I have been working on a novel for years, and it is very different from the short stories and poems I have given a try in the past year. I have gotten great feedback from these, and I think it is because I write more serious subject matters, fiction or not, better somehow than the fantasy genre my novel is trying to be. Even though this is a long post, I believe it gives well with showing more about who I am and my perspective on life through what I have written.
THE GRAVEDIGGER
She lit a cigarette as she sat on the black metal swing suspended from the front porch; the back and forth motion and occasional creaking helped calm her nerves. This moment was quickly shattered by the sound of the old broken screen door slamming open. Her older brother stumbled out onto the porch closely followed by their mother. They both sat down in nearby chairs and ignored her and her bad habit, as usual. They didn’t care, as they both lit up as well, but at 14 years old Ann Marie Enery was too young to be smoking, and someone should have cared. Noticing the fresh track marks on her mother’s arm, she knew they had scored their drug of choice and would be of no help to her tonight.
She grabbed her cassette tape, headphones, notebook, and cigarettes; slipped on her sandals and made her way into town. When she finally reached the small white washed church, she climbed over the low chain link fence. The cemetery was always quiet and the only place she could find solace. Ann Marie visited so often she knew the names on every headstone. She quickly made her way to her favorite willow tree that shaded a large crypt, and settled in to write stories of the people in those graves and how she imagined they died.
As she listened to her cassette tape, she did not hear the old man approach her until she paused in her writing to have another smoke. She had seen the old gravedigger many times when she would walk by the cemetery, waiting for him to leave. He had once been a tall man who was now stooped over from all the years of digging graves. His body was still rather solid from all the hard labor, but his face was gaunt with narrow eyes, crooked nose, and only a few wisps of gray hair left on his head. It was the first time she had been caught and now she feared she was in trouble. Taking her headphones off shyly, she waited for the lecture that didn’t come.
“You’ve been trespassing for some time now. Your parents know you’re hanging around in graveyards this late at night?” the old man asked.
Her heart sank, “No sir. They wouldn’t much care if they did,” she said softly.
“You got a name?”
“Ann Marie Enery,” she answered truthfully. She had thought about lying so he wouldn’t know where to find her parents, but it was a small town, and he’d probably figure it out soon enough.
His narrow eyes squinted at her with a hard look, “You Enery’s girl?”
“Yes, sir. Do you know my father?” she asked as her heart began to beat faster.
“Hmph. Been at the bar having a drink now and then, and he’s usually around. Well, I don’t see a reason you can’t hang around just as long as you don’t start bringing any friends and causing trouble.”
Ann Marie closed her eyes with a sigh of relief. He must have known what her father was like when he was drunk and taken pity on her. It was the first true kindness she could remember.
“Thank you,” she whispered as he nodded his head and walked away.
There was no reason to worry about her bringing friends here because she didn’t have any. Being short and thin with brown eyes, wiry brown hair, and old hand-me-down clothes from church donations, she easily went through school being invisible.
As the afternoon drew later and the summer sun began to set, Ann Marie started to feel tired. It was time to go home. When she reached the house, she gently opened the door, careful not to make any noise. Her mother was passed out on the sofa, and her brother looked higher than a kite listening to some techno music. With her father nowhere in sight, she thanked God he had probably passed out in the bedroom. As she tiptoed toward her own room, she heard the toilet flush and the bathroom door swing open. She had been wrong.
♦ ♦ ♦
The next day Ann Marie was sitting back out on the porch, and though it was rather humid in July, she wore a long sleeved shirt and jeans to cover up the fresh bruises and cuts on her body. No longer able to stand being at the house, she grabbed her usual things and headed for the cemetery. This time the old gravedigger was out working, but allowed her to pass by without a single word.
By mid-afternoon the sun was blazing and Ann Marie was dripping with sweat, even as she sat sheltered in the shade beneath her tree. The gravedigger came by and unexpectedly offered her a glass of iced tea, which she gladly accepted.
“Kinda hot out here for those clothes you’re wearing,” he hinted, as if knowing something was wrong.
“I get cold easily,” came her weak reply, though she knew he could see her hair was matted to her forehead and her shirt was damp with sweat.
Lucky for her, he let it drop and went back to work. Over the next few weeks she spent more time at the graveyard and struck up an odd sort of friendship with the old man. He would bring her drinks and snacks, as he noticed she never went home to eat. Ann Marie began to ask him about the people he’d buried there and would compare her own stories with the real ones he would tell her. The more time she stayed away, the worse the beatings would get when her father would catch her sneaking in late at night. As the summer dragged on, her father seemed to stop caring if she was seen by others with more visible signs of his anger.
♦ ♦ ♦
As August ended, Ann Marie knew there was no longer denying what was really happening at home. With a black eye and busted lip, she wore a faded yellow sundress to the graveyard, as there was no reason to hide any of the abuse she suffered at her father’s hand.
The old man came by and sat down beside her. He didn’t say anything for a long time. The
rustling leaves in the cool summer breeze were all that could be heard, and it was eerily calming.
“Sara Jones,” was all he finally said.
Anne Marie looked over at him in confusion, “Who?” she asked.
“Sara Jones,” he repeated and pointed to a grave in the distance, “1963-1997. Husband beat on her for years, and she never said a thing. One blow too many put her in a coma and she silently died. You don’t have to live like this,” he said as Ann Marie had expected he would.
The old man looked at her with sadness in his eyes, “Don’t give up. There’s always a way out. You take some time to think about it. When you’re ready, I’m here to help you in any way I can. Don’t let him take your life,” and with that the gravedigger left her to her own hopeless thoughts.
♦ ♦ ♦
When she got home that night she was surprised to find the house empty. Her brother must have scored a last minute deal, and their mother tagged along, like she always did. After taking a shower, she went straight to bed. Minutes later she was awakened by a slamming door and familiar slurring shouts. She held her breath as her body tensed up, and then her bedroom door suddenly swung open.
He dragged her out of bed by her ankles, ignoring her pleas. With the others gone, he was more aggressive than usual; ranting about the house not being clean to not being able to find a job. With every new complaint he kicked her, as if it was all her fault. She curled up in a ball and covered her face as the pain shot through her with each new blow.
Finally tiring of this, he pulled her up by the hair onto her feet and threw her against the wall. He grabbed her arm and twisted it as she tripped over the leg of the kitchen table, and they both heard the bone crack as she fell. The unexpected sound shocked her father out of his drunken rage, and he became very still in the uneasy silence that followed. He finally sent her to her room, as she needed to come up with a good excuse for breaking her arm before he would take her to the hospital. The shame
she felt was overwhelming as she laid in bed crying through the pain. Ann Marie knew the gravedigger was right; it was only going to get worse. She felt numb as she grabbed the last few things she would need to sneak out of the house for the last time.
♦ ♦ ♦
In the morning light, the old man went to see if Ann Marie was in her usual spot. He wanted to find out if she had given any thought to his offer to help. He found her notebook lying open on the ground next to a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a chair. There was Ann Marie hanging from her favorite tree by a rope she had stolen out of the back of her father’s pick-up truck. Being as tiny as she was, the thin branches of her willow tree still supported her weight. He could hear soft music playing from her cassette tape, even with her headphones still on.
Standing on the chair she had brought with her, he gently removed the headphones. He put them on to hear what she had been listening to in her final moments as he sat down to read the last thing she had written.
It read: This is who I am…Anne Marie Enery
This is what I’ve become…Nothing
This is where I stop dreaming…because they are always nightmares
This is why I’ve stopped…the nightmares are real
This is when I die…because I choose to not live this kind of life
That is how I keep him from taking it from me…
The old man had buried so many people in his lifetime that he had stopped crying long ago. But now he cried. He wished he had helped her find a better way out sooner, knowing these last messages had been for him, and let the lyrics of the song drown out the world:
Gravedigger…
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger…
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger…
1 Dave Matthews. “Gravedigger.” Some Devil. RCA, 2003. CD.
A Perspective On Life 