Denis Ever After Read online

  “‘A former city resident struck by a hit-and-run driver Tuesday evening, November 20, at the corner of North Jackson and Stewart Streets, died Friday morning of his injuries.’”

  “Tuesday,” Matt whispers. “The same day you died.”

  I keep reading. “‘Melrose Tibbs, aged thirty-one, had been in a coma at UPMC Passavant Hospital since the incident. Tibbs was a native of Lyndora, and had resided at various addresses in Petrolia and New Castle since returning from service in Iraq in 2009. He is survived by his mother, Maybelline, currently of Buckwood, but predeceased by his father, Macy Tibbs, a decorated veteran of the Korean War, formerly of Coraopolis. The status of an older brother, Maywell Tibbs, is unknown. The hit-and-run accident remains unsolved and is now considered a homicide.”

  “Thass me. I’m Melrose.” And his voice stabs at me again. “But it ain’t a homicide. It truly was an accident. I was drinking and fell into that road going from there to here, which is where I am living now.” The man’s face bears a red scar from his forehead straight down to his chin. “It was the night it snowed. Hadn’t snowed before that.”

  He lifts his face to me, and I see where his right eye should be is open and dry, a hole.

  “You looking at my eye. I had a glass eye from the war, but I lost it that night.” He laughs. “It fell into the drain when the car hit me.”

  I am nearly too choked to speak. “You!”

  “I know which drain, too, but I can’t get it now. It sitting down there just looking up at the sky forever. Funny, ain’t it? If people knew they was being watched by a dead eye! I come back down here from the Haven to look for it. Three, four times already. But now I’m afraid to go back up there. I’d rip apart!”

  “You!” I say again.

  “Denis?” Matt whispers, putting his hand on my arm, maybe feeling something. “Denis?”

  “You kidnapped me!” I yell.

  The man steps back, shaking his ruined head. “Who? Me? Naw! I died.”

  “Before you died! You kidnapped me at the amusement park and stuffed me in your trunk. Jenny. Jenny was the name of your car! I was at Funland and you kidnapped me from my family. Then you killed me! You and that bum with the sandbag belly! That creep beat me!”

  He snatches back the newspaper I’m shaking at him.

  “Naw! Thass my brother, Maywell. I never beat you. I died. I’m dead now.”

  “Four Pines Cabins! You took me there in your trunk, then you killed me!”

  “What? Naw,” he says softly, looking me over. “I was at Four Pines? What was I like?”

  “You killed me! That’s what you were like. You’re a murderer!”

  He’s shaking his head more and more violently. “You got that wrong. I never . . .”

  “You killed me and took me to Gettysburg.”

  “Gettysburg? Ha! I ain’t been to Gettysburg never.” He seems to remember something. “Maywell took you away from that cabin. Thass what. He took you away from that cabin.”

  “Liar! Where? Where did he take me?”

  He eyes me, afraid. “I don’t know. But that was the plan. We were going to find out from the news who you were and get us money for Momma-May. . . .”

  “Ransom!” Matt says suddenly. “I heard him. I knew it!”

  “But I didn’t like Maywell’s plan and left you there and came to here instead. Maywell never came here. He took you away, but I don’t know where—” He seems suddenly taken with a new thought. “Maybe he drowned you! Maywell drowned a dog once in a lake when we were small.”

  “A lake?”

  “He must of got mad and drowned you in the lake too. Like that dog.”

  “The lake? What lake?” I scream.

  “Maywell wasn’t right after Eye-Rack, not that he was much right before. But we couldn’t work. No one hired us. Twice times I stopped him killing himself.”

  “Tell me! What. Lake!”

  Matt sees me quivering. “What is he saying?”

  “Are you sure your brother drowned me in a lake? Are you sure?”

  “Aw, I don’t know. I was dead, or nearly. I’m sorry for what I did. It was for Momma-May, but it wasn’t right, and I’m sorry. I know I did bad things. Please forgive me, please—”

  All at once, he starts to quiver like the woman did. He grabs his face and screams. “Ohhh!”

  “Melrose?” a deep voice shouts out from the back of the lobby. “Melrose! Stop that!”

  And he stops. Melrose Tibbs stops screaming and splitting. He tears his hands away from his face and looks behind him at a man staggering across the lobby to us. By his age and the way Melrose hops to greet him, hands clasping, embracing, I guess that it’s his father, Macy Tibbs. They hold each other close. Melrose tries to calm himself in the old man’s arms.

  “Leave the poor boy alone,” the man says to me. “He was wrong, so wrong, but he’s apologized now. You can see how he’s suffered. He’ll come and join us now. He’s allowed to. Melrose, leave this place and come home now.”

  “Aww, Daddy. I don’t want to split. I’m sorry. I really am.”

  “I know you are, Melrose, and please stop that silly way of speaking you and your brother picked up in the army. You’re from Pennsylvania. Young man, please let Melrose be. He’s suffered much in his young life, but he’s no killer. He’s sorry. Now, son, I think it’s time you and I left this place.”

  “It’s over, then?” Melrose says. “No ripping up?”

  “Let him rip!” some soul says from behind the registration desk, and the shades begin to gather excitedly again.

  “No!” Macy says sharply. “No! He will not rip. Not if I am with him—”

  “Rip, rip, rip!”

  Macy Tibbs swings around angrily and fixes his eyes on the greedy shadows. “A soul who loves him shall keep him safe. It’s being forgotten that kills. I haven’t forgotten my loved one!”

  The excited voices go quiet, and Macy Tibbs slips a ghostly Pirates cap on his son’s head. “Just follow me, now, Melrose. Once more into the razor, then no more.” Then turning to me, he says, “I’m sorry, young man, I really am. You seem nice, but no more, I beg you. Melrose is sorry. I’ll usher him home now.”

  Stunned, I back away, gasping at this bizarre scene of a father and his son. A soul who loves him shall keep him safe. When I finally turn to Matt, he’s shaking and crying. He’s seen some, but he’s heard more, and it’s terrified him.

  Boards are breaking across the lobby now. In unison, the ghosts swivel around to see my father, tramping across the floor, mad as a hornet.

  “Matt, get over here! You’re lucky the police had to take off. Out of here. Now! Now!”

  Even as Melrose and his father fade quietly across the room in front of me, the other ghosts implore us to remain, reaching out their bony dead hands, pleading.

  They even go after Dad—“Pity me! Save me! Remember me!”—but Dad doesn’t hear and Matt doesn’t tell him.

  We tear out the back doors into the street. A stark wind barrels down over us. I wipe my cheek, damp from that lady’s insides. “Matt, I’m worried. I have to check if GeeGee’s okay.”

  “What?”

  “Get in the car, Matt. Come on,” Dad growls as they make their way out the back of the building. “This will be part of counseling, too. You know that.”

  “Denis, please don’t leaf me!” he pleads, sounding almost like the ghosts now.

  But I have to. Dad has scared me by blocking GeeGee out of his mind. Matt scares me more by remembering her only from a photo he once saw. Her hand has never been on his forehead, he never heard her gentle voice or saw what I see in her eyes.

  “I have to go back!” I say as Dad hustles Matt into the car.

  “Bub the therapiss! You have to be there!”

  “Sixty-dollar ticket!” Dad snarls, jumping into his seat and starting the car with a roar.

  “I need to go back. I’m scared about her. You and Trey find this killer lake—”

  “Where do
we even fart looking? Transylvania has millions of latkes!”

  “It probably does, but look for a lake near any of the places we’ve been to.”

  Finding me in the light of a streetlamp, he says, “Hairy back. Good duck, bra.”

  And I wonder if he’ll ever get it.

  “Good duck to you, too. I’ll be back as soon as I can!”

  33

  If Anybody Asks You Where I’m Going

  The screams of that poor woman and Melrose Tibbs sear into my brain, and I can’t stop thinking how Dad said GeeGee came to him last year. She can’t be doing that. What if she tries to come again?

  She might do that. I can imagine her coming here. But if she does, an old lady in the razor . . .

  The thought of what might happen turns me to ice.

  Closing my eyelids tight until all light turns purple behind them, I conjure the burning blade. Easy enough. It’s always there in my head, like that high-pitched ringing in old people’s ears.

  The razor shreds me far more than before. I try to push through and get it over with, but there’s no hurrying and no lessening the pain. When I’m finally back in the gray room, I imagine blood pooling on the floor, like on that bloody street in Valdosta, but, no, it’s just the red pain inside me.

  I need to check on her, and I quickly hike down from the woods to her house.

  GeeGee, I say in my mind, GeeGee, over and over until I finally call out, “GeeGee!” like I called for Matt and my parents at Funland. Heading directly to the street where she lives, I see the sun is not yet down, but the air is gray and cold on my skin. The horizon is a dark smudge. I keep going, able to pick up speed as the pain of the razor lessens. I’m nearly there, three streets away, then two, then somehow I make a wrong turn.

  I make a wrong turn.

  After five years in Port Haven, I mistake the way to her house.

  Trying to place myself on the grid of streets, I pause on the sidewalk and glance back to the hills, which are fogged over, too. “I’ve gone too far,” I say to myself. I backtrack and finally spot a squat blue house. GeeGee’s bungalow is around the corner from a blue house.

  But as I approach the corner, I feel suddenly as if someone’s punched the air out of me. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to turn right or left. I feel off-center. Have I been sliced down the middle too often? What did he say, Macy Tibbs? It’s being forgotten that kills? I know that! And I haven’t forgotten my loved one. But have I spent too much time below? Have I done something bad? He warned me I might get confused, the writer . . . white hair . . . notebook . . . he did.

  I shut my eyes. No, no. I’m just confused. Like when you go too quickly from light into darkness, like Matt at the encampment hotel. Your eyes are shocked by the contrast. You’re surprised, and it takes a few seconds to adjust.

  My left eyebrow stings. I rub away the pain.

  Never mind. I’ll find her. GeeGee. And I’ll tell her everything Matt and I discovered below, and she’ll tell me the secrets she knows.

  Spying her bungalow at last, my heart skips a beat. It looks exactly as I remember, although a new plant sits near the front steps, a red flowering thing I’ve never seen before. No, no. The problem was only the couple of days I spent below. It’s the earthly things I discovered about my death that are throwing me off now.

  I’m through the gate into GeeGee’s yard. It’s neat, recently mowed and trimmed.

  “GeeGee!”

  Of course she’s not in her yard or on the porch, it’s too cold. Even so, I call her again.

  “GeeGee.”

  The front door. It’s painted dark green now, not the color it was, though I can’t recall what color it used to be. I tell myself I like it and will compliment her when she opens it.

  I hop up the steps, letting my feet pound on the boards to show that I’m here but also that I’m happy to be back and that I have things to tell her and ask her.

  I knock. “GeeGee!”

  Hearing no footsteps inside, I twist the knob. It’s locked. I tap again with my knuckles, harder this time. The door is tacky, the paint is fresh. I peek in the narrow windows flanking the door, salute with both hands to keep out the light, though it’s already overcast. The foyer is dark, there’s a gleam of polish on the side table in the entry hall and on the floorboards. The carpet is freshly crisscrossed by a vacuum. My heart pounds. I knock a third time. No answer.

  I think of the beach club. Maybe she’s there reading or playing cards. Yes, of course. Why did I come here? That’s where she is. I should have gone there first!

  After trying the knob a final time, I hurry down to the beach. Ella or Ellen is not on the sand, watching for boats, which I put down to it being cold, but even the ball courts are vacant, and they never are. The grotto is deserted and cold. I run to the beach club. Its long porch is empty except for a single card table at the far end.

  In the dim light I see figures. A flash of silver white hair. Not GeeGee, though. It’s him. The writer. Russo.

  “Russo!” I trot up the stairs to him. “Russo! I’m back. It seems like forever. Do you know where GeeGee is?”

  He looks up with sleepy eyes. He’s got an open notebook in his lap, but he isn’t holding a pen and isn’t playing cards, though a man with a strange flip of pink hair shuffles them repeatedly.

  “The name is Russell,” Russo says, and when I apologize, he adds, “Your features are . . . not quite aligned.”

  At first I think he means the gap in my eyebrow, but when I touch my forehead and chin, I feel a faint line like an old scar. “Never mind me. Russell, have you seen GeeGee today? I can’t find her.”

  “I haven’t seen anyone.” Russell lowers his head to his notebook. “Certainly not today.”

  Next to the lady with the big black medical sunglasses sits a young guy rubbing his spine from side to side on the back of GeeGee’s chair. His eyes shine like glass. His shoes and pant legs are wet.

  The man with the swirl of pink hair has begun dealing—flap, flap, flap—and glaring at each player as if he expects a reaction to the cards he’s snapping on the tabletop, but only some cards are faceup. He tilts his head to me, but not his eyes. “This GeeGee? Is she tall? Who is she?”

  “What? My great-grandmother. You know her, you play cards with her—”

  “Now listen, little boy,” the pink-haired man snarls, “I know who I know and I don’t know who I don’t know and don’t tell me otherwise! I’m simply asking, is she tall?”

  I feel light-headed, dizzy. “No. She’s short. Slight. White hair.”

  “Goodness!” he says. “She reminds me of my mother. You’re not looking for my mother?”

  “No! I’m looking for GeeGee! She smells like fresh oranges. She plays cards with you—”

  “Oh, I don’t think she does!” Pink Hair deals two more cards, scowling at the other players, who don’t return his glances. “And I’m not sure I like oranges, boy.”

  I try to calm my heart. “Seriously, no one has seen my GeeGee?”

  The young guy grunts under his breath, and Russell acts as if he’s not even here, pretending to scribble in his book with his fingertip. The whole place has gone insane.

  “Come on, all of you! I need to talk to GeeGee! And who is this new guy in her chair?”

  The man gawks at me. His mouth moves as if forming words, but nothing comes out, and he doesn’t stop clawing at his back. Russell appears strangely ashamed. He looks me up and down and something moves in his expression. “Come over here,” he says. He rises from his seat at the table, and the man with pink hair snarls as we steal away to a pair of chairs overlooking the sea.

  A ceiling lamp flickers over us.

  Russell frowns at his finger, dipped between the pages of his notebook. “I sometimes make notes about people. For my . . . well, I don’t know why, exactly, I just do.”

  “You’re writing a book,” I say, dredging that up from my memory.

  “If you say so.” He opens to the page and studi
es, as if he’s trying to read a foreign language. “Now, could your name be . . .” And seconds go by as he tries to read, like those that lapsed when I tried to remember his name for Matt. “. . . could your name be . . . Denis?”

  “Yes! You wrote about me? I was seven when I got here. The police say I died on November twentieth, five years ago. It snowed. They found my body at a monument at Gettysburg.”

  He closes the notebook for a moment. “Ah, a battlefield. There are so many. In rooms, in houses, on streets, in the sand and dirt. I like to say—or was it someone else?—that one tiny moment is just one of a thousand, thousand threads that twine together to make every one of us who we are and who we aren’t.”

  “Isn’t that what your book is about?” I tap the notebook, wanting him to open it. “People?”

  “Possibly.” He holds it to the lamplight again. “And your person, her name?”

  “GeeGee. I told you. I think she’s gone back too many times. She visited my father. And my grandfather before that. You have to remember her, Russell, you have to.”

  “But I rather think it’s because you didn’t, that she’s not here. Perhaps it was you alone who kept her here. And you left, so . . .”

  “What? No, it’s my family down there, it’s their fault.”

  “Is it? We like to think so, but we don’t really know. We don’t know how it all works. After all, we forget the living, too, don’t we? The living and the not-living forget one another. No sense in staying anywhere, once that happens. Besides, you forgot her, too, didn’t you?”

  “Russell, no. No. I didn’t forget, not all the way. I came back to ask GeeGee stuff and to tell her what I discovered. Not only about my death, but other things, too. Someone told me it’s messy there, and it is. It’s not all pretty. Some things are ugly, even. A lot of it hurts. But it’s all important, isn’t it, even the bad stuff?”

  “That sounds very deep.”

  “I don’t know, maybe it isn’t, but being down there, you start filling up with the world and the people in it. My brother has a friend. I saw minglers. I want to tell GeeGee all of that. I think she would have understood. Russell, please tell me she’s not gone.”