Of Dogs and Bones

A winking bit of flash under the dead leaves that still littered the walking path through the old cemetery caught Aleson’s eye. She stepped off the trail, kicked at the leaves, her toe daintily avoiding a small pile of deer pellets, and bent over to pick up the gum wrapper. “People”, she huffed, slipping it into her pocket. 

Straightening, she noticed a new deep pink headstone standing out from all the dull weathered gray ones just before the hillock. She didn’t remember ever seeing it before. She ventured further from the path and carefully made her way closer to read the inscription. It was for Larry Jollie, apparently a local man, who back in the 50’s spent four years in the Air Force and enjoyed it so much that, according to the stone, he was interred at Jefferson Barracks Military Cemetery in St. Louis.

Huh, she thought. That seemed somehow inappropriate; taking up two plots in two separate cemeteries for what was probably by now a box of bones. Unless he’d been cremated which would have made it worse. Probably not though-back then they wouldn’t have. Not as readily as now anyway. Seems she can’t hardly go into someone’s apartment for a visit or a cup of coffee these days without being joined by an urn or a box on a shelf or some other place of prominence. She paced off the space of the plot feeling less queasy about marching around on top of a hole that wasn’t and held nothing. It was the same size of the others, which bothered her even more. 

She remembered her Granny Akers saying that when she went, they should “shove a bone up my ass and let the dogs drag me away.” Aleson had been six or seven when she first heard that and wondered how such a thing might work. Her neighbor at the time, Dottie was her name, had a dog. A big romping mutt named Randy that would run into the woods after balls that they threw. They could never throw them far enough for the dog to lose. She wondered if he could drag her Granny away by the ass bone. But then, would he drag her back like a game? The things kids thought!

It didn’t work out that way for Granny though. She was over in Hayes Memorial Park with a handsome if flat plaque-no upright stones in Hayes-laying next to her husband, Pap Akers. His plaque mentions that they had been together for 59 years which was true if you didn’t count the seven years they weren’t and he lived with Phyluria over in Mon City. 

After her dalliance with Pap, Phyluria took up with Old Man Watson who lived on the edge of town and kept a pack of beagles that had fascinated her as a child. All kept in cages along with cages of rabbits! He had a fenced area in the back of his property that looked like an old field with bushes and such. He would release the rabbits into that fake field then train the dogs in the art of finding them rabbits. Which, looking back, Aleson thought was pretty simple. Didn’t beagles do that naturally? He must have been good at it though because the one time she’d been in their trailer she took note of all the ribbons and trophies lining the shelves he had probably built there just to hold them. 

Phy beat them all into the dirt having gotten real sick with cancer and dementia, to the point that her husband took pity and shot her with his hunting rifle, which he then turned on himself. Which would have been fine but somewhere in there he’d shot his dog too. Which everybody damned him for. Phyluria, sure, bless her. Himself, definitely. But not the dog! “People”, she huffed. 

The Springhouse

It was an old springhouse on a farm long forgotten, set into the center of what had been a foundation wall, now a roost for lichen, ferns and whatever slippery plant could gain purchase along the cool damp stone where the sun rarely touched. But she did, running her hands along the rough face as she slipped through the opening into the musky dim, rusted nubs of hinges the only hint of the thick doors which once hung there. 

Inside, the cistern was empty as it had been the first time she’d visited save for the skittering daddy long-legs that enjoyed whatever moisture she couldn’t see. She remembered the feel of the low stone shelf which, with no cheese, cream or jugs to store, could serve as a crude bench. As it had.

They were young then and spry. It had taken no more than a single shared glance to melt the clothes from her body which glowed like a pearl in the stoney dusk. A momentary gentle man, he took the rough seat and had her mount facing him which she did easily being constantly dewy in her memory. She was first, mewling, keening and scraping her toes against the stone feeling gooseflesh wash across her back as mouth over mouth he stole her breath.  

Then, sated and spent, but still feeling his pulsing strength inside her she allowed him to bend her over the cistern where he took her hard, pushing into the place she dreaded. But she took it, knowing it would take but a few minutes then be over and their lives would continue. But for that lesson, learned by every woman since the dawn of time, the species would have mercifully flickered out eons ago. 

“Kindness Was His Key to Heaven”

…reads the inscription on Joseph Page’s headstone who passed in 1915 at the ripe old age of 78. I like reading stones, for the tales they tell. Old Joe had missed dying in a war, which was notable here where there were dead from every conflict since the Whiskey Rebellion. And dying in ‘15 spared him the last great pandemic which is represented down around the bend where the hillside falls away to the woods and the many small, numbered but nameless stones lay scattered like cockeyed baby teeth in the unkempt weeds. Those are the Spanish Flu dead, buried quickly enough to be anonymous-whole families gone in days leaving the undertaker to rifle through drawers in infected bedrooms for enough coin to put them in even the most undesirable part of the cemetery. Happily, I know no one who’s died this time around. Mom went two years ago and my mother-in-law last year. It was a blessing. But now we’re all being careful. Even at Shirley’s where I stopped last weekend, all the girls wore masks which was sort of comical especially when we got back to the rooms and they wore nothing else. Especially with Cheri, my regular, who always takes me on knees and elbows so it’s not even like we’re facing each other. Since we’re friends I’ve told her she doesn’t have to fake it with me, which I thought was being nice, but probably shouldn’t have because now she never quits talking through the whole thing. It was about the gifts other girls were getting from their regulars for the Holidays. Small refrigerators, microwaves, coffee makers, big screen TV’s which, she assured me-just as I was letting loose, no less-aren’t as expensive as they used to be. I have a wife and two daughters; enough gifts to shop for. I don’t need to add anything. If I’d tell Shirley how Cheri was trolling for gifts the girl would get a board busted over her ass. I know she’s incorrigible. I’ve seen the bruises. It was easier for me to give her an extra hundo that Shirley didn’t need to know about. Only after getting her to promise she wouldn’t put it up her nose and after checking her arms and between her toes for tracks, pricks or bruises. I promised to see her next week and wanted to do some back-door work. She was fine with that-just wanted to know ahead of time. Plus I pay extra for it.