Dead Things

Lawrence Van Hoof

 

My grandmother picks up dead things. She brings them home. Sometimes she scares people because they don’t understand. Nobody does. Except me. And that’s the scariest thing of all.

…

Coming back from the drugstore, we walk through the park and my grandmother spots a dead bird in the brown leaves beside one of the benches. The little bird is brown too, a sparrow.

She lifts the dead sparrow to her left ear. I glance around and hope no one is watching. She’s mostly deaf in that ear, at least to the real world, but everything else comes in loud and clear.

“This one’s sad,” she says. “Crying out for Todd. A mother’s cry.”

I kick at the leaves. There’s a Todd in my grade, in the other class. His mum died in the spring, and I remember thinking how weird it was. How could your parents die when you’re not even grown up yet?

“Do you want to hold it?” my grandmother asks. “This one’s special. Touched by angels.”

She caresses the bird, and we continue walking. I wish she would hide it in one of her bags. She has plastic ones stuffed in her pockets, and a big group is coming toward us from the community center — kids from the neighborhood. They don’t want to be friends anyway, but I don’t want to make things worse.

…

My grandmother lives on the seventh floor of a co-op. She puts the dead sparrow on a bright blue saucer on her kitchen table, then nods and listens. I open a ginger ale. The popping of the little bubbles makes it easier to ignore the whisperings of the bird. It’s not bad like some of them, but I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to see in-between the way she does. She thinks everything is good, but I know it’s not. Otherwise my dad wouldn’t have run off, and I wouldn’t have to go to school, and I wouldn’t have to pretend everything’s fine.

…

The next day Todd’s mum appears during math class, wearing a ripped party dress, the hair on one side of her head missing. She looks like gauze stretched out thin and full of tiny holes, her sad face sweeping back and forth, looking, looking. She’s in the wrong class, but she doesn’t know it. She just mutters and walks toward me, sending shivers through the kids she passes.

I bite on my pencil to stop from yelling. On my left, Patricia pauses while twirling her braided ponytail and gives me the weird look.

Cold air brushes my face. Todd’s mum laughs and pokes Peter, who sits in front of me. He yelps and jumps out of his seat.

Mrs. Marple stops writing on the blackboard. Peter scowls at me.

“What’s going on back there?” Mrs. Marple demands.

“She poked me,” Peter says.

Mrs. Marple plunks her chalk on her desk and tromps down the aisle, squinting at us with her dark eyes. She has on a red dress and too much rouge, which made me wonder if she wants someone to bring her an apple.

“Maggie did it,” Patricia says. “I saw her.”

“Liar!” I say.

“Margaret!” Mrs. Marple says.

“She’s lying.”

Mrs. Marple grabs my arm, half-pulling me out of my seat, and hustles me to the back corner by the windows. After plunking me on a chair, she brushes a hand over her dress and strides back to the front of the room.

Next to my desk Todd’s mum moans and breaks apart. But her voice lingers. “My baby. My baby…”

I can only cry — and hide it as best I can.

…

The sparrow has begun to smell. My grandmother’s sleeping on her bed, wearing an old brown dress and one brown shoe. The other shoe lies on its side on the floor.

I unlace the shoe and ease it off her foot and tuck both shoes under her bed. In the kitchen, I turn on the portable fan. The sparrow doesn’t say much. It’s too busy crying.

…

Three days later, Todd’s mum comes back to my class during a history lesson about the end of New France. She looks thinner than before, more washed out. Cold air wafts against my skin. Her moans dig into my ears.

I grab my pencil hard enough to snap it in half. The kids around me give me weird looks.

Todd’s mum reaches for Peter, and I stick both hands in the air. She pauses, moans, and shakes her head. I guess she’s confused because he resembles Todd: the big nose, shaggy brown hair, blue jeans dirty from playing soccer during recess. They often play together too, so maybe Peter has a bit of Todd sticking to his clothes.

Mrs. Marple frowns. “What is it, Margaret?”

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

“No, we’re almost done.”

“But it’s an emergency.”

“You can wait five minutes.”

Todd’s mum wails and grabs Peter’s right ear. He yells and jumps out of his seat.

“I didn’t do it,” I say.

“She grabbed my ear,” he says.

“No I didn’t. I had my hands up.”

Mrs. Marple grimaces and walks toward us.

Patricia says, “I saw her do it.”

“Oh, she has three arms?” Mrs. Marple says.

Peter glares at me, rubbing his ear. I wipe my face, blinking hard, trying not to cry.

“Okay, you can go to the washroom,” she says. “But no more funny business.”

I stare at her.

“Be quick,” she says, “or I’ll send you to the principal’s office instead.”

I sprint out the door.

…

After school, I zigzag around the building to see if Todd is playing soccer. If his mum can find him, maybe she’ll leave me alone. She hangs in the air like a smell, chirping every few minutes, afraid she’ll never see him again.

Instead of Todd, though, I find Peter, with some older boys.

“Hey, freak,” Peter yells. He runs at me. The other boys follow. I sprint over to the small parking lot. Mr. Turney, a grade six teacher, is there; he calls out to the boys.

They run back to the field and start kicking around the ball, pretending nothing has happened. I duck through a hedge and run ’til I reach my bus stop.

…

I don’t sit behind Peter anymore. Mrs. Marple switched everyone, pretending it was fun and normal. Everybody knows it’s not.

The next day, after lunch, I use the bathroom at the opposite end of the school, just to be safe. The kids there don’t know me. They’re too young.

When I step back into the hallway, I peek around the corner and wonder if I can hide in the library.

Mr. Chowdhury, the vice-principal, steps out of his office and turns in my direction. He thinks I’m a faker, a troublemaker; and he knows how to make words hurt, even more than the kids in my class.  I duck outside before he can see me.

At the end of the playground, Peter and Todd play soccer with eight other boys and two girls. I sit around the corner, close to the wall, pretending I’m invisible. Sometimes it works. Today, a bunch of kids from grades two and three zoom past and don’t even look at me.

The soccer ball flies past the goalkeeper and stops within ten meters of me. Todd runs up, his shaggy brown hair flapping, and kicks the ball back to the others. I wait. Nothing happens. He runs back to the middle of the field.

I slap the ground beside me. I don’t know why his mum waits until the middle of my classes to do her ghost thing. Why can’t she come out when he’s right there?

I sprint to the chain-link fence at the edge of the playground and drift closer to the game, keeping one hand on the fence. I feel a cold draft over my head. Peter stops abruptly and glares at me. A couple of the older boys stop too.

“Hurry up,” I whisper.

Another cold draft billows around me. Peter runs toward me. I turn around and sprint towards the front of the school.

“Goober,” he yells.

Three other boys join him, yelling goober and gobblehead. I turn the corner. Their voices fade out. I duck between the bushes and wrap my arms around my legs. Cold air continues to spill around me. A faint wail comes from overhead.

Then Mr. Chowdhury steps outside and gives me detention for damaging school property.

The bushes, I guess.

…

Todd never seems to be alone at school. He always has a friend or two with him. So I have to hide in bus shelters and bushes and behind parked cars for three days to find out where he lives.

The house is cinnamon-colored brick and has a white porch with flaking paint. Weeds are sprouting in the lawn, and the garden bordering the porch looks mangled. Close to the steps, a plastic gnome in a red hat waters a dead bush and some fake purple flowers.

I sit beside his neighbor’s hedge, pretending I’m invisible, and wait for him to come home. I hope he doesn’t bring any friends with him. I don’t know what I’ll say. Maybe I won’t need to say anything. His mum should do whatever she needs to do and leave me alone.

Close to five, Todd turns the corner at the end of the block. I sigh, relieved he’s alone. He spits at the fire hydrant, kicks at the sidewalk, and slaps a maple tree.

When he starts up the steps of his porch, I stand up.

“Hey,” I call out.

Todd turns and stares at me. “What are you doing here?”

“I have a message for you.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

He glances at his front door, like he’s thinking about his video games and how girls are weirdos.

I wait, but his mum doesn’t make a peep. Did she give up? Sometimes they do that.

“Buzz off,” Todd says and steps onto the porch.

“It’s from your mum. I think she wants to say goodbye.”

He spins around, his face turning red. “Don’t talk about my mom.”

He runs down the steps and charges me. I run.

“Stay away,” he yells. “Goober!”

He doesn’t chase me far, though. Instead he grabs a stone and whips it at me. It bounces off a parked car. I duck behind the car.

“I’ll knock your head in,” he yells.

A few feet in front of him, the air cracks open, releasing a wail, and Todd’s mum filters out onto the sidewalk. He can’t see her, but he yells and swishes his hands over his face.

“Listen,” I say. “You have to listen.”

He falls. She tries to scoop him up, like she would a baby. Todd yells, then lurches to his feet, still flinging his hands over his face. Tears stream down his cheeks. His mom wails and reaches for him. He stumbles towards his house and falls again. He scrambles to his feet and bolts up the steps.

I run past his mum, cold air prickling my nose and skin. He fumbles with his keys.

“Wait,” I shout. “Just listen. Then she can go away.”

He slams the door shut behind him. His mum lets out one last wail and vanishes.

…

The next morning, during math class, Todd’s mum reappears, standing in the aisle, looking lost.

She turns in a circle and squints at each of the kids near her. I bite my fingers, hoping she doesn’t touch them.

At the front of the class, Mrs. Marple taps her chalk on the board. “Margaret, eyes up front.”

“Can I go to the washroom?”

“No. You can either pay attention to the lesson or sit in the corner.”

“Please?”

“Margaret, you’ve already gotten detention twice this month. Would you like to see Mr. Chowdhury again?”

“No.”

Cold air drifts over my bare arms. I clench my pencil. A moan echoes through the classroom. A few of the other kids shift in their seats. They hear something too: an odd whisper, a gurgle, a whimper.

Mrs. Marple taps her chalk on the board and returns to her lesson about decimals. A second moan drifts through the room. Papers rustle. Pencils fall on the floor.

Behind me, Scott Gardner whispers, “Goober.”

“Class,” Mrs. Marple says and taps the chalkboard.

“Goober…”

More cold air spills over my arms. I glance over my right shoulder. Todd’s mum reaches for Scott, her torso and legs fading as she focuses all her energy on her right hand. She lunges at him.

He yells and tumbles out of his seat. He scrabbles at the floor. Cold air whistles around us. He sputters. She grabs onto him.

His whole body jerks, and barf explodes out of his mouth. Everybody starts yelling while Mrs. Marple runs around her desk. Todd’s mum wails and disappears; and I stare at the barf spreading across the floor, wondering if he had Cheerios for breakfast.

…

At lunchtime, I hide behind a gap in the hedge by the parking lot. Sometimes birds hide in the hedge too. Sparrows usually. When they’re alive, I actually like them. They look ordinary, but can sing better than anybody I know and don’t need anybody’s permission.

Today they decided to hide somewhere else, so I draw pictures in the patch of dirt by my feet. Hieroglyphs. Shapes that have secret meanings. Nobody else understands them. But after a few minutes, I scuff them out. I hate that I’m different, that none of the other kids hear what I hear or see what I see. Why can’t I have a friend who understands? Just one?

The hedge rustles. Footsteps scurry closer. I scramble away, but too late. Someone kicks me, then tackles me. I try to yell. He sits on top of me and shoves my head to the ground. I kick but he shoves my face harder into the grass. It’s Peter.

“Freak!” he yells at me.

“Hey!” a second boy yells, and pushes Peter, knocking him over.

“What are you doing?” Peter yells back.

I cough and grab at the grass. I scramble away.

“You’re supposed to be playing with us.” It’s Todd. “Not some dumb girl.”

Peter stares at Todd. “She’s the freak. She made Scott barf.”

“If you want to be stupid, you can be the goalie,” Todd says.

Peter hesitates a few seconds, then runs off to the soccer field. Todd waits. He doesn’t look at me.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Weirdo,” he says and runs after Peter.

…

Unless it’s pouring rain, Mrs. Marple doesn’t let me stay in the school. When she’s on yard duty she makes sure I go outside, to the quieter girls or the swings or the monkey bars.

Today, as soon as Mrs. Marple walks away, I run to the parking lot and sit beside the wall. I pretend I’m invisible.

About ten minutes later, Todd trots around the corner. I wait, hugging my legs. His mum won’t come out today. The air has a fuzzy look, as if a light rain is falling. My grandmother calls it the weeping of angels. I don’t mind. At least it’s quiet.

Todd stops abruptly and frowns. He takes a step back, glances around, and scratches his head. Peter was off playing soccer, like nothing had happened. I don’t know how boys do that. Do they just forget everything?

Todd’s head swivels toward me, and he jumps, startled. I tense up, ready to run.

“Geez!” he says.   “How do you sneak up like that?”

I grimace and toe the asphalt. He looks around, eyeing the slides where some younger kids scream and chase each other, making sure nobody important is close enough to notice us.

Todd kicks at the asphalt and looks around again. Several of the younger kids shoot down the slides. A pickup truck rumbles past the school.

He jams his hands in the pockets of his blue jeans. “That was my mum?” he asks.

I nod.

He chews his lips. The silence strings out between us.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says.

On the street, another diesel engine rumbles by, this time going in the other direction.

“Can you do that again?” Todd asks. “Make her talk?”

I shake my head.

“Oh.” He turns to leave and thumps a fist against the brick wall. “Okay.”

“My grandmother can,” I say. “She knows how.”

Todd stops and looks at me–really looks, like I actually have a face.

“She can’t always. You have to want to.”

He takes a few steps toward the playground.

“I won’t tell anyone,” I say.

He hovers by the corner while Mr. Chowdhury gets out of his car and squints in our direction. He doesn’t see me, though, and marches off to the school.

“I promise,” I say. I wait.

He nods. “Okay.”

…

Two days later, after school, Todd meets me at the library on Pape Avenue. He pretends I’m not there and leads the way outside, staying ten feet in front of me.

On the bus, we don’t talk much either:

“Do you play soccer?”

“No. But I like it.”

“Do you like comics?”

“I don’t know, I guess.”

“Hulk is way better than Batman.”

“Oh.”

“They’re gonna do a movie.”

“Yeah?”

When we step off the bus, across from my grandmother’s co-op, Todd seems nervous and stops to look at the fountain and the teenagers playing basketball at the court sandwiched between the streets.

“What’s she gonna do?” he asks.

“Eat your brain,” I say.

He stops again, his eyes goggling. Then he pushes me and charges up the steps to the lobby.

…

I unlock the door to my grandmother’s apartment.

“It’s me, Gramma,” I say. “I brought somebody. From school.”

“It stinks,” Todd says.

“Yeah,” I say and shove the door shut behind him.

My grandmother pokes her head out of the bedroom. “What? Who? You should have told me. I would’ve made muffins.”

I try not to pucker my face. The last time she made muffins, she burned the bottoms, and the insides had lumps of flour.

“This is Todd,” I say. “He wants to know about his mum.”

“Oh.” My grandmother scratches her head. I’m glad she got a haircut. It doesn’t look as messy. “The sparrow? The sad one?”

“Yeah.”

“Has she been with you? You’re supposed to tell me.”

“I forgot.”

“You need to tell me. You know you do.”

“I’m sorry.”

My grandmother sighs. “Better late than never.” She waves a hand. “Bring your friend in. There’s pop in the fridge.”

She shuffles back into her bedroom and closes the door. I pour ginger ale for myself and coke for Todd. He’s staring at a green bowl on the table, holding a gray and white bird.

I pass him the coke and sit on the couch.

“Is that a pigeon?” he says, pointing at the table.

“Yeah.”

“Are you gonna eat it?”

“No, it has an angel,” I say. “It just needs a ride.”

He opens his mouth. No words come out. Instead he sits beside me and stares at the bird.

“It’s kind of stuck,” I say. “They can’t come back by themselves. Like your mum.”

“She’s in a bird?” he says.

“Not anymore. She’s just kind of around. Waiting, I guess.”

“Waiting for what?”

“I don’t know. That’s what my grandmother has to figure out. Sometimes they forget.”

His face scrunches up, like he has cramps. I swirl my ginger ale and listen to the bubbles burst.

My grandmother comes out of the bedroom wearing the brown dress she normally saves for eating at restaurants–the real ones, not McDonald’s. She shakes Todd’s hand, and he mumbles and stares at the floor.

“You’re going to have to remember things,” my grandmother says. “Good things and bad things. But I can see you’re tough, and you want to help your mum.”

“She’s gonna come here?”

“We’ll try,” my grandmother says. “But it might be hard for her to see us. It’s a gray day, and that makes it difficult.”

“Oh,” he says.

My grandmother picks up the bowl with the pigeon and sets it on the balcony. Todd has no idea what to do. Stand? Sit down? Stare at the balcony? He sips his coke.

My grandmother brings in two blue saucers, one on top of the other, the dead sparrow hidden between them.

Todd wrinkles his nose. “Another bird?” he asks me.

“Just a little one.”

He swirls his glass and holds it under his nose, bubbles zooming to the surface and popping. He takes a big gulp. The whispers outside quiet.

My grandmother slides the saucers onto the table and sits in the chair facing the balcony. She tells Todd to sit across from her. I sit on her left.

He looks at me, his eyes big. Now that this might actually be real, he wants to stop.

My grandmother shifts three candles around on the table and lights them with a wooden match. She starts counting the beads on the bracelet she wears on her right wrist, first out loud, then in silence. The bracelet is like the rosary she has in her dresser, but twenty-four of the beads are bright red seeds with black tips, with one black seed and one red seed in the middle.

“Did you go places with your mum?” my grandmother asks. “On vacation? Or the cottage?”

“We used to go camping,” he says. “My dad loves fishing.”

“But not this year.”

“No,” he says quietly. “We didn’t go anywhere. He just watches TV.”

My grandmother murmurs and closes her eyes. She stays that way for a long time. Todd squirms and fiddles with his glass. I listen to the popping of the bubbles. The clock hanging beside the hutch, stuffed with old dishes and knickknacks, begins to tick.

“Do you remember the night she passed away?” my grandmother asks.

“She went to a party. My Aunt Chris was getting married, so they had a party. But I couldn’t go. It was just for grown-ups.”

“You were mad,” my grandmother says.

“No!”

“Yes, you were.”

“I wasn’t!”

“It’s okay. Sometimes being mad is the right thing.”

“She’s sad,” I say.

They look at me. I shake my ginger ale and watch the bubbles shoot to the top. I didn’t mean to say anything. The words just popped out.

“Can you hear her?” he asks. “Momma?”

I shake my head.

“You have to keep remembering,” my grandmother says to Todd. “That’s the hard part. Remembering the good and the bad. Like maybe you had a birthday and she made a special cake. Or she was dressed up and went to the party.” She points to the center of the table. “Did you see her? Before she left?”

“Yeah,” he says. “But…”

“She was busy. In a rush.”

“Yes,” he says and hiccups.

“A pretty dress,” I say. “Really pretty.”

“Y–yes.”

“She looked so pretty,” my grandmother says. “But you were mad too. And then it was too late. She wasn’t there anymore. She was gone. Gone far away…”

My grandmother’s words become fuzzy and sink into a murmur. Todd slumps in his chair and rubs his eyes. He doesn’t want to cry. He wants to be a big boy.

The air squiggles. The ticking of the clock hiccups. My stomach tightens.

“Oh,” my grandmother says.

At the center of the table, the saucers crack. Todd straightens. I clutch my ginger ale. One chunk of the top saucer slides onto the table, revealing the remains of the sparrow–a few feathers and half the beak.

Nothing else happens. The clock beside the hutch falls silent. My grandmother looks disappointed.

“There’s too much fog today,” she says.

“What does that mean?” Todd asks.

“She’s having trouble finding us.”

“There’s no fog,” he says.

“It’s not that kind of fog,” I say.

“What do you mean? Where is she?”

“She’s in-between,” my grandmother says.

“But you said you could–”

She stands up abruptly, and Todd ducks his head.

“Do you need to take the bus home?” she asks.

“Y–yeah,” he says. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

My grandmother walks into her bedroom and returns with a bus token. He stares at it. He looks at me again. I don’t know what to tell him. Sometimes she’s like that.

“Why don’t you take him to the bus stop, Maggie,” my grandmother says.

Todd asks to use the bathroom.

After the bathroom door clicks shut, my grandmother sighs and closes her eyes. I pluck at the shoulder of her dress and wish she wore it more often. She looks nice. She looks normal.

My grandmother opens her eyes and brushes my hair. “It’s a gray day,” she says.“It would have been better sooner.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, sweetie. I know it’s hard for you.” She yawns and rests her eyes again. “I know.”

…

Todd and I walk to the elevators. One of them is only two months old and barely whispers as it opens; mirrors cover the walls. The rails and the panel for the buttons gleam.

I focus on the ceiling. I don’t like mirrors, especially when they face each other. They keep looking and looking, going deeper and deeper, showing you things that aren’t supposed to be there. They make you look too. Otherwise they can’t become real.

“That was dumb,” Todd says. “You’re such a goober. Such a liar.”

“You’re the goober,” I say.

He pushes me to the wall. Cold air blows on my face. The elevator jerks to a stop, but the doors don’t open.

Deep in the mirrors, Todd’s mom floats beside me in a white dress. Her skin has turned dark blue and glows. Something black and puffy like a cloud pulls at her purple hair, the half that was left after her accident.

“Your mom,” I say, pointing.

“Shut up!”

“Look at her. Don’t be chicken.”

“Shut up,” he yells and pushes me against the wall again.

“You have to look,” I say. “Don’t make her go the bad way. You’re the one who’s mad at her.”

“I am not,” he yells.

The mirrors shudder. Todd claps a hand over his face, then swipes at his eyes with the sleeve of his coat.

“I’m not listening,” he yells and jabs the buttons for several floors. “Not listening.”

I don’t see his mum in the mirrors anymore. Todd shrieks and slaps at his hair. He drops into a crouch and covers his head.

“Leave me alone. Stop it!”

The elevator doors slide open. He tries to jump out, but I grab him, and we tumble to the floor. His mum howls, her dress black again, her skin pink with a hint of green.

“My baby,” she shouts, reaching for him.

Todd yells and kicks. An old lady stands frozen in the lobby, staring at us. She can almost see the ghost. I grab Todd tighter. The elevator claps shut.

“Look at her,” I yell. “Look!”

Todd breaks free and scrambles up.

His mother moans. Bits of her break away: her hair, her feet, the bottom of her dress.

“M–momma?”

She moans again and raises a hand. Tears pour down his face. More of her disintegrates. Colors splinter. She lets out a whoosh.

“No,” he screams and reaches for her.

His arms close on empty air.

…

After lunch, I sit against the wall by the teachers’ parking lot. Two weeks have passed since Todd’s mom broke apart. He avoids going anywhere near me. Peter looks at me funny but never says anything. Scott called me a goober and poked me with a pen. I said, “I’ll make you barf,” and he never tried it again. The other kids know something has happened and hang back, waiting to see what happens next. I’m not sure if it’s better that way. It’s too quiet. I start hearing things.

When the bell rings, the kids scurry inside. I don’t want to go back to class, but I have to. Otherwise Mr. Chowdhury will call my mom, and she hates getting bugged at work.

I start to stand. Todd pokes his head around the corner, and I jolt away from him, startled.

“You hiding?” he says.

“No,” I say.

“You’d better hurry. Old Scabby is out.” He glances over his shoulder and kicks the corner. “I–I just wanted to ask you something.”

“About your mum?”

He kicks the corner again. “Is she gone? Really gone?”

I nod, even though I’m not a hundred percent sure. Nothing is for sure, especially for people in-between.

But he doesn’t want to hear that. Nobody does.

“I wanna show you something,” he says, “after school.”  And he disappears around the corner.

…

Todd leads me into his backyard. Leaves cover the long grass, and dead weeds clutter the garden. He squats between some bushes and pushes away the leaves covering a grainy brown rock dotted with orangey-pink quartz.

Todd drops his knapsack on the grass.  “My dad would freak if he knew I put this here,” He digs under his books and pulls out a pack of pink and white birthday candles. “It’s just a dumb rock. But I — ”

He rips open the pack, and sticks eight candles in the dirt in front of the rock. They fall over. He tries again. They fall again.

Todd swipes at his face but doesn’t cry. He walks away and kicks at clumps of leaves.

I take a stick and poke holes in the dirt. He rushes back and stands the candles in the holes, and lights them.

After a while, Todd walks away again, kicking leaves, pretending he has dirt in his eyes. I keep quiet and watch the rock and the burning candles.  It’s kind of scary to see him cry, but feels like the right thing at the same time. And I wonder if that’s how you know when somebody’s really gone.

Or as gone, I guess, as they’re ever going to be.

 

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