Johnny Gruesome

by Gregory Lamberson

  Eric bit his lip. Say something, damn it. “Charlie, Johnny loved you. He may not have shown it much, because—well, because he was Johnny. But he understood how difficult things were for you, and he respected you for holding things together.”

  “For real?”

  “For real.”

  “Thanks, Eric. I needed to hear that. You always were a good friend to Johnny. Who knows? He might have had this funeral a lot sooner if it hadn’t been for you.”

  Eric’s mouth turned as dry as cotton. Carol and Mr. Milton joined them. Thank God.

  “Hello, Eric.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Crane.” He ignored Mr. Milton, who regarded him with a disapproving stare. He had to admit the principal looked formidable dressed in black.

  Carol held out her hand to Charlie. “Carol Crane, Mr. Grissom. I was Johnny’s English teacher.”

  Charlie shook her hand. “Oh, right. Matt’s wife. We’ve spoken on the phone. Johnny liked you a lot.”

  “I’m terribly sorry for your loss. Johnny was a unique boy.”

  “Thank you.”

  Mr. Milton stepped closer, extending the sausage-like fingers on his right hand. “Michael Milton. We’ve spoken on the phone, too—many times.”

  Looking down at the principal’s hand, Charlie shook it without enthusiasm.

  “I’m going to propose to the school board that we give Johnny a memorial plaque in the commons area outside the school lobby.”

  “That would be nice,” Charlie said in a flat tone.

  Eric looked away in disgust just as Gary entered and pocketed his psalm card without looking at it. “Excuse me. Charlie, I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay, Eric.”

  Eric felt guilty leaving Charlie at Mr. Milton’s mercy, but he could no longer stand to be in his principal’s presence. Gary’s chocolate brown suit and scuffed shoes had seen better days.

  “You check out the crate yet?” Gary said, nodding at the Slumber Room.

  “No, and I’m not going to.”

  “Don’t be a schmuck. You have to pay your respects. We don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves, do we?”

  “No one’s going to notice if I don’t look inside the coffin.”

  “Oh, no? Think again. And this time, take a good look at Chief Crane over there.”

  Turning, Eric saw that Matt had joined Carol, Charlie, and Mr. Milton. The police chief glanced in their direction, and Eric’s body stiffened.

  Gary slid one arm around Eric’s shoulders, drawing him toward the Slumber Room. “That’s right. Nice and easy. Nothing to worry about. Hey, why do you think they call it the Slumber Room, anyway? It’s not like anyone in there ever wakes up.”

  Eric stared straight ahead. The casket stood on a pedestal in the viewing room, its lid raised. He recognized the emotion swelling inside him: fear.

  “You ever hear the one about the Jewish undertaker?” Gary said.

  “Shut up.”

  As they closed in on the casket, Eric saw nothing else. Their reflections grew larger on the coffin’s lacquered black surface. Johnny came into view, his arms folded over his chest. His hair had been shaped and styled, and his body appeared thinner in the black suit. The bruise on his throat had been covered with makeup, and his flesh had a waxy look. The expression on his face lacked any trace of personality, and his rosy cheeks and full lips seemed to belong to someone else.

  “That doesn’t even look like him,” Eric said.

  “You have to look presentable before they’ll throw you in the ground and cover you with dirt.”

  “At least the coffin is black. He’d have liked that.”

  “Yeah? The suit is black, too, and he’d have hated that.”

  Eric studied Johnny’s features. “It almost looks like he’s smiling.”

  A deep chuckling sound caused Eric to recoil and step back. He turned to find Lawrence standing with his arms folded behind his back. He had merely cleared his throat.

  “Boys, I wonder if I might ask you for a favor?”

  They exchanged glances.

  “Sure,” Gary said.

  “Are you attending the burial?”

  “Yeah.” Suspicion edged Gary’s voice.

  “I wonder if you’d serve as pallbearers.”

  The hair on the back of Eric’s neck stood on end. Not a chance.

  “Sure thing,” Gary said.

  “Excellent. Those other two boys volunteered, as well.” He gestured at Ron and Tony. “With my son, Willard, only one vacancy needs to be filled.” He wandered off in search of a sixth pallbearer.

  “Are you insane?” Eric said in a hushed tone.

  “We were Johnny’s friends. Do it for him.”

  Eric felt himself flushing with anger. “Whatever you say, Gary.”

  “There’s Karen.”

  Karen entered the parlor with her mother, Shelley Slatter, who had purchased the town diner after working there as a waitress for ten years. Karen’s black dress made her look older than usual, and Eric guessed it belonged to Shelley. She had pulled her hair back, downplaying her usual look. She made eye contact with Eric first, then Gary, and pressed her lips together in a straight line. She and Shelley joined Charlie, who looked pleased to see them. Karen embraced him, and when they separated, she had tears in her eyes.

  Shelley said, “I’m so sorry, Charlie.”

  “Thank you, Shelley.”

  “I have to go to work, but I wanted to at least pay my respects.” She faced the Cranes. “Hi, Matt. Carol.”

  “Shelley,” Matt said.

  Shelley and Carol shook hands, and Mr. Milton introduced himself. Then Shelley and Karen made their way to the Slumber Room. Standing at Johnny’s casket, Karen’s body shook and her mother comforted her.

  Opening the front door, Eric stared out at the falling snow. Large flurries sliced the air at a forty-five-degree angle, much as they had the night of Johnny’s murder. Karen and Gary stepped behind him and Karen touched his arm.

  “Eric, I have to talk to Gary alone for a minute. Do you mind?”

  He did mind. He didn’t like the idea of Karen and Gary discussing matters without him. “Whatever.”

  “Wait here,” Gary said. “I’ll bring the truck around.” He stepped outside, flipping up the collar of his coat, and Karen walked beside him, her long black coat flapping in the wind.

  A few minutes later, Gary’s truck rolled into view, and Eric climbed in beside Karen. She stared straight ahead, avoiding his gaze.

  The funeral procession crept through town, led by Matt’s Pathfinder. The vehicles filed through the Green Forest Cemetery gates, and Eric spotted two workers loitering near a large toolshed, one of them smoking a cigarette. The procession navigated various loops. The bark of the barren trees flanking the road looked black against the snow.

  By the time Matt and the hearse pulled over to the right side of the road, all of the streets surrounding the grounds had vanished behind hills. Willard got out of the hearse, wearing an elegant black coat over his suit. He opened the passenger door for Lawrence, who opened an umbrella and walked to the limousine. Lawrence opened the limo door for Charlie, and held the umbrella over Charlie’s head.

  “What a goon that Willard is,” Gary said inside the truck. “And that geezer looks like he belongs in the back of that hearse, not the front.”

  Eric jumped out of the truck’s cab and landed in snow up to his shins, most of it icy. Karen slid out the driver’s side, so he closed the passenger door and joined her and Gary at the front of the truck. Ron and Tony caught up with them, pensive expressions on their faces, and the four boys approached the hearse, leaving Karen behind. Willard opened the hearse’s hatch, revealing Johnny’s coffin.

  “Is it just the five of us?” Ron said.

  “Naw, you got to have six people,” Tony said. “It’s a rule or something.”

  “Willard here could probably carry that box on his back,” Gary said. “Couldn’t you, Willard?”

&nbs
p; Willard grinned, a dangerous look in his eyes, and Eric halfexpected drool to pour out of his mouth.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Matt said behind them. “I’m your sixth man.”

  Carol and Mr. Milton had joined Charlie and Lawrence. Father Webb stood in the road, a weary look on his face.

  “Cool,” Gary said.

  The coolest, Eric thought.

  Gripping a metal handle, Willard pulled the casket out on a Formica tray with chrome rollers. The pallbearers filed alongside the casket, three on each side. Grabbing the long metal bars on the casket’s sides, they raised it off its tray, backed up, and maneuvered it toward Lawrence. Eric imagined how difficult carrying it would have been without Matt’s assistance.

  Lawrence led the mourners along the road and a winding path layered with fresh snow. The path angled uphill, and midway up the incline Eric slipped and went down on one knee. The casket tipped toward him.

  Thump.

  Eric’s eyes widened as Johnny’s body rolled against the side of the coffin. For a perilous moment, he feared the casket would crush him. Heart pounding, he stood, his face turning red as the other pallbearers and the people in the procession gaped at him.

  “We’re good,” Matt said.

  They continued uphill. The ground leveled off, then dipped again, and they came to a tent erected over a dozen metal folding chairs. The tent overlooked a fresh grave hidden by a lowering device. As the pallbearers circled the device, Eric saw it consisted of four telescopic legs, one on each corner of the grave, with four metal bars connecting them and a green drape hanging from the bars. A matching grass-colored mat stood out against the snow. As they lined up the casket with the edge bars, Eric peeked into the grave. Six feet below, a concrete vault liner awaited its occupant.

  Once they’d lowered the casket onto the device, they joined the other mourners beneath the tent. Eric and Gary sat in the front row with Karen, on Charlie’s right side. Carol, Matt, and Mr. Milton sat on the other side, and Tony and Ron sat behind them. Willard stepped on a pedal, and the coffin descended into the earth. Father Webb stood near the tent’s open flap and opened his Bible. Eric ignored the priest’s lulling voice, his eyes locked on the black casket. Tears trickled down his cheeks, and mucus clogged his nostrils. He wondered how Johnny would have felt about the priest presiding over his burial.

  FUCK YOU, FATHER WEBB!

  Stretching now.

  Snap.

  Crackle.

  Pop.

  Chapter 15

  Many Red Hill residents assumed Ross and Tommy Condon were brothers, not cousins, partly because they looked so similar—short, wavy black hair, reed thin physiques—and partly because one seldom made a public appearance without the other. To make things even more confusing, Ross’s mother had died of cancer and Tommy’s father had suffered a fatal heart attack, so people also mistook their surviving parents as husband and wife, and the families lived in houses on side-by-side lots on the outskirts of town. Ross’s father, Alec, had been the Green Forest Cemetery’s groundskeeper for twenty years, and had employed the young men as gravediggers since their final months of high school three years earlier.

  Desperate to avoid following in his father’s footsteps, Ross attended night classes at Red Hill Community College, but Tommy lacked such ambition. He lived at home with his mother and only needed enough cash for beer and to maintain his Mustang. Grave digging suited him just fine. He especially enjoyed his occupation during the summer, when he sneaked afternoon naps behind a crypt at the cemetery’s northern tip, far from the building where Alec did most of his work.

  The cousins watched the funeral procession drive through the gates. Although they’d been sipping beers for nearly two hours, they maintained respectful, somber expressions as the vehicles passed. After the vehicles pulled over to the side of the road and discharged their occupants, Ross and Tommy watched Willard Lawson pull the casket from the hearse. Then they disappeared into the large garage that housed the cemetery equipment and retrieved two tall cold ones from beneath a workbench. This time of year, they didn’t even bother to fill the chest with ice. They popped the tabs, touched cans, and passed the time getting numb. Outside the garage, an easterly wind drove the falling snow sideways.

  “Shit,” Ross said. “We should just let the snow bury him.”

  “Create a hell of a problem come spring,” Tommy said, grinning.

  After finishing their beers, they pulled on their gloves and stepped out into the storm. Leaning into the howling wind, they circled the small hill leading to the fresh grave, careful not to disturb the mourners. The snow had driven all but the funeral director and four of the bereaved away: an overweight, middle-aged man; two teenage boys; and a pretty girl. The man and one of the boys stood silent at the grave’s edge. The other boy stood a few feet behind them with the girl, hands stuffed in his pockets. The flowers had blown over, and the canvas tent billowed in the wind. The first boy rested a hand on the man’s shoulder, and after a moment all four of them turned and walked away, their faces scrunched up and tilted toward the ground.

  Ross and Tommy waited a few more minutes, giving the mourners time to get over the hill, then made their way to the grave and disassembled the tent. They folded the canvas and laid it in the snow beside the poles, then closed the chairs and piled them on top so the canvas would not blow away. They returned to the garage and climbed into the cab of the Grave Master II, the small, grassgreen dump truck containing the earth that had been removed from the grave earlier. Ross and Tommy had not opened the grave; that chore had fallen to Ricky Mallard, who owned a power shovel with a hydraulic claw-arm. Mallard and his sons opened all of the graves, and Ross and Tommy closed them.

  Ross turned the ignition, and the truck rumbled out of the garage. Snow assailed the windshield, and he activated the wipers. “I can’t wait until I get my degree.”

  “Yeah, what then?” Tommy stared out his window with a fixed grimace. “Maybe you’ll be an engineer in Buffalo instead of a grave digger in Red Hill. Same shit.”

  Ross peered through the windshield. “Uh-uh. Fuck that. I’m going straight to Florida.”

  Tommy laughed. “You think that’s an improvement?”

  “I’ll be away from this snow, won’t I?”

  “Sure, but you’ll have hurricanes instead. Humidity. Alligators. Mutant insects.”

  “At least I’ll be away from all these bodies.”

  “You ever been to Florida? It’s Senior Citizen Central down there. They’re all dead, only they just don’t know it.”

  “As long as I don’t have to bury them, I don’t care.” Ross stopped at the grave. “What the fuck?”

  Tommy followed his cousin’s gaze. Fifty yards away, a solitary figure mounted the hill, dressed in a black suit that rippled in the wind. “Looks like one of those kids.”

  Ross squinted. “He’s not even wearing a coat, the crazy son of a bitch.”

  The man lumbered up the hill with clenched fists and a purposeful stride.

  Tommy beamed. “Maybe he’s a dissatisfied customer looking for a refund.”

  “Fuck you. I hate it when you say things like that.”

  “‘They’re coming to get you, Barbara.’” Tommy loved Night of the Living Dead; he owned it on VHS and DVD.

  “Cut it out, you asshole.” The snowfall reached blizzardlike intensity and swallowed the figure whole, as if it had never been there. Ross twisted the steering wheel, backed the truck up, and stopped. “Get out.”

  Tommy stared at the whiteout beyond the windshield. “Huh?”

  “I can’t see five feet behind me. If you don’t want me to back us right into that grave, get out and give me directions.”

  Sighing, Tommy opened the door and jumped out of the cab. He walked around the truck, then backed up to the lowering device. “Okay,” he shouted.

  Ross backed the truck up until he heard Tommy pounding on its side. He switched off the ignition, got out, and slammed the door shut.
He joined Tommy at the grave. The casket had been lowered, but only halfway, to prevent the mourners from seeing the damage that could occur. Snow already covered its lid. Together, they gathered up the green mat, removed the drape around the metal framework of the lowering device, and laid them next to the canvas and chairs. Ross released the brake handle, and the casket descended the rest of the way. A sudden crash reverberated and rose with the wind as the casket slammed against its concrete liner.

  “Damn,” Ross said. They took turns aligning the edges of the master lowering device with the concrete grave liner.

  “You owe me ten bucks,” Tommy said.

  Crouching, they grabbed opposite ends of the concrete lid, and raised it off the ground. They slid it over the edge of the grave, leaning it against the frozen earth like a door. Ross stepped over the frame, set one hand on the ground, and hopped into the grave. He landed beside the casket, which leaned at an angle inside the liner. Tommy hopped in after him, and they struggled to right the casket so it could descend into the liner. Groaning and red faced, they managed to tilt the casket. The concrete left deep white welts on the casket’s side, a common occurrence.

  Ross grabbed the handle at his end of the casket, and Tommy unbuckled one of the two support belts. Ross released the handle, falling back against the hard dirt wall, and the head of the casket slammed into the base of the liner, pinning the belt. Tommy unbuckled the other end of the belt, allowing it to hang over the edge of the liner. Ross inched his way around the grave. He did not attempt to hold the raised end of the casket in place; once Tommy released the second belt, the force of weight would rip his arms from their sockets. Instead, he aligned the raised end with the liner’s edge. Tommy released the strap, and the remainder of the casket smashed into place with a loud boom. The accumulated snow shook, some of it pouring over the casket’s edges.

  Breathing heavy, Tommy grinned. “That wasn’t … so bad …”

  Ross wiped perspiration from his forehead on the back of his glove. Above them, the wind howled. “That’s because this was a kid, not one of those bloated beer bellies we usually bury.”