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Chapter Sixteen
Joel
Ireceived the letter on a Tuesday. Could I come to Tennessee? Well, Tennessee is a long way from Texas, but not so far as to make me say no. On the bright side, it’s not hard to find work up that way.
I’m a grave digger by trade, which means there’s always work to be found. Death and taxes, as they say.
It’s not a glamorous job by any means, but a necessary one.
I find peace in the dead.
I wanted to be a doctor, but it turns out I don't like people that much. My second first choice was to make a living as a veterinarian, but these days you have to go to school for that, and who has the money or the time?
Pa always thought I should take up work at the lumberyard.
I saw who's signing the checks.
Ah, no, thanks. Not for me, thanks.
So grave digger seemed like the next logical choice. It provides good cover for my other interests, and it happened quite naturally, me finding the work. I guess you could say it kind of found me. My predecessor, Kenny Anderson, dropped dead in the field, his job half-finished. There was no one in our town to pick up the slack and, well, the bodies started piling up.
There are more than a thousand graves in the cemetery where Kenny is buried, and I dig a new one in the surrounding counties most every day of the week. It always feels like I'm digging, but I have a cushy job, really. The pay is good, and I don't have to talk to people much.
I like the peace of the cemetery. It's a nice place to think and be alone with your thoughts. The dead don't judge you, and they don’t gossip.
I usually work a few hours in the morning while nature is at its most acquiescent, and the rest of the time, I get paid my wages and I don't have to do anything else. Or think about anything else.
Except the other stuff. But we’ll get to that.
Back to Tennessee. It’s not unusual for me to get called to other towns—to other states—when help is needed. And it almost always is. Most folk do not view death the way I do, and this means there isn't a lot of competition for the job.
I wish I could say that about this other thing. Not that there’s anything wrong with a little healthy competition. I sent a letter or three, and next thing I know, I get a response from a man asking me to visit his daughter. It seems a little strange to me. I thought mail order brides came from foreign and faraway places, but lucky me, I only have to travel about nine hundred miles to findTHE PERFECT BRIDE GUARANTEED.
Two phone calls later and I have enough work to pay for the gas it will take me to get there, and so the decision was born to set out in my old pickup heading northeast.
I planned to get to Tennessee early and put in a few days’ work before I get down to the real business of why I’m there.
I’ve been to Franklin before, once, not long after Pa died. I needed to get out of Dodge, and when the call came, it seemed like a good place to lie low for a while.
After a few days of digging and not eating, I found myself entangled in a short but intense affair with a widow who ran a butcher shop. I told her it was the first time something like this had ever happened to me. But it wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last. And then it happened, as it always does: the woman found out I had no intention of staying around. The townsfolk got wind of it, and they shunned me, and I lost my place to stay. I made a lot of enemies.A lot of enemies.
As usual, I found a new place to stay, and then one day I answer an ad and I get a letter from an old man in that long-ago town, and I make the decision to go in spite of the fact that I don’t know anything about the woman or really why I answered the ad in the first place.
Then the second thoughts set in.
It happens the day I am supposed to leave Texas, the day I thought I’d be heading out in the direction of Tennessee. Instead, I get out of my truck, I climb up the hill to the place where Pa is buried, and I pay my respects.
I tell him I’m heading to Tennessee, and I ask him what he thinks about marrying a woman you hardly know. She’s never seen me, of course, but I’ve seen her picture. She’s pretty. Really pretty. And by her letters, I can tell she’s smart. Cunning, even. Not necessarily the kind of woman Pa would have approved of, but that’s not the point. The point is, Tennessee seems like an awful long way to go if you’re not serious about the reason you’re going there. Grave digging aside.
Sure, I’d like to get married and have a family. One day. That’s something else Pa and I agreed on. That when you find the right woman, you marry her and you stick it out through thick and thin. But that was before.
I’m not sure it’s in the cards for me now. All things considered.
Later, before I head out, I stop by the Apricot Inn to see Layla. She comes to the door half-dressed, wild hair, and a fresh hangover in her eyes. “Just checking in on you,” I say as she closes the door. “I have to leave town for a while.”
“Leave town?” She rubs sleep from her eyes. They're bloodshot, and she looks exhausted, and also thinner than the last time I was here. “For what? Why?”
“I’m headed up to Tennessee.”
