Driving With Dead People

by Monica Holloway

  The Whitmores and all of us were playing touch football in the grass next to the cemetery when we saw local farmers Ray Henderson, Hoover Griffin, and Jim Tracy running through the fields with rifles in their hands.

  We heard Ray yell, “You kids get inside now. Go on home and stay in the house. Someone’s gone and shot the train conductor.” My heart dropped and all of us took off running. We looked out our back window at the policemen searching the fields for the shooter.

  The next thing I heard, they’d taken Sam Lunsford, who was sweet-tempered and shy, into custody. They kept him a couple of hours for questioning and sent him home with his mom and dad.

  After that, Sam didn’t talk at all. He climbed onto the bus, collapsed into the front seat, and slept the whole way to school. I felt sorry for him, but he knew what it was like to kill a man, so I watched him.

  After the bus left Sam’s house, the ride was uninteresting. I just wanted to get to Elk Grove so I could spot Sarah’s grave, but we still had ten stops to make, including Wanda Henderson’s house, and Wanda always made us late.

  When the bus pulled up to her mailbox, she would just be starting her walk down the lengthy lane that led from her farmhouse to Highway 64, where the bus (and all of us) sat waiting. Soon Mr. Coons would toot the horn and Wanda would start running.

  As her beefy red face came closer, I knew what was going to happen—we all did. She’d heave herself onto the bus with this queasy look on her face, take in a quick gulp of air, and throw up bacon and eggs onto the gray-and-white-speckled floor.

  Mr. Coons would turn around and throw kitty litter (which he’d learned to carry with him) down the aisle, and we’d be on our way.

  I watched her do this every single morning and was mad at her for not figuring out how to get down the lane before the bus pulled up, so she wouldn’t have to run. How hard could it be? We would never get to Maple Creek Cemetery at this rate.

  The next stop was Liddy Ingle’s saggy house. This was where, almost every day, Dad’s truck would appear behind the bus. Without fail, he’d speed up, and despite the stop sign sticking out from the left side of the bus and the alternating flashing red lights, he’d pass us on the two-lane road. And here he came again.

  Dad was gunning for someone, maybe even Liddy, who couldn’t afford socks and wore the same skirt almost every day. I was convinced he was going to kill someone, either a kid crossing the road to get on the bus or a person in the car waiting for the bus to move on. He was homicidal—especially in his truck.

  The way I saw it, Dad was just mad. He drove mad, he ate mad, and if anything turned him happy, he ruined it immediately.

  When we finally got to Elk Grove, Mr. Coons decided to step on the gas for the first time all morning and we rattled past Maple Creek as if we were suddenly competing in the Indianapolis 500. I couldn’t tell one fresh grave from another. Was it possible to have worse luck than mine? Now I’d have to wait until the afternoon to see Sarah.

  As we rounded the corner at Orchard Street to head up to school, I saw Dad climbing out of his pickup beside his store. He’d only saved a few minutes by passing us.

  What a shitty morning, and it was only Monday.

  The following Saturday, Dad hollered for us to get into the station wagon. We were going someplace as “a family.”

  I didn’t want to go anywhere as a family, but Mom told us to hurry and get dressed.

  Becky, JoAnn, and I wore matching pant sets that Mom had laid out on our beds that morning: stretchy navy slacks and white button-down cardigan sweaters with white sneakers.

  JoAnn was furious. She didn’t want to be associated with Becky or me; we were the babies and she couldn’t even believe she had to wear the same outfit as us. JoAnn preferred faded brown corduroys, her jean jacket with its many pockets for smuggled cigarettes, and a tan leather belt with acorns stamped all the way around the waist.

  “Why does Jamie get to wear whatever he wants?” she complained bitterly.

  “He’s a boy,” Mom snapped, as if that made any sense.

  Mom supervised everything we wore, day and night. She’d just started making the three of us wear nightgowns with no panties underneath so we could “air ourselves out” while we slept. JoAnn had protested, crying and holding up pajama pants, but Mom wouldn’t let her wear them. I’d told JoAnn to sneak them on during the night, but she wouldn’t have gone against Mom.

  JoAnn sat in the car wearing that pant set, head turned toward the window, biting the inside of her cheek. Becky and I were in the way back, singing:

  Going down the highway,

  Going sixty-four,

  Jamie cut a stinker,

  and blew us out the door.

  We laughed so hard, tears were streaming down our faces. Jamie was plucking dried mud out of the soles of his sneakers with the tip of his hunting knife, trying to ignore us.

  Finally (and we knew it was coming) Dad yelled, “Knock it off or I’m taking off my belt!”

  We quit singing but couldn’t quit laughing. We ducked down in the way back and tried to stifle the giggling, but guttural noises kept spurting out of us.

  As we pulled into the Rotary Club’s gravel parking lot, we saw that a barbecue was in full swing. There were huge charcoal grills covered with unshucked corn on the cob, steaks, and heavy metal pots filled with barbecued baked beans. This might be fun.

  Dad wheeled into a dirt parking space, and we all piled out before the dust settled.

  I looked around for someone I knew.

  JoAnn disappeared into the crowd with our cousin Ben, who looked exactly like her. With their reddish brown hair and freckles, people often mistook them for twin brothers, not realizing JoAnn was a girl. When I saw them later, they were sharing a cigarette behind the wooden grandstand, JoAnn wearing Ben’s blue jean jacket pulled clear down over her stretchy slacks.

  Becky ran off with Donna Frazee, who looked exactly like Becky. The two of them looked like every girl in Mason County: blond ponytails, perfect complexions, and a few freckles sprinkled across their noses.

  I was a brunette with my hair cut hopelessly short. The only person I resembled was lying over in Maple Creek Cemetery.

  Donna and Becky didn’t invite me to tag along, so I pretended not to care. Becky was only eighteen months older than I was, but we were two years apart in school. When we were alone, she was happy to build blanket-forts or play Mousetrap, but when her friends were around, I was invisible.

  Jamie headed down to the dirt track to look at the tractors that were competing in the tractor pull. I was sure Papaw was down there, and since he was capable of turning on you at a moment’s notice, I stayed where I was, climbing up to sit on the hood of the car.

  Dad wouldn’t notice me on the station wagon because he was doing a solo stampede toward the grills, where most of the men were hanging out.

  Dad cracked some hilarious joke as he arrived and everyone started laughing. “Glen, you always liven things up.” I watched Dad grab a red-and-white-checked paper apron, tie it in the back, and pick up a spatula. Flipping steaks was the only way to be the center of attention at a barbecue, and in Elk Grove, Dad was a popular guy.

  He was kind to everyone but us, happy to help his neighbors change a tire or to lift a heavy bag of groceries for a senior citizen at Kroger Supermarket. At home he didn’t bother to step around me if I was playing Barbies on the floor, choosing instead to kick them across the room. I watched his friends enjoying his company and wondered why Dad hated us so much.

  Dad was president of the Rotary Club and chairman of the sesquicentennial the previous spring, reigning over all the special events and local attractions that helped celebrate Elk Grove’s 150th anniversary. In May he rode a flying horse attached to a small platform in a giant parade with twenty marching bands from all over the state, and floats like the one from the Elk Grove Courier “Depicting 132 Years of News.” Diana Reynolds’s majorettes twirled and threw their batons in unison, and even Dwight Lovejoy’s f
our-horse hitch-and-beer wagon rolled by. Mr. Kenworthy, the mayor, rode in an old-fashioned convertible, covered in red-white-and-blue bunting.

  Coming down Main Street, Dad and the spectacular mechanical horse led the parade. Dad was a superstar in his red-and-white-striped barbershop quartet jacket, waving his straw hat to the crowd, the horse bucking up and down. The crowd cheered and waved back.

  I stood on the curb and saw Dad turn in my direction. My hand automatically flew up to wave, but I quickly realized he wasn’t waving to me.

  In Elk Grove, Dad was a great guy.

  At the Rotary Club barbecue, Mom drifted over to where Martha Whitmore (Kyle’s mom) was holding court. I watched her pad over in her brown leather loafers, burnt-orange-and-brown-plaid pants, and a beige sweater. Her hair, which had just been frosted, was pulled back off her face and swooped up into a French twist on the back of her head. She always looked clean and sophisticated, even at a dusty barbecue.

  I looked back at Dad, who was now wearing a paper chef’s hat and gesturing with the spatula. I couldn’t watch him another minute. I slid off the hood of the car, slammed into a man who was walking by, and ended up on my butt in the dirt.

  “Oh my gosh,” I said, jumping up and wiping dust off my pants.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He smiled. “Are you a Peterson?”

  I had to admit I was.

  “I saw you pull up with your mom and dad,” he said. “Which one are you?”

  “Monica,” I said, checking my elbows for bloody scrapes.

  “I’m Dave Kilner, a friend of your dad’s,” he said, and held out his hand.

  I forgot the scrapes and looked up. I was staring at “Kilner” from Kilner and Sons Mortuary. I shook Dave’s hand and wondered if it had touched Sarah Keeler.

  He was saying something about the barbecue, but I was staring at his face.

  I’d imagined “Kilner” to be short, pale, and creepy with greasy dark hair and maybe a black cape, but this man was downright gorgeous. He was blond, with a Barbie-and-Ken-type smile, and he wore a bright blue sweater with khaki shorts.

  I was instantly in love with Dave Kilner and his tan legs.

  He pointed toward a picnic table. “Those girls over there are mine. Would you like to meet them?”

  “Okay,” I said, wondering where the “sons” from “Kilner and Sons” were.

  I followed him over to the three girls. I was surprised that an undertaker would have a normal, non-zombie family, and disappointed that my dad sold hand tools instead of funerals.

  “This is Julie, Liz, and Amanda,” Dave said.

  “Hi,” I offered.

  “This is Monica. Her dad’s a friend of mine.” I wished he’d quit saying that. Dave turned to me. “Julie’s on a softball team in town.” Julie smiled with her mouth closed. She had wavy black hair down to her shoulders, a small turned-up nose, and beautiful green eyes surrounded by thick black lashes.

  I wasn’t allowed to play softball in Elk Grove because it was too far for Mom to drive me to practices and games.

  Julie and I stared at each other.

  “Well, I’m going to leave you kids to your fun,” Dave said, patting my shoulder and walking away.

  I turned to Julie. She looked at me. I looked at Liz and Amanda, who were a lot younger than we were. Liz looked just like a boy. I couldn’t even imagine that she was, in fact, a girl. Julie was picking a scab on her knee.

  “So, your dad owns the mortuary?” I asked. Julie looked up, surprised. “I was there once,” I added for clarity.

  “What does your dad own?” Julie asked.

  “Buzz saws,” I answered. “But I own a collie.”

  “I have a beagle,” Julie said. “His name is Sparky.”

  “My dog is Buddy, but she has cancer.”

  “Sparky has allergies,” she countered. Damn, that sounded worse than cancer.

  “Terrible,” I said.

  Julie smiled with her teeth showing. “Let’s eat,” she said, and we ran toward the food line. Liz and Amanda stayed at the picnic table.

  Julie and I spent the day climbing tall Black Walnut trees that surrounded the Rotary Club. The walnuts were lime green and filled with brown juice that squished out, staining my hands and sweater. Julie and I picked them off branches and hurled them at predetermined targets: a trash can, a gray rock, a rotting tree stump. Each time we hurled one, barely missing a parked car or a squirrel, we howled with laughter. Mom was going to kill me for acting like a “heathen” in public, but I didn’t care. Julie climbed higher than I did, even though I was a good climber. I gathered the courage to follow her, and way above the barbecue, we spied on people we knew.

  “Your dad is hilarious,” she said, indicating the laughter coming from the barbecue pit.

  “Yeah, he’s funny,” I said.

  “You’re lucky,” she said. “My dad’s so boring.”

  “He seems okay,” I countered.

  “He’s not like your dad,” she said. I looked at Dad. He did look okay. In fact, he looked almost handsome, like someone I’d want to know but didn’t.

  “That’s my sister Becky,” I said, pointing to the swings. “Her hair’s so long, she can sit on it. If she doesn’t hold it up, it gets in the toilet.” Julie’s eyebrows flew up, impressed.

  The tractors were huffing and puffing over at the tractor pull, and from up in the walnut tree, we could see black smoke coiling up in the air and my Papaw sitting in the black metal seat of his red Farmall tractor. He was turned around backward, watching the pile of gray cinder blocks that had been loaded onto the pallet he was pulling. The front two wheels of his tractor weren’t even touching the ground as he kept gunning the engine.

  “I think my papaw’s going to do a backward roll on his tractor,” I said, pointing toward the action.

  Each time a tractor made it past the finish line, the crowd cheered and clapped as another weight was added. The last tractor still moving at the end would be the winner.

  Papaw had four trophies with tiny gold tractors on top sitting above his television already, and it looked like he was headed for his fifth.

  Jamie and my cousin Paul were perched on a white wooden fence, watching the competition.

  “That’s my brother, Jamie, over there,” I said, pointing.

  “He’s cute,” Julie said. I was startled by this, so I didn’t say anything. Finally, Julie asked, “Where do you live?”

  “Galesburg,” I said.

  “You live really far from me,” she said. “I live in Elk Grove.”

  I felt my face flush. I wanted to live in Elk Grove too—especially in the funeral home.

  “Let’s go on a hayride,” I suggested, changing the subject.

  We climbed down and ran toward the hay wagon, sawdust blowing around our bony ankles. It was a perfect day.

  After the trophies were awarded (Papaw got second place) and the homemade ice cream was served and eaten, it was time to get into the station wagon and head home.

  Dave Kilner patted my back. “You’ll have to come to the house one of these days,” he said. I was giddy with excitement, picturing myself playing Twister in the mortuary.

  “I would love to,” I told him.

  “Well, see ya,” Julie said, shrugging her shoulders.

  “See ya,” I said as I climbed into our station wagon next to Becky. There was no way I was getting a window seat.

  As we drove off, Dad gave a “great guy” wave to his friends. We’d barely pulled onto Highway 64 when he growled, “Quit kicking my goddamn seat.” I wasn’t kicking his seat, but I smiled anyway. I’d just met the undertaker-father of my dreams, and his family.

  Dad wasn’t going to ruin my day.

  Chapter Five

  The night before I started fourth grade, I couldn’t sleep because I was worried about my new classroom. Fourth grade was in a bigger building with a pink steel tube snaking out of the second floor and slithering to an end
on the asphalt playground. If there was a blaze, I worried that teachers would toss us headfirst into that dark, winding fire escape and we’d zip to the bottom, landing in a huge pile of skinned knees and chipped teeth on the blacktop.

  In fourth grade I’d have to change classrooms for the first time in my life. I was supposed to stay in Mrs. Eaton’s room all day until two p.m., and then I had to walk next door to Mr. Nash’s class for science. After that, it was back to Mrs. Eaton for homeroom. I would never remember it all.

  I was so worked up during breakfast, Jamie offered to walk me up there.

  “I won’t hold your hand, though,” he said.

  “Don’t hold mine either,” I snapped over my shoulder as I got up to get dressed.

  That morning I didn’t even watch Sam Lunsford get on the bus. I leaned my forehead against the window and worried.

  After Wanda had thrown up and Dad had passed us at Liddy’s house, Jamie escorted me to fourth grade. As we clomped up the stairs, Jamie said, “I don’t know why you’re gettin’ all worked up. I’m the one who has to take algebra.”

  “Because I’m the one who has to be in a new place,” I said.

  “I’m the one who has to take shop with Mr. Smythe, the dictator,” Jamie continued.

  “I’m the one who barely survived Mrs. Baker’s class last year,” I said, “since she hated me.”

  “She liked you, but you wouldn’t stop talking,” he said. I rolled my eyes.

  We rounded the corner on the top floor and I saw her—my salvation—my chance at a new family, a family that lived in a mortuary, where the dead side of me would be welcomed. Julie Kilner was standing right beside the doorway to room 214, Mrs. Eaton’s room.

  She was wearing a bright red cotton jumper with a blue-and-white-striped turtleneck and wire-rimmed glasses shaped like two octagons. I ran to Julie.