We were so bored that day. Jenna still in her cut offs and bikini top, refusing to let the Summer end. Under the bridge, smoking weed, pretending our senior year didn’t start in 2 weeks. SUMMER STILL BURNS she wrote. Spray painted graffiti to join the others. Blue, the only can she had. “What the fuck does that mean?” I asked her, laughing out smoke. “Dude, “she drawled, “you know what the fuck it means!” We both doubled over laughing, and I dropped the joint. It had been burning my fingers anyway. It joined the pile of garbage by my feet. I knew I had to get home before my Mom or there would be hell to pay. I was supposedly grounded.
The Crow Bride
I am expecting my first child, something that has made me far more nostalgic than I expected. Going through old pictures, I came across a print of my mom, with her brother Joshua. They must have been about 10 and 12, with sun kissed faces and scabby knees. This set my mind working, and I remembered when I first heard the story of the Crow Bride. Mom told me this story, about my uncle, when I myself was 12. She was in a vulnerable and emotional state, as It would have been my uncle Joshua’s 40th
birthday. She had been on the verge of tears all day, and when she told me the story at bedtime, she had a few glasses of wine in her as well.
I never knew my uncle Joshua, my mom’s older brother, because he died a few months before I was born. I knew who he was of course, as there were other pictures of him scattered around our house. In these, he was forever young and handsome, and seemed to look wistful, with a slight smile. Every picture was the same. He had very light blue eyes and was slight of build, almost too thin. He was nearly 28 when he died, and his life was ended early during a thunderstorm when he met a drunk driver, on his way home from work. This is all very ordinary and maybe cliché, but that’s not what was extraordinary about my uncle.
I remember that my Mom’s eyes drifted off as she started to speak.
Do the Dead Hate the Rain?
Do the dead hate the rain? The way I hate it? I used to wonder that sometimes as I stared out my window, a downpour beating a strange rhythm on my slate roof. I lived in a big old house next door to the town cemetery. I could see the expanse of gravestones from my kitchen table through the falling and streaming water, the window distorting the view. Do they hate the wetness? The chill? Rain made me more than gloomy, it elicited in me a dread and fear that I could never explain to anyone. Perhaps foreboding would be the right word, although I know that sounds ridiculously dramatic. Many times it would bring on one of the migraine headaches that sent me to bed and into the dark for days at a time, wanting to sleep, wanting to throw up, but unable to do either successfully. I would finally lapse into a half-sleep of shadows and noises that I could not quite see or understand fully.
Nothing On My Side
I woke up, not in a dark cellar as you would expect, but in a clean, familiar bedroom. Unfortunately, I was chained to the bed with a gag in my mouth. This was the home of my close friend Paul. We were in some of the same classes, though he was pursuing psychology while I was fixated on sociology. I was here because I had found out his secret. It’s not important how, so let’s just say that I was too curious, and he was too sloppy, and sloppy drunk. I had found one of his experiments, so now I couldn’t leave, and thus couldn’t turn him in.
All Better
I grew up in a small town, so I was never afraid of playing outside, even alone. Once I had a child, I felt comfortable with her playing outside as well. Our lawn was partially fenced and opened into a small expanse of woods. Sammy was a smart, independent 5-year-old, and knew not to stray too far. Maybe it was wrong, but I let her play in the backyard alone. I checked on her frequently, and there had never been a problem. It was a sunny Saturday, warm for Spring, and she asked to go out just as soon as she was done with breakfast. As a freelance artist, I had a lot to do, and welcomed a break. She bounded upstairs to get dressed.
The Coat on the Bridge
For two days, I saw an old brown puffy coat as I swept past on the bridge. It looked like maybe it had blown out of the back of someone’s pickup truck and landed there at the mid-point of the long stretch over water. The first time I barely noticed it, but the second, I became curious. Two days later it was still there.
Sewn
The Big Stone in the Park
Another year gone, another bouquet of flowers, another vigil, more remembering. Every year I do the same thing. Maybe I’m punishing myself for not being there, or maybe I’m apologizing for being alive when she’s not. I go to the big stone in the park every year on July 17, the place where they found my best friend’s body.