Halloween Again

(Everybody knows the story of the ghost hitchhiker, who appears on a lonely road and asks for a ride home. The good samaritan takes her home only to find she's disappeared and left some talisman of herself in the car for him. The story's always told by the samaritan, I wanted to look at it from the girl's point of view.)

In the back of her heart she knew she'd done this so many times before, if she could only remember when. But that wasn't coming to her, all she knew was that she was standing by the side of the road again, on top of the rise where she could see for at least a mile in each direction before the road curved off into the trees.

That same bright moon, shining through clouds like melted opals. That same ground fog, flowing between the trees. That same sparkle of dew in her blonde hair. That same road, two empty lanes of blacktop that started somewhere and ended somewhere. Those same woods, so quiet and dark.

She knew there were things she was supposed to do, so she did them, even though she didn't know why. She carefully folded her cashmere sweater and draped it over her arm. She smoothed down the pleats on her skirt, straightened her ankle socks, checked her saddle shoes for scuffs. She ran a hand thru her bangs, over her pony tail. She hoped her makeup wasn't smeared, but there was no mirror for her to check. She took a deep breath, sighed, and stepped to the edge of the road.

Random thoughts flitting like gypsy moths in her tired brain. I know my name is Sally. I know I'm sixteen. I love Jesus and I love my family. I love my boyfriend. I remember the dance at school tonight, the gym decorated like Aladdin's treasure cave. I remember kissing my boyfriend behind the bleachers, and how he got so mad when I wouldn't let him put his hand in my blouse. But then we made up and he gave me....her hand glided up and touched the class ring, on a chain around her neck. She cradled it in both hands, kissed it,  God, I love him!

But why am I out here alone on this road in the middle of the night? Where is he, why didn't he get me home? God, what's going on?

She looked down the road to the west and saw headlights moving in her direction. She shifted the sweater to her left arm, raised her right high over her head and waved, and the car slowed down as it pulled up to her. She'd never seen a car like this, big and boxy, twice the size of the Studebakers and Mercurys she remembered. But the boy driving it wasn't much older than her, maybe seventeen. She told him she lived a couple of miles down the road and he flipped open the passenger door, told her to climb in. She felt scared and shy, but his smile was so kind she trusted him. She got in and smoothed her skirt over her knees.

I just dropped my girlfriend home, he told her, then I saw you here by the side of the road. What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere? She couldn't bring herself to tell him she had no idea, so she just thanked him for being so kind. She told him her house was the first turnoff at the bottom of the hill, half a mile up the gravel road. She sank back into the big soft bucket seat, felt the seatbelt around her waist and over her shoulder. Please Jesus, let me make it home this time!

He pulled into her driveway, showed her how to undo the seat belt. Then, before she could climb out of the car, he kissed her on the cheek. Then he stepped out of the car, walked around to the passenger door and looked inside.

Like he expected, the seat was empty except for a cashmere sweater streaked with mold. He lifted it out of the seat like it was the heart of the Buddha on a silver platter, and draped it on the doorknob of the house. He knew her mother would understand. Hell, the girl was only sixteen, even if she'd been  sixteen for more than fifty years now. He clicked his door closed and drove away as quietly as he could.

And her mother opened the door, saw the sweater, and thanked God that someone had looked out for her daughter again.

 

After The Fair

She was on my mind when the music finished up at the Pageant Wagon, and the crowd began to pack up and head for home. I took one last slow walk around the stalls at the Centercheap and the Riverside, then sat on the stone wall to have something to eat and watch the kids playing with all the new toys they'd gotten. Finally I hoisted my pack on my shoulders and strolled toward the plaza in front of the entrance to the Cloisters. I took one last look around and stepped through the gate in the wall and started down the stone stairs.

To do this is to step from one world into another. Up on the plaza the sun is shining and people are talking and singing. At the bottom of the steps is the gloom of a forest that looks the same today as it did when Hendrick Hudson sailed up this river almost four hundred years ago. If it weren't for the street lights waking up as the sun went down it could be almost any year you want it to be. There's something magical in that.

I was disappointed when I came to the first hairpin turn on the path and she wasn't there. That was where she talked to me last year, right outside the locked postern gate at the base of the foundations under the Cloisters. I actually stood and waited a few minutes, hoping she'd show up, but nothing, so I walked on down the path.

I passed the first two forks in the road where all the people who don't know the way take the wrong turns and wind up going back up the mountain, but still no sign of her. Then I started down the long slope that runs straight all the way to the ridge over the playground at the base of the mountain. About halfway down the slope is a huge rock overhang on the right side of the path. It rises about two stories over your head as you pass; a lamp post stands in the cleft where the rock was split at some time long past by some force long forgotten. The cleft goes all the way to the top of the rock where a fair size tree has taken root in the soil that collected there. Wildflowers grow here and there in cracks in the rock's face, places where you would never believe life could take hold. That was when I saw her.

Well,  I heard her first. From up on top of the rock I heard her laugh and call, "Hey, you came!" I looked up and she was standing under the tree growing in the cleft. Jeans and boots and a t shirt, she looked like Robin Hood's tomboy kid sister with her hair tied back in a long ponytail and tortoise shell glasses. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I was overjoyed to see her. I don't know how many times I'd thought of her since last year, I missed her and I don't know why. I looked up and waved and called, "Sorry, darlin', but you'll have to come down. There's no way I can make it up there!"

She skipped down the face of the rock like a thistle on the wind and stopped in front of me and swooped low in a courtly bow, then stood up and laughed at the sheer silliness of it, and the sheer joy of being here together on this lonely forest path. I bowed equally low and said in my finest Shakespearian, "Well met, good my lady!" Then we stood, a foot apart, and looked into each other's eyes.

"You know, don't you?"she asked me with a cloud of worry passing over her face. "Know what? That you're dead? Yes." She looked down at the ground and I'm sure I saw a tear fall from her eye. "How did you know?" she asked me. "Well", I said, "that fading out on the path was kind of obvious!" She blushed at that and we both laughed. "Oops, my bad!" "Hey!", I said, "that expression didn't exist when you died!" "Yeah, I know", she giggled, "but I like it so much! I heard people using it in the park."

We talked on for a while, feeling at ease as the darkness fell. Finally I held my hand out to her. Her eyes almost fell out of her head, "Jim, are you sure you want to do that? I don't know what might happen." "Neither do I, honey. Let's find out!"

I could see a million thoughts cross her mind as she stood there, her eyes always fixed on mine. At last she came to some resolution and held her hand out so slowly....

The distance closing between her hand and mine, like a ship coming home to rest after such a long voyage. At last our fingertips touched but we didn't stop there, I closed both my hands over her hers.

It was like holding the wind in your hands, a cool spring breeze off the lake when you know it may yet snow again, but there's just enough warmth in the wind to tell you that the worst is over.

By now were less than a foot apart, her hand in mine. I couldn't help it, I looked into her eyes for permission and she gave it with a wink and a smile. I leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth.

I guess our eyes closed when our lips touched, but I'm really not sure, because there were fireworks and lightning and I pulled her close to me and she stumbled as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and we pulled each other closer and I swear I felt her body grow solid in my arms, her breasts pressed against my chest, her fingers running through my hair. Then she shuddered, pulled me tight and held on to me. "Breath!", she almost screamed, "Breath! My God, I'd forgotten what breath felt like!" She put her hand on my chest and felt my heart beating, "My God, Jim, I can hear your blood moving like a river inside you!" She was trembling so badly I gently sat her down on a boulder alongside the path.

After a long time we got up the courage to look at each other.  I sat next to her on  the boulder and put my arm around her shoulder.

"Well, why are you still here?" she asked me through the tears in her eyes.  Don't you want to go home to those girls who can still breathe?" I just wrapped my arms closer around her, held her tight. "I'm not going anywhere," I said,  "and I'll  never love them the way I love you."