SEE THAT MY GRAVE IS KEPT CLEAN
I never understood what the fuss was about. It was just a job, and everyone needs a job. I needed a job. I had already decided that Billy was the one, but until we were married I was going to have to take care of myself. Not that Ma and Pa didn’t take care of me, but you know what I mean. A girl always needs some money in her purse. You don’t want to get caught unprepared.
And it’s not like I had a lot of options. I could type but I wasn’t very fast, and I was really good at filing but the offices weren’t hiring for that right then. Waitressing was out of the question. I didn’t want to serve anybody. I did think being a carhop at Renzo’s Drive-In might be fun but then my cousin Theresa got a job there and it turned out the place was a front for something else they needed girls for and uncle Mike went over Theresa’s first night and hauled her back home, so that was out.
But then I heard Marberry Funeral Home was looking for someone, and when I found out all they wanted was someone to sit with the bodies when nobody else was there, I went right over, and they hired me on the spot. In fact, they seemed grateful. I think I was the only one who applied.
Ma didn’t like it, and Pa said I couldn’t do it, but when I told him I’d kick in part of what I made to the household budget, he hesitated, and I could tell by the look on Ma’s face that I’d won. Pa was doing OK at the plant but they were saying there might be another round of layoffs and that had Ma worried. If you ever saw the look on Pa’s face when Ma acted worried or scared, and saw the look Ma had then, you’d know I’d won, too.
So I sat with the bodies. I never really understood why they needed someone to do that, but Mr. Marberry, who was the grandson of the man who had started the business in the first place, said that they had to guard against anyone disturbing the bodies. He said it was a matter of law. I didn’t know how anyone could disturb a dead person, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to stop anyone who did, but Mr. Marberry said they had hired girls before and never had any problems. He said again it was a matter of law, and even if there wasn’t much chance of anything happening, they had to have someone there. My cousin Marcie used to say that Mr. Marberry was the ugliest man she’d ever seen and he gave her the creeps. He was ugly all right, but he had a steady voice and talked to me like I was just someone who was working for him and not like I was a kid. He was very matter-of-fact about everything, and I liked that. He even shook my hand when I accepted the job.
The late hours were kind of a struggle at first, but Ma said it was OK for me to sleep in since I was working late, and once I started doing that it was fine. I knew there were a lot more bodies down in the basement where they got them ready to be buried, but I just had to be there in the main area where they kept the bodies after they’d been prepared but before the funerals. I got to sit behind a desk in the main room, like I was running the place. From there I could see into the smaller rooms where they kept the individual caskets. The main room was fancy but very serious, with paintings that blended right into the walls. The smaller rooms were plain with maybe only some flowers on a table. Best of all, the whole place was air-conditioned, which wasn’t common back then, but they needed to keep it all cool for obvious reasons.
And honestly, I didn’t mind the bodies. The caskets were closed except when the families were viewing during regular hours, so from where I sat all you saw were these long polished boxes through the doors, and unless you went in and took a good look they could have been anything, really.
Of course, I did go into each room and check on things a couple times a night. That’s what they were paying me for, after all. And for the first week or so that I was there, every once in a while I’d open up one of the caskets and take a look at the body inside. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but nobody specifically told me not to, and I was supposed to be making sure the bodies weren’t disturbed, right?
Sure enough there they all were in their caskets, but now they just looked like mannequins lying there with no expression. That was true even when every once in a while there was someone I had known, like Mrs. Nielsen, who had taught me and both my parents fourth grade, and Johnny Martin, who got killed in a wreck. Johnny was one of those kids who was mean to you until he decided to go after someone else, and I had never liked him. Of course that didn’t mean I wanted him dead. The mortician had sure done a good job. You couldn’t tell that anything had happened.
But I have to admit that after the first week I seldom looked inside the coffins. I poked my head in the rooms once or twice each night, just to make sure. Otherwise I just sat there behind the desk in this great swivel chair and read, mostly my library copy of Gone with the Wind. My cousin Kathleen claimed to have read the whole thing in a single day, starting first thing that morning and finishing after midnight. I don’t doubt she did, but I can’t read that fast, and even if I did I couldn’t very well take a whole day to do nothing but lie around and read a book. My father’s not rich.
So I sat there guarding the bodies against being disturbed. I read my book, and when I wasn’t reading I was planning the life that Billy and I were going to have together once he realized that Alice wasn’t the one for him. Even my parents talked about how sensible and down-to-earth Alice was, and how that was the sort of girl Billy needed. Maybe they were right about what Billy needed, but not about who. It was quiet and cool there in the main room and let’s face it, I didn’t have to do anything. Really, it was the best job I’d ever had.
And then one night right after I’d finished a chapter, I was resting my eyes and thinking how basically I really liked Scarlett although I didn’t see why she had to be so dramatic about everything, I heard a noise.
I opened my eyes and looked around. Nothing. Then I heard the noise again. Second room to the left.
I got up and went into the room, taking my copy of Gone with the Wind in case I needed a weapon—it was certainly heavy enough. It was quiet, and then I heard the noise again. A scratching sound, coming from inside the coffin.
When I’d first heard the noise, I have to admit that I was a little scared, but now that I was in the room with the noise coming from the casket, I was just numb. I didn’t know what to think or do. I wasn’t even aware of moving, but I found myself beside the casket, leaning down with my ear practically on the wood. Scratch, scratch, scratch.
I put my book down on the floor and opened up the top half of the casket. There was an old man inside I didn’t know. The scratching had stopped but now there was a different sound. It was coming from the man’s head.
I looked down and realized his mouth was moving without opening. I guess they had to sew it shut, or glue it, or do something to keep it from falling open.
Then he sat up. The casket was still closed below his waist, but there was room for him to sit up and get his arms free. He reached up and pulled at his face with both hands, and there was a sound not much louder than pulling off a band-aid, and his mouth opened and he said, softly but perfectly clearly, “See that my grave is kept clean.” And then he lay back down and didn’t say anything else.
I stood there and waited. I don’t know how much time passed, but he didn’t sit back up, and he didn’t say anything else. So I closed the casket, picked up my book, and went back to my desk.
I tried to read some more but I couldn’t concentrate. I just sat there the rest of the evening and tried to decide what to do. To be honest, I didn’t worry so much about the body sitting up or even talking. I’d never taken a drink of liquor in my life—still haven’t—and I knew what had happened had happened. And there was that summer when we all read Frankenstein and Dracula and went to see that other Bela Lugosi movie about the zombies, so it wasn’t like this was something I’d never heard of.
What I couldn’t figure out was why he said what he said. Like I’m supposed to tend to his grave? Maybe he thought I had a different job here. Or maybe he didn’t realize I was there at all. Maybe he was just hoping someone was.
I didn’t read any more that evening. I just sat there and waited for another noise.
But there wasn’t one, and when my time was up I got up and went home and didn’t say a word to anyone.
It never happened again, which was just as well. If there had been more bodies sitting up and talking, I might have had to tell someone, and if I didn’t, I might have had to quit my job, and neither one of those was something I wanted to do. Once Ma and Pa were used to me being there with the bodies, they would have been disappointed if I’d quit a perfectly good job. And if anyone was going to get Billy away from sensible Alice, it probably wouldn’t be a girl dead people talked to.
So I didn’t tell anyone, and like I said, it never happened again. When the summer was over I went back to school, and by the end of senior year, sure enough Billy saw the light about old Alice and started going steady with me. We got married, and here we are. Everything’s fine.
I don’t think much about what happened, but sometimes I have these dreams, and when I wake up it’s hard to get back to sleep. When that happens I look over at Billy, and I’m so happy he’s lying right there beside me. If Billy dies before I do, and he wants to sit up and pull his dead mouth open and start talking, he can just forget about it. He can just lie right back down.