Coming Out of the Coffin

The summer I was fifteen years old I began living alone in the house I grew up in across the street from the park in Franklin. You see, my Dad worked as a dredge boat operator and he had to work where ever Brown and Root had a contract which was in Texas the majority of the time. Well, sometmes my Mom and I would go live with Dad for maybe a year or so then she and I would come back to Franklin to stay for a while. Needless to say I changed schools many times. Well the summer before my junior year in high school Momma decided we were going to Texas to live with Dad again. I told her I was tired of changing schools and that I wanted to stay in Franklin. I'll never forget, it was a beautiful Sunday morning and I had gone to mass. When I returned home there was some money on the kitchen table with a note telling me to use the money to pay the utility bills and buy groceries and that every week she would send me an allowance. The first couple of weeks were a little scarey but after a while I had settled in and from that time all through high school I lived alone. What does all this have to do with a coffin? Well, I'll tell you. When everyone found out that I had no parents at home sometimes some of my friends would ask to stay at my house if they couldn't go home because they had been drinking and didn't want their parents of find out. Well this particular night four of my friends from Hanson High School had gone to a wedding and later showed up at a party at the country club all chakayed (drunk). John Dugas, Gordon Boozer, Lionel Mire and Johnny Schexnayder were in no condition to face their parents that night so Dugas asked if they could stay at my house. It was okay with me but Schexnayder who had already jumped in the swimming pool and fell in a couple of mud puddles was already passed out. So we threw him in the trunk of my car and Dugas, Boozer and Mire followed in their car. When we got to my house we unloaded Schexnayder who was out cold and put him in the back bed room on his back in the bed. Now this back bed room that we had in my house was not like everyones normal bed room. It was a very small bed room, the whole house was about 750 square feet, and in one corner was an alter where my Momma, even though she was living in Texas, practiced hoodoo. Hoodoo not Voodoo, there is a difference. On the alter there were statues and different colored candles and she would cast spells and put or remove gris gris on people. The candles burned for nine days so if she needed another one lit she would call me and tell me which color. Needless to say some of the neighorbors were scared to death of Momma, but honestly I didn't think anything of it, that was just the way it was. Well, Schexnayder is passed out in the back bed, Dugas and Boozer on the living room floor and Mire on the sofa and me, the only sober one in the house, in the front bed room sleeping peacfully. About four o'clock in the morning we were all jolted out of our slumber by the most awful screaming and hollering any of us had every heard coming out of the back bedroom. You could hear the fear quivering in those screams. All four of us arrived at the back bedroom door at the same time and were peering in like a bunch of curious racoons with eyes wide open. Schexnayder was in the bed on his back hollering and screaming and flaying his arms like a mad man. After a few tense moments Dugas got up enough nerve to jump on him and shake him to his senses. Dugas was screaming at him to calm down and tell us what was wrong. With Dugas screaming at Schexnayder, Schexnayder flaying and hollering at the image of candle flames dancing on the ceiling and the three of us thinking Schexnayder was possessed by a spirit, there was quite a rukus going on in that little bed room at four in the morning. When the screaming and hollering stopped, Schexnayder, exhausted and scared, finally calmed down enough to tell us that when he opened his eyes in that small room and saw candle flames dancing on the ceiling and when he lifted his head he saw the statues on that alter in the corner of the room he began screaming and reaching for the sides of the coffin because he thought he was at Iberts Funeral Home and he was coming out of the coffin. I bet it was a long time before he took another drink.