mimsy mephistopheles

Hope’s closet had been more or less devoid of black up until now. But a funeral was the kind of place where you had to wear black. It was how an itchy, sheer black dress patterned with flowers bought at the Tuscaloosa Target found its way onto her body, an old pair of black kitten heels borrowed from Esther, and her nails manicured black to match. Her hair she had pulled up into the tightest bun possible, not only out of consideration for the day, but the sweltering heat she knew they were going to roast in for the next 2-3 hours.

The family stood in a small bundle, Hope, Esther and their mother, Uncle Phil, his wife and their two young daughters. After them, it was a mishmash of Greensboro folk looking like a suspects’ parade — a couple of respectable men in suits who were the Birmingham division of door-to-door salesmen who’d worked with John, every manner of town drunkard or lout, and of course, the bikers. He’d rode with the bikers for a time before marrying Tallulah, and the brotherhood had stayed steadfast, it seemed. Or at least the half dozen men clad in leather all stood, hands clasped in front of them as if in solemn prayer, one of them chewing tobacco, another swatting a fly that kept landing on his face. They were a Looney Tunes cartoon, an amusing diversion Hope and Esther would occasionally landed their gaze on. 

Becca, of course, was absent.

The priest, dressed in all black and equally sweating buckets, stood at the head, and said his bit. “We are here today to pay our tribute and our respect to a man of God, our brother, John Wayne Halpin. To know John was to love him.” Bet, thought Hope. 

“We are also here today to show our love and support for John’s very precious family. Not only have we sensed our own personal feelings of loss over John’s passing, but our hearts have been drawn toward them, and will continue to be with them. ”

Hope looked up, giving the priest her best what-the-fuck stare, even though the man did not look at her but down at his speech. He droned on for some time, with no one else willing to give a eulogy, or at least nothing they wished to divulge publicly. At any rate, the sweltering heat in the cemetery pressed down on young and old alike to such a degree that most were probably thinking how to shuffle off the mortal coil themselves. Even composed Esther was breaking out in a sweat, condensation beads rolling down her temples, Hope noted every time she glanced sideways at her sister. 

The voice of the priest came in and out of her line of hearing, like a radio being tuned up and down. “...Let me say again that the measure of a life is not in its duration but in its donation!”

Well, he sure gave a lot, pop did. A shudder ran down her spine, as soon as the speech was over and she was watching her father’s coffin be lowered. Hope wondered if it was relief she was feeling right now. Maybe it was. The nightmare was over. It had been over for Esther long before this, since she’d left home as soon as she turned 18, leaving 14 year old Hope (excuse the shitty pun) hopelessly alone. But Hope had been happy to see her go, happy to be the lone slab of meat left to the wolves. Her sisters deserved lives free of John Wayne Halpin, at least in physical presence. His spectre would remain no matter what they did, rearing itself in their nightmares and even waking thoughts.

After a bout of silence, Uncle Phil came to the head, where flowers and a portrait of John lay beside his freshly engraved tombstone. 

“There’s a song he wanted me to play for you all on this occasion. He wasn’t a man of big speeches, despite half his life bein’ spent makin’ them. But when it came to talking about himself, he wasn’t much for it.”

It was clear this speech had not been written down nor prepared, and Phil looked out uneasily at the small gathered crowd. He was a younger, less rotund and bespectacled version of his deceased brother, with eyes that were kindly and did not belie a raging alcoholic. Sometimes, Hope envied her cousins and the life she imagined they must live.

Phil looked down, stayed concentrated that way for some time until it was apparent to the rest of the congregation that he was crying. He sniffled, pushing back in with the snot the rest of his feelings he was keeping at bay, and looked up again. 

“Well, rest in peace, big brother.” It was then that Hope noticed, almost for the first time, a stereo system on wheels, hooked up to an old school boom box.  Was that a tape he was putting in? In the year 2015? But Hope was beyond questioning things, today. It was a weird farewell, one most fitting for her father.

[x]

The song started with a crackle, a familiar one. He hadn’t played it much lately,   but Hope knew it, with every bone deep down in her childhood. By the point the chorus unleashed itself, the bikers stood erect, in solemn reverence to the rock ’n’ roll standard, one of them pulling his hat down and pressing it to his chest. It was weird as all hell, Hope had never met or so much as spoken to any of them. Or at least didn’t remember doing so; she was sure there was some photo in one of their home albums where she was two or three and sitting atop one of their Harleys. Be a simple kind of man…

Memories came shuffling back, the good, the bad, but mostly the unendurable… she didn’t want them. She wished she could trade all of them in for a blank space. Be one of those people that had grown up without a father. Her mother was a terror, that much was true, but deep down she loved Hope and Esther and even Becca in her broken, half-measured way. Like that one time she promised to bake for a school sale Hope was co-chairing, then ended up carting in 200 store-bought cupcakes that had all been on clearance due to being expired. Occasionally, she tried. Had her father ever tried? It was hard to tell. His love had come in measures and conditionals, domineering itself over three helpless girls. But maybe that was to do with all the control he had lost in his life — losing his job, his identity, his manhood, being reduced to something that was nothing. That would make anyone go crazy for control.

She remembered once when Esther had talked back. His new hobby had been making belts. For some reason, he’d roped Esther into helping him. She was thirteen and Hope nine. He had been showing her how to cut leather the right way, but something must’ve happened, and she had slipped and cut it the wrong way. Hope wasn’t sure. She had been outside, not in the shed, tossing a hula hoop about. But she heard the escalating voices, and knew what was going to come. I did it the way you asked, dad, I swear! His argument back she couldn’t hear, it was a slurred mumble. The quieter he got, the worse a storm was brewing, Hope knew. She distinctly remembered the moment she could no longer hear his answer, her mouth going dry for fear of what was to happen.

She knew never to look, Becca had told her not to. Turn away, she would say. Usually she would push or shut Hope out of the room before the worst of it. But she could still hear. And Becca was gone now. She heard each sickening slap and thud, as if they were landing on her own body. And despite herself, her feet took her to the open door of the shed, peeking in to see images that would burn themselves into her memory. Her dad whopping Esther with the belt full force, Esther with her arms around her head, trying to protect herself. She wanted to yell. Wanted to tell him to stop it. Wanted to run in and hit him with that stupid damn belt herself, for being such a fool. But she was afraid, her mouth was sand, and in all her futility the girl knew that if she intervened, she could be next. It didn’t matter that he’d never laid a hand on her, personally. She could always be next. So she let him do it... and that was on her.

Hope snapped out before the memory turned into a guilt-and-shame spiral — back to the sweltering heat, back to the green grass, back to the funeral. The song was winding down, and was she seeing things, or was someone coming over the hill to the mostly empty cemetery?

Not a mirage, there was someone. As the heat waves distorted and the crickets were loud enough to protest, she made out who it was. Lloyd Carver. He was coming this way, flowers in his good hand. The dark-haired man who worked at the auto shop was someone she’d had her eye on ever since she could remember feeling any kind of way about the opposite sex. Thirty-two, handsome of face but slightly too long of nose, he walked with a kind of intensity set on purpose. He’d known Hope’s father, but she had never assumed the two were close. Well, here he approached, his eye catching Hope’s for a brief second, coming up to offer his silent condolences to her mother with a nod. The flowers were added to the growing pile, and he stood alone, in the gap between the businessmen and the bikers, until the song echoed its last sentiments. Then the crowd started to break up.

It really was weird that he was here. She would have communicated as much to Esther, but her sister seemed lost in reveries of her own. Maybe she was making peace, saying her own goodbyes. Hope let her. Once people started dispersing, spontaneous plans were made. Phil and his wife were going to go for drinks at Crosby’s with some of the men in suits, and so was their mother. Esther would drive Phil’s kids home. Hope extricated herself from all of it by saying she had plans and would find her own way back. Amazingly enough, no one pressed, each lost in a post-funeral fog of their own.

She didn’t know what she was doing, but she approached his ’69 bright orange Camaro anyway. It was a beauty of a muscle car that caught her eye as much as its owner. Luckily, he was just getting into it, so she only had to speed up her steps for the last couple of feet in case he drove off and missed her.

“Where ya goin’?” Hope asked him, leaning her elbows into the passenger window. He looked askance at her, and was slow to reply.

“Back into town.”

“Seriously? That’s borin’. You don’t wanna do that.” She had no idea what compelled her to say this, but here she was, saying it.

“I’m goin’ back to the shop,” Lloyd drawled. Oh, what a handsome, beautiful fool he was, even with the scar on his face, his funky limp, and his bad arm.  She was amazed he didn’t have a girlfriend.

“How ‘bout a ride? And takin’ me with?”

It took him some time to debate this idea. Maybe it was because it was her dad’s funeral, or because he felt she would not back down, but Lloyd gave in with a sigh. “Alright. Get in.”

She hopped in and they went for a ride.

**

[x]

They drove straight through town and headed south on the 69. Hope switched on the radio. She wanted to laugh at what greeted her: more Lynyrd Skynyrd. If she’d believed in God, she would think that was her dad right now, keeping his hawk-like watch on Hope in a car with a boy.

“Y’know... my dad would say he used to hang out with Ronnie Van Zant. Drink with him in Birmingham.” 

“Oh yeah?” Lloyd asked. He didn’t take his eyes off of the road.

“Yeah. But I kind of think he was full of shit.” 

“How come?” 

“Well, I did the math one day. He would’ve been ten or so when Ronnie died. So I think it was all shit. Made up. Unless he was ten years old and drinking beer with one of the most famous bands in America...” 

Lloyd, characteristically quiet and stoic, did not seem to change, her attempt at humor not landing. But then his chronically contemplative face turned out a smile, and Hope grinned. 

“That is kinda dumb,” he agreed, and it felt like a personal victory. Melting the ice man’s heart.

They passed a few cars here and there, but mostly the road was empty, and they rode on, each lost in their own thoughts, set to the music.

 “Go faster,” Hope egged on eventually. Lloyd obliged her request.

“Faster.” 

He went past sixty, and was hitting seventy now, looking over at the girl in his passenger every now and then, as if wondering when she would call his bluff and call chicken. But Hope didn’t. She revelled in the speed the car went, just as that solo was ramping up in the song, her favorite song. The guitars strained and yowled to match the diabolic speed of the car and everything was on fire all at once, it was amazing. 

Nearly up to eighty now as the Camaro flew down the highway, Hope tugged her hair out of its bun and her blonde locks whipped through the wind, the girl wondering what would happen if another car were to come speeding down the wrong way in this very moment. They would surely die, but wouldn’t this be a wonderful way to die? Absolutely. She would love nothing better. 

Hope cackled. Uncontrollable laughter rose low in her stomach, the feeling of freedom hitting her full force along with the wind. Lloyd kept the car streaking down the highway between 70 and 80, and her laughter carried itself out on the winds, out onto the Alabama wilds, out with her all along the way. They passed fields upon fields of nothing, farmhouses and cows, desolateness and non-desolateness. Hope felt small yet infinitely stretched out across her home state all at once. She hated it here on most days, but today, she appreciated it like nothing else. 

Free, she was free. 

**