Cemetery Side Hustle

“So Grandpa, what’s the best job you ever had?”

“That’s easy. Cemetery caretaker. It was my side job during high school. Most fun I ever had.”

“Most fun? That sounds more like ‘most creepy’ to me.”

“There’s nothing really all that creepy about a cemetery. For the most part, it’s no different than any other lawn that needs to be mowed and watered.”

“I think the headstones and dead bodies make it a little bit different, Grandpa.”

“Pshaw, it’s no big deal. Sure, the first few times you’re there after dusk, the hair on the back of your neck prickles and you think you see things out of the corner of your eye and every time the wind blows you start looking around to make sure it isn’t something unnatural, but you get used to it after a bit.

“The only thing that really ever scared me was the time I hit old man Branson’s fancy headstone with the riding mower and broke off an angel wing. It was a special-made piece from Italy. Probably cost a fortune just to ship it out here. Old man Branson didn’t care much since he was already bedded down beneath, but his widow sure took out after me. I'd fixed it up with bailing wire and just a little duct tape to help with the wobble, but I still had to barricade myself inside the crematorium when Mrs. Branson came. I thank God every night she never figured how to turn it on, but I still worry sometimes about all that cursing she directed towards me while she was working the controls.”

“Did you have to work there after dusk very often?”

“Actually, after I got to know the place, I preferred to work after sundown. There wasn’t much for shade trees, so in the summertime it was a lot more comfortable to do all the mowing and watering and grave stirring with a headlamp when it was nice and cool.”

“Grave stirring?”

“That's just a basic cemetery caretaker task. You’ve probably noticed that fresh graves are usually mounded up dirt, but the rest of the old plots are all flat. After a burial, you have to stir the new grave several times. You run water on it and push all the dirt around with a shovel until it's all compacted flat.”

“You dug around in people’s graves at night, right after they were buried, while wearing a headlamp?”

“*Stirred* around, which, as I told the sheriff, may look similar to digging from a distance but is altogether different."

“Was there ever a time when you did have to dig up someone's grave?”

“No, no, I never did dig up an occupied spot, but I did have to dig all the holes for new move-ins. That was the part of the job that paid the best, actually. I felt kinda bad, but I used to use the obituary page in the paper to figure out how much money I was going to make the next week.”

“Sounds like sad work.”

“I guess so. But I found things that made me laugh. There was this one time I dug a grave for Willy Whimblshims the First. His family was kind of cheap, so they asked if I could go a little shallow. I told them ‘nothing doing.’ 

“Anyway, I got it dug real fast after school because there was a dance. I finished just in time to get showered up for the festivities. It was supposed to be an outdoor party, but we all had to squish inside because some unforecasted rain come in. The cramped quarters forced me into closer association with Willy Whimblshims the Third than I would’ve liked. He was dating your future grandma at the time, and he started suggesting that I might have ‘dug a little too fast’ to get full price from his family. I didn’t want an argument, so I left, but on the way out I remembered I hadn’t planned on rain and so I’d left the grave uncovered. I didn’t want it filling up with water and giving Whimblshims more reasons to gripe, so I ran up to the cemetery and started spreading a tarp out over the grave. I didn’t have my headlamp with me, and the grass was slick from all the rain, so of course, I slipped right into the hole. I’d started in on some of the words I learned from Mrs. Branson when I heard tires out on the drive. I didn’t know who had business at the cemetery on a night like this, so I pulled the tarp over top of me and the grave, quiet as I could, then hunkered down to listen. 

“Wouldn’t you know it, the car stopped right above me and I heard the voice of Willy Whimblshims the Third climb on out. He was talking all brave and coaxing your future grandma to come out and see what a fresh dug grave looked like and ‘no there wasn’t anybody in it yet’, and that she was being chicken and there was nothing he was scared of in any old graveyard. 

“Well, I’d had enough of Willy Whimblshims the Third for one night. I reached up and made a scraping sound, ever so gentle, like claws dragging across the bottom of that tarp. Whimblshims went real quiet and he didn’t have anything to say when your future grandma asked what the noise was. I hunkered back down and let him stew on it and he finally decided it was just the rain or the breeze or something. 

“Your grandma said she was scared and wanted to leave, but Whimblshims didn’t like the way that made him look. I heard him step towards the grave again, and this time, I waited till he was close. I was pretty happy with the scream he cut loose when I took hold of his shoe, but what I hadn’t counted on was him falling into the grave with me. Your grandma must have thought hell itself was coming up out of the ground—him squealing like Old Scratch had him by the throat and me doing everything I could to encourage the idea—your grandma jumped in the driver’s seat and I think the tracks she left in the gravel are still there. Whimblshims levitated himself out of that grave pretty shortly thereafter and I have to admit I was impressed at how fast he chased that car with the tarp draped over his head.”

“Do you think I could ever get a job at the cemetery Grandpa?”

“I don’t see why not. But listen here, don’t mention to your grandma I told you that story about her, alright?”

“Why not, isn’t it true?”

“Yes, you might say it falls on the side of too much truth. Your grandma got rid of Whimblshims after his 'insensitive prank.' It’s best she never wonders if there really was someone else in that grave.”