In a few minutes the Reverend Brown came up beside him, shaking and kissing the heel of his palm. “Sweetgum balls,” he whispered when William glanced at him. “How much deeper do you guess they’ll go before they start wondering?”
“We’ve got another good half hour of waiting time, I’d say. Settle down and get comfortable. Go to sleep if you want to. I’ll nudge you if they start getting peevish.”
“I’d just as soon keep my eyes open, William. Have you noticed those rifles they’ve got at the edge of that hole they’re working in?”
“Sure,” William said, patting the stock of his shotgun. “I’m ready for ’em,” he added, and then fell silent and watched as the diggers went deeper and deeper, their breath now tearing in and out of their lungs like fire. They spoke little, and when they did, the words were muffled by the thrusting and pulling of shovels.
“William,” Mark whispered after a bit, “you think we’ll be able to hear them from here? I can’t understand a word they’re saying.”
“We’re gonna have to,” William said, “because we can’t risk getting any closer. I don’t think we’ll have a problem once they get back on the surface and Eddie’s temper gets fired up.”
The Reverend Brown nodded and the ground crackled as he shifted his position. Still they watched as the diggers went down into the ground, until at last they were watching shovelfuls of soil flying up from a gaping hole in the earth. When one of the boys scrambled up and out and took the lantern back into the pit with him, William gripped the preacher’s arm.
“Get your ears ready, Mark. I reckon they’ve gone far enough now to start expecting their reward.”
For fifteen minutes there was nothing but an unearthly glow from the grave and random scrapings and William knew they were checking for substance beneath the soil. There was some indistinct mumbling, then more soil came flying out of the open hole, and more scraping, and finally Wendell Pike’s head and the lantern appeared at the edge of the pit. In a moment the rest of him followed, hoisted up by Eddie. When Eddie followed and thrust his shovel into the ground like a spear, William held his breath.
“How far down do you reckon they put him?” Wendell said, and his voice had a nervous edge to it that William relished. “We musta gone six feet by now.”
“Yeah, we’ve gone six feet,” Eddie said, stalking around the grave but looking at Wendell. “We went six feet pretty damn quick seems like to me. That dirt lifted up mighty easy, like it’s been lifted up before, lately. What do you guess, Wendell?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Wendell answered, turning with Eddie as he paced back and forth. “Of course it was lifted easy. He ain’t been put down but a couple of weeks.”
“You know damn good and well what I’m talking about,” Eddie said, his voice rising a few notches. Good, William thought, his temper was already outstripping his caution.
“All I know,” Wendell said, “is I just spent half the night digging up an empty hole in the ground. How do you even know this is where they put him?”
“’Cause this is the only grave in the swamp ground. You see another one, Wendell? And you’re the one who walked right down here to it, even though I was carrying the lantern. You knew where it was right off, didn’t you? You musta done it this afternoon, musta gone straight from your place after I told you about it. I reckon it didn’t matter if you got caught ’cause your big old daddy would get you out of it.”
“Done what?” Wendell said, getting in Eddie’s face and shouting. “Done what?”
“You know what,” Eddie said, and jerking his shovel out of the earth, he slung it into the field of headstones that stood as mute witnesses to his fury. “You came out here already this afternoon and dug him up and knocked them teeth out of his head and probably already traded ’em off. Then let me come out tonight and dig at an empty hole for two hours.”
“You’re crazy,” Wendell shot back, and the shouting began in earnest. “I never been out here before in my life, but you thought the idea up, so maybe it was you that dug him up, then was too scared to admit it and tried to blame it on me. How stupid do you think I am?”
“How stupid do you think I am?” Eddie yelled back in his face.
“Stupid enough to miss half a dozen gold teeth in a dead man’s mouth.”
“Like you didn’t?”
“I’m not the one who had their hands on him, am I, Eddie? I’m not the one who killed him.”
“You reckon I opened his mouth and looked in after I finished him?” Eddie shouted, pushing Wendell backward into the dirt pile.
William sat up at once, his fingers closing over the shotgun beside him.
“At last, thank the good Lord,” the Reverend Mark Brown said aloud, getting stiffly to his feet. “You ready to end this, William?”
“I am,” William said. “Thank the good Lord, at last.”
Jerry M. Burger
Home Movie
from The Briar Cliff Review
Elaine threads the Super 8mm film through the projector, connects the loose end to the return reel, and closes the panel door. She turns the control knob to Play, and the dimly lit room is suddenly cast in silver and gray hues as images of men and women flutter onto the screen.
“Reel One,” she says aloud to no one. “The Birthday Party.”
She sees a version of herself from decades earlier sitting at her old dining table, hair permed to flip away from her face, an effort that she knew even then fell pathetically short of the intended Farrah Fawcett look. Neighbors dressed in 1977 fashion — tight blouses, wide lapels, oversized glasses — dart silently in and out of the picture. The old projector sounds as if it’s grinding the film; worn sprockets cause an occasional stutter and jump. Everyone is aware of the camera. They squint and smile, some wave. Dan Carpenter, who would die two years later from stomach cancer, sticks his face close to the lens with an exaggerated expression that is supposed to look as if he is having a great time but that always strikes Elaine as an omen of tragedy.
The camera zooms to a cake adorned with a forest of pink and white candles. It’s her twenty-eighth birthday. Nathan made all the arrangements and extended the invitations before he told her. By design, too late to talk him out of it or to call the whole thing off. There are two ashtrays on the table, and no one seems to mind that several guests are smoking. As she recalls, she was one of the few nonsmokers in the neighborhood.
The quality of the photography is awful. At any other gathering, Elaine would have been in charge of the camera. She was the one with the talent and the training. The behind-the-scenes person, the one never pictured in the photo. But that day Bruce had insisted. She was the guest of honor, he said. He would take care of recording the event. Unfortunately, her bighearted next-door neighbor was oblivious to his limited skills. There is no sense of framing, no point of entry for the eye. Full body shots are taken when torsos would have worked better, poses are held so long people signal “cut” with their hands. Clueless Bruce. She wonders if he had his suspicions even then, three months before he came to see her.
Elaine tastes her bourbon, swirls the ice, and takes another sip before setting the glass down on the TV tray next to the projector. Nathan is about to make his appearance on the screen.
Her husband enters the kitchen with his usual broad smile. He shakes a few hands and hugs the women. His eyes are set too far apart and his forehead is too large for him to be considered handsome, but he engages everyone with a confidence that belies his physical appearance. On the right edge of the screen, the red sleeve of a woman’s dress moves in and out of the picture. A few seconds later, Samantha steps into the middle of the frame. Her bright red dress, flawless and radiant, instantly captures the scene. Her long dark hair is expensively styled, the hem of her dress two inches higher than women her age wore them back then. She is a woman in control. Every glance, every gesture, is calculated and perfect. Elaine had been wary of her from the start, from the day Samantha and Bruce moved next door. Elaine’s first observation: boob job. Apparent to all the women in the neighborhood, even if Nathan and some of the husbands disagreed. Weren’t boobs that size supposed to bounce when you walk?