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Free Among the Dead

Free Among the Dead

Last updated on: June 4, 2017 at 11:20 pm by Mary Pezzulo

Free Among the Dead 2017-06-04T23:20:23-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

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I walk along the stretch of very old graves, some of them as old as the 1880s. Steubenville must have been a different place, then, just after the industrial revolution. The industry in the Ohio Valley wouldn’t collapse until generations later. At that time, I’ll bet they thought it never would. Perhaps these people died happy, hopeful. They likely died at home. Maybe they died surrounded by children and grandchildren they assumed would lead happy, prosperous lives.

Then again, some of these graves are for infants.

I don’t like to think about that.

I walked through the cemetery, muttering Kyrie eleison and Hospodi pomilui under my breath again and again. Again and again in peace, let us pray to the Lord, Hospodi pomilui. And I was at peace. It is peaceful, in that cemetery, truly peaceful. I stopped to hug my favorite Beech Tree; I pretended it was an icon, and whispered my petitions into its smooth bark. I leaned over the wall of the Old Stone Bridge, wondering at the high level of the creek this rainy spring. I admired that weird place where an ancient holly tree and an ancient dogwood stand with their branches tangled. Someday I’m going to write a story about two faerie creatures who fell in love, embraced one another, embraced for centuries until their bodies became trees, a holly and a dogwood scandalously intertwined. Someday I’ll design a new family crest for Michael and me, and it will involve a holly and a dogwood with entangled branches.

I went to the shopping center. I bought what we needed. Someone had given me a large tip on the blog, so I also bought some embroidery floss for the rushnyk I’m making for our icon corner, and a few boxes of snacks to drop off at the Friendship Room. We never know how we’re going to live from month to month, but on months we have ten dollars for a treat, we spend five on the Friendship Room. Molly helped us when we were in desperation, and still does from time to time. We help her when we get the chance. It makes us feel like family.

Molly is so busy lately, caring for slaves– literal slaves, right here in Steubenville. These are girls and women who were kidnapped or sold to pimps when they were teenagers, forced into heroin addiction and prostitution, and can’t get away. If they go to the police, the police put them in prison and then they have prostitution on their record. Women with prostitution on their record can’t get housing assistance or food stamps, so they end up back on the street in the hands of the pimps. But the Friendship Room takes in everyone; Molly shelters them as best she can and feeds them, and she leaves a cooler filled with sandwiches on the porch for days when she can’t be downtown. I add fruit and packages of peanut butter crackers to the cooler, when I can afford to. At least they’ll suffer a little less, if they have snacks to go with their sandwiches.

That’s all anybody can ever do: help each other suffer less, and pretend to be family.

Kyrie eleison, Hospodi pomilui.

I got out of Kroger just in time to catch the bus. It was crowded. I was relieved to see that the bus was not being driven by Old Scratch, the outspoken racist who likes rape jokes. Today, a new driver had the Saturday bus– a pleasant-looking woman, younger than me. She chatted with the passengers all the way down Sunset and into the pock-marked, snaggle-toothed patchwork that is LaBelle.

The passengers had a lot to say. Both local hospitals, the one in town and the one the next town over, had run out of Narcan, they said. There wasn’t anything to revive people who had overdosed on heroin. One woman had already died.

The bus driver smiled as if she was pleased to hear it. “To me, that’s population control.”

The rain hadn’t started yet, when I got back to my house.

It would be a just punishment, if it never rained on this place again.

Kyrie eleison, Hospodi Pomuloi.

(Image via Pixabay)

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