Double Occupancy

BY DAVE ESPOSITO

Lest your life not unravel,

avoid the pit of clay and gravel…

On an early fall afternoon in a small upstate New York town, David E., an elderly man, exited a light yellow ranch house in a quiet neighborhood and slowly headed up an empty street - empty of both cars and people. The afternoon was sunny and breezy and leaves were spinning and helicoptering to the ground. A little up the street, he gave a head-down wave to a neighbor. Then a vehicle drove past him and, gaze still lowered,  he waved at that as well, but kept walking. He walked reading the asphalt just in front of him as if the street was a page from a book scrolling by. There hadn’t been much rain, and the falling leaves were so dry and crisp they made a clacking sound when they landed in front of him. A couple of them stuck to the velcro holding his shoes on. Then, glancing both ways to make sure no one was looking, he began timing his gait so that he stepped on the crunchy leaves methodically as they crossed his path. This occupied him and gave his walk a strange sense of purpose.

Approaching the town graveyard a short distance from his home, he stopped counting and trampling the clickity-clackity leaves and paid attention to the sunlight on his face. And the pleasurable glow lit up a long-forgotten memory of how his mother’s kiss sent him off to school a long time ago. 

Fall was the “long time ago” season for him.  Full of nostalgia and regrets and composty odors and fall colors that filled him with the warm ecstatic moods and desires of his youth, like playing football and sliding on the classroom floor in front of girls with beautiful pigtails. He lingered awhile with these sensations, then returned to the day’s walk. The blazing sunlit treetops on the perimeter of a nearby cornfield hovered over some scrubby bushes that had captured a few styrofoam cups and woven them into their branches. Their shadows were brownish or bluish in different spots and he found them more arresting than the colorburst of leaves. 

Abruptly, the sky turned blue-gray with streaks of yellow breaking through, yellow as if the corn stalks lent their last bit of color to the breeze itself.  The wind picked up as he entered the graveyard and leaves pelted him in a swirl from his feet to his face, and for a moment he had trouble seeing what was in front of him. He wiped his tearing eyes and leaned forward wrapping himself in his arms to make the effort easier though it made him look like a refugee he thought.

Approaching the tall candle-like cypress trees that flanked the cemetery road, his mood changed with the trees looming over him as if pressing him down closer to the spirits spread out in the surrounding grassy plots. They formed a sort of receiving line that both calmed and filled him with the sense of spirituality that especially tortured lifelong atheists like himself. “Almost, almost, almost….no, nothing”, he said to himself and to the scudding clouds drifting off without him. 

The sky deepened. He could see evening was approaching and he squinted to see the names on the tombstones. The graveyard’s residents included many servicemen from the First and Second World Wars and all the other ones that followed. Even so, he had yet to see a grave whose dates indicated the occupant had fallen in battle; it appeared that most had died as old men and had wanted the war part of their life’s resume to be displayed on their stone. He plotted a chart in his mind that had their lives peaking early, followed by a long decline to the grave. 

He turned left at the end of the graveyard passing beneath an arched gate with a cast figure of a grim-faced saint perched at the top vigilantly standing guard. He turned again and continued onto a county road. Now that he was in the open, the wind blew even harder and dust began hitting his face. Eyes stinging, and for no good reason, he focused on landing his feet half on the road’s shoulder and half on the pavement. This made his hip sore but he continued on for a while picking up the occasional bit of trash thrown from a vehicle or blown from a garbage can. A familiar pattern ensued: once he picked up the first piece, looking for more tended to take over his walk.  He wished he had a plastic bag with him to carry the trash home, but he almost always forgot to stuff one in his pocket  So he just held onto the garbage with both hands until his hands overflowed as did his anger towards litterers who had made his walk uglier. Most walks were spent like this, empty, still, or like now, walking with and against a changing wind with hands full of discarded soft drink containers and other assorted junk. His nose began to run. 

Ann, his wife,  had died two years ago and he missed her terribly. No longer being able to adore her perfect nose, beautiful green eyes, and elegant bearing had left him in really bad shape. He was terribly lonely in the stillness of their house; surrounded by her decorating which he never altered, to the point that he didn’t move furniture when he was vacuuming. Or if he did, he took pictures so he could put back everything the way she had positioned them.  Finally, after months of sitting in the house absent of her presence,  a strange idea slowly came over him.  He decided to set up house with her in his mind, to live in a fantasy world, and make it so real that they could be together again and it would be their new life together. He began sitting in the unlit living room waiting for the quiet moment for her to arrive.  He had already created activities in his head for the two of them, and it was just a matter of willing the random images, sounds, and smells of her to settle over the room. When it finally happened, when his mind was ready, she coalesced in front of him and they sat alongside each other and played games and conversed and if the phone rang, he didn’t pick it up…

It was really not that hard to do; the more he could forget the truth and make-believe, the more real her presence became,  which is why he didn’t reminisce about her anymore…doing that just invited more grief. Bringing her back to life made the days go by quicker and that in itself drew him ever closer to her.  

At first, he kept track of the days; Saturday felt like a Saturday or at least part of the weekend. But now the days lived less in time and more in physical sensations;  day or night, rain or sun, still or windy.  He had lost touch with the world and, these days and most people he knew, after being rebuffed by a full voicemail box, would drop over unannounced and remind him to eat and pick up his phone. 

Abruptly, his face stinging from the wind, he shook his head to clear out these thoughts and returned to his walk. During his reverie he had walked about a mile further down the road and that was enough, so he turned and began heading home the same way he came. Now the wind was behind him and his eyes began to dry and his sheltered face relaxed. The road shoulder he had straddled was reversed now and the hip that had bothered him at the beginning of his walk began feeling less sore. Ann would have warned him about sore muscles and to stop the foolish road-step-gravel-step walking compulsion of his…so he let her speak, agreed,  and returned to walking like a normal human being. 

After about fifteen minutes, he turned back into the still empty graveyard and passed under the grim-faced saint who was looking even more stern and judgemental than before, and now more leaves were blowing in front of him, black and bat-like, and past him as if nudging him with some goal of their own in mind. He walked with them, changing his direction slightly, and approached the narrow road circling the central burial area of the cemetery. From there, almost in a trance, he followed the leaves blowing in funnel-like fashion toward two trash cans located just past the last grave bordering the cornfield.  It would get him home a little quicker and he could get rid of the trash he had picked up. Head down he leaned into the wind and the sharp-edged leaves that pelted his face and made it hard to see. Even so, he couldn’t help multi-tasking and so was busy flattening a soda cup between his forearm and chest while looking down to keep from dropping anything when he felt the ground go suddenly mushy and then his legs flew up and away. It happened so fast he didn’t have time to drop anything. He hit hard and the shock triggered an instant headache. He hit but he didn’t stop. Now he was sliding and dropping downward. His head jerked and he saw a wet wall of red clay flash by - “What the…”! He slid and dropped fast, the trash spilling from his hands and hitting him in the face as he fell past it. He hit hard a second time and then it was quiet, and he let out an “ooohhhh”, and didn’t move a muscle.

He was in pain, however, and freezing water lying in the bottom of the hole was seeping into his clothes. He had bitten his tongue and could taste blood. He looked down and saw a greasy clay section of fake grass folded between his legs. He looked up to a dark cloud quickly sliding past an earthen rectangular window above. Then he got to his knees and groped at his hands, his wrists, his ribs…nothing broken. He tried, but It was too slippery to get to his feet. The red clay he wiped from his nose was mixed with blood and that mixed with the blood in his mouth made him stop what he was doing and sit back down.  He had comprehended what had happened and the situation: he was in an open, freshly dug grave. He was six feet under but not buried, so that was something he thought. He tried again and managed to stand up understanding his predicament but feeling no real horror - yet. He listed to the clay wall a little dizzy and looked up again. He estimated he was about two and a half feet from the top of his head to ground level. 

Reaching up, he hopped and was just able to poke his fingers into some fake grass above and at ground level. So maybe he could work his way up, using his knees to dig into the sides of the grave maybe if he was forty or even fifty! Exhausted by the shock of it all, he gave up even trying, and, having left his phone at home, began calling out for help. He tried for about half an hour and then paused and rested for a bit. He was hoarse, shaking with the cold, it was getting dark, and the wind grew louder above him even though it was muffled and quiet in the grave. He sank down, and the wind changed to the hollow ocean sound a conch shell made when pressed to his ear as a boy, and while he thought that thought,  he aimlessly picked up some clay,  mixed it with a wet leaf, and rolled it into a little planet…

Then a surge of panic hit him straight on like a shovelful of earth to the face and a scenario began playing out in his head: It would be night soon. The wind was not subsiding - it was picking up and a cold driving rain was now falling. He was hungry and shivering and his mouth was dry. The rain was sweeping the ground above and blowing into the grave too, and he was shivering violently. Then, oddly,  Ann was there but it was difficult to sense her presence completely though he heard her say, or think,

“…He was cold and old 

and the hole smelled of mold…” 

He ignored her, but appreciated that she had made an appearance; she was being funny but her timing wasn’t so good, and he admonished her. Looking up, the grave framed the black night above with not a star to fix upon. He started repeating a number of four-letter expletives to himself.  The scenario continued to play out: in an hour or two he would pass out. His voice was shot. He couldn’t yell anymore. Leaves, still swirling and circling, were making their way into the grave and landing on him; soon they would cover him and he would slip into a coma and freeze to death. Even if anyone looked in the grave, (and why would they?),  he would present as a pile of leaves. Eventually, maybe in the morning,  the funeral service would take place and he'd be buried beneath the grave’s intended resident. “A silent partner,” Ann whispered. “Yes honey, but you’re still talking” he returned. His horror and panic returned because the whole premature burial scenario sounded fundamentally realistic, believable,  and ridiculous at the same time. 

Now the wind was really picking up. He could hear nothing but it - not even occasional truck traffic from the county road bordering the south side of the cemetery. Inside the hole it was calm, wet, and cold. Ann was keeping him company by reading a book, but to herself.  He had always liked having her around. And now he could hear his own thoughts as the wind blew and blew. He was becoming the sound of the ocean in the conch shell of the grave. He slid downwards again until he was sitting. His coat was slathered with clay slip now and ever more dropping leaves clung to the sticky earth he was wearing. He was beyond exhausted. He was losing consciousness and was glad. Ann turned out the night light without saying goodnight and he said nothing;  he was already slipping into earth and decay.  He was going, going, going….gone. The leaves kept falling…

He swam in blackness for some time. Then he heard Ann’s voice.  It was familiar and warm. It roused him and warmed him so that he felt he was glowing, like a new candle. He felt cold on the outside but warm on the inside.  She called out to him again, and this time he heard her voice clearly, not like when he knew she wasn’t real but only in his mind, but like before she had ever left him  He was still confused, but was coming to and felt hopeful and glad it was a new day. . . She called out again and spoke to him. She said, “Take off your shoes and don’t track mud into the house”. He knew that tone, and now he could picture her more clearly than if she were standing in front of him. He walked in  the direction of her voice and then he realized he couldn’t be walking because he was slumped in a grave a quarter of a mile from home.

Then he felt a warm rain falling on his face and he closed his eyes in response. “Why warm?” he wondered.  Next, he heard a scratching sweeping sound, then a dog barking and people shouting. Somebody was using a broom to clear away the now damp and silent leaves that covered him. His eyes blinked open again of their own accord and he could see it wasn’t a broom but he himself pushing and swatting the leaves off his coat! He sneezed more leaves off of his face. He blinked two more times quickly and looked up. His eyes squinted in the warm light of the new day that fell upon him.  At the top of the hole he saw something….. but what? Something like a profile but triangular. The triangle turned into a dog with its leg cocked six feet above him. And then, he realized that the warm rain wasn’t warm rain...

The rest is history, and the horrific, bizarre story of David E. was carried by local, national, and even international TV streams. His own small town’s Pennysaver mentioned him in its graveyard ad which would become a minor attraction. There were even “Watch Your Step” signs that were placed in the cemetery, part of its new safety awareness program. 

But back to our story: It seems that the dog, balanced on three legs above the man in the grave, sent members of the funeral party, gravediggers, and funeral directors rushing forward shrieking, cursing, and slipping in the mud. The dog, confused but relieved, loped away easily without looking back. David E. called out and was heard by an onrush of mourners bent on preserving the sanctity of the deceased’s dignity.  Ambulances and Fire trucks were called, a helicopter appeared overhead, and then both women and men passed out at the sight of an earthen-clad man ascending from the red muck, born aloft by men in muddied suits. David E. sneezed three times, blew his nose on his clay-caked sleeve,  waved to the crowd,  …and called out for his wife…

The End

“Wipe your boots you filthy knave

Lest your wife call out to you from beyond the grave!”