Crackpot Palace (5 page)

Sit the Dead

L
uke was in his room at his computer, looking at used cars. His cell phone rang. He answered with it on speaker.

“Darene,” he said.

“Gracie died,” she said.

He pictured the deceased, hairdo like a helmet, overweight, in flowered stretch slacks. Her earrings were disco balls; her face a half inch of powder and pale green lipstick. He'd met her at a barbecue in Darene's backyard. “You're in for it, kid. God bless ya,” she'd said to Luke and kissed his cheek green.

“That sucks,” he said.

“Is that all you have to say?” asked Darene.

“I only met her once,” he said. “I'm sorry you feel bad, though.”

“My father's inviting you to sit the dead.”

“Sit the dead . . .” said Luke.

“It's a family ritual.”

“I don't have to touch her, do I?”

“Don't be a tool,” she said. “You just have to go and sit with the body in the church for a few hours.”

“Like a wake,” he said.

“Yeah, but nobody else but you and one other person will be there.”

“You just sit there?” he asked.

“Two members from our family have to sit with Gracie till they take her to her grave. It's a family tradition going all the way back.”

“Sounds weak.”

“Your shift starts at midnight.”

“Me and you?”

“No, you and Uncle Sfortunado.”

Luke closed his eyes and shook his head.

“This means my family is officially accepting you,” said Darene. “My father says it's a test of your manhood.”

Luke laughed.

“I can see you're not mature enough,” she said.

Two nights earlier they'd been at the lake on the picnic bench. She sat on his lap facing him, her legs on either side of his. There was a cool autumn breeze, but she glowed with warmth as they kissed.

“Okay, sign me up,” he said, “but my parents are gone for the weekend with the car. I'm stranded.”

“I'll pick you up at eleven thirty,” she said.

He turned the computer off and went to take a shower.

Luke always got stuck sitting next to Uncle Sfortunado at the Cabadula family parties. After a while the reason for it became clear to him—no one in the family wanted to. The ancient patriarch often spoke in some foreign tongue, and when he did talk in English, he mumbled cryptic sayings involving animals—“The moon in the lake is for the fish” or “A spider in the mouth will empty your pockets.” When Luke stared back in puzzlement, the old man would spit out the word
“gaduche,”
which Luke was sure meant “stupid” or worse. Once he'd asked Sfortunado what country the Cabadula were originally from. He guessed Greece, Italy, Romania, Turkey, Russia.

The old man squinted and shook his head to each.

“Are you gypsies?” asked Luke.

“I wish,” said Sfortunado.

“I give up. Where then?”

“Another country.”

“Which one?”

“The old country, up in the hills,” he yelled and shook his head in annoyance.

As the shower water fell and the steam rose, Luke closed his eyes. “I'm gonna have to get blazed for this,” he thought.

Darene pulled up in her old Jeep Cherokee at exactly eleven thirty. Luke had never known her to be on time. He got in. She was dressed all in black—T-shirt, jacket, jeans, and he knew, even though he couldn't see her feet, that she'd be wearing black socks and sneakers. She gave him a quick kiss before he could slide across the seat and put his arms around her. Just as he reached, she turned, started the car, and pulled away from the curb.

“Put your seat belt on,” she said.

“Where are we going?” he asked and lightly touched a ringlet of her hair.

“The church over on Gebble Street.”

“That's a crappy area.”

“That's our church,” she said and made a stern face.

“How about we make a detour to the lake and you can test my manhood?” he said and laughed.

“Are you high?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I'm tired. I was asleep when you called.”

She sighed, and from that point on it was silence until they pulled into the church parking lot.

“I can't go in with you,” she said. She opened her door. He also got out and met her at the front of the car. She put her arms around his waist and he leaned back against the hood.

“I know this is beat,” she said, “but it means a lot to me.” She looked up and he smiled. She put the side of her face against his chest.

“You've got nothing to worry about,” he said. “I'll sit the dead like my father sits the bowl.”

“Seriously,” she said.

“I'm all about it.”

The next thing he knew, she was closing the front door of the church behind him. He stepped into a dark alcove and a sudden smell of incense and old wood made his spine twitch. Luke looked through the open doors and down the aisle before him, past the rows of darkened pews, to the altar—white marble, crowded with statues, and holding the candlelit coffin of Gracie. He took a deep breath and moved toward the light.

Between the first pew and the altar, there was an empty folding chair set up next to Uncle Sfortunado's.

“Hello,” Luke said too loud, sending echoes everywhere.

The old man turned and stared through thick glasses. He wore a gray cardigan dotted with cigarette burns. His beard was a week old and white as snow, his hair crazy.
“Gaduche,”
he said, raised a trembling hand, and farted.

“Good to see you again,” said Luke.

“This is who I get to sit the dead?” said Sfortunado, shouting into the dark. He grimaced. “The cat makes the owl bleed . . .”

“Darene's father told me to come.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The old man waved a trembling hand in front of his face.

“My condolences about Gracie,” said Luke.

Sfortunado laughed and pointed at the altar. “Go tell her you're sorry,” he said.

Luke got up and slowly ascended the three steps to the coffin. Gracie came into view, a deflated balloon made of dough. She wore a white dress, a giant version of a little girl's party rig, pale green lipstick, and her blond hair helmet was slightly askew. A hand grabbed the side of the coffin. Luke started and then saw it belonged to Uncle Sfortunado, who stood beside him.

“Looks like shit,” said the old man. “What do you think?”

Luke stalled by rubbing the back of his neck. Finally he said, “Well . . . she's dead.”

Sfortunado shrugged and nodded. “This is true.”

“What happened to her?”

“Something bad.”

Luke went back to his chair. Sfortunado mumbled a few words to Gracie and then announced, “She smells like flowers.” He threw his head back and laughed loud. The echoes rained down and Luke considered splitting. The old man hobbled back to his chair, and less than five minutes later was asleep.

Luke studied the statuary on the altar, elongated marble figures in the throes of agony gathered in a semicircle at the center of which hung a large golden sun made of gleaming metal. He took out his cell phone and texted Darene,
WT RELIGN R U
? Uncle Sfortunado was swaying slightly from side to side, snoring, his arms folded across his sunken chest. Darene's reply came back.
NO TXTING. C U @ DAWN
.

Time stood still in the candlelight, and Luke listened to the church quietly creak. The rapid scuttling of some tiny creature echoed like a whisper from the shadows. Somewhere something was dripping. It didn't take long before the creepiness gave way to boredom. “They should have a TV set up here,” he thought. Eventually his mind turned to Darene.

They'd been together since the previous autumn, junior year. Whatever her culture was, it demanded an old-fashioned formality between kids their age. They went to all the parties together, movies, some concerts, but she insisted he meet her family and attend the holiday and birthday gatherings at her house.

Both his male and female friends told him he was pussywhipped, but he didn't care. Darene's hair, ringlets of black springs that seemed alive, her smooth dark complexion, her green eyes and unabashed laugh, canceled out all of their scorn. She definitely knew her mind, and yet he wasn't particularly good at school, or good-looking by anyone's standards. The whole thing was a mystery he enjoyed pondering.

Luke's memory returned to that night at the picnic table by the lake for quite a while and then he checked his phone for the time, sure that at least a couple of hours had passed. He discovered that not even a half hour had gone by since Sfortunado had fallen asleep. Taking a cue from the old man, he put his phone in his pocket, folded his arms across his chest, and closed his eyes. As he began to doze, a putrid stench, the first stirrings of which he attributed to Uncle Sfortunado, slowly overcame the aroma of old incense and pervaded the place. “Gracie's not embalmed,” was his last thought before sleep and then he dreamed of going naked, late, to the SATs.

“Gracie's not embalmed,” was the first thought he had upon waking suddenly at the touch of someone's hand upon his shoulder. The church was freezing and that death stench was now thick as perfume. He looked over and caught a burst of adrenaline upon seeing a gun in the old man's wobbling hand. Luke made a move to bolt, but Sfortunado's eyes got big behind his glasses, and he brought his finger to his lips. He waved with the gun toward the altar. “The squirrel claws my heart,” he whispered.

Luke tried to get away, but the old man grabbed his wrist.
“Fashtulina,”
he said and touched the gun to his chest. He released his grip on Luke's wrist and turned to face the altar.

“Okay,” said Luke, reluctantly sitting back in his chair.

“She's got it in her blood,” whispered Sfortunado.

“What's in whose blood?” asked Luke.

“Gracie,” said the old man. “Every fifty years or so one of us Cabadula is born with the
gritchino
in the blood. You can't tell till they die. But this one,” he said, pointing at the coffin, “I always had a feeling.”

“Gritchino,”
said Luke.

At the sound of the word, Sfortunado touched his yellowed left thumbnail to each lens of his glasses and then kissed his middle finger. “The breeze. Do you feel it?” said Sfortunado.

Luke could feel a cold wind in his face. The candle flames danced wildly. “It's freezing,” he said, teeth chattering, and noticed his breath was now mist.

“The wind of eternity,” said the old man. He pointed with the gun again toward the altar.

Luke looked up to see the lid of the coffin slowly closing. “What the hell,” he said. He wanted to run but was paralyzed with fear. The wind increased, whipping around the church and screeching above in the darkened dome. Luke was shivering. Uncle Sfortunado was shivering too, but when the coffin lifted slowly off its platform, the old man stood and brought the gun up in front of him.

The coffin, as if lifted with invisible strings, rose six feet off its platform. Then it began to move through the air like a slow, wooden torpedo. As it swept by above and out over the pews, Uncle Sfortunado aimed and fired at it. He pulled the trigger three times and the echoes from the shots and splintering wood careered everywhere. As Gracie passed into the dark toward the front of the church, he said,
“Fasheel,”
and tapped his forehead with the barrel of the gun.

“Let's get out of here,” said Luke, trembling. He stood and saw the coffin cruising back out of the shadows, returning toward the altar. He ducked. Sfortunado again took aim and fired two more shots in rapid succession as she passed overhead. Splinters fell in Luke's hair, and he noticed the coffin begin to wobble in its flight. It gained speed and then took a nosedive at the altar, crashing into the metal sun and smashing the head off one of the sculptures.

As Uncle Sfortunado moved toward the altar steps, the lid of the coffin swung open on its hinges and what was left of Gracie levitated slowly into a standing position. Her blond wig was crooked and her face drooped in lumpy folds. She was pale as milk, even her long tongue was white, and her eyes had lost their pupils. Her lopsided green smile revealed sharp incisors.

“She's a fuckin' vampire,” said Luke.

“Fly like the wren,” said Sfortunado over his shoulder, and Luke didn't need a translation. He bolted down the aisle toward the front door of the church. He heard the gun go off again, and he stopped and turned to see the old man hobbling after him, waving at him to move. On the altar, Gracie was screaming like a wounded cat.

Luke made the door, burst out into the night, and then held it for Sfortunado, who was little more than halfway, limping and scuttling with all he had. Behind him, Gracie was floating up off the altar.

“Come on,” yelled Luke, and just as the old man reached him, he saw Gracie swoop through the air toward them. He grabbed Uncle Sfortunado by the arm, pulled him outside, and slammed the door. There was a thud against it from inside.

“She's coming,” yelled Luke.

The old man leaned back against the door and bent over to catch his breath. In between heaves, he held up a trembling index finger and said, “She's trapped in the church . . . till dawn.” Then he laughed and again couldn't catch his breath. “I knew she was
gritchino,
” he said. “I told them all and they said, ‘Oh, Sfortunado, he's losing his marbles.' ”

“She can't get out?” said Luke.

“I already told you. Call Darene, tell her
gritchino.
Tell her to bring guns.”

Luke took out his phone and did as he was told. He still wanted to run and keep on running till he was back at his house, in his room, earphones on, sitting at his computer. Darene finally answered.

“What are you doing to me, here?” said Luke.