Cemetery Man
I met Janet quite by chance when I was at the Riverside Cemetery in Sault Ste. Marie. It was one of those overcast days when rain could come at any minute and force me to take cover underneath the branches of some old oak or maple and hope lightning skipped around me. Janet had her camera, too, and I watched as she tiptoed around the graves and carefully avoided stepping on old sunken markers. Once she did and I zoomed my lens in on her face, on the guilt clearly spreading itself over her features. She crossed herself, and I saw her lips move in supplication of the dead. Perhaps she said something like, “I didn’t mean to step on you” or “Please forgive me” or any one of a dozen apologies people might utter at such moments.
Eventually the rain did come. Janet ran for shelter, seeking a marble bench by a mausoleum in the gloom of a willow tree. I thought she felt safe there, concealed from the downpour and I hesitated before joining her. Would I frighten her? Repulse her? Would she run into the rain to escape me or would pity show in her eyes as she looked at me? Would she pat my back and smile the way people do when they think a pat or a smile can hide their disgust? But no matter. I was driven to her and made my way to the bench.
She looked at me when I took my place next to her, but other than a quick “Hello” she was silent. We waited, watching the rain, and I fancied I could smell her fear. I drew one leg up sharply underneath my chin and rested it on the bench while I struggled with my cart and photo equipment, cursing my mother’s womb where I had grown twisted. Janet, not much younger than I, sat huddled into herself, wisps of her curly brown hair sticking to her small face. The face, I had noted, was unremarkable—hazel eyes set deeply within their sockets, a rather long and sharp nose, a small mouth, and hardly any chin. Her neck, though, was long and graceful as it rose from her coat. An agreeable face, I thought, befitting someone generally satisfied with life.
“We really shouldn’t be here,” I ventured. “You often hear of people getting struck by lightning when they shelter under a tree.” She remained silent and I smelled her perfume. To this day, I remember the smell of rain and that perfume and wonder what became of her. “It’s only a shower,” I tried again. “It will soon pass.” Still she stayed behind her thoughts, but when I spoke I turned to her and lost myself in the porcelain face that had suddenly become beautiful. We sat thus for perhaps a quarter of an hour. The rain fell softly and no thunder or lightning ensued and it was not unpleasant. Her breaths came in long sighs and I felt her relax. Without warning, she wept, carelessly dabbing a tissue at her eyes and cheeks. I wasn’t sure what to do. Although nature had damned my body, she had seen fit to give me a kind disposition. My natural instinct was to reach my hand over hers and say comforting words until the weeping subsided. But I am a freak. An accident of genes. Who was there to comfort her from me?
Allow me to speak of myself for a moment so you will better grasp the setting. I am 29 years old, but look much older. My red hair is thinning as are my eyebrows and lashes. I wear very thick glasses over colorless, myopic eyes that droop at the corners much as a basset hound’s. My head is large, my forehead protrudes over my nose, and my nose itself is large and bulbous. My mouth is twisted in a perpetual grin and my teeth are crooked. My complexion is muddy and pocked. I have no cheekbones, no chin, no neck to speak of, and the weight of my head leans over my small frame. I only hope to reach five feet tall, but it’s obvious I will never get there.
Mind you, though, I could live with the way my face looks. I’ve gotten used to it, as have one or two others who call themselves my friend. It’s my body that frightens me as I know it does others. Sometime during my stay in the womb, the signals got mixed up and my right leg misread the blueprint. For instead of growing straight as the left one did, it grew very little and what did grow got the wrong message. My shin hangs from my thigh much as your hand would if you held out your elbow and swung it. My little shin jerks my little foot and I am forced to hop when I walk. My little foot is six inches off the ground and suspends itself, defying gravity. Often I use crutches, but more often than not I prefer to utilize my good limb. I hop down the street with my right leg leaning on my cart where my camera and books are. Except for the curious who stop, stare, laugh, or grimace, people leave me alone.
Mind you, I am not telling you this for sympathy or whatever. I only feel you must be told to understand why I hesitated to comfort the poor creature next to me who still wept as if her heart would break. I was afraid to breathe lest I scare her, but I was getting a cramp in my leg and wanted to move. It was impossible, though, to vacate the bench without much havoc and the last thing I wanted to do was create a scene. Actually, the fair maiden seemed to take little notice of me, so wrapped in her own woes was she. As rain continued to fall, I leaned on my cart and jerked my little leg over the good one. Then I whistled. It seemed the right thing to do.
I have always preferred taking pictures in a cemetery. It is not the calm, peaceful setting I treasure as much as the interesting events that take place. I am often on hand during a burial and get spectacular shots of mourners. You may or may not be surprised at the number of smiles that show up where one would expect tears. Mourners go from one extreme to another, and I have not yet decided which I prefer probably because I have had no one to mourn. The young woman next to me was not at a burial that much I knew. She did not stop at any specific grave, at least not while I watched her. Since her camera was with her, I surmised she was simply on a photography assignment for class, and the gloom of the place overtook her. She touched her eyes with the wet Kleenex and emitted a very deep sigh. Good, I thought. She’s coming round.
“Oh,” she said as if she had just noticed me. “I hope I didn’t frighten you.”
She was looking me straight in the face, and I did not see as much as a flicker of disgust or amusement. What a remarkable person, I thought. As she gazed at me, the right side of my mouth started twitching. Still, she paid no attention.
“Have you lost a loved one?” My words sounded hollow as they left my throat. The twitching was making me nervous.
“Yes. No. Well, I’m not sure. I mean, I call her my twin sister but I’m not sure if she’s my twin or me. To tell you the truth, I don’t think I even have a twin.”
Her eyes looked away and I felt her mentally leave the bench. She continued to knot the Kleenex, then shred it, then roll the shreds into tiny balls that she put on her lap. It was a pink tissue which seemed appropriate for such a delicate creature. Her coat was rose colored, as was her handbag. Even her shoes showed a trace of pink. Rose colored blush was brushed on her cheeks. The farther away she looked, the more peaceful her face became until the few lines surrounding her mouth disappeared. She is beautiful was all I could think. I yearned to hold her. Water filled my eyes for how could I, a freak, expect to embrace this beauty?
“Did you hear me?” She sounded annoyed that I had remained silent. “I said I don’t know whether it’s my twin sister or I that is dead.”
“Yes, yes,” I stammered. “I heard you, but I thought you were just, well, just musing.”
“I tell you something as crazy as that and you think I’m musing?”
“Well, no, I guess not, but well, I don’t know.”
“I tell you I don’t even know for sure if I have a twin sister let alone whether or not she’s dead or I’m dead and you think that’s not crazy?”
“Who am I to judge?” She was furious now and thought I was making fun of her, which, of course, was the last thing on earth I would do to such a beautiful girl. She stood up and the pile of pink balls rolled to the ground. She placed her hands on her slim hips and glared at me, bending until her nose was level with mine. My mouth twitched madly and I was powerless to stop it. She’s going to laugh when she sees it, I thought. I shrunk from her until my back caught the tree trunk and I almost fell. She grabbed me.
“Oh, no you don’t,” she screamed. “You’re not leaving here until you’ve answered my question.” She was out of control now. Gone beyond all reason. “Am I or am I not crazy?” Her pink hands were around my throat and I could hardly breathe. She was the most enchanting mortal nature had ever made, and she was touching me—a freak—and it didn’t matter that I was choking. Her perfume covered me. I lost myself in it as I let my neck go limp in her hands and slumped forward unto her breast. I had never known such bliss in touching another human being. I wished the moment would last forever, but, of course, I knew it couldn’t and as quickly as she had encircled my neck, she let go.
“I hate you,” she screamed. “I hate you. I hate all of you here, so dead, so silent, so condemning, so mocking. Why won’t you tell me who died? Me or Janet?” She crumpled to the ground. It was all I could do to keep from kicking her with my little foot that was jerking uncontrollably. She lifted her head and leaned against my left knee. I noticed a tiny braid held in place by a pink ribbon mixed in with her curls. Her coat opened, exposing a pink locket hanging from her neck. She wore no blouse or sweater. I saw her small bosom. Her nipples stood erect like tiny strawberries. She was a naked vision of beauty. I held my breath.
“You’re right,” she said. “There is no Janet. I am Janet and I am both dead and alive and I come here to take pictures of the grave where I’m buried except I can’t find it. I visit all the cemeteries in the area looking for my grave, but it’s not anywhere. It’s lost like me. Please take me home.”
She whimpered like a child and clung to my knee. At last I drew breath. The rain fell, then let up, then fell again and still she did not move. She doesn’t notice me, was all I could think. She doesn’t see me at all. It’s not me she’s clutching but an apparition from her past. I wondered if the tombstones surrounding us would claim the name of Janet. I wondered if Janet was lying cold beneath the earth around us. The long branches of the willow danced in the calm afternoon breeze. The rain stopped and I felt chilled. I wanted to retreat to my rooms on Portage, start a fire in the grate, brew a pot of tea on my hotplate, develop my negatives, and sleep. I had my own troubles, but Janet clung to me.
“Please take me home,” she said again. She shifted herself, releasing her hold on my knee. I seized the opportunity, hopped from the bench, leaned on my cart and moved away. Before I left the graveyard, I turned and looked at the beautiful girl who had suddenly become plain, resting in a pink haze, her drab, wet hair hanging flat against her head. A thought flashed through my mind that I could make love to her, that she wouldn’t even notice when I opened her coat and thrust myself into her body, but then I thought what a foolish idea. Why would I want to make love to one so obviously unstable? To one so freakish?
“Please take me home,” she pleaded. Without hesitation, I hopped away, eager to be rid of her.
“Please take me home,” she called again. For the first time in my life, I thanked the man and woman who made me. As I continued to hear the plaintive cries, I knew—even in my misshapen, ugly body—I knew I was happier, more content and more beautiful than Janet or whatever she called herself had ever been or was ever likely to be.
