All I've Got for You
All right kids, I hear you coming up the trail through the woods to my cemetery. You think you’re being quiet, but you’re not. You trip on roots and giggle, shushing each other. Any old geezer could hear you. And I’m no geezer—I’m a spirit in the prime of my afterlife with excellent senses plus an inexplicable intuition. And although I just barely remember your voices from when you were young, say around fourth grade, my intuition tells me exactly who you are. You are the Trundle twins, Greta and Ada, with your boy friend for life, Felix Fuglesen. All grown up and about to graduate. You girls are like sisters to him, sometimes like mothers. And poor Felix is torn between loving your attention and wishing another dude were here. Well, Felix, that may be the least of your worries. Soon I’ll learn what kind of people you three have become, and what kind of terror you deserve.
Up here on the hilltop there’s an empty grave. The edges are as eroded as an abandoned gravel mine. The bottom of the grave is deep and as black as the pupils of the owl who calls from the bluff across the river. Did you like that? When I was teaching I would have called that a ‘tortured metaphor’ or maybe ‘purple prose,’ but these days, who gives a shit? My point is: The night is perfect. See how those trees, those hickories and hackberries--see how they encroach the cemetery, reaching to join the tips of their branches against the purple sky? In their tangle of branches, in the confusion of the wind, you see glimpses of the moon and Mars. It’s god damned perfect. Hawthorne would love this. I wonder if his old soul is still wandering around Concord? He certainly had issues to work out. One day I’ll take a vacation from this gig and head east and see if I can find him.
But back to you kids.
You were nice when you were young. In second grade you joined my soccer camp and played for two years. Greta, you’re a lefty; that’s how I told you apart. Ada, you played goalie so you could sit in the grass and read. You laughed at my tiny hoop earring. And Felix, you were a natural striker, but you passed to the girls anyway, when you could have scored yourself. Are you still so kind? Or did this country beat that out of you, like it does to most young men? And girls, you might be surprised to know I remember that sweatshirt you made for me, which your mom insisted was your idea, which said ‘World’s Greatest Coach,’ which I thought was a little trite when I first saw it, until Ada said, That is our opinion, so it’s undisputable! And Greta added, in that laugh-talk of hers, You better wear it, Mr. Dudek—we’ll be watching you! And I did wear it every time I changed the oil on my motorcycle, or cleaned the gutters, or raked mulch on the prairie flowers, or fixed a kid’s bike. And sometimes you walked by with that enormous and terrified greyhound of yours, and you cheered.
But after that we lost touch, because I got killed.
I might have spoken at your commencement last week, as I did for so many graduating classes. By popular demand, I might add, because there’s no point in humility now. I would have worn my tiny hoop earring, despite your teasing, and worn my hair a little too long in the back, and quoted rock musicians you don’t know but will look up now, and told you there will be 40 million minutes in your life, if you’re lucky, and they’re ticking off even while I speak (so I probably should wrap it up and get off the stage, which got a laugh every time) and then declared that I would like to thank the extra special kids and proceeded to name every one of you, pointing at each one, without breathing until the end, when I took a comically long breath, and then whispered thank you right into the mic, and walked off to emotional applause. You missed that performance. So tonight, perhaps, I offer a performance of a less celebratory nature. I don’t know yet. I hold that decision like Poe’s pendulum on an upswing. First I must decide if you deserve it. I must determine whether you’ve turned into cruel little shits, brainwashed by their Righteous culture. The nicest kids often turn into the most wretched adults. Maybe because they’re the most vulnerable? As if that matters now. Let’s get on with it. Come on up my hill.
[End of excerpt]
This story is part of the collection Under the Moon in Illinois, which will be released soon in print, ebook, and audiobook. To learn more (and read the rest of this story), sign up for my newsletter. Just use the form at the bottom of this page. Thanks!
