Sixth Grave on the Edge

I pulled a chair over to Mr. Wong and sat down.

“I’m here for you,” I said, taking the slow and easy approach. His back was rigid, his shoulders straight, his short gray hair a bit mussed and in need of a trim. “If you want to cross, you can, you know.”

Wait, what if he did? What would I do without him? I’d grown so used to having him around to talk to, to commiserate with, I wasn’t sure how I’d handle the place without him.

“Can you at least tell me your name? I’m fairly certain it’s not Mr. Wong.” I’d only called him that because … well, because he kind of looked like a Mr. Wong. It was the first thing that popped into my head.

When he still didn’t answer, I put my cup down and stood by him. His head, even though he was hovering about a foot off the ground, still did not pass mine. He couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. His gray uniform reminded me so much of the pictures I’d seen of Chinese internment camps. The people starving, made to work until they dropped. Literally.

Maybe that was why I’d never really tried to communicate with him. Maybe I didn’t want to know his story, what he’d gone through. As surprising as this might seem to the average observer, I did not handle that stuff well. My heart broke all too often. Even when people passed through me who’d gotten past their hardships, their heart-wrenching pain, and had lived long, full lives, seeing that part of them still cut me to pieces. So, maybe all this time I’d been hanging with Mr. Wong, I was really putting off the inevitable, the truth, not for his benefit, but for my own.

I was so amazingly selfish, sometimes I astonished even me.

I reached over and took his hand into mine. It was the first real contact I’d ever had with him. I was always afraid he’d up and vanish on me. Dead people tended to do that. But he didn’t move. He let me fondle his extremities as I searched for any kind of tattoo. Any mark that might lead me to his identity. It was probably too much to hope that he’d have a tat with his name on it like Mr. Andrulis.

I carefully lifted a sleeve. Nothing, though he did have a lot of scars, mostly thin wisps across his fragile skin. The same with the other arm. I bent and lifted a ragged pant leg. Again, scars, though not so many, but no other markings of any kind.

I heard Cookie open the door as I was looking at his right leg.

“What are you doing?” she asked, heading straight for Mr. Coffee. I’d suspected those two for some time now. Cookie seemed suddenly very concerned as to his whereabouts, his everyday activities, how long it took him to brew. She was eyeing him, sizing him up; I could tell. It could have something to do with the fact that her own coffeepot died after a long bout with congestion. I think its fuel pump went out. But she needed to keep her eyes off my man if she knew what was good for her.

“I’m fondling Mr. Wong,” I said, dropping his pant leg and rising. “Did you find anything out about our Mr. Andrulis?”

“Sure did.”

I peeked around Mr. Wong. “Seriously? And?”

She stirred her cup, rinsed the spoon off, then walked over to me and handed me a paper. “Is this him?”

I looked at the clipping. It was a photograph of several veterans from a local VFW event. She’d circled one of them, and underneath was a list of their names, including a Charles Andrulis. I squinted, trying to bring the picture into focus. “You know, that might be him. It’s hard to tell. He’s so na**d now.”

“According to the obituaries,” Cookie said, taking the chair I’d pulled up to Mr. Wong, “he died about a month ago and is survived by his wife of fifty-seven years. But she’s not doing well.”

“Maybe that’s why he’s still here,” I said, pulling up another chair and retrieving my coffee cup. “Maybe, I don’t know, maybe he’s waiting for her.”

Cookie sighed in romantic bliss.

“But wait. Why is he freaking naked?”

“Oh.” She scoured her bag until she produced a stack of papers. “Okay, I called the home where he and his wife were living, and according to a Nurse Jacob—who sounded quite yummy, I might add—they were giving Mr. Andrulis a shower when he collapsed. He died instantly of a heart attack.”

“Oh, man. Poor guy.”

“I know. It’s really sad. Nurse Jacob said his wife doesn’t know he’s gone. Even if they told her, it would sink in for only a few minutes before she was asking for him again, so they haven’t told her. They just keep telling her he’s coming right back.”

“You know what?” I said, rising and pacing the floor space. All two feet of it. “I’ve had it. I don’t want to be around death anymore.” I was holding my cup with one hand, but my other flew all over the place in indignation. “I’m done with sad stories that leave me whimpering and fetal.”

Cookie straightened. “But aren’t you the grim reaper? I mean, isn’t death your job?”

“Yes.” I strode to my desk and took out a piece of paper. “Yes, it is, and I quit.”

She relaxed and sipped on her coffee a bit before asking, “So, what are you doing?”

“Writing my resignation letter. How do you spell disestablishmentarianism?”

“First of all, I’m not sure you know what that word means if you are using it in a resignation letter.”

I paused and examined my letter. “Really?”

“Second, I’m not sure you can quit.”