Prom Night in Purgatory (Slow Dance in Purgatory)

by Harmon, Amy

  His eyes closed as he felt her whisper cross his lips.

  “Johnny….”

  And then she was gone. His arms still held the memory of her form. His face was flushed from the exertions of their dancing. He could still hear the song they had moved to echoing in his head. His eyes snapped open, and he shot up in his bed, only to cry out as the pain in his chest and right shoulder awoke right along with him.

  “Johnny?” It wasn’t her voice anymore. He wondered at what point it had changed. The woman who professed to be his sister stood at the side of his bed.

  “Your heart monitor started beeping like you were in cardiac arrest. I’m sorry I woke you…It just scared me. You must have been having quite the nightmare.”

  Johnny almost laughed at the sheer irony of her words. The nightmare existed only when he opened his eyes. He refrained from commenting though. It would only sound like a complaint, and he knew she was only trying to help him. She had barely left his side, and for all the confusion and anger he kept hurling her way, she never lost her temper with him or addressed him in frustration. He had done what she had told him, only because he didn’t know what else to do. He claimed he had no memory of who he was, and she had done all the rest, running interference with his doctors and making sure he was taken care of.

  She looked like his mother. She wasn’t glamorous or beautiful, but the resemblance was still there. She looked like Billy, too. Her hair was dark like his had been, and she had the same cowlick in front. This made it easier to accept that she was family...and harder to accept that they were gone. Johnny slid back down to a prone position and stared at the ceiling. The late afternoon sun peeked beneath the blinds at his windows, reminding him that he slept constantly. They said it was a normal part of the healing process, it must be working, because he was healing fast. He couldn’t care less about that. He just welcomed the escape sleep provided from the despair that was every waking moment. He slid his eyelids closed, willing himself to return to the dream.

  It had been a dream, after all. He recognized the mystery girl now that he was awake. It was her, the girl who had sobbed her heart out at his bedside the day before. The girl he hadn’t been able to remember. Margaret. Maggie. In the dream she hadn’t worn glasses, but it was her. The prom had been real though -- down to the smallest detail. He remembered it all clearly. After all, it had only been a few months ago. He stopped himself then. According to him, that is. It wasn’t 1958 anymore. Jillian Bailey said it was now March 5, 2011. That would make Prom 1958 an event that had happened almost fifty three years ago.

  He had taken Peggy Wilkey. She’d worn a pink strapless gown that displayed her generous cleavage to perfection. Carter had just about died when he had seen her, and he had spent the whole night trying to woo her, despite the fact that he was supposed to be showing his frumpy cousin a good time. It was all the same as in the dream: the people, the fishing nets and glittering starfish, the discomfort of his tie and his wish to be free of it. All of it the same….except for the girl, except for Maggie. Funny, in his dream she had been wearing the dress Irene Honeycutt had worn. He remembered that dress. Nobody else had worn red. Pastels were the flavor of the occasion, and Irene had shown up in that little number and tongues had wagged and wagged. Irene had wilted under the scrutiny. He had thought she looked wonderful, but apparently she wished she had chosen differently.

  In his dream, Irene had worn a fluffy peach dress with little bejeweled straps. He had danced with her, just like he had in real life. The song was even the same. Just the dress was different. Strange, that. Why would his subconscious mind dress Maggie in Irene’s dress and place her at the prom? He could still see her, standing there with her long hair and that red dress, like she had become part of the memory.

  ***

  “He doesn’t remember me,” Maggie spoke the words that had been bottled up inside her since she had been released from the hospital the morning before. “It’s like none of it ever happened, Gus. It’s like he fell from the balcony in 1958 and woke up in 2011. The years in Purgatory are gone, wiped away – and the only thing that’s left is the time that passed while he was there.” Maggie and Gus bounced along in Gus’s old truck, Gus at the wheel, Maggie leaning against the passenger door, staring out into the late afternoon sky.

  They were alone for the first time since she’d arrived home. Irene had sent them to the store to pick up a couple of things for dinner, and Shad was out with some new friends. His star had risen since he’d survived the fire at the school. He’d been invited to several parties and been begged time and time again to share his tale. He and Gus had agreed to leave Johnny’s part in the story out of the retelling. In Shad’s story, he’d forced his way out of the locker, only to collapse before he’d exited the school. His grandpa then acquired hero status when he had found Shad and carried him out to fresh air and safety.

  Gus reached over and grabbed Maggie’s hand, holding it tightly in his. He didn’t say anything; he just held her hand. His sweet gesture was her undoing. Maggie felt the dam burst, the disappointment and disbelief pouring out as the tears came. Gus pulled to the side of the road, threw the truck into park, and pulled her close. He wrapped his arms around her and soothed her with a gentle, “there, there, Miss Margaret.”

  “I….th-thought it…it…w-was a mir-miracle,” Maggie gulped, clinging to Gus’s wiry arm.

  “It is,” Gus responded quietly. “It is a miracle.”

  “No it-it…isn’t,” Maggie struggled to push herself upright, to look into Gus’s face. “It’s just another form of purgatory…don’t y-you see? It’s a n-nightmare for J-Johnny.” Maggie scrubbed her face, trying to make the tears stop flowing. She breathed in and out several times, fighting for dominion over her despair. She didn’t speak until she felt exhaustion start to douse her raging emotions, and her tears slowed to a stop.

  “You know how they say be careful what you wish for?” Her voice was so soft it was amazing Gus even heard.

  But he did hear, and he nodded, his dark eyes full of sympathy.

  “I wished so hard that Johnny could have a second chance….that we would have a chance. I think I made it happen, just by force of will. Now the universe is laughing…and I am once again the butt of the joke.”

  “I think sometimes we do make things happen….just by wantin’ ‘em bad enough. That doesn’t mean things is gonna be easy, though, even when you get what you want. Life is work, girl. Love is work. Plus, fallin’ in love is fun. Ain’t nothin’ like it. Just think, you get to fall in love with Johnny all over again.”

  “I never fell out of love with Johnny.”

  “But you’re acting like it’s over,” he rebuked softly. “Love isn’t pretty, Miss Margaret. I think that’s why so many people don’t make it. They don’t appreciate the hard times. They expect it to be all airbrushed and touched up like the pictures you see in them magazine ads. Why, just the other day, I was looking at some pictures in a magazine my daughter Malia left laying around.”

  “Gus!”

  Gus leveled a look at Maggie that had her biting her lip and trying not to laugh, as heartsick as she was.

  “There was an article showing how they made the models in the pictures look a certain way. They trimmed off a little weight here and there, touched up a blemish, even made their womanly assets look bigger, and when it was all done, the woman didn’t even look like a woman anymore!”

  “Womanly assets?”

  “You know what I mean, Miss Margaret,” Gus chided. “They made the woman look like a doll - all fake and plastic, with her face painted on.” Gus sighed dramatically, as if someone had taken a marker to the pages of his Bible. “When my wife Mona got cancer, she lost a lot of weight. She used to have beautiful curves and thick curly hair. Her hair fell out when she went through chemo. She cried and told me she didn’t think I would love her anymore.” Gus’s voice had grown soft, and his eyes were bright with the painful memories.

  Maggie squeezed the hand
that still held hers, comforting him in return. Gus sat without speaking for a time.

  “The truth is, Margaret, I just loved Mona more. I saw her strength and her patience, her gentle heart, and her love for me and her desire to shield me from pain. All those things were more beautiful to me than her curves or her pretty hair. All those wonderful traits were on display like they’d never been before, and she took my breath away. I loved her more when she died than I did the day I married her. The woman I married was beautiful, but the woman I lost was stunning.

  “Don’t forget your miracle so quickly, Miss Margaret. The hard times are often the best times, ‘cause they draw you closer. You should be singin’ hallelujahs from the rooftops - celebratin’.”

  Gus’s voice was gentle, and Maggie didn’t take offense. Though she thought she had reason enough to want to forget, she wouldn’t forget her miracle - not now, not ever. Even though he had forgotten her.

  ~4~

  A Time to Plant

  “Maggie?” Irene started, dishing up a small portion of her famous coleslaw. “Remember a few months ago when we cleaned up the attic and donated all that stuff to Goodwill?”

  Maggie nodded absently, wishing she could find a place to dance her despair away. She ached for the escape and considered removing her bed from her room to give her more floor space. Since the school had burned down and she’d been released from the hospital, she hadn’t danced once. She needed it more than the food Irene kept piling on her plate. She needed it almost as desperately as she needed Johnny.

  “We didn’t by any chance give away a record player, did we?” Irene worried. “I don’t remember seeing it. I promised the ladies at the historical society that we could have it for our auction coming up here in a few weeks. It should be worth something. It still works just fine, and it has all those old 45s in perfect condition.” Irene sighed. “I got nervous all of a sudden that maybe I’d had one of my senior moments and given it away without thinking.”

  Something niggled at Maggie, and she sat for a minute, trying to pull it forward. “I know we didn’t give a record player away…but I don’t remember seeing it either. Whose record player was it, Aunt Irene?”

  “It was Lizzie’s. She loved it. It was in her room upstairs until she got married and moved out. When Roger and I moved back into this house after Daddy died, it was still there, right where she had left it. When I made that room into a nursery, I moved it upstairs into the attic. It hasn’t been used since – but it still worked when I moved it up there so….Maggie? Are you all right, dear?”

  “Did she used to have a bear she called Jamie?” Maggie blurted out.

  Irene blinked once, twice, and then stuttered out, “Why….yes! She did. She named him after James Dean….” Her voice trailed off.

  “What Maggie? What is it?”

  “I saw her….I mean, I think I did. When I was in a coma….I had a dream. At least I think it was a dream. I was in her room. The record player sat under one window. There were records on the floor. She was sitting on her bed, talking to the bear. It was so funny that I laughed. She saw me. She thought I was a ghost….”

  Gus and Irene were staring at her, their spoons halfway to their mouths. In unison, they set their spoons back on their plates.

  “She saw you?” Irene squeaked.

  “Yes! We talked for few moments and then….something pulled me away. Gus pulled me away. He was telling me to wake up, that Johnny needed me. She, Lizzie, called after me, and told me to stay.” Maggie’s eyes were unfocused, looking beyond Gus and Irene, remembering how real it had all been. “It wasn’t the first time, either. The other time I was with Johnny – riding next to him in your daddy’s big black car. A Buick?” Irene’s jaw dropped.

  “Daddy did have a big, black, Buick….but why would Johnny be driving it?”

  “He was taking it to Gene’s for a tune-up….I think. I remember feeling so happy, wishing I could stay right there beside him…but he couldn’t see me like Lizzie could. Although he did say my name...” Maggie’s voice trailed off in puzzlement. She had forgotten that part.

  “Lawdy, lawdy,” Gus marveled with a short whistle. A deep frown curved his mouth, and his eyes were wide with fear. “You best be careful, Miss Margaret.”

  “Careful?….Why?” Maggie and Irene both gazed at Gus in surprise.

  “This all reminds me of my grandma. She saw ghosts…just like you do. Just like you, she claimed most the time it was like she was seein’ somethin’ from the past, someone doin’ somethin’ they’d done many times. Or she’d see somethin’ happen that had a great deal of emotion attached to it…battle scenes, things like that. She said sometimes the things she saw were so real that she almost forgot where she was, like she got pulled into their stories. One time she was traveling North with my grandpa….this was in the early nineteen twenties or so, mind you…long past the days of the Underground Railroad. You know ‘bout the Underground Railroad, Miss Margaret?”

  Maggie nodded her head. “It was a network of routes and safe houses and people that helped runaway slaves get to the free states and Canada, right?”

  “That’s right, during the early to mid 1800’s,” Gus agreed, nodding with her. “My grandma and grandpa ended up staying the night in a home that had been along one of those routes. For some reason or other, my grandma couldn’t sleep that night. She was restless and she didn’t want to disturb my grandpa. She thought she could step outside and get some fresh air, maybe walk a little bit.” Gus suddenly stood up from the table, as if the story was making him nervous. He paced a little and then bade them to follow him to Irene’s little front sitting room. When they were all seated, he continued his story.

  “A short ways behind the house there was a big, dried up creek bed. The folks my grandparents were stayin’ with said it’d been dry all summer long, but that night, when my grandma slipped outside, she thought she could smell water. The moon was full, and it was one of those nights where everything is all bathed in moonlight; she said she could see almost as well as if it was day.

  “When she got down to the bank of the creek my grandma said it was dry, just like the folks said it would be….but she could still smell the water.” Maggie felt the hair on her neck prickle. She’d forgotten how she had been able to smell Johnny and the scent of cigars and cologne in Jackson Honeycutt’s car. Maggie forced her attention back to Gus, almost afraid to hear what he had to say next.

  “Grandma said she closed her eyes, breathing the smell in….She said it smelled so fresh and cool…but then she smelled something else. She said it was a smell she didn’t immediately recognize. She sniffed the air, and suddenly she knew. She said it was a sharp, ripe scent…like someone who has worked long hours in the sun. But it was more than just the smell of sweat and labor...It was the smell of fear.” Gus’s hands began to shake a little bit and he clasped them around the armrests on the old chair. He rubbed the worn fabric with the tips of his long fingers and took several deep breaths. Gus looked up at Maggie then, and Maggie felt a frisson of alarm. Gus was frightened by what he was saying.

  “When my grandma opened her eyes, she saw them. There were three women, two men, and a handful of children walking up the creek bed. My grandma said she cried out in surprise, but they didn’t seem to see her. She said they were maybe ten yards downstream when suddenly she noticed there was water in the creek. It came up to the knees of the men and women who were walking in it. The children were holding the hands of the adults and had to struggle a little to keep upright. A light breeze was blowing toward where my grandma stood, and she caught that scent again....the smell of raw terror. Their clothes didn’t match the time period, and my grandma realized she was seeing something that had happened long ago. They were moving quickly, as quickly as the water would allow, and my grandma watched them as they neared and then passed her and walked out of sight beyond the bend in the creek.

  “She realized they was slaves…runaway slaves. My grandma says she felt a connection so
strong that she was sure someone in that little group had to be kin. She said it was almost like she could hear another heartbeat, and it called to her own. She didn’t want to leave. She said she wanted to run after them, that she almost couldn’t bear to stay behind.

  “Then she heard another sound, and it made her blood run cold. She heard dogs. She said the baying sounded like it was comin’ from everywhere at once. And then, just like with the water in the creek bed, one minute it wasn’t there and the next it was. She said there were men on horses with dogs, obviously trying to run down the runaways. But unlike the slaves, the dogs could see her. They veered off one side of the bank, across the water, and up onto the side of the creek where she stood, watchin’ all of it happening maybe seventy-five years after the fact. The men on horseback followed the dogs. My grandmother began to run. She turned back toward the house, screaming for my grandpa, and suddenly…”

  Gus stopped and mopped his forehead, which glistened with a light sheen of sweat. “Suddenly she couldn’t see the house no more. It wasn’t there. She could feel the dogs closin’ in, and she heard one of the men cry out and knew that he had spotted her too.”

  Irene was suddenly clasping Maggie’s hand tightly in her own, and her eyes were as wide as saucers.

  “My grandma was wearing a long white nightgown with a shawl wrapped around her. She said the ends of the shawl must have been streaming out behind her because she felt when one of the dogs caught a piece of it, and it was yanked from her shoulders. She stumbled a bit and another dog was immediately at her heels. One dog sunk his teeth into the back of her leg, and she screamed for my grandpa again. She said she knew she was done for…and in that moment she saw my grandpa’s face in her mind and held on tight to his image, wishin’ for him like she’d never wished before.

  “And then he was there, grabbin’ her up in his arms…” Maggie and Irene breathed out in unison, one gusty sound of relief. “The dogs were gone, the men on horses, nowhere to be seen. Grandma had awakened the whole house with her screams. Grandpa apologized to everyone and hustled Grandma back to their room with some excuse as to why she was outside screaming bloody murder.”