The Uncanny Collection: Tales of Mayhem & Magic by Jaye Wells

Author:Jaye Wells [Wells, Jaye]
Language: eng
Format: epub

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The late-day sun gilds the Victorian and Georgian mansions along St. Charles Avenue. Stately oaks posture above the warped sidewalks and moss hangs over the ancient arms like the hair of mourning women.

The streetcar isn’t air conditioned, and in moments I am sliding on the old wooden bench in a pool of my own sweat. The bourbon crawls up the back of my throat, and the shrieks of delight from the tourists’ children pound behind my eyes like an aneurysm.

I haven’t been to a cemetery since that spring following that particular winter. Once the ground thawed, I had to sit next to the hole and try not to give into the urge to jump in there with her. My gut had been a cauldron of broken glass and acid. My brain, black as the bottom of that hole.

Real men don’t cry. My daddy told me that when I was twelve and we were standing beside my mother’s grave. That piece of advice and a genetic tendency toward alcoholism were the only two bits of legacy I’d gotten from my old man. According to everyone else, I’d gotten the rest from that Chanel-scented ghost with the soft hands and the angel’s voice.

My shrink had opined that my mother’s death set me on this path. It’s textbook, really. I’m a God damned macabre cliché.

The squeal of metal-on-metal abrades my nerves. The streetcar stops at Second Street. I let the kids and their tired parents go first before hauling myself off the bench. I grab the paper bag containing the bottle the old man told me to bring and step onto the grassy median.

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 is a couple of blocks off St. Charles. By the time I reach its broad wrought iron arch, the sun is sinking low. A few tourists mill around the locked gates, snapping pictures. I wave through the bars at a fifty-something ex-convict-type in blue coveralls. He nods and unlocks the padlocks without a word as if the old man had warned him of my arrival.

The gates shriek open on unoiled hinges. A few of the tourists mutter complaints about my being allowed entrance. He shoos them away with a grunt. “The cemetery’s closed.” He slams the gate shut again and locks it before pointing me toward a shack at the far end of the closest path.

Monuments to the dead rise from the soggy earth and squat cheek-to-jowl on wide avenues coated in gravel. Silk flowers and trinkets decorate some of the crypts, but it’s the moldering teddy bear on the grave of a five-year-old that makes me want to run back to the refuge of the hotel’s bar.

The old man steps out from behind a columbarium at the end of the row. He raises crooked fingers and tips his hat. I walk toward him on heavy legs.

“I’m glad you decided to come.” He says it kindly, but I hate him for knowing I considered standing him up. He looks down at the bag. “You brought it?”

He takes it as reverently as if I am handing over the baby Jesus.

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