I abandon the lawn mower. I try to keep my cool. I tell myself that Mr. Melvin has lightened already and won’t even know. I tell myself that he wouldn’t care if he did. He’d laugh at the meanness of living children. He wouldn’t care, and I shouldn’t, either.
I tell myself that one of them could be Lucy, that all of them are probably her cousins or nieces.
The smallest one looks back. She sees me cutting across the grass and jerks her head around, leaving her yellow ponytail swinging.
Then the bigger one turns around, her thick legs spread. She puts her hands on her hips and stares at me from behind large round glasses and orange makeup that only accentuates her pimples. Already she stands too tall. I look at her and know she wishes she looked more like her friends, who will soon have waists and boyfriends, whose eyes aren’t lost in the fatness of their cheeks.
“You got something to say to me?” she says hard, almost in a holler, her fists clenched.
“Yeah,” I reply. “What are you doing in here?”
I think, She might hit me. I think, Remember Lucy. Remember being a teenager. Remember how lonely.
“I’ve come to pay my respects to the dead,” she mocks, and she whispers something else under her breath. The other girls, still playing tough, laugh too high. But their laughs cut off to silence and betray them.
“Looks to me like you trying to whore for the dead, prancing around here with your ass hanging out like that,” I tell her. “Is this how you pay your respects?” I hold up her cigarette butt.
She doesn’t say a word
“Let me tell you about this man,” I say. “You see this stone? This one here with the black spot of your respect on top? This man right here, he’s the father of Ms. Bertie Waldrop, the principal at the junior high. What school did you say you go to?”
The big girl gets round in the eyes, the other two giggling without sound. The big one turns and heads down a path of bricks I layed myself. The hill is steep, and after rains, the mud’s slick. But the bricks help you keep your balance. The girls still stumble, slowed down by the incline. The little ones keep peeking back to see where I am.
But they’re too cool to run, which is what I do. I skip ahead of them and cut them off at the bottom of the hill, at a gravestone topped by an angel. The angel stands eight feet high, I reckon, and she’s dark from weather, and she’s half-concealed by the branches of a crepe myrtle tree I planted myself, years and years back. I was probably still in my twenties.
I cut them off, and I point to the angel, sepia-dusty and shrouded in pink flowers from the tree, and I say, “See here? This angel watches over the place. This angel’s the one who told me you were misbehaving and where to find you.”
The girls look up and then down and then at each other, rolling their eyes.
“You crazy,” the chunky one says. “We see you talking to these dead people like they can hear you.”
“Oh, they can,” I say. And I’m not mad anymore. In fact, I’m enjoying myself. I lead them down the road a bit, toward my house, then toward the gate.
“They ought to put you in the crazy house,” one child tells me. “I’m gonna call the crazy house when I get home and tell ’em to come pick you up.”
And the others laugh like it’s funny.
“You see this grave here?” I say. “This one belongs to Jed Larrimore. Now, he wasn’t much older than you when he crashed his car over on Bottle Branch Road. Did you know Jed? He never got to play in a single football game. Did you know he would’ve been on the team when school starts this year? Did you say you knew Jed?”
No answer.
“His friends bring him these little flags and stick ’em on his grave,” and I pull them up and show them. “This flag’s the U.S. flag, of course. And this one’s for the U.S. Navy, because Jed had dreams of commanding a whole fleet. Course, he never made it to the navy. It’s nice of his friends to bring him the flags, don’t you think?”
They’ve increased their walk to a trot, but I’m quicker. I stay ahead of them and point out things all the way to the exit.
“You taken history classes yet? Here’s a history lesson for you. Engraving methods have changed in lots of ways throughout the years. But if you’ll look right there, you can see that on a real old stone, the engraver left the letters and chipped the stone away, so that the words poke out. But on newer stones, the words are actually engraved into the marker.
“When you get buried, you’ll probably have your names carved into the stone. You ever thought about what you want on your stone?”
They keep moving, expressionless.
“Well, have you? ’cause if you’ve got a favorite Bible verse, you can get that put on it.”
“We ain’t religious,” a child declares.
“That’s all right. There’s plenty of nonreligious folks out here. In fact, there are some grave markers in the shapes of trees and scrolls and even obelisks. Now this one here—this is Miss Sadie Witherspoon. She was religious. She spent twenty years as a missionary to Kenya, doing her best to help others. I wish you could’ve met her. I heard her tell one time about seeing a wild elephant pick up a man in his trunk and bash him into a tree. She always regretted that she couldn’t help him.” My voice has lifted to almost a song, loud and clear and proud to know these people. I could tell these girls stories all day long.
The children have quit trying to run off and now keep their pace with mine.
“And this one belongs to a baby who died at birth. Isabel Jenkins would’ve been her name. Don’t you just love the little ones? I love the stones with little lambs or angels. Here’s another one,” and I point. “Roland Ashworthe Jenkins. Two dead babies in one family. I can’t imagine naming a baby Roland, can you?”
They don’t answer me.
“See here,” I say, “if you could be buried anywhere on these premises, where would you want your stone to be?”
Then I just stop and stare at them. And when the silence goes on too long, I leave it.
“Why are you doing this?” one of the girls asks, and her voice is way too loud, and she begins to cry, ducking behind a tree to hide her face.
“Look,” the big one says, now tough again. “You made her upset.”
“I just thought if you wanted to pay your respects, you ought to understand why these people deserve it. They deserve respect, you know? And one day when you’re buried here, you’re gonna hope some little tramp don’t come along and put out her cigarette on your tombstone.”
“We can walk in here if we want to,” the middle-sized one shouts, and she’s just a brat, a regular brat, not impenetrable as she was pretending to be.
“You’re welcome in here,” I tell them. “It’s a good place to come to quiet your mind. But I expect you to behave yourselves. Okay?”
They just stand there.
“Okay?”
And they nod.
“Next time you come, you find me. I’ll show you some things you ain’t seen before.”
I usher them out, laughing to myself. Behind me, I hear one of them holler, “Uhg-leeee,” fierce again, now that she’s got her distance. It doesn’t bother me. I know that their mouths say things their hearts don’t mean.
The Mediator is practicing ballet on the lawn mower as she waits for me, the grass heavy all around.
“You did that very well,” she says, stretching her leg on the crossbar of the handle.
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t realize you were so good with children.”
“I’m not.”
“Sure you are,” and she twirls on her toes on the red metal edge, takes a bow, and hops down.
I clap for her, and she turns and begins clapping for me. All around, I hear clapping, from the Dead, and in the distance, Lucy’s piercing whistle.
“Bravo,” the Mediator says. “You’re coming right along.”
I’m not sure what she means by that, and I’m a little embarrassed to have been watched. Sadie Witherspoon
comes up and congratulates me, too, but she’s very light and can’t make herself apparent for long. Which is a good thing. I hurriedly pull at the cord to crank the machine back up.
I mow the back side of the hill, up to the top. William Blott sits beneath a tree and points out things in the ground to Marcus Livingston. I’m glad he’s lightened enough to move around the area. It’s a good sign for him. Soon he’ll be going everywhere.
William waves to me awkwardly, like he’s not sure I can see him on a regular afternoon, but he smiles when I wave back. Then Marcus waves, his hand turned out this time, instead of in.
Later, while they’re napping, I take a lily and plant it at William’s tomb. A peace offering, though he doesn’t know there was ever anything wrong.
PERPETUAL CARE ISN’T cheap. There’s money needed for gas and upkeep of the mowers. It costs to keep the roads safe, and every spring I have to fill in potholes where water froze in cracks and exploded the pavement. There’s the cost of maintaining a secure fence, and the price of proper drainage. And though I make my money from the funeral home, which pays to bury the bodies on this land, each year I send out collection envelopes to the families of the people residing here.
I type up a letter and copy it at the post office, inviting living family members to come and enjoy the tranquillity. I mention that there are four benches positioned beneath shade trees, that there’s a view of the river and a view of the church and of the whole neighborhood from the top of the hill. I remind them that the hours are from eight to six, and I ask them for twenty dollars to pay for the upkeep of their relative—more if they have it, less if they don’t.
I get pretty good results. There’s a lot of people who appreciate knowing that their loved ones are being watched over. You won’t find year-old plastic flowers faded by the sun. You won’t find old poinsettias left to brown and wilt. You won’t find footstones hidden beneath weeds or whole plots gone to ruin. Not here. Not while I’m in charge.
For a nominal fee, the families can request special services. For twenty dollars, wildflowers planted over their loved ones’ plots. For fifty, a fruit tree. For two hundred, a whole backdrop of shrubs. But most of the families don’t go this far. They know if they wait long enough, there’s a good chance I’ll plant a seed for their relative for free.
To the families who’ve lost relatives in the past ten years, I write notes. “Best wishes to your family,” and “May your grief become more bearable with each passing year.” Back and forth between those two, a personal touch, though impersonal—a trick I learned from Papa.
“You’ve got to treat ’em like they’re somebody,” he said. “ ’cause they are somebody—even if you don’t know ’em from Adam.”
“It’s a lot of work,” I told him. He was in a wheelchair by then, and I was running the cemetery by myself. He was simply overseeing at that time.
“But it’s work worth doing,” he insisted.
So I wrote the notes as he studied my hand. “Best wishes to your family,” and I signed them, “Finch Nobles.”
“You got to write so they can read it,” Papa used to fuss.
“I can’t help it,” I argued. “That’s how I write.”
“Well, I don’t care if you have to print, you write it so they can read it,” and he’d add, “This is a business. You do what you have to.”
I stuff each envelope, lick it, and put it in a pile. A cat I’ve never seen before keeps guard over the stack. Another cat sits on the stamps and whines when I move him.
I address each envelope carefully, with ink that doesn’t run. The one to Lois Armour on Glass Street holds my attention for a long time. I pull it out of the stack.
“Should I do it or not?” I ask the cat. But the cat ignores me. I rip the envelope in two, take up another copy of the letter, and begin again: “May your grief become more bearable with each passing year. May you come to admit that your daughter killed herself, and may you stop pestering the police about arresting black boys who had nothing to do with her death. Best wishes to your family.”
It looks good to me when I read it. At Lucy’s request, I add, “Come soon for a visit,” and then I sign, “The Management,” to comply with the restraining order. I mail it out along with all the others.
I’M CANNING WHEN the phone rings, and I almost don’t answer it because I’m bogged to my elbows in stewed tomatoes. The only people who ever call of an evening are boys in faraway states trying to give me a credit card. But sometimes it’s nice to hear about the weather in Idaho.
“Hello?”
“Finch? Leonard. Turn on the news,” and the line clicks.
I wipe my hands on an old dishrag and pull out the button to start the TV. It takes a long time to get past the static, and though there’s no picture yet, I can hear the anchor say, “Coming up next—the woman we’ve come to know as the Good Samaritan—disillusioned.”
“And,” the other anchor adds, “ways to get rid of those old tires you’ve been saving in your garage. All this and more when we come back.”
I wrestle with the rabbit ears all through the commercials until I can make out the picture, and by the time I get tinfoil wrapped around the tips, I see words flash across the screen: “Kindness—At What Price?”
They review the story of Reba Baker and William Blott, even replaying bits of footage from the earlier taping. Then the camera pans a wooded area that looks more like a junkyard than anybody’s home. All around, pop-up campers and shells from pickup trucks and even a couple of little pull campers are sprinkled and wedged between trees and scrub. There’s a stove and an old sewing machine with colorful fabric draped across, a line hanging from the trees, and fancy costumes pinned up.
Then the camera turns to Reba, who is scratching her arm. She notices the microphone and begins to speak, the tears already falling: “We were given all William Blott’s belongings by his son after he died, and we were planning on using them for the youth of the church. We were led to believe that we could turn his house into a club for our boys and girls, and this is what we find.”
She spreads her arms around.
“Trash and sinfulness everywhere. He was the one who’d been stealing our underclothes off the lines, and there’s a whole trailer full of ladies’ things right there.” She points to a pop-up camper.
“And there are perverted sexual magazines and objects so vile that I cannot say them on the television; I would not have those nasty words in my mouth.”
The reporter tries to calm her, saying, “Ms. Baker, is there any chance that you’ll be able to salvage or sell any of his things? There do appear to be valuables on this propery. The antique vanity, for instance. Or the musical instruments?”
“I would not touch his filthy belongings. Our church will not be tainted by his sinful, lustful ways. Do you see that commode?” and she points to it, sitting between two pines. “He’d been using it out here, not even connected to a septic tank!” And she begins to cry again, scratching at the skin above her eye. “When the Lord is ready for us to have a clubhouse for the children, he’ll send us one. The Lord would not insult us this way.” And Reba buries her face into the crook of her arm. That’s where the tape ends.
“As you can see, Blott’s legacy is not what it appeared,” the reporter says to the anchors. “I’ve talked with lots of the other members of the Sunday school class, Curtis and Lynda, and they echo Ms. Baker’s sentiments exactly.”
“Did you get any comment from Mr. Blott’s son, who gave Ms. Baker this property?”
“We tried to speak with him today, but he had no comment. It’s worth mentioning that he’d had no contact with his father since infancy.”
“It’s certainly heart-wrenching to see someone like Ms. Baker, who does so much for her community, so broken by these circumstances,” one of the anchors says.
“You have to wonder if she’s not overreacting a bit,” the other anchor adds.
“She did say that she’d do it all over again,” th
e reporter tells them. “And the adult women’s Sunday school class at China Street Baptist Church out in Tredegar County will begin a new Good Samaritan project in the near future. But Ms. Baker’s plans for this land and for Blott’s belongings are, and I quote, ‘to set a fire so hot, it scorches the evilness out of the air.’ ”
I click off the TV and try to call Leonard back. But I don’t have his number. The operator gives it to me, and he answers on the second ring.
“Meet me at Blott’s land,” I say.
“What?”
“Meet me there. I don’t know how to find his campsite.”
“I’m in for the night,” Leonard says. “I don’t feel good. I’m not going back out.”
“Then tell me how to find it.”
“You won’t be able to find it, Finch. It’s almost dark, and it’s way back in the woods, plumb hidden back there.”
“Have you been?” I ask him.
“Yeah.”
“Then I’ll meet you at the big curve in twenty minutes.”
THE TRUCK I drive used to be Papa’s. It’s big and blue, a Chevy, with round hips over the back tires and places to stand on the sides, like a fire truck. I check the toolbox to make sure I got my good flashlight, climb in the cab, and I’m off.
My truck clanks and jolts. Nobody can drive it anymore but me—not even the mechanic—because there’s a special way you throw the gears. But I love my truck and plan on keeping it for a while if the floorboard doesn’t rust through. I’ve reinforced the floor on the passenger side with a piece of plywood, then pulled the carpet back over it so that it can pass inspection. And all across the dash, I’ve got dried flowers and bits of stick and bone. There’s a cat’s tail I found chopped off by some sort of blade. I’ve tied a string to the end, and it hangs from the rearview mirror, dangling tabby. It swings slow, because slow’s the way I drive.