Maintenance

Abstract

Maintenance William Gilson (bio) I have spent the last twenty-one years working here. Many so-called important people are buried in this cemetery. Two that are in fact important to me are my wife and my daughter. Jack is my helper. Even he has remarked that Riverside is beautiful, and if any place can cut through Jack’s alcoholic buildup then it must have some force. As Greta would have said, Jack is thick, at least when he’s on the booze, which is almost all the time. But he can get lively and even accurate. I was in Korea, in the war, and I lived through it, which every day still amazes me. It was complete chance. You’re talking about tolerances of a thirty-second of an inch or less, flying steel. Or rounds aimed right at you from an accurate rifle, missing. Greta would say I was kept alive by the grace of God, but about that I choose not to speculate. And the fact is that Greta and Marti did not make it through, at least so far as I have made it through. They are underground, and I am sitting here looking at retirement. You notice I did not say they are in heaven. Heaven is a claim I have never seen backed up, but I can back up as a fact that they are underground. So I am a man on his own, have been for eleven years. I guess I am used to it. My purpose just now is to go over in a more logical way what I would go over anyway, and do in fact go over every day. Owen Larsford, the big boss, president of the Riverside Cemetery Association, has asked me to set down some basics as to how I run the cemetery, considering I’ve run it for fifteen years and worked in it six before that, so the new man, when they take him on, will have guidelines. Owen said it is a testament to the type of job I have done. I figure I will have to go over this again, as I am not used to such a presentation, which needs to be logical. Let’s get to the practical aspects. The method of burying a body. Not many people know how it’s done. I mean in the details. Why should they? Who is interested? There is not much to it, really; you are basically putting the person underground and leaving things neat on top. I get here every morning at twenty minutes to seven. I drive in through that [End Page 11] gateway that was built in 1853, and it is barely wide enough for a car, and one morning Jack, coming in at around eight thirty, late, hit the gate itself and one of the granite posts, and you’d be surprised how little damage was done to the granite, and even the gate was not bent by much. That was the morning Jack fell into the pond and I fired him. But he did not stay fired. To replace him, I hired a man named Lou Pagrista, who was strongly recommended by Owen Larsford. I needed someone right away, but I should have listened to my own doubts. Lou turned out to be one of those people who cannot shut up, even for a few minutes. Someone such as you might find yourself having to ride for a long distance with in a vehicle, and he talks on in such a way that you’re about ready to open your door and fall out just so you don’t have to hear another word. That’s what Lou Pagrista was like, and I fired him, and I re-hired Jack. Jack can be a problem, but I can handle him, and I like him, and on the day he came back he smelled strongly of alcohol but I was glad to see him. And he got right onto the backhoe and dug a grave with no problem. Marti died of the chicken pox, but it wasn’t the chicken pox. It was the wrong medicine. And that was the...