A Green Burial
by Jeffrey Greene
Part 1appears in this issue.
conclusion
Then Rhea continued: “All the fight seemed to go out of him. Of course, I immediately filed an appeal, and the fact that he had no prior criminal record kept him out on bail, but I knew the signs when Charlie was really down, and this time nothing could cheer him up.” She paused and shook her head. “And two weeks after the trial, the finest man I ever knew took his own life. I wish to God I’d tried harder to talk him out of that deal. I have to live with that. Rest in peace, Charlie.”
Rhea didn’t have to mention the man’s name. By now, I knew who it had to be: Dean Mulford. I’d bought marijuana from him back in the early eighties when he was just a mid-level dope dealer, before he built up enough capital to go legitimate and found his own investment firm.
Charlie had introduced us. Mulford’s dope was always good but, once I got past the surface affability, I realized what a manipulative asshole he was and couldn’t see why Charlie put up with him. It was obvious to everyone but Charlie how much Dean hated and envied him for his good looks, his charisma, the way he attracted women and friends just by being who he was.
The only women Dean could get were the ones he could buy with gifts, drugs and trips to expensive resorts. He loved playing games with people, and took the dealer’s sadistic pleasure in being unavailable to his customers, answering his phone only when it suited him, making time for those who interested him and keeping others calling and leaving messages until he was good and ready to fill the order.
What I hadn’t heard about was Mulford’s pyramid scheme, which wouldn’t have been even back-page news in Seattle. And I certainly didn’t know that Charlie had been involved, however innocently, and then railroaded into a five-year sentence. So it was shame that had killed my friend, shame over the damage to his reputation and friendships, and the humiliation of having been so easily conned by a man he had chosen to believe was capable of redemption.
Now I understood the bitterness and anger that soured the air over this little gathering in the woods, and why so few people had shown up. Over the next twenty minutes or so, others stood and honored the deceased while, in so many words, cursing without naming the man responsible for his death. It was bizarre and unsettling, and I couldn’t tamp down the irrational feeling that, just by living three thousand miles away from Taylor Creek, I’d somehow abandoned Charlie, failed him when he needed me the most.
When the last person had spoken, Leslie stood up and faced the mourners. She was tall and lean, much too lean, I thought, beginning to realize what his death had done to her. In a low, quiet, but perfectly steady voice, she thanked everyone, “Charlie’s true friends,” for coming, and invited us all to a reception at her home at five p.m. There would be “food, drink, and remembrances.”
However, to stay for the interment was “optional.” This struck an odd note, and not just with me, but although about half of the mourners chose to remain, the others rose and began picking their way among the graves back to their cars. Five men, including the burly tattooed man and another tough-looking guy I didn’t know, stayed behind, apparently the chosen pallbearers. The other three were old acquaintances. Leslie lifted her veil, and turning her intense gray gaze on me, said, “There’s a place there for you, John, if you’re willing.”
“I’d be honored,” I said.
“I think you knew him longer than anyone here,” she said.
“It was a happy accident that we were assigned the same dorm room in college,” I said. “I never had a better friend. I’m so sorry, Leslie.”
“I know you are, John. And I’m grateful you came to see him off. It means a lot.”
“There’s so much I didn’t know about all this.”
“It’s probably for the best. If you knew it all, you’d be as I am.” Her unwavering gaze looked both at me and through me. It gave me a chill.
“And how are, you, Leslie?” I asked.
She smiled and shook her head without replying, then turned to the gathered men standing near the grave. She approached the bier, and refusing any assistance, gathered the bunches of flowers on the body and laid them in a pile on the ground, then gestured to us, and we pallbearers took hold of the ends of the sturdy ropes threaded through the two-ply pallet on which the body lay.
We waited until she stood before us and silently raised her hands, then we lifted the body and carried it to the graveside. The ropes were then pulled out and the body lifted off the pallet and gently placed on the draped ropes. At a nod from Leslie, we lifted the body and slowly lowered it into the grave, then the ropes were carefully pulled out, gathered up and placed on the bier.
I assumed there would be more ceremony, more deliberateness in handling Charlie’s body, but it was getting hot, and both Leslie and her helpers seemed in haste to get it over with. I noticed the two men I didn’t know glance at me once or twice with less than friendly looks, which puzzled me.
As the rope under the corpse’s neck, one end of which I’d happened to be holding, was pulled up — somewhat roughly, I thought — by the big tattooed man holding the other end, I saw, or imagined I saw, the head move very slightly, and perceived a slight, billowing puff of the cloth covering the lower part of the face. It briefly shook me, but I told myself that it had to have been the rope moving the head and causing the cloth to shift just where the mouth was. And since none of the other pallbearers seemed to notice — not to mention how hideously inappropriate it would have been to say anything here, in front of Leslie — I kept silent.
She began speaking, looking down with the same piercing, implacable expression on her face. “As we commit this untenanted clay to the earth from which it came,” she said, her voice now rising to a volume that rang out over the forest, “we can be confident that the living spirit of Charlie Overton will always be with us. If I’m certain of anything, it’s that this service, this burial witnessed by friends and loved ones, will settle his restless soul, and give it the peace he so richly earned in life, yet so rarely knew. My beloved husband will be at my side as long as I live.”
She did a strange thing, then. Gathering up the flowers that had covered the body, a considerable armful, she quite literally dumped them into the grave. She stepped back, nodded, and we began covering the body. We worked quickly in the humid afternoon heat, and were soon sweating through our dark suits, but something in her expression drove us on, and we didn’t stop until the grave was entirely covered and the sand smoothed over.
She stood motionless for a long moment, her eyes fixed on the grave, then looked at each of us and bowed her head. “Thank you, gentlemen,” she said. “I’m more grateful than I can say. I hope to see all of you at the reception this evening.”
Then, we pallbearers, wiping the sweat from our faces and hands, lined up to offer our condolences to the widow and, behind us, came the remaining mourners. She murmured thanks, hugged and shook hands, until everyone had dispersed back to their cars, leaving only Leslie and me standing among the empty chairs.
When I asked if I could help fold up the chairs, she said, “I paid extra to have that done later by the cemetery people.” Then, taking a step closer to me, she asked, “Have you noticed, John, how being around the dead tends to make people jumpy, more prone to seeing things?”
“Yes, I guess I have.” Was she referring to what I imagined I’d seen in the grave?
“You knew I was an RN before I married Charlie, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I replied, wondering what the hell she was getting at. “Do you plan to go back to nursing?”
“I don’t plan, John. I don’t think, I don’t feel. I can barely drag myself through the day.” She nodded toward the grave. “Most of me is as dead as he is.” She gathered up her purse and a cloth bag under her chair containing something bulky. “Would you mind carrying this back to the car for me? It’s rather heavy.”
“Of course.” I took hold of the bag, but was surprised by its weight and my hands were tired from shoveling, and I lost my grip on one of the loop handles. The bag fell open, and I saw what was inside: an ornate, lidded brass urn, the type of vessel designed to hold cremation ashes. I stared at it, at first confused, then open-mouthed. I looked back at the grave, and then at Leslie. She was smiling, the first real smile I’d seen on her face all day. It opened wide a window on her now hard and austere beauty, and at the same time it was as if she’d closed the door of a walk-in freezer on me.
The realization of what I’d just helped her do left me sick and scared, and my legs weren’t working very well as we walked to her car, both of us trying to avoid treading on the weedy graves distinguishable only by their tiny brass markers on which were engraved the barest particulars of human lives.
At the car, I handed her the bag, and she placed it, reverently upright, on the passenger seat, then pulled me in for a chilly hug. My hands, trembling with dread as much as fatigue, lightly held her wasted body.
“As I said at the graveside, John,” she whispered in my ear. “Charlie will always be with me. And I think now, he’ll be with you, too.” Her cold lips brushed my cheek, then she got into her car and drove away.
Copyright © 2024 by Jeffrey Greene
