Creola's Moonbeam (11 page)

I jumped out and hurried to take my turn yanking on the gate. I grasped at a straw and suggested optimistically, “Maybe the nice guard left us a key so we could leave when we were ready?”

“Yeah, right! You’re dreaming if you believe that.”

I suggested we go to the business office. Of course, no one was there, but we had something of a triumph. “See, Beau!” I said, “Here’s an emergency number. You memorize the first three numbers, and I’ll memorize the last four. Now, where’s your cell phone?”

“At the hotel, on the top of the TV.”

“No comment.”

“Look, I didn’t plan to make a bunch of phone calls from the graveyard.”

“Okay, let’s move to Plan B. I noticed that there’s a house near the back of the grounds.”

His dwindling lack of power took control of Beau. He screeched off and drove through the memorials as if he were competing in the Daytona 500. I buckled my seat belt and closed my eyes. “It’s a good thing all the residents of Calvary are already dead.”

My husband floored the accelerator.

“See, there it is, Beau! The house, right over there!”

He frantically honked the car horn. I jumped out, and like a monkey clinging to his wire cage, I shook the chain length fence. “Help, help, can someone please help us?” I wanted to be heard over Beau’s honking. An elderly lady slowly opened her screen door and cautiously shuffled over toward me. “Yeah, whatcha want?”

I explained our dilemma. Beau stopped me before I got to the part about the wedding. “Uh, Honey, we’re in a bit of a time situation here.”

Over and over, I repeated the emergency number to the woman. Moving at the speed of a dying snail, she shuffled back inside. It took more than ten minutes, seemed hours longer, but she eventually returned to the fence. “I managed to git somebody. They’s comin.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” I gushed.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Beau countered.

“And
you
don’t be so pessimistic.”

We drove back to the entrance. Minutes ticked by as we sat waiting for the rescuer who would set us free. The sun was setting. We wouldn’t have any time to relax before the wedding. Even my optimistic spirit was beginning to dwindle.

“I’m going for help,” Beau announced. “You stay here, and
if
the guy comes with a key, drive out and pick me up. I’m gonna go to that auto parts store we passed and call a cab.”

“Please be careful,” I warned.

The last thing he said was, “Lock the car doors.”

The cemetery was located in a terrible part of town, one known for weekly, if not daily, shootings, along with crack houses and creepy people in general. It was getting dark. I comforted myself, saying, “At least, you can see Beau every step of the way. As long as he’s in sight, he’s safe.” At that exact moment, he disappeared behind a big, brick wall.

Swallowing, I began to pray.
You’re letting your imagination get the best of you
, Creola whispered.

The sun went down. The flaming heavenly body dropped like a gigantic orange bowling ball. Along with the sun went my courage. Shrouded in pitch black, only the car’s dashboard gave off any light. I was locked in Calvary Cemetery on Elvis Presley Boulevard. It was the thirteenth day of the month, and every horror movie I’d ever watched began to replay in my head. Beau had been gone for at least fifteen minutes. More prayers. I turned on the car radio.

Ah hah,
Prairie Home Companion
would be on shortly. Surely Garrison Keillor would provide a bright spot. The entertainer/storyteller’s radio show had been our delight on many an evening.

“Beau will be back any minute, and we’d have a big laugh,” I said aloud, talking to Creola.

Garrison’s voice caught my attention. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We’re fortunate to have with us a world-famous performer and his ever-popular polka musicale.” Polka music. I listened for thirty seconds and turned off the radio. With sincere apologies to enthusiasts, the jubilant melodies from a group of merry-making accordion players made my jitters worse.

SQWEEEEK
. “What on earth?” My heart either stopped completely or was pounding so fast I couldn’t detect its beat. Sitting in the dark, surrounded by tombstones, my memory summoned every urban legion I’d ever heard.

SQWEEEEK
. The dead man’s hook! The Lover’s Lane fiend! Ready for the kill, his hook was embedded on the rear door handle of a couple’s car. The two drove away just in the nick of time. The locked gate ... I couldn’t escape!

SQWEEEK
! The radio’s aerial retracted into the trunk. Oh.

Forty-five minutes had passed. “Beau, where are you?” I called out the window. “Are you all right?”

I decided to meditate. My friend, Martha, once suggested a phrase. Let’s see, oh yes.
The thorn has roses
. I began to chant, “The thorn has roses. The thorn has roses.”

I maneuvered into a yoga position despite the car’s bucket seats. Sitting cross-legged with my shoes off and the palms of my hands turned up, I closed my eyes, took a deep, cleansing breath and kept chanting, “The thorn has roses, the thorn has roses, the thorn has roses.”

It worked. In less than thirty seconds, I snickered. Tension melted.

I turned the radio back on. 6:10 p.m. The wedding was less than an hour away. Where
was
Beau?
He’s been knocked in the head, is passed out in a pool of blood, and his wife is doing nothing but laughing hysterically
.

Polka music gone for a moment, Garrison Keillor’s uniquely smooth voice gave me a sense of hope.
Thank you, Garrison. I owe you
.

Suddenly, I noticed a shadowy figure coming toward the car. I strained my eyes to see who or what it could be. It was getting closer! In its hand was a large object. An axe? Dear God, who
is
this and what is he carrying? Visions of dismemberment flashed before me. Closer and closer it came. I held my breath believing that somehow, if I tried hard enough, I could make myself invisible. I squinted my eyes and wrung my hands.

The shadow waved. “Honey!”

Beau!

Air escaped my body. I leapt from the car and ran toward him.

“You’re okay!”

“Not really,” he panted. He was clutching a pair of bolt cutters.

“The security company is —
pant, pant, cough —
is in Kansas City. Can you believe that? Kansas City!”
Deep breath.
“The jerk who answered the phone thought I was kidding. Kidding! That incompetent loser!”

“What’d you say to him?”

“I said, ‘Look, fella, my wife and I are locked in a cemetery on Elvis Presley Boulevard in Memphis. The son-of-a-bitch thought I was joking.”
Exhale
. “He asked me if I were with the security company. I said, ‘If I were with the damn company, you lunatic, I’d have a key!’ He left me on hold for twenty minutes —
cough, cough —
while he called his supervisor. Twenty minutes! Then they
both
hung up!”

I listened in stunned silence. Beau went on, “There’s more.
Yellow Cab
refuses to come to this neighborhood. The dispatcher says it’s too dangerous.” Beau gripped the bolt cutters and proclaimed, “This cutter is the only chance we have. I bought it at an auto parts store.”

“O-O-O-Okay then.”

He attacked the locked gate. “Turn on the headlights so I can see.”

I cranked the car. Lights and polka music. I mashed the radio’s
off
button. “The thorn has roses,” I muttered.

“I may have it,” sputtered Beau. “It’s about to give!”

I stepped from the car just in time to hear the
crack
. “Hooray! We’re free!”

“No, the bolt cutters broke.” He slammed-dunked the tool into a trashcan a good fifteen feet to his right.

“Nice shot, Beau.”

“We’ll have to walk to the auto parts place,” he said.

“How about the motel next door?”

“I went there, first. A prostitute propositioned me.”

“Are you sure?”

“The woman said, ‘Wanna party?’ I told her, ‘Thanks, no. My wife is waiting for me. She’s locked in the cemetery.’”

“Now, that’s funny.”

“The prostitute laughed, too.”

Before we left for the auto supply store, Beau decided to move the car to a safer place. Wise man. He didn’t want to tempt someone to come in and strip the car for tires, parts, whatever. He parked by the cemetery’s business office, right under the sign listing the
emergency
number. He growled at it.

We climbed over the cemetery wall. There we stood, looking into five lanes of speeding cars, motorcycles, eighteen-wheel trucks, ambulances, police cars, and cars that looked as if they were returning from a demolition derby. Beau grabbed my hand. “Come on, Honey, run for it.”

I just wanted to stay alive long enough to go to the wedding. As soon as we got across, I calmed down a tiny bit. Beau whirled around and said, “Hurry! Run back to the other side. Toward the motel!”

“
What
? First, you didn’t even want me to walk by the prostitute, now you want me to run
toward
her?”

“See those guys? I think one of them has a gun!”

“
Gun
!”

With cars and trucks honking and motorists yelling obscenities, we raced for sanctuary past the lady of the evening. Luckily, she had stepped inside. At the auto parts store, Beau was greeted cheerfully by his new-found friends, including the store’s security guard and the clerk who had sold him the bolt cutters.

“So, this is your wife,” grinned the guard. I smiled back. I couldn’t help but notice he had a severe case of pink eye. I nodded, but could not extend my hand.

The clerk asked if the cutters worked.

Beau frowned. “Not so well.”

I uttered not a word. I almost gagged as I watched the guard’s eyes ooze.

Apparently, Saturday nights are busy ones for the auto parts business, because there were quite a few other customers. Determined to get to the wedding, I overcame my trepidation and approached a clerk to share our tale of woe. “Is there any cab company that serves this area?”

“Lady,” responded the clerk, “You folks might try
Metro Cab
. They may be willing to come out this way.” He dialed the number, chatted with someone for a minute, then nodded at us. “You’re in luck. Metro said yes!”

Beau raced outside to watch for the cab.

I stood inside, profusely thanking the caring clerk. He scratched his head and said, “Ma’am, you know something? A guy got shot down the street, oh, maybe forty-five minutes ago. Your husband ain’t real safe standing out there like that. He could get shot, too.”

I ran to the door. “Beau, get back inside! Run! The clerk says you may as well have a bullseye on your back!”

“Holy shit!” Beau’s eyes were saucer-sized as he strode toward the store. A hefty woman with orange hair and two-inch long purple fingernails came after him. Her gold tooth glistened in the neon lights of the store’s sign as she flashed a broad smile. The woman restrained my stunned husband by digging her nails into his shoulder. I clutched my throat and watched as the two of them held an animated conversation.

What would happen next? Within seconds, he stepped back inside, shaking his head and laughing. “Guess what?”