Grave Matters

By Marshall Welch

What better way to learn about life than working in a cemetery? This is exactly what happens to the main character, Martin Stevenson, in Grave Matters. Martin alludes to the lost year he has left behind when he stumbles into employment as a grounds-keeper in a cemetery in the middle of Kansas. There, he secretly takes up permanent residence camping in an obscure corner of the cemetery. The reader sees life through Martins eyes as he digs out from his past and interacts with the quirky characters he works with.

Martin serves as a muse as the reader learns lessons of life from the stories and experiences told by his co-workers. Through these lessons, Martin comes to find some of the answers about life he has been searching for through the experiences framed by death. Each chapter is an episode that takes place in the cemetery, spotlighting each employee and their unique experiences. In the end, both Martin and the reader come to realize that a persons identity and life are not shaped by what we appear to be nor by the compartments that constrain us, but by how we live our lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 22, 2002
• ISBN: 9781465318190

Marshall Welch

Marshall Welch is a commissioned lay pastor in the Presbyterian Church USA and a certified spiritual director who conducts individual and small-group spiritual direction. Marshall earned his diploma of arts in spiritual direction and doctor of ministry at San Francisco Theological Seminary. He also teaches innovative classes and workshops on spirituality using gardening, nature, music, and popular films.

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Copyright © 2002 by Marshall Welch.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

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or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to

any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

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DEDICATED TO MY DISTRACTION WHO DROVE ME TO THIS... IT WAS GRAND THERAPY. OH, AND.. .FLICK-FLICK. SPECIAL THANKS TO JUSTIN, TONI, AND BETSY FOR THEIR INPUT, GUIDANCE, SUPPORT, AND OVERALL WILLINGNESS TO INDULGE AND HUMOR ME. THANKS, TOO, TO TRENT HARRIS WHO TOLD ME TO WRITE IT ALL DOWN. AND, OF COURSE MANY THANKS TO JULIE FOR READING ALOUD AND TO JORDAN FOR LISTENING.

We must be very careful who we pretend to be.

—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

1

Martin guided his beat up car through the gates of Prairie View Estates that were never locked and felt like he had entered paradise. It seemed as though he was crossing the threshold into a whole new start, leaving his past behind him. This was a green oasis in the midst of farm fields that stretched clear across the horizon. It was early in the morning and the droplets of dew shimmered on the lush, manicured lawns like diamonds. The sun rising in the east cast long shadows from the tall cottonwood trees lining the road. Martin rolled down the window and breathed in deeply. He could smell the clean fragrance of freshly mowed grass from the day before. Meadowlarks greeted Martin and the new day with their song. Yes, it certainly did look and feel like heaven. But Martin knew better. True, he wasn’t in heaven, but he certainly felt like he was just beginning to climb out of hell. He was actually entering his own purgatory of nearly twelve months he now referred to as his lost year. Just the same, Martin felt reborn and starting anew. This was the perfect setting. It was quiet and serene. It was a place where he could shake off the demons.

Two unison voices rose from the distance, shattering the pastoral serenity. A vintage red T-bird convertible gradually appeared over the rise in what would otherwise be part of the endless horizon of the Kansas countryside. Behind the wheel was a white-haired man in his late forties or early fifties wearing silver-rimmed aviator sunglasses. His right arm was slowly waving in wide circles over his head as if twirling an invisible lasso. A huge gold ring was on the other hand gripping the steering wheel. No one else was in the car, despite the fact the driver was in a duet of evangelical prosody crying out, It is a new day. I can be anything. I can do anything. I can have anything I want. No thing and no one can stop me. Soon, it became clear that the driver was chanting these affirmations along with a tape blaring from the convertible.

The driver pulled up along side of Martin’s idling car. He finished the last phrase of the catechism blaring from the tape deck, with an emphatic I am somebody! and then leaned over, popping the eject button. With the same degree of vigor and motion, the man took his right arm and smacked the transmission handle on the steering column upward into park. Leaving the car running, he opened the door and the first of two white patent-leathered loafers emerged from the car and on to the pavement. He stood up, revealing a bright green Haggar suit.

Gooooood—mornin’ to ya. Another fahhhn day. What kin I do fer ya?

Martin sat with both hands gripping the steering wheel. He was taken back by the abrasive greeting that shattered the morning like fingernails on a chalkboard. Martin slightly shook his head as if to return to the moment. He reached over to the empty shotgun seat, pulling a half-folded newspaper. Raising the paper up to be seen, Martin replied, I’m here for the job.

Ya don’t say. Well, how bout that. Pardner, you be the very first one. Tell ya what cha’ go n’ do now . . . see that house up over there, you head on right there and Lorraine will see to ya right away. By the way, the name’s Mantle . . . Rex Mantle. I’m the manger here. Don’t believe I caught your name.

Martin . . . Martin Stevenson.

Well all right then, Marty. Head on up there.

Martin flinched. He hated being called Marty. It’s Martin, he interrupted but Rex obliviously carried on.

I gotta run into town. You take care now.

Martin sat for a moment in disbelief. THIS was the manager . . . of a cemetery? Rex had the personality and decorum of a used car dealer, not a broker of grave plots and memorial markers. He tried to imagine Rex interacting with a grieving widow who, for the first time in her life, had to face the hard reality she had tried to ignore while she mourned her lost husband. He could almost envision Rex telling a family, And if you act now, I’ll throw in the ginsoo knives at no extra cost. Martin put the car into gear and slowly drove up the tree-lined road toward the office, leaving the feeling of serenity and the anticipation of some long overdue stability he enjoyed moments ago behind him. He felt his stomach do a somersault and he licked his lips. Martin needed this job. He needed it badly. The bank was looking for him to collect on some long-overdue bills. Their search was thwarted by the fact that Martin had been living out of his car for the last few months. Everything he had was jammed in the back seat.

Martin stepped out of the car and tried to straighten himself and his clothes up. He looked down to see his shirt was wrinkled but at least it didn’t stink. He had managed to rinse out the shirt in the sink at the bus station using some of that pink liquid soap that comes from a dispenser just over the faucet. Besides, he wondered, just how dressed up did he have to be to apply for a job as groundskeeper? What did they expect anyway, a suit and tie? That got Martin to thinking and worrying even more. What DID they expect? What kind of experience and background did one need to have to become a gravedigger? He seriously doubted his degrees would impress them or make much of a difference. If anything, it would only prompt the same questions he had asked himself the last year. It was too late to worry about that now. He had run out of options. Thanks to inflation, jobs were too hard to find these days. With one last pat down the front of his shirt, Martin climbed up the two cement steps to the front door of the office. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should ring the doorbell. He realized that the office was, in fact, a small ranch style house that probably had once been a home. Martin reached to push the button and changed his mind. He knew someone was home because Rex had just told him so. Then Martin began to wonder why the manager had not taken it upon himself to conduct the interview. Martin looked back over his shoulder to see Rex had climbed back into his car and was headed out the cemetery gates, turning right on to the same highway toward town that he had come in on. Only now, instead of affirmation tapes blaring, Martin could hear the Doppler effect of a Willie Nelson song fading away down the hill.

Martin had coasted into this small town nearly out of gas, out of money, and out of options the day before. He pulled his rusted Plymouth to stop in the city park and took it as a sign of divine intervention that this was where he was going to resurrect his life. Martin crawled out of the driver’s seat and walked around a bit, stretching. He had driven non-stop through the night across eastern Colorado and was stiff. To add to the drama unfolding, a newspaper blew across the sidewalk, wrapping itself around Martin’s ankles. He reached down to unshackle himself only to find the classified ads. He stood up and re-folded the paper as he walked across the grass, slowly scanning the ads for jobs. Carl Jung would call this synchronicity. Martin called it one last chance.

Martin opened the screen door, propping it open with his hip as he then opened the front door that had warped and swelled in the Kansas humidity over the years. The door stuck a bit, forcing Martin to exert some pressure until it finally swung open. He stepped into what was once a living room that was covered with avocado green carpet. The room was lined with cheap maple paneling. There was a gold couch and two matching chairs in the corner of the room. A small maple veneered end table was covered with industry magazines touting the latest casket and vault products, separating the two chairs. A hanging swag lamp with a gold, glass globe on a gold chain hung down from the ceiling casting a warm glow in the corner of the room despite the fact that the early sunlight was washing in from the east windows. Martin cleared his voice in an attempt to announce his arrival. A moment later, a woman’s voice from down the hallway replied.

Just a sec . . . be right there. Puttin’ the coffee on. Jus’ take a seat.

Martin sat down on the couch and then noticed the reception desk to the side of the room.

He could hear the steam hissing from what he assumed was a Mr. Coffee in the kitchen. Then he heard the tap-tap of high heels walking across linoleum before being muffled by the shag, green carpet. A redheaded woman with considerable, but tastefully applied make-up entered the room. It was difficult to surmise her age. She was either a handsome woman in her late forties or a thirty-year-old trying to cover up some emotional scars of wrinkles and age. In any case, she was attractive, wearing a shiny silver button blouse and a tight navy blue skirt with a slit up her calves to her knee. She had a look that reminded him of Jane Russell in black and white photographs from Life magazine. It was a classic, rather than out-dated, appearance.

Well now. What can I do for ya? she asked, but without the smile Martin anticipated. In fact, she looked somewhat put out, as if Martin had interrupted her from something. She sat down, putting the desk between them. Martin’s smile immediately evaporated as he stood up, with newspaper in hand and without a chance to reply.

Oh, she said, you must be here for the job. She spun around in her office chair and efficiently pulled a form from the file cabinet behind her. She slipped the sheet of paper on the clipboard and then out-stretched her arm toward Martin implying he was to come and get it. Martin walked over, took it from her and then patted his empty shirt pockets gesturing he did not have anything to write with. The woman audibly sighed through her nose, revealing a degree of disgust. She reached into a coffee mug on her desk bearing the logo of the cemetery next to a nameplate bearing Lorraine Baker—Executive Secretary. She retrieved a pen and merely held it up in the air rather than offering it to him, adding, I need it back. Martin reached for the pen, which also had the name of the cemetery, embossed on it and noticed the woman’s perfectly manicured nails. Her hands were smooth and she wore no rings.

Martin returned to the couch and began completing the application. Lorraine, meanwhile, reached over to the top of the file cabinet and turned on the radio, filling the room with farm reports from the local A.M. station. The application asked all the usual personal information. Unfortunately for Martin, he had no usual information to supply. He had no address so he made one up but left the line for phone number blank. Martin sat there for a moment, cocking his head at Lorraine. Without looking away from her desk, she sensed him looking at her and replied with an inquiring yet slightly disgusted yesss?

About the address . . . I mean . . . do you send out paychecks?

Well . . . assuming . . . she said with a stern tone of voice "you get the job . . . she paused after she emphasized the word ‘get’, she continued, we hand out the checks here every other Friday."

Martin nodded and pursed his lips like he was playing an invisible trumpet and went back to the application meekly acknowledging the not-so-subtle admonishment he had just received for his impertinence. Martin no longer assumed anything. His question was not self-assured as much as it was part of the elaborate conspiracy that he had been forced to maintain over the past year. Lorraine had simply misinterpreted his motives. He now added to his worries that she might somehow have a say as to whether or not he was hired. He had already surmised that he had not made a favorable impression on her, for whatever the reason. Once again, Martin was concerned with what others thought of him.

Martin jolted himself out of this discomfort with the realization that this job application, like most, did not really require one to reveal or divulge too much other than perfunctory demographics. A one-sided form did not allow for much more than that. What if it had?

Martin’s attention lapsed from the task at hand to ponder for a moment what truly meaningful background information he would or should share, let alone what anyone might be interested in. After reporting his birth date of November 6, 1954, he imagined a section inquiring about his personality traits as if he were the contestant on a TV dating game show. His physical profile would include the following: medium build of 150 pounds, pleasant appearance (not exceedingly handsome but not ugly either), dark brown hair, blue eyes. He was bright and capable but not very disciplined. He had many talents, including musical abilities, but lacked the initiative to develop those innate skills. Consequently, he always did enough to just get by in anything he engaged in, including jobs and relationships. Martin relied on his above average intellect and charm to get by. He could never make a true commitment to anything or anyone. He often confessed, at least to himself, in half jest and half seriousness that he excelled in mediocrity. In fact, Martin suffered from the imposter syndrome, constantly worried that the rest of the world would finally wake up and realize he was neither as bright nor capable as he appeared to be. And, when it began to appear that others suspected his charade, Martin would find a socially acceptable rationale for re-directing himself which was nothing more than a pragmatic way of saying running away. But, as fate would have it, lately it seemed that the whole world had, in fact, caught on and caught up with him. He had run out of chances and the energy it took to maintain the appearance of a confident and able human being.

The application asked for educational background. Martin debated for a moment to fill in the lines after the checkmark for a high school diploma. He questioned whether or not his bachelors and masters degree in education would be looked at in disbelief and actually work against him getting this job. So, he simply marked the boxes next to high school and college, and assumed the names of both institutions were as inconsequential as his intellectual ability and background. Next on the application was the space for previous employment and references. Martin felt a twinge of adrenaline shoot through his hands, making them shake slightly. Lorraine had sufficiently intimidated him in less than two minutes. Now he was even more reluctant to hand over a completed application that revealed the checkered nature of recent months. She was bound to raise an eyebrow when she reviewed his employment history, beginning with the fact that he had been unemployed for the past four months. His last job had been unloading trucks at a Sears store in Oxnard, California for three months. Before that, he had been a breakfast cook at a Holiday Inn in Fargo, North Dakota, having the distinct honor of once making Bob Hope’s breakfast when he passed through. He had walked off both jobs so the odds of getting any kind of reference that would be useful here was next to nothing. He didn’t even bother listing his teaching jobs before that. There was no point in revealing too much, too soon to perfect strangers. What he did reveal was the fact that he had absolutely no qualifications or experience in manual labor that would help him get this job.

Martin unintentionally smacked the pen down on the clipboard when he finished, causing Lorraine to look up from her morning paper and cup of coffee. He sat there for a moment, until Lorraine raised an eyebrow with an implied, well? Martin offered a soft grunt as if to indicate he understood he was now supposed to hand over the clipboard. He stood up and stretched over to the desk rather than walk over. As he leaned, he let out yet another muffled grunt. Instead of accepting the clipboard, Lorraine said, No . . . just take this on out to the workshop and give it to Bobby, and went back to her newspaper. So much for his concerns that Lorraine would inspect and screen the application. Martin straightened himself back up and stood there for a moment. Uh, the workshop? Martin asked, inferring he needed some direction and guidance. This was, for the moment, the metaphor for his entire life. Again, without looking up, Lorraine said, down the hall . . . through the kitchen . . . out the door and down the steps.

2

Martin opened the door from the kitchen that led into what was once the garage of the house, now serving as the workshop. He was surprised as he stepped down the two steps into an area much larger and cleaner than he expected. The original two-car garage had been expanded, almost doubled in size with an extension to the back that could not be seen from the front. The floor was immaculately smooth and painted in shiny navy gray paint. Riding lawn mowers of various sizes were neatly parked within boxes painted in white lines. The workbench lined one wall with a pegboard holding various tools, each outlined in red paint indicating in one quick glance where each implement belonged when finished for use. White storage cupboards with doors lined another wall. Off in the corner were a small table surrounded by four chairs. Judging by the coffee mugs and ashtray, it appeared to be a gathering place for breaks or lunch by, for the moment, an invisible crew. With the exception of the table and chairs, the sheer organization and appearance of the workshop immediately reminded Martin of his shop classes in high school. He decided right then and there he preferred the workshop to the tacky office area he had just left.

To the back was another larger room from where sounds were coming. Martin walked down the two steps and crossed through the workshop toward the new cinderblock extension. As he reached the open doorway, he saw what was the garage. Here, a pick