Driving With Dead People

by Monica Holloway

  I lifted my head and looked over at Julie. Her eyes were closed and she was humming something I couldn’t hear very well. I lay back down. There was nothing to be scared of, no one to hurt me, but I was panic-stricken. I shouldn’t have pictured Dad staring down at me.

  When I sat up to orient myself, an eerie feeling came over me. I was sure that something was about to snatch me out of the world, but I couldn’t see or hear it. Everything looked normal and safe, but it wasn’t.

  “Are you okay?” Julie asked.

  “Sometimes I feel creepy in here,” I said.

  “No kidding.”

  I heard Max slam the doors to the embalming room. I didn’t want Max to embalm me, because I worried he might be a little rough. I’d seen him roll a body onto a gurney only to have it roll off the other side.

  But if Dave embalmed me, he’d see me naked, which was mortifying. I wasn’t like Kathy Brooks’s mom, Evelyn, who’d told us she couldn’t wait to die just to have “Dave Kilner’s hands all over my naked body.”

  “Hey, Monica, close my lid,” Julie said, sitting up in her coffin and looking at me.

  “What? Are you kidding? I’m not closing you in there,” I said.

  She was serious. “Close the lid; I can lift it back up myself.”

  “What if it locks and you can’t breathe?” I asked.

  “There’s no way. It only locks with a key.” She lay back down. “Just close it for a quick second.” Julie gestured for me to come over there. Her hand waving me over was all I could see sticking up out of the box.

  I climbed out of my coffin. “Closing it gives me the willies,” I said, padding over in my socks. We never wore shoes inside the coffins. We weren’t even supposed to be in the coffins.

  I looked in at Julie. She was wearing navy shorts with a yellow-and-white-striped tank top and her gold wire-rimmed glasses.

  I put my hand on the lid. Only the top part of the coffin was open. In the showroom the coffin lids were closed at the bottom and opened at the top, just like it would be at a viewing.

  “I don’t want to do this,” I said.

  “If you’re worried, just close it for a second, leave your hand there, and open it back up,” she said.

  I pulled down the lid and kept my hand under it so it wouldn’t make contact with the bottom. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Okeydokey,” she said. I waited.

  “Are you ready to come out?” I asked.

  “Not yet.”

  I looked around the showroom. On the white shelf over by the door sat three miniature vaults. One was silver, one was bronze, and the other one was a dull gray. These were small versions of what the coffin sat in once it was lowered into the grave. I loved picking them up and holding them at eye level. I liked miniature things.

  “Open the lid,” Julie said, so I raised it up.

  “What was it like?” I asked.

  “Not bad,” she said.

  “Don’t ever do that to me,” I told her. “I don’t like to be shut in.”

  “Okay,” she said, climbing out. It was harder for Julie to get out because she was still shorter than I was, so I helped by entwining my fingers and letting her step into my hands and then onto the floor.

  We both rearranged and smoothed out the silk interiors of our coffins so they’d look good as new, put on our shoes, and ran upstairs for a snack. There were mounds of cookies stacked in tins in the office, all flavors, waiting for someone’s funeral reception. The Kilners must have felt that sad people needed snacks, because at every funeral they laid out a nice spread in the back of the viewing room.

  The next week at the mortuary I was heading downstairs with a Ding Dong in my hand when I came across Donald Macy’s grandmother lying on a gurney in the hallway with her hair in rollers. I thought, What is Mrs. Macy doing here by the pantry? And it occurred to me, She’s dead! And then it occurred to me to scream, which I did. I had just seen Mrs. Macy, days earlier, decorating her mailbox for Halloween.

  My scream made Dave think maybe we were hanging around the mortuary too much. He said he wanted us to “go bowling or bike riding or shopping. Stop hanging around this old depressing place.” He even offered us spending money.

  We ignored Dave’s suggestion because by then we’d met Jeannette.

  Jeannette was filling in for Virginia, who normally did hair and makeup at the mortuary. Virginia and her husband, Lowell, who lived in the apartment over the mortuary, were on vacation.

  Jeannette owned her own salon called Shear Attitude and was stylish for Elk Grove. She sported platinum blond hair that was cut to her shoulders with one side shorter than the other. That was the style in Cosmo, she assured us.

  Jeannette was a big woman—tall, but buxom as well. She took care of her nails. I had never seen fingernails as long as Jeannette’s, or as pampered. She kept a nail kit with her at all times and was constantly gluing one of her tips back on and repainting it.

  I wasn’t allowed to wear nail polish or makeup, but Jeannette put it on me at the mortuary, and we’d take it off before my dad picked me up to go home.

  I sat on a tall metal stool on the opposite side of the gurney while Jeannette applied makeup to the face and hands of some “poor soul,” as she put it. The whole time she was working, she sang hymns.

  Why should I feel discouraged?

  Why should the shadows come?

  Why should my heart be lonely,

  Longing for heaven and home?

  Jesus is my potion,

  My constant friend is He.

  His eye is on the sparrow,

  And I know He watches me.

  We sang those hymns at church, but she didn’t invite me to sing along, so I listened and watched.

  Fresh dead bodies were scary enough, but when Jeannette worked her magic (with a little eye shadow and peach blush), the dead looked alive, and that’s when I expected them to sit up and ask for a cup of coffee or a ride home.

  But they didn’t sit up. They lay there until Dave or Max came down and lifted them into their coffins.

  I prayed for their souls whether I knew them or not. I wanted them to rest in peace and not stalk me at night.

  I wanted to get past my obsession with death. I wanted, more than anything else, to be happier.

  Chapter Eight

  Emily Atkins had a roller-skating party for her tenth birthday. I was excited because when I skated, I went really fast, passing everyone, just like Dad passed the bus. I wasn’t a fast runner or a fast biker, but I was a fast skater. Even so, it always took at least five or six complete circles around the oblong rink before I got the hang of being on skates again; skating parties were a rare (and intoxicating) event.

  Mom always went with us because she loved to roller-skate—not down the sidewalk like Becky and me, but gliding across the smooth wooden floor of the Elk Grove Roller Rink. I’d never seen Dad skate.

  At the rink there were white roller skates for rent with the number six on the heel, a snack stand with bottled Cokes and candy bars, and a popcorn machine by the front door. The whole place smelled like sweat, leather, and popcorn butter.

  Nothing was more exhilarating than hurling around the rink while the sound system blasted Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World.”

  The only problem was just when I got used to skating in one direction, the lights flashed and Sherry, who owned the rink and who had a distinctive masculine quality about her, would turn on the loudspeaker and say, “TURNABOUT.” Simple enough word, but everyone had to turn around and skate in the opposite direction, triggering all kinds of collisions.

  Some of us could stop, but some of us didn’t know how yet. One kid would stop in front of another kid, and those two would go down, triggering the kid behind them to fall. I never understood why switching directions was necessary. Maybe Sherry, who was young but wore an old-lady-type dress, was trying to spice things up.

  At Emily’s party Sherry tried something new, announcing we’d be skating in a lin
e. Was she out of her mind? Maybe she wanted one of us to break a bone so she could close the rink early, go home, and smoke Camels on the wooden deck of her green-and-white trailer behind the Dairy Queen.

  We all managed to get in a long line. We started out pretty slow, but once we rounded the second turn, Susan, who was last in line, involuntarily spun off the back from centrifugal force. We picked up speed. One by one, girls were hurled off the back until someone in front finally fell and we all ended up piled on one another’s backs with our skates sticking out behind us.

  When everyone rolled off, I noticed my hip was hurting, and not the kind of hurt a Band-Aid could soothe. It hurt so bad I had trouble getting up on my skates. Julie helped me over to the thickly painted gray wooden benches against the wall. By the time we got there, my hip had sort of clicked back into place. Mom skated over and pulled down the side of my stretch pants to check for injury. There was no horrible bruise or blood, just my regular skin.

  I continued skating.

  The next morning, Saturday, I was supposed to ride my bike three miles with the Girl Scouts. I told Mom I didn’t think my hip felt good enough to go, but she said, “I think you’ll survive.” She was right, too, because my hip looked normal. I kept checking it myself.

  I pedaled with everyone else to the Girl Scout cabin without any trouble. We parked our bikes outside and started a big fire inside. We sang my favorite song sitting around the fireplace:

  It only takes a spark to get a fire going

  And then all those around can warm up to its glowing.

  That’s how it is with God’s love, once you’ve experienced it

  It’s fresh like spring, you’ll want to sing, you’ll want to pass it on.

  I liked the words to the song, but mostly I liked the way I sounded singing it. Most Girl Scout songs were written for sopranos, but I was an alto. If I could sing low, I sang great. If I had to sing anything above a B-flat, I was screwed.

  The fire was warm, our faces were glowing, and I was worried about peeing in my sleeping bag. It turned out I didn’t have to worry about that; I spent the whole night awake with a throbbing hip.

  The next morning I biked the three miles home, but my hip was really hurting. When I got home, I couldn’t put weight on it. If I tried to stand up, I ended up on my butt. This frightened Mom, who decided I needed to see a doctor. We never went to doctors between our annual checkups at Dr. Landaw’s office, which we never missed.

  On Monday, Mom and I drove to Cincinnati to see Dr. Goldman, a pediatric orthopedist, at St. Vincent Children’s Hospital. Granda found him through her arthritis doctor.

  Dr. Goldman was soft-spoken with dark brown hair and thin lips. He took X-rays and had me lie on my back while he moved my leg up in the air and around and around in circles. Painful.

  “We’ll need to keep her tonight,” he told Mom, still holding my leg up. Mom and I both did a double take.

  “Tonight?” Mom asked.

  “We need to get this leg into traction. When the skate hit her, it must have knocked the hip out of the socket, draining fluid that allows the bone to move freely,” he explained. “We’re going to slowly pull the leg back with weights and let that socket fill up with fluid again, and then gently ease the hip back into place. After a few weeks on crutches, she should be fine.”

  Crutches? All right! Every kid I knew wanted crutches. What could be cooler than walking around on crutches with everyone staring? I was liking this, but Mom did not look happy.

  “Can I take her home tonight and bring her back in the morning? That way we could get her pajamas and underpants,” she said.

  Underpants? I was humiliated. I didn’t want her to say “underpants.” I was concentrating on that, when I noticed Mom was getting very upset. I was so happy. Mom showing such deep concern for me was like eating a whole frozen pizza without sharing it with anyone—only better. Between the promise of crutches and Mom’s worry, I neglected to be bothered by the idea of being in a hospital full of strangers an hour away from home.

  We drove the fifty miles back to Galesburg in silence, with Mom holding my hand the whole way. I would be in the hospital for at least a week. We were in shock, and at the same time, I felt close to Mom. She loved me, I knew she loved me, but she hardly ever showed it physically. It wasn’t much, her hand on top of mine, but it was a big show of affection for her.

  When Dad got home that night, he was worried. He hadn’t expected a hospital stay and his “us against them” mentality kicked in. Dad hurt us, but no one else could.

  He walked into our bedroom. My heart jumped as I pretended to sleep. He stood at the door and looked at me for a few minutes and then walked out. I heard him say to Mom, “Let’s just take care of this and get her home.”

  It was the kindest thing Dad had ever said.

  The next morning the other kids got on the bus, Wanda threw up without me, and I lay on the couch while Mom packed the green suitcase. My hands shook as I dressed Casper the Ghost in pale green doll pajamas and white socks. The day before, it had been fun to be injured, but today it was terrible.

  Mom and Granda drove me to Cincinnati. I sat in the back with my leg stretched across the seat. Granda kept looking at me and winking, which prompted tears from me.

  “Why can’t somebody stay with me?” I cried.

  “Grown-ups can’t stay at a children’s hospital,” Mom reasoned.

  “Can I go to the hospital in Elk Grove?” I asked.

  “You need to be in Cincinnati with specialists,” Mom said.

  “We’ll come see you every day, honey,” Granda assured me.

  “You’ve got to get better.”

  I hugged Casper and stared out the back window, as Galesburg got farther and farther away. I wished I hadn’t gone skating. I wished I hadn’t wished for crutches.

  When we got to the hospital, Mom pulled up in front. She and Granda got out and a man in soft blue pants and a white shirt pushed a wheelchair toward the car. My stomach flipped over. After the man lifted me into the chair, he put my suitcase under the seat and rolled me into the lobby. Sitting in that chair was the first time I realized that something had happened to my body that was serious, and that I wasn’t in control. I was on the verge of a full-on panic attack—hyperventilating, a sweaty forehead—but we just kept rolling.

  Granda walked beside me while Mom parked the car. The nurses and administrators were pleasant, but I was nauseous. Casper was on my lap.

  Once Mom came, and I was checked in, we all went upstairs to my room. The elevator doors opened to a long beige hallway painted with giant green monkeys, purple elephants, and giraffes with spots in all the primary colors. Any moron knew that monkeys were brown. What the hell kind of place was this?

  A brunette nurse with a smock covered in characters from Bambi showed us to my room. Bambi was the saddest movie I’d ever seen. This was not looking good. When we got to my room, I saw there were five other beds in there. I could see a girl in a pink nightgown sleeping on her side with her thumb shoved into her mouth; two girls had their families with them, and one was watching TV. The bed next to mine was empty.

  I changed into a blue-and-green-checked nightgown and climbed into bed, which felt like a strange thing to do in the middle of the day when I didn’t have a fever or anything. I didn’t need a nightgown for a sore hip.

  Suddenly a big-boned nurse with thick white-framed glasses wheeled a gurney into the room. She didn’t have Disney characters on her smock.

  “I’m taking her for X-rays,” she said to Mom and Granda.

  Holy shit. “Can they come too?” I asked, alarmed to be carted off like that.

  “It won’t take long,” she assured me.

  “Granda and I can grab some lunch,” Mom said casually. She was going to leave me with this woman? How could she eat knowing I was being taken away by a stranger?

  Once I was on the gurney, the nurse covered me in a single white sheet and wheeled me out into the hallway and onto the
elevator.

  I started to panic. The elevator went all the way down to the basement, and when the doors squeaked open, there was nobody down there. It was so quiet that the wheels of my gurney sounded like the rumble of a semi as we rolled down several gloomy hallways.

  We finally came to beige swinging doors that the nurse pushed open with her butt, pulling me in behind her. She told me to slip off my panties because they were going to X-ray my pelvis and hip area. I was horrified and imagined she wanted to touch me and that’s why she wanted my panties off. She wasn’t going to X-ray me, she was evil, and I wasn’t even supposed to be in the basement. Where were all the people? Didn’t Mom tell me to keep my panties on during the day? Something was horribly wrong.

  I thought about pushing myself along the hallway on the gurney to get the hell out of there, but Nurse Panties-Off would probably be too fast for me.

  I was thinking of another exit plan when a blond man pushed through the doors and said, “I was at lunch. Sorry.” Was everyone at lunch but me? “Who do we have here?” he asked.

  “Monica Peterson. Dr. Goldman ordered X-rays,” the nurse said, handing me off to the man. I was happy to hear Dr. Goldman’s name. If these two worked for Dr. Goldman, then I was supposed to be there.

  The man smiled and I managed to smile back even though I was still under one thin sheet without panties. He took X-rays without lifting the sheet, instead placing the machine directly over me and shining a small square of light over the area he was photographing. He also laid a thick heavy gray blanket over my chest and another one over my “reproductive organs” to protect those body parts from radiation. The nurse with the white glasses sat in a metal chair and flipped through Reader’s Digest.