We got the gate open, but the body was still dug in under it. Without words, we each grabbed an end and started shimmying it, me on the outside of the gate, Sonny on the inside. We dragged the body all the way under the gate, seesawing it in places where it got stuck, digging out gravel in other places.
When we finally got it free, that’s when people across the street started screaming.
A guy shouted, “He’s already dead, assholes!”
Some protesters stood there crying, giving their best tears to the camera.
By then all the Woods Edge workers had shown up. They all stood around me and Sonny the way you’d watch someone get unburied.
The body bag was torn open so bad that holes of soot-covered flesh showed. Some of the gravel underneath was wet, but I don’t think the cameras were able to pick that up.
Someone across the street yelled, “Murderers!”
Then, with the mutilated body bag laying in the open air next to the open gate, Sonny, like some ancient gravedigger that knew all the secrets of life, said, “This has to stop.”
All the workers just silently waited for more instructions.
“We’re bringing in the bodies,” Sonny continued. “Don’t worry about exactly where for now. Just bring them inside. We’ll sort out the particulars later.”
“You want me to get the cart?” I asked Sonny. I really wanted to drive the thing.
Sonny flinched. Then, in a daze, he explained that Mr. Slippery Dick had borrowed the keys the last time he was at the cemetery and never gave them back. Sonny said, “We’ll have to use pure manpower for this. Five men on each casket. Two on each side. One in the rear.”
When we started to lift the first casket, reporters rushed at us the same way they run onto a football field at the end of a game. Cameras shook in our faces. Microphones poked at our mouths.
“Is the strike over?”
“Has the union realized what they’ve done?”
“We can see here that the cemetery worker have been ordered to bring in the deceased.”
“Do you care to make a comment?”
“Boys!” Sonny yelled. “We have a job to do.”
But we couldn’t move with all the reporters surrounding us. I swear one guy pushed into me so I’d drop my end.
“Please!” Sonny yelled over the commotion. “Let us do our jobs.”
That sent a wave of barked questions, but it also got the cops thinking that they had to do their jobs. Two cops finally grabbed a barricade and started inching back the crowd. With a little room now, we were able to bring in all the bodies so they weren’t just flopped on the sidewalk.
And so, on the seventh day, the opposite of God, we worked.
––––––
With all the bodies inside the locked gate, and us inside too, we all just stood around seeing who was gonna touch whose dick first. Sonny had a thick manual in his hands that he’d gotten out of the trailer, and, ignoring everyone around him, he turned the pages, looking for some important piece of information that none of us knew about. His phone rang over and over, but he wouldn’t even look at it. As for the workers, we just stood there waiting for him to tell us what to do.
I was the first to talk. The Hole of a Bitch was of course standing right next to me, so, feeling that life was swinging toward a better place, I leaned over and said, “Could we just ignore each other for the rest of our lives?” It was the closest to an apology he was gonna get.
The Bitch looked at me and scrunched his nose like a repulsed rabbit. “Whatever,” he said, and walked away.
Then Mr. Slippery Dick arrived. A town car dropped him off right out front. He got out and slammed the door, his tie dangling between his knees. His blotchy red face didn’t look at anyone as he unlocked the gate with his own key.
Mr. Slippery Dick, our guiding light of a union leader, walked right passed all of us saying, “Sonny! Trailer!”
All the workers stood there whispering about it. Me, I followed. I couldn’t let some guy chew Sonny’s dick without me ready to jump in.
After they walked in the trailer I waited with my ear to the front door, I climbed up on the wooden handrail, leaned over to the window, and watched and listened from there. I saw Mr. Dick grab an empty coffee pot. It felt like one of those mob movies where the bossman pretends like he wants to pour some hot coffee and then bashes someone in the head with it. But Slippery Dick just held it and then put it down. He said, “What the hell is going on?”
Sonny said, “I’ve been doing everything you asked up to this point. But my boys. They’re getting killed out there. We all are.”
Mr. Dick scratched his bald head. “What, by a couple of high heeled journalists? He scratched both sides of his nose, gritted his teeth. “I simply asked you to put up with an inconvenience so that you and your boys could benefit for the rest of your lives. All you had to do was not do anything.”
“I don’t mean to be confrontational when I say this,” Sonny said. “I know your story, and how you rose to the top from nothing. But that’s not what we want. All we want, more than the raise––and I’m not just saying this, I’ve been talking to the workers. All we want is to perform the very important service that we perform. This strike has already opened our eyes to how essential our jobs are. How important we are. And we have you to thank for that. But now it’s time for us to get back to work.”
“I will not lose this,” Mr. Dick said.
Sonny stood there, confusion washed onto his face.
Slippery Dick continued. “Put the caskets back on the sidewalk where they were. Exactly where they were.”
Sonny huffed. “I won’t do that. It’s disrespectful. And it’s antagonizing people who have nothing to do with this.”
At that, Mr. Slippery Dick lost his mind. He went back to the coffee pot, picked it up, slammed it to the ground. The glass container bounced like a spiked football. Then the dude scratched at his blotchy red face, tearing open the skin. He said, “You don’t know half of what this is about. Who’s involved. How big this is!” Mr. Slippery Dick paced back and forth, his own sole, demented picket line. “You’re going to put those caskets back out there.”
Sonny said, “I went over the union handbook last night, and the night before that, and the night before that, and again today, as a matter of fact. It says that during a mandatory stop period, the workers cannot legally dig holes, bury the deceased, operate heavy machinery, or climb ladders. We can, however, perform any other task within reason. I think moving the deceased in order to prevent a microbiological contamination in the air or water supply is within reason, and I’m sure any judge in this city would agree with that.”
Mr. Slippery Dick picked the skin on his head raw. Blood wanted to come out so bad, but it settled for blotching his neck, cheeks, forehead. He took two halted steps toward Sonny. I was kinda torn between watching until something happened and stopping it right then. I kept watching. Mr. Slippery Dick took another step. Then, still scratching, and just as I jumped down from the handrail, he stormed out of the trailer so fast that I had to hurl myself off the platform and roll under the trailer.
Storming through the cemetery, Mr. Dickhead yelled at all the workers. “Get back out there! You’re not getting paid to stand around doing nothing!”
The rest of the day all of the workers dragged their feet on the picket line, never chanting, barely holding up the signs. Even the protesters opposite us took a break telling us they hoped our families would die. It was like everyone had blown their load too early in the day and there was nothing left to do.
Before noon we all took a long lunch break. Inspired by Sonny, inspired by a sort of us against them, I asked if anyone else wanted Chinese before I ordered. No one did, though. They all just ate hotdogs and giant pretzels.
The same delivery guy rode up on his bike, looked for the missing bodies, saw that they were gone, and said, “Hell Department, rye? Inspection, rye? Clean place, no trouble. You good worker.”
I said, “You smell some fry shrimp?”
“I give you mask.” He pulled a surgical mask out of his checkered pants pocket. “Too much meth gas no good.” The Chinese delivery guy lifted the mask to his face and showed me how to wear it. Then he handed it to me.
I put the mask on, opened my styrofoam container, and forked some egg drop soup up to it, jabbing it with the plastic fork, getting some yellow grease on the outside of it. Everyone around laughed like we finally found out how to have a good time. I said, all muted because of the mask, “I can’t eat with this fucking thing.” Talking, my nose got all steamed up. “Can’t even fucking breath.” I ripped it off and the strap snapped.
“Also, good tip, rye? Tip, rye? I bring you food. I bring mask. You good customer. You stay good lung. You stay good customer.”
If I had just kept that mask on, body huffing never would’ve started. Those damn rubber straps. They should make them better.
Chapter Four
None of the bodies we brought into the cemetery ever got buried. At least, they never got buried and stayed buried. They just laid at ground level, browning the grass, mothering flies.
That’s when the vigilante shit started. Since the public couldn’t gawk at dead bodies losing their last liquids on the sidewalk anymore, people began hopping the gate, running through the cemetery, throwing handfuls of dirt on the dead. We saw them the day after bringing in all the bodies.
With people smuggling shovels into the cemetery, all the workers had to make sure vagrants didn’t tear the place up. Even though Sonny had basically told Mr. Slippery to bend his dick into his own ass, it didn’t mean Sonny had quit wanting to have the place run efficiently. If we were a little late for work, he’d let us know. If the guys talked crap about the union, Sonny would say something to get us off the subject. And when those Moes started hopping the gate and stirring up worms in the cemetery that Sonny ran, he tried his best to stop it.
The way Sonny did it, he had us patrolling the grounds in pairs. If we saw someone in the cemetery who wasn’t supposed to be there, we had to alert Sonny so he could notify the authorities. That’s how simple it was supposed to be.
During my turn, I tried to pair up with Armando so he wouldn’t tell anyone if we sat down the whole time and smoked cigarettes.
I said, “Armando, come.” And I waved him toward me so he knew what to do.
He looked up from the curb where he was sitting, and said, “No, jefe. Estoy ocupado.”
So I asked Sonny if I could go alone.
“I don’t like that idea one bit,” Sonny said. Then he called out, “Eric, come here.” He was calling the Bitch over to us.
“I could go alone,” I said, already knowing what the hell was going on.
“No,” Sonny said. “There’s a reason you go in pairs. I don’t need anyone getting hurt. Or lost.”
“Please, Sonny. I’m a big boy.”
“I insist,” Sonny said. He turned to the Bitch. “You think there’ll be any funny business between you two if you patrol together?”
“I’m fine,” the Bitch said.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“Great,” Sonny said. “It’s nice seeing you two settled your little dispute so quickly.”
So me and the Hole rolled our balls at each other and Sonny unlocked the gate and locked it back up behind us, like a demonic game of Seven Minutes in Heaven.
We walked down the main path, him out in front. I walked slow so that maybe the Bitch would decide to leave me.
Eventually, he looked back and said, “I don’t have cooties, you know.”
“No,” I said, “but I do. All the cooties.”
He stopped, and it made me realize how slow I was walking. He said, “Why do you act like that with me?”
“How do I act?” I said.
“Disgusting,” the Hole of a Bitch said. “But with everyone else, I mean, you’re still disgusting with everyone else. But with me it’s––twisted.”
He said that shit without trying to start with me, as if all he wanted to do was figure it out.
Right then we heard people arguing. It turned to a hushed whisper, but pissed off hushed whispers. More like short grunts.
The Hole mouthed, “Oh my god. Oh my god. What do we do?”
We hadn’t even seen anyone yet. They could’ve been some kids licking each other’s tongues. It could’ve been Mr. Slippery Dick having one of his private meetings.
I was all for going the opposite way, but the Bitch started walking toward the sound. The closer we got, the more I could tell they were digging, arguing, crying, and drunk.
After rounding some trees, we saw them, two grown men with their dead father. One man stood in the shallow grave up to his knees. The other took swigs out of a clear bottle.
These weren’t just college kids spiking their adrenal glands by thinking they had principles to defend. These were grown men. They probably owned a deli, family-owned and operated for three generations.
Me and the Hole of a Bitch knelt behind a headstone. The Hole whispered, “Oh. My. God. This is wild. Stay here. Keep an eye on them. I’ll get back-up.”
“We’re not cops asshole,” I said.
But the Whole Bitch ran, all crouched like a drummer boy turned army scout.
I sat there behind the headstone, waiting. All of a sudden I had to piss. Bad.
In between digging chunks out of the ground, Brother One said, “I miss him already, and he’s here in front of us.”
“I told you we should’ve cremated him,” Brother Two said. “He’d always be with us that way.”
“It’s not what he wanted,” Brother One said. “This is where Grandma and Grandpa are. And Uncle Vic and Aunt Molly. It’s where Mom’ll go. Even us, when it’s our time.”
Brother Two said, “Things are different now.”
I don’t know why, maybe because they were so normal, or maybe because they loved their father enough to do something illegal and dangerous for him, or maybe because I had to piss and wanted to get out from behind that headstone, but whatever it was, I got up. To look like what I was about to tell them was no big deal, I lit a cigarette first. Then I said, “You guys should get out of here.”
Both brothers looked up. The one with the bottle put it down behind him, hiding it with his legs, as if that was what the problem was. The other one, the one with the shovel, gripped the handle so that all his arm muscles popped out.
Brother One, the one with the shovel, said, “Who are you?”
“I’m John. I’m a recovering addict. Four months, a week, and a day sober.” I didn’t really know how else to introduce myself.
“You need a drink more than me, then,” Brother Two said. And he grabbed the bottle from behind him and held it out for me.
“Nah,” I said, waving it away. “Drinking makes me sick. That wouldn’t be enough, anyway.” I hate when people don’t understand addicts. How they deliberately tempt them. How they think that any drug is their drug. I said, “What I need is to walk around this place and make sure people aren’t disturbing anything.”
“We’re not disturbing anything,” Brother One said, and he looked at his father laying in the dirt, still wearing the pajamas he died in.
“Yeah,” Brother Two said. “We’re giving our father his last respects. That’s all.”
“You can’t do it here. Why don’t you find some woods or something? Drive upstate. You won’t have any problems.”
Brother One said, “You think you could stop me from respecting my father?”
“I’m not saying that,” I said. I took a long drag of my cigarette. I looked at the head of it, burning bright orange with swirls of gray ash. “I’m just telling you to walk away.”
Brother One power-walked to me with his shovel held like a baseball bat.
“You gotta le
ave,” I said. “Cops are coming.”
Brother Two tried to hold him back, but Brother One rushed in with that shovel. I think I saw him swing at me, but I’m not sure.
When I woke up, I had two horns growing at the top of my forehead. Sonny, the Hole of a Bitch, and a Moe from the picket line were leaning in around me asking what happened.
My head ached a foot outside my skull. I felt nauseous. The clear blue sky spun like ketamine mixed with vodka. And I had enough piss in my pants for a little goldfish to survive.
Sonny asked if I needed an ambulance. I said no, because all the local hospitals have a file on me with directions to not give me painkillers. The hospital also would’ve called my PO to say I’d been there and that I’d gotten beat up. So yeah, I was coherent enough to say no to the hospital.
Sonny said, “Are you okay to get up?”
I had to sleep, I said. I was tired. But they lifted me up, and I stumbled into everyone’s arms. I got up again, and the ground somehow stayed under my feet, though it wobbled.
“I’ll call you a cab then,” Sonny said.
I hadn’t felt that terrible since detox. I just stood there like a living scarecrow, two guys holding me up.
In the cab, I threw up brown sludge, and, to not make a mess of my own insides, I tried to catch it all in my hands, but the liquid parts just leaked through my fingers onto the floor mats.
“You stay home to get drunk next time,” the driver said.
This was the longest I’d been sober in fifteen years, I tried to tell him, but only puke came out.
Climbing the stairs to the apartment, I distinctly thought that the headache made it not worth living, that the present pain was not worth any future pleasure that I probably wouldn’t have anyway. The ache vibrated through my skull with every step. I wanted it to all end. Everything. Parole, periods, cigarettes, food, sex, people, being sober, being bored, being nothing but a pair of feet on a picket line.
Cemetery Strike Page 3