Chorus of Dust Read online

  “COME!”

  I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. My body could handle no more, and just as I thought I would pass out, I heard another, more familiar voice behind me.

  “Adem? What are you doing?” It was Sam. The song cut out immediately, my ears ringing in its absence like a faint echo. I turned my head around slowly, still dazed. My vision and the rest of my senses returned, and I looked up to see my sister standing behind me. Her face was twisted in a look of confusion.

  “I was, uh…I just...you didn’t hear that?”

  Sam squinted her eyes. “Hear what?”

  “The song! How could you not hear it? Fuck me, my head hurts.” I reached up to grab the handle of the patio door, then pulled myself up to my feet before sliding it closed.

  “What are you talking about, Adem? What song?” I pressed a palm against my forehead and looked over at her. She really hadn’t heard it. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Both, maybe.

  “Forget it,” I said. “Do you have any aspirin?”

  “Yeah. I’ll get you some.”

  I staggered over to the dining room table and sat down while Sam rummaged through her purse. How was I supposed to explain that I was listening to a horrific refrain that no one else could apparently hear? Sam walked over and extended a closed fist. I held my hand out and she dropped two pills into it, then set a glass of water on the table next to me.

  “You want some coffee?” she asked. I nodded as I popped the aspirin into my mouth and took a large swallow of water. She walked over to the sink to fill the coffee pot, and after setting it to brew, came back over and sat on top of the table next to me.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, forcing a laugh. “I’m sorry. I guess this headache is really messing with me.”

  “The stress doesn’t help, I know.”

  “It’s just so weird being here again.” I looked around. Flowers of all shapes and colors surrounded us, in vases and bowls, littering the countertops. Their smell overwhelmed me, but beneath it the old scents still lingered. Unmistakable hints of grease, of dirt and sweat. Years of dedication, all of them now seeping out of every surface, every pore.

  “You know,” Sam said, “I remember you sitting in that same seat when we were kids, just like you’re doing now. Every morning before school, Grandaddy would make us—”

  “The Blue-Plate Special,” I said, finishing her thought. “I don’t think Grandaddy ever learned to make anything else.”

  “When I first made it for Winston, he didn’t know what to think. He’d never heard of ground sausage mixed in with scrambled eggs and mayonnaise, he thought I was nuts. Now he gets upset if I don’t make it at least a few times a week.” She laughed, and I laughed with her. It felt good, in a way I hadn’t felt in years.

  “How is Winston?” I asked.

  “He’s okay. He’s missed you.”

  “I don’t know, he didn’t look too happy to see me. He looked like he wanted to punch me.”

  “Oh, he’s angry for sure. He probably would have punched you right in your teeth if you’d given him a chance. But trust me, he misses you too, even if he won’t admit it.” She shrugged and walked over to the now full and steaming coffee pot. “You know how he is. Proudest man I’ve ever known. Besides Grandaddy, anyway.” She returned to the table with two mugs and the pot of coffee and poured us each a cup.

  “Thanks,” I said. I took a sip, relishing its bitterness. “I still can’t believe he’s gone. What happened, Sam?”

  She took a seat and drank from her own cup. “Grandaddy’s had a lot of problems over the last few years. It started when he couldn’t remember where he left things. Soon he was forgetting dates and getting memories mixed up. I came over to visit one day and he asked why you weren’t in your room. Eventually he was forgetting who we were, Winston and I, and little Sid. The doctors said he was experiencing severe dementia and that he needed to be in a nursing home, but…I couldn’t do it, Adem. When he was okay, in those moments of clarity, the one thing he always told me was that he did not want to leave this house. So, I let him stay. I shouldn’t have, but I did.”

  “How did he...” I swallowed, unable to continue, but Sam knew what I was asking.

  “I usually came by three nights a week to check up on him,” she said, pulling her robe tight against her chest. “It’s an hour round-trip from our house in Meridian, but he needed me, you know? Monday, Wednesday, Friday, like clockwork, and I’d call on the other nights. I called on Thursday last week and didn’t get an answer, but I figured he was asleep already. When I dropped by the next night, he was gone. The patio door was open, and outside I saw blackbirds circling around the middle of the field. I think I knew it then, but I had to make sure. I thought, whatever it is, I can handle it.” She took a deep breath, her hand clenched over her heart. “I wish I hadn’t. Grandaddy was in bad shape. I could tell the crows had been working on him a while, and he was naked. His eyes were the worst part though. I’ll never forget those eyes.” She trailed off at the end, her bottom lip quivering.

  “God Sam, I’m so sorry.” I leaned over and wrapped my arms around her. “I wish I could have been here.”

  Sam pulled back in anger. “Well you weren’t here, so don’t waste your wishes on me.” That was Sam. Moods and emotions that could change directions on a dime, and nothing ever held back.

  I held my arms out. “What do you want me to say, Sam? You want me to tell you I’m sorry? I’m sorry!”

  “Sorry isn’t enough,” she said. She stood holding the pot of coffee and returned to the kitchen counter, where she poured the rest of it out and began rinsing the pot. “Can you just answer one thing, Adem? What was so awful about this place that you had to completely abandon us?”

  “Sam...”

  “No, I want to know. What did we do to deserve this?”

  I stood. “That’s not fair.”

  “Isn’t it? Was it fair that you weren’t here to help Grandaddy when he needed you?”

  “Don’t do this.” My fists clenched, desperately trying to contain the rage building inside of me.

  She didn’t stop. Instead, she turned around and looked at me. “Just maybe, if you’d been here, Grandaddy wouldn’t be dead right now.” Without thinking, I kicked the nearest leg of the table, sending my mug to the floor where it shattered into a thousand pieces, and marched into my room. I grabbed my jeans and a pair of sneakers off the floor and picked up my car keys on the way back out. “Oh what, you’re going to leave again, is that it? As soon as Adem’s delicate sensibilities are disrupted, out the door he goes. Does that about sum it up?”

  I didn’t argue with her. I rushed out of the house, slamming the door behind me, and as I climbed into my car, I heard my sister’s loud sobs from inside. I started the engine and pulled my jeans and shoes on. What if she was right? What if I could have prevented this? Even if I could, though, did it matter? Everybody dies sometime, that’s just about the only thing in this world you can count on. Still, her question nagged at me. What if I had been there?

  I pulled away from the house and sped down the highway toward town. One thing was for sure. I needed a drink.

  THE BAR

  Then trust me there’s nothing like drinking,

  So pleasant on this side of the grave:

  It keeps the unhappy from thinking,

  And makes e’en the valiant more brave.

  —Charles Dibdin

  It’s strange how time can take something familiar and make it foreign again. When I was a kid, I loved to explore Grandaddy’s land. Once, I found an abandoned sawmill just past the northern edge of his property. The earth had reclaimed much of it by that point, but some of the infrastructure and equipment was still intact. It’s hard to explain, but the quiet desolation of that place seemed wholly natural, peaceful, as if things were decaying back to their proper function in the world. Entire days were wasted away on those hallowed grounds, mornings
spent in contemplation and afternoons squandered in lazy bliss. I soon found myself bringing Sam with me, and I think she enjoyed it even more than I did. We’d pretend we were the rulers of a medieval village, me sitting on an old yellow planar as my throne, and Sam standing atop a broken carriage issuing proclamations to the many citizens of rusted-out iron and rotten wooden planks strewn across the grounds below.

  Years later when I was close to graduating high school, I went through a photography phase and wanted to take pictures of everything I possibly could. My thoughts returned to the old sawmill, certain that it would make the perfect subject, and so one Saturday I set out to find it. Except, I couldn’t. Time had clouded my memory of the route through the farm that would bring me there. After two days of searching, I eventually lost interest and gave up. To this day I have no idea if someone tore it down or if I just lost my way. Sam claimed that she didn’t remember ever going there in the first place. Maybe she was right. It’s not like I can prove otherwise.

  When I arrived in Terrance that night, the same sense of confusion settled in. I knew this city like the back of my hand, I’d visited it dozens, maybe hundreds of times when I was younger. Yet, when I began driving up and down the narrow streets, it felt like wading through the cotton bolls all over again, desperately searching for the lost remnants of our forgotten kingdom.

  Moonlight blanketed the city, each building slicing out a black shadow across the road before me. I found myself again passing the Church. The cratered moon took refuge behind the towering structure, surrounding me in darkness. I sped up, immediately eager to flee the giant and leave its dark secrets behind. Other than the church, every building seemed either abandoned completely or in some state of slow disrepair. Grass sprouted up in patches through large cracks in the sidewalk. The neon signs that still worked hung crookedly or were missing letters. Paint faded and peeled off of every surface, aggregating the many different colors and shapes into a single, unvarying monument to decay. It felt like a ghost town.

  It was no small feat to drive these streets aimlessly for an hour. Most people could see the entire city (and then some) in half that time. Some reiteration was necessary. This was also the first time I had actively searched for a bar there, so I had no clue what I was even looking for. As I passed the same street signs and landmarks for the second and third time, it began to feel as if the town itself was growing around me and I was trapped inside, forever damned to wander its collapsing ruins. I’d almost given up hope when I noticed colored light spilling out of the basement windows of the Hog-Wash market. A few vehicles were parked crookedly out front and I pulled up beside one of them. There was an entrance in the side alley between the Hog-Wash and the feed store next to it. A single word was printed above the door in large blue letters:

  ELI’S.

  It was worth a shot. I got out of my car, walked over to it, and entered.

  As soon as the sweet yet rotten smell of fermentation hit my sinuses, I knew I was at least on the right track. I descended the narrow, dimly lit staircase into a small coat room. There was no one there watching the door, so I went ahead into the much larger room beyond. It was definitely a bar, but not like any I’d ever been to. Everything looked black and greasy, and smoke hung in the air. Not the normal kind of cigarette smoke one finds in most bars. It smelled sweet and thick, like vaporized molasses. Worst of all, everyone seemed to be old. The youngest looking man there couldn’t have been a day under 60. In fact, now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen anyone even close to my age other than Sam and Winston since I’d arrived there the day before.

  I approached the bar and took a seat on one of the wobbly wooden stools.

  “Evening, son,” the old bartender said, his loose jowls flapping with every word. “What’ll it be?”

  “It’ll be whiskey,” I said. “On ice, I don’t care what kind.”

  “Oh, we only got two kinds here. The cheap stuff, and the real cheap stuff.” The bartender smiled, his eyes twinkling the same way Grandaddy’s used to. “I’ll do you a favor and get ya’ the cheap stuff.” I nodded my thanks, and the bartender shakily filled a short glass with ice and poured in the amber liquid before setting it in front of me. I drank it without hesitation, relishing the intense burn in the back of my throat, and asked for another. Drinking myself under the table sounded like a pretty damn good idea.

  In the back corner, underneath a sickly fluorescent light, two men played live music on a worn down baby grand piano and an upright base. Both of them had dark, weathered skin and white hair. I thought they might have been brothers. The one on the piano sang a low, haunting folk tune while playing.

  They’ll hang me, they’ll hang me,

  An’ I’ll be dead an’ gone.

  I wouldn’t mind the hangin’

  But it’s bein’ gone so long.

  Ohhh, it’s lyin’ in that cold, cold grave!

  In the dark, an’ the wet, an’ the chill

  That comes from bein’ hanged so high

  On the top of Hangin’ Hill.

  “Jesus Christ,” I mumbled under my breath, then slammed back the rest of my current drink.

  “You say something?” the man on the stool next to me asked, and I turned in surprise. He was short and stout, with white hair and a full, bushy beard. Round-rimmed glasses masked his brown eyes. He reminded me of Charlie Daniels, come to sing The Devil Went Down to Georgia as an encore. I looked down briefly, almost expecting to see a fiddle hanging off of his belt, but only saw a cased utility knife instead.

  “Uh, nothing, I was…nothing. Sorry.” I avoided making eye contact.

  “Aww, don’t get your balls in a knot, son, you’ll have to do a lot worse than that to piss me off.” He slurred his words together, the alcohol strong on his breath. In my periphery I noticed him squinting, studying my face. “Now, that’s a Comeaux chin if I ever saw one. You’re Sidwin’s grandson, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. “Adem. He raised us, my sister Sam and me.” I held my hand out, which he grasped tightly and shook while patting me on the back.

  “I’m sorry about your Grandfather, Adem. He was a good man, and a good friend. Name’s Lanston Conroy.” The man finally let go of my hand but kept his shoulders and head turned toward me. “I have to say, you are a sight. Sid talked about you all the time, like the sun rose and set on your shoulders alone. Never thought I’d ever meet you, though.”

  “Well, thank you, Mr. Conroy,” I said, “that actually means a great deal to me to hear you say that.”

  “‘Mr. Conroy’ he says!” He slapped the bar with an open palm. “You can take a shit on ‘Mr. Conroy,’ son! Call me Lanston.”

  I laughed. “Okay Lanston. Shit on Mr. Conroy, got it.” The bartender turned and frowned, glancing quickly in Lanston’s direction and then back at me with raised eyebrows.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Lanston said, “he’s an old fart that couldn’t take a joke if it bit him in the ass. Come on, let’s grab a table over there where this god damned music isn’t so loud.” He walked to a small round table in the back corner of the bar and took a seat, and I followed. No one spoke to us or acknowledged that we were even there. Everyone else in the bar seemed transfixed on the music playing in the background. “So, I guess you’ve been gone a while, is that right?” Lanston’s eyes wandered around the room as he talked, as if he were looking for something but didn’t know what.

  “I guess I have,” I said. “This is my first time back in Terrance in almost ten years.”

  “And is it still the same shithole that you left behind?”

  “Worse,” I answered, and we both laughed. A few of the other old men in the bar turned and looked at us, then immediately returned their attention to the live music.

  “In that case, maybe ten years from now you can try again. If there is any justice in this world, I’ll be long dead by then and you can drink in peace.” We both tipped our glasses back, and then Lanston set his down on the table. He finally looked stra
ight at me. “Sid missed you something awful those years you were gone. Every time I saw him he’d have some new story to tell me about you.”

  “I’m sorry Lanston, but how did you know Grandaddy again? No offense, but you don’t seem like the kind of person he typically befriended.”

  “No offense taken, son. Like I said, my skin is thicker than that. I actually met Sid about, oh, four years ago. He came to see me. It was while I was still teaching at LSU, before I retired.”

  “You were a professor?”

  “I am a professor, always will be. I just don’t have anybody to profess to anymore.” Lanston winked. “Does that surprise you?”

  “Honestly? A little, yes.”

  “I like it that you’re honest with me, Adem, it’s good to know I can shoot straight with you. Hell, maybe I was a little surprised too when I first realized it. My daddy sure was, and none too happy about it either. Following your own path can be a tough pill to swallow for some people. But you know all about that, don’t you?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Lanston went on. “Yes, sir, I was a professor of History and Religious Studies. It’s amazing how those two go together, isn’t it? From the dawn of time, religion has shaped history and history has shaped religion, their duality indiscriminately carving through the centuries, leaving only death in their wake.”

  “Why did Grandaddy visit you?” I interrupted. “Did you know each other before then?”

  “Nope,” Lanston said, shaking his head. “The day I met him, I was sitting in my office after a lecture. He was quiet as a mouse, scared the hell out of me when I looked up and saw him standing there in the doorway. Sid is…was, a big man, and he was dressed all in black. I thought at first that he was the reaper finally come to claim me.”

  I smiled. “He had that effect on people sometimes.”

  “Once I regained control of my senses—and my bowels—he came in and we had a long discussion. Fascinating man, Sidwin was. We’d get together for lunch every once in a while after that, and I grew to admire him in a way I never thought possible. My dream was to eventually open a bookstore when I retired. Sid helped me get it off the ground.”