«You did-nothing?»
«Something Put the shovel and pick back in the tool shed, locked it and went back to the house and built a fire and drank some hot chocolate, shivering and shivering. Would you have done different?»
«I-«
«Would you have dug for eight hours in hard ice rock so's to reach her when she was truly dead of exhaustion, cold, smothered, and have to bury her all over again? Then call her folks and tell them?»
The young man was silent. On the porch, the mosquitoes hummed about the naked light bulb.
«I see,» said the young man.
The old man sucked his pipe. «I think I cried all night because there was nothing I could do.» He opened his eyes and stared about, surprised, as if he had been listening to someone else.
«That's quite a story,» said the young man.
«No,» said the old man, «God's truth. Want to hear more? See that big stone with the ugly angel? That was Adam Crispin's. Relatives fought, got a writ from a judge, dug him up hoping for poison. Found nothing. Put him back, but by that time the dirt from his grave mixed with other dirts. We shoveled in stuff from all around. Next plot, the angel with broken wings? Mary-Lou Phipps. Dug her up to lug her off to Elgin, Illinois. More relatives. Where she'd been, the pit stayed open, oh, three weeks. No funerals. Meanwhile, her dirt got cross-shoveled with others. Six stones over, one stone north, that was Henry Douglas Jones. Became famous sixty years after no one paid attention. Now he's planted under the Civil War monument. His grave lay wide two months, nobody wanted to utilize the hole of a Southerner, all of us leaning North with Grant. So his dirt got scattered. That give you some notion of what that FREE DIRT sign means?»
The young man eyed the cemetery landscape. «Well,» he said, «where is that dirt you're handing out?»
The old man pointed with his pipe and the stranger looked and indeed, by a nearby wall was a sizable hillock some ten feet long by about three feet high, loam and grass tufts of many shades of tan, brown, and burnt umber.
«Go look,» said the old man.
The young man walked slowly over to stand by the mound.
«Kick it,» said the old man. «See if it's real.»
The young man kicked and his face paled.
«Did you hear that?» he said.
«What?» said the old man, looking somewhere else.
The stranger listened and shook his head. «Nothing.»
«Well, now,» said the old man, knocking out the ashes from his pipe. «How much free dirt you need?»
«I hadn't thought.»
«Yes, you have,» said the old man, «or you wouldn't have driven your lightweight delivery truck up by the cemetery gate. I got cat's ears. Heard your motor just when you stopped. How much?»
«Oh,» said the young man uneasily. «My backyard's eighty feet by forty. I could use a good inch of topsoil. So …?»
«I'd say,» said the old man, «half of that mound there. Hell, take it all. Nobody wants it.»
«You mean-«
«I mean, that mound has been growing and diminishing, diminishing and growing, mixtures up and down, since Grant took Richmond and Sherman reached the sea. There's Civil dirt there, coffin splinters, satin casket shreds from when Lafayette met the Honor Guard's Edgar Allan Poe. There's funeral flowers, blossoms from ten hundred obsequies. Condolence-card confetti for Hessian troopers, Parisian gunners who never shipped home. That soil is so laced with bone meal and casket corsages, I should charge you to buy the lot. Grab a spade before I do.»
«Stay right there.» The young man raised one hand.
«I'm not going anywhere,» said the old man. «Nor is anyone else nearby.»
The half-truck was pulled up by the dirt mound and the young man was reaching in for a spade when the old man said:
«No, I think not.»
The old man went on:
«Graveyard spade's best. Familiar metal, familiar soil. Easy digging when like takes to like. So.»
The old man's head indicated a spade half stuck in the dark mound. The young man shrugged and moved.
The cemetery spade came free with a soft whispering. Pellets of ancient mound fell with similar whispers.
He began to dig and shift and fill the back of his half-truck as the old man from the corners of his eyes observed:
«It's more than dirt, as I said. War of 1812, San Juan Hill, Manassas, Gettysburg, October flu epidemic 1918, all strewn from graves filled and evicted to be refilled. Various occupants leavened out to dust, various glories melted to mixtures, rust from metal caskets, coffin handles, shoelaces but no shoes, hairs long and short. Ever see wreaths made of hair saved to weave crowns to fix on mortal pictures? All that's left of a smile or that funny look in the eyes of someone who knows she's not alive anymore, ever. Hair, epaulettes, not whole ones, but one strand of epaulette, all there along with blood that's gone to silt.»
The young man finished, sweating, and started to thrust the spade back in the earth when the old man said:
«Take it. Cemetery dirt, cemetery spade, like takes to like.»
«I'll bring it back tomorrow.» The young man tossed the spade into the mounded truck.
«No. You got the dirt, so keep the spade. Just don't bring the free dirt back.»
«Why would I do that?»
«Just don't,» said the old man, but did not move as the young man climbed in his truck to start the engine.
He sat listening to the dirt mound tremble and whisper in the flatbed.
«What're you waiting for?» asked the old man.
* * *
The flimsy half-truck ran toward the last of the twilight, pursued by the ever-encroaching dark. Clouds raced overhead, perturbed by the invisible. Back on the horizon, thunder sounded. A few drops of rain fell on the windshield, causing the young man to ram his foot on the gas and swerve into his home street even as the sun truly died, the wind rose, and the trees around his cottage bent and beckoned.
Climbing out, he stared at the sky and then his house and then the empty garden. A few drops of cold rain on his cheeks decided him; he drove the rattling half-truck into the empty garden, unlatched the metal back-flap, opened it just an inch so as to allow a proper flow, and then began motoring back and forth across the garden, letting the dark stuffs whisper down, letting the strange midnight earth sift and murmur, until at last the truck was empty and he stood in the blowing night, watching the wind stir the black soil.
Then he locked the truck in the garage and went to stand on the back porch, thinking, I won't need water. The storm will soak the ground.
He stood for a long while simply staring at the graveyard mulch, waiting for rain, until he thought, what am I waiting for? Jesus! And went in.
At ten o'clock a light rain tapped on the windows and sifted over the dark garden. At eleven it rained so steadily that the gutter drains swallowed and rattled.
At midnight the rain grew heavy. He looked to see if it was eroding the new dark earth but saw only the black muck drinking the downpour like a great black sponge, lit by distant flares of lightning.
Then, at one in the morning, the greatest Niagara of all shuddered the house, rinsed the windows to blindness, and shook the lights.
And then, abruptly, the downpour, the immense Niagara ceased, followed by one great downfell blow of lightning which plowed and pinioned the dark earth close by, near, outside, with explosions of light as if ten thousand flashbulbs had been fired off. Then darkness fell in curtains of thunder, cracking, breaking the bones.
In bed, wishing for the merest dog to hold for lack of human company, hugging the sheets, burying his head, then rising full to the silent air, the dark air, the storm gone, the rain shut, and a silence that spread in whispers as the last drench melted into the trembling soil.
He shuddered and then shivered and then hugged himself to stop the shivering of his cold flesh, and he was thirsty but could not make himself move to find the kitchen and drink water, milk, leftover wine, anything. He lay back, d
ry-mouthed, with unreasonable tears filling his eyes.
Free dirt, he thought. My God, what a damn-fool night. Free dirt!
At two o'clock he heard his wristwatch ticking softly.
At two-thirty he felt his pulse in his wrists and ankles and neck and then in his temples and inside his head.
The entire house leaned into the wind, listening.
Outside in the still night, the wind failed and the yard lay soaked and waiting.
And at last … yes. He opened his eyes and turned his head toward the shaded window.
He held his breath. what? Yes? Yes? What?
Beyond the window, beyond the wall, beyond the house, outside somewhere, a whisper, a murmur, growing louder and louder. Grass growing? Blossoms opening? Soil shifting, crumbling?
A great whisper, a mix of shadows and shades. Something rising. Something moving.
Ice froze beneath his skin. His heart ceased.
Outside in the dark, in the yard.
Autumn had arrived.
October was there.
His garden gave him …
A harvest
Last Rites
1994 year
Harrison Cooper was not that old, only thirty-nine, touching at the warm rim of forty rather than the cold rim of thirty, which makes a great difference in temperature and attitude. He was a genius verging on the brilliant, unmarried, unengaged, with no children that he could honestly claim, so having nothing much else to do, woke one morning in the summer of 1999, weeping.
«Why!?»
Out of bed, he faced his mirror to watch the tears, examine his sadness, trace the woe. Like a child, curious after emotion, he charted his own map, found no capital city of despair, but only a vast and empty expanse of sorrow, and went to shave.
Which didn't help, for Harrison Cooper had stumbled on some secret supply of melancholy that, even as he shaved, spilled in rivulets down his soaped cheeks.
«Great God,» he cried. «I'm at a funeral, but who's dead?!»
He ate his breakfast toast somewhat soggier than usual and plunged off to his laboratory to see if gazing at his Time Traveler would solve the mystery of eyes that shed rain while the rest of him stood fair.
Time Traveler? All, yes.
For Harrison Cooper had spent the better part of his third decade wiring circuitries of impossible pasts and as yet untouchable futures. Most men philosophize in their as-beautiful-as-women cars. Harrison Cooper chose to dream and knock together from pure air and electric thunderclaps what he called his Mobius Machine.
He had told his friends, with wine-colored nonchalance, that he was taking a future strip and a past strip, giving them a now half twist, so they looped on a single plane. Like those figure-eight ribbons, cut and pasted by that dear mathematician A. F. Mobius in the nineteenth century.
«Ah, yes, Mobius,» friends murmured.
What they really meant was, «Ah, no. Good night.»
Harrison Cooper was not a mad scientist, but he was irretrievably boring. Knowing this, he had retreated to finish the Mobius Machine. Now, this strange morning, with cold rain streaming from his eyes, he stood staring at the damned contraption, bewildered that he was not dancing about with Creation's joy.
He was interrupted by the ringing of the laboratory doorbell and opened the door to find one of those rare people, a real Western Union delivery boy on a real bike. He signed for the telegram and was about to shut the door when he saw the lad staring fixedly at the Mobius Machine.
«What,» exclaimed the boy, eyes wide, «is that?»
Harrison Cooper stood aside and let the boy wander in a great circle around his Machine, his eyes dancing up, over, and around the immense circling figure eight of shining copper, brass, and silver.
«Sure!» cried the boy at last, beaming. «A Time Machine!»
''Bull's-eye!''
«When do you leave?» said the boy. «Where will you go to meet which person where? Alexander? Caesar? Napoleon! Hitler?!»
«No, no!»
The boy exploded his list. «Lincoln-«
«More like it.»
«General Grant! Roosevelt! Benjamin Franklin?»
«Franklin, yes!»
«Aren't you lucky?»
«Am I?» Stunned, Harrison Cooper found himself nodding. «Yes, by God, and suddenly-«
Suddenly he knew why he had wept at dawn. He grabbed the young lad's hand. «Much thanks. You're a catalyst-«
«Cat-?»
«A Rorschach test-making me draw my own list-now gently, swiftly-out! No offense.»
The door slammed. He ran for his library phone, punched numbers, waited, scanning the thousand books on the shelves.
«Yes, yes, he murmured, his eyes flicking over the gorgeous sun-bright titles. «Some of you. Two, three, maybe four. Hello! Sam? Samuel! Can you get here in five minutes, make it three? Dire emergency. Come!»
He slammed the phone, swiveled to reach out and touch.
«Shakespeare,» he murmured. «Willy-William, will it be-you?»
The laboratory door opened and Sam/Samuel stuck his head in and froze.
For there, seated in the midst of his great Mobius figure eight, leather jacket and boots shined, picnic lunch packed, was Harrison Cooper, arms flexed, elbows out, fingers alert to the computer controls.
«Where's your Lindbergh cap and goggles?» asked Samuel.
Harrison Cooper dug them out, put them on, smirking. «Raise the Titanic; then sink it!» Samuel strode to the lovely machine to confront its rather outre' occupant. «Well, Cooper, what?» he cried.
«I woke this morning in tears.»
«Sure. I read the phone book aloud last night. That did it!»
«No. You read me these!»
Cooper handed the books over.
«Sure! We gabbed till three, drunk as owls on English Lit!''
«To give me tears for answers!»
«To what?»
«To their loss. To the fact that they died unknown, unrecognized; to the grim fact that some were only truly recognized, republished, raved over from 1920 on!»
«Cut the cackle and move the buns,» said Samuel. «Did you call to sermonize or ask advice?»
Harrison Cooper leaped from his machine and elbowed Samuel into the library.
«You must map my trip for me!»
«Trip? Trip!»
«I go a-journeying, far-traveling, the Grand Literary Tour. A Salvation Army of one!»
«To save lives?»
«No, souls! What good is life if the soul's dead? Sit! Tell me all the authors we raved on by night to weep me at dawn. Here's brandy. Drink! Remember?»
«I do!»
«List them, then! The New England Melancholic first. Sad, recluse from land, should have drowned at sea, a lost soul of sixty! Now, what other sad geniuses did we maunder over-«
«God!» Samuel cried. «You're going to tour them? Oh, Harrison, Harry, I love you!»
«Shut up! Remember how you write jokes? Laugh and think backwards! So let us cry and leap up our tear ducts to the source. Weep for Whales to find minnows!»
«Last night I think I quoted-«
«Yes?»
«And then we spoke-«
«Go on-«
''Well.''
Samuel gulped his brandy. Fire burned his eyes.
«Write this down!»
They wrote and ran.
«What will you do when you get there, Librarian Doctor?»
Harrison Cooper, seated back in the shadow of the great hovering Mobius ribbon, laughed and nodded. «Yes! Harrison Cooper, L.M.D. Literary Meadow Doctor. Curer of fine old lions off their feed, in dire need of tender love, small applause, the wine of words, all in my heart, all on my tongue. Say 'Ah!' So long. Good-bye!»
«God bless!»
He slammed a lever, whirled a knob, and the machine, in a spiral of metal, a whisk of butterfly ribbon, very simply-vanished.
A moment later, the Mobius Machine gave a twist of its atoms and-returned.
&n
bsp; «Voila!» cried Harrison Cooper, pink-faced and wild-eyed. 'It's done!»
«So soon?» exclaimed his friend Samuel «A minute here, but hours there!»
«Did you succeed?»
«Look! Proof positive.»
For tears dripped off his chin.
«What happened? what?!»
«This, and this … and …this!»
A gyroscope spun, a celebratory ribbon spiraled endlessly on itself, and the ghost of a massive window curtain haunted the air, exhaled, and then ceased.
As if fallen from a delivery-chute, the books arrived almost before the footfalls and then the half-seen feet and then the fog-wrapped legs and body and at last the head of a man who, as the ribbon spiraled itself back into emptiness, crouched over the volumes as if warming himself at a hearth.
He touched the books and listened to the air in the dim hallway where dinnertime voices drifted up from below and a door stood wide near his elbow, from which the faint scent of illness came and went, arrived and departed, with the stilted breathing of some patient within the room. Plates and silverware sounded from the world of evening and quiet good health downstairs. The hall and the sickroom were for a time deserted. In a moment, someone might ascend with a tray for the half-sleeping man in the intemperate room.
Harrison Cooper rose with stealth, checking the stairwell, and then, carrying a sweet burden of books, moved into the room, where candles lit both sides of a bed on which the dying man lay supine, arms straight at his sides, head weighting the pillow, eyes grimaced shut, mouth set as if daring the ceiling, mortality itself, to sink and extinguish him.
At the first touch of the books, now on one side, now on the other, of his bed, the old man's eyelids fluttered, his dry lips cracked; the air whistled from his nostrils:
«who's there?» he whispered. «what time is it?»
«whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth, whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul, then I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can,» replied the traveler at the foot of the bed, quietly.
«what, what?» the old man in the bed whispered swiftly. «It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation,» quoted the visitor, who now moved to place a book under each of the dying man's hands where his tremoring fingers could scratch, pull away, then touch, Braille-like, again.