CROSSING THE RIVER SABINE
By Christopher Woods
 

I went to Louisiana to look for my grave. It sounded easy enough, but I soon learned it was not. I had given a talk at a writer’s conference in southeast Texas. Among the people I had met was a woman writer, Marcy, who was also a psychic. In addition to her writing, she was often consulted by police investigating cases of missing people. She would go into a trance and, with with luck, tell the police where the bodies were buried. In happier visions, she would tell them the person was still alive.

Months before, as an anniversary present, I had given my wife Linda a former life reading from a psychic, Peter Mesa, let’s call him. Mr. Mesa lived in New Mexico, but visited Houston annually. In the reading, he told her about her previous lives. One of them was in Louisiana, in New Iberia. She was married with twins, and supposedly I was one of them. Mr. Mesa explained how we go from one life to the next surrounded by the same souls, but the relationships change. 

 In one life, the soul might be your father or mother, or a sibling. The next life, it changes again. Back in New Iberia, circa 1880, I was her son, a twin. According to the reading, my life was cut very short. When I was six years old, I was run over by a horse and buggy on a tree-lined brick street in the center of New Iberia. The buggy driver, a funeral director, was in a hurry and didn’t see a little boy playing in the street. I was buried in a nearby cemetery. 

We didn’t know what to think about Mr. Mesa or his revelations. Frankly, all of my wife’s lives were interesting. But this one life, complete with my own death in a state next door, was the most fascinating of all. Close geographically, it was also near in time. We wanted to know more. 

Oh, you might say it’s all nonsense, but this spook stuff is much more interesting than the day to day humdrum lives most of us lead. Besides, my wife and I are children of the Sixties. We can do and think most anything unless we hurt someone else, right? Oh, a brief flirtation with reincarnation might possibly hurt Sister Mary Martin, my first grade teacher, but I have a feeling she has, by now, gone on to another life of her own. So, we decided we would go to New Iberia.

This is why I consulted Marcy. On the final morning of the writer’s conference, I sat with her in the hotel lobby and told her all about Mr. Mesa. She held my hand and took my fingertips in her own, explaining that she could capture my energy that way. Her eyes closed and opened, then began to flutter like those of an actress in an old silent film. I waited. Finally, here eyes opened again and she spoke.

"I see the grave. The tombstone is white, and atop it is an angel. This is an old grave, and the tombstone is leaning to the side. You will find it in New Iberia." 

That was all I needed to know, or so I thought. That afternoon Linda and I drove into Louisiana. We were on a mission.

Arriving in New Iberia, I stopped at a convenience store to ask directions. The woman there not only gave me directions to the Catholic cemetery, but scratched out a small map on a brown bag. I showed the map to Linda. It was clear now that nothing could deter us from our goal.

"Let’s try the cemetery," she said. "But remember, there is also our old home."

The old cemetery was quite large. If it were to house over a century of the dead, it would have to be. We started walking, slowly at first, trying not to become distracted by beautiful monuments and curious epitaphs carved into them. And, although we didn’t say anything, I know we both wondered why there were so many people milling about. I could see dozens of groups, and they all looked like cleaning crews. Finally I asked one group why all the people were at the cemetery. 

A woman told me it was All Souls’ Day, when family members came once a year to clean the headstones and remove weeds from family plots. The woman asked where my family was buried. After a moment’s hesitation, I pointed west, towards Texas, but she didn’t know what I was doing. She nodded and moved away.

Then, as we walked on a narrow path between mausoleums, a man stepped out from behind a large tomb. He walked right up to us, held out his hand and introduced himself as Stanley LeBlanc. It was an odd moment. Why would a complete stranger introduce himself to us in a cemetery? I had no choice but to shake his hand, which felt cold and damp, and tell him our names. I regretted this immediately, but I didn’t know why. Just a feeling.

Stanley told us he was cleaning his family’s plot, but his hands looked clean. His hair was black, slicked back. Dressed in a black suit, he looked like the poster boy for the Undertakers’ Society. Honest to God, he gave me the willies. When I told him that we needed to get back to work on our own family plot, and we began to walk away, he took something out of his jacket. Please don’t let it be a gun, I thought. He handed me his business card. I took it, without looking, and gave it to Linda. Stanley said, when we finished our work, we should come by his place for drinks. I thanked him, and began walking away, quicker than before. When I looked back, I saw him getting into his car. A hearse.

"How’s that for creepy?" Linda said. 

"Not as creepy as actually going for drinks with Stanley," I told her.

We spent the next two hours looking for graves. Unfortunately, we came across six different leaning tombstones with angels atop them.  Each of the six graves were those of young boys who had died in the late 1880's. It was very sad, but it was also puzzling. None of the inscriptions said a thing about the deceased being a twin. 

"Didn’t Marcy give you the boy’s name?" Linda asked. 

"No. What about your Mr. Mesa? Did he give you anything concrete?"

We stood there in silence. I knew we could drive back to Houston with a tale we would share with friends. Most would laugh. Others, the ones I would enjoy most, would be aghast. But there was also the bottom line. There was no way to prove that one, if any, of these graves was mine. 

We walked to the car. It was almost dark. I felt disappointed, sure. We had been on a wild ghost chase. But something else was bothering me and I hadn’t been able to put my finger on it. Leaving the cemetery, it hit me. Not only did my friend Marcy and my wife’s mentor Mr. Mesa not tell us the name of the dead twin. They had also left out an important matter or two. 

"I don’t know if we were Catholic or Protestant or Jewish. Or black or white. Everyone has a cemetery, you know. We’ve only visited one."

"Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way," Linda said. " Maybe we should try to find the place where the accident happened. It’s in the old part of town. Maybe it will help us remember." 

We soon found ourselves driving down an old brick street in the old town. I wondered if this was where we had lived, where I stepped off the curb as the horse and buggy came racing along. Linda was reading Stanley LeBlanc’s business card and looking around. 

"This is the house," she announced as we drove beneath huge oak trees.

How could she know that this was the house where we had once lived, albeit in a different relationship. But hey, wasn’t it home?

" This is where we lived?" 

" No, where Stanley lives," she said, showing me the card. Sure enough, his address was a funeral home on that same street. It was spooky. His soliciting us, and my death in a former life. Just then, a hearse pulled up beside us.

"Drinks in a half hour," Stanley said. He drove away.

"Ready for cocktails?" Linda asked. " In the old life, maybe Stanley was the buggy driver. Had you thought about that?"

I had not. And, now that I had, I decided that I did not want to know more. Not about Stanley or my former life and death. I stepped on the gas. We followed the sun as it set in the west, and on our dull, present lives in Texas.

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Christopher Woods is the author of UNDER A RIVERBED SKY (Panther Creek Press) and a book of stage monologues, HEART SPEAK (Stone River Press). This essay first appeared in THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE - March 28, 2002.