The Day Star

NEWSTORY071908ASB

The superintendent called me over just as I was leaving the barn.

³Grab a pitchfork,² he said,

³What¹s up?²

³Nothing. Something¹s down.²

I took a pitchfork and put it in the back of the station wagon
and we drove out to the Draper crypt. The superintendent pulled over to the
side of the road and sat smoking a cigarette, looking straight ahead.

³So what¹s up?² I said.

He waved his cigarette at something that lay on the grass near
the granite wall of the crypt. ³Guess,² he said.

I didn¹t have to guess.

It looked like a piece of old rug. I got out of the station wagon and moved
closer. It was all that was left of one of the wild dogs. Once they
weakened, the others would turn on them and this was what you would find.
Blueflies were gathering in a shining mass along the pelt¹s slick, greenish
edge.

³Toss that thing back in the shrubbery. We¹ve got a funeral this morning and
it looks like hell out there. Jim¹ll come out later and drop lime on it.²

³Why can¹t Jim toss it, too?²

³Because I¹m telling you to toss it.²

I got the fork and stepped forward into a stench that made me gag.

³The quicker you do it, the quicker it¹s done,² the superintendent called.
He stared at me for a second and then took off, throwing gravel. I was a
seasonal worker, earning money for the fall semester. He didn¹t like that,
or me, assuming I was having a hell of a time at his expense. I was having a
hell of a time, all right. My father had left my mother, my girl friend had
left me, and it would be a miracle if my school took me back after the
debacle I¹d made of the previous year. A hell of a time.

The rag of pelt slithered off the tines of the fork. Hunks of integument,
viscera, and bone made it heavier than it looked. My arms shook as I tried
to lift this mess and hold my breath at the same time.

Finally I managed to hook a portion of it and loft it part way to the
shrubbery where it fell with a thick, wet flap. It seemed to me that a tiny
drop of something fell on the back of my hand. I swore, and rubbed my hand
on the grass. Then I rubbed it with a rag in my back pocket.

A voice said, ³You still haven¹t gotten it in the bushes yet.²

The superintendent had parked on the hill over the crypt and sneaked down
the footpath through the bushes.

³You want to try it?²

He smiled thinly from behind his sunglasses and cigarette. His father-in-law
was on the board that administrated the fund for the cemetery¹s maintenance.
He enjoyed the job. It paid well, no work was involved, and he couldn¹t be
fired. This was the oldest cemetery in the city. Out front, an historic
plaque let it be known that this piece of ground had been here a long time
and that a lot of people were under it.

Over one hundred and fifty years ago these eighty or ninety acres had been a
small part of what the old French farmers had called the Grand Marais. The
great swamp. This spot had been drained, fenced in with wrought iron, and
fertilized with humanity, both humble and illustrious.

Now the neighborhoods that had grown up around it were dying as if they had
been poisoned. Beyond the fence swirled abandoned homes, gutted cars, and
windblown trash. Small business and light industry battened down under a
nightly siege of crack addicts and gangs. The proprietors of markets and
liquor stores worked behind Plexiglas, and when they turned to get your
cigarettes or juice and gin, you saw their gun holstered at the small of
their backs.

Death roamed free outside, but here in the cemetery death had been caught
and hidden in the ground. Graceful hills and small meadows were figured with
fat, shiny hedges, hidden bits of garden, flagstone paths, and banks of
flowering shrubs. Willows slept around the pond, and cattails grew thickly
from the brook that fed it. The oaks were far older than the cemetery
itself, and poplars, elms, ash and lime huddled close, or threw out creaking
arms to the sky. When you were deep inside this place, the city noise was
just a drowsy hum.

Most of the office workers and shoppers who drove past on their way down
town didn¹t know that Jardin de la Sainte de Dieu existed. But the
neighborhood people did, and they kept away. God was allowed his holy rest
without interruption, except for occasional drifters looking for the mission
nearby, or for couples in cars who couldn¹t afford a room.

The years have been prosperous for this place. The city, once famous for its
industry, is now notorious for its dead. The oldest monuments and stones,
with inscriptions in German, Polish, Hungarian, and Irish are being joined
by new stones with the names of city youths killed in gang wars, drugs, and
random crime. The neighborhood boys are stacking them deep. This has always
been a tough town, even at the animal level, by way of the wild dogs,

The dogs. They run in dirty gray knots, feral and diseased, brutally
abused, patched in running sores. Their eyes, crimson with infection, show
no memory of human alliance. Their jaws drip and their thinly covered ribs
flex with unappeasable hunger and thirst. These are the cemetery¹s gaunt
guards. If you work here, the sight of them coming over a hill makes you
weary with fear. Most of us carry some kind of stick or club, because they
will attack if you¹re alone.

But aside from the dogs and the occasional crazy intruder, this is a drowsy
place. At some point on a hot afternoon the slow breeze and the creepy
statuary all seem to conspire against the idea of staying awake. ³Go ahead,²
the graves say. ³No one¹s watching, just sleep, sleep.² But you don¹t. You
may ache for it, but you don¹t dare. The dogs.

Through the hot afternoons I cut the grass and prune the trees and let my
mind wander until I cut the tractor¹s engine. And then the quiet makes you
take a second look at those eyeless angels. Up from the thick grass rises a
somnolent fugue, up through the murmurous threnody of traffic, up through
the whisper of the leaves.

Around you cracked columns and broken stones push out of the earth like a
nubbled beard. The cemetery saps you. You trim it. You feed it. It tempts
you. You fall. And in the seizure of a dream a dog bends to your face and
bites. You snap upright, panting like one of them.

We all complained about the dogs and swore to the superintendent that it was
just a matter of time before someone got mauled. Then one day a spectral
rottweiler lunged at a gravedigger¹s arm. The man had to be vaccinated for
rabies. The union steward walked up to the office and gave the
superintendent hell. The superintendent called a cop buddy and, within the
hour, out came a blue and white with a couple of well-armed patrolmen. No
one thought twice about the wisdom of this.

About four in the afternoon a pack of dogs appeared at the edge of the small
ravine that runs through the grounds. They stopped near the overgrown pond,
tongues lolling, and stood there with doggish lack of purpose. We got behind
the backhoe and the stake truck to watch. The cops, blunt, sweating men in
short-sleeved summer uniforms and incongruous surfer shades, took a few
hesitant steps forward and drew their nine millimeters. For a few moments
they awkwardly worked themselves down into two-handed marksmen poses. Behind
their backs, we waited and grinned.

The dogs stayed where they were. One lifted a hind leg to scratch an ear.
The cops shifted stance and wet their lips, their jaws trembling. The dog
stopped scratching. And then two terrific explosions reverberated through
the forest of stone. The dogs disappeared, all but one. At the blast we had
all flinched, and then shouted in surprise. A hideous howling scream rose
where the blast had been. The scratching dog had been slammed back a good
six feet, twisting in the air and landing face forward. His forelegs
scrabbled at the ground, but his hindquarters were gone. There was his head,
his face, full on, his eyes and mouth agape, screaming, and only his front
legs, as if he were clawing his way out of the earth. Another shot came and
the head was gone and what remained thrashed and twitched and was dead.
There was a nauseous silence. Even the police seemed to have some
misgivings.

As the shots rolled off the stones, everyone came to the belated realization
that this was still a residential neighborhood, after all. The second bullet
had to have gone somewhere. The cops wasted no time in holstering their guns
and taking off. The party was over and no one seemed inclined to sit around
and talk it up. I went back to work, cutting grass alone in one of the
distant lots by the back fence.

The sight wasn¹t easy to get out of your mind. One of those things that you
know is going to be with you for a lot longer than you want it. For me, the
event had disrupted more than just the afternoon quiet. The cemetery¹s
revolting vitality, the city¹s insolent lawlessness, both seemed defined in
the incredibly careless shooting of that miserable animal.

What sort of solution was that supposed to have been? We now had one less
animal, and one more bad image in the mind. The problem was unchanged. The
idea of a pistol rally on the rest of the pack with high caliber slugs
winging into the Œhood from every direction was untenable.

My summer job looked less like the routine maintenance of a secluded old
city park and more like a lesson in balancing my sensibility between two
uninhabitable worlds. I was wandering in a terrible territory making believe
it was just fine. There was no reconciling these two shades of ugliness, and
since I wasn¹t supporting a wife and family I decided to quit.

The end of the week would be soon enough. The summer was winding down and
they would need me less anyway. A couple of hours went by. I felt relieved
after making my decision. I ran my tractor through slice after slice of the
tall grass and paid no attention to the darkening sky until I felt that
escalation of the breeze and change in the light that signals a storm.

I had my shirt off, as I usually did, and the wind raised goose bumps. And
then, for no reason, I got the creeps. I slowed down and took a glance over
my shoulder. There, practically touching me with her outstretched hands, was
a ragged girl. We were eye to eye. I gave a wild shout.

Quicker than thinking, I lifted the cutting blades, threw the tractor in
gear, and shot forward a good twenty feet where I wheeled around to confront
her.

Though I was panting now, there certainly was nothing to fear. The girl
stopped where she was and put out her hands in a pacifying, supplicating
gesture. She looked as startled as I felt and clearly hadn¹t meant to scare
me, but I couldn¹t stop myself from speaking roughly:

³What the hell¹s the matter with you?² I said.

³Sorry, sir. I¹m sorry. I don¹t mean no harm,² she said in a mild southern
voice.

³Well you damn near did some harm. You don¹t sneak up on a guy operating a
machine like that.²

Exactly how that ratcheting old tractor qualified as a machine I couldn¹t
have said, but the girl was really sorry. She dropped her hands and made no
answer, just stood waiting for my humanity to come back so I could see that
she wasn¹t just harmless, she was in need.

Drifters were always finding their way in here. They seemed to materialize
out of the air, as if some of the strangeness of the place had coalesced
into human form before fading back into dust. She was a pretty girl in a
country way, with long dark hair and clear brown eyes and eyebrows like two
thick lines of black marking pen. She was tired, though, and her cheeks were
hollow. She looked the way fashion models wish they look, but she had gotten
there the hard way.

Her sneakers had holes and her jeans were baggy. Her old army fatigue
jacket could have held two of her. How far had she hitch-hiked to wind up in
this hell-hole? What had forced her away from her home? I wouldn¹t have
asked and she probably wouldn¹t have said.

³I was hoping I could get through that gate?² she said, as if it
were a question. She pointed at an unused archway of stone and old iron that
led to the street. We had been locking the gate for months to keep out the
drifters. The superintendent didn¹t like them taking the short cut through
to the mission across the street. Last year the superintendent had been
leading a funeral party onto the grounds and caught one of these people
asleep on the front step of the family¹s crypt. The family didn¹t like that,
not with gramps on the way in. Kind of spoiled the occasion for them. They
raised a stink, and said they¹d take their business elsewhere, so we had
been on a no drifters alert ever since.

³The gate¹s been locked a long time,² I said. ³Didn¹t you see the sign where
you came in telling you not to cut through here? You¹ve got to go back the
way you came.²

A patter of rain hit the leaves above us. The girl and I looked up at the
same time. Then she lowered her jacket down below her shoulders, accepting
the wash of cool droplets. I didn¹t think to avert my eyes. Beneath her
skinny T-shirt her small, pale breasts were like the most delicate china.
Shyly, she watched me. I thought she was one of the most beautiful things
I¹d ever seen. With her head down, she watched me.

³I have nothing,² she said.

³I haven¹t got a cent,² I said. ³If I had, I¹d give it to you for nothing, I
swear. Pull your jacket up, okay?²

She stood there as she was.

³I¹ve got nothing,² I said. ³Please.²

She pulled her jacket back up on her shoulders and just stood there.

³Come here,² I said. I got her onto the tractor seat behind me and had her
hold me round the waist. The rain was coming harder now and she hugged me,
tucking her face behind my back as if she were cold. She was surely the most
beautiful thing that had happened to me in the ten weeks that I¹d labored in
that place. Whatever I might have been looking for and not finding had come
and taken me by surprise. I bore her away on my trusty steed, taking the
isolated roads to avoid the other crews. My intention was to take her back
to the front gate she had come in at, but I found myself going to the barn.
I pulled into the last doorway and parked in the space furthest from the
lunchroom. The rain was a riot on the sheet metal roof.

I killed the engine and we got off. The barn was dark. Beyond the tractors,
two or three garage doors away, light came from the lunchroom. The guys were
talking, the superintendent was in there. They couldn¹t see or hear us. The
girl looked at me to tell her what to do.

I held my arms open. It started as a hug, but her scent, as fresh as if she
had been brought by the rain, made me want her desperately. It was a coarse
and clumsy bout. We held each other and struggled. Then, out of the two of
us, something rose and fled into the air. The rotting angels dissolved and
took death with them. After a slow moment we opened our eyes and blinked.
She smiled and said, ³Whew!² There we were in the tool barn, practically
naked, and I wondered how much noise we¹d made.

Three doors away the guys were still in the kitchen talking. The rain
rattled on the concrete drive. We leaned against each other and helped each
other on with our clothes. It only took a minute.

Out in the lot I heard the rest of the team starting their cars. The
superintendent was walking back to the office. It was time to go.

³Hang here a second,² I said. Then I thought again. ³Do you want to use the
bathroom?² I asked her.

She nodded. She was smiling now, sitting up on the seat of the tractor.

³I¹ll be right back. Just have to see if the coast is clear.²

I went to the kitchen for my lunch box and my jean jacket. They had all
left. I checked out the bathroom. There was only one, and I made sure the
place wasn¹t foul. Actually, this was the new barn they had built to replace
an ancient wooden one. The bathroom and kitchen were here were kept clean.
When I got out of the bathroom I found the girl waiting for me. While she
was in the john I got my car, pulled it up to the door, and cleared the
books and bottles off the passenger seat. When she came out of the barn the
girl smiled to see me. She had brushed her hair, taken off the jacket, and
switched her wet linen shirt for a small, knitted white shirt. She was
adorable. As soon as she got in she was in my arms and we made out for
awhile. I didn¹t want it to end until she murmured that the mission shut its
doors at seven.

When I drove past the office, at the gatehouse, I told the girl to duck
down. There was still a light on in there. Then we were on the street. I
drove around the block to the mission.

The rain had let up a little. It wasn¹t a downpour, just a hard, steady
summer rain. It had been dry for weeks, but already the grass seemed to be a
richer green under the dark sky. We didn¹t talk. I had been about to ask her
name about a half dozen times, but now that it was time to drop her off, it
felt too late. I pulled over to the curb at the gate of the old red brick
church. A few men were out front, under the stone entrance, having a smoke
and talking with the old security guard.

Neither of us said anything for a few minutes, and then the girl looked up
and said, ³Thanks.²

I had no words. She looked small and wet. The collar of her army jacket was
up around her ears.

³It was beautiful,² I said. ³You¹re beautiful. You are.²

She leaned over to me and we kissed. Not a long kiss. Just a kiss. Then she
got out and walked over to the talking men &lsqauo; who had gotten their eyeful
then dipped their heads to hide their withered smiles &lsqauo; and I drove away.

My skin still felt her cool, rain-washed skin, I heard her murmuring voice.
I drove up the long side of the cemetery to get to the street that led back
to my apartment. The iron spikes of the fence blurred as I drove, holding
back the burgeoning trees. On this side it was all woods concealing the
grave stones and monuments from the street.

At the corner where I would make my turn, I looked in the rear view mirror.
Then I turned in my seat and put my head out for a better look. The rain had
stopped. The late afternoon sun had found a cut in the clouds. The girl had
come back down to the curb. There she stood in the lemon light, waving. The
slow half circle sculpted by her arm cast light back through the past ten
weeks of my life. The light fell through the leaves and branches, splashed
through the fields of bristling granite, raced down the paths, and washed
the ugliness out of the dark place. She was waving not to call me back but
to wish me on.

Everything changed. Nothing changed. But things are made bearable in the
light. Even if love comes to you only through a cut in a curtain of cloud,
you can bear a lot. Just that much love can light a long way.

End