Robbie fell in love with the idea of digging up a grave the first time Derrick mentioned it, and couldn’t understand for the life of him why none of them had thought of it sooner. Driving his rusted shovel through the grass, Robbie wondered why sporadic ideas generated more excitement than planned ones.  He didn't know. What he did know, a lesson he learned the hard way was never underestimate what you cannot see-- the random. That sounded a bit strange, he admitted, but it was true.  
In fact, Mr. Gregan, their history teacher had mentioned something to this effect, and Robbie could say with a good deal of honesty that it was the only time in ten months the guy made any real sense. Robbie knew it because with so much on his mind then, finals, summer, his girl, not to mention no more high school—which had it’s own pros and cons—Gregan’s words often reoccurred to him. It was a strange feeling to be sitting in that classroom in June, being so interested in what the teacher was saying that it felt like you weren’t there at all.
Gregan had been on another of his many tangents that morning. The class knew it was coming too, because Gregan always did the same thing: he sat behind his desk, took off the flexi-frames, and folded his hands. Mr. Tangent, here we go. He had been so passionate about sharing his life-experience, providing advice, and giving them the 'don’t make the mistakes I made' routine, that Robbie thought about telling him he should be a guidance counselor instead of a history teacher.
Either way getting him to talk was a great way to get out of classwork, and the students knew it. Students would actually strategize in the hallways to get him off course;
sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. This particular time it did. Thing was,
Robbie didn’t remember who had managed to lay the bait, and that said something.
The tangent had been on discovering your life’s plan after high school. Gregan started slowly, telling them what they had already known: the next few years would be a confusing and a thought provoking period in all of their young lives, and probably, he added, a time when they’d do the most soul searching. Of course Robbie and some of his friends, if the college stories they heard were true, looked forward less to soul searching, and more to boozing and good times, and hell even carelessness to some extent.
“I have a secret for each and every one of you,” Gregan said making random eye contact across the room. Gregan caught Robbie’s eyes, and stopped, fixing on them a few seconds longer than the rest of the class. It made Robbie very uncomfortable. The only thing Robbie could say for sure, however, was this: it was the look of a man taught and broken by experience, and his look was meant to convey exactly that. “This is the great secret to life,” Gregan said, passing on from Robbie and going about the room again. “Just keep it simple. That’s all. Don’t go thinking so hard that you trail away from the things you really love in life—and believe me, most of you will, it’s only natural to dream. I’m telling you right now, if you sacrifice what’s in your heart because lawyers make a lot of money, you’re never going to be happy folks, and what’s worse, later on, after you’re so far off course, you might not even remember why. Isn’t that tragic?
“Simple things folks. Things that are so real, that are such a part of you, they're practically invisible.”
Digging up a grave on a Saturday night with two of your best friends probably didn’t qualify into the scope of Gregan’s speech, but, Robbie thought tossing a lump of dirt over his shoulder, the old bastard would have given them a big thumbs up anyhow—had to. For starters, it was simple enough, and they followed their hearts.
 How could Gregan not appreciate that?
Try explaining that to the cops, when they lock you up. 
Speaking of the cops, Derrick his best friend had made a good point earlier. When we turn eighteen, Derrick had said, that’s when they can nail you for this kind of shit; the way I see it, we do this now, or forget about it.  So they would do it now. Derrick had been absolutely right about the eighteen part. The kid was always thinking, and that was what Robbie loved about him.   Derrick had been ingeniously crazy. 
“We’re going to be digging for a while before we hit pay-dirt,” Robbie said, “How long are you thinking?”
“Couple hours, easy,” Derrick said, “At least a couple hours until we hit some pine. If someone would get off his ass and pitch in and stop worrying about his beer,” Derek said looking at Pemy who had sat beside the twelve pack of Corona, his shovel across his lap.  But Derrick was just busting balls, and nothing more. The plan was two people dig, one guy sit and drink, and every fifteen minutes switch it up-- Derrick was the one who came up with it.
“It’s not fifteen minutes yet…”
“He’s messing with you, chill-out.”
Derrick yapped at him some more, and the more he did it the more angry Pemy became. Pemy became so amped in fact, that in one shot he finished a quarter of what remained in the Corona bottle, and tossed it out into the distance, where it shattered and echoed amongst the tombs; he grabbed his shovel and stood up.
“What the hell do you call that?” Derrick said to him. “I’m not trying to get caught here, and I don’t think Robbie is either.” To that Pemy only burped a long and exaggerated burp. “This guy doesn’t think… I swear he doesn’t.” That had been very true. Pemy did things more instinctually than logically, but that was his way, that was what you had to love the guy for. In fact, he was the one who had the most to lose here, because he had already been 18, but obviously that didn’t matter. Pemy was Pemy, and that was short for Pemmington, which for the life of him, Robbie never understood—he didn’t know where the kid’s parents came up with that one. It wasn’t like they were rich or anything, unless you can call a fourth floor apartment on 47th, upper class…yeah right.
“Take a seat Robbie, me and Pemy will dig for a few. I’m feeling good tonight. I’ll be at the plate for a while.”
It had only been ten minutes, but so what? Robbie sat his butt on the stiff rye grass, beneath a weeping willow, reached into the plastic bag; he snatched the opener on Derricks’ keys. The cap thudded as the keys jingled against the glass; a thin mist of cold ran out of the bottle’s neck. Robbie let his legs loose, and took a long refreshing swig. Are you sure that was only ten minutes, he asked himself, because he was sweating as if hours had passed. It was a humid summer night after all. He rubbed the bottle across his forehead, listened to Derrick and Pemy go back and forth, smiling at some of it, and nearly laughing when Derrick told him to shut up, that he had “fat vocal” cords, that he had no concept of how loud he sounded. Fat vocal chords... How funny was that?
 
Still smiling, Robbie took another sip and looked at the cuffs of his jeans touching the earth, and wondered what it felt like, if anything, to be underneath. Probably like nothing at all. When you die, he been thinking lately, there are no gates, no angels, no Aunt Sally or Uncle Henry and a white light. Nice knowing you, farewell forever. It seemed almost anticlimactic to Robbie. Brought into the world, struggle through a lifetime, try not to become a lawyer just because lawyers make a lot of money, only to join the ranks of the forgotten one day. Want to talk about tragic. Robbie stood up—it was instinctual—holding his beer, walked toward the headstone of the man they were bringing up.
The name in the stone was Walter Vermingham, and Robbie did the math and came up with the number 57. That seemed awful young to checkout, but he supposed that happened. There was no cause of death on the grave, nothing indicating why 5-7 was his unlucky number. In fact there wasn’t much information here at all. An American flag was engraved, and a simplistic quote calling Mr. Vermingham a loving father. Robbie thought the lack of depth was a travesty. Then a horrible thought occurred to him, one that he wished never occurred to him at all. His own father was only 45 and his mother just 43, what if one day (one day soon), fate found them the way it did Mr. V? That would mean his parents would have less than fifteen years. That thought sent a wild sensation through his entire body. Standing there, holding the bottle of Corona, he suddenly felt very vulnerable.
If he went snooping, he was sure he would find other tombs proclaiming death rights even younger than poor Mr. Vermingham, the loving dad. In comparison, this guy might have lived a lifetime, Robbie told himself but feeling no less settled. It was hard to imagine Walter had been his own age once, had been a seventeen year-old young man, probably with aspirations and dreams. Robbie was willing to bet, he never entertained the notion that he would not live to see sixty. Hell, Robbie couldn’t imagine it either.
“You never know when it’s your time,” his uncle Raymond used to go around saying, like it was a slogan to a brand. Welcome to Raymond Shops, where you just never know. Robbie always wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up, and find something positive to say, but now, unfortunately it became relevant.
Robbie went back to digging, switched with Pemy again, and then switched back with Pemy. Derrick who was a skinny kid, but with a slender frame that made him look muscular, seemed to have endless energy tonight. He didn’t stop.
During his third break, Robbie thought the kid planned on going the whole night. They had gotten three feet down before Derrick stopped. Again, he’d been digging the longest, and his face, even in the night, was glowering like he had popped up out of a swimming pool. Pemy stopped when Derrick did, and Derrick planted his shovel in the dirt, swatted at some mosquitoes, and leaned over the shovel, breathing heavy, and looking long into the distance.
“You alright?” Robbie asked, because he didn’t look alright.
“Yeah, throw me a beer.”
Robbie did just that, Derrick caught it, switched it to his other hand and let his palm out again. This time Robbie tossed him the keys. And Derrick drank; he drank that motherfucker like he hadn’t put one down in years, put it away like it was running down a funnel. He must have killed half of it with that swig alone. Then Derrick burped much the same way Pemy had done. Pemy said, “And you tell me not to do that shit?”
You just shut up and dig.”
Pemy began babbling something else, but Robbie could already see Derrick wasn’t listening, and not because he was ignoring Pemy either, Derrick looked hurt. Leaning over the implanted shovel again, Derrick now held the butt of the Corona bottle on his forehead like it was an ice pack, and though Robbie couldn’t tell for sure, he imagined that Derrick’s eyes were closed. Thing was, Derrick didn’t mean to time out as long as he was doing here; Robbie was sure of it. Whatever got him got him by surprise. He bent to rest and just couldn’t get up. Good bye world for a minute, time the fuck out, and all that.
“Let me take over for a bit. Why don’t you have a rest?” Robbie told him. He toyed with the idea of helping Derrick out of the ditch (that was how bad he looked) and he might have done just that, help the kid, if Pemy wasn’t around. Not that Robbie necessarily cared about what Pemy thought, but somehow taking Derrick by the hand, under the circumstance felt… that felt just wrong.
Derrick climbed out of the ditch by himself, stumbled, like he had been drinking more than any of them, and then as he wobbled over to clear ground, he fell let his beer go with it. In a final effort, that may have taken all the energy out of him, he sat up and reached for the beer, that was spitting through the neck of the bottle and onto the earth; Derrick looked pathetic reaching after it, simply because he couldn’t find it; Pemy was laughing his ass off.
No matter how stupid Derrick looked, Robbie found he couldn’t laugh; he knew the kid was really hurt. Derrick finally got the damn thing, and sat the beer beside him then swung his arms out and ran his tongue out of his mouth, trying to be theatrical Robbie supposed, but fooling neither of them.
Maybe were not digging up, Robbie thought looking at him, watching his chest rise and fall heavily, maybe we’re putting in.
Then with one final heave the kid collapsed.

It turned out the kid had a heart condition he was never aware of. Derrick lost his life that night. All of a sudden that number, 57, sounded old.
“We dug a fucking grave for our friend,” Pemy said, “that’s all we did. We played with death, and we’re the ones that paid the price.”
He wanted to tell him to shut up again, tell him he had fat vocal chords, but didn’t. Instead, Pemy got him thinking. Pemy’s outlandish suggestion that death somehow spited them was ludicrous, but that superstitious notion stayed around in Robbie’s head for far longer than it should have. It was crazy, but there were nights he'd lie awake and talked himself into believing that somehow Mr. Vermingham played a hand in his friend's death. When the morning sun cast in through the blinds, he knew again that was absolutely crazy, and even Pemy agreed, surprisingly. "Then why did he just take Derrick?" Pemy said. 
He remembered what Mr. Gregan said about doing the things you love in life, remembered that look of regret he noticed in Gregan’s eyes. Remembered what Uncle Raymond said, and wondered what the price of not obeying your heart really was.
He decided he would never find out.
Maybe he didn’t have to.

Later that summer, Robbie finished mowing the lawn for what may have been the last time of the season. When he was through, he wheeled the mower,  that smelt of spent fuel and fresh cut grass, back into the shed. When he went to close the shed door, something crashed, casting a metallic thud as it hit the concrete floor. There were rakes, brooms, hedge trimmers and the likes, but they all hung quietly on their part of the wall rack. To Robbie’s sheer dismay, he saw it was a shovel looking back at him, dead center, middle of the floor.
Robbie stared at it unable to move. Maybe it was that bastard Pemy putting ideas in his head, or maybe it was someone saying now it’s time to dig a cozy spot for you. Robbie got the hell out of there, leaving the shovel exactly where it was.    
He called Pemy to tell him what had happened… No answer.

BACK TO TOP