by Brhel, John
He walked through the front gate and up an eastern path. Grey, granite tombstones jutted out of the earth at odd angles in all directions. He passed row after row of graves. A man named Eric Bacon had been buried there in 1896. Some poor sap named Wintermute bit the dust in 1914. Baby Anthony, with his weathered lamb monument, died in 1934.
These were all just names, except for one grave, a relatively new one, located at Plot No. 47.
Her name was Ethel Taylor, but Zeke had always called her Baba. She was the one who watched him when mom was out with Rick or Steve, or Neil—the Wal-Mart cashier who smelled like a walking bottle of Jim Beam. She was the only one there for him at his middle school graduation or the Pinewood Derby or the first show of his punk rock band, Drowning Memories. When Baba had passed away the previous May, Zeke spent a week in his bedroom.
He took a pack of Camels out of the back pocket of his jeans, popped out a cigarette, and lit up. The orange glow of the filter looked like a floating flame in the deep, dark blue of the evening. He wandered through section 4D and looked at the headstones. Many of them were decorated with freshly cut flowers. The yellows and purples and reds of the bouquets stood out against the oh-so serious, gloomy headstones.
These people are worm-food and somebody still cares about them, thought Zeke. I'm alive and don't even get a birthday card. He plucked the cigarette from his mouth and rubbed it out on a nearby headstone.
Zeke took two steps away from his makeshift ashtray when a voice called out, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
He felt a moment’s panic at being discovered. The muscles from his stomach to his neck tightened. To his right, standing next to a mausoleum like a damn boogeyman, was an elderly man in baggy, denim overalls and a long, black overcoat. The old coot was short and stout, with a mouthful of ugly teeth and a headful of matted, white hair. He was covered head to toe in dirt.
"Nothing," said Zeke, sheepishly. He glanced over at the pack of cigarettes, which he had forgotten on top of the headstone. The man drew closer. He held a lantern up to his head, the glow of which cast nasty shadows across his cracked and wrinkled face. He smelled like he regularly bathed in unleaded gasoline.
"Don't lie to me," said the man. He nodded his head toward the cigarette butt lying in front of the headstone. "I'm the caretaker for this here cemetery. And nothing gets past me."
Zeke turned to walk away, but the man grabbed him by the arm. His grip was shockingly strong for a guy Zeke figured was closer to seventy.
"Where do you think you're going?!" hollered the seething senior, his rum-soaked breath warm on Zeke's face.
Zeke panicked and yanked his arm out of the old man’s grasp, then sprinted toward the front gate.
After running fifty or so yards, he looked over his shoulder. He couldn't see the man anymore, but could make out the lantern glow—and it was definitely moving in his direction. He bolted out of the cemetery and headed for home, the thought of Todd's XL belt from earlier that evening still fresh on his mind.
Zeke got out of school the next day and, rather than head for Scoville Trailer Village, walked across town, back to Valleyview. His ass was still sore from Todd's belt and he wasn't up for any more "penance." Some folks might say that hanging out in a cemetery was creepy or weird, but for Zeke it meant peace and quiet. He just had to make sure he didn't run into that cantankerous caretaker.
He had swiped his mom's flask and made short shrift of the remaining Captain Morgan's. After downing half the flask, he chucked it at a hanging basket of flowers and moved onward. There was no sign of the caretaker, so he walked to his grandmother's grave.
Zeke stood in front of her tombstone and smiled. Baba had always been a giving woman. She never failed to bring him a present when she stopped by, despite her meager retirement from Lestershire General. He thought about the time she came over with a big box of his favorite snack: peanut brittle. He had opened it with glee and gave her a big hug in thanks. Later that night he found out Todd had eaten it all. When he complained, Todd simply backhanded him.
The memory sent Zeke into a rage, and he tore through the cemetery, kicking over freshly placed flowers, teddy bears and other knick-knacks left behind on loved ones' graves. He was about to punt a bouquet of flowers clear across section 4D when he heard a strange whistling, then spotted the caretaker heading in his direction.
Zeke quickly ducked behind a nearby grave. He didn't believe in ghosts or ghouls or any horseshit like that, but he was certainly scared of pissed-off drunks. The ground in front of the tombstone was cool and hard against his hands. The earth smelled like a mix of mold and that holy water. The smooth marble of Mr. Edward Burberry's headstone felt cold against his face.
He heard the caretaker's heavy footsteps on the hard, dead grass, just yards away, punctuated by an out-of-place whistling. The caretaker’s tune reminded him of carousel music. As the sounds drew closer, Zeke's heart raced in anticipation of a beating if discovered.
Zeke got on all fours and crawled toward a nearby grave. He had made it five feet or so when he felt the force of a heavy work boot on his back and heard the caretaker's gravelly voice, made hoarse by decades of inhaling dirt: "What did I tell you about messing around in my cemetery?"
He lifted his boot up and Zeke rolled onto his back, a sharp rock digging into his spine. He thought about the corpses rotting away just feet below, and how close he was to joining their ranks.
"I see you’ve been busy," said the caretaker, who stood silhouetted against the moon like a werewolf with a big beer belly. "Now you're going to help me clean it all up or I'll make you sorry you ever stepped foot in here."
The man reached toward a now trembling Zeke. Before he could grab hold of him, Zeke rolled onto his stomach, pushed himself back to his feet and shot off toward the cemetery's front gate.
This time, he didn't bother looking back.
Zeke wasn't a bad kid at heart, but he had a knack for getting into trouble, like a dog has for chasing cars. The same pigheadedness that earned him three straight weeks in detention at Lestershire High led him back to Valleyview a week later for another night of alcohol-fueled revelry.
He climbed on top of altar-tombs and pissed off the side, drunk out of his gourd. He smoked a whole pack of Camels and blessed each headstone in row 120 with a ceremonial cigarette butt. He made Valleyview his own little playground, and he was too hammered to care about any damn caretaker. He waited for the old man to come out and scold him, to grab him and shake him like the little shit-for-brains he was, but there was no sign of him.
The sun dipped below the horizon and the moon took its place, shining down on the headstones and casting rectangles, squares, and cross-shaped shadows on the ground. The trees, black and gnarled, creaked in the breeze. Squirrels scurried to their homes. The moldy stink of the grass and sod was never more pungent.
The whiskey that Zeke had swiped from Todd's pickup was doing its job; Zeke stumbled around the cemetery grounds like a one-legged zombie, falling over stones and walking headfirst into low-hanging branches. The liquor was so potent, in fact, that he didn't see the open grave ten feet in front of him. He just kept moving forward. Five feet. Sluggish and dry-mouthed. Two. One. Too late.
He yowled as he half-fell into the hole. His fingers dug into the coarse, cold dirt. He scrambled for something solid to grab hold of as he slipped in—a rock, a tree root, anything. But the dirt crumbled through his shaking white knuckles like sand. He lost his grip completely and fell to the bottom of the hole, landing on the cold, rocky surface below. He hit the ground awkwardly, his ankle twisting beneath him at an unnatural angle. He screamed as he held his now useless appendage.
Zeke cried out for help, yelling at the top of his lungs for what seemed like hours. No one came. He was seven to eight feet below the ground in the middle of an empty cemetery on a cold, late autumn night. Who the hell would come other than Death himself? he thought. He attempted to stand up, holding onto the freshly dug earthen wall for lev
erage, but his leg was too mangled to hold any of his weight.
The temperature, already a frigid twenty degrees, was falling rapidly. He tucked his arms inside of his flannel shirt and curled up into a ball as flakes of snow began to fall into the dark pit. His teeth chattered like an automatic weapon; meanwhile, his body began gently shaking.
He gradually stopped fighting the cold and drifted into a dreamlike state. He remembered how Baba would hold him and tell him everything would be okay. Even if it wasn't going to be okay, he still felt better. But she couldn’t help him now. She was well below the surface herself, boxed up and rotting away. No one was coming. He doubted his mom would even notice when he wasn’t in his bed in the morning.
Another hour passed. His trembling body, which up to that point felt numb and cold, seemed to warm as he drifted. The snow began to fall harder and a small mound gathered up over his useless leg. I’m going to die here, thought Zeke. That old, crotchety caretaker is going to find my body in the morning and they’ll bury me three days from now. Hell, they might as well just throw the dirt back in this hole and call it a day.
He was about to close his eyes and accept his fate when he heard a faint whistling. It was the caretaker. Zeke was in such bad shape that he contemplated yelling to him for help, but then he recalled their last meeting. He figured he had angered the old man enough that he would either laugh at him and let him learn his lesson the hard way—or worse—he might start shoveling the dirt back into the hole.
Crunching, heavy footsteps approached the grave. Zeke closed his eyes and held his breath as he shook violently in the frostbit cold. When the crunching stopped he opened one eye and slowly looked up. His heart jumped and he nearly fainted when he saw the overwhelming figure of the caretaker in silhouette, leaning over the hole, shovel in hand. He buried his head in his arm to hold back tears, resigned to whatever fate the caretaker deemed suitable.
"Grab my hand, kid!"
He looked up to see the caretaker kneeling at the edge of the grave, holding out his hand. Zeke hesitated, unsure if it was a trick, although ultimately he knew he had no choice, as he could no longer feel his fingertips or the foot attached to his swollen ankle. Not to mention, he still had a strong desire to not die in that hole.
Zeke slowly got up, supporting himself on his good leg. He held his hand out to the man in silhouette. With the strength that could only come from decades of hard labor, the caretaker pulled Zeke out of the hole and onto safe ground.
Zeke lay on the snowy grass, panting as the caretaker loomed over him.
"You could have gotten yourself killed," said the caretaker, who sounded more like a concerned parent than the deranged old man Zeke had thought him to be.
"Thank you...sir," said Zeke, trying to speak between the shivers.
The caretaker shook his head. "See what kind of shit you can get into, foolin’ around in here at night? I don't want to see any more shenanigans from you, you hear?"
Zeke nodded. He was too shaken up to say anything intelligible. The caretaker nodded back and scratched his big belly. "Now let’s get you out of here before you freeze to death."
He lifted Zeke up over his back and carried him to the front gate. A car approached and the old man set Zeke down on the sidewalk beneath the iron arch. Zeke hobbled toward the street and waved both arms at the already slowing vehicle. The driver stopped and got out to help the teen, as it was obvious how bad a shape he was in.
As the car drove away from the cemetery, Zeke looked out the passenger window, intending to wave goodbye to the caretaker. But the man was nowhere to be seen.
Months passed and the perpetual snow melted in Lestershire. Folks traded their blow-up, light-up, officially licensed Christmas decorations for bunnies, chicks, and Easter eggs. Zeke walked back into Valleyview Cemetery for the first time in months, sober and collected for a change.
The sun shined down on the rich, green grass. Blue skies and puffy, white clouds were reflected in the shiny, marble tombstones of sections A through G. Zeke saw an old man mowing the grass and walked toward him, thinking it was the caretaker. He wanted to thank him for saving his life. But when he drew closer, he saw that it wasn't the same man. This fella was taller, more svelte, and he was wearing khakis. Compared to the other caretaker, this guy looked like a damn Gap model.
Seeing Zeke approach, the man let go of the handle on the mower. The engine powered down and the cemetery was suddenly, appropriately, serene.
"Can I help you, young man?" said the stranger.
"Hi. I'm looking for the caretaker." said Zeke. "Have you seen him around? I owe him big time. He kind of saved my life a few months back."
The man gave Zeke a quizzical look. "Are you sure you're not thinking of someone else? I've been the caretaker here for roughly twenty years."
Did I dream all that up? thought Zeke. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "I just figured he was the caretaker. You know, the old guy with the white hair? Wears overalls and whistles old tunes?"
The middle-aged caretaker looked at Zeke like he had just told him he shaved cats for a living.
"That sounds a hell of a lot like Charlie Mathers. But he's been dead for a couple decades now. Gruff guy, but he was good at heart. Funny, that's just what killed him. Died of a heart attack in ‘79. I took over right after."
Zeke felt like his stomach had just floated up and lodged into his throat.
"You must be mistaken," said the man. "I'm the only guy here. I had one fella mowing the lawns, but I caught him sleeping on the job a few weeks ago. Had to fire him." He rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, maybe I'm thinking of somebody else," said Zeke, realizing the strange and mysterious truth of the matter. He started to walk away when the caretaker called out to him.
"Hey, you seem like a decent kid. You looking for a job? The grass is starting to get pretty high here, and I can't keep up with it all by myself. What do you say?"
Blades of grass shot up from the ground as Zeke made his way through section 4D of Valleyview Cemetery with a Husqvarna weed wacker.
He released his finger from the trigger and the machine shut down, the spinning line thwacking against the ground. Baba's grave had never looked so nice. She would be proud of him, as she always had been.
He turned and waved to Charlie, who was busy trimming the hedges in section A5. Charlie waved back and scratched his gut.
Zeke looked around the cemetery. It was a peaceful place. Even the moldy grass was starting to smell sweetly familiar.
A MATTER OF COURSE
My Apple iWatch says I’m on track to set a new PR. Ten minutes. Just through the cemetery, up the road, past the dental office and TV station, and then home. Let’s go, Rick. Don’t drag ass!
Rick Sellers stormed through Valleyview on his evening run. He had all the gear, the right $300 shoes, even a water bottle specifically molded to lock with his hand while he did his roadwork.
Caretaker better not even look my way tonight. I pay more in property taxes than he earns in a year. Idiot. As if I’m disturbing anyone or anything by running through this shithole.
Running through the cemetery was the most convenient path for him to loop back to his house at almost exactly five miles. He ran five miles six days a week. The caretaker had warned him about using the cemetery as his training ground more than once, and each time he had blown the guy off, pretending he couldn’t hear him due to music in his earbuds.
Something caught Rick’s eye and he paused. Huh? I could’ve sworn that angel was facing the other way…
He ran in place for a few seconds studying the large, granite statue, before he made his push up the tougher incline, toward the rear gate.
Crap! That damn angel could’ve cost me. Messed up my rhythm.
He finished his run through the cemetery and tread the winding road that led to his elite hilltop neighborhood.
Days later, while Rick was making the long climb through Valleyview, he came to an abrupt stop in front of the angel monument. The s
ix-foot seraph on the cubic headstone had its arm raised and wings spread—he was certain its wings were flat, and its hands down and palms out the previous night. He walked toward the figure, weaving around various grave markers.
I’m sure this was the one I stopped at. Jason Bartlett 1980-2015. Why does that name sound familiar? Whatever. I’m sure I only noticed it because it’s new and this is an old section I’ve run through a hundred times.
Rick continued on his run and was back home as the sun dipped below a far western hill. He showered, ate, and went to bed early.
The next morning, before work, he logged onto Facebook to kill some time.
Mom sent a message about her and Dad’s next vacation. Should probably call her this year. People are sharing the typical articles, mostly political idiocy, plenty of whining. Yep, Facebook...Wait. What are they going on about? Someone from high school OD’ed? Not very surprising, seems to happen every other year. Huh? Jason Bartlett? He’s friends with my ex? Do I still love him? Oh, Christ, I remember Bartlett now. Tall, goofy kid, definitely not Facebook friends. When did this happen? Read his headstone yesterday. Maybe they buried him last weekend.
His mouth hung open when he realized that Jason Bartlett died the night before. Rick being Rick, he did not dwell on the inconsistency of it for too long, and got to his office early, ready to take on the day.
Not even considering the nature of the previous evening’s turn of events, Rick ran his normal route through Valleyview after work. He thought about the angel as he drew closer to it, although he did not think too hard—that is, until he saw that it now had both arms raised in the air. He ran over to the marker and studied the inscription: Alvin Burnett. Born: 1949. Died: 2015.
He bristled at the name. It belonged to his neighbor, someone he had seen that same morning as he fetched his paper from the front lawn. Rick was startled out of his trance by a loud, gruff voice.