Shovel Ready: A Novel

by Adam Sternbergh

  That daily miracle.

  The once-mighty skyline cast in shadow as a consequence.

  36.

  All the cemeteries have long since filled up.

  No one gets to be buried anymore.

  Government mandate. Last thing we all have in common.

  Rich, poor, sleeper, servant, preacher, heretic. Everyone goes in the fire.

  Except Harrow.

  I’d wanted to take Harrow’s body along with the others to the incinerator but Persephone wouldn’t allow it.

  Turns out Harrow has a family plot in a churchyard in Vermont.

  Bought a generation ago, next to nine dead generations before that, long before the Harrow clan pulled up the stakes of their revival tents and headed south to build a crystal church.

  Burial plot. The last luxury item on Earth.

  The plot of ground he’d bought by plundering people’s souls.

  Persephone insisted.

  Can’t say I understood but it wasn’t mine to understand.

  So we rented a U-Haul van, backed it up to the bank steps, and packed Harrow’s long body in a cardboard box. The kind that cheap beds come in. Body-length. Rick had a million of those lying around.

  Still, Harrow was tall. His shoes stuck out the end.

  We slid him in, closed the van doors, and drove all night to Vermont.

  Me, her, Mark.

  Her in the back with the box.

  Moonlit night. Vermont churchyard.

  Once you get out of the city, you can see so many stars.

  Nine generations of Harrows lay side by side, under stone markers.

  Number Ten in a cardboard box.

  Number Eleven stood by the graveside, weeping.

  Number Twelve asleep in her womb.

  We didn’t bother with paperwork. Just showed up with a shovel and a body.

  Work in the light of the highbeams.

  I dig the hole.

  Spadework.

  Mark says a prayer.

  I wish I could recount it, but I don’t remember it exactly.

  Something about our souls, in this world and the next.

  Then we lift the box together.

  Aim for the fresh scar we’d just cut in the earth.

  Harrow always said that he hoped to build a heaven.

  We send him six feet in the opposite direction.

  Acknowledgments

  Gratitude: To my agent, David McCormick. To my editor, Zachary Wagman, who indirectly inspired the writing of this novel and who, many years later, directly (and expertly) guided it to completion. To Molly Stern and the staff at Crown. To my early reader and hardboiled advisor, Howard Akler. To Jonathan Bernstein, Chilly Gonzales, David Haydn-Jones, Janet Murphy, Derek McCormack, Jason McBride, Susan Kernohan, David Marchese, Benjamin Stark, and Jonathan Weiss for support and inspiration in all of its guises. To my parents, especially. And to Julia: my first reader, thoughtful editor, biggest advocate, best audience, and truest friend. You’ve kept all those promises, and then some.