This isn't the type of story I normally write, but it was intended as a birthday present to the most vocal of all Helen Plum haters, Margaret. Even though Helen is the main focus in this, I can't write something that doesn't have Ranger at least mentioned in it, so this is also a Babe story. All familiar characters belong to Janet. Any mistakes are mine.
Helen's Hell
It should have been a dark day in the Burg, with ominous clouds moving in, steady streams of cold drizzle, and howling winds shrieking a protest at what was happening. But instead, the sun is shining, the sky is a beautiful shade of blue, and countless birds are chirping away. But no one is around to hear them except for me. The only thing missing from this idyllic scene are cute little woodland creatures surrounding the area like in Valerie's favorite movie when she was a child ... Snow White.
It's clear that I have been cast in the role of the evil queen this day as I stand near my own grave, looking around in stunned amazement at the empty cemetery. Even my own family refused to come to say goodbye to me after all I've done for them. Frank had moved out months before my death, which caused my drinking to escalate. He was the start of my downward spiral that led to this event. Although event may be the wrong word to use here because that implied that there are people present. And Stephanie certainly didn't help my situation any by moving to Miami with that Manoso man shortly before Frank left me. Even my dear, sweet Valerie refused to speak to me after I let my feelings be known regarding that particular move. I'd told Stephanie to fix what went wrong with Joseph before she ended up pregnant and alone after that hired killer 'Ranger' moved on without her.
It seems so wrong to me that I'm the one standing here, watching myself being buried while every single member of my family was off enjoying their lives without me. Not appearing to care at all that I'm gone. I could see images of each of them, as if looking through a large window, while I also watched out of the corner of my eye the dirt being shoveled on top of me. Even Father Donaldson had gone back to his church after a short and generic sounding prayer, deciding that my soul was too far gone for even him to try to save.
As I was hearing the tiny stones and heavy soil bounce off my bargain basement casket, Stephanie was running along a beach with Ranger chasing her, sand spraying around their bare feet as he swung Stephanie off hers, tumbling her into the water over a thousand miles away from where I stood. Stephanie became pregnant a year after marrying that street thug, and she was starting to show with the grandchild I'll never get to meet.
Frank was at this very moment inside his new apartment that he's now sharing with that harlot from Hamilton Township - without the benefit of marriage mind you - pulling a pot roast out of the oven for a very impressed Kloughn family and my traitor of a mother. The very same Edna Mazur who hadn't wanted me to continue seeing Frank when we had starting dating. My seventy-two-year-old mother - along with everyone else whose opinion actually mattered to the woman formally known as Helen Plum - had turned her back on me in the end, choosing to live in the senior center over sharing a home with me any longer than she had to. I know Stephanie is her favorite granddaughter, but I didn't think she'd have an application filled out the day after Stephanie informed us that she and Ranger were leaving Trenton, and me, behind.
My beautiful home had suffered right along with me. I didn't know the first thing about mowing the lawn or fixing a broken porch railing. Those jobs always fell to Frank to do. And without Frank to handle the outside maintenance, our house had started to look its age, taking on a neglected air like one of those slum buildings on Stark Street. I managed the inside chores with no problem, but with no one around to tell me how delicious my food was or how nice the table looked, I couldn't find a reason to keep up the image of the perfect Burg housewife anymore.
It wasn't long before I couldn't even pay the neighborhood boys to help, because they were all told to keep their distance from me, adding salt to every one of the wounds inflicted on me. Honestly, I have lived in that neighborhood ever since Frank and I got married, and the same people I've known for thirty plus years were spreading horrible rumors about me, making whoever approached me instantly ostracized. The rumors were completely untrue, but no one paid any attention to me or to the facts.
I didn't know what happened to everyone in the last year and a half. It's like I woke up one day in someone else's life, hearing about someone else's family. At the time, I couldn't begin to imagine what kind of life Stephanie could have, flitting around the globe instead of being married to a Morelli - who everyone knows are Burg royalty - and living in Joseph's house two streets over from mine where I could keep an eye on her. But no, she had to dump Joseph Morelli - her soulmate in my opinion - in the middle of Giovichinni's with God and his Grandma Bella looking on.
I could see Joseph, too, sitting inside a dingy little bar right now, slinging back his third whiskey of the night. The fourth straight day in a row at this particular bar. But who could really blame him. Stephanie broke his heart that day. She had also broken mine, too many times to count. I'd probably be occupying the barstool right next to Joseph if I wasn't standing in the middle of this deserted graveyard, the only one willing to bear witness to the end of my life. Leaving Angie Morelli as the last compassion person in that Godforsaken Burg, lighting a candle for me under Bella's disapproving Sicilian eye.
Helen Plum, Queen of the Burg, is now nothing more than a nameless burden the city had to bury. No silk-lined casket for me. No plot near my father's at St. Joseph's cemetery. Not even a granite stone to mark where I'm being laid to rest. No, I'm just another name and date in a sea of unappreciated and forgotten people in the poorer section of the city cemetery.
Not one person was willing to risk the Burg's wrath or walk away from their life long enough to bury me properly. There was no viewing. No wake. And also no show of emotion. That was the final insult. Fine, they could all go to the devil. I'm a good Catholic woman. I went to church every Sunday, I volunteered at the soup kitchen every time I was asked to, and I did my best to counsel every misguided soul who needed it, including my exasperating daughter, Stephanie.
But none of that mattered now. They are all going to have their own personal sins to answer for when they face their own deaths one day. And I know none of them will end up in the place I'm going. One daughter who had a child - by her boss no less - out of wedlock after an extremely messy divorce. A husband who abandoned his wife in her time of need. A mother who never wanted to be one in the first place. And another ungrateful child who moved half a country away without bothering to say goodbye before she packed up her hamster and all her belongings, heading to Florida of all places with her contract killer. No, they will be keeping each other company somewhere far from me, I am sure of it.
They are the ones who are going to pay. While I'm busy enjoying my heavenly reward, they'll be suffering. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. You just wait and see. Even though I heard all the talk circulating the Burg as its residents received the news of my passing - I was called a bitter old shrew, a 'sloppy' or 'disgusting' drunk, and worst of all ... poison to everyone I'm related to - but me and my God know the truth, I thought, as I watched a shadowy figure step out of the trees and move towards me. I was always in the right. I am holy. And I'm going to enjoy watching each and every one of them as they pave their ways to hell without my guidance to save them.
As the faceless angel came closer and wrapped a cold arm around my shoulders, a shiver of apprehension skittered through me. If my heart wasn't already dead - some would say it had died long before I did - it would have stopped beating at the bone-chilling contact. It couldn't be! I don't believe it! I've done everything right! No one heard my mental shrieks, though, as I was dragged forward while the dirt was being tamped down on my new home. I pathetically tried to dig my feet into the suddenly unyielding ground beneath me, but it was no use. This creature wasn't to be stopped, and I knew it wasn't going to release me. Ever.
Before I knew it, I was facing not God, but my own personal demons. I was confronted with my own hell as a voice exactly like my own suddenly filled my mind, screeching things like why me? and what did I do to deserve this? over and over again. I still wasn't clear where I had gone wrong, but judging from the flames, and the unbearable heat surrounding me, I'm going to have plenty of time to figure it out without my family, or the people I've held in high esteem during my Burg reign, praying for me. I closed my eyes against the terrifying sight in front of me. I didn't need a forked-tongued devil to tell me that I was doomed. I am ... completely, irreversibly, and forever.