The missing chapter, forwarded on behalf of Michael. Edited to remove plain-text html coding; probably haven't properly preserved the original paragraph breaks, spacing, etc., but I think I got all the words in here....
D.
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Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 18:37:52 EST
Subject: Re: Dead Awful /Act 3
To: [log in to unmask]
Act 3
. THE CAST
The gravediggers are real salts of the earth who in their own way have seen it all. Behind their shabby exterior they are a wealth of congealed wisdom and old school levity. They talk story with that slow easy drawl of Southern Eubonics that is rich in the culture of the agrarian life of this and the last century . Their words of speech are elongated in the Southern vernacular . Syllables and vowels like.... Re-ed ,....Be-ed and
...Po- lice color their imaginative story telling about a South that is quickly disappearing.
To the contrary my masons are young twenty something¹s. Brad Pitt Zorros whose bedroom conquests they think are the stuff of legend. They like to
roll their own cigarettes and paste them into their dirty smirks as they
boast over last night¹s foibles as if it were a 3-course meal served in a chicken barn ..The fact that they haven¹t bathed for a week lends credit to the fact that perhaps it was a chicken barn. Females, hopefully ones that bath, allegedly come and go at all hours of the night as I get complaints
from the Pakistani management about multiple people staying there.... I
tell em I dunno... ³I was asleep² and then shake my head with a twitch.
To those of us who are married and or on a diet ,this type of behavior might seem like old hat, but under the swaying palms of the graveyard ribald stories such as theirs never leaves a dull moment in a place that¹s otherwise , (dare I say it?) .. dead. Since both the masons and the gravediggers find one another amusing and entertaining that makes for a good team. Our job here is to restore corbelling to tombs and rebuild crypts ,giving them render coats. If we engage in bawdy stories about life on the road then so much the better as
the dead never are ones to complain besides they make good listeners.
Despite our different social backgrounds we are all brothers of the stone and the soil. True we work for the dead, and care for there houses, but the fraternal spirit as craftsmen and stewards for the park they sleep in binds us. We work here, so to speak, with one foot on the earth and the other in the grave, and depending which is which, this we feel gives us a leg up on life¹s perspective.
If anything it is our hope, that when that terrible day comes, and that bastard Charon is ferrying us across his fiery river that our endeavors here will be recognized for what they are and we won¹t be given the cheap seats too close to the boiling oil....
Scene 2
By now the men here have created the perfect holiday table, and boy it¹s a beaut. Marble headstones of the 19th century are sometimes giant slabs of stone and this 9 footer is pure white. They found it toppled over, exhumed it and made its surface of dates and Masonic inscriptions a breathtaking sight to behold. Lets see for a Martha Stewart service of eight we will need paper cups and plastic cutlery to go on the dates of birth and death; Oh ! and the center piece; a lovely construe of plastic mortuary flowers set in saw tooth palmetto and decorated with little green sprigs of yew can go over the Bible scripture,...lovely. Lets see now ...toothpicks from McDonalds will be at all the corners, and sheets of soft Charmin purloined from the porta-jon will be placed in the rings of cardboard toilet rolls . .Viola ! ...now all we have to do is wait for the punch and the ubiquitous Long Dongs.
The men anxious about the festivities scamper about performing various and
sundry chores to make the place settings merry by adding touches of
colorful cedar here and prickly holly there; Oh and the punch ,....the glorious punch...Shall go right over the good mans namesake on the tablet ; but not to worry, we have added another place at the table should he suddenly appear ..
Scene two
Since Long Dongs will be supplying the oriental repast I must get busy and be thinking about going to get the ingredients for the punch. My options are simple. Get into the truck and drive two miles to a place I know ...then drive the two miles back, ...OR Walk 4 blocks into the Hood, which borders our back yard of the cemetery, to the local package store ....It should be a no-brainer but ...the Hood, as the ghetto is called, is a struggling neighborhood that reeks of crime and abandoned housing. The prospect of no jobs and the litter of stolen cars, drugs, and a humanity that is all but forgotten hold its tattered infrastructure hostage .
To the outsider the Hood is not a neighborhood to stroll in,.nor is there any window-shopping to be had there. Like the graveyard it¹s not a place you want to move into, travel at night in or pass through to get somewhere.. However the package store is so close. I can see its twinkling Santa lights beckoning me. The only problem I see is what path should I take. The obstacles are few but worrisome. Small bands of loitering teenagers in hooded sweatshirts idyll their time on stoops squabbling over games of chance and sales of dime bags. Normally I am supportive of youth engaging in start up businesses, but my lack of knowledge in gang signs and my skittishness over their Pitt bulls puts me at a social disadvantage.
So call me old fashioned, but I think I will take a more circuitous route that may take a little longer but has a better chance of success. My strategy involves power walking and taking in an additional two blocks, but what the heck I need the exercise. I arm myself with my hardhat and
slip through the hole in the fence while whistling the Ride of the
Valkyries for courage.
The layout of such package stores is usually pretty typical. Once inside if you are lucky enough to see what it is that you are wanting, you communicate not so much through talking (because that¹s often impossible). You communicate by pointing and shaking your head yes and no. Then if all goes really well , you then pass your money through a grimy plastic hole whose surface is pitted with the smears of humanity; (where it goes after that is anybody¹s business ) and hope for the best. Once an order is confirmed your goods are delivered to you via a folding open drawer operated by a hand crank from inside.; after that , any quibbling over whether you received correct change is hopeless an not worth pursuing ..
My circuitous route is brilliant and works perfectly. I arrive jaunty as a rube at a racetrack to the front of the store without incident.; Then just as I am about to enter its premises a big-kneed woman working the corner across the street greets me ....She is stout, White , well bosomed, and hails me with her smile and a fluttering tongue that reminds me like a barber waiting with a hot towel . I don¹t know what to make of it all. Maybe she likes Wagner and the Valkyries, but whatever she likes my hopes are it ain¹t me. I wave her off with the gracious smile of used car dealer and
enter the premises actually grateful that she is there . . I mean a
woman , a working woman ,able to stand out here alone on the corner in the
hood gives me hope that all my fears about this place are unfounded .
.
I conduct my business through the dreaded plastic hole and watch my Franklin disappear into a steel drop slot. The sales clerk mumbles something and disappears .. A minuet passes then five , and I am getting that sinking feeling that I am the lad who just sold the family cow for some magic beans .Happiness revisits my spirit when the clerk returns and processes my order through the drawer that flops open with the hand crank
.I think I hear ³Happy new year² through the dirty plastic glass and
discover the clerk has doubled the hors d¹ oeuvres order with an additional two large bags of, Sammy¹s smokehouse pork rinds.
Overjoyed at management¹s generosity I give a wave of thanks then exit
the store this time whistling ³Auld Lange Syne ³ so there wouldn¹t be
any confusion over the Wagner . I greet the good woman across the way with a smiling nod but don¹t want to get too happy least she follows me home . Not that the men would misunderstand , but that¹s exactly the problem . I keep to my side of the street and hold up the bag of beverages aloft with both hands For her to see that I am all tied up.... She flutters her tongue back as if to say that¹s not a problem.
Since brave men run in my family I start hurrying my way down the avenue
completing several stanzas of ³Auld Lang Syne² with my power walk when
a shiny white Escalade with chrome spinners and gold trim pulls up to the woman working the corner. Inside a boom box rattles the pavement with enough force to make the bottle caps jump and spin in the street. The driver, a dapper young man with a gold earring and tooth sporting a Santa hat sideways on his head lowers the boom box at the same time he lowers the electric smoke glass of his Escalade
³Yo bitch ..where¹s my twenty dollars².. He calls over to her. She mumbles something inaudible and he continues with the motor running ³Bitch I waited there all night so you could give my twenty and you didn¹t show² he repeats for a second time ³didn¹t show² as if passing sentence . The good woman with the fluttering tongue who had looked so cheerful before now looked worried . but at about 250lbs I didn¹t think she was a damsel in distress. So I kept on walking.
Boy was I wrong. She mumbled something again to which the driver didn¹t like. Santa hat just shook his head clutching his wheel like a parent whose child has lied to him again. Too ungainly to run, the good woman is now looking pale and nervous. The situation begins to deteriorate, The hooded sweatshirts never ones to mind their own business close in like sharks at a ship wreck. If nothing else this was their afternoon¹s entertainment . .
Santa hat pipes up ³Yeah ..well look here² ...²I promised my wife
here, pointing his finger to the back of the car behind the smoked glass,
³dat twenty dollars was hers².. and Now bitch yo telling me you don¹t got
it? He again repeats ³don¹t got it² with menacing consequences Suddenly
he sounds off and plays the crowd . ³Listen ! Here is what Ise going to
do...I¹m going to let her talk to you about it.²
With that a huge black woman with the muscles of a body builder exited the black glass of the car ... ³Bitch whars my twenty dollar² she yells and connects with out warning a round house that could fell a horse. That¹s it, I stop walking The punch lifts the woman up by the jaw and deposits her face down into the sidewalk with a sickening thud . Normally I do
not get involved with fisticuffs between women .,but this woman isn¹t
moving. Before I could put the groceries down and run over, the body builder is viciously kicking the woman from the sidewalk into the gutter
. ³hey ... ³hey stop² I call closing the distance of a half of a
block.
At this point Santa Hat is nervous , not wishing to make a scene he recalls his ³wife² to the pimpmobile and the two take off leaving a patch of
burnt rubber for me to inhale ... . I make it to the woman and see
that she is still breathing. The hooded sweatshirts also arrive and we exchange pleasantries over her pocketbook That has fallen by her wayside. Our negotiation gets a little heated when I call it quits and whistle for my troop to join me from their viewpoint 4 blocks away ..Just then a gypsy cab rounds the corner and I grab the purse and stop the cab by waving and stepping in front of it . .
Cab drivers do not like to witness crime .So I had to think fast .. I just simply told him that she had a seizure and had fallen I crossed his palm with my last five and asked him if he could he please help take her to the emergency room which was just a few blocks away . ;
He agreed .We both then placed her moaning into the back of the cab, I
tossed in the purse and he sped off The sweatshirts sped off too Either
they did the math and saw my crew slipping through the hole in the fence., or discovered my beverages across the way and considered it the door prize ...
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