Gather �round children.

Its time for a Halloween story. 

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Nothing drew me more like a siren than the graveyard.

It seemed to produce one eerie continuous note, a vibratory hum, low and consuming.

I now know that it was the chorus of the dead, wailing away their time.

I had to leave it on his grave, as a tribute.  I never paid my final respects, and this, 3 years later, still haunted me.  He�d been rattling around in my brain, dead, yet alive by concept.

I drove past, and I felt this tugging, a pull on the reins of my soul.  I tooled around to ensure my solitude, then entered the stone carved gates of the cemetery.  With my radio off my company was the gentle hum of my blue 89� mustang.

In the pre-dawn light, column upon column of soldier tombstone stood shoulder to shoulder, granite eyes glaring at me with disturbed petulance, angered at the interruption.  The serenade of the dead, that low note, subsided once I stepped out the door, but never entirely ceased.

My focus shifted entirely to his grave.  Roses of all colors littered the site, as well as impressive geranium displays to either side, fresh tributes on the 3^rd anniversary of his death.  In addition to the flowers, there were a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, a figuring of a devil, smiling, as well as other trinkets.  All had various notes attached.

�I love you, John, and will never forget you.�  Read one.

�Just thinking of you, and missing you.�  Read another, signed by various friends on the various implements.

With the graying of the sky announcing nascent morning, I could see his picture photo engraved on the headstone, and it was true as I wrote in my poem, the one I was to leave on his grave as a tribute.

Every year I come

And you look younger

The way I feel                 

Just won�t heal

Bitterness grown more tart

Each day.

I�d take the pain

And twice again,

To have you back with us

The youth you lost

Is the grief I�ve gained

Gone, but not forgotten.

He did look younger than the year before.  I became even more achingly aware of the youth that had been left this kid, that he�d been robbed of.  It made my heart leaden. 

I laid my white parchment down. 

No sooner had I done this, then the serenade spoke.  In a cacophony of voices spilling into the night, they either lauded my tribute or called me an intruding fool.

�Oh, that�s nice.�  Cried one.

�He left his friend a gift.�  Said another.

Others spoke angrily about the intrusion.  Some moaned and wailed piteously.

One voice pierced the rising tide.  John.  I knew his voice sure as I knew my own.  He had an easily recognizable register, and I heard him now.

�Arg! Arg!� he cried.  Enthusiasm and hope?

Startled and shaken, I fled the crescendo of the serenade of the dead. 

As it peaked the only sound I cared to hear were those of my tires once again eating up the endless miles, restless as the American spirit.