Velociworld

Shinny, Wakes, and Gravediggers

I have approximately 140 direct reports. Never toted them up precisely, but that's a good round number. And as hillbillies country folk are wont, they have a lot of relatives.

They also have a lot of dying relatives, it seems, which has perforce sent me to that particular gristmill of the soul known as the visitation with recurring frequency. Mom, dad, aunt, uncle, cousin, in-law, out-law, play-aunt, child, they drop like the proverbial fly, and I find myself spending a goodly portion of my time exchanging forced pleasantries with people in the parlous parlors of the bloodletters lately.

My sales and marketing background stands me in good stead here, because I normally have never met the deceased, and yet I must do the right thing. So, as I said, my background as a professional prevaricator and softsoaper allows me to provide the appearance of utter and earnest engagement, while I let my mind drift off to more pleasant climes. Never let anyone tell you being a bullshit artist is a character flaw, unless they've hit six visitations in the last month.

When my mind does drift on these occasions, I'm reminded of the old gravedigger Shinny, of Montgomery. Montgomery was the remote outpost on the Vernon River where we lived in the latter years of my days at the prep school, the Senator having decided trial law was hard and lamentable business, whereas the proprietorship of a liquor store would be a far more satisfying enterprise, and one rife with wholesale cost booze.

Montgomery consisted of a handful of nice properties on deep salt water, owned by white people, of course, surrounded by poor blacks who'd been there four generations before the whites. And once the blacks decided in the 1960's they would no longer work for the white people as maids and fetch monkeys (and who could blame them?) they turned to welfare and the bottle, the only other available outlets. This community was the Senator's target market for his liquor store, and business was very good.

An aside: a mile down the road from Montgomery was Pinpoint, where Clarence Thomas grew up. Montgomery was poor, but Pinpoint was fucking poverty-striken. Where the Montgomery folk at least had yard work for a living, and helping the Senator keep the more egregious examples of alcoholism off the sidewalk in front of the store, and running his errands, in Pinpoint they had nothing but a few goats, and some oyster beds that had been played out and polluted since the '50's. The poor blacks in Montgomery thought that Pinpoint blacks were sad, sad niggers. That is the wellspring of Clarence Thomas, and why I admire him and love him so. That man is the greatest manifestation of the American Dream extant in our society today. Hard work. Diligence. Faith in God. Amen.

But to Shinny: I suspect his name was actually Cheney, but it was pronounced Shinny. He was the gravedigger of Montgomery. When anyone died Shinny dug that grave. He looked Chinese, or perhaps like a mulatto Lee Van Cleef. He was so sinewy he looked like one of those body exhibits, where they have flensed the skin off a poor stiff, and injected his body with Lucite or epoxy, whilst posing him holding a fucking tennis racket or somesuch bullshit.

The problem was Shinny had a girlfriend in Pembroke, or some country town 30 or 40 miles outside of Savannah. He would on occasion abandon his wife and set out for Pembroke, where he would stay in sin until he felt like returning. In the meantime, if someone in Montgomery died, they would merely fret, and whine, and try to get one of the other men to dig a grave behind the church. But this community was Geechee, with its attendant voodoo fears. These people painted their window trim haint blue to keep out the spirits. To dig a grave, alone, was a fearsome proposition. And so the body would go on ice until Shinny returned. Whenever that might be. You could call that society Balkanized, but I prefer to think they just had a rigid hierarchical structure.

This was the Senator's target market. And business was good.

I was thinking of Shinny at one of those interminable and incessant wakes the other night, and a thought occurred to me: digging a grave is fucking hard work, with little or no reward. And the only reasons to dig a grave are Fear, Love, and Money.

Fear digs a pitiful, shallow grave. Because there is a body in the trunk, lighting is poor to escape detection, there is no respect for the dead. If you are unfortunate enough to be buried in a grave dug by Fear, your soul will probably haunt the earth for eternity. After raccoons have nibbled your toes off.

Love digs a decent utilitarian grave. Deep enough to keep the critters from violating the remains of a beloved, but grief dictates the job is fast and functional, nothing more. The pioneers dug Love graves. Sometimes heavy rains will uncork a respectfully dug, but somewhat too shallow Love grave. As a society, we lament this when it occurs, and gnash our teeth until the dead are unquickened.

Money digs a beautiful grave. Time is not really a quotient here; the gravedigger digs deep, carefully piling the dirt for reinterment. Then he skillfully trowels the sides, forms his right angles, flattens the bottom, and climbs out with a minor work of art resting at his feet. A Money grave has pride in it. Never mind the backhoes and fancy rigs: those are splendid graves, too, and for money. But if I were going to be buried, which I hasn't decided yet, I'd want a Shinny to dig my grave. With a bottle of Kessler liquor waiting for him, and possibly a girl in Pembroke, to soak the holy soil from his spent body. Then, I think, I could rest in peace.