“She was screamin’ and screamin’ …”
“Let’s see now, salt and pepper,” said Mama, far away.
“Listen to me,” I said, loud. “We got to dig her out. She’s buried under tons and tons of dirt and if we don’t dig her out, she’ll choke up and die.”
“I’m certain she can wait until after lunch,” said Mama.
“Mama, don’t you believe me?”
“Of course, dear. Now wash your hands and take this plate of meat in to your father.”
“I don’t even know who she is or how she got there,” I said. “But we got to help her before it’s too late.”
“Good gosh,” said Mama. “Look at this ice cream. What did you do, just stand in the sun and let it melt?”
“Well, the empty lot …”
“Go on, now, scoot.”
I went into the dining room.
“Hi, Dad, there’s a Screaming Woman in the empty lot.”
“I never knew a woman who didn’t,” said Dad.
“I’m serious,” I said.
“You look very grave,” said Father.
“We’ve got to get picks and shovels and excavate, like for an Egyptian mummy,” I said.
“I don’t feel like an archaeologist, Margaret,” said Father. “Now, some nice cool October day, I’ll take you up on that.”
“But we can’t wait that long,” I almost screamed. My heart was bursting in me. I was excited and scared and afraid and here was Dad, putting meat on his plate, cutting and chewing and paying me no attention.
“Dad?” I said.
“Mmmm?” he said, chewing.
“Dad, you just gotta come out after lunch and help me,” I said. “Dad, Dad, I’ll give you all the money in my piggy bank!”
“Well,” said Dad, “So it’s a business proposition, is it? It must be important for you to offer your perfectly good money. How much money will you pay, by the hour?”
“I got five whole dollars it took me a year to save, and it’s all yours.”
Dad touched my arm. “I’m touched. I’m really touched. You want me to play with you and you’re willing to pay for my time. Honest, Margaret, you make your old Dad feel like a piker. I don’t give you enough time. Tell you what, after lunch, I’ll come out and listen to your screaming woman, free of charge.”
“Will you, oh, will you, really?”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s what I’ll do,” said Dad. “But you must promise me one thing?”
“What?”
“If I come out, you must eat all of your lunch first.”
“I promise,” I said.
“Okay.”
Mother came in and sat down and we started to eat.
“Not so fast,” said Mama.
I slowed down. Then I started eating fast again.
“You heard your mother,” said Dad.
“The Screaming Woman,” I said. “We got to hurry.”
“I,” said Father, “intend sitting here quietly and judiciously giving my attention first to my steak, then to my potatoes, and my salad, of course, and then to my ice cream, and after that to a long drink of iced coffee, if you don’t mind. I may be a good hour at it. And another thing, young lady, if you mention her name, this Screaming What-sis, once more at this table during lunch, I won’t go out with you to hear her recital.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
Lunch was a million years long. Everybody moved in slow motion, like those films you see at the movies. Mama got up slow and got down slow and forks and knives and spoons moved slow. Even the flies in the room were slow. And Dad’s cheek muscles moved slow. It was so slow. I wanted to scream, “Hurry! Oh, please, rush, get up, run around, come on out, run!”
But no, I had to sit, and all the while we sat there slowly, slowly eating our lunch, out there in the empty lot (I could hear her screaming in my mind. Scream!) was the Screaming Woman, all alone, while the world ate its lunch and the sun was hot and the lot was empty as the sky.
“There we are,” said Dad, finished at last.
“Now will you come out to see the Screaming Woman?” I said.
“First a little more iced coffee,” said Dad.
“Speaking of Screaming Women,” said Mother. “Charlie Nesbitt and his wife, Helen, had another fight last night.”
“That’s nothing new,” said Father. “They’re always fighting.”
“If you ask me, Charlie’s no good,” said Mother. “Or her, either.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Dad. “I think she’s pretty nice.”
“You’re prejudiced. After all, you almost married her.”
“You going to bring that up again?” he said. “After all, I was only engaged to her six weeks.”
“You showed some sense when you broke it off.”
“Oh, you know Helen. Always stagestruck. Wanted to travel in a trunk. I just couldn’t see it. That broke it up. She was sweet, though. Sweet and kind.”
“What did it get her? A terrible brute of a husband like Charlie.”
“Dad,” I said.
“I’ll give you that. Charlie has got a terrible temper,” said Dad. “Remember when Helen had the lead in our high school graduation play? Pretty as a picture. She wrote some songs for it herself. That was the summer she wrote that song for me.”
“Ha,” said Mother.
“Don’t laugh. It was a good song.”
“You never told me about that song.”
“It was between Helen and me. Let’s see, how did it go?”
“Dad,” I said.
“You’d better take your daughter out in the back lot,” said Mother, “before she collapses. You can sing me that wonderful song later.”
“Okay, come on you,” said Dad, and I ran him out of the house.
The empty lot was still empty and hot and the glass sparkled green and white and brown all around where the bottles lay.
“Now, where’s this Screaming Woman?” laughed Dad.
“We forgot the shovels,” I cried.
“We’ll get them later, after we hear the soloist,” said Dad.
I took him over to the spot. “Listen,” I said. We listened.
“I don’t hear anything,” said Dad, at last.
“Shh,” I said. “Wait.”
We listened some more. “Hey, there, Screaming Woman!” I cried.
We heard the sun in the sky. We heard the wind in the trees, real quiet. We heard a bus, far away, running along. We heard a car pass.
That was all.
“Margaret,” said Father. “I suggest you go lie down and put a damp cloth on your forehead.”
“But she was here,” I shouted. “I heard her, screaming and screaming and screaming. See, here’s where the ground’s been dug up.” I called frantically at the earth. “Hey there, you down there!”
“Margaret,” said Father. “This is the place where Mr. Kelly dug yesterday, a big hole, to bury his trash and garbage in.”
“But during the night,” I said, “someone else used Mr. Kelly’s burying place to bury a woman. And covered it all over again.”
“Well, I’m going back in and take a cool shower,” said Dad.
“You won’t help me dig?”
“Better not stay out here too long,” said Dad. “It’s hot.”
Dad walked off. I heard the back door slam.
I stamped on the ground. “Darn,” I said.
The screaming started again.
She screamed and screamed. Maybe she had been tired and was resting and now she began it all over, just for me.
I stood in the empty lot in the hot sun and I felt like crying. I ran back to the house and banged the door.
“Dad, she’s screaming again!”
“Sure, sure,” said Dad. “Come on.” And he led me to my upstairs bedroom. “Here,” he said. He made me lie down and put a cold rag on my head. “Just take it easy.”
I began to cry. “Oh, Dad, we can’t let her die. She’s all buried, like that person in that story by Edgar Allan Poe, and think how awful it is to be screaming and no one paying any attention.”
“I forbid you to leave the house,” said Dad, worried. “You just lie there the rest of the afternoon.” He went out and locked the door. I heard him and Mother talking in the front room. After a while I stopped crying. I got up and tiptoed to the window. My room was upstairs. It seemed high.