Daddy's little boy

Loose bits of wild cotton floated like little clouds through the trees.  Mama was crying.  Preacher was speaking, one hand on a thick, tattered old book and his other in the air, as if holding something to see for those who’d come.  Mama, Preacher, the gravediggers and Daddy’s little boy.  Mama had said the puppy couldn’t come.  It was late afternoon and the sun had already begun to set.  One of the gravediggers yawned, lifting a meaty hand to his unshaven face to stifle it.  Daddy’s little boy watched him, taking in the dirty elbows, the sweat stained t-shirt, the frayed baseball cap and the little silver flask in the chest pocket of a well worn pair of coveralls.  The other man looked at his watch, leaning a bit from too many holes, too many shovels and too many bodies.  Mama was holding daisies.  Daddy had always loved to bring her daisies.

“And the Lord knows the heart of this man who lies here dead in the flesh, but alive in the spirit.  Though he suffered in life he now rests in a better place.  Please bow your heads.”

Preacher began to pray.  Daddy’s little boy simply watched, staring at the chestnut brown casket.  The tiny clouds of cotton brushed against the smooth coffin, like the wind tracing it’s fingertips across its polished surface.  Mama took a few steps forward, falling to her knees and hugging the casket.  Preacher hesitated, eyes looking to the dusty ground for a moment before continuing in the same loud voice he used when talking about spiritual things.  Daddy’s little boy just watched. 

“Amen.”

The two gravediggers looked at Mama as she clutched the sides of the casket, her tears dripping down the sides, slowly falling into the freshly dug soil.  They had sullen faces and weary frowns.  Preacher looked back to them and then to Daddy’s little boy.  Mama was quieter now, sitting next to the coffin, running her fingers over the sealed lid.  The grave had been dug in a clearing smack dab in the middle of a copse of red oak.  Preacher had told Mama that they were turkey oak, but Daddy had taught him to look at the leaves.  The preacher nodded to the gravediggers and stepped over to stand by Mama.  Preacher put an arm around Mama’s shoulders as she stood up, legs shaky.  The gravediggers grinned at each other and stepped forward, sticking their shovels into the ground.  They waited for a moment as Mama and Preacher walked out from the shade onto the bare hillside, late summer grasses stained a fading red as the sun crawled beyond the ridge.

“On three?”

The younger of the two slapped a junebug away from his fat purple nose and grinned.

“Yessir.”

Daddy’s little boy stood absolutely still, staring, as the two men picked up Daddy’s coffin in rough hands and dropped it in the hole.  A cloud of dust rose up from the grave, tiny bits of cotton floating, swirling, tracing, begging their way through it.  The older gravedigger had already started tossing dirt in the hole, the younger, larger man turning to look at Daddy’s little boy.

“Sweet Moses Bill, the boy ain’t even cried.”

“That one won’t, now pitch in your fair share of the sod.  My back feels about as sore as your nose looks.”

When the sun had set, and the gravediggers had finished up and gone home, Daddy’s little boy was still staring at the grave.  The fresh soil stood out darkly against the pale dust that was littered here and there with grass browned from the glare of the summer sun.  Preacher walked down the hill, frowning at something beyond his nose.

“Come on now son!  I got your mother back to your Mamaw’s and it’s getting about time to be inside and asleep.”

Taking a hold of Preacher’s hand, Daddy’s little boy watched as the night winked at him, eyelids made up of the wings of fireflies.  The hill rose up to the road gently, lightning bugs blinking in the grass.  The road was dirt and gravel.  No construction man in his right mind would try paving the dirt roads back in the hollers.  Preacher opened the door to his car, an old cavalier with no side mirrors and a spider webbing crack in the bottom edge of the windshield.

“Get yerself in the car Vincent, we best get you back on up to the house.”

The beat up jalopy coughed and sputtered, moving slowly at first before swinging around in a loose circle to drive back up into the woods were the dirt road met the highway.  Daddy’s little boy stared back down the hill, fireflies drifting in and around the small gathering of southern red oak.