Cold Dead Past

by John Curtis

  Jay took in the station lot before he spoke. The row of derelict junkers, the faded chipped sign over the door on the service building, the cracked and taped glass in the overhead door to the service bay answered his next question more eloquently than Gene ever could.

  "So… How’s business?"

  "Damned poorly. Ever since they put in that new ski run on the other side of town, all the traffic from the highway drives ten miles on down the road to the next exit. Not much need for me when they can get a hot dog and a pop twenty-four hours a day down there and save themselves the drive through town. But, I’ll survive."

  The switch on the pump nozzle kicked out. Gene walked back to return it to the pump as Jay opened the door and climbed back in behind the wheel. He was rubbing his right hand, trying to get some of the circulation back into it, when he was startled by tapping on the window. Gene stood with his hand out. Jay rolled down the window.

  "Thirty-two bucks," said Gene.

  "Right," Jay said, as he reached into the glove compartment for his wallet.

  He passed Gene two crisp new twenty dollar bills. Gene pulled a long, leather trucker’s wallet, attached to a loop on his coveralls by a chain, from his back pocket.

  As Gene dug out the change Jay asked, "How’s your dad?"

  Gene’s lips pursed, forming a narrow slit.

  "He’s dead. This is all mine now."

  He straightened up and gave his domain a thousand-yard stare.

  "All mine. Since Frank’s gone," he half-whispered. To Jay, the words seemed tinged with bitterness.

  Gene leaned down and into the window, his face screwed back into that crooked smile. Jay remembered the story about fake smiles.

  "What are you doing back in these parts? Last I heard you were working on some book or other."

  Jay was overpowered by Gene’s breath, which stank of Cheetos and beer.

  "Finished it," he said. "I got a call from Meg Taylor about Jack Hauser."

  Gene turned his head snorted up a big, yellow gob which he spat out into the snow.

  "Yeah," he said contemptuously. "That was too bad. But I don’t see what all the fuss was about with that one. You probably missed the church stuff, though."

  "Got started late. The weather, don’t you know?" Jay turned the key in the ignition and the car hummed to life.

  "You ain’t really missin’ much. He’d turned into a real pain in the ass."

  Jay bit his tongue. Continuing this conversation much longer might just take him down a long road best left alone. He was already so late, anyway.

  "If you really feel the need to go, though, they’re buryin’ him at Holy Cross."

  Jay checked his watch and then looked back to Gene with a smile.

  "Well, I’d better get going, you know?"

  Gene met his smile with a smirk and a grunt as he stepped back from the car. The look stayed on his face as he watched the black Jetta slip off into the distance toward town.

  CHAPTER 7

  His conversation with Gene gave Jay more second thoughts about this trip home. Gene had seemed just a little off. He shrugged his shoulders and told himself to get over it.

  There was one last rise in the road before the two-mile-long drop down into the valley. From it, he could see all of Haddonfield. It was like a tree, with streets branching out from Main Street, which was firmly rooted at the bridge over Spindle Creek.

  He’d gotten that image from his father. To him, it had meant that the town was a living, growing thing. Here, in the depth of winter, under the oppressive grey sky, it was changed to a dead, leafless black and white image for Jay. It was the place where his youth had ended with the deaths of his father and of his best friend. Where he learned earlier than he should have that life wasn’t the carnival fun ride that children are led to believe it is.

  Jay rolled through the gates of Holy Cross Cemetery just as the graveside service had ended. He stood next to his car as the mourners filtered through the headstones toward the line of cars parked at the edge of the roadway. A lot could be determined from observing the vehicles in someone’s funeral entourage.

  Everyone who died got the obligatory black limousine. Usually a Cadillac. It was funny how life made this one concession to the desires of the middle class when they couldn’t appreciate it themselves. Well, maybe they did. Maybe it made the deceased feel better to know deep down that all their striving for a better life would at least leave those who survived them with a sense of the luxury they could never provide while they were alive. Maybe it gave them some final relief and respite as they wandered off into the light, if they believed in that sort of thing.

  If the loved one were exceptionally lucky, he got a flower car. But that was just for those who had enough friends with the money to afford the inflated prices for the all too familiar arrangements of mums and gladioli.

  After the flower car came the average middle class stiff’s life, writ in the cars of their friends and relatives. It wasn’t merely the length of the snake’s tail behind the hearse, but what its bones looked like that gave an indication of social standing. Not just for the deceased, but also for those they had known in life.

  A lot of the discomfort for people saying their goodbyes doesn’t come from the actual death of someone they knew. It comes from having all pretense stripped in the parade to the grave. Any man can spiff up for the event by buying a designer suit cheaply at an outlet mall, but he can’t hide the fact that he has to drive a twelve-year-old Toyota with rust eating holes into the doors and fenders.

  Jay’s dad’s funeral parade had been a long line of big, solid middle class mainstays. Cadillacs, Lincolns; big, full-sized family luxo-cruisers, even the sheriff in his black and white interceptor. It was the kind of display which befitted the town’s mayor. As he looked down the line at the group of vehicles at curbside for Jack, the short row of old and compact cars told him that here had been a man with few friends and not a lot of money. Jay wondered what his own death would tell others about his life.

  He looked back to the stream of figures dressed in black and caught sight of a couple of familiar faces crossing the road up near the head of the line.

  "Meg! Gary! Over here!"

  They stopped. Jay saw their heads cock, pausing for that awkward moment when they tried to figure out if they actually knew this person calling their names, trying to recall who the hell he was.

  That moment was awkward for Jay, too, because of Gary. Meg had been with Gary after she and Jay broke up. If they were back together now, any slight fantasy he might have had about her could pretty much screech to a halt.

  Meg beamed a smile back at him almost immediately. Jay could see her tugging on Gary’s arm and engaging him in an animated conversation. When Gary turned his face toward him, what Jay saw was a sort of surprised, tight-lipped grimace. An observant man knew right away that the ball was still in play. It was confirmed by the way Meg had to practically drag Gary over to where Jay was standing.

  As Meg got closer, he could see that she’d been crying. Still, she was beautiful, with her sparkling deep blue eyes framed by rosy cheeks and jet black hair. The word he’d come up with as a description was "striking". He found himself smitten all over again. Before he could say a word she was upon him. Her arms enfolded him in a tight hug. As she released Jay, she gave him a light kiss on the cheek.

  "I’m so glad that you could come."

  Meg sniffled and pulled a handkerchief from deep in one of the pockets of her black wool coat.

  "I’m sorry that I’m so late," he replied. "I should have left earlier. I wasn’t expecting the weather I hit on the way up here."

  Gary grunted and offered his hand to Jay. When Jay took it, Gary took it tightly in his and gave it a firm, single pump. That and the way he positioned himself up close to Meg, with his arm protectively around her, told more about his personality than the deputy sheriff’s uniform he wore.

  "Why, you old son of a gun. How are you doing?" Gary asked.

>   "Not too bad. There wasn’t much of a turnout, was there?"

  Meg shook her head and sniffled.

  "Like I said on the phone, there aren’t a lot of us left around here. Most of our school friends have moved away."

  Jay took another look at the line of cars as they began to pull away and nodded his head.

  "I wish I could have made it to the service, but I forgot how the roads can be up here this time of year."

  "It’s the thought that counts, I guess," said Gary. "Jack didn’t have a whole lot of people he was close to."

  "I stopped at the gas station when I got into town and the way Gene talked about him, he must have turned into a real prick."

  "Oh, that bastard Gene," snorted Meg. "Don’t pay attention to anything he told you. Jack just kept to himself. For some reason, he and Gene didn’t get along. Something happened over the last few months, but we could never get either one of them to talk about it."

  Gary interrupted, "I know what it was about. Well, not totally, but I heard them arguing outside the hardware store one day. Something about Gene’s brother. If it were a murder, I’d have put Gene number one on my list. There was a lot of hate."

  "What did happen?" asked Jay.

  "Well…" Gary thought for a moment before continuing. "We think he fell from his hayloft. When we found him-" Gary was interrupted by a high-pitched, squeaky voice coming from behind Jay.

  "When they found him, he’d been gnawed on by just about any animal that came by. Couldn’t even have an open casket at the funeral. Really nice mess."

  It was Tommy. Meg turned on him and slapped his arm. He gave her a surprised look.

  "You know it’s true, Meg."

  Jay appraised him. Tommy was basically an older version of the chubby, freckled, red-head that he remembered from their school days. He turned from Meg and offered a hammy hand to Jay. When he took it, it felt damp, clammy, and soft, as if Tommy used a lot of lotion.

  Meg continued, angrily, "You don’t have to talk about it. No one should die alone like that."

  Tommy ignored her last comment and kept his eyes on Jay. For Jay, it was rather disconcerting. It was like being in a room with one of those paintings that had eyes that followed you around.

  "So how are you doing, big-time writer guy?"

  Jay felt Tommy slip something into the palm of his hand as he extricated it from his grip. It was a business card, engraved, with the words "Valley Auto" and "Thomas Lazaro, Sales Consultant".

  Before Jay could answer, Gary took Tommy by the arm, gave him a stern look, and said, "I can’t believe you, man. It’s a fucking funeral."

  "No, it’s alright," Jay interrupted. "Really." He turned back to Tommy. "I’m fine. You don’t look like things have been going too badly for you, either."

  Tommy shook Gary’s hand loose and pulled the sleeve of his black cashmere coat back down over his wrist.

  "Yeah. Selling a lot of cars now that we get all these city people up here in the fall and winter." He patted his paunch. "And, of course, my wife feeds me pretty well."

  He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. Jay followed the line and could see Tommy’s wife Charlotte. She was a large woman who looked as if her makeup had been not so much applied as that her whole arsenal of cosmetics had been exploded on to her face. She was standing there, impatiently watching the four of them from a distance. She had a sour look on her face and tapped her foot.

  Noticing that some attention had been directed her way, she called out, "Let’s go! I’m freezing out here and everybody else has left!"

  Tommy’s mouth turned into a slit. The muscles in his jaw twitched and squirmed as he ground his molars. He shot back at her, without turning round, "In a minute! Can’t you see I’m talkin’ to someone here?"

  Charlotte stamped her foot like a petulant child and did a slow burn. Jay found it hard to keep from smiling.

  "My master calls. You come down to see me sometime. Now that you’re successful, you’ll need a new car." As he said it, he gave a disdainful look at Jay’s Jetta.

  "Really, now. A successful guy such as yourself shouldn’t be driving one of these little German boxes. I can get you a great deal."

  "Tommmyyyy," whined Charlotte.

  A frustrated look came across Tommy’s face.

  "I’ll keep that in mind," replied Jay.

  Tommy gave him one last salesman’s smile. It quickly turned back into a frown as he turned and walked to his car. The three of them broke out into a quiet chuckle as they watched Tommy and Charlotte in animated discussion as they got into the car.

  The tires on Tommy’s DeVille squealed as he slammed on the gas and peeled out. As it went by, Gary cracked a grin and said, "Damn good woman. Just glad I’m not married to her." He turned to the others and said, "I’d better get going." He took Jay’s hand in his for one last pump. "Come by and see me before you leave town. We can catch up on old times."

  As he took Meg’s arm, she glanced at Jay.

  "Gary, do you mind if I ride back into town with Jay? I’ve got some catching up I’d like to do, too."

  He glared for a moment at Jay and then nodded. "Not at all."

  Meg turned to Jay. "It’s okay with you, isn’t it?"

  Jay gulped in a little air as he said, "No, no. It’s fine."

  As they walked to the car, she slipped her arm round his and said, "I just didn’t want to impose. As she stood waiting for him to open her door, she continued, "I just wanted a chance to talk to you alone."

  Jay smiled as he unlocked the passenger door. "Just get in, will you?"

  CHAPTER 8

  Nostalgia washed over Jay as they drove in silence through the streets. Off of Main Street, nothing seemed to have changed. New coats of paint, of course, but all the houses were there as he remembered them from those days.

  Another sort of memory was brought back by the scent of Meg’s perfume. It was a mix of roses and cinnamon and something else he had never quite figured out. It was familiar and comfortable. Just like the way he felt when he had seen that black hair cut to the shoulder and those piercing blue eyes.

  He had started to mentally whip himself over what he had done, giving her up, regretting that he had let another man marry her. Jay couldn’t believe it when she finally broke the silence with three little words.

  "Fred’s left me."

  It was almost a whisper. Jay had to lean closer.

  "What?"

  "He left me, Jay. For a truckstop waitress."

  Jay was incredulous, but why hadn’t he seen it at the cemetery? Gary at her arm. His heart rate jumped.

  "I had the real estate business to run. It was taking off so well, what with the new people buying in. I couldn’t give him what he wanted."

  "Oh, and what was that?"

  Meg opened her handbag and took out a pack of cigarettes and a small gold lighter.

  "Do you mind?"

  He shook his head. She lit up and took a deep drag as she cracked the window. She exhaled a white plume into the cold night air.

  "He wanted me home every night. Wanted dinner on the table when he got home from work. I’m not that kind of person, you know?"

  Jay nodded in agreement.

  "Anyway, I came home early one day. Caught them in our bed. My bed!"

  Through the scent of her, through the whirl of all the new possibilities rushing through his mind, a sudden realization hit Jay. "Hold on a minute. I’m driving here and don’t even know where we’re going."

  Meg laughed. "You know. My mom and dad’s old place. I moved in there after the divorce. They needed someone to watch it while they’re down in Florida. I moved in when that man left and just stayed."

  "Oh. So are they in town now?"

  "No. Don’t worry. You won’t have to run into my dad. I know how embarrassing that might be for you after what happened between us."

  Meg’s father seemed to have taken the breakup even harder than she had. When Jay had called her to apologize, he’d gotte
n an earful of blue prose. Mr. Foster seemed to be able to swear fluently in several languages, but it all came down to Jay being a turd; that he wasn’t fit to walk in Meg’s shadow. At the time, he might have agreed with that assessment.

  After hearing about how things turned out with the man her father ended up choosing for her, Jay didn’t feel like such a shit after all. He couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty, though, when he continued with his line of questioning.

  "So, that’s too bad about you and Fred."

  Meg took one last drag and crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray. "Well, for him it was worse. He moved in with her and after about three months of putting up with his shit, she kicked him out, too. But not until she’d cleaned him out. Then he had the nerve to come back crying to me and wanting me to take him back."

  "And?"

  "And I told him to tell his story walking and slammed the door in his face."

  Jay smiled and said, "Good for you."

  She turned toward the window and gave a little tug on her lower lip before turning back to him.

  "Yeah. Good for me." She paused for a moment to clear her throat and sniffled. "Sorry. A bit of a cold, I guess. But, anyway, a week later he caught up to me downtown at the office. I ended up with a black eye and a fat lip."

  She stared blankly through the front windshield.

  Jay half-whispered, "I’m sorry."

  Meg sniffled again and wiped an eye with the back of her hand. "Don’t be sorry. It was my fault for making a bad choice."

  Jay pulled to a stop in front of her house.

  "Don’t you ever say that. You might not have made that choice if I hadn’t…"

  She turned to him and patted his knee and smiled. "But it’s true, you know? You can’t blame yourself for what I did. I had a free will. Now, before I go. Where are you staying?"

  "The Inn."

  "Oh my god," she said with a laugh. "The food’s terrible there. I want you to come over for dinner tomorrow night, okay?"

  "I don’t want to impose," he said.

  "Jay, it’s no imposition. It’ll be nice to have someone over. I haven’t cooked for someone else in a long time. I’d like to find out if I still can."