How do you cross a wooden sea? I still did not know the answer to that question but seeing all that was around me, I now knew how to find the answer. Was this what Astopel and his kind wanted us to know? That nothing is more important than keeping every one of our individual selves alive. We must listen and be guided by them.
Not know thyself, know thy selves. All the yous, all the years, the days of Magda and Pauline, and orange cowboy boots, and when you believed penises grew back inside a man at forty years old.
We look at who we were, once upon a time, and see that person as stupid or amusing, but never essential. Like flipping through old snapshots of ourselves wearing funny hats or big lapels. How silly I was back then, how naive.
And how wrong to think that! Because now when you are incapable of doing it, those yous still know how to fly, find the way into a forest or out of a library. Only they can see the lizards and fill holes that need to be filled.
Gee-Gee, Dreampilot, the diggers... Now I knew how much I needed all of them to really understand my life. How do you cross a wooden sea? Ask them and listen carefully to their different answers.
“I don’t think I can go any farther.” My head was throbbing and there was a strange prickly tingle in the tips of my fingers.
“We’ll help you.” One of them said and came up under my right arm to support me. Another took me up on the left. Held that way by them I felt almost okay again.
“The road isn’t far. We’re almost there.”
Mayor Susan Ginnety found the body of Frannie McCabe. Driving back from a trip to New York, she was musing about how nice it would have been to be returning to a home, a husband and a life rather than just her job now. She was as lost as she had ever been and terrified she would live the rest of her days alone.
She drove past the pond and the sad white cross by the side of the road. Then through the small forest that marked the beginning of the Crane’s View town limits. The road began to wind there and she slowed down. She was a careful driver. She was only going thirty when she saw the body lying by the side of the road. At first it looked like some bum had just decided to lay down there of all places and take a nap. Sunlight through the trees played a dancing havoc across the unmoving frame, lying on its back. Clearly it was a man. Susan didn’t want to stop because she was frightened, but she was also the mayor and felt it her duty. Anyway, by the time she pulled to the side of the road a few feet up from the corpse she could see the man’s face and instantly her mouth was open as far as it would go.
She was barely able to push the shift lever up to park before bursting into tears. The secret that no one ever knew was Mayor Ginnety sat in her car and wept so long and so loudly that her cries frightened birds from the trees directly above her. Minutes passed before she was even able to get out of her car and go to the body.
But what the old stories say really is true—somewhere deep in their hearts, those who love us most always know how we are. The moment she recognized Frannie McCabe lying by the side of the road, Susan Ginnety knew he was dead. The memories of her joyful times with him when she was a girl had haunted Susan her whole life and would continue to do so.
Only months later when she felt very sad and alone did a revelation come to her one winter night that made her smile. Only after all that time since his death had passed did she realize how lucky she was to have been the one to find McCabe. It had allowed her to be the first one to tell him goodbye. But in the next instant, life for her suddenly seemed hopelessly long and obscure. Because even when it gave you a gift, what could you do with a first goodbye?
Epilogue
Much against Magda’s wishes, the funeral turned out to be a huge event. None of Frannie’s friends could ever agree whether he would have loved or hated knowing five hundred people attended. Five hundred people who were genuinely stricken by the fact this still-young man was dead. He was so smart and competent, so funny too. Without doubt the best chief of police they had ever had. The story of how he had saved Maeve Powell’s daughter from some mysterious madman on the day he died only polished his star.
Granted, there were also many stories about what a rotten kid he had been. How he had once set fire to a principal’s car. Been expelled from school, been arrested, caused his father pain. But his death made those stories into anecdotes, apocryphal, chuckles mostly. Old Frannie, he was some guy, wasn’t he? And weren’t most good men naughty in their time? And don’t forget how he also helped solve only the second murder case in the history of Crane’s View.
So what if he’d been a wicked kid—McCabe grew up to be one hell of a man. He was a good friend, one hundred percent dependable; he loved his wife and did his job well. Those things are what count and people were grateful to have known him.
Thank God the boy was there. Gary Graham was his real name but he preferred being called Gee-Gee. A handsome kid. People who knew said he looked just like Frannie when he was that age.
On the day Gee-Gee came to stay with the McCabe’s, his aunt was rushed to the hospital and his uncle died! Not much of a welcome but that didn’t matter: He stepped right up and won people’s admiration by the way he behaved.
He and Pauline arranged the funeral together, brought Magda home from the hospital, and led her to the gravesite when it was time. Then those two good kids stood by while she looked down at her husband’s simple coffin.
Someone nearby heard her say only one thing: “I like you.” Then she threw a pink rose onto his coffin and returned to her seat. Besides the large turnout the only other things that surprised people were the fact that Frannie’s best friend, George Dalemwood didn’t attend, Johnny Petangles did, in a wheelchair, and the minister no one knew who said the last words.
No one had ever seen the man before. An elegantly dressed black gentleman, he seemed to have the confidence of a politician and the voice of a radio announcer. At the service someone sitting near Gee-Gee asked in a whisper who the fellow was. The boy said in a peculiar voice, “I know who he is. Uncle Frannie and I knew the guy.”
People were hesitant to ask Magda what this man’s connection to her family was but she appeared to like what he said, particularly the quotation from the Koran: “Consider the last of everything and then thou wilt depart from the dream of it.” Which was the only thing in the whole ceremony that made her cry, but again no one had the nerve to ask why.
When it was over and people were walking away, the boy approached the minister and asked in a tense hiss if they could talk a minute. The man tossed him a shrewd smile and said certainly, as soon as he was free they’d talk. Free meant after shaking as many hands as the man could find. He really did behave like he was running for office. But the boy waited, after telling Pauline he would meet them back at the house. The girl gave him a goony, loving look and said okay, but hurry.
Watching him patiently wait with his hands held in front of him, people thought Gee-Gee only wanted to thank the minister.
But when they were finally alone, the boy looked both ways to make sure no one was listening and then he let fly. “You fuck! You bastard! What are you doing here?”
“Gee-Gee, you should thank me for letting you come back. I didn’t have to, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Why don’t you tell me? Huh? You think you could do that?”
The man looked at an exquisite silver-and-black wristwatch on his left arm. When the boy saw it his eyes popped. “That’s his watch. You stole his watch!”
“Borrowed. It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? Really a handsome piece. I’ll give it to you when we’re done here. Then you can pretend to have found it and get points with Magda. Yes, that’s the best way to do it.” He seemed very pleased with this idea.