a graveyard in my front yard

8/13/2019 A Graveyard in My Front Yard

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A GRAVEYARD IN

My Front YardG. M. Fogerty


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BENNIE GOT UP TO THE cash register and hissmile melted away when he saw the total. He pawed at his

pockets in the faint home that he might find the stiff feelingof money he didn't know he had, but of course that wasn'tgoing to happen. He looked at the clerk who dryly stared athim then went back and looked at the receipt that had been

printing.

"It's the paint that is the most expensive item." She said.

ennie shook his head. He had to have the paint and itwas a bit pointless without the brushes and other supplies

but he was a dollar and a few cents short and getting uglyglares from the contractors that were behind him waiting.

!here ws no way to get out of this graciously so he wentahead and told her to cancel the order and walked out of thestore as the others muttered under their breath.

ennie drove home and his wife was sitting at the frontroom table with her chin in her hands. She lookeddisgusted, but that was nothing unusual. Her hair was

brown and a bit fu y naturally, so her dad had nicknamedher #uffin, a nickname that had stuck.

"I see you coming through the front door, but I dont seeanything at the ends of your arms but hands, no paint or

accessories." "I was off by a buck and a half and they wouldn't give mea break and no one else in the bunch was going to give meany change, they let me cancel the order."


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#uffin stood up and huffed so hard ennie felt the wind.She got into her pocket and dug out some change. "$ellas much as I'd like to %ust make coffee and go on about my

business, those hands at the end of your arms are uselesswithout supplies in them so if I hope to make this cracker box livable for the first time since it was stood up in & ()let me give you this and you can go back and get the stuffthey are probably putting back on the shelf."

"!he place was built in &*()."

"$ell," #uffin huffed, "when I look at the worn out paint, the rusted hinges, the broken doors and the crackedwindows, the roof that has dips in it, the floor that issagging in some spots,..."

"I got it+ I'm not rich, I inherited the place, so sorry todisillusion you."

"I'm not disillusioned, I'm making a home. o get me

paint so I can make it all pretty." #uffin said. enniewalked out the door shaking his head.

He was so tired of going through this. #uffin had planned on a bunch of other things when they had gottentogether, but they had not worked out, and it seemed thatinheriting this house was the icing on the cake for her, areally crappy cake.

ennie got in hs car and turned the key. !he enginegrumbled and then there was the bu ing sound that saidthe battery had given out...%ust since the last ride. ennieleaned forward on the steering wheel and felt like burstinginto sobs. He was going to get a new battery, but they had


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gone off sale today so he was a day late....and a dollarshort. Story of his life.

ennie sat up and was startled to see #uffin standingnext to the car window with a sarcastic "I knew it" grin onher face and she handed him her credit card. ennieopened his mouth to speak and she cut him off. " et a

battery while you're out."

ennie took the card and got the %umper cables and drovesilently down to the parts house and got a battery then hereturned to the hardware store and picked up the paintsupplies he had tried to get earlier.

-riving back to the house, ennie sagged in the seat andshook his head in dispair. verything had been adissappointment and he was so tired of the downs. #uffinseemed always unhappy unless she was over at her sisterSherry's house. She always came back feeling better and itseemed when she saw ennie she went down hill. Heknew what the problem was, it was because he had notreally managed to accomplish anything of any real merit.

!hey had been living in a top floor apartment in a decenterea of the city while he had been working making drill bitsfor a drilling company. ut they had shipped the businessover sea to save all that money and put ennie out of a %ob.

$orking fast food had slowly choked them to death andfinally it had all ended. !hey had moved in with Sherry forabout two weeks when the state notified ennie he was thenext in line as the only living descendant for a house andland sitting on the edge of town in the country and #uffin


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had been excited at first. !hey had signed the papers andtaken a drive out to the place.

!he winding road that led to it, broken and dirty, had been the first clue that they should not be too excited. !henthey had pulled into an erea with ran down old rotting

barns, an enormous victorian shack sitting there and somescattered houses that had been built within the last fiftyyears.

!hey had gone up to a house with a for sale sign and beenhappy that they could fix it up, then reread the address andfound out...home was not the house but the victorian shackwith the rotting barns.

!hey had gone to the place and found it buried in a tangleof trees and thorn vines, with trees hanging ove thedriveway like they were about to attack. In the back of the

place was a well and around front an iron fence thatenclosed an old garden. #uffin had %ust stared at the placeand ennie had stood and looked up at the toweringwindows and gables and felt intimidated by how big it wasand how much work it would take.

/s he drove back to the house, he looked at the radio anddecided no, he was not in the mood to listen to the radio.

ennie pulled in the yard and went up the creaking steps

of the house and lifted the door enough for it to open all theway and let him in. He sat the paint down and went in the

bedroom where #uffin was on her lap top and he noticedthat the computer was on a cord that led to an extensioncord that led to another extension cord that led to a big


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thick cord that led to one outlet.

"-id something happen to..."

"/ section of the fuse box blew when I tried to plug in the blender and make something to drink."

"0kay so I guess we need to fix the electrical system heretoo." #uffin looked up at ennie and hissed in a sarcasticwhisper. "Imagine that+"

ennie sat down on the bed, which was a piece of rubberstretched out over some boxes filled with books and clothesand looked a bit like the country road outside.

"1ook, I'm totally sorry that the inheritance was such a big bomb shell. I only have so much power to control things."

"0h my goodness ennie." #uffin said. "I'm still here, Ihaven't gone anyplace have I2"

ennie was about to respond when their daughter Sandygot off the school bus and came into the house.

"#ommeeeeeee, dadeeeeeee+" she yelled as her littleshoes banged over the floors. #uffin called her to theroom. " e careful where you step so that you don't fallthrough the floor." She said. !he running stoppedsuddenly and ennie looked at #uffin. "3ot funny." Hesaid. She got up off the bed and left the computer behind."$ho says I was kidding2"

"!he bus driver wants to see one of you." Sandy said,and ennie walked out the door swiftly and to the bus. !hedriver was sitting there chewing on a piece of field grass


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and as ennie walked up the steps of the bus he noticed thescared looks on the faces of the kids on the bus. / littleoriental girl named !iki looked up at him as he got on the

bus. "4ou really live in that place2" She said. ennieignored the comment and the bus driver, missing most ofhis teeth, looked up at him.

"I gotta tell ya..." the old man said through his toothless %aw, "um, limme shee, what was I shpo d to tell ya, hangon iddl come to me, uh, oh yeah, I can't come out here aftertoday because thish plashe ish way outshide the bus limitsh.

Sho, %usht go ahead and drive yer daughter shindytomorrow."

"Sandy."

"$hatsh that2"

"Her name is Sandy, not 5indy."

"0h, Shandy. 3o problem. 4ou have a nishe day then. Ialwaysh thought thish plashe was abandoned. #ake a heckof a haunted houshe, hehe+"

ennie went back into the house and he saw #uffin tastetesting dinner on the 5oleman propane stove. "So what didthe fossil...I mean the bus driver want2" She asked.

ennie took a breath before he told her. "He can't come outhere anymore to pick her up, we have to take her to school

because we are outside the bus one."

"$hy, are they afraid we're witches2"

"3o, it's all about money."


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ennie went de%ectedly to the bedroom and sat down onthe boxes. He stretched and picked up the computer and

%ust for fun he decided to investigate the house.

He put in the address and began to search around. Soonenough he came up with results as Sandy began babbling toher mother and they sat down in the kitchen to eat while#uffin made smart remarks about the house and the lack ofworking appliances.

ennie was reading when Sandy walked in with a plateand sat it on the bed for him. "#om sent you dinner, shesaid don't worry there's nothing in it that will kill you."

ennie looked up. " ee, how encouraging."

"$hat are you looking at2 6ictures of guns again2"

"3o I'm reading the history of this house."

#uffin piped up from the kitchen. "!his house should be

history." "It says here that this land was owned once by a trainrobber who stole tons of gold and cash from all sorts of

people from the eighteen fifties to after the civil war."

"Sandy looked interested. "-id you fight in thesilverware2"

"3o Sandy." -ad said. It's called the civil war and Ifought in later wars that involved family members, almostthe same thing."

"30! 78334+" #uffin shouted.


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ennie smirked. "I guess this guy named $es Sternslived here and had a small place close by. !his house cameup around &9&:."

#uffin came in the room. "/nd it was not well caredfor."

#uffin sat down and sat her food aside and took thecomputer over again. ennie stood up and stretched andleft the room, needing to occupy his mind for a while andnot interested in food. He walked outside and lookedaround the front yard. He looked at the garden erea andstarted walking toward it. He wondered if there was anytrace of the food the gardner used to grow in it. !here wasan old wooden gate that had rotted into the ground and allthat remained of the fence was a few posts and a littlestatue in a large birdbath that had its head missing.

ennie walked into the erea and began to walk among thetall thorns and grass, and kick at the ground. He kicked afew pieces of rocks around and went over to a piece of flatwood that was largely buried. He grabbed the edge and

began to pull it up. It came a little way, so he pulled more,and it kept coming till he could see a hollow erea under it.

$ith a big pull, ennie pulled the wood up and turned itover. He looked down into the big hole he found and %uststared. His luck was holding out. Inside the hole was acasket. ennie shook his head, and he ran to the shed andgrabbed a pick and shovel which were among the very fewimplements he had for this overwhelming pro%ect.

ennie began to dig small holes, and as the sun got low in


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the sky he found that there were several graves and this onehappened to have a big piece of decaying wood over it.

ennie wiped the sweat from his face and began to clawaround the dirt looking for any traces of gravestones. Hefound two flat ones, both of them with dates from the&*9:'s.

;ather than say anything to #uffin, he decided to seewhat he could do on his own, too late. ennie looked upand his heart sank as he saw #uffin coming toward himacross the yard.

"4ou %ust walked out of the room without a word anddidn't even eat your dinner so I got to wonderingwhaaaaaaaaaat the heck is that casket doing in the frontyard22"

"0h boyoboyoboy+" ennie said.

"0h have mercy on top of everything else, it looks likewe have stiff in the front yard. 0h I'm so happeeeeeee+"She said mockingly.

"0h


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ennie followed #uffin into the house as the night cameon and he tried to salvage any part of a decent mood bysoothing her feelings. "I'm telling you man, within a day or

two the city will take these guys out of here." "I hope so, the only thing that needs to sleep on this

property is the living."

!hey went into the house and while ennie ate his dinner#uffin sat on the computer and did some more research,which she was better at than he was.

"It say here that a bunch of robbers used the old town thatstarted here as a hangout and they bought plots in the littlegraveyard here. 3o wonder no one cared to keep it up andmaintain it and %ust built on the property. 7unnything isthat this $esley Sterns guy is said to be buried here andalso in another graveyard,. #aybe he blew up."

"6robly another $es Sterns." ennie said.

"=ust get them out of here tomorrow." #uffin said.

"3o problem." ennie said.

"That's a big problem." !he man said on the phone the following day when ennie called the city toremove the dead bodies. "$ell I guess it depends on how

you look at it. See you can get them exumed and reburied, but you have to have someone come and tractor them upthen remove them to a cemetery and rebury them in new

plots."

"0kay, so after you spend fifty thousand dollars on that,


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who pays for it2"

"8h, private property...you do. /lso not only do youhave to pay to have the stiffs stuck someplace else but youhave to contact next of kin and have a geneologist and anarchaologist present at the time. 7or the number of gravesyou estimated you would be looking at about two hundredgrand for all that. =ust for snorts and giggles, how much yagot2"

" ight hundred dollars, all of which belongs to my wife#uffin and I have twenty bucks. $hat will that get us2"

"I'll give you two things for free. !he first is advice."

"$hat's the second2" ennie asked.

"/ big laugh. 3ow for the advice, I say you rebury them,add enough dirt to make a flower garden and mow the grassover them so they can turn into a nice proper yard and keepyour mouth shut about it."

"Sounds cheap."

"It is, and I'll wait till you get off the phone for thelaugh."

"4ou're all heart." ennie said.

ennie put the phone down and drummed his fingers as

#uffin walked into the room. She sat down next to himand after a moment of thought she said " I'm gonna guessthat getting those caskets out of the front yard is a bit of a

bigger deal than you thought."

ennie sighed. "Sorta."


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#uffin muttered angrily. "How much sorta2"

"!wo hundred thousand dollars or we make them intoa..."

ennie %ust sat there as #uffin %umped up and beganyelling. 7ortunately it was morning and Sandy was gone,so the cursing of the house she would never hear. #uffinwas totally incensed and angry.

"0h wowwwwwww+ $e inherit a run down old cracker box in the middle of nowhere with a million dollars in

repairs that is too trashed to sell and now we have agraveyard in the front with exposed caskets we can't doanything about. !his %ust keeps getting better+"

"I put some dirt over it, hit it with the roto tiller and wehave a yard. 3o big deal."

#uffin laughed angrily. "0ur front yard is filled with a bunch of dead people and some of them were outlaws. I'dsay that's a big deal."

"$ell what do you want me to do, #uffin2 I've beenlooking for work since they laid me off at the bit place, andI can't help the fact that this place is not a nice plantationmansion worth a fortune. I can't do anything about it."

"I know you can't, but I am really sick of more problems

added to the ones we had yesterday, this %ust gets old andnow we have dead people in the front yard+"

"It's not a big deal." ennie said as he sat a pan of leftovers on the camp stove to heat up.


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"$ell it is to me."

ennie shook his head. "I can't manage to run into a bank ticket for millions of dollars left behind by a trainrobber, oh no, instead I inherit a ran down dump where thatrobbers stinking dirty skeleton is buried. #an my luck isrotten and it never ever ever gets any better+" enniekicked his fold up chair and it flew apart. #uffin laughedangrily at him.

ennie stomped outside, sick of not only having this kindof luck but also sick of #uffin making it smack him in theface.

$alking outside, ennie took stock of the situation.!here were about forty graves or so, probably more, noneof them marked. !he ones in the front were not well

protected at all and it would take some time, but he could bury them all with his shovel. He was so very regretful that#uffin had found out about those graves+ 0f course shehad to come out at the very moment he had pulled up that

piece of wood and exposed the old casket.

ennie went over to the grave and looked at the casket asit lay inside the brick crypt in his yard. It was metal andrusted but still in good shape. He was surprised. Helooked at the wood. It was thick plank, but because it had

been there so long it had rotted till he could remove it. 3ow he wished he had left it there. $esley Sterns was probably the very skeleton laying in it, rotting, a pile of bones and shrunken skin that reeked of a century of death.

/s he stood there, a city car pulled up and two men got


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out. !hey came pleasantly into the yard and looked at thegrave. 0ne of the men was a big fellow with hair that stuckout every direction like rampa from the #unsters. He

shook ennie's hand and laughed. "$ow, what a find, an old old casket sitting right smackin front of your house." !he big man said. ennie staredas if da ed. "Somehow it doesn't sound any better whenyou say it than it does when #uffin says it." !he other manlooked at ennie. "$ho's #uffin2"

ennie looked at him. "#uffin is what they call mywife." ennie could tell that the man had some good smartremarks but he decided not to use them, instead he tippedup and down on his boots and nodded with a big smart alecsmile. " otcha." He replied.

!he big man sighed. "$ell I wish I had some good newsfor you, ennie but the plain fact is that you're stuck withdead men on your property. !he city re


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she got into her car and drove out of the driveway asennie grabbed the shovel and watched her go.

She drove away and ennie felt tears come to his eyes.$hen they had met they had been so happy. /lwayshaving fun and acting like kids. Sandy had came along andthey had had even more fun with a little person that theyslept with between them, then went and did things with.

Sandy was like a cartoon character with her tiny voiceand little hands. Her hair tended to curl on it's own andthey wanted to see how long it would get so they did notcut it. She had moved to her own bed in the same roomand they would sit and watch her sleep, a little piece of

both of them.

ennie then thought of the lay off and the long long period of time when he had been searching for work astheir fortunes had slowly sunk lower and the laughter hadceased.

He drug the shovel over by the grave and sat on the edgewith his shoes touching the top of the old casket.

Sherry had told #uffin that she needed to find a betterman, that things would never get any better and shedeserved better in life. He wondered if she believed it.

ennie felt tears roll down his cheeks and he looked up atthe ran down old house, so destoryed by time. He kicked atthe lid of the casket and then a thought hit him.

!here was no one around, why not2 ennie wasoverwhelmed with curiosity, so he hopped down onto the


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lid of the casket and then got into the crypt next to the lidand looked for the latches. !hey were stuck so he took hisshovel and hit them a few times till they came loose.

ennie %ammed the shovel blade into the crack betweenthe lid and the casket body and he pried. !o his surprise itcame right loose, and he pulled the lid up. He shoved itopen and braced himself to deal with the stench of a rottingman.

/fter a few seconds ennie felt himslf burst into laughter.6rivate property huh, he was responsible and the citywanted no part of it huh2 So be it, couldn't argue with that.

!he casket didn't have a body, instead it was loaded withgold coins and currency from the victorian era, worth ama%or fortune by modern standards. ennie sat andlaughed for several minutes as he looked at it. Somehowhe could care so much less who was buried in the othergraves. 3o wonder this grave had wood over it, the personwho owned it had made many return trips to line his

pockets and build his life savings which he died a little toosoon to spend+ He couldn't use a bank, so what safer wayto hid his fortune than in the last place anyone would rob orthink to look for it, an empty grave. xcellent+ >erycreative. !hey wouldn't shut down or move a cemetery anytime soon obviously.

ennie called #uffin and told her he needed her to staygone for a few days while did some work to get theappliances fixed in the house, and she agreed readily, notanxious to deal with the old house anymore.


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#uffin finally grudgingly drove back down the road tothe house down the winding road after nearly two weeks ofhanging out with Sherry and finally wearing her welcome

thin. /fter all, she could not run from her life forever. /s she came upon the house she saw a van sitting in theyard and a small truck. She pulled up behind them and waswalking toward the house. Sandy bounded across the yardand yelled "-addeee+" /s she hugged ennie. #uffinlooked at the cars and ennie smiled. "I've been a busy

busy boy."

#uffin looked pu led. ennie smiled and reached intohis pocket. "4ou know, a few pieces of gold coins areworth a bunch these days when you know the right peopleto help you cash them in." He smiled and pulled out a setof keys and handed them to #uffin who looked lost."$hat are these for2"

ennie laughed. "4our new car. !he truck is mine. Inthe next few days the guys will be here to fix the house upand haul out the other caskets, except for the one I'mkeeping to look at in the garage."

#uffin looked at the keys, then back at ennie. "$hywould you want to keep a rusty old casket to look at2"

ennie smiled. " ecause it's the most beautiful old casket

in the world that never had a human body in it."

a graveyard in my front yard

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