Louis Maistros - The Sound of Building Coffins

Could be that Lily was an old woman by now. Maybe dead. Her name probably wasn’t even Lily; just a pretty name for a pretty picture made up by Doctor Jack. Maybe this photo had passed through many hands before it found its way to his own; Typhus only one in a long line of Lily’s smitten admirers. Maybe Doctor Jack had been smitten himself at one time. No matter.

Typhus, of course, knew what pictures like this were for. They were meant as useful mementos for sailors preparing for long trips on high seas-for inspiration in moments of lonely, self-inflicted passion. No doubt this photo had seen its fair share of such inspiration-Typhus even noted a water stain near the lower left corner with a suspicious yellow quality about it. But he reckoned Lily to be passed around no more. She was his to keep, and he made a promise to always keep her safe:

“I’ll take care of you, Miss Lily,” he bargained sincerely in the direction of her perfect dimple, “I’ll keep you from harm caused by fire, water, insect or other. And all you have to do in return is be what you are. Nothing else required at your end, Miss Lily. I promise you that and cross my heart so-help-me-Jesus-amen.”

Which doesn’t mean to say that Typhus never indulged a little self-inflicted passion of his own on her behalf-but he knew his paper Lily would bear him no grudge for such. When he felt good on her account, it was from the love in his heart-the feeling from down below being mere punctuation. Hattie Covington, a lady in the flesh with all attendant sweating and moaning and huffing and touching, had inspired nowhere near this kind of good feeling in Typhus on his sixteenth birthday. With his paper Lily it felt better, it was different.

Love was the difference.

Thoughts of Lily evaporated with the sound of sliding naked feet in the kitchen doorway. Typhus looked up to find an expression of sleepy concern animating his brother’s squinting eyes.

“What’s the matter, Dropsy?” Typhus said with his back to his brother, brushing bits of blackish dirt from the surreal white of Lily’s dress.

Dropsy paused, wiping sleep from two eyes with one hand. “Heard a sound. Someone outside.”

“No one’s outside. Get back to bed.” Typhus turned to face Dropsy with Lily held behind him.

Apparently startled by the sound of the two brothers, the owner of the footfalls outside broke into a run, crackling and thumping through grass towards a general fade.

Dropsy: “What that, then?”

“Whattaya think?”

A pause. “Think it’s Daddy.” A yawn.

“Mebbe so, Dropsy, mebbe so.”

Dropsy’s yawn introduced air into Typhus’ nostrils, stale and awful smelling; a reminder of his brother’s taste for chaw. Typhus crinkled his nose and narrowed his eyes.

“Shouldn’t we go see what he brought this time, Typhus?”

“It’ll keep till morning. Too dark now. Might go and step on whatever it is when it’s so dark. Plus, might not be Daddy. Might be a bear.”

Dropsy grinned and raised an eyebrow. Bears were pretty much unheard of around St. John’s.

“Or maybe Coco Robicheaux,” added Typhus with playful menace, referring to the Cajun bogeyman their father used to tell tales of when they were small. According to the stories, Coco Robicheaux was a beast of a man who bathed in foul swamp water, dressed in dismal rags, and kept a long, braided and filthy beard. Into this horrible beard had been woven many pockets, and in the pockets were little knives and mysterious tools. Their father had grimly informed them that Coco Robicheaux made it his life’s work to pay terrible retribution upon children who stole cookies, talked back, and forgot chores. Although it was never entirely clear what Coco Robicheaux would specifically do with the little knives and tools kept in his beard, one thing was certain; if you ever lied to your mother, Coco Robicheaux would eat you.

Dropsy’s expression went sour with minor worry as he lowered his head and trudged slowly back towards the bedroom.

“’Night, Typhus.”

“’Night, Dropsy.”

“Typhus?” Dropsy turned in the doorway.

“Yeah?”

“I hope it’s meat this time. I been hungry for meat. Ain’t had any in a while.”

Typhus smiled. “Well, I’ll just bet it is. Now get on to bed and we’ll have us a look-see soon as the sun come up.”

Dropsy yawned once more before disappearing into the dark of the sleeping quarters. Typhus heard the crunch of straw as his older brother settled in.

The consensus among the Morningstar family was that their mysterious benefactor and dead patriarch were one and the same. Typhus secretly knew otherwise, while sympathizing with his family’s need to believe what could not be so. The phantom’s mystifying persistence had certainly offered more questions than answers-and the idea of a fatherly ghost offered at least some token sense of comfort. Typhus supposed such an explanation was as likely as any other if a person didn’t care to think things through.

Nine days after their father’s death, the phantom had made its debut. In that terrible time of grieving, temperatures had plummeted in South Louisiana, stove coal becoming a scarce commodity. Then one chilly Tuesday morning, Malaria opened the front door and let out a yell, “Lord God, thankee Jesus! Amen, amen and a- men some more!” The rest of the Morningstars rushed to bear witness. Shivering, hungry, and with hearts nowhere near mended, they were in a vulnerable frame of mind where potential miracles were concerned. But there it was.

A bundle of purple and white boskoyo blooms tied with a note, and beside the blooms sat a huge crateful of beautiful black coal. The note was a small square of paper (folded four times smaller) and, upon the unfolding, a single word had been written in pencil:

simpithees

The phantom’s gift of coal was enough to see the Morningstars through every cold night for the rest of that year, and several of the next.

Time soon revealed the coal as mere introduction. In subsequent weeks the Morningstar family found itself in need of basic articles for living, and as need arose, answers appeared on their doorstep. If the quantity was any less than bountiful, the gift usually came with a note of apology,

sory iffit ayn anuff.

Blankets, coffee beans, grain, fruit, tools, clothes, animals for eating, and fresh water for drinking-nothing seemed beyond the generosity of the Morningstar family’s phantom benefactor. If a conversation had taken place in the house regarding a particular need, that need would soon be satisfied. It was as if someone was spying on them; listening in, watching, taking notes and making sure. And the giving never stopped. Fifteen years later and the Morningstar family’s benefactor had kept on benefacting.

Believing the phantom to be a ghostly representation of their own father had felt natural and good to the Morningstars-and the theory seemed approximately proven the first time the phantom passed over muddy ground, leaving clear, unshod footprints. Always first to rise, Malaria discovered the tracks at dawn, and she immediately retrieved a pair of her father’s shoes from the house. Her face beamed as she compared the track’s size to the length and girth of a corresponding shoe:

“See? A perfect fit!” Malaria announced authoritatively, at a volume intended for all to hear.

The siblings were suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of guilt for burying their father without shoes on his feet. From that night on, Malaria made sure a pair of her father’s shoes stood prominently by the doorstep with a note tied on, reading, in Malaria’s perfect handwriting:

Take these, Father, and thank you.