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By Root 469 0

fumigating in the attic row, all the things I had ever missed and never knew to find, the constant fear I had that either or both of my parents would die) (this mere thought was all I needed to know of death)—“Well don’t worry about it,” my father is saying —sits glooming with pouty lips shining in the kitchen lights of 1934 night in summer, expects me– Suddenly we hear a great thud that shakes the neighborhood, as though the watermelon ballooned world huge had fallen in the street outside to again remind me, and I go “Oook coose que ca?” and for a moment they all listen with heartbeats like me, and again, it goes THUD, shaking the earth, as though old hermit Plouffe in his cellar on the corner was driving home his secret with explosive blasts of the furnace of hell (could he have been an accomplice of Sax’s?)—the whole house, ground shakes–I know now it is the voice of doom coming to prophesy my death with proper fanfare–

“It’s nothing but old Marquand striking the log with his ax frappe le bucher avec son axe—” and it struck, thud, we all ealized so it was. But then I swore there was something mighty peculiar about Marquand with his ax this late, I’d never heard him before this late, death had kept him up, he had a contract this night to rhyme his ax with the funerals of my fear, besides of which immediately next to old Plouffe and his house was full of drapes, death, beads, his yard was full of flowers, something I didn’t understand about the smells of other houses and the concomitant doom and dull within–

But suddenly we heard a great moan rising from underground, next door– We all started with fear. “M-o-o-o-o-a-n —

“O-w-w-w-w-” —the goddam Moon Man had materialized himself into husky death in the grain real ground– It was staring me in the face—”Ooooo”—the Man of Death, not content with his bridge, had come spooking after me to moan at my mother’s doormat and haunt the A M R E S Y of the night.

Even my mother– ”Mende moi done, mats cosse quest ca! s’t’hurlage de bonhomme— (My goodness what is that! that howling of old man!)”—for a moment I think it crossed her head too that the man who died on the bridge was still after us–his spirit didn’t want to give up without a fight—craziness crossed her eyes in a flash, in mine it was stuck —I goofed. That whole night I refused to sleep alone, slept with my mother and sister–I think my sister got sick and tired and transferred to my bed in middle of night, I was twelve– In Centralville it had always, I’d every night crawl in between them when the dark made me cry (Ah sweet Christmas midnights when we found our toys richly placed by they now returning from church on the snowy porch as we roll in our pajamas under the carpet tree)—Suddenly in Pawtucketville I no longer feared the dark, nameless religious ghosts of malign funeral intent had given way to the Doctor Sax honorable shroud ghosts of Pawtucketville, Gene Plouffe and the Black Thief- But now death was catching up again, Pawtucketville too was doomed and brown to die–it was only the next day that we learned the horrible moaning had been done by Mr. Marquand who had a fit in his cellar after chopping wood—he’d got a message of death from the bridge and from me– He died quite recently after that … it always is true, you smell the flowers before someone dies– My mother stood in my father’s room sniffing suspiciously, old Mr. Marquand was sending his roses all the way from next door– In the young you can see the flowers in their eyes.

I lay huddled against the great warm back of my mother with open eyes up-peeking from the pillow at all shadows and leafshades on the wall and at the screen, nothing could harm me now … this whole night could only take me if it took her with me and she wasn’t afraid of any shade.

Luckily after that, and by unconscious arrangement, in a flu epidemic my mother and I were semiquarantined in bed for a week where (mostly it rained) I lay reading The Shadow Magazine, or feebly listening to the radio downstairs in my bathrobe, or blissfully sleeping with one leg thrown over my mother in the night