“Not here,” she said. “It’s filthy.”
Toby chuckled, then kissed her again. She wrapped her arms around his back, holding him tighter. She hadn’t thrown on a bra, and her hoodie brushed deliciously against her hardened nipples.
After a long moment, Toby pulled back from her. He looked at the ground and kicked at a broken chunk of glass. “You know what’s funny?” he said. “If Ronnie had died back here, no one would have thought anything of it. They’d just think it was related to all the other shady shit going on around here.”
LaVonda took his face in both hands. “Stop thinking about it. At least for right now.” She leaned forward to kiss him.
“Maybe then the cops wouldn’t be after me.”
LaVonda leaned back against the wall. “They’re not after you. They just want to talk to you. You and Ronnie were tight. Besides, you walk along the edge of a dark world. Anything could happen.”
With his fingers, Toby traced the length of her nose, the line of her jaw. He parted her lips and slid his finger into her mouth. LaVonda closed her eyes, moving her mouth up and down on his finger. It tasted of sweat and cigarettes. He placed his open hand over her face. She licked his palm and gently bit at the pad of flesh at the base of his thumb. He cupped his hand over her mouth.
Suddenly, her body stiffened. She inhaled sharply as Toby pushed his body harder into her. Pain flared in her side. She tried to pull away but he held her head tight against his chest, his fingers tangled in her hair. LaVonda’s knees gave way and she slid down the length of his body.
She pressed her palm to her side. Her hand felt wet, sticky. She looked up at Toby, watched as he closed the knife with a soft snick and tucked it into his waistband.
LaVonda slid sideways onto the ground. Her mouth was open, her lips moving. Toby bent low, his ear to her mouth.
“Why?” she whispered, then began to choke and sputter.
“I really wish you hadn’t seen us when you came out on your porch last night. It’s a shame. I’ve always really liked you. But Allie will say I was in all night last night. Just like tonight.”
LaVonda’s eyes widened. “You... Ronnie... Why?” She coughed.
Toby shrugged. “He thought I was his bitch. I find all the customers for a few bags of weed? I deserved a serious percentage. Just a few dollars for everyone I brought in. He didn’t want to give it up.”
The coppery taste of blood was strong in the back of her throat. She still tried to talk. “But then, why did you... why did we...”
Toby nuzzled his face against her cheek, then pressed his lips to her ear. “You wanted it.”
LaVonda felt the knife against her throat. Tears slid from her eyes. I shouldn’t have slept with him.
But it was far too late for that thought.
Toby’s face filled her field of vision. Weakly, LaVonda pressed her thighs together. She knew that even though she’d washed herself, part of Toby was still inside her.
Good. She closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and arched her neck up to the sky.
Pieces of Everyone, Everywhere
by Cynthia Swanson
Cheesman Park
Digging graves is straightforward labor, involving little more than brute strength and a sufficiently sharp blade. The job can be done with relative ease by even the most doltish of common workhands.
But here’s something many do not know: exhuming graves, by contrast, is art. One cannot simply thrust one’s spade in the ground, hack around until one hits upon some solid object, then mercilessly subtract shovelful after shovelful of raw earth until the grave’s remains, treasure-like, are exposed. Nor can one wrest such treasure from the ground, haphazardly tossing fragments to the surface and flinging them into any vessel conveniently nearby.
No. Such practices would be immoral. Moreover, they would, as my Uncle August said, invite misfortune. August believed, as do I, that regardless of circumstances, the dead deserve to lie peacefully. They should be disturbed only in the most dire of situations. If a body must be moved, it should be done properly and with reverence.
“There’s no cause to uproot them, Sam,” Uncle August told me. “If you have to do it, you better have a damn good reason. And you better treat them with respect.”
I had, and continue to have, no argument with that. All bodies, in my belief — both the dead and the living — should be treated with respect.
Uncle August and I had this conversation last year while standing in an Iowa cornfield. Plowing a new field, we encountered a shallow grave under a meager scattering of stones. We found no coffin, no shroud, not even a scrap of clothing — just a full, adult human skeleton set into the thick Midwest soil, all flesh that once graced the bones returned entirely to the earth. That the grave was unviolated by an animal was nothing short of providence.
No one besides our family had ever homesteaded that land, so the skeleton was either an Indian’s or perhaps belonged to some white man who, decades earlier, had been making his way west and died en route. Uncle August said his money was on the latter, because Indians are smarter than that — they don’t leave their dead lying about like so much rubbish. I suspect he’s right.
Either way, Uncle August said we were obliged to move the body appropriately. We returned to the barn and hammered together a solid though simple coffin. We lugged it to the field and eased the bones into place, carefully reassembling those separated from their neighbors. Then we moved the entire affair under a willow tree — where it should have been all along, as was obvious to both of us — and ensured the box was set accurately, buried deeply. The task cost us nearly a full day of plowing, but we accomplished it with respect.
Well. What would Uncle August say about my first job in my new city of Denver, Colorado? What would he say about the merciless, hack-job labor into which I had embroiled myself?
I choose not to think about it. When such thoughts enter my mind, I hang my head in shame.
Upon arriving in Denver, I’d spied the undertaker’s notices all over town. Posters were tacked to trees; advertisements took space in the local papers. Gravediggers needed for extensive exhumation project. Apply in person, E.P. McGovern, Undertaking and Embalming, 549 Larimer St. Strong white men only.
Inspecting one such sign, I inquired of a bystander how to find Larimer Street.
He glowered. “Cursed Tammany crooks. Think you’re free of them out here in the west? Think again, son.”
I shook my head. “Sir?”
“Mayor’s out of town,” the man explained. “Acting mayor is in deep with the local Tammany Hall cronies. Crooks pushed through a downright pointless contract to relocate those graves.” He shook his fist. “It’s nothing but taxpayer money lining wicked pockets, son.”
None of this made the least bit of sense to me. I asked again for directions to the funeral home.
“God’ll smite me, aiding such sinful jobbery.” He looked me up and down, appraising my shabby hat and coat. “But I can see you need the work.”
Indeed, I did. When the gentleman gave me directions, I thanked him and hurried away.
Applying for the job at McGovern’s funeral home, I was given a brief account of the situation. The graveyard in question, named City Cemetery, was located east of the Capitol and just a few blocks south of Colfax Avenue. For a time, this area had been the outskirts of Denver proper. As the city grew, a larger and more remote cemetery, Riverside, was established some miles north. At that point, City Cemetery was essentially abandoned — the graves uncared for, the tombstones crumbling, the entirety of it an eyesore. Now, the city intended to transform it into a park. The land would, as it was explained to me, become a green, grassy setting, intended for the leisure of those who lived nearby.