3,766  words

 

                                                                 

MURGATROYD

 

by  Daniel  Sprouse

copyright  1994

 

 

            I had been spending my summers there for as long as I could remember.  My sister’s house was a happy place. Rose had children who were my age, two girls.  Carol was sixteen and Lisa was seventeen; I was eighteen.  The wide range in age between my sister  (mother’s oldest)  and myself  (the youngest)  was proof of my family’s fecundity.  It was a perfect situation for me: I got to fall in love every time one of my nieces would bring home a new friend and it gave my parents a well earned rest for three months.  And I liked being  “the man of the house.”  Rose’s husband had been killed in a fire twelve years earlier.  He had been a good man, as I remember him, and a good provider.  He left Rose an income  (insurance money)  and a great old house on about twenty acres.  He really had made a score when he bought that property: It was just far enough out of the city to be peaceful, but not so far that it denied access.  That’s probably why the cemetery had been put in on the other side of the woods that lay just to the north, up on the hill.

            It was so peaceful.

            I’d been there just over a week.  It was one of the best night’s sleep I’d ever had, but then I always feel that way after it’s rained.  Up at sunrise, I was sure that I was the first one to awaken.  I wasn’t.  Lisa was sitting in the wooden rocker in front of the T.V. , staring wide eyed into the inactive appliance.

            “Looks like a great show,” I said, thinking that it would startle her.

            She had seen my reflection in the darkened picture tube.

“Morning ,” she said without turning.  “A television is just a box that you stare into, whether it’s on or off.   I had some weird dreams.  I couldn’t get back to sleep.”

            “Have you had breakfast yet?”  I asked, hoping that she had made some coffee.

            “No, I didn’t want to wake anyone.”  She rocked forward and stood up.  We both went into the kitchen.

            Lisa grabbed the pot from the “Mr. Morning”  coffee maker and I got out the filters and the grounds. While she was filling the pot with water she asked, “Can you take me into town this morning? There’s something that I need.”

            “Sure,” I told her. “What is it that you have to get?”

            “I’m not really sure.” a puzzled look crossed her face.  “I’ll know it when I see it though.” Her behavior didn’t seem that odd for someone who had stayed up late and awakened early. Looking back on it, I don’t think that a sleepless night was at fault.

            A couple of hours later we left for Benson’s Department Store. As we passed the cemetery I noticed an old man standing by the south gate, and he noticed us. He turned slowly with his whole body, as we drove past, to face us. He kept looking at us.

           “He’s creepy,” I told Lisa.

           “Who is?’’ She turned around in her seat to see.  “I don’t see anyone.”  By that time we were past the north gate and rounding the corner by the church. We went under the train bridge and turned into the parking lot of the plaza.

           We went in and I told Lisa that I was going to look at some books. She went on her way and I went to the bookracks.

           I was examining the cover of a paperback when Lisa came back holding a large stuffed animal.

           “Bird,” she said, holding the big owl out, as pleased as a girl a third of her age would be.

           “Book,” I replied as I put back the novel. “Let’s.” She checked out and met me at the car. There wasn’t a lot of conversation on the trip home. I was a little miffed that she needed that damned bird so bad; after all I had other things to

do.

            “There’s that weird old dude again,” I said as we approached the north gate of the cemetery. He was staring at the car the same way he had before.

           “I think his name is Murgatroyd,” Lisa said, not having paid any attention to what I had said.

           “That’s a weird name, but I guess it suits that strange old fart.”

           “No, my bird. My bird’s name will be Murgatroyd.”  Again she hadn’t seen the man in the cemetery. She had all of her attention focused on her new stuffed owl.

           Far too soon the summer was half over. I found out that I had been accepted for the fall semester for the State University, but I had decided not to go. The local junior college would do. One of Carol’s friends had turned me into a selfless zombie in love. I’d just stay in this little Indiana town, go to a third rate school, and be near the love of my life. It’s been years since I’ve thought about her...

            My lovely Laura and I had been parking one night (in the cemetery, of course,) and we were leaving. Laura insisted that she was scared and that someone else was in the cemetery. It was just an excuse not to take the evening, romantic as it was, to its logical conclusion, I’m sure. But as we were leaving, and very probably about to get into an argument that would have lasted for weeks, my headlights passed over something that made me stop the car. I just could not believe what I saw.

            There, emblazoned across a great granite stone was the name MURGATROYD.  Nothing else was on the marker: No dates, no other name, no beloved anything. I laughed out loud, and it even made me forget my primal urges and Laura’s lack thereof.

            Several days later Lisa and I were driving by and I pulled into the graveyard. I was going to surprise her, but I couldn’t find the tombstone, which bore the name of her bird. It was daylight, this time, and nothing looked familiar. I gave up the search. When I told Lisa what I was looking for, all hell broke loose.

            “That’s not funny, he isn’t dead. Murgatroyd isn’t dead.” All week long she accused me of being cruel, and sick; she even cried once or twice. The relationship between a young woman and her stuffed animals is one that no man will ever understand.

Nor did I understand what happened next: in fact it scared me. I’m not a voyeur by nature, but there are times when you just can’t help it. One Wednesday night at about two a.m. , I got home from a party that Laura and I had gone to. I was so pleased with the world. I headed upstairs towards my room, and I heard Lisa talking. Her bedroom door never did close quite right, and I just paused to see who she was talking to. It was that stuffed bird. I could see her through a crack in the door. She told the bird how sweet it was and how it was her best friend. She really wasn’t acting like the Lisa I’d grown up with. A few moments earlier I was sure that the world was a wonderful place; now I was saddened to see Lisa living on whole other planet. When she pushed the scissors into the doll and laughed like a lunatic I audibly gasped. She noticed me then. The glare she threw at me frightened me like I’d never know to be possible.

             I spent the night in my car with the doors locked, the windows up, and one eye open. Lisa spent the night staring out of her second story bedroom window at me in my car. She slept all day Thursday. I tried talking to Rose, her mother, but she didn’t believe a word I said.

             Carol didn’t really want to talk about her sister behind her back, but I talked her into taking a peek inside Lisa’s room. When she saw the remains of the disemboweled owl strewn around the room she was horrified.

              “That’s not like her at all,” I told Carol.

              “You’re right. She treated that toy better than she treats me and mom.” her face went flush. “Do you think that she’s dangerous? I mean, to us?”

              “I’ve never known Lisa to be violent. For that matter, I’ve never known her to be a fan of stuffed animals until recently. Did you know that she named it after a man on a tombstone?” Then I related the story of the grave marker Laura and I found to Carol. Carol didn’t believe me saying that she’d never been able to get Lisa to go near the graveyard.

              Lisa woke up in time for dinner. She never mentioned the owl or what happened to it. She started acting normal again, or at least as normal as a teenager can act. Whatever was wrong seemed to have worked itself out.

              There was only a month left of summer. I’d been working out, bicycling and swimming everyday. Riding was fun, but it was dangerous in traffic, so I often rode in the cemetery. Most days I had the whole place to myself, it’s gently sloping green lawns and well paved roads. One day I was not alone.

               There was that old man again, acting like he owned the place. I realized that he must be the caretaker or maintenance man or something. I didn’t slow down as I wheeled my way by, but I did smile and nod to him.

                “I want you all out of my house,” he shouted angrily.

                I was riding too fast to stop immediately. When I got the bike turned around he had been standing and looked around the stones for him, thinking I might have scared him and that he could be hiding. He wasn’t. But there right in front of me was Murgatroyd. I had been sure it was near the crypt by the tree, but it was by the cannon pointing at the Jesus. It was no longer important; I certainly wasn’t going to say the word Murgatroyd to Lisa.

                I ride a few more circuits around the place and decided to go home. I thought that I’d pay my respects to Murgatroyd on my way out. It wasn’t there. The cannon was there. The Jesus was there. The stone wasn’t there. All of the landmarks were exactly where they should be.

                “That’s probably why I’m always getting lost,” I told myself out loud as I put my weight on the highest pedal. I rode for home.

                I couldn’t get what that old duffer had said out of my head.

                I showered and toweled off. When the fog lifted from the bathroom mirror, there it was; curiosity, staring back at me.

                I asked my sister Rose about the former owners of her property. She couldn’t tell me much of history but she knew someone who might. One of her former friends was real estate agent who had sold the place to her husband. At the time of the sale they hadn’t been friends at all. Rose had always had suspicions about Mary. Since then Rose had come to realize that flirting was just a part of the way Mary set about selling houses. I never did tell Rose why I wanted to know about the old owners.

                Mary was still an attractive woman, even in her late forties. I told her about the information I was after, but not why. I didn’t want her to think I was crazy.

                “The seller was a nursing home, St. Bartholemew’s. I think that some older lady signed it over to them as collateral so they would take care of her. It was in lieu of payment; It happens quite often.” Mary didn’t recall the woman’s name and didn’t save records that far back, but did remember the sad story of the woman’s husband just left her and never bothered to say good-bye or even good riddance.

                “Why a man who was that old still thought he had wild oats to sow is beyond me,” Mary said, remembering her own recent divorce. “Men are like that.”

                “Some are,” I replied, taking mild offense at the generalization.

                Sometimes I thought that Laura’s mother wanted me more as a son-in-law than Laura wanted me as a husband. I knew I could count on “mom.”

                Laura’s mother worked at the County Courthouse, in the records department. I was able to find out much more there. It took several days but I was able to find the name of the last person to hold title before the nursing home: Natalie M. Weizel acquired the deed seven years after her husband left her. No one had sued for divorce. Natalie had been committed to the local nursing home when a certain non-profit group had petitioned to declare her incompetent...

                I took that information to the police department. I had more luck at the County Sheriff’s. It seems that a missing persons report had been filed almost forty years ago.

                The Sheriff back then had done almost nothing. The records could have been lost, but the deputy assisting me thought it more likely that no real investigation had been made. There was just a one-page report and one yellowed photograph in an otherwise empty file. The complaintant’s name was Natalie Murgatroyd Weizel.

                The photo must have been taken before the First World War. The picture was of a nice young couple stepping on a glass at a wedding. The groom could have been the old goomer in the cemetery, from much younger days. The Bride looked exactly like my niece Lisa.

                When I passed the cemetery on my way home, there he was. At the north gate the old man watched me drive by. He raised his hand and shook it at me, and my eyes looked for him in the rear view mirror as I passed. Not there. I turned to watch the road again, but there was the old man. Now he was at the south entrance, hand raised, cursing me.

                Now, I believe in a lot of things: I believe in God. I believe that there are more things, in Heaven and on Earth, than the delicate merger of my soul and mind can comprehend. I know for a fact that an exhausted man can see things that he doesn’t want to see: It’s a basic component of human fear. I’m still afraid.

                I was still sweating when I walked in the door at the house. By the time I had showered it was all worked out in my mind.

                Mr. Weizel had “disappeared” which made me think of that guy at the graveyard (who kept disappearing) causing great anxiety unto Mrs. Natalie M. Weizel (not unlike what Lisa had been experiencing,) and it was a simple case of transference; it was all in my mind. No problem.

                The next morning when I was leaving to do more research on the matter, I picked up the folder that I had left on the kitchen table. I dropped it: The photo wasn’t there. I knew where to find it.

                In the course of the a. m. hours of the night Lisa had rearranged her room completely. Her furniture was arranged differently; there were frilly, laced, moth eaten dresses hanging from the canopy of her bed. There were boxes the floor. The nick-nacks on her shelves were not the ones that had been there before; these looked like antiques. On her desk was my picture of the Weizels, now in an old frame. Lisa was standing in front of her mirror pulling a brush through her long dark hair. She smiled at me when I walked into the room.

              “I’m so excited,” she told me. “I’m so nervous.”  She was blushing.  “This time tomorrow I will be a married woman!”

              My shoulders dropped from their posture of anger over the photo to hang in disbelief. I closed the door behind me and didn’t utter a word. Here’s a nut that cracked when it fell from it’s tree.

              I was at St. Bartholemew’s Nursing Home by ten a. m. . After convincing the nurse at the desk that I was “Aunt Natalie’s only living family,” they told me where she was. I found my way to Critical Care.

               “Where is room eighteen?” I asked the station nurse. She was on the telephone and hushed with a wave of her hand.

               “Yes...yes. It is an emergency. We’ll have the patient ready for transport before you get here. Thank you.” She hung up the phone and turned her attention towards me. “What can I do for you?”  Her voice betraying her annoyance with me. I had picked a bad time to show up.

               “I’m, uh, I’m here to see my aunt Natalie; the front desk told me she’s in CCU room eighteen.”

               The nurse’s face went white. As she was explaining that Mrs. Weizel was the patient for whom the ambulance had been called, I could hear a siren coming closer. It was for her.

               Timing is everything. I tried to stay out of the way yet appear to be concerned. I didn’t expect it when they asked me to ride in the ambulance with the old bat.

               They tried to corner me in admitting at the hospital. I told them that the nursing home had all of the information they would need. I didn’t even make it to the waiting room when the intern found me. He put his hand on my shoulder.

               “Mr. Weizel?” he asked. “I’d like to speak with you. Alone might be best.” We went into an anteroom and sat down. “We couldn’t do anything for her. I’m sorry. She had a complete renal shutdown, by that I mean that her kidneys quit functioning. It’s often a complication with diabetes.” He told me who to see if I needed help with funeral arrangements and then left to respond to a page. I felt so guilty for deceiving those people like that. Now I had to get up, walk out of the hospital and never be associated with these circumstances again.

               The lights in hospitals are always so bright. My eyes were adjusting to it out in the corridor when I heard Carol speak. I focused as best I could and saw her and Rose hovering near the swinging doors that led to the E. R. . I rushed over as though I had just arrived.

               Sensing the urgency, and seeing that Lisa was not present: “What happened Rose? Is Lisa hurt?” Rose cried as she told me how Lisa had gotten all dressed up in some antique dress and walked off the edge of the roof. Then she apologized to me for not listening when I had tried to warn her about Lisa’s strange behavior.

         We got some caffeine from the soda machine, sat down in the waiting room and worried together. This time there was better news when the Doctor came out. (Thankfully it was a different Doctor.)

          “She’s a very lucky young lady: The only thing she got out of this was a broken ankle and a dislocated shoulder. That fall could have killed her.”

          Carol and I sneaked into the E. R. while Rose and Doctor were trying to figure out if Lisa had been doing drugs or not. Lisa was bruised up pretty badly. They had her sedated and sleeping. It was comforting to see her breathe, and to know that she couldn’t do anything weird for a while.

           In the closet hung the dress they had taken off of Lisa. It was the dress that Natalie had been wearing in the wedding picture. It was now grass stained and bloody. I took the garment off of its hanger and we left.

           We stopped at the dry cleaners before going home and dropped off the antique wedding dress. The counter girl said that I could pick it up in two hours. Carol and I went home.

           Two hours passed and I took a plastic garbage bag from the pantry and went back into town. I paid for the cleaned dress and then drove to St. Bartholemew’s and parked. I walked in with a sense of purpose. People never question you in places like that if you act like you belong there. I went into Natalie’s recently vacated room and found her closet. I removed the other garments hanging there and left the wedding dress in their stead. They would be sure to bury her in it if was only thing she had. I took the other clothes with me and left.

           Two days later we brought Lisa home from the hospital. Nobody said much on the way. We passed the north gate of the cemetery. There was the old man. He was facing the lawn, where a funeral was in progress. It was Natalie’s funeral. It looked lonely. There was only the preacher, some funeral home employees to act as pall bearers, and the old man watching from far away. We passed the south gate and the old man was there. He waved to me. I waved back.

           “Who are you waving to,” Lisa asked me.

           “No one. Did you see anyone there?” Neither did I. I never saw the old man again.

           About five years later they found Mr. Weizel. He had spent all those years in the woods between the house and the cemetery. He must have had a heart attack or something. Poor Natalie spent all those years waiting for him to come home.

           They buried him next to his wife.

           Lisa’s quite a stable young woman now; wife, mother, the whole nine yards. Carol is, too. Rose no longer lives there, she remarried and moved away. I’ll never forget that summer, though, and I’ll never forget Natalie Murgatroyd Weizel and her husband.