Square With God

The phase of my life which I am going to tell you about is a phase that was at first rather routine. It was during the summer months in which I had, well, a summer job. My good friend Nate advised me to apply for a job mowing a goddamn cemetery. If I were to say, it wasn’t bad work, well I would be lying. The work was brutal. We had to push mow with these heavy lawn mowers eight hours a day; the dust that was stirred up made it hard to breathe sometimes. I always thought of myself as a tough kid, so I kept at it until I was eventually fired by Larry, the groundskeeper. But this is the story of something that happened one particular day.


I guess I should tell you a little bit about who I worked with. They were of the unique sort, the type of people that behave very naturally, yet what is natural for them is unorthodox for others. There was Lobster, the meth addict, named such because he never wore a shirt and his back was always beat red. This guy was so strung out that there was little left in his brain it seemed. Then there was Frank, a drug dealer who looked like Uncle Fester from the Adam’s Family. Then we have my friend Nate who quit shortly after the work began. And then lastly we had Roy, who was a wise cracking Mexican that got in the habit of calling me “Red head” (due to my bright red hair of course).

I woke up on what I thought would be an ordinary day at work. I stumbled out of bed, unconcerned with a shower, and immediately smoked a cigarette. I walked outside to a sunny morning with a few dark clouds off to the West. I got in my purple car that I’ve always despised for a variety of reasons that I won’t get into. I started it up with a sigh, and drove to the cemetery. I parked my car there and walked into the office. There were your typical old men that worked there, wise old men, that drank their coffee and were only concerned with paying taxes. I asked one of them once what the meaning of life was. He told me bluntly, “To bury the dead and pay your taxes.”

Pretty soon I heard Roy’s voice outside. He drove the white truck that took us around the cemetery. It was honestly a beautiful place. There were rolling hills and large old trees and tombstones everywhere, obviously. I didn’t mind being there, to tell you the truth, save for the labor. But I needed the money, so I kept at it. Roy looked at me.

“Wasup Red Head,” he said tilting his head upwards.

“Not much,” I said staring off.

“Larry wants us pickin flowers today. We got us an easy day today,” he said.

“Good,” I said.

I was pretty excited about picking flowers. There are all these green boxes full of these red flowers that the families of the deceased can order to place in front of the tombstones. Our job that day would be to take two buckets, one to sit on, and one to throw the dead flowers in so that the new ones can grow up. It was a very simple Zen like job. I enjoyed it.

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked.

“Lazy. Probably ain’t gonna come to work today; it’s supposed to rain. That’s why Larry’s havin’ us pick flowers.”

“Ah,” I said.

I always brought my iPod with me so I could listen to music while I would mow or pick flowers or whatever. We got in the truck, I put my head phones on, and we drove to the back of the cemetery, where some of the older tombstones are. I loved looking at the names of the tombstones and wondering who the people were, and what their lives were like. I always wondered why there were flowers by such old parts of the cemetery. They must have been there forever, and the families never ordered them taken down. And Larry, being a hardass, never decided to take them down either. Roy parked the truck and we hopped out and each took two buckets.

“I’ll get these over here, you get those one’s Red Head,” he said in his thug voice.

I didn’t say anything. I just walked through the cemetery, a bucket in each hand listening to my favorite death metal music, and sat down at my first batch of flowers. I looked through the flowers, there were only about two still live ones, and the rest were dead. I looked at the name on the tombstone, Melissa Jaeger, it said. I could have sat there and thought about who she was and what she did and all that, but I didn’t. I just picked the flowers. We did this all morning.

“Hey Red Head, get over here,” Roy shouted.

I walked over.

“I brought somethin’ today,” he said and pulled out a nice looking joint.

“Hey, that was quite the thought for today,” I said as excited as I could be. I was a very depressed person during this part of my life.

He sparked it up and took a deep inhale. The sky was becoming darker as we picked the flowers.

“So Red Head, you got anger problems or something?”

“No, I just like this music.”

“They say red heads have anger issues, and you listenin’ to that heavy metal all day. I can hear it from your headphones.”

“I’m sure you can,” I said and took the joint from him.

To be honest, working in the cemetery wasn’t all that bad. It was enjoyable I guess, getting stoned and picking flowers isn’t much. But it was in a cemetery after all. I could never get over how the place reeked of death. Working there made me face my own mortality. I am going to die. It would just hit me some days. I am going to be nothing but a name on a tombstone someday. Nobody really remembers Melissa Jaeger, and I would wonder if they would ever remember me. I also thought about who “they” is. My family, my friends, my enemies. Who would come to my funeral?

We finished our joint and went back to work picking flowers. The cemetery, called Aspen Grove, is huge. And there were a lot of those green buckets in the place, so we could pick flowers all day, surely. But eventually the morning was over, and it was time for lunch. During this part of the day I would drive to my grandparent’s house for lunch. I got in my car and immediately lighted a Marlboro Red cigarette and drove to their house. The sky was getting even darker by now. I was always glad to leave the cemetery. I pulled into my grandparent’s driveway, got out, and walked right in.

“There’s our workin’ boy,” said my grandma.

“I’m hungry,” I said. I wasn’t exactly the talkative type.

I plopped down on the couch, and couldn’t get the thought of death out of my mind. I decided to ask my grandpa about it.

“Are you scared to die Grandpa?” I asked inquisitively.

“Nope,” he said without a moment’s hesitation.

“Why? Aren’t you worried about what will happen?”

“Nope, I’m square with God,” he said and looked at the ground.

“But how can you know you’re square with God if you don’t know the mind of God. God is too ineffable to comprehend, you can’t know that you’re square with God.”

“That doesn’t matter, boy. I’ll tell you that I’ve lived my life the best I could. I’m too old to be thinking the way you do. If you’re worried about it, maybe it’s time you take a good look at yourself.”

I didn’t say anything. I just laid back down on the couch and waited for my grandma to come with my pizza rolls for lunch. I just sat there and ate quietly, thinking about what was just said.

“Here we go,” said my grandma and brought me the pizza rolls.

“Thank you,” I said. I just sat there and ate quietly while they watched court shows on television. My grandpa would always comment on who was lying and who was telling the truth. Eventually, though, I had to go back to the cemetery for the second part of my shift. I said good bye, and went back to the cemetery, smoking another cigarette on the way there.

I arrived and got out, and saw Lobster there.

“Larry wants us watering the flowers at Baby Land now,” Lobster said.

“Isn’t it supposed to rain?” I said.

“Tell that to Larry.”

Larry was a regular madman. He drove around the cemetery watching us through binoculars to see if we were working hard or not. I eventually got fired because he caught me sleeping on the job. But this story isn’t even about that. It’s about what happened on the second shift of work that day.

“You gotta ride on the back Red Head,” Roy said. “But first let’s fill these buckets full of water.”

We filled the buckets full of water and loaded them up in the back of the truck. Roy and Lobster hopped in the front of the truck and I hopped on the tailgate hanging off the back and put my ipod on my waist and my headphones on. Now it was time to water the flowers. This time we were doing it for Baby Land where the families are obviously just distraught over their deaths. Maybe it was some kind of charity that we were doing, I don’t know. Then Roy did something that really pissed me off. He started driving like a maniac, swerving unhindered all across the road. He yelled out the window, “Hang on Red Head!”

I tried to hang on, but I couldn’t. What happened was is the buckets eventually spilled and there was this huge tidal wave of water that flooded up behind me and threw me off the truck. I flew off and landed right on my side, right on my iPod and smashed it, and scraped my knee.

“God Fucking Dammit Roy,” I shouted as loud as I possibly could.

I didn’t care about my knee, but iPod’s are fucking expensive. I was pissed.

“What the Hell is your problem Roy. What The Fuck!?” I kept shouting.

He stopped the truck and got out.

“You alright, Red Head?”

“No I’m not alright, Goddammit,” I said. “You broke my fucking iPod because you’re a fucking idiot.”

“Hey fucking chill alright, it was an accident,” he said.

I was speechless, so I just threw the iPod over to the ditch and left it. I was so angry I couldn’t even speak. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to kill Roy, honeslty. I honestly could have killed him in that moment. But work went on that day as usual again for awhile. We eventually refilled the buckets and started watering flowers at Baby Land. They were also digging a fresh grave there, meaning there was a recent tragedy. Either way, we went about our jobs dumping a little bit of water in each of the flowers. Then we heard Larry’s voice yell at us.

“Hey you ingrates, get the fuck over here,” he shouted.

We followed.

There was a backhoe there around this freshly dug grave. But there was a problem. There was a root that was sticking right out into it. They also had a small hand saw.

“Hey Roy, I want you to get down in that hole and cut that root out of there. You think you can do that for me,” said Larry.

“Yeah I can do it,” he said.

“Atta boy,” he said.

While, me, Lobster, Larry, and a couple other guys stood around the grave, Roy hopped down in there with the saw and started sawing away at the root. The sky was dark now, and it was beginning to sprinkle a little bit. Being in the cemetery was always depressing. But I was so angry at Roy at that moment that I couldn’t be depressed. I could only be angry. Then something bad happened.

Suddenly the entire grave started to cave in. The dirt was loose around the root and it caved in on Roy up to his shoulders.

“Goddamit,” Larry said under his breath.

I was unsure of what would happen. This was an entirely new situation for me. The pressure from the dirt was suffocating him and he couldn’t breathe. You could see him straining to talk but his ribcage was collapsing.

“Get him a spade,” shouted Larry.

I wasn’t sure what to do, or if I could do anything. But I was so angry at him that I could have killed him, and there I stood watching him die. It was a strange mix of emotions, that was very neutralizing. They threw him down a spade, and he started trying to dig himself out, but he couldn’t. I watched him die right before my eyes. I even thought of saying a silent prayer, but that fucking broken electronic which at that time I valued more than his life, was only several feet away in a ditch. I couldn’t bring myself to pray for him. Who knows if he was square with God.

“Lobster, Jerry,” Larry said. “Get back to work, we’ll take care of this.”