A newly tarred road curved and wandered through the headstone’d community. Cars driving in the opposite direction would often have to roll over the mowed grass and buried bones of relatives living on the edges.
Everyone laid close together, some on top of another. Their spot was planned and withstood the wars inside the family. Cemetery plots were purchased years before there were dreams of weddings. Stonemasons would add the chiseled name into the family's marble headstone the day a nervous man brought a box of candy to an old lady with a beautiful daughter. But even with assurance set in stone, final burials were tenuous and were often negotiated, gambled and argued over.
All Suzka knew was every summer Sunday she would go with her family to have a picnic on the bones of Agnes and Otis. Their porcelain faces were glued to a marble stone where any five-year old could securely set her juice glass.
The cemetery was the place where children chased each other without reason, old men smoked fat cigars and drank whiskey in hard plastic juice glasses and mothers blanketed the graves with delicious meats and breads. This was the place where the little Suzka’s family would have their picnics and her father would be happy.
"There's a place to park, it's close to Otis and Agnes. Hurry Pavel, before someone takes that spot." Pavel's foot was in heavy sleep on the brake pedal. His arm rested itself over the window ledge. It was already a hot day. The smell of lilacs and sausage was thick and moved slow with the traffic. Pavel's face was calm in thought and gave every sign of not listening to a word Violet was saying. Today he would eat sandwiches, drink beer and rest in his youth in the arms of his past.
Pavel missed his mother. Every year he would cry with Old Crow on the anniversary of her death. Violet never met Agnes or Otis. She only visits them at picnics and talks of them in arguments with Pavel. Pavel never liked that. He would leave and visit Old Crow or Jack Daniels, whoever was home at the time.
"Is that Gladys over there?" Violet waves her full hand over Pavel's nose to a woman resembling a Gladys. "She didn't wave back. I wonder why she ignored me." Violet squints and continues her wave but with less enthusiasm. "Maybe that wasn't her after all."
Gladys's ignored wave would be the first in a number of waves lost in the cemetery, waves looking for some recognition.
All the cars moved slowly, bumper to bumper with arms and heads popping out at their sides. They ribboned the pathways and eventually parked themselves. Doors opened into the street for old fat ladies with cotton black dresses and big breasts and big hats to be pulled out of the car's back seat by the men who married their daughters. Trunk lids opened their mouths filled with their picnics.
Pavel carefully opened the back door of his station wagon preventing any anxious bags from running out.
"Be careful with those begonias. Give those two bags to Suzka." Lil'Vi stood under the transactions with her arms extended out.
"And give those baby flowers to Lil'Vi." The fresh flowers will be planted above the skulled bones of grandparents no one ever met. In the winter Violet would plant plastic flowers. Their petals could hold the snow with no deadly consequences.
Otis and Agnes died when Pavel was young. His mother died of pleurisy, a few months later his father died of the drink. In their own time, they laid stiff in a wood box balanced on two chairs in their living room. Agnes wore a Sunday summer cotton dress and a ribbon in her hair. Flowers brought from neighbors’ gardens and placed in chipped glass vases tried to dress the odor in the summer’s hot room. Otis wore a dusty wool suit with a preserving smell and mismatched buttons. It was cold that winter. Neighbors brought pine branches and holly in the familiar chipped vases. All flowers died months ago.
"Pavel, be careful, watch them girls so they don't walk on the heads of those people's graves."
Suzka's older sister Mira carried the blanket and two aluminum-folding chairs to the grave for the older visitors who wanted to pay their respects, eat pickles and sip Old Crow in lemonade glasses They would talk about their bladders and bowels and about who died and had biggest attended funerals in the past year.
[ James Dean died that year, but he wasn’t buried at our cemetery.] "Girls, girls, quit clownin' around and help me. Where's Suzka? That girl's gonna be the death of me... where’d she go?"
Violet laid out the blanket over the bumpy-grassed bones of Pavel's mother and father.
"Anyone know where Suzka went?" Suzka was always missing. When no one was looking, she would run away and disappear behind the headstones with carved names she could not read and gravediggers could not pronounce. Jumping from stone to stone, staying out of sight. She was audacious but also cemetery savvy and quite familiar with the residents’ unspoken rules – you don't jump or walk up the bones below. It was a known fact that the graved ghosts could grab the running feet of little girls and pull them into the dirt, if they had a mind to. Stone angels with blank eyes and no pupils could only watch. It can be scary for the unadventurous. Some headstones were flat to the ground. The bones below pulled their stones down with them just to confuse everyone and make room for the littlest visitors to do their cartwheels.
Suzka made her way back to the grave for a quick salami sandwich. Pavel was lying on the picnic blanket dreaming. His one arm was around Lil'Vi. Mira was resting her back against a neighboring headstone while reading Diary of Anne Frank.
Violet caught Suzka in her eye. “Where have you been girl? And look at those legs of yours. How did those feet of yours get that dirty so quickly. Good Lord girl, you’re gonna drive me to an early grave.”
Violet extended a bucket out with one hand and pointed to a water spigot standing three feet out from the ground. “Go now and fill this with water." The spigot leaned slightly to one side and had a drippy mouth. “We need the water for plantin’. Go. Go ahead now.”
Sweat dripped down Suzka's pigtails. It was sticky hot. If she touched the air she would leave her print. The afternoon's heat jellied everything in its place. Violet wore a large straw hat that protected her from the sun but not from the heat. "Where are your shoes Suzka?"
"I donno." Brassy sounds from horns and tambourines distracted their attention. Thick air muffled its clatter but its intent was clear.
Suzka squinted her eyes toward the music. There was a change in her face.
"It's time. It's time. The parade is starting. I gotta go, mom, I gotta go." Suzka jumped in her body and nervously wiggled herself with intentions. “I gotta go, I gotta go."
"Ok, ok. Don’t act all crazy now. Go ahead but be careful and don’t walk on anybody’s bones."
Suzka ran toward the music as fast as she could between the stone markers and the cemented angels. She ran fast and hard avoiding the tarred road that was hot like nothing else under her feet. In her run she saw at a distance the statue of the Virgin Mary with open arms. The virgin’s head swayed back and forth above the crowd. The statue was carried in a wood basket and elevated in the air by six men wearing fedoras and porkpie hats.
Breathless from running Suzka ran to the tree she knew she could climb for a better look. This year the climb will be easier. The tree got smaller or she was bigger.
Behind the Virgin statue was an elaborately dressed man wearing a silk robe jeweled in gold appliqués. He wore a tall satiny hat that made him look much taller than he actually was. The hat matched his sequined shoes. The fancy man spread open his arms and sprinkled the crowd with blessed water from a silver rattle. Men wearing white choir dresses over red cassocks surrounded him. They carried the clouds of smoke.
The roadway was lined with a hundred parade-ians flanked with banners, fans, tall candles and long poles with silver crosses on the top. Plum feathered guards with brassy instruments played the music. The heavy air from trombones and other wind instruments solemnly dragged their sounds. All the children waved their hands in front of their eyes as though they were slapping flies.
On the sidelines, standing over the edged graves, old women hunched over their rosaries. They counted thei
r beads on their lips. Young fathers ran with the parade moving closer to the virgin statue in order to pin dollar bills to the virgin's cloak.
Cheers usually heard at replaced with chanting and queens, wretches and temptations. All the children jumped up and down with their mouths wide open and their tongues pushed out in hopes of catching a few drops of the blessed water that was sprinkled in the air by the sequined man. Everyone was solemnly excited and had joined the parade to its end. Ground ants and summer beetles from the tasty graves were the last to follow behind.
The procession had ended at the stone grotto for the high mass. Suzka never stayed much past the parade. She believed there was no good reason for anyone under the years of five to continue. The little explorer walked back to Agnes and Otis for the glass of lemonade she left on the ledge of their headstone.
other parades had been songs about virgins and
17.
OTHER PLOTS
[ This summer Queen Elizabeth was a TV movie series, the Chevrolet Corvette was built in Bowling Green, Kentucky and the Chicago Cubs came in 4th place in the NL Central. Ernie Banks was 74.
I still have that autographed picture some place. ] My mother leaned over the railing on the second floor. "I'm leaving now Suzka. Are you ready? I'm going to get the car out of the garage. You meet me in the front quickly and then I’ll take you to your Starbuckies for coffee. Hurry. Don’t lollygag."
I was still lying on the couch under the warm covers, my butt stuck to its leather, one leg hung over the backrest. The thoughts of winged stone angels, picnic sandwiches and parades left my head. Life was easier when blessings were sprinkled in the air and absolutions were handed out like party favors with penances freely given for everything nasty. Ribbons of Latin circled our faith with its illusions and delusions, its mysteries and aha moments of glory. No one puts on a show like the Catholics.
Violet yelled out her final warning "Hurry now. I got my coat on and I’m leaving." The garage door closed. I jumped off the couch and flew into my routine. Pee, brush, blush, pull up my tights and slip on a t-top; then pull back my hair and claw-clip everything to the top of my head. It would take my mother about eight minutes from the slam of the back door to the car’s first honk in front of the house. I could get out the door in seven.
I grabbed my red sling-back heels as I ran up the steps and in seconds slam locked the door behind me. "I'm ready... let's go." The words fell out of a yawn. Mom always looked amazed. Her kooky looking artist daughter didn't look half bad but she didn't have the time to spend acknowledging her approval. Mother was in a hurry to get to the place outside of herself. I would lipstick myself after ‘Starbuckies’. And off we drove quickly, barely stopping at the corner's stop sign.
"Suzka, are you sure the door is locked? I'm gonna turn around and you jump out and double check it's locked." The cement curb didn't get a chance to move aside.
Before the car could officially stop, she spoke. "Now go... go hurry out and check the door then we'll go to your ‘Starbuckies’. Some things never change.
"Are you excited about going to the cemetery?" "Yea mom, I'm excited. I'm thrilled to death." I was still in sleep and slowly sipping the thoughts of coffee.
"Don't talk of death like that."
The car was warm; the early warmth only a young sun can bring into a car. She kept talking but I heard very little. There was some kind of mumbling and then a yawning silence met us half way.
* It took only 15 minutes to get to the cemetery. Violet understood traffic lights. That was good. She just didn't pay mush attention to them. Graved relatives were waiting for her.
The large virgin queen with open arms met us at the entrance. The granite queen could be seen for miles. On each side were twelve-foot high cast-iron gates with patterns of loops and twists and gold leafing. At night the gates closed the cemetery. Violet turned into the entrance without much assistance from the car's brakes. The gates leaned to one side making room for her wide turn.
The tarred road squirmed its way through the thousands of headstones that popped out of the ground in no proper order. The older stones leaned tiredly to one side. Specks of color surfaced here and there from fresh wreaths and small plants. They rested on wire arms with their mouths opened to the sun. The older oaks reduced down in diminishing numbers to where the newer graves were planted. There was a warm familiarity about it all.
Stone angels with visionless eyes and large tufted wings dominated the grounds. Their plastered hands reached down in blessing. A few of the smaller angels sat on tops of grave markers with their legs crossed and with their heads held in their hands. But it was the virgins and saints that stood on pillars who watched the goings-on with holiness.
Scattered in between the sainted markers were lawn crypts; tiny stone houses with gold doors locked and unfurnished inside. Behind the doors whole families slept forever in one tiny room.
Cemeteries are homes for spectacular creatures of legends. They feed the earth during the day and at night they dress themselves in leaves and dance in the moon's light. When the moon is finished the dead simply lie down, pull the earth over their bones and gaze at the remaining stars. Restless souls who could not sleep during the night often pass by the daytime visitors like a whiff of rich air with the smells of honeysuckle and decay.
We passed Agnes and Otis without stopping. My mother offered a quick wave not expecting one in return and not turning her head for a second to catch the illusion of their acknowledgement.
She lifted her hand off the steering wheel to push her sunglasses closer up to the bifocals underneath. The car swerved. "What's down there?" The car veered again in the direction of her pointed finger.
"Graves, mom. Just more and more graves." The car stopped for a brief moment. A pigeon sitting on cement cross looked around for a cool place to nap, perhaps in the soffit of an angel's wing. The feathered creature looked like he recognized my mother.
"Look, over there. Do you see that procession?” Pause. “Auh, someone's gonna be buried today." Violet's hand ran the sign-of-the-cross across her face without the slightest thought of its religious intent. "It looks like he's important. Not politician important mind you… there's not enough cars for that." She took her foot off the brake and continued driving.
"You count the cars Suzka. I can't. I’m driving." A crunch and then a heavy thumping scraped the bottom of the car. "Watch the road mom." I felt the sound through my feet. I twisted my neck far back over my shoulder and looked out the window. A blizzard of tiny white, lavender and red flower petals flew around in the air.
"I think you rolled over a grave mom and one of those flowered wreaths."
"Don't be silly." She attempted to look out her window at a side mirror but the mirror was in no condition to show her the damages she left behind. It was hanging off the car by a glob of wires and torn duct tape, remnants from a tollbooth incident. The booth slammed into my mother's car the summer before I moved in with her.
"Just sit back and relax. I've been driving since I was twelve." I dare not say anything. I was just grateful that everyone she ran over was already dead.
The cemented angels prayed for their safety.
"Do you see your father anywhere?" She turned her head and stared at me, asking in a strange voice. "He's around here someplace."
I put my coffee in the holder and looked around. "I thought you knew where he was mom."
"I do... but they moved everybody around. I hate it when they move every… one… around." It was as if her memory got dizzy and fell out of her head.
The car stopped.
My mother stared at squinted into the sunlight the windshield. Her eyes trying to remember. She moved her head from side to side squishing everything in front of her together, trying to make sense of it all. Her face was distorted as if it was turned inside out in a desperate appeal to the gods inside her. There weren’t any road signs and even if there were, it wouldn't have made a difference. She still wouldn't know.
&nb
sp; "Mom… Mom."
Her eyes were blank, filled with blindness like the stone angels. Sweat water covered the steering wheel. Outside the air wrinkled in its own heat. The lilacs marinated the sky into purple.
"Mom. Mom are you ok?"
We sat there quietly - the cemetery's skyline in front of us with its abrupt stoned figures and structures, black and gray. Thousands of angels looked at us waiting for something to happen.
Her fists dug into the steering wheel - she barely moved a muscle in fear of being exposed. Buttons of water sat on her forehead. Violet closed her eyes inhaling a time she couldn’t remember. She only had her heart and her wit to call on.
I couldn't stand the silence but my tongue had turned to stone. A ground’s attendant had walked by. He paused at first and then glanced at us with assumed indifference. He lowered his head and used one hand as a sun visor and pressed it against the glass. He tapped on the window gently and asked, "You ok in there?"
My mother fixated her eyes on the man nose-close at her window and focused her entire brain as best she could. When nothing registered, she yelled at me "What does he want? Does he want a ride? You're not picking up any hitchhikers are you? He's gonna kill us. You know he's gonna rob us first and then kill us."
"No, no, no mom. He's fine. He must work here." "Lock your door. Lock all the doors."
I leaned over my mother and extended an everythingis-ok wave to the kindly man. The windows sealed us in tight. My mother was soundless. Outside a water spigot poked out from the ground. It leaned to one side dripping quietly onto the grass like a whisper in a sleeping baby's room.
"Where are we... where are we going?" Her words were slow creeping up from her throat where they broke and were cut in two.
"To see father. We're going to see father’s gravesite, mom. Isn't that what you wanted to do?"
"I need to ask you a favor but you must promise?"
"Promise what mom? What do you want?"
"No, you have to promise."
"Ok. What is it?"
Wonders In Dementialand: Dementialand Page 11