October Surprise

October Surprise

by Paul Brassard

My eyes popped open at the familiar double-chime of the front doorbell.

Must be more trick-or-treaters.

I shot right up from my recliner. No inching forward. No propping myself up on the arms to get into a standing position. I figured I must have had one hell of a sleep. I felt better than I had in months—rested and light on my feet.

Colbert was on TV, the sound so low I could barely hear it. Evie probably turned it down when she went to bed.

The doorbell rang again, this time in three insistent sets.

What the hell are trick-or-treaters doing out at midnight?

I hustled to the front door. That’s right, I hustled. No clicking knees and aching ankles.

“Okay, okay, I’m coming. Hold your dragons.”

I reached out for the Halloween candies that we keep in a jar by the door. I missed. Missed the jar completely. Like it wasn’t there.

Whoever was out on the porch was poke-poking at the damn doorbell, over and over. Now, I was pissed. Some pain-in-the-butt teenager was about to get reamed out by the little old man who lives with his little old wife in the little old bungalow on the corner.

Oh, yeah.

I grabbed for the doorknob. My hand went straight through the door.

When I say my hand went through the door, I don’t mean it broke through—Superman I’m not. I mean it went straight through. Whoosh. I yanked my hand back and inspected it, front and back and front again. No damage. I tried again. Whoosh.

As I pulled my hand back through the second time, the whoosh wasn’t alone. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. In an instant, our tiny living room was hopping like a tailgater at the Super Bowl. The room was abuzz, elbow-to-elbow, belly-to-belly, with strangers. Some of them wore jogging suits. Some wore prom gowns. Some had come in PJs, some in top hats and some in nothing at all.

Holy hell, what a dream!

Ever since Evie and I first shared a bed sixty-two years ago, my very weird dream-life had been the source for countless hours of laughter. There was the time, for instance, when I dreamed her cousin’s entire family had turned into birds. Or there was the one where I could surf down any set of stairs like I was riding a wave in Malibu. Just plain weird.

Wait until Evie hears about this one. I’ll never live it down.

I hadn’t noticed the middle-aged woman in the navy-blue house dress and flowered apron standing off to my right.

“Hello, Bob,” she whispered leaning in to me, her left hand resting unfelt on my shoulder. “It’s been a long time. One heck of a reunion, huh?”

“Aunt Gert?”

“You can call me Gert, dear, if you want.”

Definitely a dream. When I was twelve, my father’s sister, Gertrude, died of a brain aneurism while scrubbing her kitchen floor. She was only forty-eight. And here she was in one of my oddball dreams.

“But you’re…”

“Dead? Yes.”

She turned toward the maddening crowd.

“Everybody listen up. It’s time,” she shouted, raising her right hand.

The room fell silent and every person turned to face Gert and me. A flute of champagne appeared in her hand and theirs.

“Let’s all lift our glasses and voices as we celebrate with Bob on this deathly occasion.”   

“Happy Deathday to you.

Happy Deathday to you.

Happy Deathday, dear Bob.

Happy Deathday to you.”

In glorious, fully orchestrated harmony, this chorus of old people and young people, women and men, boys and girls serenaded me, champagne flutes held high. I had no idea where any of them had come from, never mind the band and the bubbly.

The clock on the mantel read five minutes to twelve.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“But I was just asleep in my chair waiting for the last of the trick-or-treaters.”

“And you still are, sort of. Take a look,” Gert said.

The multitudes parted, clearing a path to me sleeping—I mean dead—in my comfy old LazyBoy. A half-drunk mug of coffee sat on the end table next to me, on one of those damn coasters Evie insisted on using everywhere. It was quite bizarre looking down at my dead self, head slumped, mouth hanging open, glasses nipping at the end of my nose.

An old man, naked except for a black beret, sidled up to us.

“You know, kid, you’re one lucky guy,” he said. “You were eighty-two, you had all your original parts and died painlessly in your sleep. And now you’re here! No pain and all this gain,” he continued, arms wide, twirling in a circle. That was a sight I’ll never be able to unsee. His wrinkled derriere was the last thing I saw as he disappeared into the crowd. I looked at my aunt and shrugged my shoulders.

“That naked whirling dervish was your great-grandfather Theodore’s brother, Edward. He died in flagrante in bed with his mistress—and insists it was well worth it, by the way. Says he doesn’t care that he has to wear what he died in forever, either.”

“But where’s all this gain he was yapping about?” I asked. “I mean, the song was nice and everything, but so far I am not in love with being dead.”

“Once you’re here a while, you’ll understand.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Maybe you won’t have to.”

Gert scanned the crowd. She pointed to a girl and boy in matching giraffe-print pajamas dancing around at the far end of the room.

“There they are,” she said. “Maybe these two can help.”

“Douglas? Mary?” she called, “Could you come join Bob and me?”

Before she had even finished her request, the dancing duo materialized before us, hand-in-hand in their footed PJs.

My, people seem to come and go so quickly here!

Then, just like that, a smiling elderly couple appeared behind the twins, arms wrapped so tightly around them you couldn’t tell where the children ended and they began. Norman Rockwell would have been proud.

Wait a minute. I know these folks. This is them...

Them. The people from the pictures in the old family album. Them from the story I had pried out of my mother when I was a teenager. Their story haunted my sleep well into my thirties. Mary and Douglas, my seven-year-old twin cousins, died in a horrible fire in 1936. Their parents, my Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Ned, hadn’t been able to survive surviving. By the time I was born in ’38, their marriage had disintegrated and they had drifted away like dead leaves in a November breeze. These were the missing branches of my family tree. And, now, here they are in the flesh.

Well… here they are anyway.

“Hello, Bob,” they said in unison. “It’s great to finally meet you.”

The sight of this now-happy family with the tortured past quieted my fears. For the first time since a houseful of unexpected guests had whooshed through my front door, it felt like everything might be okay, with time.

The clock on the mantel read ten minutes past three.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Can I show you something kind of neat?” my little cousin Mary asked as she approached Gert and me. “I call it ‘upping’.”

Mary stood in front of us, arms by her side, hands pressed against her thighs.

“So, here’s what you do. You just push a little with your toes and think, ‘up’. When you want to come back, you think ‘down’.”

 Mary closed her eyes and shot up through the ceiling. A second later she returned, descending to the same spot she had pushed off from. I was in my same spot, too—rooted in place. Maybe forever.

“Okay, now you try,” she said.

“I’m. I’m not sure. I’m not sure I can do this.”

Mary’s smile said I know you can.

I stood next to her, pushed a little with my toes, and then thought ‘up’. The fronts of my slippered feet disappeared into the hardwood floor. Without hesitating, I thought, ‘out’ and then ‘phew’ when my feet reappeared.

“Oh my goodness, Bobbie, I’m so sorry. I think I know what happened.”

I giggled a bit. Nobody had called me Bobbie since I was a kid.

“You’ve got to push down and think ‘up’ at exactly the same time. Want to try it again?”

I responded with a nervous nod then followed her instructions precisely. I rocketed up through the ceiling and found myself in my bedroom. Evie was asleep, her right arm hanging outside the covers and down the side of the mattress, like usual.

“Evie?” I whispered.

My lips moved, but no sound came out. I tried again. Nothing. I tried to touch her, but my hand passed through her. Nothing. Tears streamed down, but my cheeks were dry. Nothing.

For several moments I stood gazing at Evie. Then I thought, ‘down’, and that’s where I went.

The clock on the mantel read ten minutes to seven.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, that’s how you rang the doorbell.” I said, tilting my head toward my aunt. “You just thought ‘push’.”

“Yup. Hardly takes any practice at all.”

“So, what about Evie? How much practice before I can touch her?”

“You can’t.”

“Come on. Tell me what I have to do.”

“Bob, she’s a person. You can only touch things.”

“But Evie and I always promised we would let the other know somehow.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t make the rules. You can’t touch her. That’s all there is to it.”

The upstairs toilet flushed. For whatever reason, I was able to hear that faint sound above the party in the living room.

“That’ll be Evie. She’ll be down any minute. Do you think you guys could— I mean, I’d kind of like to be alone with her when she, you know. You understand, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. Bye for now, honey.”

She stepped forward and addressed the partiers.

“Okay, everyone, time to go.”

One big whoosh and the living room was empty except for me—and me.

The clock on the mantel read seven o’clock.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dressed in her well-worn pink chenille robe and fuzzy slippers, Evie stepped off the last stair into the kitchen and headed straight toward the coffee maker. It was off and almost empty.

“Hey, how come you didn’t make the coffee, you lazy bum?”

She turned and saw me laying in my recliner then padded into the living room.

“I figured you must have slept in that damn chair all night. So, where’s my—?

Evie stopped, raised her hand to her mouth and collapsed to her knees next to me. She lifted my wrist and felt for a pulse.

“No,” she cried, placing the back of my lifeless hand against her tear-streaked cheek. “No.”

Evie cried for what seemed hours. Kneeling beside her, eyes closed, I wrapped my arms around her in my mind, blowing softly on her neck to calm her tears. Although this imaginary, touchless consolation helped me a bit, I was fully aware that it wouldn’t help Evie at all. All she knew is that I was dead; she didn’t know that I was alright. And I had promised.

Damn you, Gert. I don’t want her to have to call the kids and the cops and all that other crap until she knows I’m okay.  

So. No talking. No touching. I’ll have to give her some other kind of signal. Jesus, I wish our promise had been a tad more precise. Let the other know somehow—what the hell is somehow?

Maybe I could knock the lamp onto the floor. No, it might have been already sitting too near the edge of the table and simply fallen off.

Ring the doorbell in Morse code? Hell, neither one of us knows Morse code. Besides, she’d think it was a hit and run from some local kid still celebrating Halloween.

How about putting the coffee pot back on? Come on, Bob, the pot’s only got one tiny red light and it’s out in the kitchen for God’s sake. She’d never see that.

Being dead didn’t make me any smarter, that’s for sure.

Evie let go of my hand and started to get up. It had to be now. I knew that whatever I did she would have to know it was me. My eyes shot around the room—at me and the chair and the table and the coffee mug on the coaster and the fireplace poker… Wait. Evie’s damn coaster. That was our little every-night joke. I’d put my mug down onto the table next to the coaster and she’d say, “Kind sir, is it too much to ask to use the damn coaster?” Then I’d place my mug on it and say, “No, my lady, it is not.”

I concentrated on the coaster and half-filled mug.

Move.

Coffee sloshed a little against the sides. I focused harder.

Come on, move.

Maybe an eighth of an inch.

That’s not enough. But Gert said it would work. Why isn’t it working?

“MOVE, damn it!” I yelled. “Is THAT too much to ask?

The coaster and mug flew off the table, splattering coffee in its wake.

“Robert?” Evie gasped.

She gazed at my lifeless body, the slightest hint of a smile on her lips, then bent and kissed my forehead.

“Thanks, Love,” she whispered.

Then she turned away and scuffed towards the phone in the kitchen.