needle. He looped a piece of nylon
filament about as thick as fishing line through the eye of the needle and then leaned down over the corpse.
“You know, it’s amazing how one skill can translate into another,” Undertaker said as he dug the long needle into the throat
of the dead thing beneath him and pushed hard. “My grandfather was a tailor—showed me a few things about cutting and sewing,
I’ll tell you. And really, there ain’t no difference between tweed and flesh when you get right down to it.” He quickly and
expertly ran the needle in and out between the ring of flesh that was left hanging from the head—and the jagged stump of the
neck. After sewing a circle of stitches around the connection, he stood back and surveyed his creation with pride.
“Now, is that beautiful or what?” Undertaker laughed, slapping himself with both hands against his stomach in a gesture of
at satisfaction. “Looks as good as the day he was born.” Which wasn’t the case at all, for Stone could clearly see the terrible
gash between head and body, the nylon clearly visible with its jagged, bloody stitching. But it was on there all right, it
wasn’t going anywhere, that was for damn sure.
The service in the Heavenly Chapel was a sight to behold. Stone sat in one of the front rows and watched the spectacle of
Undertaker conducting the benedictions for the dead in a sort of cross between Billy Graham and a used-car salesman. He raised
his fist to the sky, cursed the fates, told God to open his arms for some “decent folks who are cumin’ up”, and all in all
created quite a scene. His children, seated around the oak-slab benches, cried and carried on like it was their own pa who’d
been done in, dabbing at their eyes with hankies and consoling one another.
When it was all said and done, the two dozen or so widows and relatives who dared make the dangerous journey from their wretched
farms to the Hanson Farm and Under-taking Palace seemed satisfied. Their dead one
did
look so good—why hardly at all like he’d just had his head sawed off. And with all the pomp and noise, as cheap and as tacky
as it was, they were happy. After all, all that a man can hope to get when he’s gone is a moment of drama. To signify that,
yes, he was worth something in this fucked-up life.
Chapter
Seven
----
T he dead were prayed for, anointed with precious oils, inundated with incense, which was lit all over the damn place and stank
to high heaven, and last but not least, laid down in the Cemetery of the Heavenly Acres, whose motto, “Here, The Dead Don’t
Rise,” was painted on a gigantic wooden sign that stood over the entrance to the four-acre plot that Undertaker had cleared
with his own hands of every branch, rock, and corpse-eating groundhog. If not flat, the cemetery, which was fenced in all
around with low stone walls, at least had the look of a real graveyard, with rows of tombstones made of larger rocks rolled
into place above each grave and epitaphs sprayed on them in Day-Glo paint from aerosal cans that Undertaker had chanced to
find a whole crate of.
“A suffering man lies here”
“I died ’cause my woman lied.”
“Avenge me, Martha.”
“I left this world a cleaner place than I found it.”
“I killed Tommy Shefrin, his brother killed me.”
These and numerous other footnotes of the dead were written in a graffitilike scrawl over every three- to five-foot-high piece
of rectangular-shaped rocks over the plots. Again, the families of the dead seemed content with the ceremony and thanked Undertaker
ceaselessly as he led them off, out of the Cemetery of the Heavenly Acres. They promised to send another three dozen chickens
over the next three months, a price Hanson figured was just about right. Be-sides, it was good for the trade to put on a show.
Word of mouth spread, even when it came to dying.
Especially
when it came to dying.
Stone was unsteady on his feet
filament about as thick as fishing line through the eye of the needle and then leaned down over the corpse.
“You know, it’s amazing how one skill can translate into another,” Undertaker said as he dug the long needle into the throat
of the dead thing beneath him and pushed hard. “My grandfather was a tailor—showed me a few things about cutting and sewing,
I’ll tell you. And really, there ain’t no difference between tweed and flesh when you get right down to it.” He quickly and
expertly ran the needle in and out between the ring of flesh that was left hanging from the head—and the jagged stump of the
neck. After sewing a circle of stitches around the connection, he stood back and surveyed his creation with pride.
“Now, is that beautiful or what?” Undertaker laughed, slapping himself with both hands against his stomach in a gesture of
at satisfaction. “Looks as good as the day he was born.” Which wasn’t the case at all, for Stone could clearly see the terrible
gash between head and body, the nylon clearly visible with its jagged, bloody stitching. But it was on there all right, it
wasn’t going anywhere, that was for damn sure.
The service in the Heavenly Chapel was a sight to behold. Stone sat in one of the front rows and watched the spectacle of
Undertaker conducting the benedictions for the dead in a sort of cross between Billy Graham and a used-car salesman. He raised
his fist to the sky, cursed the fates, told God to open his arms for some “decent folks who are cumin’ up”, and all in all
created quite a scene. His children, seated around the oak-slab benches, cried and carried on like it was their own pa who’d
been done in, dabbing at their eyes with hankies and consoling one another.
When it was all said and done, the two dozen or so widows and relatives who dared make the dangerous journey from their wretched
farms to the Hanson Farm and Under-taking Palace seemed satisfied. Their dead one
did
look so good—why hardly at all like he’d just had his head sawed off. And with all the pomp and noise, as cheap and as tacky
as it was, they were happy. After all, all that a man can hope to get when he’s gone is a moment of drama. To signify that,
yes, he was worth something in this fucked-up life.
Chapter
Seven
----
T he dead were prayed for, anointed with precious oils, inundated with incense, which was lit all over the damn place and stank
to high heaven, and last but not least, laid down in the Cemetery of the Heavenly Acres, whose motto, “Here, The Dead Don’t
Rise,” was painted on a gigantic wooden sign that stood over the entrance to the four-acre plot that Undertaker had cleared
with his own hands of every branch, rock, and corpse-eating groundhog. If not flat, the cemetery, which was fenced in all
around with low stone walls, at least had the look of a real graveyard, with rows of tombstones made of larger rocks rolled
into place above each grave and epitaphs sprayed on them in Day-Glo paint from aerosal cans that Undertaker had chanced to
find a whole crate of.
“A suffering man lies here”
“I died ’cause my woman lied.”
“Avenge me, Martha.”
“I left this world a cleaner place than I found it.”
“I killed Tommy Shefrin, his brother killed me.”
These and numerous other footnotes of the dead were written in a graffitilike scrawl over every three- to five-foot-high piece
of rectangular-shaped rocks over the plots. Again, the families of the dead seemed content with the ceremony and thanked Undertaker
ceaselessly as he led them off, out of the Cemetery of the Heavenly Acres. They promised to send another three dozen chickens
over the next three months, a price Hanson figured was just about right. Be-sides, it was good for the trade to put on a show.
Word of mouth spread, even when it came to dying.
Especially
when it came to dying.
Stone was unsteady on his feet
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