now. Hell, that’s obvious though. Keeping your dead wife in a box isn’t exactly normal. I used to take her everywhere.
I didn’t want an urn; they’re for old dead people. First thing I did when I skipped county was buy a silver box from a pawnbroker and put her in that. It looked like an old cashbox but I polished it up pretty good and had a heart engraved on it. I lined it with red velvet and sealed the ashes in a bag inside. Alternately, depending on my mind, I thought it was either smart or just plain funny that they were sealed for freshness. I don’t know how I feel about it now, it’s just Grace.
I used to carry that box on me everywhere, usually in a satchel. Sometimes I’d take her to the movies like we were still dating and when it was quiet, sit her beside me. I went through all kinds of things, I even thought about eating or mainlining her, all kinds of crazy shit. Eventually the Grace that I knew became the Grace I now know, a satisfactory evolution.
Centro was a dead space now. Probably no one here, I probably wrote that note. If there ever was a note, I hadn’t seen it lately. Still, I couldn’t be sure. Paranoia has always made me contemplate all possibilities all at once. I guess regular folk eliminate unlikely scenarios immediately, consciously or not, whereas I give the absurd equal credence. There’s enough traces of the old me to make a right choice and so I left the apartment for the last time and took Grace with me. I had a plan now.
I returned the tapes on my way out, with the exception of that night’s. I didn’t need to be seen breaking and entering again. That old bastard wouldn’t even notice anything had changed anyway. He wouldn’t even care since I put the key to 79 back. I left everything behind I didn’t need and walked out with Grace into the sunrise chill. We went walking together and it felt good to be outside. All of the fear and stress that had been building and building and growing inside of my fucking mind until I was going to kill whoever the fuck was following me and watching me, sticking in their unwanted face into mine and my wife’s business until I was going to have to cut it off. It was gone. We’d leave them behind.
We strolled in the breeze and I went to the back entrance of a convenience store. They’d had their early morning deliveries and there were a number of cardboard boxes laid out back in good condition. I found a good fit for Grace. I went to the Post Office and bought some tape and a marker pen. As I was about to write the address for the mailbox on, I paused and thought of sending her home to her parents. Just be done with it.
See, I’m gonna sing you one we all know and you can sing along if you want to. It goes a little something like this. Grace didn’t die because of me but her parents blamed me. I went to a little motel not too far out of town and waited, I mostly sat reading the complimentary Bible and smoking cigarettes. Grace trusted everyone. She had a good kind nature and thought the best of everyone. I don’t know how she ended up where she did but the cops reckoned she must have accepted a lift or decided to hitchhike away from home. I told her to go to the bus station. I don’t know, maybe she thought she would be seen by someone she knew there.
She never showed and I guessed her parents had stopped her. I couldn’t call to find out and so I stopped on a couple of days, hoping she would show up. When she didn’t I just took the bus back to town, sick with worry that she had left me or that something had happened. Her parents had read the note she left and I became prime suspect, I was arrested pretty soon after I came back to town. The old lady at the motel was my alibi, yet it was never enough for them. I’d killed their baby one way or another in their mind and was forbidden to attend the funeral. The papers said it was closed casket because she’d been messed up so bad, so I wouldn’t have been able to see her anyway I guess.
I had nothing and don’t need into go into details of how I reacted. I wasn’t going to her give her up and let them win and so I picked myself up and robbed them. I knew enough about that place and where they hid shit, Grace told me everything. I took their money and I took their daughter’s ashes. They drove us away and I knew we were meant to be together, that was her choice in life. I had enough to get by for now and we could disappear, I could work again and start a new life for us. At least that’s what I thought. Since then, it’s been a haze of despair and a string of sly manoeuvres.
I wrote the address for the mailbox onto the cardboard box. I wasn’t going to let them have her until they killed me. It almost finished me off to hand her over but I paid for her to be sent by courier and there she could wait for me while I worked out our next move. I had nothing and I needed a drink more than ever. I’ll be back straight after Grace and then we’ll be on the road.
Whiskey in my bones, my head felt like it was back on straight. Urban cowboy next to me in head to toe denim and boots shuffled his stool closer and with his face uncomfortably in mine, he leaned into my ear and said “Looks like you could use the ear of a holy man, Son”. I saw the cross embroidered on his jacket and knew he was for real and wasn’t some stud talking in code. I told him I’d done some pretty bad things and the about the suffering I had endured being blamed for the murder of my wife. I worried that I wouldn’t see her in the good place.
“You need to be absolved of your sins. Sounds like you’re in need of making a confession, Son”. Drink had loosened my tongue and I said more than I had since I last spoke to Grace.
“THIS IS A CONFESSION! MY WHOLE STORY’S A FUCKING MESS. IT’S FULL OF HOLES, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE”. He moved back and I stopped screaming. “I can’t turn myself in for something I didn’t do but if I went back they’d put me in an asylum now, that’s for sure. My mind’s not right now, Sir. They never found who did it and if I could find out myself and make it right, I would, but I gave up on that road a long time ago. I can’t avenge anything and I don’t need to bring her back. All the things I have stolen were rightfully ours because we put them to better use. I don’t need God’s word on that one. She didn’t have any dreams and neither did I, except to be together. There’s no grand gesture to make for her and there’s no resolution to an unadulterated loss. All I can do is keep her with me for as long as I can and keep on moving until we drop. I don’t know if I can be with her in death and so I’ll have to make do with this. I’m pretty sure there’s at least one gun pointed right at me at all times and I’m just dodging their sights”.
He ordered me a drink and looked at me a long time before he said anything. He looked sad and I don’t mean that he was moved by my tale. I just think he knew I was broken beyond repair and didn’t know exactly how to fix his eyes on me. All he could say was “If there is an answer, I don’t know it, Son. I just wish you luck on your travels. Just know that forgiveness is something that has to be accepted as well as extended”.
I drank until I vomited and slept it off in an alley, before I went to pick up Grace. I wanted to take her to the coast. If we went to the beach, we couldn’t be surrounded. It would be like our wedding and then I could sprinkle her ashes on the sand and see the tide come in to wash them away. I’d visit and she would return and leave each day, as would I. It might be better for us to spend some time apart but I could always be there for her. I’ll think about it on the bus.
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