Ghoul

In the little Town of Mayberry, Brooklyn Heights, I have some dear old friends, many "hey how about this crazy weather, it's the warmin'" first-name-basis longtime acquaintances (who know little about the actual me), and in between these two, a number of what I think of as Street Chat Relationships.  These are the kind of weird ones where we know a lot about each other, always stop to talk, and the talks can get rather lengthy and even meaningful, within the limited scope of setting.

I have a particularly congenial Street Chat Relationship with the lovely mother of a boy in Ella's class, who lives across the street from me.  Over the last decade, we've had many (at times daily) exchanges: about our children (she really spilled the tea on her son throughout his early adolescence! That poor boy, his frailties laid bare for me, sotto voce!), our families (oy vey, our families!), our Judaism, tips on planning our kids' b'nai mitzvot festivities.  We laughed about our dogs' misbehaviors, lamented the shortcomings of the school math curriculum, shared stories of growing up in Brooklyn.

I ran into her walking her dog, the very day after I'd helplessly watched Alex die so suddenly, right in front of me.  I was still in shock, literal body-brain shock.  I was inside-out and quite crazy with the feelings that come before the grief sets in.  The email had already gone out to the high school with the news, and she approached me and asked how I was.  I'm sure she was immediately sorry she'd asked such an open-ended question, because I proceeded to tell her how I was, or rather, how it was.  I dimly remember telling her in a weird possibly smiling conversational tone, "oh it was terrible, he dropped dead just dropped dead, I mean literally fell down and died, right there right in front of me, one minute hanging out happily, the next minute on the floor dying, then the minute after that, dead!" I saw her sympathy smile freeze, and I knew I should stop talking.  I had reached out and grabbed her hand from the other side of the veil, and with my own clammy undead widow's hand, tried to pull her down into the intimate corruption of the grave.

I imagine myself now as a sort of ghoul in a human suit, walking the streets of my neighborhood.  The reek of body horror and fear and death is on me and in me.

I saw her this morning, halfway down the block, her golden lab in tow.  She raised her hand in greeting, then turned away, then walked away, then broke into a little trot, and disappeared fast around the corner.