Resurrection Mary

Clothes make the man, and Jerry was a man from head to foot in a new suit and fedora. He examined the shine on his dad's Ford, the shine he had put into the car's finish that very afternoon. Perfect. With one foot on the running board, he stopped to verify the shine on his shoes. Also perfect. How could the ladies resist him?

Traffic was light on Archer Avenue, but not many people ventured out after eight, and not when it was cold and raining. The headlamps of the car swept around the corner and Jerry caught a glimpse of a woman standing at the corner. She was dressed for a night on the town, in a party dress that was too thin for a night like this. On top of that, she didn't have an umbrella or a rain slicker and if she stood out there much longer she'd catch her death of cold. Ever a gentleman, Jerry pulled over to the curb.

He leaned over and pushed at the passenger door, then called out, "Can I give you a lift?"

"Thanks," she said. She couldn't have been out there hitchhiking for long. She sure didn't look like a drowned rat.

"There's a lady dressed for dancing, I says to myself" Jerry said. "I'm on my way to the Liberty Grove ballroom. Say, if you'd do me the honor....name's Jerry, by the way. Jerry Palus."

"Pleased to meet you, Jerry Palus," she said. He detected a touch of an accent, Polack or Bohunk or the like. "Mary Bregovy. I'd love to go with you. I'm crazy for dancing. My parents, they don't think it's so good, that kind of crazy."

Jerry dismissed all the world's parents with a wave of his hand. "What do they know about being young? All the time, it's the Depression this, the Depression that. You gotta get out and live a little, you know?"

"Yes, exactly, Jerry. Live a little."

By way of conversation, he told her a bit about himself, about his brother who had just landed a job driving a garbage wagon for the city. Mary was a good listener, practically hanging on his every word. Easy to talk to, and even easier to look at. Jerry's pals wouldn't believe it, that he had the prettiest girl from Archer Avenue hanging on his arm. Nice legs, too, a dancer's legs.

Twirling around the floor while the band played, they cut a fine figure, or at least Jerry believed they did. Shoot, the way other guys gave him the eye, every one of them green with envy -- maybe it was meant to be, that he happened to see Mary on the side of the road, looking for a lift. She couldn't get enough dances, on her feet every time, and never once letting some lug cut in.

"Jerry, I have to go home now," she said after they'd practically worn out the soles of their shoes. "Can you take me home, please?"

It was early, but Jerry guessed that Mary had snuck out of the house, to go out on the town when her parents wanted her home, locked up in her room until she suffocated from boredom. He slipped his coat over her shoulders; the poor kid was shivering it was so cold. He drove back the way he had come, yakking up a storm, hoping that he could work up the courage to ask her out before he dropped her at her front door.

A cat ran across the road and Jerry slowed down to let it pass. "I can't go any further with you, Jerry," she said, out of the blue.

Before he could so much as turn his head, Mary was gone, the door of the car left hanging open to the cold wind that whipped dead leaves into swirling eddies in the gutter. This was no place for a girl to be out alone, not at this hour, with the streets deserted. Jerry pulled his car over, jumped out, and caught a whiff of the flowery perfume that Mary wore.

He followed the scent like a bloodhound, tracking her across the street and into the cemetery. Probably taking a short cut home, going in off the alley most likely, to slip into the house unnoticed. "Mary, I'll walk you part way," he called out to the wind that threw a cold mist into his face. And he needed his suit jacket back; she'd high-tailed it out of the car with the coat still on her back and he couldn't afford to buy a new one.

The sweet aroma of roses faded and he retraced his steps, back to where the smell was still strong. Jerry stumbled on a pile of rags laying on the ground. He stooped to lift it off his shoes, only to come up with his suit coat, not dropped but folded and left there. Jerry looked up, at the stone marker of the grave where his coat had been left. "Mary Bregovy," was carved in the slab of granite. "Died October 24, 1934."

Jerry ran until his lungs ached, ran until he could jump into his car and fling the coat into the back seat. Accelerator to the floor, he flew down Archer, flew from Resurrection Cemetery. Two years ago. She died two years ago.