The air sizzled in the summer heat as the thunderstorm in the clouds rumbled for the umpteenth time. Joanie sat on her front porch swing, her bare feet dangling beneath her smoothed out skirt, the colors that of a rich July sunset. She fixed her gaze over the banister, letting it graze on the trees in her yard which stretched out, kissing a dirt road which snaked between her home and the Fleet Street Cemetery, population: one-hundred and four. There was an itching in her head, beneath her hair follicles, buried inside her skull--an itching her fingers could never reach, so she tried to ignore it, but it was overwhelming. Perhaps, she thought, it’s the cicada, but the rain had forced them into their burrows.
The porch swing creaked as Joanie gently swayed to and fro, her matted hair feeling oddly stiff as the air moved around her. She reached her hand up to scratch her head, but before fingernails could touch hair, a distant creak of floorboards startled her. The sound of boots on old and hollow wood echoed off the raindrops, and Joanie turned her throbbing head to face the direction from whence the sound came, her fingers gripping the rusted chains of the porch swing and pulling her body into the corner of the swing as if that were safer.
With each heavy stamp of the boots, dust rattled into the air, turning into a muddy mist as it scattered off the porch, but the boot steps stopped before reaching the corner, and Joanie could heard the clank of metal, the sound of a deadbolt giving way, the harsh groan of rusted hinges being forced open. The echoing of the boots were muffled by the peeling walls of the house, and Joanie’s overwhelming curiosity lifted her from the swing and pulled her to the window. She was more than a forehead over the bottom of the windowsill, her eyes peering through tears in a lace curtain. Inside the house, standing in the middle of the living room was a man--all round and sweaty, a red plaid shirt and blue jeans, black boots and mud, musk and leather. By all accounts he could be called “rugged” or “manly”. There was something oddly familiar about this man, though her mind escaped her, and she realized that, despite some seeming familiarity, there was now a mostly-stranger in her home, and she began to tremble. Her fingers were on the window as they began to shake, and the rattle of the loose panes startled the man who quickly turned to see what caused the sound. Joanie jumped to her feet as the man turned to face the window, and this “manly” man shrieked, his body compulsively jumping back, forcing him to hit tables and chairs, his elbow hitting the record player and pushing it into the floor. The scream and crash of this made felt like music to Joanie, and, for the briefest of moments, she felt a tinge of pleasure. Dust swirled around the man as he clambered to his feet, his eyes fixated on the window.
“Mama?”
“Orville?”
A streak of lightning accompanied the man’s gasp, and he ran to the window to get a better look. Joanie stepped back, and searched this man’s face. She knew his name, but his face--it did not look as familiar. It resembled her husband, but this person called her mom. Her eyes examined his face--noting the wrinkles next to his eyes, the sunspot next to his nose, the paleness of his cheeks, the gray in his thick beard, the green of his eyes, the slick blackness of his combed hair. “Orville?”
The man ran out of the house, the clomps of his boots rapidly bouncing from raindrop to porch banister, echoing around her like an ominous soundtrack until the man stood in front of Joanie. She didn’t twitch. She was fixed in her spot on the old dusty porch, her body still facing the window.
“Mama?” There was a tremble in the man’s voice that seemed to creep up from somewhere deep in his throat. “Mama? That rea’ly’ou?” He was breathless and sweating, or was it residual wetness from the rain? She couldn’t be sure about the reason he was wet nor why he was calling her “mama,” but she felt a need to call out the name again.
“Orville?”
“Holy shit, it’s happening again.” With his mouth agape, his eyes fixed on Joanie, the man fumbled with his pockets, not really searching for anything, but wanting anything to distract him from the moment. “No, no, no! Fuck! This is--what is this?”
“Orville?”
“Mama, no. Dad’s--dad’s dead. He’s been dead for thirty years.” Then the man thought for a second, and corrected himself, “Well, thirty-two. Thirty-two years.”
“Orville?”
“Mama, no. It’s Greg.” The tremble in his voice was gone, replaced with a gentle sorrow. Joanie could hear the tears in his voice. She could see the pain in this man’s eyes. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, and call him baby, but the only words the escaped her lips were, “Orville?”
Why is that all I can fuckin’ say, Joanie thought.
“Mama, why are you here?”
Joanie turned away from Greg, searching her yard for some kind of answer. As the left side of her head faced Greg, he retched, “Oh, God! Oh!” He jerked away, gripping his stomach, willing his body not to vomit. Joanie turned back to her son. “Orville?” The itch in her head intensified, and Joanie could not stop herself from scratching for some relief. As her fingertips reached to relieve her, they scraped against something soft, mushy, and wet. Her fingertips dug further than her hair, crept inside a cavern in her head, and there was a sudden and sharp stab behind her left eye. She jerked her hand back. Holding it out in front of her, she examined the dark, clotted red stains that kissed her grey skin. With wide, ghoulish eyes, she stared at Greg.
“Orville?”
“Mama,” Greg tried to catch his breath with a racing heart. “Mama,” he sighed. “Shit.” He shook his head trying to focus. “It’s been, like, what--fifteen years since this happened?”
“Orville?”
“Mama, dad’s dead--and,” he paused, looking deeply into her eyes, and sighed, “and so are you.”
Joanie’s eyes widened. Something sparked inside her. “Orville?” Her thoughts raced. Faces of her past began to haunt her, moments she had long forgotten. A smiling freckled face, a younger version of the man in front of her, hanging onto her apron. Her husband, drunk, stumbling in. The smell of bacon fat, onions and pig liver wafting through the air, entangled with the scent of hearty cornbread, honeysuckle, and summer night air. The cock of something metallic reverberating off the walls of the kitchen, and her smiling face turning to face her husband, then slowly stretching into a horrified question: “Orville?” Her mind retraced all the moments--the moment she turned, the moment she pushed her ten-year-old son out of harm’s way, the moment the shotgun exploded, the moment her head was pierced, the moment she hit the floor, the moment darkness began to swallow her eyes, the moment a second gunshot slumped her husband onto the fridge, the moment she gave up the ghost.
“Orville?”
“That was the last thing you said,” Greg sighed, his eyes sweeping the overgrown yard. “Mama, it’s okay.” Greg’s voice cracked. “You can rest, Mama.” Greg couldn’t bring himself to tell her why he was standing on this old dusty porch, why, which he suddenly realized, his mother’s spirit felt compelled to appear on this day, why this house, long empty, now had two souls standing on its porch. Greg knew telling her that the city had bought the land, that the house was to be torn down, would upset his mother--all of her memories were tied to this house, her soul tangled in the picture frames, wallpaper, and upholstery. Greg figured, in that moment, if he told her, she might release it and latch onto him. Thirty-two years, he thought, is not enough time. She can’t come with me.
“Mama, rest. It’s fine.” He reached out his trembling hand. He had done this before, fifteen years ago when his dog, Harley, died. “It’s okay. Come with me.” Her blood-stained fingers stepped into his palm. “Orville?”
“No, Mama. Orville’s not here anymore.”
Greg led his mother off the porch, through the patches of weeds and mud, across the dirt road, past crumbling headstones, to a plot with a decent view of the front porch and the weeping willow that hung in the yard. “Mama, rest.” Greg pointed to a headstone that read, “Joanie Lee Harper. Born, 1930; Died: 1965. ‘But O for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still.’” Joanie looked at her son, her hand gently holding his bearded cheek. As she closed her eyes to let a tear escape, she felt an immense release inside, and was surrounded, no longer by rain, but by a warm embrace.
Greg stood alone in the cemetery, reading his mother’s epitaph again. “But O for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still.” He chuckled a bit. “A proper literary line of bullshit for a teacher’s headstone.” Then he sighed. “Mama, I love you, but please don’t do this again. It’s creepy.” He waved a kiss to her and started out of the cemetery, back to the soon-to-be-demolished house of his childhood, back to his pick-up truck, back to his wife, Martha, and their three boys, back to his job, back to his orphaned and joyous life. He vowed never to return to the spot where the house would once stand, where he faced his mother’s ghost. Inside his own living room, with a glass of iced tea in his hand, his wife sound asleep with her head on his lap, his fingers wrapped in her brown hair, a distantly familiar smell wafted into his nostrils. Whiskey, he thought. He twisted his body around, turning to look behind the couch, behind where he and his wife was enjoying their evening, where he opted not to tell the story of his mother’s visit, and there, in the dim glow of candlelight from Greg and Martha’s evening, he heard the oddly familiar grumble his father. “Bitchtits.”
This was really fun to write. Like most things I write, I didn't plan to write this story. I started writing the first sentence, imagining a thunderstorm, and then something just clicked after the first two paragraphs and this is what happened! I hope you enjoy it, readers. I should have been doing homework instead, but I felt this overwhelming urge to write.
Enjoy!
Share the geekdom!
Tony