“Cawrl and the Boys” (fiction)

First Electronic Rights c2009 Paul DeCirce

 

This could best be classified as a confessional.

Not mine, though.  I was researching birds for a horror story, trying to find an original approach on the common mythical figure of the crow.  A reporter friend told me to go to a local bar in town, where on a nightly basis an old grave-digger who had a great crow story could be found.

I did, and I found him.  I ended up abandoning my own story after hearing this old man’s tale.  As I shorthanded notes of the interview, I realized that in his words I had all the story I needed.  He said I could print them, but he gave conditions under which I had to obey, which I have.

Out of respect.

 

“Always keep them fed!” the old man said, spraying his words all over the splintered bar table.  He pulled off his pint of dark ale, tapped his ring on the slippery glass.  I was keeping the old man stocked, in case he felt like speaking tonight.

“The birds,” I said.  “What about the birds?”  My pen was poised.

“You’re in such a damn hurry,” he said, bringing a damp white kerchief to his painted nose, blowing thick and wet.  “Aghk.  Damn cold season.  Now when I was a younger man, well then the snot wasn’t so thick y’know?  I could still breathe in the air, still had good strong lungs!”

“Yeah,” I said, doubtful.

“Hey, boy,” he said, looking down his great runny lump with those sparked blue eyes, “I know what you wanna hear.  You wanna hear about The Boys.”

That’s what he called the crows.  I ordered refills, he sucked on a juicy cigar.

“Workin’ in St. Anne’s was my kind of job.  Peace of mind in the bone yard.  Got to spend my days getting holy stunk drunk, digging holes – this was before they got them damned yellow claw machines to do a man’s honest work – yeah, digging holes is what I liked to do.  I didn’t mind a bottle a day, but I managed to save enough for winter – can’t dig in the winter, y’know – but from April to middle of November, I was all over that place, digging and digging.

“Problem is, my stinking boss, a fat slug in a three-piece gray silk thing named Mumbley, Jansen Mumbley – you can go ahead and keep his rightful name, kid, hell, this’ll be my confession – he’d come out and give me the ol’ checky-up; y’know, how’s the old boozer doin’, hopefully not giving it to the lady stiffs.  Haah.

“See, he didn’t know Carl Knubbs – drunk and drinkin’ away three wives still today – may have been a big on the unsteady side, but I have my honor.  I know who to give my respect to.  I’d never steal anything or not do my work.  Needless to say, in such a solitary art as grave-digging, I found it damn offensive when he came out to check on me.

“But that’s okay with me, see, because of The Boys.  The Boys lived in  great big maple tree yon center of the cemetery, the one with branches going out so far it practically touched from one tip of the property to the other.  That was their roosting spot; I’d watch ‘em waking up in the morning, all ruffling around and laying into cawing and whatnot.  What a sight!  Must have been fifty plus of those winged things, all rustling around.  And when they took off, it was like black ink was lifting right off a great living painting, yeah, like words off’n a page, and go right up!”  Carl jerked his thumb toward the bowed ceiling of the bar and flicked his ash.  He took a long drink.

“Gaaaa.  Them Boys were something.  They spread out like an army unit over the territory, hunting.  Well, I know a lot about payin’ respect, so I’d bring out bread for them and toss it around me, not too far and not too close.  At first they called my name a bunch of times, eyed the bread, but wouldn’t take it.  After a while though, my guess is they saw me as a likable and trusty sort of fella, they came down and swooped up the stuff.

“Over the months of that first year, we sort of worked out a friendship.  Pretty soon I was giving ‘em lots of stale bread, and they’d sort of keep their great sharp eyes out for me.  Whenever a car would pull in, they’d yell out my name, I’d throw the blanket over the stiff, or y’know, hide up the bottle.

“And that’s exactly what happened that time bossman Mumbley sprang that surprise on me.  He pulled in with that big silver Caddy, and The Boys just give up to a great yellin’, ‘Cawrl!  Cawrl!’ And I looks down the lane and sure enough, here comes Jansen Mumbley, driving real slow like he owns the land and everyone should know it.

“Well, I didn’t get too nervous; hadn’t tied one on too bad.  But to be safe I kicked off my bottle behind a stone up a few rows, chewed down a bit of dirt to suck up the whiskey from m’breath, and got to a bit of double-timin’ on the shoveling duty.

“Fat so-and-so was practically out of his car when I remembered the hand.

“Came to pass that once in a while I’d get a nice fresh one, y’know a John or Jane Doe, pretty much just untouched in a cardboard box.  Why, they’d be all cramped and mashed into these things, some too far or tall, y’know.  So out in the caretaker’s shed I found me a nice hand saw with sharp teeth on ‘em, and I found it a lot better to just lop off a bit here and there, rather’n trying to keep all these parts from sticking out of those cheap little boxes.

“And what with me and The Boys getting’ to be so close that whenever I was puttin’ one down that was particularly fresh, I’d just cut a little something off for them, maybe even pour a little sauce on it; hell, ain’t no one gonna miss it.  They liked to play with whatever I gave ‘em, y’know, at their leisure, and so they would make these heavy kinda ribbit noises and yank at the flesh, chewing a bit off now and again; was some kind of a game to ‘em.  Y’know, bird-stuff.”  He drank again, burping, clacking his ring again.  My free hand raised for a refill.

“Well, when Mumbley slammed his car door, the oldest Boy came up and perched himself on the tip of a cross tombstone.  He was all ragged and beat up; I called him the Cap’n, I knowed it was him ‘cause he only had one claw-foot, leaned to his side kinda like this, he did, to keep himself standing straight.”  Carl leaned over his own hunched frame, hooking his long wrinkled hands down into soft claws.  “Thought the Cap’n was a lot like me, y’know keeping on despite God’s blows to the heart, and such.

“So here comes Mumbley, all wheezy and sweaty (on a cool autumn day, no less) in his Sear suit, looking like a turkey ready for an auction.  I tried to look him square in the eyes, m’daddy ain’t raise me with no manners, but Mumbley never met my eyes.  Always looked around me, like it’d cost him something too much to give me a look.

“ ‘Knubbs,’ he said, never called me by my first name, ‘how goes it?’ Well, hell boy, I knew I was damned and stickered if he found that hand ‘bout ten feet to his south in the grass, and ol’ Cap’n knew it, too, keepin’ his eye on it, flapping closer and closer.

“ ‘Well, mighty fine today sir,’ I says, avertin’ his attention.  Then I had one of them burps that just can’t stay down.  I leaned on my shovel and tossed my head towards the stiff. ‘Missy’ll be down by lunch, I’ll tell ya.’

“ ‘Yes, well,’ he said, all proper-like.  ‘Ms. Trudeau was out the other day’ – boy, I’ll tell ya, that old bag had one of them necks that looks like raw spaghetti leading down into a blouse, y’know the kind?  Ones that had meat, but them seasons done took it back?  Old spinster’s what she was.  Knowed she saw me and my whiskey.  She called in on me.

“ ‘ – and she said she saw you indulging in the spirits, while you worked.’  He said it flatly, avoidin’ my glare under the mid-morning sun.  I raised a hand over my eyes to let him know I was looking.

“Then Cap’n made his move.  He eased down behind him and took up the hand, and tried to fly off with the whole thing!  He wavered and almost smashed into some stone, but finally managed to get wing with the limb bound in his claws.  Mumbley turned to look absently, but didn’t notice nothing.  Cap’n flew back to the central maple all crooked, the hand weighing him down.  He got back all right, though, hidin’ the prize between the orange leaves.

“ ‘Well, now,’ I says to him, I says, ‘how she know it was whisky?  Man out here, digging all day, especially a man of my age, boss, y’know I need to keep water in my system!’” He laughed hard at that, wheezing.  He bent over the table, coughing hard.  He straightened again, blew his wet nose, honking, took a light sip and looked at the table.  He seemed to have lost his train of thought.

“Mumbley,” I said.  “The crows.”

“God, boy, I do miss ‘em sometimes.  All three of ‘em, for different reasons, too.  They was all so pretty.”  He took out his wallet.

“This one, why she had such a pretty smile, make me just no my head and do whatever she says.  Cost me all my good years.  Boy that red-head o’hers; yew! A damned fireball!”  He smiled.  “Y’know boy, that’s why I took that job.  After burying three of the most precious little girls on God’s green earth, why, I ain’t have much left to do.  Seemed to be what I was best at, putting ‘em in the ground.  I had my drink, I had my shovel.  I had my Boys.”  He sighed, then slid back into his story.

“Mumbley finally looked me down.  ‘You been drinking, Knubbs?’ he says.

“ ‘Hell no!’, I says, ‘And you got some balls made of brass,’ I telled him.  I noticed one of The Boys landing within ear shot behind the boss.  ‘I’m one o’ the best you got!  Them weekend boys ain’t doin’ nothing but stuffing them under.  In two years they’ll pop up one day while their loved ones are fixing the flowers or something.  When Carl Knubbs put ‘em under,’ I tells him, ‘they stay under!’

“ ‘Cawrl!  Cawrl!’

“ ‘That’s right,’ I says.

“Mumbley looked at me long.  He sniffed, then clipped a fat cigar.  ‘Ah, Knubbs, Knubbs.  You know this is a public place, right?  We got an image to keep, of a professional and very sympathetic establishment.  We can’t have any slovenly behavior.  Now Ms. Trudeau is one of my most valued customers, and I don’t want to do anything to put her off.  Her loving husband is only fifty feet away from us right now, and I’m sure she doesn’t want any drunk grave-digger doing anything to disrupt his eternal peace.’

“I admit I swaggered a bit in the sun, but I had my shovel to keep my balance.  ‘Why ya so worried ‘bout old bag Trudeau?’ I said.  ‘When she croaks, why, she’ll be right next to him.  Got her damn name on the stone already, she does, and I’ll tell ya, that’s a creepy thing to be doin’.’

“Then Mumbley got all worried looking.  A couple more of The Boys circled overhead.  Gradually they were landing all around us, perching here and there.  The boss man looked at my feet.  ‘Knubbs,’ he said.  ‘I’m sorry but I can’t take any chances.  I’m going to have to –‘

“ ‘Cawrl!  Cawrl!’

“ ‘What’s that?  I cain’t hear ya?’

“ ‘I said you’re fired!  That’s it!’

“I was stunned.  I felt the blood run from my face and land in my feet.  The Boys all landed around us, with Cap’n right in front of me, in the distance.  I pushed my shovel-blade down into the soft wet dirt a bit.

“I asked him to repeat hisself.

“ ‘You heard me,’ he says.

“ ‘I’m fired?’

“ ‘Cawrl!  Cawrl!’

“I got read mad.  ‘You may own this operation, Mumbley,’ I told him, ‘but you never once have known what it’s like to hold a shovel in your hands, have you?’ and I stuck out the tool to show him.  ‘You ain’t ever got sweaty, working six feet into the ground, have you?  You know what it takes almost all day for a single standard grave?  You think that’s easy work?’

“ ‘I don’t doubt your ability…’

“The Boys took flight, circling around us.

“ ‘No, but you doubt my sobriety!’ I yelled, ‘You doubt my ability, and damned to hell you doubt my honor!’

“ ‘Oh, don’t get high-falutin’ on me, you goddamned drunk!’ he says.  ‘I know a lush when I see one!  There’s twenty good men who can do double what you’re doing!’ The fat man wasn’t holding any punches.  Me neither.

“ ‘Here!’ I said, offering him the shovel.  ‘Dig a hole right now; go ahead.’  He refused it.

“ ‘That’s not the point.  The point is you’re fired!  Now get your bottle, wherever it is, and get the hell off my property!’ And he pointed a big chubby finger into the distance.  And then…” Carl stopped, snickering to himself.

“What?” I asked.

“Then,” he said, gulping more beer, “oh, this is a good one.”  He tapped his ring on the glass again.  “Damned if Cap’n didn’t dive right down from the sky and wrap his chipped old beak right about Mumbley’s fat finger.  Boy, I wish you could have been there to hear that fat sucker scream.  He let out a high-pitched creech like a cross of a pig at slaughter and a man with his nuts in a vise.  He was terrified, frozen solid.  And with the first attack by Cap’n, well, The Boys just moved in.

“They all flew down, landing on Mumbley’s head, swirling around him, poking and pulling at his ears, his eyes.  He spun all around like a silver rubber ball, tumbling through the grass.  Me, I went back and got my hooch; this was a damn good show.  His squealing was getting real grating, though.  The Boys kept up the chant through it all.

“ ‘Cawrl!  Cawrl!’

“Man, they were swarming him.  They’d drawn blood on his cheek, just below his eye.  That blood dribbled down in a straight-like line, making a dark pin-stripe on his suit.  He stumbled to his knees, then started callin’ to me.

“ ‘Knubbs!  Knubbs!  Christ, get ‘em off a me!  Get ‘em off a me!’”  He took a long drink.  “That’s when I did it.  And boy, hey you’re scribblin’ like a mad-mad over there; ain’t no one ta read until after I’m dead, you got me?”

I nodded.  “What did you do?”

“He wanted them off, so I did what any good grave-digger would to clear the ground.  I picked up my shovel, lifted it high over my head, and took a good swat at them.  They of course cleared before the shovel landed, and landed it did, square on Mumbley’s head.  I saw his forehead break through his bottom teeth.  He fell forward and chipped into the side of his head on a stone.  He lifted a finger to me while his tongue sort of ran around the hole of his mouth, like it was tryin’ ta lick birthday frosting off or something.

“ ‘Cawrl!  Cawrl!’” he yelled loudly into the bar, cackling.

“Cap’n gave the go-ahead, and they all dove in.  Never before had I seen such a quick meal.  They poked into that poor slob quicker’n a rowdy baseball team at a pizza party.  Ripped that devil to shreds.  Licked up the blood and all.  Left the bones and some guys for me to deal with.

“They flew real slow to the old maple and slept real good for the rest of the day.  ‘Cept the Cap’n.  He perched up on a stone and just balanced there, looking at me.  I smiled at the old Boy and I swear he smiled back.

“See, that’s what ya get with respect.  They were the keepers of that place, and they got their due, got their meal.  I called up Mumbley junior, told him I’d found poor daddy out there this morning.  Musta been wolves or something.  The kid was wild-eyed and didn’t know the first damn thing about cemeteries, or buryin’ people.

“I told him I’d be honored to dig the hole.  He thought that a little creepy, and I told him it was the right thing to do.  Payin’ respects, and all.”  He tapped his ring on the glass.

“I stayed on there for a long time, and so did The Boys.  Until my back got too bad, and I had to pass it off onto my son.

“And on my last day I went out to where I’d buried my three lovelies, I remember Cap’n followed me out; damn bird was going to live forever.  I creaked and grunted and knelt down and I put my shovel into the dirt next to theirs, and I told ‘em when I went, I promised to lay next to ‘em.  But only what was left of me, mind you.” He smiled at me.  “Gotta give what I can to The Boys first.”

 

My wife remembered my weird interview with the grave-digger named Knubbs, and spotted his obituary last week.  It was under the headline of “Another Cemetery Death:  Wolf-Hunt Reactivated by County Sheriff.”

I went out to St. Anne’s to see him.  Although my notes of the interview were unfinished and rough, buried deep somewhere in my files, I recognized the big maple like I’d been there with him, knew right where his three wives were buried.  Now where he was.  The ground was still fresh around it, the stones wrapped in police tape.

I’d brought a crow feather with me, and laid it before his modest marker.  Meeting him was one of those rare experiences for a writer, where reality became amazing and one man’s true story had an incredible influence on everything my art entailed thereafter.

In truth, one crow did fly over me as I stood there.  And he landed nearby, crookedly on a cross of stone, and he did call the grave-digger’s name.

Cawrl.  Cawrl.

 

 

c 1996 Paul DeCirce