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Dybbuk

David J. Tabak

    When I died, the last thing going through my mind was not regret or fear, but the driver’s side window of my Honda Accord. I didn’t see a heavenly light or the flames of hell—nothing but the small cottonwood tree at the bottom of the rapidly approaching culvert. The tree flipped my car over, throwing my head into the window’s void.
    If I could have said anything as the wheels stopped spinning, it wouldn’t have been a complaint or even an expression of horror. I would leave that to good Samaritans who stopped to see if they could help me and then vomited when they found my headless body or bodiless head; I would have said it was a shitty end to a shitty day.
    Waking from a nearly sleepless night, I found myself in a puddle of my own snot and the remnants of a box of Triscuits and chunks of summer sausage. It had been my dinner with a side of Heinekens followed by shots of Jameson’s for dessert. My first thought was “not again” and the next was “where the hell am I?”

    I shouldn’t have been puzzled. I had been living in this Red Roof Inn for nearly a week since Ronnie, my wife, threw me out of the condo for nothing more than having sex with her ex-best friend who had dropped off a casserole while Ronnie recovered from her hysterectomy.
    To salt the wound, I also lost my job as syndicated columnist on family issues for a chain of suburban papers when my editor learned I was not the clueless dad to three adorable, yet vastly wiser, redheaded triplets named Ryan, Briana and Susan. The fact I didn’t have any children may have also annoyed him, but at least it explained why I never brought “those adorable scamps” into the office. If you asked me, Ronnie was being a bit unfair. After all, I lost my job and my wife was in the hospital. Besides, I wasn’t the one with bad taste in friends.
    I stumbled out of bed and stepped on a plastic glass that had been my companion last night. The glass shattered under my bare foot and a shard managed to nearly slice off my little toe. The best I could find to staunch the bleeding was a roll of toilet paper the consistency of 200-grit sandpaper.
    The idiot illegal immigrant who moved the dirt around my room forgot to replace the coffee packet in the bathroom. My choice was to make a pot of decaf or head for the lobby and hope I didn’t run into the imbecile businessman from the day before who was incapable of silence. Yes, it is plenty “hot enough” for me. All night the air conditioner blew warm mold-laden air across my face. All I want is a cup of coffee, half a bottle of aspirin and for you to either shut up or fall asleep while driving.
    What were the chances of the same guy being there two days in a row? He was a salesman (or I thought he was); he should be in Whogivesadamn, Kansas, by now. I opened my door with the trepidation of someone making a cameo appearance in a sniper’s scope.

    I was stopped by the shrill cry of “Look, mommy, that man isn’t wearing any pants!” I looked down and realized that I was wearing nothing but white boxers, through which my penis had snaked its way out. There was a scream and I would have been back in my room if I had not forgotten to take my keycard with me. Through the slit in the curtains I could see it on the small table, right next to my wallet.
    There was nothing left to do but sit on the ground surrounded by the gathering crowd of amused bystanders and wait for the police to arrive, which, judging by the multiple sirens, would be soon. Right in front of me, with a smirk on his pock-marked face, was the Indian desk clerk with whom I had argued about the odd smell in the room yesterday. Of course he couldn’t smell anything, he reeked of sweat, pus and curry.
    The police were unsympathetic. I shouldn’t have called them “pigs-who-had-nothing-better-to-do-than-bust-the-chops-of-a-guy-obviously-down-on-his-luck,” but frisking me against the wall in my boxers was uncalled for. I was fortunate to get back in my room with a few shreds of dignity and a summons to appear in district court on an indecency charge.
    My cellphone was buzzing Livin’ La Vida Loco while sambaing across the vanity. It fell to the tile floor and the newly cracked screen announced “3 m ss d alls.” The telephone number belonged to Ed, my former boss. He called twice, and hung up angrily each time, before leaving a message on the third try.
    Ed started his message with “you son of a bitch” and got worse from there. Apparently, I was unsuccessful in getting my last column past him by sending it right to layout. “You didn’t think I’d let this paper go out without reading your column. Maybe you did because I am, and I quote, ‘a mindless, knuckle scraper who caters to the worst in dead-eyed suburbanites who will slurp up whatever drivel I vomit up.’ Jesus, and all this time I thought you were just an asshole. I should have known no one could have ever been that clueless as a dad and be so good humored about it. You aren’t an ordinary asshole, you are a Grade A, Prime, All-American Asshole. You really take the prize. But I am going to give you your wish. I am going to publish your final article tomorrow, just as written, even though you spelled ignoramus wrong. And God help you when your wife, your mother, the mayor, the school superintendent, Democrats, Jews, Muslims, dogs, cats, U2, Lady Gaga and the Netherlands read what you wrote. Jesus, when you go all out to be a jerk, you don’t go half-ass. If I were you, I would get out of town and not come back.” He slammed his phone down.
    Maybe I had gone too far. I could have titled it “Goodbye and Good Luck.” “Schmucks,” though sonorous, was gratuitous. I found my watch under the bed. It was almost noon; within 24 hours the paper would be in the hands of the paper boys delivering my doom to just about everybody I knew. My capacity for hindsight is unparalleled. So much of the misery in my life would have been avoided if only I had listened to myself. Ed did have a good point— perhaps a road trip was in order. There was a whole coast I hadn’t yet insulted.
    The good thing about being thrown out of your home with little notice is that it makes packing easy. All I had to do was throw my toiletries and last Heineken into the Walgreen’s bag and I was out of there. I probably should have checked out, but I figured Apu had my nearly maxed-out credit card; let him do his worst.
    Of course, if I took the time to check out, I wouldn’t have come face-to-grill with a flying Weber that exploded out of the back of a white pickup truck that cut me off on the Dixie Highway, causing me to careen into the eastbound lanes narrowly missing a semi, its horn blaring as if I didn’t know I was heading in the wrong direction. A wide turn to the left, down the culvert, nearly missing the tree . . . well you know the rest.
    It was only when I heard a woman’s scream that I realized I was a bit more than hurt. She tripped over a rock that wasn’t a rock at all. “Oh my God! It’s a head!” She ran behind a tree to vomit in private. It was amazing to witness the effect the discovery of my bi-partite body had on would-be good Samaritans. They parked on the side of the road and ran down the hill to lend a hand. Once they realized that no help was needed, they retreated to the side of the road to wait for the police or get on with their lives now that mine had so obviously ended. They had done their good deed for the day, right?
    With sirens blaring in my ears for the second time that day, I found a Macy’s shopping bag in the car’s trunk. I stumbled across the field, training my body to take orders from a head twenty feet away. I placed my head in the bag and walked over to the tree that had been the root of my misfortune. I leaned against its twisted trunk, tilting the bag so I could see out of the top. First came the young state trooper who shuffled down the hill and tried to not look nauseated as he peered through the windowless window. Then came the ambulance crew who had obviously seen worse and left making jokes that I was head over heels dead. A gray van with the words “Medical Examiner” printed in small letters on the side pulled up a half of an hour later. Within fifteen minutes both parts of my body were placed in a body bag and shoved into the back of the van. Finally, a wrecker unceremoniously righted the car and pulled it onto the back of a flatbed, but not before pocketing the change I had in my ashtray.
    I was alone, watching the cars speed by, their occupants completely unaware that a man had died not fifty feet from where they were driving. It was nearly dark when I asked “now what?” I had no doubt I was dead and would not need to worry about mailing the mortgage payment that was in the glove compartment.
    My uncle Alois told me ghost stories when I was a kid. Most of them were pretty lame and involved him speaking very softly and then yelling when he got to the climax. As a four year old, I was scared. When I passed ten, I would roll my eyes and by eleven I was beating him to the punch line, causing him to grasp his chest in mock infarction.
    However, the story of the Dybbuk scared me as a kid and still scared me as an adult. As far as I could tell a dybbuk is a Jewish poltergeist. Unlike gentile ghosts, he haunts himself. He wanders the earth seeking to undo some past misdeed. In all the stories, the ghost is more pitiful than frightful. I could fully imagine that I had experienced too much to be confined to a single life. There were too many regrets to be confined to a single lifespan.
    I wondered if I was a dybbuk. If so, what the hell was I doing in the middle of nowhere? I had done plenty wrong at my childhood home, at school, at college and lately with my family and work. As far as this field was concerned, I was pretty sure I had done nothing more malevolent than throw a can out the window as I sped by. Was recycling the task I had to complete before I could find eternal rest?
    It seemed patently unfair I should be punished for something I did and provided with no information on what that was. Hell, even Jacob Marley knew what he had done wrong. I would think damnation would come with an instruction manual.
    To make matters worse, I could think of many things I could do to make amends. The problem was most of them were at least 20 miles away and my only means of transportation was a pancaked Honda on its way to the junkyard.
    Or was it? There was no reason to suppose that I was confined by mortal constraints. I was a ghost after all. What if I could fly or simply wish myself somewhere else? Someone had obviously done their homework when it came to post-mortal punishment. I could fly no more than 2 feet in any direction. So far, the afterlife sucked.
    Something stirred in the bushes. I assumed it was some sort of animal, most likely a deer or a coyote. But then I saw a near-transparent set of legs come out of the grasses. One foot wore a high-heeled shoe, the other was bare.
    A chenille dress appeared next, lacy at the bottom, bloody at the top. There was something sticking out of her chest. It took me a moment to realize it was a silk umbrella, the type favored by bridesmaids and antebellum belles. All I could see was the handle and a few of the ribs (the umbrella’s, not hers) sticking out. Dried blood in the shape of a flower spilled down the front of her dress. When her head finally appeared, it looked like it had been used for batting practice. One eye was closed, the other drooped unnaturally in its orb; obviously the cheek bone was broken. Her lower lip was nearly torn off from her face and I could see quite a few of her teeth were missing. A small wreath of white flowers circled her head like a halo. It looked like it had just come out of the box and I wondered how it could possibly remain pristine after the trauma she had obviously suffered.
    She floated to a spot fifty feet from me. She looked down at something and her shoulders sagged. Walking a bit closer, I could see a small wooden cross with the faded inscription:
    Cynthia
    1984 – 2005
    R.I.P.

    She swiveled her head, which was not attached to her neck as tightly as it once was. Even in the dark, I could see the bloody veins in her eye, drawing a bull’s-eye around the iris. She was gruesome and I wanted to run away, but she was the only other being who could tell me how this life-after-death thing worked.
    “Excuse me,” was all I said.
    Her eye nearly fell out of its orb. Then she screamed. I turned the Macy’s bag around to see what was creeping up on me. Nothing. I then realized she was afraid of me. There truly was no rest for the dearly departed. She not only started to run away, she began to fade.
    “Wait,” I said from the well of the bag. “Please don’t leave me.”
    She blinked like a child peaking out from under a blanket to make sure there were no monsters under the bed. She held the shaft of the umbrella like a sword in a sheath. “S . . stay where you are. Who . . . who are you?”
    It was an interesting question. I knew who I was. I wasn’t sure what I was now. I shrugged. “I used to be called Russell by my mother, Russ by people who didn’t know me well but wanted to sell me something, and RJ by everybody else. But nobody ever heard of a ghost named RJ. Because that is what we are, right? We’re ghosts?” From the bottom of the bag, I tried to make contact with her good eye.
    It was her turn to shrug. “I guess so. No one told me anything after I died. One moment I was at my cousin Judy’s wedding. I was in her wedding party, my third wedding party. Always a bridesmaid and obviously never will be a bride.” She made us wear these awful dresses that looked like we were going to a tea party. We had to carry these awful lace-covered umbrellas.” She flicked the handle impaled in her chest. “I knew there was a reason I didn’t want it.”
    “There was this guy,” she said, looking as wistful as her crushed face would allow. “You know the type. Long brown hair with eyes to match. A slightly upturned nose. And dimples. Deep, deep dimples. I am . . . was a sucker for dimples and the whiskey sours that we kept downing on the veranda overlooking the eighteenth hole. I have no idea of how many we had, but it was enough for me to get into his Charger without thinking. I wanted to dump the umbrella in the trash on our way out to the parking lot. He insisted I bring it with me. God only knows what fantasy he had in mind.”
    “He drove so fast. The engine growled and pushed me back into my seat and then from side to side when he hit the turns. I laughed and laughed, feeling like I was on some roller coaster. Well, that lasted a mile or two. They say he didn’t even try to make the last turn, just drove straight into the culvert, smashing the front into us. I guess I was holding this stupid umbrella. I really shouldn’t blame it; the paramedic said I died of multiple traumatic injuries. If the umbrella doesn’t get you, the windshield will. I don’t mind dying; it wasn’t like I had accomplished anything in my life. I don’t mind being a ghost. But do I really need to spend forever with this thing sticking out of my chest?” She gave it another flick.
    “You want to know the worst thing about it?” I shrugged as best as a man without a head could shrug. “Actually there are two worst things about it. One, that son of bitch didn’t die in the accident. The paramedics loaded him into the ambulance, while they left me to be picked up by the coroner. And two, I don’t remember his name, if I ever knew it. This guy killed me and I can’t find him to haunt him. It’s not fair.” She shook her head and it looked like it was in serious danger of falling off. That was okay, there was room in my bag. She sighed. “How did you die?”
    “My car flipped over because of a flying grill.” I pointed in the direction of the tree that was now listing nearly 45 degrees.
    Either her lower lip was about to fall off or she was pouting. “I liked that tree; it had pretty white flowers in spring. Did you have to hit that tree?”

    “Next time I will try to be more careful.” We stopped talking. All you could hear was the wind blowing and the cicadas’ complaints. The moon spied from behind the clouds, painting everything blue. If I wasn’t already dead, it would have been eerie.
    “So what comes next?” I finally asked her.
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean what do we do?”
    “Do?” she asked, looking around as if I was talking to someone else. “We do this. We walk around in the dark.”
    “No haunting? No mischief?”
    Her good eye narrowed as if she thought I was looking for trouble. “No. Just walk around here.”
    “Are we alone?”
    “Alone? No, we have the people on the highway. Occasionally my mother stops by to put flowers on my cross. The guy in the Charger never comes.
    “No, I meant other ghosts? Are there other ghosts around here?”
    “Just Roy. He’s been here since the seventies. He was duck hunting and didn’t notice his shotgun barrel was clogged with mud. His face looks like a colander.”
    “Have you ever asked him what we are supposed to do?”
    “No, Roy doesn’t talk much. He just makes duck calls.” On cue, we heard a quack from the bushes.
    “I always thought that ghosts tried to correct mistakes from their life and that’s the only way they can find peace.”
    She smirked. “It would take me an eternity to correct all the mistakes I made in life. Which one would come first? Quitting high school in tenth grade? Sleeping with the night manager at the Hampton Inn? Having an abortion when I realized he was also sleeping with the head of housecleaning? But I guess I should start with not getting in the Charger with that drunken asshole.” She wiped a muddy tear with a hand with at least three broken fingers. “So that’s my story. What would you work on?”
    I watched the moonlight stream through Roy’s head as he impotently called water fowl.
    Clearly I had something to atone for and unless I came up with something soon, this was going to be a long forever. What could it be? My list of ills was long and rich with possibilities. I was a dishonest, jealous, vindictive man. To that list add lazy. My highest aspiration was to do as little as possible. Tomorrow was always ideal for repentance, all the way until I ran out of tomorrows.
    The word “tomorrow” rattled in my brain like Jacob Marley’s chains. Wait, tomorrow was nearly today. My avenue to forgiveness lay in the final column that Ed threatened to print. Who would mourn me or even remember me fondly after they read the article? I shuddered to think what they would put on my headstone — “Here Lies a Real Asshole.”
    I had to stop the column from being printed. It was my only hope. But how? So far I didn’t seem capable of affecting anything in the physical world. Just my luck. Even if I made it to Chicago in time to stop the presses, the best I could hope for was to paw at the stop button impotently and diaphanously. Fuck it. They all deserved it. Screw ‘em.
    No, that was what I would have thought when I was alive and see where it got me? Just because I could hurt people didn’t mean I had to. I could be better. Maybe that was what I needed to do. To show some sort of contrition. Wouldn’t it be great if I could rewrite the column as sort of a confession? An apology from beyond? Ed would scratch his head, wondering how the column changed. Was he losing his mind? Had he misjudged me? Would he write an editorial encomium? I would have liked that and maybe even Holland would forgive me.
    Without a word, I started walking north as fast I as could.
    Cynthia cried behind me “Hey, where are you going? You are not going to leave me with Roy. Was it something I said? Be honest, it’s the umbrella, right?” I turned to explain and saw the look I knew too well. Even in her broken and battered face, I saw disappointment. It was one expression I never confused. I saw it on my parents’ face. I saw it on my friends’ faces. I even saw it in the mirror. As our marriage settled down into a series of betrayals and lies, it became Ronnie’s mask, protecting her from hope.
    No one in Holland gives a damn if I was sorry for calling them Gouda-heads. Lady Gaga could fall asleep on her mattress made of $100 bills and not care what I thought of her. I had come and gone and very few people took notice. Those who did weren’t impressed. Now that I was dead, I could easily witness how well the world did without me. I looked heavenward, impressed by the punishment God had devised. I always knew I was a jerk, I never suspected I was irrelevant.
    The only person for whom I wasn’t irrelevant was sleeping 20 miles north of me, perhaps dreaming I could be a better husband, not realizing those chances were now less than zero. One word bubbled up from the Macy’s bag: Ronnie. I needed to apologize to her. Perhaps if she forgave me, I could rest. Remembering all the things I had done, her forgiveness would also take an eternity. That didn’t matter; I had to apologize even if she didn’t forgive me. I could stomach roaming the field forever if she heard “sorry” for the first and last time from me.
    I felt sorry for Cynthia, but I didn’t have time to explain. I had a long way to walk and no plan for when I got there. I thought I heard Cynthia shout something about men being all the same, but it could have been the wind blowing through the tilting tree.
    I walked for several hours, taking time to scare a guy who had pulled over to take a leak around 2:00 a.m. He screamed, wet himself and jumped back in his Jetta. Although I was on a mission of redemption, I couldn’t help but laugh. Clearly being dead had its advantages.
    Ronnie. All I needed was a minute or two to tell her I was sorry. To tell her I was wrong. Now dead, I discovered regret as the tears started to stream out of my lifeless eyes. The bottom of the bag was getting soggy and I forced myself to go back thinking about the guy with the urine-soaked pants in the Jetta.
    I could see the orange glow over the lake. Ronnie would be getting up soon. I wanted her to be awake, but not too awake. I didn’t want to scare her; I hoped she could attribute my appearance to a dream. A horrific dream with a happy ending.
    I walked faster as the sky blanched. I turned down our street as the sun finally rose over the two-flat across the street. I felt dizzy, looking down to make sure my head hadn’t tipped over. It was gone, bag and all. So were my legs and hands as I melted into a sunbeam.
    The moon rose over the trees in the field. Roy was stalking a deer that stared through him, dumbly chewing grass. “Good night,” a voice said from behind me. I turned to find myself eye to umbrella. “How was your day?” Cynthia asked, trying to look as annoyed as her broken face would allow.
    “How did I get here? The last thing I remember was walking up to my building.”
    Cynthia let out a sigh reserved for rookies. She clearly wasn’t in the mood for giving more detail than necessary. She scratched the area where the umbrella exited her chest. “That’s the deal. You disappear in the day and come out at night in the place you died. Once the sun’s up, we’re not.”
    “But that’s not fair,” I objected.
    She shrugged, loosening her head until she was staring up at the stars with her good eye. “That’s death.”

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