“John, what did you do?” she said, clutching her chest.
What my father had done was wake up slightly later than my mother, drink his usual cup of coffee, and then unceremoniously dispose of Superfly in the toilet. He took me back to Koolau Pet Store to purchase a healthy white fish of exact Superfly dimensions. This new fish came home and plopped into the blue plastic tank, the sole purpose of its short fish life to give my mother a heart attack.
It worked. We named our new pet Superfly II and my first lesson in death was the possibility of cheating it.
Other than poor Superfly (and Superfly II, shortly thereafter), for most of my childhood I saw death only in cartoons and horror movies. I learned very early in life how to fast-forward videocassette tapes. With that skill I was able to skip the death scene of Bambi’s mother, the even more traumatic death scene of Little Foot’s mother in The Land Before Time, and the “off with her head” scene in Alice in Wonderland. Nothing snuck up on me. I was drunk with power, able to fast-forward through anything.
Then came the day that I lost my control over death. I was eight years old the evening of the Halloween costume contest at Windward Mall, only four blocks from my house. Intending to be a princess, I had found a blue sequined ball gown at a thrift store. When I realized that something as clichéd as “princess” was not going to win me any trophies, I decided, eyes on the prize, go scary or go home.
Out of the dress-up box came a long black wig, a prop I would later use for such vital artistic projects as a cringe-inducing rendition of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” filmed on my family’s 1980s videotape camcorder. On top of the wig sat a broken tiara. The finishing touch was fake blood—a few healthy squirts sealed it. I had transformed into a D.I.Y. dead prom queen.
When my turn came at the costume contest, I limped and shuffled down the atrium runway. The master of ceremonies asked me over the mall loudspeaker who I was supposed to be, and I answered in a zombie monotone, “He llleeefft me. Now he will paaayyy. I am the dead prom queen.” I think it was that voice that won the judges over. My prize money was $75—enough, I calculated, for an obscene amount of Pogs. If you were a third-grader living in Hawai’i in 1993, you structured your whole life around getting enough money for Pogs.
After taking off the sequined gown in a department store bathroom, I changed into a pair of neon-green leggings under a neon pink T-shirt (also very Hawai’i in 1993) and went to the mall’s haunted house with my friends. I wanted to find my father, hoping to charm him into giving me enough money for one of those giant pretzels. Like many malls, this one was two stories, with an open floor plan that allowed people on the higher floor to look down at the action below.
I spotted my father dozing on a bench at the food court. “Dad!” I yelled from the second story, “Pretzel, Dad! Pretzel!”
As I shouted and waved my arms, I saw out of the corner of my eye a little girl climb up to where the escalator met the second-story railing. As I watched, she tipped over the edge and fell thirty feet, landing face-first on a laminate counter with a sickening thud.
“My baby! No, my baby!” shrieked her mother, barreling down the escalator, violently shoving mall patrons aside as the crowd swarmed forward. To this day, I have never heard anything so otherworldly as that woman’s screams.
My knees buckled, and I looked down to where my father had been sitting, but he was gone with the surge of the crowd. Where he had been sitting there was only an empty bench.
That thud—that noise of the girl’s body hitting laminate—would repeat in my mind over and over, dull thud after dull thud. Today, the thuds might be called a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, but back then the noises were just the drumbeat of my childhood.
“Hey, kid, don’t you try and jump down too—just take the escalator, OK?” my dad said, trying to be lighthearted, with the same goofy grin he had used on my mom after the Superfly incident.
I didn’t think it was funny at all. I think my eyes told him nothing was funny anymore.
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory
Caitlin Doughty's books
- Smoketree
- A Firing Offense
- A Killing in China Basin
- A Killing in the Hills
- A Winter Dream
- Adrenaline
- Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can)
- Balancing Act
- Being Henry David
- Binding Agreement
- Blackberry Winter
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Blindside
- Breaking the Rules
- Bring Me Home for Christmas
- Chasing Justice
- Chasing Rainbows A Novel
- Citizen Insane
- Come and Find Me A Novel of Suspense
- Dancing for the Lord The Academy
- Das Spinoza-Problem
- Death in High Places
- Demanding Ransom
- Dogstar Rising
- Domination (A C.H.A.O.S. Novel)
- Dying Echo A Grim Reaper Mystery
- Electing to Murder
- Elimination Night
- Everything Changes
- Extinction Machine
- Falling for Hamlet
- Finding Faith (Angels of Fire)
- Fire Inside A Chaos Novel
- Flying in the Heart of the Lafayette Esc
- Fragile Minds
- Ghosts in the Morning
- Heart Like Mine A Novel
- Helsinki Blood
- Hidden in Paris
- High in Trial
- Hollywood Sinners
- I Think I Love You
- In Broken Places
- In Sickness and in Death
- In the Air (The City Book 1)
- In the Shadow of Sadd
- In the Stillness
- In Your Dreams
- Inferno (Robert Langdon)
- Inhale, Exhale
- Into That Forest
- Invasion Colorado
- Keeping the Castle
- Kind One
- King's Man
- Leaving
- Leaving Everything Most Loved
- Leaving Van Gogh
- Letting Go (Triple Eight Ranch)
- Levitating Las Vegas
- Light in the Shadows
- Lightning Rods
- Lasting Damage
- Learning
- Learning Curves
- Learning to Swim
- Living Dangerously
- Lord Kelvin's Machine
- Lost in Distraction
- Mine Is the Night A Novel
- Montaro Caine A Novel
- Moon Burning
- Nanjing Requiem
- No Strings Attached (Barefoot William Be)
- Not Quite Mine (Not Quite series)
- On Dublin Street
- One Minute to Midnight
- One Tiny Secret
- Playing for Keeps
- Playing Hurt
- Rage Against the Dying
- Raising Wrecker
- Razing Kayne
- Safe in His Arms
- Shadow in Serenity
- Shattered Rose (Winsor Series)
- Shrouded In Silence
- Spin A Novel
- Spy in a Little Black Dress
- Stealing Jake
- Storm Warning
- Stranger in Town
- Strings Attached
- Sunrise Point
- Taking the Highway
- Taming the Wind
- Terminal Island
- Texas Hold 'Em (Smokin' ACES)
- The Awakening Aidan
- The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All