Courageous Love

by Jerry Cole

  I waited, my heart pounding.

  “They had crashed a little way out of town on their way to a farmer’s market. No one passed them all day. They were alive for hours trapped within the car. They found them only an hour too late.” He balled his hands into fists. “If I had called even three hours after I realized they were late, they would still be here.”

  “How old were you?” I asked.

  “Seven,” he answered.

  “Cecil,” I said, disbelief in my voice. “You were a child.”

  He shook his head. “That doesn’t make it better. It doesn’t change what I did.”

  “No one would blame you for that. It was a mistake. An unfortunate mistake. You can’t say that you killed them. It was the crash.”

  “I could have done something. And the town does blame me.”

  I was horrified. “That’s why they call you the grim reaper?”

  He shook his head sadly. “I told everyone what I did. I felt so guilty. At first, they said the same thing as you. But then it got worse.”

  “How?”

  “I was passed around from family to family to take care of me and keep me in the city for when I would inherit the graveyard while my parents’ workers took care of it for me. But every time I entered a home, after a few weeks, someone would die. People thought it was coincidence but it kept happening.”

  Jordan’s parents saying talking to Cecil would kill them suddenly made a lot more sense.

  “Finally Beth’s parents brought me in and after a few days her father died. But instead of sending me away her mother kept me around. She and her used to try to tell me that it wasn’t me causing all this death but it really feels like there’s some sort of specter causing all this as punishment for what I did.”

  Daisy Jr. sounded just as understanding as her daughter Beth. Cecil must have felt so terrible for so long. Even as a child people were calling him some kind of death harbinger.

  “I knew you had no idea about who I was since the first time we met. I kept it a secret because I liked having someone to talk to. And I liked that someone was you. But I understand if you don’t want to see me anymore. I don’t want to cause you any pain.”

  I didn’t think, it wasn’t my strong suit. I pulled Cecil into my arms and hugged him. Hesitantly he hugged me back, his grip light on the back of my shirt. “Cecil. Cecil. Cecil.” I repeated like a heartbeat. “I swear it wasn’t your fault. None of it. You didn’t kill your parents and you sure as hell didn’t cause anyone else’s death. It was a string of terrible coincidences.”

  “How can you be so sure?” He asked. I could feel his tears on my shoulder.

  “Because I’m still here. I’ve talked with you for two weeks and here I am breathing. And Beth still likes you. Would she really have stayed friends with you if you somehow killed her dad? No way. If those townspeople hadn’t kept passing you from one person to the next and just kept you like Daisy did no one would have associated you with those deaths. And according to Beth, her mom is happily retired in Florida. If you were really some kind of bad luck charm, something bad would have happened to her and then to Beth?”

  “I guess,” Cecil muttered.

  It was probably hard for him to accept after so many people he trusted told him otherwise.

  “I’m not going to stop hanging out with you. If thinking you were a ghost didn’t keep me away, this won’t either.”

  “That isn’t very smart,” Cecil broke the hug and sniffed.

  “I’m not very smart, but I can tell those people hate you for no reason. Beth was right. They didn’t know how to deal with the deaths and had to find something to blame so they’d feel a little better. But this has been going on for too long.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about it,” Cecil said, his shoulders slumping forward.

  “Maybe not on your own but I think we can change their minds.”

  “How?” He looked up at me.

  “I don’t know yet, but I will.” With him looking at me with those pale blue eyes, I felt like I could figure out any problem they could throw at us.

  Chapter Ten

  “You want me to do what?” Stacy asked, barely phased by my plan.

  “A classic PR stunt.” I spun around the kitchen with my arms out. “You’ve done them for my family countless times.”

  “Usually because of you,” she said bluntly, unimpressed with my enthusiasm.

  “Honestly if the media needs to take pictures of my dad hugging puppies every time I walk out of a hotel in last night’s clothes, they need a new hobby.”

  “Don’t get me off track. Whenever I organize them back home, I have your dad’s checkbook. How do you plan on paying for everything you want to do?”

  “It’s obviously not going to be as big of a production. I don’t need floodlights and fireworks. We can afford it.”

  “We?”

  I pulled a folded-up paper out of my pocket and handed it to her. “Will that help?”

  She unfolded it and I saw her cool face shatter. “This is your paycheck?”

  “Use it all.”

  “But you were going to buy clothes?”

  “I’m going to have to rob the world of seeing me in the outfits I would have bought,” I said and sighed dramatically. “But sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Besides, I got a few old flannels from my boss to keep me warm and they’re vintage so it’s not like I’m suffering.”

  “All of this for the graveyard keeper?”

  I nodded. “It’s a good cause.” I shifted back and forth on my feet. “And I care about him, Stacy. Why is that so hard to believe? I can get a job and I can like someone other than me.”

  “I never said that,” she said, losing a lot of the confidence she entered the conversation with.

  “You might as well have. And it’s not like you were wrong either. I didn’t make a lot of friends. But I always thought we were friends. But I also think I haven’t been a very good friend if that’s true. You shouldn’t have to babysit me or be stuck here because I can’t get my act together enough to stop my evil siblings from sounding right to my parents.”

  She held her tablet up to her chest and squeezed. “I haven’t been a very good friend either.”

  I smiled at her and leaned over the counter so we were face to face. “Let’s start being good at it now.”

  “Okay Adam. I’ll help put this thing together.”

  I took her hands in mine in excitement. “Thank you, Stacy, you are the best.”

  “Wait. I’m not finished. I have one stipulation.”

  My shoulder drooped. “What?”

  “You have to invite your graveyard keeper to dinner and have a date set for it before tomorrow.”

  I snorted a little. I had thought it was going to be something a little harder to manage. “I will,” I promised. I may have waffled on inviting him before, but there was nothing stopping me now.

  ***

  “I’m nervous,” Cecil admitted while wringing his hands.

  “It’ll be fine,” I said as soothingly as I could manage. “I talked with them beforehand and they are excited.”

  “How could they be excited to meet me?”

  I reached down and took Cecil’s hand and squeezed it. My hand lingered longer but I let go again. Sometime after the hug I began to touch Cecil more. I was always physically affectionate with everyone back in the city but I had held back with Cecil. But now he would hesitantly touch my arm or let our fingers touch when I helped him with bundling flowers. It almost felt intimate. But I didn’t want to force anything. Just because everyone I met in the city were more opportunities for one-night stands and some long-term friends-with-benefits didn’t mean Cecil wanted anything like that. I was trying to be a good friend not a creep.

  Cecil grabbed my hand back and squeezed it again and it sent a rush through me that went very against my previous decision so I tried my best to ignore it. Besides, we were about to have guests.

  “Come thi
s way kids,” I heard Beth call as she strolled down the main path through the cemetery followed by a gaggle of kids and teenagers.

  She stopped in front of us and winked at me. “Told you I could do it.”

  “This feels like kidnapping,” Cecil whispered urgently.

  I rolled my eyes playfully and blew air out of my mouth in dismissal. “The parents said it was fine. Right Beth? What did you come up with?”

  “I told them I needed help with community gardening. Apparently, the schools are requiring some service hours and I would be more than happy for some help and to sign off on those hours.”

  “And community gardening we will be doing!” I exclaimed and clapped my hands together. If the parents didn’t ask where the community garden was, that was really their fault.

  Beth and I began explaining how we would be cleaning up the gardens in the graveyard and preparing the place for the upcoming winter. “And maybe you can come back in the Spring to plant some more flowers. I hear they can do pretty much anything,” I said flippantly.

  Cecil elbowed me, but even his elbow jabs were soft.

  The kids for the beginning of our explanation stared, or more gawked, at Cecil which I expected. But at least they weren’t running away or worse, attacking Cecil.

  Eventually we created small groups led by each of us to start working around the place. The kids all got to work and with only a little goofing off we made steady progress. It still felt like they were a little afraid if they acted up that Cecil would get them like he was a very short boogeyman.

  I kept one eye on my group and another on Cecil’s. He seemed to be trying to talk with them but they were having trouble talking to him which was causing him to struggle even more.

  “Jordan,” I got his attention. He and Beth were who I had to thank for convincing everyone to help without alerting the overly suspicious adults of the town.

  He looked up from the weeds he was pulling. “Yeah Mr. Adam?”

  “How did your group react to you telling them about Cecil?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “They thought I was really cool for talking with him and surviving. But after a while they kind of got curious. They kept asking questions about if he really did have powers or whatever. I tried to tell them no but I think most of them are here to see if he does or not.”

  Maybe that was a step in the right direction?

  “Hey grave man?” a younger kid looked up at Cecil and my ears burned listening to them.

  “Yes?” Cecil said timidly.

  “Why is your hair like that?” he asked pointing at Cecil’s shockingly white hair. Honestly, I wondered that too.

  “I dyed it that way. My hair was pretty light already and I liked the color in some pictures I saw,” he said as casually as he could. I could still hear some wavering in his voice.

  “Oh.” The kid frowned. “My sister dyes her hair greenish blue.”

  “Is that bad?” Cecil asked, apprehensive, like if it were, he would run away from the poor kid.

  “No it’s just. I didn’t think you could do it too,” the kid admitted and went back to pulling up the withered flowers.

  After that, the kids in Cecil’s group started talking like all the others. They asked Cecil a lot of questions and seemed somewhat disappointed each time at how normal his answers were. Eventually they just started telling him about some show they were all watching like he was any other adult they’d roped into talking with them.

  I didn’t need them to suddenly think Cecil was the most amazing guy in town. Honestly, them realizing he was an absolutely normal guy with a weird job was better than anything. It was what Cecil wanted. He didn’t like to stand out, he just didn’t want to be ostracized or lonely.

  “This place looks so good,” Beth said as she handed out water bottles to everyone. “Now does everyone remember what I said?”

  “That it’s a surprise and we can’t tell our parents yet what we did today?” A few kids said something along those lines in smatterings around the group.

  “Yep!” Beth said cheerfully as if this wasn’t something highly suspicious. Everything she did seemed so wholesome and wonderful that we might have convinced all the kids to keep their promises.

  Beth led them all home after we said our goodbyes. I turned to Cecil and saw him staring off into space.

  “How was it?” I asked.

  “It was,” he seemed lost for words. “It was nice.”

  “Do you think you are ready for phase three?” I asked.

  “You’ve already done so much.” Cecil turned to me and we were so close to one another. If I just pulled him a little closer…

  “Cecil. I’m not giving up now, and I’m not letting you give up either. I’m not regretting this. I had fun today too.” I didn’t really do community service, unless it was court mandated after a very embarrassing public nudity situation.

  You’ll thank me later

  I was reminded of the words my father said before he shipped me off here. I didn’t want him, and by extension the terror twins, to be right about anything. But on the other hand, it was time to stop thinking of this place as my prison. It was becoming my home.

  Chapter Eleven

  I loved October. I liked the in between fashion seasons where everyone was still figuring style out, I liked the weather, and more importantly, I loved Halloween. I dressed up and acted stupidly and/or sluttily at parties three hundred sixty-five days a year, but on that day everyone else was doing it too.

  I was also excited to learn that back when Cecil was a child there used to be a Halloween festival in town. He very quietly explained it ended in part because his family used to be in charge of setting it up and after the year of death that followed his parents’ passing, there wasn’t much enthusiasm to put it on ever again. It was a shame such a long tradition had to end. As soon as he told me about it my plan formed. Phase one was to convince Stacy, Beth, and Jordan to help me get people in the right places before we did anything concrete. Phase two was convincing the part of the town that wasn’t so caught up in their beliefs about Cecil that their minds could be changed, i.e. the kids, how normal and good Cecil was. Phase three, my favorite phase, was to party.

  In the dead of night before Halloween, some people Stacy hired, me, Beth, Stacy, Cecil, and few of the older teens, Jordan included, who snuck out helped us set up all the decorations just like how they remembered them. I very sternly told the teens they shouldn’t have come but also didn’t make them go home. I loved compromises.

  We crashed hard around four o’clock in the morning, but sent the teens home two hours earlier, and woke up at dawn. None of the others were used to that kind of sleep schedule but I was thriving. I made everyone coffee and warmed up the donuts we bought yesterday. They all dragged themselves out of bed and joined me. The town was waking up around us and they were going to have questions. We needed to be there to answer them.

  Dressed in one of Beth’s warm brown and blue flannels and my only pair of jeans, I led my ragtag group to the center of town where we had set up pumpkins and stands that would be manned by some people Stacy hired. I had a sneaking feeling that Stacy used more than just what I gave her, but I also didn’t have a good grasp on how much anything cost, so I couldn’t confront her about it.

  Slowly, the center of town was beginning to get filled with more and more people trying to figure out what was going on.

  “Who is responsible for this?” A short man, even shorter than Cecil, pushed his way to the front of the crowd to us. He had a very well-kept bushy mustache and a balding head.

  “I am sir,” I said and bowed to him.

  “What is the meaning to this? I am the mayor and I received no word about this. I didn’t give anyone permission to do anything of the sort.”

  “Actually.” Stacy pushed her way to the front, her tablet like a sword at her side. “You are Montgomery Reeds correct?”

  “Yes?” The poor man looked so confused.

  “According to th
e town records, made publicly available at the library, you granted a thirty-year permit to the Domire family to set up a yearly Halloween festival all along main street.”

  “I did sign it…” he seemed to have realized where this was going.

  “And as this was organized, in part, by a member of the Domire family,” she continued without missing a beat. This revelation drew all the townspeople’s eyes to Cecil who looked like he could crack under the pressure. I grabbed his hand again and this time didn’t let go. I hoped he could feel all of my encouragement through the touch. “Doesn’t that mean Mayor Reeds, that this was a lawful use of that permit?”

  The man was sputtering now.

  “If you don’t believe me, I took extensive pictures of the documents and could show you where they are located in the local library if you would like.”

  Damn she was good. I was glad she was on my side.

  “Fine. But I expect this to all be taken down by tomorrow. That permit is for only one day.” The mayor turned sharply and essentially fled the scene. He put on a good act, but he was probably very embarrassed.

  The townspeople around kept muttering and staring. Many started leaving.

  “The festival starts at five in the afternoon!” I called to everyone. “Free admission!”

  This would all be for nothing if nobody came. It didn’t look like the people who showed up were willing to come back and gave Cecil disgusted looks. I was worried they would pull out water balloons too. But I wasn’t worried about the festival at all. I had planned for everything. It wasn’t the most airtight plan in the world and it relied on a little luck, but I had a feeling we had this in the bag.

  “Okay team, let’s get ready for the festival.”

  ***

  Five o’clock got nearer and nearer and not a soul was in sight besides my little team. People had gone out of their way to avoid main street entirely the whole day even before the festival.