This is a short story I wrote for submission in a Kentucky magazine. It didn’t get in so I thought I would share it here.
Before I start, this is based on a story I heard several years ago about a guy who was raised in Fancy Farm. I don’t know if the guy actually existed but I took a lot of lee-way with the truth. The names were changed to protect the innocent.
I’m not sure exactly when this was, probably in the late 1930’s or early 1940’s. It was after the Great Depression, when not everyone had made it back on their feet. My grandfather used to tell this story. He thought it was the funniest story he knew about living in this small town.
It happened in the church cemetery. That was back when the cemetery really was in the church yard. Now the cemetery is a lot larger. Now, the cemetery takes up the field next to the rectory, from the highway down to the creek. It goes from the baseball fields over to the credit union. In fact, since the church bought the credit union they have turned that yard into a new part of the cemetery. My dad always said that people were dying to get into that cemetery. He thought he was so funny.
No, but this story really is funny. You see, there was this guy who never really worked. His wife had up and left him and took all of their kids, to go back to where she had come from. I’m not sure where that was. But she left him behind. They said that during the depression he had turned to drink and never got over it. That happened to a lot of people. This guy walked everywhere he went, unless he could catch a ride. If he was out later in the day he was usually drunk. Everybody knew that about him, no one thought too much about it.
I guess people kept him fed. I’m sure he could work if he wanted. Some people only work when they need money. When they get a little then they’ll quit until they need it again. That’s why Daddy never wanted to hire them. He would pay them on Friday afternoon and sometimes wouldn’t see them again until Tuesday morning. When you’re cutting tobacco you can’t wait that long, especially if you’ve got it cut but not picked up in the field. I remember one year he lost about 3 acres of tobacco that way. Since his help didn’t show up the tobacco got sunburnt. There’ son way to fix sunburnt tobacco.
Anyway, back to the story. I don’t remember what this guy’s name was so we’ll just call him Tom. Tom walked everywhere he went. He walked up to the gas station to get cigarettes. He walked over to the restaurant to see if he could mop their floor for his supper. He would walk to his sister’s house for a hand-out. And, like I said, if he was walking later in the day he was usually drunk.
One day, right about dusk, Tom was walking from the gas station back to his house. He lived at the family home place. It had been abandoned after his mother had died so it was pretty run down. I guess the roof was still good so it kept him out of the elements but I don’t think it had any electricity or gas to it. I guess he used the fireplace for heat. Tom always walked through the cemetery as a short cut. He would walk through what used to be a bean field behind the church, through the cemetery and cross the highway on the other side of the rectory. He would then walk through a couple of yards to get to his parents place about a half mile out of town.
The sun was about to go down when Tom got into the cemetery. He wasn’t afraid of being in the cemetery at night. Even if he had been, he was drunk enough that he wouldn’t have even known to be scared. But he was walking pretty slow on this particular occasion and stumbling around a little bit. He would be able to make it home but he wasn’t moving very fast.
There had been a couple of teenage boys goofing off around town that night. They weren’t bad kids. They were a little bored so they were looking for something different to get into. They had been throwing a baseball back and forth to each other in the middle of the highway when they decided that maybe they would walk up to the school and see if anyone was hanging out up there. They walked south towards the church. They were going to cut through the cemetery and head up the hill towards the high school. They figured there had to be someone else out and about since supper was over. They wouldn’t be able to stay out real late but didn’t have to be home at dark like their younger brothers and sisters.
Once they were in the cemetery they took a detour down the hill a little to inspect the job the grave diggers had dug earlier in the day. An old lady who had been raised in this town was going to be buried there tomorrow. They didn’t know her. She hadn’t lived here since she had gotten out of school. A lot of people did that. They came to town once a year to visit their relatives and when they died they came home one last time. The boys weren’t looking for trouble, they were just curious. It wasn’t every day they could inspect a fresh grave. When they got over there they saw Tom heading up the hill, staggering. They decided to have a little fun.
One of the boys went a little further down the hill and hid behind a big gravestone. The other boy jumped down into the grave. When Tom got past the first boy he heard somebody say “Hey Tom!” Tom turned around but didn’t see anybody. He decided he was hearing things so he continued his voyage home. He had a bottle with him but he was concentrating on staying upright and not running into any headstones. A little bit later he hear “Tom” but it was further away from him. It must be some kid yelling for a friend, he decided.
Tom went a few more feet and he was pretty close to the fresh grave. The second boy said “Tom, come here.” He tried his best to sound haunting. Then the other boy started making sounds you would think where spooky. They weren’t doing a very good job with any of it but Tom was pretty drunk so the sounds had the desired effect on him.
The first boy started again, “Tom, I want to talk with you. Come over here.”
“Where are you?” Tom hollered out.
“Over here. Come over here.”
“I don’t see nobody.”
“I’m here”, the boy called back.
Tom walked closer to the fresh grave. n fact, he was so close now that if he didn’t watch where he was going he was going to end up in the grave. That’s when it happened. That’s when the second boy reached up and grabbed Tom by the ankle.
Tom dropped his bottle and took off running.
The boys picked up his bottle and took it to share with their friends up at the school yard.
The next morning Tom was in church. He never drank again.