Chapter 16
Curtis: Spirit in the Sky
Curtis is all too happy to take on the role of demented demon. All the rot festering inside him since Sharon left has made itself comfortable, settling peacefully amid the angst, the anger, and the torment in his soul. If this was a musical, Curtis would throw on one of Stu’s records – perhaps the one where Billy Joe jumps off the bridge – grab Evil Maurice’s hand and dance a choreographed routine while green smoke and bile pour out of the demonic duo.
Curtis Freeman was not always a bad man. Once, not too long ago, he was happy and in love and would never think of letting a monstrous incarnation of a town leader talk him into tormenting people at the Winter Festival. It wasn’t until Sharon Weiss practically left him at the altar when he started turning. First, he started balding. Shortly after that Curtis’s shoulders began to hunch and his brows began to furrow. He took on an ugliness that was more than physical. His neighbors gave him a wide berth. The gas station attendants and waitresses and even the paperboy all shied away from him as if it were fourth grade and Mary Smalls announced to everyone that Curtis Freeman had cooties.
But there was no cootie shot for smoldering rage.
What happened was this: Sharon left Curtis a note on a Sunday morning - their wedding day - in the form of a bright orange post-it slapped on their coffee machine. The message was written in Sharon’s flourished, fancy handwriting, all those curls and squiggles squeezed onto a 3X3 sheet of sticky paper.
Dear Curtis,
I am sorry to break your heart like this.
I am leaving town.
For good.
I love you still.
But not in that way.
Anymore.
Sorry,
Sharon
So Curtis did what he thought any man in that situation would do: He plotted to kill her.
Even though Curtis was vengeful, angry and full of a sour adrenaline that wouldn’t let the bad thoughts stop, he knew he could never pull off murdering his ex-fiancé. Instead, he fantasized.
Every night without fail, as he lay in the dark in the bed he should be sharing with his wife, he played out this fantasy version of that day in his mind:
He’d read the note then use logic and reasoning to deduce where Sharon was headed. He would track her down, corner her at a rest stop on Route 17 and kill her with a brick to the head. He would then drive to Roscoe, NY - the Trout Fish capital of the world - with the body of his dead ex-fiancé in the trunk of his car, slightly bludgeoned and definitely bloody. He would stop at a deserted resort area, taking a few minutes to wax nostalgic about his childhood. He’d think of all the summers they spent driving up to Roscoe, four kids and two let’s-pretend-to-be-happy grownups stuffed into a sedan, every turn on the slithering road throwing blankets and pillows and board games across the back seat, his sisters and brother piling on each other, squealing in fake pain. They would pass this place with its rows of white cottages and southern-style porches; the vacationers - most dressed in white and navy blue - swimming, boating, laughing, trout fishing, giving the resort a vibrant, idyllic feel.
Whatever it was then, it was no more. With the empty parking lot and bare sign and a lakefront that looked like a ghost town, it just seemed, much like Curtis Freeman, sad and forlorn.
Curtis would then pull up in front of a shuttered cottage, drag Sharon’s body out of the trunk and toss her into the man-made lake. He’d sit on the porch for a few minutes, remembering the ladies with their sun umbrellas and the little girls and boys in tennis clothes. He’d smoke a cigarette, flick the butt into the lake that contained the stinking body of his one true love, and drive back to Green Valley, singing along to Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” on repeat the whole way.
As always, he falls asleep before he finishes thinking out his fantasy and he dreams, the same dream he has every single night since Sharon left:
He dreams of his wedding that never was. Sharon is radiant in her wedding gown as she twirls her way onto the dance floor. As she gets nearer, Curtis sees that there are lily pads and fishing line stuck to the hem of her gown. The lace drips with dirty lake water and Sharon’s feet squish as she walks, leaving a trail of muddy footsteps. She sits down in a chair in the middle of the dance floor, ready for the part where the best man - Curtis’s brother Henry - removes the garter from Sharon’s tanned, smooth leg and tosses it to a lucky man in the crowd that has gathered around them. As Curtis lifts Sharon’s dress, a trout slithers out from the garter. Henry grabs the trout and throws it backward over his head. Stu McLundy is there, hands stretched out. The trout lands in his arms and he cradles it like a baby. Sharon gets up to dance with Stu. She whispers in his ear, a whisper that Curtis, being the dreamer, can hear:
Listen to my heart pound
Listen to my love sound
Curtis always wakes at that point of the dream feeling unfulfilled.
That lack of fulfillment is what leads Curtis to be in a place where he would accept an offer from an evil version of Maurice Fetterling to help kill Sharon Weiss. Curtis is having a hard time thinking right now, what with the darkness filling up his body, mind and soul, but he is able to form one coherent thought: Now. Now. Now I can kill her.
A woman’s shadow appears on the wall, not the shadow of Curtis or Maurice but a shadow that lives on its own, a shadow of a broad shouldered woman, a shadow that is impossibly white, almost made of light. Even with the transformation Curtis is making, he knows this is absurd. He glances at Maurice, who does not seem surprised by the shadow. In fact, he seems happy to see it. The shadow spins what appears to be a cane, tosses it in the air and catches it. Curtis hears a whispered “Ta da!” and without even thinking about it, applauds. The shadow bows. Maurice tilts his head back and laughs, a laugh that on any other day would frighten Curtis. Instead, he laughs along with him. The shadow makes its way along the wall until it is next to Curtis.
“Curtis,” it says, all whispery and hoarse, and Curtis wonders if the shadow is mimicking Maurice or if it’s the other way around. “My dear Curtis. Let us go enjoy the Winter Festival.” The last shred of the Curtis Freeman who just hours ago was sitting at his kitchen table crying over Sharon curls up and dies. He walked in to the WTCP studio an enraged man, but still a man. He is walking out a demon, very contentedly so.