On the Day I Died Read online

  Minutes later, the classroom door began to clatter.

  Curious, Tommy De Luca opened the door. “Hey, there’s smoke in the hallway!” he hollered, just as a cloud of black smoke swirled into the classroom.

  Sister Mary Henry hurried over to where Tommy stood. Quickly, she slammed the door. But more smoke began seeping in through the transom.

  Everyone looked nervously toward the teacher.

  Everyone, that is, but me. I slowly turned to Anthony, my eyes wide with horror.

  There was a moment, and then … he winked.

  I leaped to my feet, the sudden movement knocking over my desk, just as the fire alarm went off.

  Kids were scrambling now, bolting toward the classroom door, years of fire drill practice instantly forgotten as the smoke in the room grew thicker and blacker.

  “Get down on your hands and knees!” shouted Sister Mary Henry. “Crawl out through the door one after another.”

  Everyone did as they were told. One by one they disappeared into the churning darkness of the hallway.

  I raced to join them, but Anthony grabbed me. His strong arms held me back.

  “Let me go!” I twisted and struggled.

  “Enjoy it!” he shouted above the sounds of the fire. “Enjoy it for one more minute.”

  The room was growing hotter every second, the paint on the walls beginning to change from white to brown.

  “Sister,” I called weakly, choking and coughing.

  Then the big globe lights that hung from the ceiling exploded, sending a rain of glass crashing to the floor. Anthony let go of my arm, and I fell to my knees.

  His Bible.

  In the chaos, it had been knocked to the floor. Now I snatched it up, held it over my head as if it could provide some sort of heavenly protection against the fire. But within seconds, its golden-edged pages began smoldering. They curled, became burning wisps that drifted to the floor. I put out my hand. The pages fell like snowflakes into my palm. So did a folded piece of paper—Anthony’s confession. My fingers closed around it just as he grabbed my arm again, this time with less strength. He was making rasping, hacking sounds as he pulled me toward the windows. He wrestled one open, and we hung our heads out, gulping the cold, fresh air. Below us on the asphalt we could see Sister Mary Henry and our classmates. We could see the other students, too. Everyone had escaped—except us.

  I looked at Anthony. There was a feverish light in his eyes, a strange smile on his lips. And even in the room’s ovenlike heat, I shivered.

  Suddenly, with a bright orange flash and a loud boom, the fire exploded. It crashed in at the door and burst through the walls. Then everything was on fire—desks, tables, books.

  My hair began to smoke. I could feel my nylons melting to my legs.

  “Climb up here!” shouted Anthony.

  He half-dragged me out onto the wide window ledge. For a moment, we both perched there, looking down at the terrified faces below. Anthony reached over and took my clenched hand in his. “This is fun, isn’t it?” he said, his voice raw. That’s when the windows blew out, knocking us off the sill.

  ***

  I don’t know how long I lay there on the blacktop, unconscious. When I finally opened my eyes, I was looking up at Sister Mary Henry, my head resting in her lap. Father Frank bent over me, anointing my forehead with oil. “ ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil …’ ”

  Evil.

  I moved my blistered lips, forced words up from my parched throat. “Anthony.”

  “He’s alive,” soothed Sister Mary Henry.

  Father Frank leaned in even closer. “Why, Gina?” he asked, his kind eyes probing mine. “Why did you do it?”

  “Anthony.”

  A look of sadness washed over Father Frank’s face. “Oh, Gina,” he sighed.

  Slowly, my blackened fingers relaxed, revealing a folded paper, its edges burned—the paper that had fallen from Anthony’s Bible.

  Sister Mary Henry took the paper and opened it. “ ‘I did it,’ ” she read aloud. She gasped, and I knew she recognized Anthony’s handwriting. She turned to Father Frank and whispered something in his ear. Their eyes met, then slowly grew wide with understanding … just as mine closed for the last time.

  Gina fell silent.

  And slowly, Mike returned to himself, the hazy edges of the ghost’s story rolling back like fog to reveal the present. Once again, he could see the gravestones bright in the moonlight; could feel the saddle shoes, cold and wet and lumpy, beneath him. Nothing had changed—except for one thing. While Gina had told her story, the other ghosts had gathered around to listen, settling themselves onto nearby gravestones or sitting cross-legged in the grass. They were close enough now for Mike to make out their expressions—some sad, others hopeful, still others pitying, or sympathetic, or—in the case of the boy stomping toward him—angry.

  Mike jerked back as the boy raised a fist.

  But the ghost whirled on Gina. “So that’s it? That’s the end?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “You shoulda gotten even with that Anthony schmuck. You shoulda haunted him to his dying day.”

  “You know it doesn’t work that way,” said Gina. “Besides, I’m sure it all came right in the end.”

  “Came right? You’re the only person can make it come right. If there’s one thing I learned from my sixteen lousy years on earth, it’s you only got yourself. Ain’t nobody going to help. And I’ll tell you something else—if it’d been me, I’d have haunted that slob until he was just a shivering little bunny rabbit. Yeah, I’d have reduced him to a quaking mass of tapioca pudding. I’d have gotten my revenge.”

  The boy turned his furious face toward Mike. “Revenge,” he said in a low voice. “That’s my story: how Johnnie Novotny got his revenge and”—he paused a second before continuing—“how revenge got him.”

  IF YOU WAS TO ask me how I ended up in this cemetery, my life snuffed out like the burning end of some politician’s fat stogie, I’d spit out two words—Officer Funkhouser. That meddling do-good copper practically pushed me into the funeral business. That’s a fact. And … well … if I hadn’t been at the undertaker’s that night, I might not be in this graveyard now.

  I was working over on LaSalle Street, relieving the well-to-do of some of their unneeded goods. Already, I’d slipped a greenback-thick wallet out of some rich swell’s coat pocket, and I’d pinched a gold bangle off one of them high-class dames as she bustled off to do some shopping at Marshall Field’s or one of those other swanky department stores down on State Street.

  We were in a depression, see, but them hoity-toity slobs didn’t know a thing about it. You can bet your last dollar they’d never stood in line half a morning just for a lousy ladleful of thin soup. Bet they’d never slept on a hard bench over in Grant Park, neither, using yesterday’s copy of the Daily News for a blanket. Nope, life’s miseries never touched them white-breads. But I sure did. And why not? I’m like that Robin Hood guy, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. They had so much. What was wrong with taking a little for myself, for cripes sake? I’m the poor!

  So there I was, minding my own business and working the privileged crowd, when—WHAM! I found myself facedown in the gutter.

  “That’s it, Johnnie Novotny,” bellowed a deep voice. “I’m taking you in.”

  I scrambled to my feet, fury boiling in my veins, fists raised. Nobody pushes Johnnie Novotny around, not unless they want a bloody lip. Then I saw who it was and I tamped down my anger. Plastered an innocent look on my face, too. “Whatcha do that for, Funkhouser?” I asked the beefy cop who towered over me. He was a giant dressed in a navy-blue woolen coat with big brass buttons. “You shouldn’t go around pushing citizens, you know that?”

  “You shouldn’t have come back here, Johnnie,” Funkhouser replied. “I told you last time that if I ever saw you working my beat again, I’d arrest you.”

  “I wasn’t do
ing nothing, just walking down the street, that’s all. Ain’t a man allowed to walk down the street?”

  “A man? You?” Funkhouser’s broad shoulders shook with laughter.

  My fingers clenched again. I was almost sixteen, wasn’t I? Old enough to knock that smug grin clean off his stupid mug. And I was itching to do it, too, except I didn’t fancy a month in the cooler. I turned to walk away.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” said Funkhouser. Grabbing my arm, he held me tight as a vise. We started down the sidewalk, him pushing me ahead through the crush of pedestrians.

  “Lemme go!” I shouted, twisting in his grasp.

  “I’m doing you a good turn, Johnnie,” said Funkhouser. “I’m going to recommend to the judge that he be lenient, send you to reform school instead of jail. It’s the best thing for you, son. You’ll be off the streets, getting three squares a day. And you’ll be getting an education, too, going to regular school.”

  School?

  Just the sound of that word made my neck hairs stand on end.

  School?

  I’d rather be in jail. Heck, in my world there wasn’t much difference.

  It was them teachers that put me off, namely one Miss Bolam. Jeez, but she was a real fossil, as musty as that ancient history she taught. Just looking at her gave me the creeps. Her dark eyes, cold like some kind of lizard’s, darted from student to student. She always had it in for mugs like me—kids who came to class to catch up on their sleep while she droned on about mummies and vengeful gods and Phoenician burial spells.

  “Amun cahi ra lamac harrahya,” she’d babble away in that wise-guy voice of hers. “That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Sumerian Resurrection Curse.”

  Or, “Many ancient cultures believed they could transfer death from one person to another simply by chanting this curse: Ai oro ramr hvtar.”

  Is it any wonder I couldn’t keep my eyes open in class? And what was the point of it, anyways? How would all that gibberish help put food in my belly? Useless, I tell you.

  The whole time she talked, her long, bony fingers would reach up to touch the brooch she always wore pinned to her collar. It was a weird-looking thing, gold with a big red stone, and shaped like a crescent moon. I wondered if it was worth pinching, if I could get anything for it. Rumor had it that it was a present from some long-dead lover, but I didn’t believe that. Not for a minute. Nobody could love that paper bag.

  I remember this one afternoon. She was up at the front of the class, blathering away and punctuating each boring word with a slap of the ruler she always liked to carry. “I could have been an archaeologist,” she was saying. “As a young woman I trained with the greatest experts of our time. My specialty was Sumerian witchcraft practices, an obscure but fascinating subject.”

  That Kisser-upper, Charlene Shansky, asked her, “Why didn’t you, then?”

  “Unfortunately, I was hampered in my career by my fear of”—Miss Bolam paused and shuddered—“s-s-spiders.” Her face turned as white as the bun on her head. “Thus I chose the classroom rather than temples and tombs.”

  Blah blah blah. Who cared? I made a big show of stretching and yawning.

  Miss Bolam’s cold eyes narrowed. “Am I boring you, Mr. Novotny?”

  I answered by closing my eyes and making loud, sputtering snoring noises.

  Miss Bolam moved down the aisle toward me. Even though my eyes were still closed, I could hear the squeak of her leather shoes, smell the dusty-thick stink of her lilac talcum powder.

  Miss Bolam brought her ruler down—SMACK!—on the edge of my desk.

  My eyes flew open. The entire class was staring at me.

  “Hold out your hands,” she demanded.

  I felt hot and itchy all over.

  “Other teachers may tolerate your disrespectful behavior,” she said, “but not this one.”

  Behind me, Charlene Shansky sniggered.

  “Your hands!” Miss Bolam demanded.

  I knew there was only one way out—I had to give in, do what she wanted. It was the same as when my pop would stumble home from Mueller’s Tavern whiskeyed up and in a wicked mood. All I could do was take the blows. Only this time it was her ruler instead of his fists. Swallowing my rage and humiliation like some bitter tonic, I slowly held out my hands. They were trembling.

  She raised her ruler. “Are you scared?”

  I looked straight at her. “Johnnie Novotny’s never scared, you prune-faced old crone.”

  “You should be,” she said. “You have no idea of the truly terrible punishment I could mete out if I wanted to. But for today … this will do.”

  She brought down her ruler, slicing it through the air like one of them guillotines she was always talking about. It smashed into my knuckles, bruising bones and breaking skin. A red-hot pain shot up my arm. But I know how not to cry. I just gritted my teeth as she smacked me again … and again … and again.

  When she finished, she leaned in close. “Have you learned your lesson, Mr. Novotny?”

  I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of an answer. But as she walked away, I vowed under my breath, “I’ll get even with you. Just you wait.”

  Two days later, I left a little surprise in Miss Bolam’s desk drawer—the drawer where she kept that ruler.

  “Did everyone do their homework?” she asked as she came striding into the room. Her black eyes landed on me.

  I smiled at her, all sweet and innocent-like.

  Her fingers reached up to briefly touch her brooch; then she pulled open the drawer.

  Spiders—a wave of twitching black and brown legs—poured out. They scurried between Miss Bolam’s fingers and scampered up her arms. They dropped to the floor and crawled across her shoes. An especially furry house spider hopped onto her crepe-skinned cheek. And a daddy longlegs caught its breath on the red stone of her brooch before slipping down the neck of her blouse.

  I leaned forward. I couldn’t wait to hear the old bat scream.

  But Miss Bolam didn’t scream. Instead, she froze. Her black eyes bulged and her dried-apple face turned the color of oatmeal. A choking, gargling noise rose from deep in her throat, and then … she just dropped into a heap on the floor.

  A big gray spider darted across her shoe.

  Carol-Marie Price screamed and Charlie Groth ran to get help. An ambulance came and took Miss Bolam away. She never came back to school. We heard later that she’d had a stroke and was tottering at death’s door.

  But that wasn’t my problem. She’d asked for it, right?

  No, my problem turned out to be Charlene Shansky. Seems Charlene had seen me pull that spider-filled Mason jar out of my knapsack, and as soon as the ambulance carrying Miss Bolam took off, she hightailed it for the principal’s office. An hour later, I was sitting across from Mr. Davenport.

  I tried to put on my innocent look. I told him it was just a prank, a practical joke that had gotten a little out of hand. But Mr. Davenport didn’t have a sense of humor.

  “I have no choice but to expel you,” he said.

  My fists balled. I tell you, I came close to breaking the guy’s nose. But then I thought, Who cares? I’m sprung! It wasn’t like I loved learning or anything like that. The only reason I ever went to school was to get away from the old man.

  “You just done me a favor,” I told the principal. Head high, I sauntered out.

  I kept walking, too, all the way to Grant Park, where a couple of guys I knew from the neighborhood were living. I didn’t go home. What was the point? Pop would have just slapped me around for getting kicked out of school. No, I decided, I was a free man, and now I needed to make my own living.

  And school?

  Well, that just wasn’t part of the plan.

  “Take that, Funkhouser!” I shouted at the cop. Using all my strength, I flung my head back, slamming it into his blocky chin. His regulation square-brimmed cap fell to the sidewalk and his lip gushed blood. He raised his hand to his mouth, loosening his grip on me for a second. I twisted
away and vaulted into the busy street.

  “Johnnie, come back!” shouted Funkhouser. But he didn’t chase after me. He just stood on the curb and watched as I dodged around delivery trucks, sedans and cranky old Model Ts.

  I looked back over my shoulder and raised my hand in salute to him. “So long, sucker!” I cried.

  There came a horn blast and a squeal of tires as a hearse braked to a stop just inches away from me.

  “Jeez, kid,” said the driver, sticking his head out the window. “You came close to being my next customer.”

  I looked at the hearse—a Packard, it was, long and black and sleek. Through its windows I could see the ornate silver handles of the casket shimmering against dark wood like some hidden treasure. Jeez, that stiff had more dead than I’d ever had alive.

  And that’s when it came to me, just like that. Why bother pinching stuff off living people when there were so many dead people lying around? Dead people still had stuff—rings and watches and whatnot—but they couldn’t yell for help or call the cops. You don’t get sent to reform school for stealing a corpse’s pocket watch (or at least, I didn’t think you did). And it would be easy—as easy as taking candy from … well … a dead baby.

  I started laughing right there in the street, the hearse driver staring at me as if I’d lost my marbles. “Thanks, Funkhouser,” I said aloud. “Thanks a million.”

  Back in those days, Chicago was lousy with funeral homes, what with all them gangsters running around, drumming up business. Honest, a guy couldn’t cross the street without stumbling onto one of them death joints. They was on practically every corner. Most of the undertakers ran their businesses out of their own homes. Down in their basements was where all the body work took place—draining the blood, pumping the bodies full of the stuff that kept them from looking like overheated nectarines, dolling them up with makeup and dressing them up in their Sunday best.

  The main floor was where they displayed the bodies. They had these big, long rooms they called parlors that were all decked out with curtains that looked like those fancy dresses the nobs’ wives wore to their stupid music shows down on West Monroe. And there was heavy wood furniture and thick carpets, and pictures of Jesus and bronze crosses on the walls. Sometimes—in the fancier joints—there’d even be a stained-glass window or two. The casket always sat on a bier, a sort of table, at the front of the parlor, sometimes in its own little nook.