Delphine of the Tombs

The last twilight tour ended, and the cemetery hushed to its nightly mystique, scored by the distant echo of tavern trumpets and jazz drummers.

The gate closed and locked. And the moon-dipped monuments were, once more, ruled by the dead.

Then…a crunch of footsteps.

A warm body strolled the walled-in city of graves. A tour guide named Rocco. He whistled past the oven vaults and above-ground tombs, pausing only to huff and snuff the raised candles along the shell-paved pathways. He also broke his tune to chat with Delphine—another warm body. But a much smaller body. With four legs and long whiskers.

“We sure did knock ‘em dead tonight,” he said, tucking his curly grays beneath a newsboy cap. “Didn’t we, Delphine?”

Delphine answered ‘yes’ in the way cats do…by chittering and headbutting Rocco’s shin.

She owned the cemetery. It was a fact beyond memory. The story goes: once upon a time, she strutted past the gate guard, sat beside the tomb of the Voodoo Queen, and said, “I am Delphine. And this is mine.”

Even the Bishop acknowledged her claim. He once began a graveyard blessing with: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…and Delphine.”

Only the most uptight Catholics boo-hooed the Bishop’s rollick.

Delphine was the color of desert camouflage. She did very little and accomplished much. Judging, loving, commanding, abandoning, and stretching, all in the span of a blink. She treated laws like optional suggestions and moved only when she pleased.

…She was a cat.

When Delphine showed up, every graveyard tourist cooed. When she didn’t, they often ponied up for a second tour. Sometimes a third. All for another chance to meet a cat. Sightseers snapped more pictures of Delphine than they did of the cemetery’s ancient history.

There she was, purring and bonking the shin of a tour guide.

“Oh, I know,” Rocco told her. “You were the star of the show, as always.”

He gasped and another flame turned to smoke.

“A bigger hit than Mister Coppola’s tomb.”

Rocco waved his hand at an empty stone pyramid, commissioned by a still-living movie star who was destined to be one of these resident dead. Someday. Once his own candleflame went out.

This was usually the showstopper of the cemetery tour. When Delphine was absent, that is.

“Goodnight, Mister Coppola. Keep making movies. I hope it’s many long years before your change of address.”

Another breath. Another light extinguished.

The movie star’s empty pyramid was perhaps the most bizarrely unique in the cemetery. But every grave was an astonishment. There were no classic headstones. Only mausoleums and wall vaults, each stacked with oven-shaped slots, like apartment towers for the dead. Most were family tombs that looked like scale models of Roman palaces. Or like tiny churches made for a single disciple (though most held dozens of remains). Some were surrounded by iron fences—a sign of family wealth. In total, this sacred city block was a maze of ancient tributes. And when the swamp winds brushed the aisles at night, they sometimes carried the whispers of a thousand buried memories, each saying: Come and see. Study these chiseled words. Remember me…

Many tombs were crumbling in super slow motion. The most sensitive ears in the world might press against a vault and hear a faint, straining crackle. Like Rice Crispies in milk…

Limestone dying in the Louisiana climate.

The same was true for Rocco, whose bones were in revolt. Press your sensitive ear against his old chest, and you might just hear the slow celery crack of a rotting skeleton.

Still a man? Yes. Still alive? For now. In despair? Not at all.

Stand back and watch him work, and you’d swear it must be his birthday. His whistling smile was infectious. And his love for this death maze was purity, itself.

“Death maze,” Rocco said, laughing along the path. “Did you hear what that flake from up north said today, Delphine?”

The cemetery cat bounded a few paces past the guide, sniffing a weed as if booking it for trespassing. Rocco caught up to her and yanked the offending green.

“Guy said this place looks like an outhouse museum.” He shook his head, still smiling. “I get the joke, but come on. That’s like saying the Mona Lisa farted.”

Delphine hopped onto the cracked roof of a waist-high tomb marked with the name LaBonde. It was covered with sprouting weeds. Delphine pawed at a patch of growth and glanced up at Rocco.

“Sorry, Miss LaBonde,” he said. “I’m afraid your weeds are too big a job for me tonight.”

He passed the vault of a mostly forgotten jazz legend.

“Goodnight, Pops. I made thirty people say your name today.”

A flame bent then vanished.

“Ah, Mister Pressy. What a life story!” Rocco brushed the dirt off a chiseled P in the limestone crypt. “You may not have changed the world alive, but your afterlife enlightens a hundred people a day. Thank you. Goodnight, Homer.”

A puff darkened the cemetery a little more.

“Goodnight to all my wonderful friends. I hope I did you proud, today. Since it won’t go on much longer… I mean… I hope…”

Rocco choked. No more words could pass his quivering lip. His eyes welled and dripped in a sneak attack of tears. He fell apart in an instant, scrubbing his face with a palm, trying to silence his sudden blues in the city of jazz.

“Goddammit, Rocco. Here, in front of everyone? Pathetic! Oh, just stop…”

A furry head bopped his ankle. He smiled and breathed and pulled himself together.

“I know, I know. But it’s not for me, Delphine. It’s for them. They’ll have one less voice to shout their names.” He wiped his face and sighed. “So…where are we going now, young lady?”

Delphine led Rocco to the alleged tomb of the famous Voodoo Queen. Rocco circled it three times and gently knocked on the stone. There were several X’s scratched into the walls, each one signifying a visitor’s wish for money or health or love. Rocco liked to make up stories about which wishes came true beyond the grave.

“And you, Lady Marie… A soft-hearted beauty. Not an evil bone in your body.”

He bent low, knees popping, and examined several coins that had been tossed at the base of the of the Voodoo Queen’s vault. “I see your fans are still disobeying the rules. I keep telling them: no offerings. They sneak ‘em past me. Now, look at this. Someone even dropped a pearl earring beside your name.”

His hand stretched out as if meaning to sweep the offerings away. Delphine strolled up and batted Rocco’s fingertips.

“Oh, I wasn’t gonna, Miss Delphine. I wouldn’t dare. Never in a million years. Damned is the man who steals from the Voodoo Queen.” He chuckled and nuzzled the cemetery cat’s head.

“The thought did cross my mind, you know. Cut my own X. Make my own wish. Pray to Lady Marie for a miracle.” His eyes lowered to the ground. “I’d be a hypocrite, Delphine…vandalize her tomb for a selfish wish. Even if it came true, I just couldn’t live with myself. Damned either way. Ha!”

Rocco inhaled. Another candle blacked out.

He dug through his pocket and dropped a handful of treats. Delphine gobbled them up in five seconds.

“Only about another hundred more lights to go. Coming with, Delphine? Or you got some pressing kitty business to attend to?”

Delphine wandered off to sniff around some rich man’s iron fence.

“Suit yourself. I’ll just be over there.”

He straightened up and loaded another breath…

But the candle he aimed for was already dark and smoky. A shadow stood beside it. There was someone else in the cemetery. An intruder. A stranger.

Rocco froze. And exhaled.

“I’m here for the tour,” said the shadow. A low voice. Amused. And unsettled.

Rocco waited a while to answer. “You missed it.”

“Aw, shucks, Mister. You sure?”

The gate was in sight, still closed and locked. This intruder must have jumped the wall.

Rocco said, “The last tour ended ten minutes ago.”

The shadow stepped forward into the remaining candlelight. He was a tall man in a mud-stained suit, sporting a grin that was crooked and wrong…he had all his teeth, but lacked a few marbles. His eyes confirmed it. They sparkled in the orange glow, reflecting a break with reality. He said, “Start another one.”

Rocco hesitated. He studied the splotches on the suit, wondering if they might be something other than mud. Just then he realized the man had both hands behind his back.

“It’s too dark to start over,” Rocco said. “Too dicey.”

The stranger giggled. Giggled! As though tickled by some taboo joke. “Plenty of candles still lit. What if we stuck to the bright spots?”

This is bad, Rocco thought, There’s something off about him. I’ve seen his face somewhere. On the news? In the paper? Where?

“You’re too quiet,” said the man with the familiar face. “Tour guides show and tell. So…show and tell, now, show and tell.”

I should run. Shout for help. Then Rocco thought: Oh, what does it matter? If he wants to hurt me, he will. And he’d be doing me a favor. But I might entertain him enough to keep him from hurting all my friends.

“Mister Tour Man?”

“First,” Rocco said, “there are rules. Break one and you’ll be asked to leave. Do you agree?”

The tall stranger crossed his heart with a pinky and smooched the tip, never losing his crooked grin.

“No wandering off. Follow me at all times. No touching the tombs or the stones or the iron gates and fences. And do not lean on any walls or vaults. Treat this place like a—”

“Cute cat,” the grinning stranger cut in.

Delphine was still investigating the iron. She drifted closer to the shadow-man, unthreatened.

“She your cat, Mister?”

Rocco shook his head. “Delphine belongs to no one.”

“But why is she here?” There was a childlike delight in the stranger’s voice.

“This is her cemetery. She came one day, and that was that.”

“When was that?”

“Long time ago. Before I started.”

The stranger let one hand come forward, stretching towards Delphine. Rocco stopped him with the snap of his fingers. “That’s another rule,” the tour guide said. “You leave her alone.”

The stranger’s eyes widened. A single tear pooled and streaked down his cheek—his last drop of sanity, falling. “Any more rules, Tour Man?”

“Respect the dead.” The two men stared at each other. Rocco’s voice boomed with a roller-coaster cadence: “Welcome to the oldest existing cemetery in New Orleans, officially consecrated in the year 1789!”

The stranger released both hands. He clapped and giggled.

Rocco could see something wet and gleaming in between the man’s palms. It looked shiny and sharp. He tried to ignore it, focusing instead on facts and names. He led the way, pointing out each candlelit resident. “Say it with me, now, sir. Barthelemy Bacas!”

“Barthelemy Bacas!” the stranger repeated.

“Jean Baptiste DeGruy.”

And a gleeful echo went, “Jean Baptiste DeGruy!”

“Louis Moreau Uslet.”

“Louis Moreau Uslet!” the stranger shouted, then froze, slapping a gleaming hand against his mouth. “Shhhhh…”

Rocco could now clearly see the edge of a knife’s blade, its tip tapping the stranger’s nostril.

“Softly now, Tour Man. There are wolves in the city.”

Past the stranger, beyond the wall, flashes of blue and red strobed the night sky. Lights. A police cruiser. More than one, floating past the cemetery, searching for someone. Perhaps a tall man in a stained suit with a wet knife?

“Move away from the wall.”

Rocco swallowed. “Um…”

So, the man has enough sense to know he’s done something wrong. He’s leading me away from a hunting party.

Rocco lowered his voice, which started to shake. “Uh…” He drew upon his favorite things, and he whispered with cheer: “How many would you say each of these tombs can hold?”

“Bodies?” the stranger whispered, his crooked grin widening.

Rocco nodded.

“One? No, two!”

“Well…you might be surprised to know that several generations of family members can be interred in one single vault.”

“No.” The stranger’s grin slowly loosened. “You think I’m stupid?”

“No, sir.” Rocco raised his hands in surrender. “But I got a fact that’ll blow your mind.”

The stranger waited.

“Here in this swampland climate,” said Rocco, “remains don’t last long. They’re usually baked to bones after a year and a day of interment. If another soul in the family happens to shuffle off, the tomb is opened, the old bones are swept back with a long brush-rod. And the new body is laid to rest in its place.”

The stranger’s mouth fell open. “They sweep back all the bones?”

“Push them deep into the belly of each tomb…so we can give the cemetery another tenant offering.”

“With a long broom? Six feet?”

“Ten feet!” Rocco said with a grin. “And that…is where we get the phrase: ‘I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.’”

The two men shared another long, smiling moment. Then. A machine-gun chirping of laughter spurted from the back of the stranger’s throat. He doubled over, gesturing at the tour guide with a pistol finger.

Now! But Rocco did nothing.

“You,” said the strange invader, reds and blues still flickering above his head.

Run! Shout! But the tour guide only fake-giggled alongside this insistent sightseer.

“Them!” The stranger shoved his knife into the seam of a nearby tomb, as if meaning to pry it open and count its many sets of bones.

“Ah-ah-ahhh, sir,” said Rocco, wagging a finger. “Don’t forget the rules.”

The stranger withdrew his knife, leaving a red smear on the limestone. “Oh…”

“Just…read the names. And say everything out loud.”

The stranger snatched the nearest candle from its raised perch. “It says…Eeee…Double-youuuuu…Mestier...”

Rocco ran.

The tour guide darted left and right, his maze memory sharp enough to travel blind. But his defiant bones gave him away by cracking and groaning. He zigzagged four times before he heard the stranger cry out.

“Heyyyyy! I have to break the rules, now! ‘Cause I can’t follow you, Tour Man!”

Rocco hit the straightest path to the cemetery gate. His joints threatened to collapse.

Come on!

With the last of his luck, he’d unlock the gate and flag down the flashing cop cars.

Whoever he is, he’s in there!

But four echoing words stopped him cold…

“Here, kitty-kitty-kitty.”

…And all Rocco could think of was this not-right man putting a blade on Delphine.

“No…” he said.

He stopped a foot away from the gate, from his escape, and he turned (bones doing more than popping), letting the key drop down to the well of his pocket.

“Delphine…” said Rocco. “Not Delphine.”

He started back.

My life is worth less than hers.

“There you are, kitty...” the stranger cooed.

Rocco hobbled along the pathway. Let his knife take me… “Don’t you touch her!”

The stranger disobeyed.

“Gotcha, kitty!”

Rocco ran knowing his bones wouldn’t last.

Me, killer, me!

And a painful snap sent the tour guide to his knees…

…leave this place alone!

A high-pitched shriek made his heart fail.

“DELPHINE!”

But then…it beat again when…he realized…the shriek did not come from a cat.

Rocco crawled past his workplace friends and family and pulled himself along the shell-paved pathway to see the stranger’s knife…had fallen to the ground.

The strange invader, himself, was lying on his back. And shivering. And failing to scream beyond that initial graveyard shriek. His grin turned upside down as a new, undeniable reality pinned him low.

“Help…me…”

And there, above him, was no mere cemetery cat.

Delphine was a behemoth…bigger than that…and growing.

Surging in bulk like a black-snake firework.

Her paws snapped wide to the size of crane shovels, every toenail a broadsword. All four legs periscoped into Jurassic limbs. Her body expanded, torso stretching into a tanker. And her head, her fangs—dear God!

Rocco looked away, swooning. Then back, awestruck. And his breaking body murmured, “Delphine…”

There loomed the cemetery cat, the cemetery monster, the giant goddess-guardian of remembrance.

She looked down at the stranger, stretched her mouth wide, and hissed.

It was a hurricane burst.

The city quit. The tavern trumpets and jazz drummers fell quiet. Every soul in the path of Delphine’s storm catcall, from Storyville to Marigny, stopped and looked up to the skies. Remembering everything and everyone that ever was in the history of Orleans Parish. For an instant.

This is normal. This is the way of monsters.

Then everyone shrugged and went back to living.

And the swamp winds carried a thousand whispers across the cemetery, from vault to vault, all purring the same words:

"A life…for our names…"

Mammoth Delphine stretched her ten-foot limb over the shivering stranger. She smushed. And brushed his remains aside. No streak. No blood. No bones or scrap of stained suit remained upon the ground.

The man was simply wiped away.

Delphine lifted her paw and licked it clean.

She was just a cemetery cat again. Small and perfect, and unbothered by the worries of humankind.

Rocco breathed.

Rocco breathed and blinked.

Rocco breathed and blinked and stood up tall beside the monuments of memory.

For once, his knees didn’t crack. A quiet miracle.

“Delphine?”

The cat left her paw hovering as she flashed him a bothered look. Yeah, yeah, yeah, human.

"Well," Rocco said, stretching every bombproof bone and tucking black curls beneath his newsboy cap, “Tomorrow, then…

“And the next day…

“And the day after that..."

Rocco took a lap around the cemetery.

“I’ll just keep remembering.”

Delphine stretched then sashayed behind the tomb of the Voodoo Queen, disappearing into darkness.

And the tour guide kept on running. He left the last candles burning bright.