The Angels of Ulysses

March 3, 1973

Every night in the small town of Ulysses, when the wind knifed through the branches, or the darkness shut in like a closed coffin, that’s when you knew the angels were close by. Knew that in a few moments, the shadows would arrive at your door, be invited in, and be directed to be quick. Often, the angels moved from house to house, door to door, speaking to the living about the dead. Sometimes there were six or seven departed souls that needed attending. Even after the sickness came and the death raged, wiping out three-fourths of the living, Calvin and Miss Mary, the angels of Ulysses, kept their hands faithful to the task. Never complaining. Never muttering under their breath. Never once refusing the work God had ordained for them.

It didn’t take long after the outbreak of the virus for the gas, electricity, and water to dry up. Without a steady supply of fuel or food, life became almost unbearable in the hundred-degree Kansas heat. The townsfolk stayed within themselves, for the most part, clinging to the little bit of life they had, preferring closed curtains, and loaded shotguns to the light of a new day. The feeling was that tomorrow could wait because today often had enough trouble of its own. Things got so bad that some people started accusing the angels of taking and devouring the corpses. Angels of death doing the work of the devil, some said. But in time, every family learned that the angels were no respecter of persons. Man, woman, and child made no difference. They were all precious in their sight. Eventually, seeing the gray horse pulling the windshield-less hearse down the street, became a sort of comfort to the town’s soul.

One day, I was feeding Old Bucket when Miss Mary motioned towards me.

“Jimmie, could you come in here, please.” She asked, resting on the half-opened porch door. As I walked in, she invited me to sit at the little kitchen table across from her. She took a cup and saucer and poured, the brown liquid dribbling into the cup. With a smooth motion, she placed it right in front of me. I waited.

“I have coffee if you would prefer it.” She spoke.

“No, ma’am” I stammered. “This is just fine.”

We spent a moment sipping tea until the silence got the best of us.

“Jimmie, how long have you and Mr. Calvin worked together?”

“A long time. ‘Spect it’s been nearly fifteen years or so.”

Another few seconds went by without us saying anything.

“You know, Jimmie.” She started up again, “Chances are, one of us, you, me, or even Calvin are going to catch this disease and die from it. You know that, right? As much as we deal with the dying and all.”

I nodded.

“I’m not afraid to die. Been around death for a long, long time.”

She paused a moment, then continued.

“You see, I’m worried about Calvin. He doesn’t do good by himself. When I am gone, he’s going to need a lot of help just to get through the days. His health is good, but his mind is going to wrestle with it. He’ll act like he’s okay, but don’t let that fool you, Jimmie. He will not be okay. My passing will break his heart. Believe me, I know. Been married to him almost 32 years now.”

She smiled, as she reflected on it. “I need you to promise me something, Jimmie. I’m going to ask you a favor, and I need you to know how important this is to me. Most critical thing I have ever asked of anyone, I suspect.”

The lines on her face turned serious. Her eyes became focused. “You are going to need to take care of him for me. Mostly, I just want him to have someone to be there with him. He’ll need someone to talk to. He will need someone to lean on. Just work by him. Be there with him. Can you do that for me, Jimmie?”

I nodded.

“And I don’t want a word of this mentioned to Calvin, understand? I do not want him to ever catch wind of this. Now, promise me, Jimmie. Promise me you will do this thing for me. Can you do that? For me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered. “Be my honor.”

“Now, there is one more thing. I want you to walk with me.” She got up suddenly. “I want to show you where I want you and Calvin to lay me for my final resting spot.”

So, we got up from the table and walked to the door. She grabbed my arm like a vise as we walked step by step toward a big pine-oak towering over the back of the yard. Her eyes gazed up, admiring the beauty of the tree. “Right under this beautiful tree, where I’ll get plenty of shade. Calvin and I planted this tree the day we got engaged. A symbol of the love we wanted to grow. And look at it now. Strong. Upright. Spreading the shade clear over the yard. It’s perfect, don’t you think?”

I nodded. As we got back to the porch, she turned and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you, Jimmie, thank you for everything.”

A few weeks later, Miss Mary got sick. The doctor came out to check on her, but other than giving her some pain medicine, he said there was nothing more he could do. “Just make her comfortable.” The words passed over his lips.

Miss Mary died three days later.

I found Calvin sitting in an overstuffed chair, the morning she passed. He wasn’t moving, answering my call. Just staring out the large pane window of their living room. I could tell he’d been crying, cheeks red and swollen like they were.

“She’s gone, Jimmie.”

I asked him if he wanted me to go prepare the body for him, but he shook his head.

“I’ll do it.” He whispered. “Thank you. I just need a few minutes.”

I nodded, walked out of the bedroom to give him a final moment with his wife. After a wave of sadness hit me, I got to work. The dirt moved quickly under the shovel. It took me about four hours to fashion the plot. Calvin was watching me from the house, I suspect because just as I was finishing, he appeared. Without a word, he walked over to where I was, and with a motion of his hand, we went to the garage where his woodshop was. He showed me the beautiful casket that he had fashioned. Stained it and everything.

“I made them when the sickness first hit after all the company caskets were used up.” He explained, pointing to a matching one sitting nearby. “I know that you are usually the one who builds them, but this is a project I wanted to do. With so many people dying, I just didn’t think we would be here too long. I wanted to be ready.”

Usually, I was the one to put together a scrap wood box out of whatever materials we could find, sometimes we just buried folks in their death sheets, but Calvin had done something glorious. It was one of the finest pieces of craftsmanship I had ever seen. Every inch of this casket was perfect. The molding that ran down the edges was meticulously formed, and on the lid, two strings of roses intertwined, growing around each other, until they separated on either side of the image of an angel.

We carried the casket to the edge of the gravesite and set it down. Calvin turned and without a word went up to bring down Miss Mary from the bedroom. As we lay her into the coffin, the smell of the stain mixed with the scent of roses and lavender. The whole scene was beautiful as if all heaven had paused to glimpse the spectacle, to pay their final respects to the angel of Ulysses. No words were said. No prayers or platitudes. Even Calvin didn’t say a thing. He just nodded, and I went to nailing the top closed. We lowered her down, and the two of us started scooping the dirt back over the grave. After a while, we finished, and well, that was that.

For the next year or so, we stayed busy, making our way through the streets. But with every passing soul we cared for, Mr. Calvin, seemed reminded even more of how much he missed his Mary. Over time, his heart became sullen and silent. Despite my attempts, it got to the point that barely a word passed between us throughout the day. He would just point in a direction, and I would flick the reins to Old Bucket, and off we would go. It seemed as if the angel who had touched so many had fallen from grace, burying a small piece of himself into every grave. Even as the flurry of deaths began to wane, and the citizens of the town began to sense that the sickness had passed, Mr. Calvin kept his heart shuttered, just like the houses his hearse passed by every day.

Around mid-October when we were near 4th and Cedar, Mrs. MacKenzie waved us down when she saw us coming.

“Mr. Calvin,” she seemed frantic. “You have to go check on them. The Liddell’s. They moved in before the virus hit, sweet family. But something’s wrong. I heard their little one crying the last couple of nights, but I am afraid to go in. I wanted to, but I just thought I shouldn’t with the sickness and all.”

“Where?” Calvin said.

She pointed at a white bungalow behind us and before I knew it, Calvin was dashing towards the house. I had to get Bucket turned around, which wasn’t easy, but after a bit, I managed it. As the horse and I pulled up, Calvin emerged, carrying the little one in his arms. Couldn’t have been more than four or five. Her brown hair curling over her face was kind of raggedy and stuff. Calvin plopped her down in the front seat of the hearse next to me and handed her a can of peaches he’d opened. She started slurping them like she was starving, which I think she might have been. Down they went. Faster than Old Bucket eats his oats after a long day out.

“Her name is Elizabeth Ann,” he told me. He glanced over to the woman. “Does she have any next of kin we should contact to inquire about her?”

Mrs. MacKenzie shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I know that she was adopted by them a couple of years ago. So, I would guess that she’s got nobody. Are they both gone?”

Calvin nodded. He looked at me, “Come on. We got a job to do. Bring two bags.”

As if he had known her forever, Calvin looked down at the child. “Lizzie, I am going inside now. You need to stay right here.” He motioned for Mrs. MacKenzie to mind the child.

As I walked in, I hadn’t been prepared for what I saw. The husband was lying, kind of sprawled out over the kitchen floor in a pool of vomit and blood. The wife was down the hall in the bedroom, half resting on the bed, with her eyes closed, dead from the virus I’m guessing. I unzipped the bag and was about to get the wife secured to the stretcher when Calvin walked in.

“Not today.” Mr. Calvin said sternly. “Today, we are going to let the dead bury the dead. I want you to put on a new pair of gloves and help me grab some clothes for Lizzie.” He walked over to her room, grabbing a few toys and a stuffed bunny sitting near her bed. I walked over, found an empty garbage bag, and started pulling clothes out of a little white dresser.

“Little Lizzie will need a good safe place to stay. I am going to provide this child with a home. I don’t ever want her to experience death again.” Calvin barked from the hall. “Just get the essentials. I’ll take care of everything else.”

Calvin marched out of the home, handing the bunny to Lizzie. Then, I caught a glimpse of him, head to a little shed in the back. He rumbled around a bit, grabbing this can and that, tossing most of them aside. Finally, he found one that had something in it, and he poured the contents over an undershirt he’d tied to an old 2x4. Before I knew what was happening, Calvin had lit the shirt and carrying the can, walked back into the house. He lit the bed in the master, then the curtains, and walking into the living room, doused the remaining gas onto the couch. He tossed the firestick into the corner, and it started to ignite the carpet. As I made my way back into the living room, he grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me toward the door. In a matter of minutes, the whole house was burning, sending a dark shroud of smoke into the sky as high as you could see.

Calvin walked over to where Lizzie was petting Old Bucket on the nose, and we all just stood there, watching the hell house burn to the ground.

“Jimmie, this is the last body I am doing.” He said as he smiled down at Lizzie.

Calvin paused. “What if we decided that instead of burying people as they die, we tried to help them a bit as they live? We could convert the old hardware store across from the home to a sort of community pantry – a general store. Maybe we could stock it with stuff. Clothing. Find some can goods, or medicines, maybe even draw water from the well. Might be a place folks could gather, get out of their houses. I don’t know. I just think that God might be calling me to something else. I have had enough death in my life. I think we all have.”

Soon enough, things changed for us. Every morning, Calvin and Lizzie would show up at the store and we’d get to sweeping. Putting things in order. Once everything was polished up and the windows all cleaned, Calvin brought some stuff from the pantry that he and Miss Mary had kept in their home. He hung a bunch of her clothes on racks, put some of her fake jewelry in a case. In addition, we started stocking shelves with things we found around town. Odds and Ends. Old Bucket and I went around town each day, knocking on doors, asking for donations. Spreading the good news.

It took a while, but soon enough, people began to pull back their shuttered curtains and let the light of a new day filter in. As the store shelves filled, the word about what Calvin and Lizzie were doing got around. At first, just a person every day or so, but then more and more. They might take a bag. They might not. Sometimes they just came to see little Lizzie. She had the kind of perky personality that brought a smile to your face.

Most days, Lizzie would sit there on the counter next to Mr. Calvin. When a customer asked for something, Calvin would ask her to get the lady a can of tomatoes, and off Lizzie would scurry like it was a treasure hunt. Calvin had taught her to read, and for practice, Lizzie would insist on reading the label of each can, just to be sure the customer knew what they were getting. The townsfolk loved it. There wasn’t one of them that didn’t bend down to thank her, smiling the whole time, maybe even giving her a penny or two for being such a darling. More than one person remarked about how Lizzie’s hair was always washed and combed and her dress always tidy. I think that they were surprised that a funeral director could care for the living as well as he did the dead.

One day in the spring, I caught Calvin standing at the grave of his beloved with some flowers in his hand.

“Mary, I miss you.” He began, tears seeping down his cheeks. “Of course, you knew that I wouldn’t be able to deal with losing you. You were my heart. I didn’t even want to take another breath without you. It was so hard. The loneliness.”

Calvin kneeled. “And then you sent me a little angel. Lizzie. Oh, Mary, you would love her. If you were here, you would be spending hours combing her hair, dressing her up properly, showing her what it means to be a beautiful young lady. You’d teach her to learn to cook, and care for folks and be the kind of person you were. She seems just like you in so many ways. She’s the little girl you always wanted us to have.”

Calvin paused to collect his thoughts. “I want you to know that I am doing better, living now, thanks to you. I promise you that I am going to raise her right. She should have the chance to live in a world that is better than the one we experienced. I have so many dreams for her, Mary. So many things that I want to do for her. And she is going to grow, going to spread life to every home in Ulysses. Just like you did when you were here.”

I decided that I was eavesdropping, so I turned, and walked back toward the store.

Shortly after that, Calvin started thinking about growing the town. He went to Ms. Perkins and asked her to convert the little Missionary Baptist church next door to a school. He donated most of the school supplies. I know that he wanted Lizzie to grow in her education more than she had. So, we started ourselves a school, and on the first day of class, Ms. Perkins had ten students.

Roger Dansby stepped forward to reopen the bank on the corner across from the way. Just this week, somebody opened a new smithing shop in the auto garage that old man Parker used to run.

Slowly over the years, the people of Ulysses are learning to fill their hearts with each other. It took a couple of angels to teach us to wait for the joy that comes in the morning. Every day, as the breeze caresses the branches, and the darkness shuts in for only a mere night, these angels of Ulysses move through the town, house to house, door to door, speaking to the living about the living.