He was walking back through the cemetery1 to his car when he came upon a black man digging a grave with a shovel2. The man was standing3 about two feet down in the unfinished grave and stopped shoveling and hurling4 the dirt out to the side as the visitor approached him. He wore dark coveralls and an old baseball cap, and from the gray in his mustache and the lines in his face he looked to be at least fifty. His frame, however, was still thick and strong.
"I thought they did this with a machine," he said to the gravedigger.
"In big cemeteries5, where they do many graves, a lot of times they use machines, that's right." He spoke6 like a Southerner, but very matter-of-factly, very precisely7, more like a pedantic8 schoolteacher than a physical laborer9. "I don't use a machine," the gravedigger continued, "because it can sink the other graves. The soil can give and it can crush in on the box. And you have the gravestones you have to deal with. It's just easier in my case to do everything by hand. Much neater. Easier to take the dirt away without ruining anything else. I use a real small tractor that I can maneuver10 easily, and I dig by hand."
Now he noticed the tractor in the grassy11 pathway between the graves. "The tractor's for what?"
"Use that to haul the dirt away. I've been doing it long enough that I know how much dirt to take away and how much dirt to leave. The first ten trailers of dirt I take away. Whatever's left I throw up on boards. I put down plywood boards. You can see 'em. I lay down three plywood boards so the dirt doesn't sit on the grass itself. The last half of the dirt I throw out onto the boards. To fill in afterwards. Then I cover everything with this green carpet. Try to make it nice for the family. So it looks like grass."
"How do you dig it? Mind if I ask?"
"Nope," said the gravedigger, still a couple feet down, standing where he'd been digging. "Most folks don't care. With most folks, the less they know the better."
"I want to know," he assured him. And he did. He did not want to go.
"Well, I have a map. Shows every grave that's ever been sold or laid out in the cemetery. With the map you locate the plot, purchased who knows when, fifty years ago, seventy-five years ago. Once I got it located I come here with a probe. There it is. That seven-foot spike12 on the ground. I take this probe and I go down two or three feet, and that's how I locate the next grave over. Bang — you hit it and you hear it. And then I take a stick and I mark on the ground where the new grave is. Then I have a wood frame that I lay down on the ground and that's what I cut the soil to. I take an edger first and I cut the sod to the size of the frame. Then I size it down, make one-foot-square pieces of sod, and put them back of the grave, out of sight — because I don't want to make any kind of mess where the funeral will be. The less dirt, the easier it is to clean up. I don't ever want to leave a mess. I lay down a board back of the grave next to it, where I can carry the squares of sod to it on the fork. I lay 'em like a grid13 so it looks like where I took 'em out. That takes about an hour. It's a hard part of the job. Once I've done that, then I dig. I bring the tractor over, and my trailer attached. What I do is, I dig first. That's what I'm doing now. My son digs the hard part. He's stronger than I am now. He likes to come in after I'm done. When he's busy or not around I dig the whole thing myself. But when he's here I always let him dig the harder part. I'm fifty-eight. I don't dig like I used to. When he started I had him here all the time, and we'd take turns digging. That was fun because he was young and it gave me time to talk to him, just the two of us alone."
"What did you talk to him about?"
"Not about graveyards," he said, laughing hard. "Not like I'm talking to you."
"What then?"
"Things in general. Life in general. Anyway, I dig the first half. I use two shovels14, a square shovel when the digging is easy and you can take more dirt, and then I use just a round pointed15 shovel, just a standard shovel. That's what you use for basic digging, a regular common shovel. If it's easy digging, especially in the spring when the ground isn't real solid, when the ground is wet, I use the big shovel and I can take out big shovelfuls and heave 'em into the trailer. I dig front to back, and I dig a grid, and as I go I use my edger to square the hole. I use that and a straight fork — they call it a spading fork. I use that to edge too, to bang down, cut the edges, and keep it square. You've got to keep it square as you go. The first ten loads go into the trailer and I take it over to an area in the cemetery where it's low and where we're filling that area, and I dump the trailer, come back, fill it up again. Ten loads. At that point I'm about halfway16. That's about three foot."
"So from start to finish, how long does it take?"
"It'll take about three hours to do my end. Could even take four hours. Depends on the dig. My son's a good digger — takes him about two and a half hours more. It's a day's work. I usually come in about six in the morning, and my son comes in around ten. But he's busy now and I tell him he can do it when he wants. If the weather's hot, he'll come at night when it's cooler. With Jewish people we only get a day's notice, and we got to do it quick. At the Christian17 cemetery" — he pointed to the large, sprawling18 cemetery that lay across the road — "the undertakers will give us two or three days' notice." "And you been doing this work how long?" "Thirty-four years. A long time. It's good work. It's peaceful. Gives you time to think. But it's a lot of work. Starting to hurt my back. One day soon I'm turning it all over to my son. He'll take over and I'm moving back to where it's warm year round. Because, don't forget, I only told you about digging it. You got to come back and fill it up. That takes you three hours. Put the sod back, and so on. But let's go back to when the grave is dug. My son has finished up. He's squared it up, it's flat on the bottom. It's six foot deep, it looks good, you could jump down in the hole. Like the old guy used to say who I first dug with, it's got to be flat enough to lay a bed out on it. I used to laugh at him when he said that. But it's so: you've got this hole, six foot deep, and it's got to be right for the sake of the family and right for the sake of the dead."
"Mind if I stand here and watch?"
"Not at all. This is nice diggin'. No rocks. Straight in."
He watched him dig down with the shovel and then hoist19 up the dirt and heave it easily onto the plywood. Every few minutes he would use the tines of the fork to loosen up the sides and then choose one of the two shovels to resume the digging. Once in a while a small rock would strike the plywood, but mostly what came up out of the grave was moist brown soil that broke apart easily on leaving the shovel.
He was watching from beside the gravestone to the rear of which the gravedigger had laid out the square patches of sod that he would return to the plot after the funeral. The sod was fitted perfectly20 to the piece of plywood on which the patches rested. And still he did not want to go, not while by merely turning his head he could catch a glimpse of his parents' stone. He never wanted to go.
Pointing to the gravestone, the gravedigger said, "This guy here fought in World War Two. Prisoner of war in Japan. Helluva nice guy. Know him from when he used to come visit his wife. Nice guy. Always a decent guy. Got stuck with your car, the kind of guy who'd pull you out."
"So you know some of these people."
"Sure I do. There's a boy here, seventeen. Killed in a car crash. His friends come by and put beer cans on his grave. Or a fishing pole. He liked to fish."
He cleaned a clump21 of dirt from his shovel by banging it down on the plywood and then resumed digging. "Oops," he said, looking out across the cemetery to the street, "here she comes," and he instantly put aside the shovel and pulled off his soiled yellow work gloves. For the first time he stepped up out of the grave and banged each of his battered22 work shoes against the other to dislodge the dirt that was clinging to them.
An elderly black woman was approaching the open grave carrying a small plaid cooler in one hand and a thermos23 in the other. She was wearing running shoes, a pair of nylon slacks the color of the gravedigger's work gloves, and a blue, zippered24 New York Yankees team jacket.
The gravedigger said to her, "This is a nice gentleman who's been visiting with me this morning."
She nodded and handed him the cooler and the thermos, which he set down beside his tractor.
"Thank you, honey. Arnold still sleeping?"
"He's up," she said. "I made you two meat loaf and one baloney."
"That's good. Thank you."
She nodded again and then turned and went out of the cemetery, where she got into her car and drove away.
"That your wife?" he asked the gravedigger.
"That is Thelma." Smiling, he added, "She nourishes me."
"She isn't your mother."
"Oh, no, no — no, sir," said the gravedigger with a laugh, "not Thelma."
"And she doesn't mind coming out here?"
"You gotta do what you gotta do. That's her philosophy in a nutshell. What it comes down to for Thelma is just diggin' a hole. This is nothing special to her."
"You want to eat your lunch, so I'm going to leave you. But I want to ask — I wonder if you dug my parents' graves. They're buried over here. Let me show you."
The gravedigger followed him a ways until they could see clearly the site of his family stone.
"Did you dig those?" he asked him.
"Sure, I did them," the gravedigger said.
"Well, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for everything you've told me and for how clear you've been. You couldn't have made things more concrete. It's a good education for an older person. I thank you for the concreteness, and I thank you for being so careful and considerate when you dug my parents' graves. I wonder if I might give you something."
"I received my fee at the time, thank you."
"Yes, but I'd like to give you something for you and your son. My father always said, 'It's best to give while your hand is still warm.'" He slipped him two fifties, and as the gravedigger's large, roughened palm closed around the bills, he looked at him closely, at the genial25, creased26 face and the pitted skin of the mustached black man who might someday soon be digging a hole for him that was flat enough at the bottom to lay a bed on.
收听单词发音 |
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cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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shovel
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| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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hurling
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| n.爱尔兰式曲棍球v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的现在分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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cemeteries
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| n.（非教堂的）墓地，公墓( cemetery的名词复数 ) | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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laborer
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| n.劳动者，劳工 | |
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maneuver
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| n.策略[pl.]演习；v.(巧妙)控制；用策略 | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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spike
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| n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效 | |
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grid
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| n.高压输电线路网；地图坐标方格；格栅 | |
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shovels
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| n.铲子( shovel的名词复数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份v.铲子( shovel的第三人称单数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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hoist
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| n.升高，起重机，推动；v.升起，升高，举起 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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thermos
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| n.保湿瓶，热水瓶 | |
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zippered
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| v.拉上拉链( zipper的过去式和过去分词 )；用拉链扣上 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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creased
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的过去式和过去分词 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹； 皱皱巴巴 | |
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