“I am?” she asked in surprise. They had reached the road now, and it was obvious that Tommy was leading them towards the cemetery.
“Yep. But being a bug ain’t so bad, Beth. I’m a bug too. The problem is that we’re bugs trying to live with people who don’t like bugs. The problem is that a bug belongs with other bugs—bugs that can be their friends and accept them for what they are. You know… bugs who actually like other bugs.”
Beth seemed to consider this as they walked through the gates of the Sacred Oaks Cemetery.
“And a bug has got to do bug things,” Tommy continued. “A bug has got to do what makes a bug happy, not what makes a bug’s family happy. So I say, screw ‘em if they don’t like it! They can’t make us do anything.”
Beth was smiling again. In fact, she was grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
“Potter’s field?” Tommy asked.
He saw the resolve cross her face and relaxation set in.
“Potter’s field,” she answered happily.
They walked in silence now, hands entwined and swinging gaily in the space between them. Every so often Tommy spotted a new flower arrangement on one of the well-tended graves and broke away momentarily, pulling one bloom out of each, giving a sincere ‘thanks’ to its owner and returning to grab Beth’s hand again. A rose here, a carnation there; they walked with a surety— with the grace of people who knew where they were going and had been there a hundred times before.
By the time they reached Potter’s Field, it was as though none of the drama had ever existed. They chatted easily as they divvied up the flowers, each taking half of the bunch to distribute one blossom at a time onto the graves of the poor and forgotten souls laid to rest there.
Doing this made Beth happy. It always had, even before she started doing gravestone rubbings. The rubbings were her favorite art-form and she came here often to do them. She remembered those first days that she and Tommy had come here and how she’d had to teach him graveyard etiquette, back when they were twelve and still a bit intimidated by it all. They’d held their breath when they entered the cemetery back then, so that wandering spirits didn’t enter their bodies through their mouths. She always made him remove his shoes in the summertime, and they’d wander barefoot through the lush grass. And how many times had she had to remind him not to step on the graves themselves as they explored the grounds?
The first time Tommy had kissed her had been in Potter’s Field. She’d been slightly embarrassed then, feeling like they were being watched and that it might even border on being disrespectful. It was still nice, though. Loving Tommy Cooper came as easily to her as loving the sunny, peaceful grounds of the cemetery, and honoring that by spreading flowers made her happy.
These days, she liked to think of the flowers as a form of payment given to the dead in return for the images she sometimes took of the passing of their lives. She wanted them to know that they weren’t, in fact, forgotten, and that someone still cared that they had once walked this Earth. She loved rubbing sticks of black charcoal across the bright white paper she placed on the surface of the rugged stones, revealing the names of the deceased and sometimes subtle hints about the pursuits they had engaged in while they were alive.
As she gently laid a white carnation on the grave of one Thomas Bedford, 1877-1923, she heard a snigger off toward the brush and through the trees on her right. Glancing up, she saw a child. This one was new— one she’d never seen before. He stood there, hands on hips, a playful grin on his face.
Beth looked around to see if Tommy had noticed. He hadn’t. In all the times they’d come here, he never had. His back was toward her and he was busy handing out his share of the flowers. For some reason, he couldn’t see them like she could, couldn’t hear them either, and she’d never told him that she could. Being a bug was bad enough when it was your sister thinking that. She couldn’t bear the thought of Tommy thinking she was a bug as well.
When she looked back, the little boy was still there. He was dressed in short pants, stockings, and a formal white shirt, with a bow-tie at his neck. She guessed his age to be about seven or eight years old. Aside from the old clothing, he looked pretty much like any other little boy to her, with the exception of being, well… “not quite,” as in not quite there. Eighteen-hundreds sometime, she guessed, judging from the clothing.
He beckoned to her—Come! Come with me!
Beth was uncertain at first but his impish grin won out.
“Hey, Tommy,” she said. “I’ll be back in just a minute.” He’d assume she was going in the woods to relieve herself.
“Sure thing, Babe,” he answered, not even glancing around.
The child turned and disappeared into the brush, and Beth followed. He had about a ten-foot lead and, for a minute, she lost sight of him in the undergrowth. But then, just up ahead, the bushes rustled as though shaken by a mischievous breeze. He was playing hide and seek with her!
Just beyond the brush, she saw a rough, stone pathway. Thick, soft moss grew on the rock and blades of grass shot randomly through it. She heard him giggle again and was sure that was where the giggle was coming from.
As she pushed the brush aside and stepped onto the path, she found herself in a section of the cemetery she had never seen before. The canopy of the surrounding trees was thick here, and the sunshine filtered through it, bathing the clearing in soft, green light. The glade itself was neatly kept, grass cut neat-as-a-pin short as though some caretaker had only recently left there. Only the weathered headstones spoke of the age of the place, mottled by acid-rain and stained a permanent dark gray. Several of them jutted out at odd angles as if the ground had tried to heave them up. She guessed there were around fifty headstones in various shapes and sizes, many of which looked to have been hand-chiseled.
“Hello, Elizabeth.” The child’s voice was melodic and almost sounded as if it came from underwater.
Turning to locate the voice, she saw him sitting on top of a small crypt to her right. His hair was a very light blonde, and looked as though it had been dusted with sunshine. He had round, dark eyes set in a wide cherubic face. He wore a curious expression, regarding her closely as she came.
With all of the time she’d spent studying the cemetery, she’d never seen anything like this crypt. Nestled in a natural depression at the roots of a small copse of trees, it almost looked as if it were underground. Moss and lichen had attached to its walls over the years, adding to the camouflage effect. It was about five square feet and smooth-sided. On top of the crypt lay a poured-stone slab that was roughly level with the ground beyond. To the front of it, two additional stone walls had been constructed and acted as retaining walls to keep out the soil that might have washed to its fore. And there, right on the front of the crypt, a hole had been cut into the rock and a small piece of glass inserted. The crypt had a window!
“Hello,” repeated the boy. He was sitting on the left front corner of his crypt, legs dangling carelessly over the side. “This is mine,” he stated, the sound of his voice coming in waves.
The simple words “Nathanial’s Tombe” had been carved on a placard set above the window.
“It’s beautiful,” Beth responded, which made him smile. “But I have to get back now before he gets worried and comes looking.”
“Don’t go,” he pleaded. He looked sad now, and lonely.
“I’m sorry,” Beth answered. “I have to.”
“You’ll come again?” he asked.
Beth shook her head in the affirmative.
“Promise me?”
“I promise,” she stated solemnly.
Nathanial smiled again. He seemed satisfied with her promise. As she took a final look around and turned to leave, he waved goodbye to her and blew her a kiss. Her cheek began to tingle and she rubbed at it as she walked off. She could feel his kiss! It had been no more than a gentle vibration against her skin but even that much had never happened before and it left her with a warm feeling about her face and chest.
When she got back to where Tommy waited, she said nothing. It was hard enough being a bug, but at least she was a bug with a friend. If Tommy were to find out just how much of a bug she really was… well, she wasn’t ready to find out what that might mean to her today.
Unfortunately, being a bug in a world full of people isn’t always an easy thing to conceal.
CHAPTER THREE
The fateful evening of July first fell like a curtain and set the stage for the drama that followed. Perhaps it was no more than a cruel trick played by the universe, meant to lull Tommy into a false sense of security. More likely it was the gift of a last few perfect hours. Either way, it was one of those idyllic summer nights when everything seems so right! The party was at Acadia Falls.
It was well past 10:00 pm and he, Beth, and Nicky had been sitting around a large bonfire at the falls with a few dozen of their good friends. They’d been there for several hours. Tommy had brought his acoustic guitar and Nicky had brought Tommy, Beth, and the keg, in his 1969 GTO, screaming down the dirt road and kicking up an enormous dust cloud the entire way.
The sky above was clear as crystal, and Tommy felt as if he were sitting in the center of the universe as a million stars shone down from the heavens, and a million more winked back at them from the mirror of the river’s surface. Green, and blue, and gold fireflies blinked in and out all around them, mimicking starlight, and adding to the illusion.
Water gurgled and gushed over the rock bed of the falls, playing percussion to the rhythm Tommy gently strummed on his guitar. It was music to dream to, and dream they did. Save the world is what they would do now that they had finished high school! Fight the fights, and right the wrongs. For hours they’d dreamed their dreams, and planned their plans, and everything had seemed so possible!
A rare feeling of contentment had come over Tommy, and looking across the fire, he noticed that Beth’s eyes had never looked as beautiful as they did right now, with the firelight reflected in them. He simply forgot that anyone else was in the clearing and began to play, soft and sweet, just for her.
“You are like a hurricane,” he sang. In Tommy’s mind, no one said it quite as well as Neil Young. “There’s calm in your eyes… and I’m getting blown away—”
He had just opened his mouth to sing the next line when Officer Weldon walked into the clearing.
Though no alarm had sounded, and the sky had not begun to fall, the effect of Officer Weldon’s presence was the same. The crowd scattered, teens running in every direction, dropping bottles and plastic cups in their wake. Very quickly, the sounds of slamming car doors and screaming engines filled the night air. There was no way Officer Weldon could catch every single one of the party-goers, and he did not seem interested enough to try. Instead, he planted his feet and stood directly in front of Tommy, who still sat with his mouth open and seemingly stuck on idle.
Too late, Tommy jumped to his feet, dropped his guitar and began running. Officer Weldon tackled him about twenty yards from the GTO, pulling him roughly down onto the grassy field.
Tommy wriggled, fighting to free himself.
“God damnit, Tommy!” Jack Weldon hollered, fighting to catch his breath. “I’m not here to arrest anybody. I just need to talk to you.”
Tommy stopped squirming and started panicking.
“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
Tires squealed, marking the escape of all of his friends. Tommy was alone.
“It’s your mom. She’s in the hospital, Tommy. I’m going to need you to calm down and come with me.”
It took every bit of twenty-five surreal minutes to drive to the hospital, and on the way there Officer Weldon explained that Mrs. Cooper had developed a serious infection due to her low white blood cell count. Septicemia, he called it. She was in the intensive care unit with a high fever, and was in and out of consciousness.
When Tommy arrived at her bedside, she didn’t look well. He sat with her through that long night and the following days while her fever raged and she drifted in and out. If the first day was bad, the second day was worse, as her kidneys and liver failed completely. On day three, her heart joined them. Little by little, life’s possibilities faded and then fizzled out, as Tommy held her hand and said goodbye.
The doctors pronounced her dead on July 4th at 3:23 in the afternoon, while everyone else in town was at the park watching the Independence Day Parade.
Dead. The word ricocheted inside Tommy’s head, crashing painfully against his skull. Dead, dying, death…
If death was a dark house, its doorway had been thrown wide and Tommy walked right on in. He was surrounded by death, imprisoned by its stony walls. He was immersed in it too, as if it were in the air and had a viscous quality. It stuck to everything. It stuck to the sickeningly sweet-smelling flowers that blanketed her coffin and the luke-warm food that well-meaning neighbors had left at dinnertime. It stuck to the phone which rang constantly, countless condolences on the other end. It clung to the cards and the letters which left his hands feeling greasy somehow and in need of washing. It was pervasive, it was heavy, and it stuck to him like a second skin, bringing a bad smell with it.
Had it been only a few moments now that she’d been gone? Or was it years? He remembered the feeling of the touch of her hand on his skin like it was just yesterday, yet it had been so long since he’d felt it that he ached with the wanting of it. Laura Cooper had been Tommy’s lifeline. Gone now… all gone, all dead somehow. How had she gotten that way? Why? And why her? His confused heart reached out for her and death answered back. It stuck to him and Tommy Cooper began to drown in it.
CHAPTER FOUR
When the hub of a wheel falls away, there is nothing to keep the spokes together. The same held true for the Cooper family, when they lost Laura. The funeral was over and all of those who could have lived without her had gone home. That left Tommy, John, and Julie, the people who couldn’t possibly do so, alone together in the house.
The house itself was too quiet, as if someone had declared a moratorium on sound. Julie became scarce, spending a great deal of time at friend’s houses. John now spent the balance of his days staring at the blank TV screen, beer in one hand, TV guide in the other. He looked as though he hadn’t the strength even to open the cover of the magazine to see what programs were on.
There were no more family meals in the dining room and the ticking clock annoyed no one. Time just didn’t seem to matter anymore. Food didn’t matter much either.
It had been days since John had gone to work in the garage. He did not ask Tommy to work either. No longer did he belittle him or bark orders. Whenever he did see Tommy, it was pity in his eyes rather than scorn, and that pity was much harder to bear.
Tommy was an orphan now, and the power of that realization left him reeling. He did not know how to proceed, nor could he catch hold of any reason to do so. The house was filled with knick-knacks, photos, and other reminders that mocked him, and so he took to his room. There was less of all of that in his own space, and he couldn’t look at it all right now.
Beth had been by a few times, and he had trouble looking at her as well. Her eyes were also full of pity; clearly, she felt sorry that he no longer had a mother. He felt insanely jealous that she did. He recognized the wrongness of this emotion and so said little while she was there. Days passed, as they will. Days… and then weeks.
***
When Tommy lost Laura, Beth lost Tommy. Throughout this period, she reached out for him as hard as she knew how, but he had remained sullen and uncommunicative, refusing to even leave the house. She tried very hard to imagine what it was like, being him, but she had no range of experience from which to draw that understanding. Whenever she did try and talk to him, she felt awkward and struggled for something to say. It was all so heavy. She was hurt, and she was lonely, wanting more than ever to feel anything that felt like being with Tommy again. This feeling had grown to overwhelming on the day that Nicky Freeman came by.
CHAPTER FIVE
What happened next, happened simply because Nicky Freeman was the closest thing to Tommy that Beth could find.
Not that Nicky was actually like Tommy—he most certainly was not. If Tommy was the mountain—solid and steady, then Nicky was the wind that howled and tore around it. He was wild, and he was free, and if his actions were to wear the mountain down, grain by sandy grain, it was merely a side-effect. It wasn’t that Nicky was not genuinely fond of Tommy; he was. But the wind goes where it will, and does what it does, and every other thing be damned.
And Tommy was well aware of that. But a mountain, with its roots deeply embedded, sometimes tires of the staidness of it all and yearns to be more like the wind. Being around Nicky was exciting, and that was all there was to it.
Nathanial's Window- The Wrath of Jesse Eades Page 3