LUCY CRUMB by Catherine Karp

Lucy Crumb

by Catherine Karp

    They lowered her papa into the ground on September 15, 1918.

    Several folks from the neighborhood were there, everyone bowing their heads at the descending pine casket, gentle sobs slipping into the air in a whispered chorus. Mrs. Steele from next door gripped Lucy's hand until the poor girl's fingers turned numb and she had to let go. Mrs. Applebaum from across the street developed the hiccups. The older gentlemen, whose sparse hair and white beards had been trimmed by her papa for years, peered in Lucy's direction, lifting their firm jaws, as if to say, "Chin up. At least he didn't have to die in a trench like the younger fellows."

    Because Death was such a frequent, unkind visitor to everyone that year, one more loss seemed inconsequential to most. Moreover, her papa hadn't been pummeled by bullets at Belleau Wood or the Marne. He hadn't suffered a deadly bout of influenza, losing his life in a rank, fever-infested army hospital miles across the seas. Cripes--he had hardly ever ventured out of Topeka during his 50 years of life. He died in his weekend overalls while mowing the lawn, collapsing onto the marigolds from a failed heart. There were no heroics. No glory for America. Just a quiet death.

    In everyone else's eyes.

*  *  *

    "What's to be done about Lucy?"

    Lucy lifted her head, which hung over a plate of fried chicken legs grown salty from her tears. Sweaty strands of her frizzled brown hair clung to her cheeks, making her skin itch.

    "She's only just turned seventeen. She won't finish school until May."

    From the bustling kitchen around the corner, hushed murmurs followed Mrs. Steele's question--soft suppositions about Lucy's fate that were inaudible from the girl's seat upon her and Papa's lumpy front-room couch. She strained her ears to hear their speculations, but the other mourners inundating the house discussed the American arrival in Russia far too loudly, turning the fall air humid with their clumped-together bodies as they munched the post-funeral coleslaw and crackers. She longed to have Dora Grimshaw back by her side for support, but her only close friend sailed across the sea as a Red Cross volunteer a mere three weeks before.

    Eventually, Mrs. Steele and Mrs. Applebaum--both near the same age Papa had been--crept into view with their hands behind their backs, offering pouts of pity. Lucy placed the plate in her lap so it teetered upon her thighs, its greasy odor of chicken fat bringing a nauseating lump to her throat.

    Mrs. Steele gracefully planted herself on the couch, sweeping her shimmering black skirt behind her legs with an elegant shoosh. "Lucy." She took Lucy's hand with an airy gentleness--far different from her stranglehold at the funeral. Her brown lashes fluttered. "Do you know if your papa...made arrangements...for how you're to live when he's gone?"

    Lucy swallowed the sickening lump.

    Mrs. Steele squeezed a tad harder. "Are there any other living relatives besides..." She nodded as though she hoped Lucy would complete the sentence for her, swishing the ensuing name around her mouth like she was rinsing her teeth with turpentine. "Besides Rosaline?"
    "Mr. Kirkpatrick already showed me the will," said Lucy.

    "He did? Really? And?"

    "Well..." A fork tumbled off Lucy's plate. "Oh..."

    "It's all right, dear," said Mrs. Applebaum, scooping up the tarnished utensil and letting it hang from the tips of her fingers. "We'll get the floor cleaned up after everyone leaves. What was it you were about to say?"

    Mrs. Steele pressed to the point of pain again. "Yes, please continue, Lucy. This is no time to let your awkwardness get in the way of things."

    Lucy cleared her throat. "Well, Papa arranged that..." Her heart thumped under her moist muslin mourning dress--the fabric still scratchy from its newness. "You're going to think I'm making this up. It almost sounds silly."

    "Lucy, go on," said Mrs. Steele.

    "He specified that, if he died after I turned sixteen, I could receive the money directly and decide--on my own, since, I suppose, he considered me responsible--between living with my Aunt Hyacinth in North Platte and...well...he knew how much I love Rosaline."

    Mrs. Steele squinted and winced, looking as though she had been poked by the tongs of the still-dangling fork. "Lucy! Don't be stupid. Your father would have never said such a thing."

    "That's preposterous," added Mrs. Applebaum, sidling up to Lucy's left. "Your sister didn't even have the decency to show up today."

    "He always told me I was more grown up than most of the adults in town. That I had a clear way of looking at everything."

    "You haven't seen your sister in ten years," said Mrs. Steele. "You don't even know her."

    "She writes to me every month. She always has."

    Mrs. Steele rolled her eyes. "I doubt she's ever written the truth, Lucy. You do know what your sister's like, don't you? You do know why your father sent her away and stopped speaking to her?"

    "She stopped speaking to him," murmured Lucy, more to her chicken than to the ladies, her throat constricting.

    "What was that? You're mumbling again."

    Lucy cleared her throat. "I said, she stopped speaking to him. Because of the baby."

    "Lucy." Mrs. Applebaum pulled nervously at the pale folds of skin along her neck when Lucy mentioned her sister's long-ago infant--her nephew, whom none of the family, including Rosaline, had ever seen. "There's no need to mention that today. Where's your respect for your father, child?"

    "Really, Lucy." Mrs. Steele batted those feathery eyelashes. "Let's not mention such things." She leaned close again, her hushed voice smelling of lemonade and baked beans. "But I do want to know what she claims to do for money nowadays."

    "Who?"

    "Rosaline, of course."

    Lucy sunk her teeth into her bottom lip--then she muttered her response, aware that it sounded like a mere mishmash of consonants.

    "What?" asked both ladies, leaning closer still.

    "She's a..." Lucy licked her shriveling lips, then repeated the words more audibly: "A spirit medium."

    Their breath ceased beating at her face.

    Mrs. Steele placed her hand over her scrawny bosom. "Oh, Lucy. Do you know what those people are? Do you? They're all frauds. Common criminals." She looked to Mrs. Applebaum. "I didn't know those sorts of people were fashionable again."

    "The war is bringing them out," replied Mrs. Applebaum with a somber nod. "I read one was arrested in Wichita not long ago. Someone turned on the lights and caught her creeping around the room with a sheet over her head, pretending she was a spirit. Charging an outlandish sitting fee."

    "Really, Lucy," continued Mrs. Steel, clenching Lucy's hand again. "Your father wouldn't have honestly approved of you living in the wilds of San Diego with a criminal who desecrates the Lord."

    "She's not a criminal." Lucy snatched her hand away, clasping her plate. "And her God-given gifts..."

    "Lucy!"

    "I said, her God-given gifts didn't just start with the war. Five years ago she sent me a book by a man named Andrew Jackson Davis, who talked of a pipeline between the spirit world to the earth. I've reread the book over the last two nights, and that's why you don't see me crying for Papa as much as you'd expect. Because I know I can still communicate with him; he's still here with me, listening to all the horrible things you're saying."

    "Lucy, dear..." said Mrs. Steele.

    "Stop touching me, please."

    "Lucy, listen. Your papa's in heaven. It's true, he's here watching over you. But you're not going to be able to see him and hear him."

    "I said, stop touching me!" Lucy shoved the woman's hand away, sending the plate of chicken to the braided rug with a thud. "Stop touching me and making me feel miserable! I've seen him already." Other funeral-goers now turned to hear the fuss. Oh, goody. The quiet girl is causing a scene. "When you took me shopping for my mourning dress yesterday, I saw him cross the street just as we entered the store. When I came into this room this morning, he was here for a second, reading a book like he always does. And last night as I was sleeping, I heard him call my name, and, when I opened my eyes, I felt a hand upon my own, which lulled me back to sleep. So don't you dare tell me I can't see him or hear him or touch him!" Mrs. Steele attempted to guide Lucy's rigid body off the couch. "Let go! And don't you dare tell me my sister's a fake. The only people who are fake are the ones who say they live Christian lives of love and charity, even though they still can't forgive a little girl who had a baby ten years ago."

    That was all that could be tolerated; the final words of her stirring outburst. She had become too much for the mighty Mrs. Steele, who, with the added strength of her summoned husband, dragged Lucy upstairs to her room, despite Lucy's frantic attempts to wrap her gangly arms and legs around the banister on the way up. The two adults plunked her down on her bed's faded quilt, and when she managed the strength to flip over and peer up, she saw the round, mustached face of Dr. Mundy against her Douglas Fairbanks photo collection along the wall.

    "I thought this might happen today," he said in his gruff steamroller of a voice. "She's been quiet even in her grief. It was time for a tirade."

    He already had his plump black bag on hand, whisking it open with a pleased smile, as if he had been waiting all morning for this moment. "Let's give you a bit of a sedative, my dear." He pulled out a small, brown vial, unscrewing the dropper inside. "Something to help you sleep for a bit."

    "I don't want a sedative!" screamed Lucy, her arms aching from the stern grips of the Steeles. "I just want to be left alone."

    "It's only a little something."

    "I don't want it!"

    "Now, now, my dear. We'll just give you enough to subdue any other little scenes you might have stored inside you." He came closer, smelling of syrupy medications. "Open up, please."

    "Go on, Lucy," said Mrs. Steele, her voice shaking. "Don't cause us any trouble, darling. You're such a nice girl."

    Dr. Mundy's cold fingers grabbed Lucy's chin. "Open up, dear. Let's put a few drops inside." He pried her jaws apart, his bulbous thumb--which he dug deep inside her cheek--tasting of mothballs. Wet, bitter drops splashed against her stiffened tongue. "Swaaallow, swaaaallow. There we go. And..." upon hearing Lucy's gags... "all done."

    The three of them laid her back, and she noticed that the crowd from downstairs now huddled in her doorway, Mrs. Applebaum firmly in the center, her lips pinched so much that she suddenly looked like a withered old woman.

    "There we go," cooed the doctor, stretching Lucy's left eye apart and peering into her shrinking pupil. "Thherrrre weeee goooo."

    Lucy blinked, trying to chase away the heavy weight of lethargy that sank her limbs deep into the mattress. All in futility.

    "There she goes, the poor dear," she heard Mrs. Steele mutter from what sounded like the far end of an echoing, mile-long tunnel. "Goodnight, Lucy."

    Lucy's lips mouthed the word goodnight, but no sounds actually followed.

    She slipped inside a small black pocket...and was gone.

    Beyond that moment, each one of her senses was entertained by a cinematic display of luminous dreams. Rosaline appeared in the form of Mary Pickford, her long golden curls tickling Lucy's face as they rode side by side in a ruby-red Studebaker. Mrs. Steele transformed herself into an enormous German biplane that cast long, chilling shadows across Lucy's humble white house, periodically firing rounds of rattling bullets into the sagging roof. And Dr. Mundy skipped though downtown Topeka in a sailor's uniform, blaring "Pack up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag" from an obnoxious toy trumpet.

    And, best of all was Papa. There he was, lying in the bed of marigolds again, face down, his gray hair tousled. But, after Lucy called his name--just as she had in real life--he sprang to his feet, gave her a wink, and continued to mow the lawn, saying, "Get your belongings together and move far, far away, Luciana. To hell with the rest of them."

    She threw her arms around his sturdy shoulders and kissed his scratchy, sweaty cheek, not caring that these were merely hallucinations--manufactured dreams administered by a doctor who still enjoyed dispensing opiates. And, when she awoke, she scarcely believed the vivid visions had been triggered by a puddle of potent liquid on her tongue--feeling instead that she had received a message from a realm far beyond her own. She was to leave town.

    Indeed, to hell with the rest of them.

END of excerpt

Lucy Crumb © 2001 by Catherine Karp

"Lucy Crumb" is an excerpt from Catherine Karp's forthcoming novel Voices Airy, which will be available from Coachlight Press in 2002. Catherine's debut novel, Gilded, won the Hollywood Opus Magnum Discovery Award and took a first-place prize in the Authorlink New Author Awards Competition. She runs History & Lovers, a site that promotes "historical love stories that don't fit the historical romance mold."

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