is always difficulty in opening the cheese packets. Someone always manages to spill wine.
Jeanette appears before me. After some consideration, I smile.
She says, “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”
“That was my best wintery smile,” I say.
“Yes, it was quite good.”
I hope she thinks I would be a challenge, an insurmountable challenge.
Poor Pearl limps up. She has multiple sclerosis or something similarly awful and she begins talking about being with a number of her cats over the years as they died and it is not something she would wish on her vilest enemy and how she never learns from this experience and how it never becomes beautiful.
I leave the ladies to thrash this one out and exit through the courtyard, which is being torn up for some reason of regeneration. Or perhaps they’re just going to pave it over with commemorative bricks. Last year, Easter services were held in this courtyard because the sanctuary had been vandalized. Worshipers arrived for the sunrise service and found the sound system ripped out, flowers smashed, balloons filled with green paint exploded everywhere. Teenagers going through an initiation into some gang, probably. Several goats in some fellow’s yard were beaten and harassed that morning as well, the same group most likely being responsible, although the authorities claim there are no gangs in our town. No one was ever charged. The church would forgive them, that’s the way the church works, but the man who owns the goats is still upset. Perhaps the poor creatures were meant to be scapegoats in the biblical sense, cast into the wilderness of suffering with all the sins of the people upon their heads.
There is such evil in the world, so much evil. I believe Jeanette is evil, though maybe she’s more like one of those medically intuitive dogs they’re developing or exploiting. The dogs don’t suffer from their knowledge. That is, empathy is beside the point here; they can just detect that illness is present in a body before, sometimes long before, more standardized inquiry and tests confirm it. In Jeanette’s case, though some groundwork is undoubtedly required, she’s honing her instinct of arrival, appearing just before another is about to enter the incomprehensible refuge. She’ll be writing a book about her experiences next.
I leave the courtyard and commence my walk home. It’s not particularly pleasant but there is no alternative route, or, rather, the alternatives are equally dispiriting. Highways are being straightened and widened everywhere, with the attendant uprooted trees and porta-toilets for the workmen.