DEAD CONNECTION : a novel by Charlie Price

« PEARL OF THE CEMETERY

JANOCHEK : KEEPER OF THE GROUNDS

He had been watching those kids, Pearl and the Kiefer boy, and thought, God, how did any of us ever make it to adults? Pearl was acting tough, like a bouncer, and Kiefer looked like he just wanted to be left in peace. Fat chance, now that he was on her radar. Pearl made Canyon’s freshman girls’ basketball team because she was what the coach called aggressive, tenacious on defense. Once she started something, she didn’t let go easily. He loved to watch her fight the taller girls for rebounds.
      He thought Pearl had reason to be angry; mad that he had married her mom instead of someone stable, mad that her mom ignored her, mad that she was an only child living in a cemetery instead of a neighborhood with other kids.
      Janochek had tried to talk with her about some of these things, but since she’d been eleven, talking hadn’t gone so well. So he just tried to be polite and put food on the table. She didn’t want to ride bikes or go to movies with him on the weekends anymore. He wished that she got invited to sleepovers or had a group of girlfriends who called her. He knew she was embarrassed by his work. And he wondered if kids teased her about being a ghoul. He told her if anyone made fun of her or gave her trouble, he would come to school and bite them on the neck.
      He knew that the Kiefer kid hung around the cemetery nearly every night. Murray Kiefer. What a name to be saddled with. Kiefer’s mom reminded Janochek a little of Pearl’s mom. Vera Kiefer was a party girl, and she hooked up with different men who would keep her in food, liquor, and rent for a couple of weeks at a time. He could make a pretty cold comparison with his dead wife, Doreen. He thought he probably should have divorced her when Pearl was a toddler so she wouldn’t have had to watch her mom self-destruct, running off with other men for days at a time, until leukemia ended her life. Before it was over, Pearl wound up mothering her.
      Odd to think how maybe one of the safest places to be anymore was a cemetery. Murray was thin and gawky; hell, even his hair was thin and gawky. At first, Janochek thought the boy was smoking dope and tripping when he stuck around the cemetery, but by now, he knew Kiefer was just hanging out and talking to himself. And, really, what was the matter with that? Janochek did that some when he was a kid. Made up all kinds of fantasy games. He felt sorry for the kid. Thought him harmless.
      Janochek was curious what was going to happen if Pearl started pestering the boy. He didn’t want his daughter to run the boy out just for target practice. Pearl reminded him of a cat he had once who was really sleek and lovely, very clever, cuddly most of the time, but had a mean streak that was unpredictable, and every so often, Janochek would get mauled when he wasn’t paying attention.
      Murray better watch out. Janochek knew Pearl was steaming. Usually, it was just sports, homework, solitary games, and fiction books for her. No major moody drama unless he asked her to clean her room. But tonight she was seething and wouldn’t talk about it. During dinner, when he brought it up, she changed the subject rather cleverly, asking him a question about the history of cemeteries, which she knew from past experience was one of his favorite topics, one he could talk on and on about.
      “Tell me again, Dad, who invented cemeteries? I’m probably going to write a paper on it at school.” She was so transparent. But it worked. Or, he gave up and let it work.
      “Well, you know, honey, that when human beings started burying their dead, they usually marked the graves with a heavy stone or a stack of rocks, apparently believing the weight would keep the dead from rising.”
      He warmed to the topic. “Later on, words or pictures were added to the rocks or pieces of wood to commemorate the person’s life or to serve as a locator like today’s tombstones. As people became less nomadic, or maybe wealthier, the graves got fancier.”
      He reminded her of the pictures she had seen, big tombs like the Taj Mahal and the pyramids. He told her that the so-called modern cemeteries didn’t get started until after holy people’s bones and relics began to be kept in temples or churches, and that practice probably led to wealthy people paying to get buried in those places so they would be close at hand when the call to heaven came.
      She was keeping eye contact and he was encouraged by her attention. “The less wealthy religious people wanted to get buried as close to church as possible for the same reason and so they were put in the churchyards.” He emphasized that, as time passed, they had to be stacked pretty much on top of each other when space became scarce.
      “Remember,” he said, “the east side of the church was preferred, as close to the building as possible, so those folks would be the first to see the sunrise on Judgment Day. The north corner border was the least favored.”
      He shook his head. “Some even thought the Devil lurked there, and that’s where they usually put the strangers to the community, the stillborn, the suicides, if they let them in at all, and the illegitimate children—”
      “I’m not one of those, am I, Dad?” Pearl broke in.
      “No, honey,” he said, “not yet,” and they both smiled at his silliness.
      He plowed on. “Anyway, it wasn’t until the 1700s that churches in some European countries just plain and simple ran out of room.”
      He could see that her eyes were beginning to glaze over, but he couldn’t stop himself.
      “In eighteenth-century Paris—”
      Pearl interrupted, “Thanks a lot, Dad. I’m finished eating and I’ve got to go write this stuff down before I forget it.” She whisked her glass and dish to the sink and was off to her room before he got his mouth closed.

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