Holloway - Driving with Dead People

This book presents the story of my journey from childhood to adulthood. All incidents are portrayed to the best of my recollection, although the names of schools and people (with the exception of my first name) have been changed, as have some identifying details and place names. Some individuals are composites.

It changed everything: a school picture printed on the front page of the Elk Grove Courier , the newspaper my father was reading. I was eight. Sitting across the breakfast table from Dad, I pointed. Who is she?

Shes dead.

He kept reading.

What happened? I asked.

No answer.

I leaned forward to get a closer look. She looked like me: same short cropped hair with razor-straight bangs, same heart-shaped face, same wool plaid jumper. I looked at Dad: bloated, smudged glasses slid halfway down his nose. Why wasnt he telling me what happened? He loved talking gore; lived for it; documented it, even.

Dad drove his Ford pickup with his Kodak movie camera sitting shotgun just in case he saw an accident. If he was lucky enough to come upon something, hed jump out and aim his camera at whatever was crumpled, bleeding, or burning. And every Thanksgiving he lined up Mom and the four of us kids on the gold-and-brown-plaid studio couch, hauled out the Bell + Howell reel-to-reel, and rolled his masterpieces.

Images jiggled past, scenes from our tiny Ohio town of Galesburg. Christmas morning, four beautiful children in color-coordinated Santa pajamas, squinting; summertime, my older brother Jamies first home run; a station wagon hideously wrapped around a telephone pole, blood dripping down the passenger door and plop, plop, plopping onto the road; my two older sisters and me in hats with wide ribbons hunting for Easter baskets; a dead cow smashed on the front of a Plymouth. Our childhood was preserved among the big fire at the Catholic church, a Greyhound bus accident on Fort Henry Road, and a tornado twirling up Martha Whitmores bean field. We all sat watching the movies and eating buttered popcorn made in the black-and-white-speckled pan that was always greasy, no matter how many times you scrubbed it. The disasters took up more reels than we did, and Dad narrated them like a pro.

So why was Dad skimping on the details about this dead girl? Maybe it wasnt bloody enough for him.

I couldnt get that school picture out of my head. I needed to know what had happened to that girl. If she was dead, something had killed her, and I wanted a heads up just in case whatever it was might be lurking nearby.

That night I casually swiped the newspaper off the cluttered coffee table and headed down the hallway to find my brother, Jamie. Nothing scared him.

He was sitting on his bedroom floor putting together a plastic model of a 69 Shelby Cobra Mustang.

Can you read this out loud? I held up the paper.

Why cant you read it? he asked, looking up from his project. He had most of the chassis put together.

I can read it, but I want you to. He stared at me. I held up a Milky Way left over from my Easter stash.

I couldnt tell Jamie I didnt want to read the details of that girls death by myself, especially with her staring out at me from the front page. I didnt want him thinking I was chicken.

It has to be right now? he asked.

Mom says I have to go to bed in a minute, I said.

He twisted the lid back onto the blue-and-white tube of Testors glue and wiped his hands on the filthy dishrag he kept in his supplies shoe box.

Lets go, he said. I followed him to the dark landing of our musty basement, where the four of us kids congregated for secret business.

Here, I said, handing him the paper and the candy. I was glad Jamie wasnt too curious. He hardly ever asked questions about anything.

We sat crouched on the landing. I held the silver flashlight with the words Black and Decker printed down the side. Dad owned a hardware store in downtown Elk Grove and earned the flashlight selling ten hammers in two months, but he tossed it to me when the lens cracked. Jamie and I sat facing each other cross-legged with our foreheads touching, staring down at the white circle of light. He began to read: Driver Faces Charges in Bike Rider Death

Bike rider? She was killed on her bike? I craned my neck to see the paper right side up.

Do you want me to read this or not? Jamie tore open the candy bar wrapper.

Go ahead, I said, thinking of my own bike, a gold Schwinn with a leopard-skin banana seat. Id spent hours running it up the wooden ramp Jamie had built beside the alley behind our house. Cars ripped through there without ever slowing down.

Jamie took a bite and began reading again: Mason Countys fourth traffic fatality of the year occurred Tuesday afternoon with the death of Sarah Rebecca Keeler, eight-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Keeler.

Eight years old? I was eight. I grabbed the paper to take another look. She was my age, but I didnt recognize her from school. I felt a pang of disappointment as I handed back the paper.

Jamie continued, Sarah Keeler was a member of St. Mary Catholic Church and was a third-grade pupil at St. Mary School.

Thats why I didnt know her; she was Catholic. Catholics were considered the equivalent of snake handlers in our small Ohio town. I didnt know much about them except that they made Methodists like my parents nervous. This made Sarah more mysterious. Anyone who unnerved my parents was interesting to me.

Sarah was en route on North Highway 26 when struck by a car driven by Nowell Linsley, sixty-one. The report states death was apparently instantaneous, due to a basal skull fracture and a broken neck.

Whats a basal skull fracture? I asked.

I guess her head broke open, Jamie said. He knew death. Hed buried dozens of small animals hed found dead in the field behind our house, or cats and squirrels squashed by cars speeding through town on Highway 64.

I contemplated how hard Id have to be hit by a car to have my head crack open like an egg. My oldest sister, JoAnn, had her head split open on the corner of the coffee table when we were little. Dad deliberately stuck his foot out and tripped her. He thought it was hilarious until bright red blood began trickling down her face.