A voice, like a shovel stabbed through gravel: “Now, if you wanna be a gravedigger, you gotta know three things.” My father, unable to feed three children, sent me off to work for the local church, where I was promptly given to the aging groundskeeper as an assistant. The Old Man sat before me, hunched in his old wooden rocking chair, the one luxury afforded to his stone hut. Through the lone window, we could see the graves placed under our care.

            “Number one is ain’t no such thing as too deep. It’s backbreakin’ work, but durin’ them rainy seasons, them graves get picked up by the flood and float on down to the front door of their livin’ folks. Don’t want Johnny steppin’ over Nana on his way to the schoolhouse, eh?” A hoarse laugh racked the Old Man, while I politely kept quiet, uncomfortably shifting on my wooden stool.

            After recovering from his own comedic gifts, he continued; “Now, number two is, you gotta know your audience. When you’re attendin’ to the dead, you gotta remember the livin’ are the ones you’re really workin’ for. The white folks, the ones from the big towns, they don’t wanna see that coffin enter the ground; some sorta cultural thing. But the Mexican folk, they wanna see the whole damn show. Hell, work slow (or slower than they like), they’ll take that shovel and bury their dead themselves. Nine outta ten times it’s the deceased’s sons, thinkin’ they papa needs a better service than the one your givin’, and you gotta get as mean as you can git and take that shovel back. But there’s always that one old boy, worn out worse than me, who really does do it better than you could believe. When that old boy shows his head, best step out of the way.”

            At this point, I was only halfway paying attention, as the Old Man was mostly lecturing probably happy to tell somebody about his musings and observations from several decades’ worth of deathcare, occasionally punctuating them with gravelly laughter. But when the room was suspiciously quiet for several moments, I refocused on the Old Man. He now lost the excited glimmer in his eye, seemingly lost in thought. I spoke up, asking about the third thing I had to know.

            “Eh? Oh, yeah, number three. Number three, huh?” His vacant stare continued, as though he was temporarily seeing into an invisible world, spellbound by some spirit. He took a flask from his pocket, taking a long swig of the liquid inside. He returned his gaze to me, no longer the kindly old man, but a crazed lunatic whose warnings go unheard despite his best intentions:

            “Number three is, you see a dog in this graveyard, you do NOTHIN’ to the dog. Do you hear me, boy? You don’t shoo it, you don’t throw rocks at it, hell, don’t even look if you can help it. Do you get it, boy?” At this last question, he leaned forward, as close as he could to my face, while I tried to find the courage to answer. I had been scolded for breaking tools and spilling milk, but the Old Man was not in a scolding mood; the only thing in those eyes was fear.

            After another moment or two, he leaned back in his chair, unclenching his hands from the armrests on his chair, when a knock was heard on the door. He nodded in its direction, signaling for me to let in our guest. Father Murdock entered the shack, and greeted both me and the Old Man. Dressed in his priestly garb, he spoke to the Old Man in a friendly yet somehow condescending tone; “Damian, I hope you’re not scaring your guest already?” As if a switch had flipped, the Old Man became light and springy again, rising from his chair with surprising agility, replying, “No, Father, wouldn’t dream of it.” He flashed me a winning smile, then motioned for me to gather our tools; my apprenticeship was to begin immediately.

 

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My first burial, I was ordered to simply stand and watch, while the Old Man worked around the mourners. When the pallbearers arrived, he directed them to place the body on a contraption he had rigged himself, consisting of several straps and ropes to help lower the grave with considerably less stress on his body. He had bragged about this contraption all the way to the site, where he had prepared the coffin’s plot the night before. He worked diligently, with a speed and accuracy only afforded to those tradesmen who only knew the feel of their tools, to the detriment of all other feelings.

            While the crowd was clearly in the throes of grief, there was nothing out of the ordinary; they let the Old Man work in peace, and when it came time to lower the coffin, they vacated the cemetery, seemingly unable to witness their loved ones’ final journey. I was finally handed a shovel, and suddenly I was back on the farm, trenching alongside my brothers, turning dirt from dirt. The Old Man was impressed with my work, and we moved on.

            The second burial, he handed me the tools and grunted, wanting me to replicate his earlier performance. I did the best I could, maneuvering around mourners however I could, too shy to ask them to move, while the Old Man stood and smiled, probably remembering when he was in my position. Eventually, I got it done, and after a couple of adjustments from the Old Man, we lowered the coffin to its final resting place, the mourners watching all the while.

            While we sat and ate lunch, the Old Man was expounding upon his philosophical views on the intricacies of shovels when Father Murdock interrupted with a troubling look on his face. Upon seeing this look, the Old Man straightened out, asking in a formal tone, “Yes, Father Murdock?”

            “I need you two to come with me into the church. No audience for the next man.”

            We both nodded and cleaned up our lunch, while Father Murdock made his way back to the church alone, his nervous stride betraying his fear. As we made our way up the hill, we passed the statue of a dog, with the plaque under reading, “Grim.” Under his name, the dates 1786-1789. I stood, reading for far longer than I intended, called back to Earth when the Old Man barked my name, that same expression from the morning on his face. I had no time to ask about anything, as Father Murdock stood at the door, waiting with a similar expression of fear.

            When a man has no living kin to stand vigil for them, us gravediggers and some church boys perform that duty for the dead. We stood while Father Murdock gave a basic sermon, lecturing us on the importance of repenting from our sins in front of our Heavenly Father who resided in Heaven. Having heard this speech in several different forms from several different priests and parents, my mind wandered until it was again called back down by Father Murdock, whose voice had shifted from priest to fanatic:

            “…and it is when the Devil tempts us with riches and finery and fame that we must guard ourselves, for the only audience we shall have when we give into those temptations shall be a decrepit old priest, his aged gravekeeper, and their poor unwitting apprentice.” He wiped the sweat from his brow, and with a trembling hand, blessed the coffin and the corpse within.

 

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The coffin was incredibly simple when compared to the others; a simple wooden box with a cross affixed to the front. Father Murdock called for more hands to help carry the box, but could find no willing volunteers to even touch the thing. Frustrated and anxious, he exercised his authority in a voice I hoped to never have directed at me, commanding the other boys to help. Once we managed to get the box onto the Old Man’s contraption, the other boys ran, fleeing from the box and leaving us to deal with whatever horrors they thought likely to occur. Then we got to work.

            Father Murdock continued the funerary rituals, albeit with a speed bordering on disrespectful, as though anxious to get the damned thing over with. He was visibly sweating in the cold spring air, tremors running through him despite the thick robes protecting his body. Finally, he completed his duties, and left me and the Old Man to finish the job.

            While the Old Man had hummed and worked with a jovial attitude earlier that same day, now he worked in dead silence, with a similar breakneck pace that had me doing my best to match his pace. Once we completed our part, we took the short walk back to the hut in deafening silence.

 

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When the moon was highest and the clock read 2:15, I felt my boots thrown onto my bed, opening my eyes to see the Old Man, fully dressed and holding a lantern. He gestured to my clothes; while dressing, I heard from outside the cocking of a rifle, a sound that had me stumble onto the floor. At this loud crashing sound, the Old Man laughed for the first time since the pauper’s funeral; “Oh, don’t you worry about this old thing; you’ll be glad to have it later tonight.”

            Once I was ready, we walked out into the cemetery, a fog hanging over the stones that somehow did not impede the Old Man, who led me through with his memorized layout of the place. We eventually came upon our first grave, where we could hear a shovel cutting through the soil. Once we could actually see the hole, we found a gaunt, pale man, shirtless despite the temperature, hard at work on disinterring Silas Gadsden. He seemed not to notice us, but he certainly noticed the sound of the rifle’s hammer being cocked, grabbing his undivided attention.

            “This here’s sacred ground, son. Get your things and get out.” The pale man stared then spat; “I ain’t your son, I’m his, and he owes me. I ain’t goin nowheres.”

            “Ol’ Gadsden’s dead and restin’, boy. Far as we’re concerned, he don’t owe any earthly people’s a thing.”

            Gadsden’s boy seemed not to hear, being consumed by an anger so strong it made him shake when the dew and wind could not. It wasn’t until the rifle was finally levelled at his chest that he understood the gravity of his situation.

            “There’s only one thing that can disturb these graves, son, and you ain’t it.”

            Finally, he understood the only prizes to be found here would be buckshot and a wooden box, and so Gadsden’s son had to take his grievances somewhere away from his father’s tomb. It was only when he climbed out that I saw the pistol hanging from his waist. The Old Man wore an expression of pity rather than fear, but rather than dwell on it, he simply motioned for me to follow. And so we went.

            The second grave was thankfully undisturbed, and while I contemplated this good fortune, I became distracted again by thoughts of my first working day, hoping they would not all be like this, when I noticed the Old Man was gone. Though he was carrying a lantern in heavy fog, I saw no lights around me; I was alone in the mist of a church cemetery. Unnerved, I began to panic, but tried to stay calm and make my way back to the cabin. It was here that I envied the Old Man the most, not for his light, but for his guidance, as he knew the cemetery far better than anyone else; alongside my fear rose the pain in my shins, my knees, my shoulders, whenever I hit or struck all those stones sticking out of the ground. Eventually, the annoyance helped drown out the fear, and I called out to the Old Man less from panic and more to save my own body from further abuse. A particularly stubborn headstone seemingly sprouted from the mist right in front of my foot, forcing me to the ground. I fell on my arms, in pain but otherwise okay, when the fog began to lift. I was initially relieved until the clearing mist revealed me to be only a dozen or so feet away from the pauper’s grave. I lay still, listening for any footsteps around me. I got to my knees when I heard shuffling footsteps approaching the grave.

            From out of the mist, I could see a hound approaching the pauper’s grave, sniff the earth, and dig. Fearing it would scatter the remains all over the cemetery, I yelled as loud as I could; “Shoo! Go on, git!” He continued, so I grabbed a nearby stone and hurled it, maintaining eye contact to assert a primal dominance. The dog stopped, backed away from the grave and turned in a way that only a human could, and when I stared into its eyes, I saw not the eyes of an animal, but that of a giant pit, swallowing me whole, plunging me into darkness, and the darkness was only broken by a fiery pit, into which I had been cast for ages, agonizing ages that passed me by so slowly, yet I knew I had been there for countless eons, seeming to burn forever, joined by my father, my mother, my two siblings, wondering where I could ever find any sort of respite, what sins had I committed to deserve such a fate, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

            The Old Man stood above me, as I had somehow fallen onto the cold dirt, staring at the creature masquerading as a dog. “Go on now, Grim, you got your prize. Leave this poor boy alone; he don’t know better.” The hound, satisfied, returned to the grave, now completely dug out, and dragged the corpse of the pauper across the plains behind the cemetery, while the corpse clawed desperately to the ground in eager search of freedom.

            “And that is why we don’t shoo the dogs.”