Coffin Island (35 page)

“I’ll get in it,” I shouted. “Don’t
worry about it. What’s the color?”

“Black,” Professor Coffin roared. “What
are you stupid?”

Chapter

“Me Chinese Flannery O’Connor,” the
hideous ghost said.

The ghost looked like it had been
constructed out of spare ghosts. Ghosts that had been shipped off
to China to be stripped like so much copper wire. Telephone lines,
wires of communication that had been removed from their rubber
casings by smelting. Why not tear down all the lines of
communication in war torn Africa? What do those brutal
revolutionaries have to say to each other? Nothing good I would
presume. So this is what remains in the toxic pits deep in the
heart of darkest China. Brutal remembrances of Gothic writers past,
left over vibrations? What fresh horror do we have here? Do you
hear me now? I should just cut off my ears.

Chinese Flannery O’Connor, I thought,
that sounds about right for my first instructor at The Coffin
Island School for Witches, the real deal. Professor Coffin, he was
getting old hat. I was starting to even bust his chops in the
backseat of the glass Cadillac. What sort of person yells for more
heavy metal when flying through a hallucination at warp speed?
Someone incarcerate me pronto.

Chinese Flannery O’Connor, there’s a
writing instructor to give you pause. Let’s silence that Booster.
Put his overworked mind to good use. And she’s a ghost? Get out of
here. The horror, the horror, I gasped, the hors d'oeuvre. Pass
that fresh horror on over. Why not? I can gnaw on Faulkner’s
toenails at this point. Chilling, that’s how I would describe how I
like it. Let’s do that disparity between the characters delusions
and that hideous fate awaiting them. However I knew what was coming
so I wanted to hurry it up a bit. Why prolong getting yourself
killed?

“Is this a lesson on sardonic fate,” I
asked.

I raised my hand just to be obnoxious.
I spoke out of turn too. It was time to takeover this classroom
because I’d just appeared in it. That was how I was going to roll
at The Coffin Island School for Witchcraft. Go big and get sent
home. What the hell does detention look like? I aimed to find
out.

“You shut up,” Chinese Flannery
O’Connor said. “Or I shut you up.”

Chinese Flannery O’Connor looked like
something that should be haunting the hills of darkest China. She
was an outback apparition from the sticks that delighted in scaring
the daylights out of nonconformist hill people. She didn’t scare me
though. Although I was pretty sure that she could kill me. I was
actually quite convinced. You got to put that hand right on the
flame to feel the heat. It was hot. Chinese Flannery O’Connor ran
real hot. She was like a monk on fire. She smelled like gasoline
too. It made sense though. She’d been burned down to
this.

Chinese Flannery O’Connor was trying to
terrify us. Well, I thought, this lesson is not going to go the way
that she planned. Madison was getting contrary too. She was sitting
there next to me like an ornery donkey. Madison was smirking right
at that ghost. She was making silent gestures with her fingers.
Bring it ghost, was what Madison was saying with her fingers. She
was signing and signifying at that ghost. She was being incredibly
surly without even speaking. Let’s see what you got, Madison was
saying. It was hilarious.

This was my first class at The Coffin
Island School for Witches? It made perfect sense that this ghost
was going to try teach me. I was willing to take instruction from
this ghost sort of. Madison was kind of interested too. We just
weren’t going to do it on the ghost’s terms. She was a ghost after
all. You can’t start taking instructions from ghosts. It doesn’t
matter how powerful they are or even if they are right. You’ve got
to fight back when a ghost darkens your door.

But she had caught my attention.
Indeed. She had a showstopper of a name. Chinese Flannery O’Connor,
who thinks of this kind of smash up? You know what. I’ll pay
attention to a mind like that. I don’t even care it’s disturbed.
Delusion sits just fine with me as long as it hits on all the right
pedals. You’ve got to be deluded to be really successful in this
world. How else can you dream of taking over the entire world when
you have absolutely nothing? Delusion is the first step towards
total domination. And that old ghost had a kindly face. I like a
nice face. Who doesn’t? There was just the problem with it not
being there. How exactly do you make eye contact with a faceless
educator? Demonstrate your willingness to learn. Why not be hostile
instead? I can do the alienating affront that all really great
artists do such as Professor Coffin. I can do the hick out of the
sticks with the frightening ambition of wanting to make the whole
world shudder. That’s no problem. Chinese Flannery O’Connor hasn’t
capitalized the whole market.

“
You shut up, ghost,” I
said.

“
We shut you up,” Madison
snorted.

The ghost didn’t like that. She dropped
the temperature down a few bars as a response. It was suddenly
brutally cold. We were suddenly sitting in the Artic. That’s okay
though. Madison and I are polar bears. We don’t care. But it was
hard to not see the symbolism. It was right there. That symbol
system was boldly of our faces.

We were seeing our own breath exit us.
We were blowing smoke rings for all purposes. Those might be your
last breaths that brutal coldness seemed to suggest. That air
exiting your lungs is probably your last breath. Let’s just
visualize the end for you? It’s you or the wallpaper. And frankly
the wallpaper is sticking around because it’s got glue. You are a
different story, pal. You don’t stick.

That’s what Chinese Flannery O’Connor
seemed to suggest. We were exhaling our own smoke for all purposes.
We can run on fumes for a bit, I thought. What’s to stop us from
clunking in to the next gas station? There is just that ghost
that’s going to shut out our lights. I just knew it. She was coming
down on us like death. There was no avoiding it. Come hither,
darkness, I thought, I have something for you too. It’s not nice
either. Just like you. You see there is a dark symmetry to this.
You try to kill me. I try to kill you. That’s how the big boys roll
up in here. Why should I be passive? You’re trying to kill me.
You’ve intimated as much.

Let’s play for keeps, shall we? Why
bother with the Russian roulette otherwise. That pipe is loaded.
That’s how I like my handgun. A full clip and one in the pipe with
the hammer pulled back. Why pack heat otherwise?

This is just a pipe. Or perhaps the
pipe is a handgun after all. I wish that I could shoot this ghost
haunting my hills but the bullet would just ricochet. It looks like
I’ll have to take this class after all. So what if it’s terminal?
I’ll just humor this broad until she kills me. What choice do I
have?

Madison and I had appeared in our hard
back chairs in this classroom. We were hurtling through some
hallucination at warp speed with Professor Coffin one second. The
next second we were dumped here. Then we started shooting our
mouths off. We were scared but we were going to be obnoxious about
it. Don’t let your hangman have the satisfaction. Go ahead with
your gallows pole. We don’t care. You’ll pay handsomely to get us
off your gallows not the other way around.

We were in the front row of a hideously
vast teaching theater. It looked like the kind of place were
primitive autopsies were conducted. It was like a coliseum. It was
the sort of den that you fed humans to lions.

It was a hideously vast hall where a
grave robber would conduct his business. Why not sell tickets? The
show is going to be grim. People will pay handsomely to get in.
That’s how really great art works too, I thought. You’ve got to
make everybody comfortable. Then you make them uncomfortable. You
show them the butchery. However you have to throw the dead bodies
behind glass. You constantly play between the two. Are you
comfortable looking at dead bodies behind glass. The glass is what
separates it from a car crash. We look at that too.
Shudder.

We were not only in the front row of
this car crash. We were the front row of the car crash. Madison and
I were the victims. We were sitting in the place of honor. We were
like two bodies that were chalked off post homicide. Only we were
still alive. It was the anticipation that was making it art for
us.

We were sitting on the slab where you
put the corpses that you’ve robbed from the grave. You’ve worked
hard for those bodies. Why not show off a bit? Those two corpses
belong to me. I dug them up and now I’m going to do something truly
hideous to them. Watch this.

There were no other students for
Chinese Flannery O’Connor. Was it the sheer intimidation? Or was it
what she was teaching that was so unpopular? I tended to think that
it was both. Chinese Flannery O’Connor was a terminal course in
literature. There was no chance of passing.

“
I have a question,” I
said.

“You too stupid to speak,” Chinese
Flannery O’Connor said.

I raised my hand courageously again. It
had been shot down twice so far. I was shooting for a hat trick.
Why not climb into the penalty box before the games starts if the
game is rigged and that’s where you’re going no matter what you do?
We all knew that I wasn’t going to shut up. She was going to have
to kill me which she was going to do anyway.

“
Let’s get this over with,”
I suggested. “Just kill me.”

Madison was roaring in her
seat.

“Her Chinese Flannery O’Connor,”
Madison snorted.

“You girl,” Chinese Flannery O’Connor
snapped. “Go have baby.”

“You think that I care that you’re
sexist?” Madison snorted. “You’re a ghost.”

“Me no hear stupid girl,” Chinese
Flannery O’Connor said.

“Whatever, Chinese ghost,” Madison
laughed.

“Don’t take any gruff from that ghost,”
I suggested.

Chinese Flannery O’Connor had turned
her back on us. She was writing something on the chalkboard. It was
incredibly vast. The chalkboards just kept unfolding everywhere.
Chinese Flannery O’Connor was piling quarries of chalkboards around
us.

So that’s why the autopsy theater was
so vast. It was all becoming clear to me. Chinese Flannery O’Connor
had a lot to say. Why shouldn’t she? She was Chinese Flannery
O’Connor. What exactly did that mean? It was actually kind of
chilling when you thought about it.

What was she writing? Was she writing
our lesson plan? She was writing something really hideous up there.
I could just feel it in my blood. My blood seemed like it was
getting wise. It was jumping out of my body for all purposes.
Chinese Flannery O’Connor was making my blood jump a bit. She was
purposely trying to frighten us with her writing? Well, it was
working. Good for you, Chinese Flannery O’Connor. Go lightly, old
girl, the Buddha with you. Or whatever is powering you.

“
Booster Boo and Madison
Kidd,” she sighed. “Chinese Flannery O’Connor, her know. Her write
everything down. You two finished.”

“
You just wrote everything
that we’re ever going to write?” I gasped.

“
That’s it?” Madison
asked.

Chinese Flannery O’Connor was nodding.
Or at least that’s what her rags seemed to be signifying. How to
read the semiotics of this ghost? She can’t even speak English
properly. That was the most alarming part.

“
Our first day of class is
with a Chinese ghost that writes everything we’re ever going to
write in our entire lives?” I asked.

“
That’s not right,” Madison
shouted.

“
Me knows,” Chinese Flannery
O’Connor said. “No good.”

“
She’s telling us that we’re
no good at writing?” Madison asked.

“
You two stupid,” Chinese
Flannery O’Connor said. “No write good.”

“
Are you going to teach us?”
I demanded.

“
Me teach you pig Latin,”
Chinese Flannery O’Connor said. “You pigs. You start at bottom of
trough.”

“
We should leave right now,”
Madison said.

“
I don’t see why not,” I
said. “This is the worst class that I’ve ever taken in my entire
life.”

“
Why prolong it?” Madison
agreed.

“
You no leave,” Chinese
Flannery O’Connor said.

“
We’re leaving,” I
said.

“
You no leave,” Chinese
Flannery O’Connor said.

“
Why wouldn’t we leave?”
Madison asked.

“
Me no done,” Chinese
Flannery O’Connor said.

“
What is there left for you
to do?” I asked.

What more could there be for this ghost
to do? This echo of a dead southern writer that had been sent to
China like a bail of used clothes. Something for the hill people in
darkest China to rip up into so many rags for the privy? I wasn’t
enjoying this outing to the outhouse. What was there to like about
it? The moon was howling through the door of an outhouse in darkest
China. A hill person was in there doing his grim business on our
heads.

This was our first day of class in our
first class at The Coffin Island School for Witches? Chinese
Flannery O’Connor had written our entire output. She had written
everything that we were ever going to write? She had then declared
us unfit to write. We had been expelled as far as I could tell. Why
had we been permitted to pass the entrance exam? Why did we have to
travel through Flemish hell? It just didn’t seem right this Coffin
Island School for Witches. Perhaps I could try out for another
major. I was thinking of trying something a little more manageable
like rocket science. Perhaps jet propulsion would be nice. I could
be burned as fuel. Or just be condemned to death as a test pilot.
You go to Mars to be glass spider.