Graves

She was missing her necklace.  Not the diamond necklace.  I stuffed that in her pocket, where she always kept it.  Mother certainly was an odd woman.  Paranoid, oh so paranoid!  Of course, she’d be even more paranoid now that she’s dead and people are finally getting the better of her.  But that diamond necklace never touched her neck.  She always kept it in her pocket.  Now it’s probably around some guttersnipe’s neck.  No, the necklace that was stolen was pearl.  Ripped right off her neck—can you imagine such a thing?  It makes one question the presence of God.  After all, if a grave can be dug up, a coffin molested, and a corpse robbed—can there truly be any goodness in the world?  When a poor, dead woman has her necklaces, and rings, and broaches, and piles of cash taken out of her final resting place, it’s just—Well, Jesus, what would the Egyptians think?  Imagine if King Tut had his pyramid robbed by his servants.  That’s probably why he shoved them in the tomb with him.  It’s not a bad idea.  Nowadays all these grubby, awful beggars have no respect for the dead.  If they have to dig you up and rip the bags of money out of your poor, cold hands—they’ll do it!  Just so they can buy food or medicine or, I don’t know, what do poor people need these days?  Cheese?  Hard to say.  Hard to say what the world’s coming to these days.

Down by the docks, down by the docks, that’s where you’ll find me, down by the docks.  The man down the road will bury ‘em now for five.  For five.  How’s a man live off that?  How’s a man…Tck tck tck.  Can’t keep up with that.  Can’t compete.  You got a man down the road buryin’ ‘em for five and pretty soon, you’re done.  You understand?  You understand what I’m telling you?  So maybe the man falls down a hole.  He’s a grave-digger.  He’s in holes all day.  Not like you’d have to push him.  He falls, hurts himself, breaks a foot or a leg, and maybe he lays there for awhile.  Maybe he lays there thinking, Damn me, I should have charged more than five seeing as how this job is so dangerous.  Maybe fatal.  Dirt falls in—or people shovel it in.  Maybe they’re not paying attention.  Maybe they’re tired.  Maybe they’ve been working extra hard to make up for all the extra jobs they have to take to make up for the men who don’t charge something fair just so they can force the guy down the road to close up shop and then you can go back to charging what you’ve always charged.  Maybe.  And maybe you’ll wind up being your own last job, wouldn’t that be something?

I mean, wouldn’t that just be something?