Grave Digger
Amos stood on the spot between Arminius and Calvin designated on a scrap piece of paper he held in his calloused hand, enough room for one more plot. A single white cloud hung above the cemetery in an otherwise clean, blue sky. He nodded and the boy pulled levers and set the backhoe jacks, placed the tip of the shovel on the ground, shut the diesel engine off then jumped down and walked over to where the old man was standing.
“They’re comin’ tomorrow about this same time, rain or shine, they’ll be right here like they’re supposed to be. We need to get this place ready for them,” the old man said. “It’s the least we can do.”
The boy, no more than sixteen, nodded his head and waited. Amos picked up a bag of chalk dust and with one practiced motion he poured a line on the ground in an exact three by seven foot rectangle beginning at the head, down the left side, across at the feet, up the other side, and back to the head. When he finished, he tossed the empty bag out of the way, squatted down and wiped his powdered hands in the grass, then he stood up and lifted a red Prince Albert tin out of his shirt pocket. He studied the writing on the can for a spell, like he was trying to figure out the instructions for a complicated edict, like he was trying to settle his mind on something then he dropped the can back into his pocket and fixed his eyes on the boy.
“I’ve been desecrating this ground for two generations. I dug graves and buried my own mother and dad. Clost to them, I put my wife. Next to Esther is our little four year old daughter—gone now for over thirty-nine years. She never hurt anyone. Never did anything but make folks happy. My younger brother, Tommie, was killed in another man’s war. I buried him over there under that black walnut tree with all them flags blowing around. I’ve dug long ones and short ones all over this graveyard from near the road to out yonder at the pine tree row, up one side, down the other of that hill over there, too. I’ve stood behind that big oak tree, out of sight, and watched them all. They show up like sheep headed to the slaughter. Not one of them done a single thing to try and stop it. The preacher—good man though he may be—the preacher says a few nice words that end up being carried away by the wind, then the flock leaves to go somewhere to feed and drink; I drop the loved one down into the ground. It happens the same way every time. What do you think about that?”
The boy looked out toward the road then back up the hill and over the little rise to the west; crosses and headstones as far as he could see, too many for mortal man to count.
“Okay, Zack, you can do this one. It’s time you learned how to bury a man. I cain’t do it no more. Foller the dust. Put the dirt on this side. Make it neat.”
The boy grinned and climbed onto the backhoe and cranked it up. A cloud of black diesel smoke spewed from the exhaust pipe then dissipated into the air as the engine caught its breath and settled into an enveloping drone. For the time being, the old man turned away as though he couldn’t stand to watch the digging and scooping and the brown dirt heaping up beside the hole.
The earth was loose and laced with flat sandstones layered and stacked on top of each other making the dig more difficult than usual. The sand and rock kept sliding into the hole like the grave was trying to fill itself back in. When the job was finished, the boy shoved the throttle down to idle, leaned back in the seat and waited. The old man turned to see what had been done. He looked at the hole in the ground as though he’d never seen a grave before in his life. His countenance contorted and screwed upwards, and the boy reckoned that the old man would fall on the ground sobbing like a person in pure agony sweating great drops of blood like Jesus in the garden.
“Why did you do it, boy?” he said.
The boy didn’t answer. He stayed on the backhoe out of the way. The old man picked up a handful of dirt and flung it into the grave. He looked up at the boy for an answer.
“Cain’t you see what you’ve done? God Almighty, why did you do it?”
He scooped up dirt in both hands and squeezed hard like he was trying to squeeze water out of it. Veins popped out on his brow and forearms. Sweat dripped off the end of his sun blotched nose. He looked up at the cloud like he was testifying at an outdoor revival meeting. He raised his voice, “Years ago I was a church goin’ man, Freewill Baptist, saved, immersed, believed every word.” He bowed his head and stood motionless for a moment like he was waiting for lighting to come down and lick him up like a water sacrifice. Nothing happened. He whimpered like a small child and opened his hands letting the dust fall through his fingers. The boy sat on the tractor like a pillar of salt and didn’t dare move a muscle. Amos turned to the boy and lowered his voice, not much more than a whisper. “Still yet, not one of them--preachers, deacons, elders, Sunday school teachers--not a single soul could answer me. I’m telling you, not one person could tell me. I want to know, I mean, I wish someone would tell me this. Why didn’t Adam and Eve just haul off and jump right down into that grave on the first go-round? It would have been easier then. I don’t mean no disrespect, but why didn’t they call his bluff? Everything would be different now, fundamentally different. Maybe he was waiting for them to jump, and they didn’t. Maybe that was the real test. Maybe that was the worst sin. Greater love hath no man.”
The boy didn’t say anything. He stared into the distance, out over all those headstones and crosses—at least ten thousand crosses, or more. Amos fingered in his shirt pocket for his smoke fixin’s. He slid the red PA tin out of his pocket, pried the lid open with his thumb then shook tobacco shreds into a slip of paper, rolled it, and licked the edge of the paper to hold the cigarette together. He lit it and took a deep draw. Then he stared at the cigarette like he was searching for the answer in the trailing smoke. After a while, shaking his head, he said, “Don’t tell me I’m crazy. I’m not crazy. Can you imagine what would have happened if just one person would have jumped into the grave? Can you picture that? What if it started happening all over the world? Every funeral, people jumping into those graves, and no one could stop it, like some kind of epidemic. I ask you this, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”
The boy fidgeted and rubbed his hands on the hard rubber steering wheel. He pulled his cap bill down to block out the low afternoon sun. Long shadows told him it was time to quit, time to leave the graveyard and the old man behind.
“Okay, Zack, you’ve done enough today. Take the backhoe to the shed and get on home.”
The boy hesitated then made a move to climb down.
“No, go ahead home. You’ve got a lot of livin’ to do. Don’t let me stop you,” the old man said. “But, I’ll tell you this much, when you’ve dug one or two a day, thousands over a lifetime, it starts tormentin’ your mind and soul until you cain’t hardly stand it. You cain’t hardly look out over all those markers and not want to do something. Lord help me. Go on and get out of here before it’s too late.”
The boy stood up on the backhoe and took one final look into the grave then he revved up the motor. Without saying goodbye, he turned the backhoe around, pulled away from the grave, and headed down a gravel access path. Just before he went out of sight around a clump of cedars, he looked back over his shoulder. He could barely make out the top of the old man’s head going down.
When Amos hit the bottom of the grave, the last rumblings of the backhoe came to him like distant thunder then the rumbling sound faded away. It was quiet. He listened. He could hardly hear the gentle breeze in the treetops and the late afternoon mocking birds that seemed to come out of nowhere. The grave was cool and dark. The smell of fresh dug earth and crushed rock filled his nose and throat like gunpowder. He dropped to his knees and looked up through the top of the grave that framed the blue sky above. The cloud that looked like a man’s hand hadn’t moved at all. For the first time in nearly forty years Amos tried to pray, but he couldn’t make the words come out. He reached over and rested his hand on one of the flat sandstones that jutted out of the wall. The edge felt sharp in his palm. He tugged and the rock slid free without much effort, like pulling a featherweight book off a shelf. He looked up at the cloud and tried to pray again, but nothing happened. He pulled another rock out of the wall, then another and another. Sand and gravel and rock cascaded into the grave like a dam let loose. A large rock slid from near the top of the grave and struck him in the back of the head pushing his face into the dirt. The old man struggled to get to his knees but another stone hit him hard between the shoulder blades and knocked him back down then the sidewalls leaned in and collapsed, flooding over him like a mighty stream.
***
When Amos came up out of the grave, he expected to see others coming out too, but they had already left. He was traveling in time and space, soaring above, looking down—looking down on the place where he was born, a baby kicking and crying on the little cot in the little clinic at Hamlin, and then he could see his mother when she was young and vibrant, without any wrinkles or signs of aging, and his dad there with her, picking up the baby, the two of them exuberant, happy, and full of life. Then he was looking down on his brother Tommie, summertime at Beech Fork, both of them swimming, splashing, and having fun. Then he was above the congregation, and he saw his wife, radiant and beautiful, joyful, coming down the aisle in her wedding dress to be with him. The last one he saw was his four year old daughter playing in the backyard on a gently sloping hillside, sunlight in her hair, her smiling face turned up to meet his.
