Death Became Them

By Terence Patrick Hughes 

Plenty of folks in town had died at all ages and all times of day or night, some grue­some, some passive, and every one of them referred to after­ward as having been ‘too good’ or ‘too young’, or on rare occa­sions both. That’s what the atten­dees whis­pered to each other at the wakes and funer­als that seemed to mount one upon the other in such quan­ti­ty that many a mourner was forced to choose the depart­ed friend or acquain­tance who would garner most of their time on a par­tic­u­lar evening, a choice which was most often swayed by the amount of liquor being served at each prospec­tive parlor. And so, life and its inevitable end went on its common and cus­tom­ary way until the day death arrived in such a manner that not a single townsper­son was left unaf­fect­ed by the grim pres­ence in their midst for a short, strange stretch of time. No one knew exactly when he arrived or how he got there but by several eye-witness accounts he was sud­den­ly just there at Smitty’s General Store, one moment not a soul was stand­ing near the veg­etable bins and then, upon a dozing cashier’s mention that he smelled some­thing along the lines of smoke or feces, every­one caught sight of him at once. Death himself was stand­ing before them adorned in the leg­endary black robe and hood which barely hid the skele­tal fea­tures of the face and one long hand of bony fingers holding tight to the handle of his over-sized, razor-sharp scythe while the other reached out to inspect a turnip. After some long, bizarre moments, Death select­ed two items, an onion and the much-con­sid­ered turnip, placed them in a brown bag and stepped into line at the reg­is­ter behind Mazel Hunt, who stopped placing her own items on the counter and stared dumb­found­ed and drool­ing at the impos­ing figure, it was not unusual that Mazel Hunt drooled but on this occa­sion, it was quite thick. 

“Are you…do you know…who you look like?” the cashier, a young teenag­er, who had thus far proven to be the sole youth in town who wouldn’t pinch money from the reg­is­ter, asked in a quiet voice.

Death looked at the boy and then around at the other patrons while at the same time the store manager stepped out of his office, caught sight of the fright­en­ing figure, and retreat­ed back behind a locked door. Before the cashier could ask again, Death nodded slowly and while clutch­ing the bag to his chest, reached down, and picked up a mag­a­zine from a rack, opened the pages wide and sort of hid behind it. The others looked at one another with con­fused, search­ing glances, eye­brows raised in dismay and then slowly, one by one, every­body went back to shop­ping and after Mazel Hunt took her receipt and bags of gro­ceries, she called to Death on the way out. 

“I live at 17 Maple Street, my husband is in bed at nine o’clock every night, feel free to stop in anytime to pick him up.” 

Death stepped up to the reg­is­ter shaking his skull slight­ly and pur­chased the items on store credit as he had no money and the cashier was too fright­ened to object, and finally depart­ed the store exe­cut­ing some­thing like a steady float-walk. Now it didn’t take long for the hot rumor to spread around town that Death had been at the General Store and he had bought an onion and a turnip, ignit­ing the need in the towns­folk to learn more about their new neigh­bor, who after his short trip to the General Store, next stopped in at Caf­frey’s Tavern and pur­chased, once again on credit, a half-gallon of bourbon before setting off in search of lodging with his two brown bags dan­gling from a boney grip. Death soon made his way to Mr. & Mrs.’ Greenslip’s Board­ing House and was told by Mrs. Greenslip and then again, a little more force­ful­ly by Mr. Greenslip that there were no rooms avail­able. A clearly dis­ap­point­ed Death left his bags with the elderly couple and sig­naled that he would be right back and by the time he returned the old inn keepers had been joined by the sheriff and town doctor, all of them tending to a Mr. Regi­nald Dick­stein, trav­el­ing sales­man, who had sud­den­ly dropped dead in the second-floor hallway on his way to lunch. So, after an emo­tion­al and hasty removal of the body and the depar­ture of the prac­ti­tion­ers of med­i­cine and law, the Greenslips reluc­tant­ly handed over the keys to Room 6 that had only moments earlier been fished from the dead salesman’s pockets. Now it was offi­cial, Death had come to town, bought food and drink, and was sequestered in the largest room avail­able for rent outside of Hetty Gabler’s barn who always kept her hayloft open to wan­der­ers for a small fee. However, this was no aimless vagrant, every public appear­ance that Death made seemed to give the impres­sion that he was plan­ning to stay for some time and perhaps even longer.  He made himself com­fort­able with the new sur­round­ings, in addi­tion to his cus­tom­ary onion and turnip, Death added loaves of bread, never minding if they were several days old, yellow mustard, and a full bag of hard candy to his thrice weekly visits to the General Store. At the Smithy he had his sickle sharp­ened even if it really only needed a shine and after that he often visited the barber shop, an odd choice for a specter with no hair but seem­ing­ly done for the plea­sure of company. Death would sit in a corner and read the ancient news­pa­pers that vis­i­tors from out of town had carried in and left behind and at first the usual folks that hung around the shop kept hush in his pres­ence but as Death made it a regular stop on his float-walks about town, the reg­u­lars soon fell into their gentle joshing and cus­tom­ary banter. All except for Topher Millis who forgot himself for a moment one after­noon and referred to Death as the ‘skinny one in the corner dressed in a blanket’, so no one was ter­ri­bly sur­prised when word got around that Topher Millis had fallen through the floor of his out­house and drowned in a long-stewing, gen­er­a­tional col­lec­tion of feces. After all, Topher did weigh well over 300 pounds which was much to the detri­ment and frus­tra­tion of the sheriff and town doctor who as part of their sworn duty had to begrudg­ing­ly retrieve the body. 

So, life went on in that little town and so, too, did Death, appear­ing at fairs looking ghoul­ish­ly the same but for a pink balloon tied neatly to his sickle, or at holiday parades where spec­ta­tors made great haste to open up a space for him to observe the pro­ceed­ings unob­struct­ed, and, of course, at the tavern.  On certain evening’s a new­com­er would blow into town and have their fill at the bar before inevitably turning to Death, seated at his usual table in the rear next to the dart­board on which no one dared play while he was present, and ask ‘who the hell is that freaky looking fellah’ or some other form of mockery which would turn out to be their last words. All in all, after Death’s arrival the body count slight­ly exceed­ed the usual high rate of fatal­i­ties in the doomed little town but not enough to inhibit folks from keeping on with their busi­ness. In fact, it was Haley Mermon who first invited Death to a dinner party. These gath­er­ings were never much more than potluck affairs where each of the invited house­holds would bring along their family’s favorite dish, often to the revul­sion of other fam­i­lies, and a merry bit of carous­ing would ensue with little food eaten and much liquor imbibed. On this night, Timbert Mermon answered the front door to welcome a late arrival to the party and Death moved across the thresh­old, ducking his head very low as the rumor was he topped out at seven and half feet which earned an imme­di­ate invi­ta­tion to play bas­ket­ball in the men’s recre­ation­al league, a request that was flatly denied. The many couples holding small plates of food and massive tum­blers of liquor, as well as the smat­ter­ing of chil­dren who were unlucky enough to be dragged to these all-night bac­cha­nals, stood frozen in place as Death scanned the room and then silent­ly accept­ed a tumbler, clinked glasses with Dan Rosten and Bill Williams and in a few moments moved to fill a plate of food as the loud din and rollick returned to the party and the night grew increas­ing­ly wild. It was said after­ward, in careful whis­pers, that Death and the recent­ly divorced Kirsten Kannan grew increas­ing­ly chummy as the night wore on, she allow­ing he to drape his long bony hands around her shoul­der during the piano sing-alongs and he allow­ing she to wield his sickle until she managed to slice Able Cunningham’s ear, not severe­ly but enough blood flowing to cause Death to long for the good old days. At some point he extend­ed a skele­tal arm to Ms. Kannan and they stepped through the back door and neither of them were seen again that night. Suffice to say that Ms. Kannan was never again seen at all except by the sheriff and the doctor who had to pick her remains out of the ashes of the burned down farm­house which she had just taken sole own­er­ship of after the divorce. Only two indi­vid­u­als were sus­pects in the burning of both the house, and Ms. Kannan, to the ground and they were Death and the deceased’s ex-husband, Ford Tuttle. After a short con­fer­ence with the author­i­ties during which Death said absolute­ly nothing and was pro­nounced inno­cent, they brought in Ford Tuttle who said plenty and was quickly accused of mur­der­ing his ex-wife and sent off to prison for the remain­der of his days. Yes, indeed it appeared that Death was somehow living a charmed life but after the fiery end of Ms. Kannan the other ladies were hes­i­tant to get chummy with him at a party, so he tended to keep company with the men. So grew his rep­u­ta­tion as a carouser, one who drinks copi­ous­ly of what­ev­er is being served, eats every­thing put before him, and then sleeps it all off well into the morning, after­noon, or night, whichev­er was twelve to fifteen hours after the party’s con­clu­sion. Some noticed that he began to slouch a bit more than he had when he first came to town while others com­ment­ed that it looked like the begin­nings of a healthy paunch was appear­ing from under the robe around his mid­sec­tion which then turned to curious dis­cus­sions of how a being entire­ly made of bones could get fat. 

Well as all things must inevitably pass on, Death’s time in that town came to an end but in a way that had not been expect­ed. Every­one knew that somehow Death would always be around, maybe not at parties or civic func­tions but in their minds and then even­tu­al­ly in their bodies, yet no one imag­ined his grand exit would have so much to do with local pol­i­tics. At some point, Death got the idea into his skull that the town needed a new mayor, one that would usher an entire­ly unique energy into the office and so he nom­i­nat­ed himself as a can­di­date and offi­cial­ly entered the race. Over the past thirty years, there had only ever been one can­di­date in General Tibedau ‘Tibby’ Hol­sters who had been re-elected to office unchal­lenged six times. When word got around that Death had his eye sockets on the job, Tibby broke out his old war uniform from the trunk in the attic, squeezed himself in with great effort and began barn­storm­ing through town with speech­es that were chock full of all the advance­ments and ben­e­fits that they’d achieved under his watch, which really didn’t amount to much outside of the addi­tion of a horse corral and an arrange­ment of sand banks on the out­skirts of town that was filled with water in the freez­ing months of winter to produce a choppy and dan­ger­ous skating rink. Still, the faith­ful crowds showed up each time he spoke, Tibby was well liked, popular and loqua­cious while Death on the other hand only managed to hold two cam­paign events. The first was held outside the bar­ber­shop in the pouring rain and the other inside the tavern, both times he said nothing and during the Q&A that fol­lowed he merely nodded once or twice, leaving it up to the towns­folk as to what his answers were, an age-old polit­i­cal maneu­ver of leaving the voters in a state of utter con­fu­sion. But in the end pop­u­lar­i­ty won out over igno­rance and Tibby took the elec­tion in a land­slide. After all tallies were in, it was dis­cov­ered that Death only received three votes, one cast by Murphy Katzinger, an old, senile former friend of Tibby who con­stant­ly com­plains to anyone who will listen that the mayor owes him ten dollars, while the other two votes were cast by Death himself, who by the very act of fraud dis­qual­i­fied himself from the race but it didn’t matter as the public had spoken. In con­ced­ing his defeat, Death had offered to shake Tibby’s hand as a display of good will, but Tibby declined in the politest manner which expert­ly masked his utter fear of instant polit­i­cal revenge. So soon after vis­it­ing the tavern and procur­ing a full gallon of bourbon, Death retired for several days into his room at the board­ing house and instead of vis­it­ing the General Store for his root veg­eta­bles he request­ed they be sent by a series of deliv­ery boys, four out of five of whom managed to make it back alive. The one poor young man who did perish was found with a half-eaten, stolen onion in his pocket and so most folks agreed that he deserved it. Then one morning as the sun was climb­ing toward its midday perch, Death exited his room for the last time and upon being handed a sizable bill for his overdue rent by Mr. Greenslip, he sent the board­ing house owner to the great unknown, achieved only after the poor man choked and thrashed for some time on the dining room floor while Death stepped down the stairs of the front porch and moved off toward town.  Much to Mrs. Greenslip’s dismay, the sheriff and doctor later con­firmed the cause of death was suf­fo­ca­tion due to the bill that Greenslip had attempt­ed to serve to Death being lodged firmly in the inn keeper’s throat. As word spread of the unfor­tu­nate and fatal busi­ness trans­ac­tion at the board­ing house, other pro­pri­etor’s around town began to write off the large bills that Death had charged at their estab­lish­ments and many closed shop as soon as they saw the crowd that was trail­ing the town’s biggest debtor, a pro­ces­sion moving past the town limits and out toward the large dirt cross­roads where trav­el­ers pick up the turn­pike that even­tu­al­ly brings one to bigger and better places. And that was where every­one assumed Death was headed, he had tired of the small-town life, the same parties, the same people, and the more he got to know folks, the less he was able to happily ply his trade. Although on the way out of town, a young man tossed a rock at Death from the wood­line and no sooner had it bounced at his feet then a gesture of the sickle managed to explode the rock hurler’s head right off of his body, causing tem­po­rary dismay in the crowd. Still the throng fol­lowed until they reached the cross­roads where Death turned and stared at the towns­peo­ple for a long while. A few snif­fles and some coughs were the only sounds audible from the crowd until the small voice of a little girl piped up. She wore black pony­tails and a white dress and was pushing her way through the bodies, raising her voice in volume until she was allowed to step to the front where she stood looking up at Death with her hands held behind her back. 

“Mr. Death,” she said in a fragile yet steady voice, swing­ing the bangs from her eyes with a toss of her head, “I made this for you.”

She then drew her arms around and pro­duced a small clay grave­stone that had been fash­ioned in her mother’s kiln and on the front were inscribed the words ‘I Love Death’. As he took the gift in his bony grip and stared down upon it, some folks swear that he might have shed a tear, although it was likely a drop of rain that began to fall as Death turned and moved off down the turn­pike, raising his scythe in farewell. Holding fast to the heart­felt piece of pottery, he headed toward another town and other folks whose lives he could cradle in his icy grip and soon he was nothing but a tiny dot on the horizon before dis­ap­pear­ing from sight. As the town folks headed back to their jobs and homes, not a single one could claim that they hadn’t come to know Death inti­mate­ly and how they had at first been frozen with fear which then moved into famil­iar­i­ty and finally grew to a calm recog­ni­tion. And even though he had grown tired of their back­coun­try, simple ways and moved on to kill bigger and better indi­vid­u­als, he had touched these towns­folk deeply with a mix of fear, humor, sadness, and a twisted sort of plea­sure in dis­cov­er­ing the ulti­mate futil­i­ty of life. The town’s pop­u­la­tion no longer dreaded what lies in wait at the end of days because during his short yet impact­ful stay, Death had become them, one and all.

Finis

This story orig­i­nal­ly appeared in Stonecoast Review Issue 17, which is now avail­able for pur­chase. 

Photo by Mathew MacQuarrie.