Hole: A Ghost Story

by Rod Redux

  As Hank stood looking into the master bathroom, the water kicked off.

  The pipe in the wall behind the toilet gave a kick, making him jump.

  It had sounded like someone hit the wall with their fist.

  When did that start happening? he wondered. He couldn’t remember when, although he was sure it must have been doing it all along, because it hadn’t startled him last night. Now, however, goosebumps shivered up and down his arms and legs. A cool finger traced a line up his spine.

  Someone just walked over my grave, he thought.

  That’s what his granny always said when she had a chill. “Oh, dear! Someone just walked over my grave!” It was funny when he was a kid, but now… not so much.

  Distracted, watching the doorway of his master bath like a little boy scared of the boogeyman, Hank turned and strode from his bedroom. He clomped down the stairs and was crossing the dining room when he noticed Steve in the kitchen, looking through the cabinets for something. He’d forgotten Steve was here.

  Mary’s brother turned. “Morning, Hank. Where did Mary keep the coffee filters?” He didn’t seem to care that Hank was in his underwear, so Hank didn’t bother to cover himself.

  “Over the range,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  Hank walked on to the guest bathroom and emptied his bladder. He pissed for what felt like half an hour, his bladder aching from all the coffee he’d gulped the night before. He grabbed some toilet paper, dabbed his foreskin dry, then went to the sink to wash his hands.

  The face that looked from the mirror at him was not his own. Who are you? he thought. He suddenly realized it was his father’s face, blinking from the mirror at him. Same crease down the middle of each cheek, same bags under the eyes, exact same furrows in the forehead. When did he turn into his father? It seemed the transformation had been accomplished in one night.

  His cell phone was ringing when he exited the bathroom. He didn’t answer. He couldn’t deal with anyone right now.

  Steve looked quizzically from the kitchen, propped against the counter with a coffee cup in his hand. He was waiting for the Bunn to finish brewing, his face sallow, his eyes red-rimmed.

  Hank shook his head with an apologetic smile. “I don’t feel like talking to anyone yet,” he said, and returned to his bedroom to put on some clothes.

  He didn’t bother to put on anything fancy. He didn’t plan to leave the house for a couple hours. He pulled on the faded Pink Floyd tee-shirt Mary had bought him, the one with the rainbow shooting out of the prism—

  Remember! Only good thoughts!

  She’d ended up wearing it more than he did, late at night sometimes, after they’d made love and were scrounging in the kitchen for something to snack on… back when things were still good with them.

  He brought the fabric to his nose and sniffed. Yes, it even smelled like her. Smelled of her flesh and the perfume she always wore. It was like a little bit of her had gotten trapped in the cotton weave of the garment.

  Pain began to pulse in his temple, a stress headache. He was holding so much anguish back. It was like a closet stuffed with bricabrac, one so full he didn’t dare let it open. He couldn’t even peep in there today. He knew if he even so much as cracked that closet door, it would all come tumbling out on him, an avalanche of sentimentality, and it would bury him completely.

  There were just too many things to do. After he’d seen to her for the last time, when all his obligations had been satisfied… that was when he would allow himself to fall apart.

  He stuffed his legs down a pair of blue jeans and fastened the button at the waistband. Zipping up, he returned downstairs.

  “You want a cup of coffee?” Steve asked, huddled in the corner of the kitchen, where the counter turned an L. Mary’s brother seemed to have shrank. He looked childlike, his thin blond hair uncombed, his eyes too big and with a bruised crescent beneath each.

  “Yeah, that would be great,” Hank answered.

  Steve put his cup aside, happy to be of help. “How do you take it?”

  “Four sugars and cream,” Hank said, and when Steve looked at him with a shocked expression, Hank laughed. “I’ve always had kind of a sweet tooth.” He rubbed his belly, which really wasn’t all that fat. “You don’t get one of these from carrots and celery.”

  “Four it is, then,” Steve snorted.

  It was good to have Mary’s brother here. He was so much like his sister. They didn’t look similar physically, except maybe for their nose and lips, but they shared some common mannerisms, and they spoke a lot alike.

  Like Mary, Steve was a “pleaser”, a common psychological response to childhood abuse, Hank knew. Hank had done some research after Mary’s big blow up on the phone with her brother.

  Steve passed Hank a cup of coffee—very sweet and very creamy—then they walked into the dining room to sit.

  Hank’s phone started trilling again. It was sitting on top of the microwave, plugged into its charger cable.

  “Someone from the Dutch Bakery’s been calling,” Steve said. “They’ve called about six times now.” When Hank shot him a guilty glance, Steve apologized. “Sorry, I looked.” There were some unspoken questions in his brother-in-law’s bruised eyes, but Steve didn’t voice them and Hank was grateful for that. “Your sister called, too,” Steve went on. “She left a voice mail for you.”

  “Sue,” Hank nodded, sitting at the dining room table. “She’ll probably be here before long. I called her last night.”

  “Oh.” Steve sat. He brought his cup to his mouth and sipped.

  Hank rubbed his fingertips to his throbbing brow. The headache was spreading across his forehead now, sending pulsing tendrils of pain up and over the top of his scalp and down the back of his neck. “I was wondering, Steve. If you’re not planning on doing anything else today… would you come with me to the funeral home and help me make the arrangements? I… I don’t know if I can do it by myself.”

  Steve leaned toward him, almost (but not quite) taking Hank’s hand in his. “Of course! You didn’t even have to ask, Hank.”

  “Thanks. I—” Hank choked, swallowed down a lump of gratitude. “I really appreciate you staying here with me.” He wrestled with his emotions, got himself back under control. “It’s really hard. You know? It’s like a dream, and I keep waiting to wake up. Everything seems so unreal. I have to go through our papers and find our life insurance policy, and then I have to go to the funeral home and the flower shop.” He laughed, an explosion of noise that sounded so raw it should have been flecked with blood. “I just want to wake up!” he cried.

  “We’ll get through it,” Steve said, looking a little watery-eyed himself. “It’s just… you know… We gotta take baby steps today. One thing at a time.”

  Hank nodded. “Yeah. You’re right.”

  Steve cleared his throat then, said, “Listen… I need to talk to you about something else, too.”

  “Yeah?”

  Hank’s brother-in-law suddenly looked very uncomfortable, frightened almost. “It’s about Dean.”

  Hank felt blood rise into his cheeks. He narrowed his eyes. “Yes?”

  “Mother called me this morning. To see how you were doing, she said. Otherwise she wouldn’t have called me.” He snorted, a bitter black laugh, his lips pursed, his eyes downcast. “She said she called Dean. Told him about Mary. He’s on his way for the funeral.”

  Hank jerked back in his seat like Steve had spit in his face. “I don’t want him there!” he objected hotly.

  “I know!” Steve quailed, then softer, “I know. Just hear me out, Hank. Please. Nobody knows what went down between the three of us. Just us kids… and you, of course. Mom doesn’t know and Dad doesn’t know. Mom wouldn’t believe it if you told her. Dean’s always been her favorite. He’s Momma’s little golden boy, but Dad… I think he wondered, you know, when we were kids. I think he saw something in ours eyes, maybe. Or… I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t have a clue. Maybe that’s just som
ething I made up in my head. The thing is, if all that dirty laundry came out now, I think Dad would believe it… and it would probably kill him. Hank, he’s in really bad health, and if you and Dean had it out… especially at the visitation or…” Mary’s brother suddenly put his face in his hands and started sobbing. “God!” he cried. “Why are we the ones who have to feel so fuckin’ ashamed of it! He’s the one who did it, for Christ’s sake!”

  Hank wanted to console him, but the rawness of his brother-in-law’s pain made him hesitate. It was no different with Steve than it had been with Mary. It was as if he could only process so much horror, and then his emotions shut down. Maybe it was a self-preservation mechanism, paralyzing him before the pain could break his heart.

  Face flushed, Hank sat immobile as his brother-in-law made wet snuffling sounds, shoulders shaking. When Steve’s tears finally tapered off, he sat with his head down, sniffing.

  Hank said in a wooden voice: “I can’t pretend it never happened, but I won’t make a scene. He just better… he just better keep his distance from me. None of that phony bologna.”

  Steve didn’t look at him. He continued to sniff with his head hanging down, but he nodded, not looking at Hank. He murmured, “Thanks, Hank.” He sounded like he might burst into tears again.

  They finished their coffee together, and then Steve helped him go through his papers. Hank called his insurance company, then the police department. He was relieved to hear the autopsy had already been done and his wife’s body was at the funeral home. Detective Rames had taken the day off, the officer on the other end of the line told him, but as far as he knew, they had everything they needed from Hank. If the detective needed anything else from Hank, he would call or send an officer by. Hank thanked the police officer, feeling strangely disconnected, like he was floating outside his body, watching himself speak, then he hung up and called the funeral home. He talked with the funeral director, a fellow named Arnold Kelley, made an appointment with him for later that afternoon.

  “Is that everything?” Steve asked, putting away some of Hank and Mary’s documents.

  “I think so. I’m going upstairs to get dressed. And thanks. Again.”

  Steve nodded, not looking up. He was chewing his lower lip, trying to get the papers back in Mary’s filing box the way they’d originally been organized.

  As he ascended, he heard his cell phone ringing. “Just let it go to voice mail,” he yelled down to his brother-in-law.

  “Okay.”

  Steve was waiting for him when he came back downstairs. The young man was smoking another Virginia Slim. He was dressed in blue jeans and a clean white dress shirt. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  Hank checked his phone. Two missed calls, both from the bakery. Fuck…!

  “No,” he said, distracted.

  Steve smiled sadly. “Come on, bro. We’ll get through this together.”

  Hank nodded. He held the power button until the phone shut off completely, then placed the device back on the microwave.

  Hank grabbed his keys and patted his back pocket to make sure he hadn’t forgotten his wallet. He grabbed the yellow legal pad the two of them had been using to write their checklist on, thought about it a second, then grabbed all his insurance papers and Mary’s legal documents as well. He left a note for his sister taped to the patio door, then the two of them headed out to arrange his wife’s funeral.

  11.

  The afternoon was disrespectfully beautiful. The sun was high and bright, the temperature warm but not too hot. The sky was a giant blue bowl with only a few puffs of cottony clouds to spoil its purity. A fresh breeze blew through the cornfield across the road. It smelled of all things good: rich, fertile soil and swift growing vegetation. Birds twittered in the trees. One of his neighbors on Birch Drive was mowing his grass. A day like today should be overcast and dreary, Hank thought, as he crossed the yard to his car. Drizzle, not shine.

  Neither of the men spoke as they climbed into Hank’s Mustang. Hank handed his brother-in-law his papers, keyed the ignition and threw the car into reverse. Steve neatened the pile of papers in his lap, then looked out his window pensively as they started toward town.

  There was little traffic on the highway, just a couple farm trucks trundling to the market and a few teenage kids in sports cars, driving too fast down the winding county blacktop. In town, everyone on the sidewalks seemed excessively cheerful, couples traipsing up and down the avenues, window-shopping while their kids ran ahead.

  The parks were full, the swings screeching merrily, the merry-go-rounds spinning. Moms sat on the benches, chatting together with paperback romances or babies in their hands, or kneeled to kiss boo-boos beside the playground equipment.

  Hank watched the kids playing in the park as he drove past, his brow furrowed, then glanced toward his brother-in-law self-consciously. He caught Steve looking at him, his eyes big and moist and full of sympathy. Hank jerked his eyes back to the street ahead, his lips pressed together. He didn’t say anything.

  There seemed to be an inordinate amount of couples out today. He saw them holding hands on the sidewalks, loading groceries into the back of their SUV’s in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly, even making out on the public tennis court in matching pastel shirts and white shorts.

  It made him angry. He tried not to be angry, but he couldn’t help himself. He felt like a single guy dining out alone on Valentine’s Day.

  You are a single guy now, he told himself. You’re a widow.

  The thought was accompanied by a fresh new pang of hurt in his chest.

  I’m too young to be a widow! It’s not fair!

  He drove down 4th Street, then cut a left onto Mayberry Lane and crossed the tracks. The car jounced over the rails. They came to a three-way stop, the intersection of 6th and Mayberry. Hank made another left.

  6th Street zigged and zagged its way out of the village. They glided around the street’s long smooth curves, headed south and away from the densest part of town. On the left side of the street, tract housing with manicured lawns, on the right, Holland Cemetery, the biggest one in Dailyville.

  He was going to bury his wife there in a couple days.

  “It’s pretty,” Steve said as they rolled past.

  Acres of undulating green hills slid by, crisscrossed with narrow gravel lanes. Holland Cemetery was very well maintained. Maple and oak dotted the emerald grounds. There were a few big memorials and fancy mausoleums, marble angels weeping lichen, a monument dedicated to a local cartoonist who’d created a famous comic book character in the thirties. Hank and Mary had bought two plots in Holland about five years ago. Hank’s grandmother and grandfather on his dad’s side were interred here. His dad was buried on the other side of town, in a little Baptist cemetery.

  Hank turned one more time, a left onto Catherine Street, and then a couple blocks later, they were pulling into the parking lot of Morgan’s Funeral Home.

  It was a pleasant-looking building, with white siding and a porch in front, green shutters bracketing the windows and plenty of trees. The porch roof was supported by faux Roman columns, and an assortment of white wicker rocking chairs sat beneath it in the shade, surrounded by shrubbery and bright potted flowers. The place had a big parking lot. Off to the side there was a roofed side exit with a smoky colored hearse parked by the double doors.

  That’s where they’ll roll her out, Hank thought. Then they’ll slide her into the back of the hearse for the trip to the cemetery. Hank thought this with a feeling in his belly that was very close to panic.

  He was driving around to the office in the rear. All of a sudden, he jerked his head toward Steve, his eyes wide with horror. “Pall bearers!” he exclaimed. “We forgot about the pall bearers! Who’s going to carry her out? Who’s going to carry her from the hearse to the… the…?” He couldn’t spit the word “grave” out.

  Steve grabbed his pencil and scribbled “pall bearers” on the yellow legal pad in his lap. “Calm down! I’m writing it on ou
r checklist. It’s going to be okay, Hank. We can come up with a list of pall bearers after we make the arrangements. We’ll call them tonight, after we get back to the house.”

  “Oh… Okay, sorry.”

  “Don’t sweat it. I know there’s a lot to do, and we’ll get everything taken care of for her.”

  Hank’s shoulders slumped and he nodded. “Yeah… I know.” He forgot he still had the car in gear and he let off the brake. His Mustang lurched forward toward the office, making his brother-in-law cry out. Hank panicked, almost stomped on the gas pedal instead of the brake, then threw the car in park and killed the engine, his nerves jangling.

  “Sorry.”

  Steve laughed, clutching his chest. “Oh, God! You almost gave me a heart attack! Maybe I should drive back.”

  “Yeah. That might be a good idea.”

  Hank hesitated before getting out. Mary was in there somewhere, he knew, in the backroom or basement. The police said she’d already been turned over to the funeral home. The coroner was finished with the inquest.

  She was in there... cold and alone on some stainless steel gurney... or whatever kind of prep table they used. He wasn’t sure. Her skin would be blue and there would be a huge Y-shaped incision in her chest where they’d cut her open for the autopsy and then stapled her back closed.

  Sitting there, looking at the funeral home, Hank suddenly felt very sick to his stomach. Not just nauseated. He was frightened.

  He was, in fact, scared out of his wits.

  This was it. Beyond this point, there was no going back. He wouldn’t be able to pretend that none of this was real any longer, that it was all a bad dream and he was going to wake up any moment and roll over in bed and find his wife lying there beside him, not dead, but asleep... just sleeping.

  If only it could be a dream... Please, God?

  “Are you okay?” Steve asked.