Not Mine Alone

by Kristopher Armstrong

 

I am born and am given a name.  It is not mine alone: I share it with my father’s father. We are two, but the same.  Gradually, he enters my consciousness and comes to be my friend.  First friend; best friend.  

He shows me his art.  The sculpture of metal into human form: bronze bodies, faces, but eyes of glass.  Peering back at me, watching me.  Minerals of the earth given life.  
 

My grandfather gifts me two hand-size figures: one made in his image, the other in mine. Our glass eyes glitter.  I dress them in doll clothes, and never lose them.

#

When I am five, they tell me my grandfather is dead.  At first, I think they say that he is deaf, like the woman on my favorite television show.  They explain.  New words: dead, death, funeral, burial. 

That night in the garden, I bury my figure of grandfather.  The glass eyes in my own bronze face, watching nearby, glint in the moonlight.  Grandfather’s eyes are dark, like the pond at night.  The slant of the light, I think.  I paint a stone and place it above his garden grave.  On it, I have written his name, which I can write because it is also my name.  

Not also, anymore.

#

I dress up for the funeral.  My grandfather is laid out in his casket.  He looks asleep.  I am puzzled: he does not have glass eyes.  I have misunderstood.  People place photographs, a flower, medals with ribbons in the casket with him.  

My father puts his hand on my back.  In his way that is more like directing, he asks if I want to put my bronze figure in with grandpa.  He calls it my doll.   I look down.  My hands clutch the sculpture of myself.  

I am undecided, but I place the figure of myself in the crook of my grandfather’s arm.  My father says now grandpa will always have a piece of me with him.  His hand guides me away.  My inside is sick.  My vision blurs.

#

My parents talk to adults.  I want not to lose a piece.  I want none of myself buried with my grandfather. 

Men in dark suits wheel his casket from the room.  I sneak away.  

They leave the casket just inside a door.  A fog of exhaust surrounds a running car that waits beyond.

In the hallway lights, the metal casket shines like glass in bronze.  I creep up, reach up, and lift the lid, but I cannot see inside.

I hear footsteps, and in fear of discovery, I think to run or hide.  There is nowhere for either.  
No escape, except.

I step up on the carriage and swing my body over the edge and into the casket.  I think I will hide between my grandfather’s legs.  I crouch and pull down the lid.  

I feel around in darkness.  For my grandfather, for my bronze self.  There is nothing.  My grandfather’s legs are missing.  I am puzzled: the casket’s foot is empty.  I have misunderstood.

I reach deep into the head of the casket.  My hands plunge into silky, warm mush.  I push further, past my elbows, up to my armpits.  My hands graze past sharp objects suspended in ooze until my fingers close around my prize, my self.  I pull it to me, safe.

The casket moves.  I brace and hold my breath.  A door shuts, and there is a different movement.  The car’s suspension does little to quiet the bumps.

I remember the burial, the name on the stone.  My grandfather’s name.  My name.  I understand: they will bury me.  

I push, but the lid is locked.  I cry hot streams.  I scream.  I bang the lid with my bronze figure.  I have been in the dark so long now it looks white.  

I feel a lurch and a slide.  Then: a blinding light.

I look up into the face of a man.  He has milky eyes that are wide with surprise.  The thatch at his throat is a broken bird’s nest, his red, filmy mouth a dead baby bird.

He reaches in and grabs away my bronze figure.  He smiles down at me with brown teeth and a blood-red tongue.  And slams down the lid.