Effigy (Part II)

Ron had to be the first to speak, “I used to hate him for doing it.”

Gwen looked up at him, eyes swollen with tears, “Oh Ronnie don’t say that honey!”

“No Mom it’s true.” Ron tried to explain; even though he was sure his words would let him down. “People always say it’s a selfish act. I believe that to an extent. But Dad, he didn’t think that way. In the end, I just think he thought it was easier on us without him.”

“Though I hate to admit it- that sounds like him.” Gwen had a realization. “Honey, we’ve never really talked about this, have we?”

Ron shrugged then shook his head. “Guess not. Probably should’ve happened awhile back.” Ron picked up the Polaroid that showed his brother’s first trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s- his first stop after being in neonatal intensive care for a month. “I suppose not all the memories can be good ones huh?”

“No dear, I don’t think that’s the way it works.”

Ron held onto the picture, but his arm went slack as he thought. “Mom do you think we have worse luck than other families?” He hovered behind his mother, ready to ask the question, but not ready to look her in the eyes.

Gwen sensed her son’s discomfort, made herself busy by arbitrarily stacking the photo albums. “What are you saying, we’re cursed? Don’t let your imagination get to you. We are just like any other family. Good days and bad. No better, no worse than anyone else.”

 “I don’t know about ‘cursed’, but seems we have more than our fair share of heartache.”

Ron absently glanced back down at the Polaroid.  It began to move….the picture itself changing, morphing. A fog rolled through the background blotting out the den where the picture was taken. Slowly, the fog passed from person to person. As it touched them their eyes within the photograph glowed red then seemed to burst and fade into pale blue and then grey.  This first occurred to his Uncle Barry. Then purposefully, the churning fog roiled from Barry, to his cousin Sue. Within the photo, Sue’s eyes were washed in the frightening red of burning coal, which quickly became the subdued blue of fish scales. This color was then fed upon by a dull grey.

It wasn’t until the smoldering cloud wafted to Ron’s Grandfather Henry that he began to understand the purpose.

As if it had burned him, Ron threw the Polaroid on the kitchen table, “Mom…” That word was all he could manage, an empty utterance that only underscored his weakness and confusion.

Gwen’s gaze locked onto the photo; at first she was ready to call herself senile, insane. Her brain fought what her eyes insisted she was seeing. She saw the strange fog make its way through the photograph and touch her late husband’s father. As it did so, his eyes grew red with fire; they then cooled to a strange blue, and when the life left that color a grey that was void of any feeling.

“Oh dear God,” Gwen grabbed her heart with one hand, and her son with the other. Even that didn’t stop her head from spinning, her world from unraveling. “What is it?”

Ron heard her. It’s recounting the order they died in. His attempt at a reply never left his lips. He could only stare. How transfixed he became by the silky movement of the fog, the insistent transition of color. When the malevolent fog within the photo came to his father, Ron believed he shed a tear; it may have left his eye and was currently at rest on his cheek. But at the same time he could no longer trust his mind, as if his body was no longer there with him.

Meanwhile, Gwen was horrified; she tried in vain to wrench her face away from this photo that had become a monstrosity. She failed. When she made an effort to close her eyes some force kept them open. Fascination and revulsion held her in its dual grip.

The picture still worked its devilish magic there upon the table. Ron was the first to figure out what the end game was, just before the fog crept over the shoulders of his younger brother like a grim shawl. Ron heard his cries echo, but only in his mind. He screamed and pleaded for his brother, but merely in the prison within himself.

Gwen came to understand the message as well. Her mouth became a disfigured etching of pain and promise. She sobbed for her baby boy without the benefit of tears.

Trapped, the mother and son watched as the photo version of Christopher’s eyes grew red and lava-like; the energy abated and then came that alien blue, finalized by that sickly grey tone.

For Ron, the sorrow continued. A vision of he and his brother as young boys was now forcefully playing in his head. He could do nothing to stop it, trapped in the theater of his mind’s eye.  

Here in his grandmother’s home. They were staying the night over summer vacation. There was only a single guest bed, which the brothers shared. Rob’s mind populated with details of that night: the perspiration of humidity, the way the blanket had stuck to him to the point it had needed to be kicked off during sleep. The recollection came to Ron, dreamlike in its quality. The parsed memories that made up that night years ago came alive within him once more. Finally, there was the way he had awoken to his brother twitching and convulsing as though Christopher was experiencing a stroke, rather than simply a nightmare. As an eleven year old, Ron recalled trying to yell out for his grandparents only to have his voice stifled by the darkness that surrounded him.  His brother’s spasms increased in speed and violence to the point where Ron wasn’t sure Christopher would survive. Again he tried to cry out, but succeeded only in crying. He felt an immense pressure unfurl over his body, weighing him down. In a last ditch effort, Ron worked his hand outward. With what felt like a hurricane fighting against him, Ron reached for his brother’s hand.  The level of effort needed to even move was lost on the young boy, but finally he was able to clasp his seven year old brother’s smaller hand in his own. Ron smiled through a sheen of naïve tears. The victory was short lived. For no sooner than Ron had secured his brother’s hand was Christopher lifted limp as a doll from the bedclothes. Eerily through his own child-like vision, fragmented and muddled, Ron remembered the last remnant of blanket falling off his brother’s left foot. This unseen influence then maneuvered young Christopher up away breaking Ron’s already strained grip. Ron’s memory ended with Chris floating away from him, head lolled and clad in the Pac Man pajamas he had been tucked away in only a few hours before.   

In the present, whatever otherworldly strength held Ron and his mother, let go as quickly as it had overtaken them. No matter what it was, it was done with them for now. Through the kitchen curtains, the moon had long ago replaced the afternoon sun. Gwen and Rob exchanged a look that only seemed to confirm they were both again in control of their bodies.

It was then that Gwen’s cell phone chimed in her pocket. Lethargy was evident in her motions, but after four rings Gwen was able to retrieve the phone from her pocket. Without a word she inspected the phone’s screen. Terror had coupled with petrification; Gwen was useless, looking to Ron for some kind of explanation.

Ron read his mother’s eyes too well. Without looking at the phone’s face, he knew the call had come from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Ron knew it was about Christopher. Ron knew his brother was dead.

 

 

Effigy (Part I)

Emotional constipation. That’s what Ron’s mother had called it. So many emotions, bottle-necked and clogged within, that you couldn’t get any of them out. Before this, he had his doubts. But now having to help his mother sift through his grandmother’s belongings, Ron felt that a fairly accurate assessment.

                There they sat at the same kitchen table she had owned since he was a toddler. It was yellow, the kind of hue that had only been manufactured through the seventies. He had played with his Hot Wheels on top of it, used the hidden catacombs underneath as a makeshift Cobra base that G.I. Joes had stormed, and gathered with family for over three decades of Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas hams.

                Now she was gone. Grandma Nora had been such an integral part of his young life; he had taken her presence and sound mind for granted.

Not that gone, but gone enough that the family thought it best to move her to a full time care facility. It was a hurried affair and now that she was checked in and comfortable, it was time to get the house cleaned up in order to list it for sale. It was a means to an end. The family had little in the way of disposable income to put towards Grandma’s care.

Throughout the day, the table top had held all manner of boxes, knick-knacks and memories. Any and all the items one might accumulate through a full 84 years of living. Right now, it was stacked and partitioned with photographs that spanned The Great Depression to just last week at Ron’s cousin’s college graduation.

Though neither of them said it Ron and his mother were tired of organizing what stayed and what should go. It was a daunting task with no right answer. So when the photo books were unearthed from a pile of old purses buried in a bedroom closet, looking through them became less goal-oriented and more about catharsis.

“Here look at this one.” Ron’s mother Gwen handed him a photo. It was an old brittle black and white one, frayed at the edges. In it, a small girl of maybe six years old had on a large brimmed white hat and a button up sun dress. It was charcoal in the picture but may have been blue or a blushed red.

As Ron took in the details, his mother explained, “That was your Grandma when she was six years old.  Before church on Easter Sunday.”

Ron marveled. “It’s amazing.”

“What honey?”

“Pictures nowadays.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well they just don’t say as much. Maybe once upon a time pictures were worth a thousand words, but we’ve somehow lost that. I think the exchange rate is more like 575 now.” 

Gwen giggled and squeezed her son’s hand. “Can’t argue with you there.”

“Oh and this one…” Gwen handed him another aged photo, this one tarnished and yellowed with time. A muscular man with a mustache too big for his head stared at them. He wore a crisp A-shirt, with suspenders hanging loose at his side over what were likely brown trousers. He wasn’t smiling; in fact the stern face that looked at them from the past seemed incapable of such a feat.

Ron looked puzzled, waiting for his mother to explain. “Ah this was your great Grandpa Franklin. You never got the chance to meet him.”

Fuzzily, Ron recognized the name. “He passed early?”

“Not exactly, he left your great Grandma Eileen and moved to San Francisco.”

Ron winced.

“After she had your Grandma, your great Uncle Jonah and great Aunt Fran.”

Ron winced again, “Ouch.”

“Oh here’s one of your Grandpa Henry and Grandma Nora,“ she paused and then felt the need to add context. “Your dad’s own mother and father.”

“Yes Mom, I know.” Ron rolled his eyes but smiled at his mother while doing so.

This time, Ron noted his father’s mother, wearing subtle make up and trying hard to look pretty. Her arm was around a handsome man with a slight hair lip scar above his mouth. His raven black hair was slick against his head.  He was holding a rocks glass that was nearly empty. He was toasting towards the unknown photographer.

“Grandpa Henry and his scotch.” Ron commented. It was one of the few things he recalled about the man. Ron only knew Grandpa Henry as the white haired old codger with the thick rimmed bifocals. The high ball glass was the only constant.

Gwen nodded, and it was evident that both she and Ron now had recalled the way Grandpa Henry had met his end. They returned to looking through photos, Gwen became particularly focused, skimming through several as though she were looking for something quite specific.

“Oh my!” She held one hand flat against her heart as she passed Ron the picture. “See, there you are, what do you think of that?”

Ron was given a Polaroid that had become flimsy with age. He held it carefully from the back, mindful of how much force he used. “Oh wow. I’ve never seen this.”

Before him he saw a window to the past, this one in the most technologically mature color the early eighties had to offer. The picture showed a celebratory scene. In the foreground, Ron himself, his parents and grandparents were all fawning over a baby boy whose smile was the focal point of the photograph. In the background, a group of grinning aunts, uncles and cousins marveled.  Ron could imagine is infant brother’s smile infecting everyone in the room.

Gwen chimed in, “This is when we finally brought your brother home from the hospital after a four week stay. He was--”

Ron spoke along with his mother, “He was 4 weeks premature ya know. Things were touch and go. But Christopher pulled through.”

Ron’s mother gave him a look that screamed disapproval. He stood and hugged his mother. “Sorry Mom I just couldn’t resist. Chris was tough from birth. Tougher than me.” Ron punctuated his statement with this, and meant it. Christopher, youngest by four years was serving his country overseas even as they stood there amidst the gobs of still photographs. 

Even though the picture gave him a reason to smile even now, Ron still couldn’t shake some of the more ominous points of his family’s timeline.

The pair continued flipping through photo albums. There were aunties, Uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, in laws, friends. There were the thirties, forties, the days when Kennedy was a household name, and everything in between.

 Seeing more shades of gray that depicted many a stern faced man, women who showed only the skin on their faces, brand new ’57 Chevys, the fronts of newly purchased homes, and smiling children who were too innocent to know some of the darker points in the family’s history.  Then in color there were the kids, grandkids, birthdays that begat Atari’s, Punky Brewster sticker books and shiny bicycles that were beyond number. After that, Sega Genesis game systems and Nintendo 64s with Barney the Dinosaur and Dora the Explorer plushes and play sets.

In control, Gwen was decisive in what she lingered on; more calculating in what she paused to explain. Ron stood watch over her shoulder, soaking in all the history.

They were depleting what Ron had once thought of as an inexhaustible supply of snapshots. The last book was nearly done, and the midafternoon sun was flirting with them through the kitchen curtains. Gwen’s Mom quickly folded the last book shut.

“Wait, what was the last one?” Ron grabbed the album from under her arm. He reopened the book to its final page, seeing what was there, he began to cry. It was contagious, for when he looked at his mother, tears began falling from her eyes as well.

Ron bent and hugged his mother where she sat.

They both stared at an eight by ten of Ron’s father. Burt, Gwen’s husband of twenty two years was grinning; his blue eyes seemed to look right at the both of them. The picture itself had been part of a set that had been done for father’s day about eleven years ago. Burt had wanted nothing more than to have a beer and a steak with his wife and sons. However, the boys had the idea that they should get their pictures taken.

“He did everything he could to talk us out of it.” Ron remembered fondly. He moved behind his mother, leaving a hand resting on her shoulder.

“I think what sold him was you two saying he didn’t have to dress up.” She laughed, “He hated that shit.”

Ron joined his mother’s laughter, “Ya it wasn’t about that. Chris and I wanted it to be casual, fun and relaxed- how we were, how he was.”

Abruptly the pair’s laughter cut off, like a needle being dragged off a record mid-song.

Silence, along with something that couldn’t be named occupied the room.