Stranger's Burial

Short story by

Don Henry

Three days before Christmas, I poured a slug of Jack Daniels in my coffee, fired up the four-wheel-drive and headed toward the cemetery. Alaska is almost always cold, but that's not why I had the shivers.

The frozen road looked like the rest of the tundra except for a faint set of tire tracks, which were beginning to disappear under gently drifting snow. And the sun didn’t help, bouncing off white ground, washing out the terrain until I thought I was going snow blind or having a psychotic episode. Personally, I had never experienced a psychotic episode. But, I had listened closely while the Jesuit priest described his. That day wasn't the first time I had confronted him about alcohol, but was a time I won’t forget. When I mentioned losing brain cells, he let me have it.

“You know how wolves feed on a buffalo herd?" the Jesuit asked, then answered his own question as though punctuating an obvious point. "The way they pick off easy prey. The old, sick and wounded."

I nodded. "Separate the weak from strong."

"Exactly. Natural selection," he said, pausing to let the point soak in. "The whole herd’s better for it. Faster. Healthier. That's what alcohol does for my brain. It kills the slow, sick cells. Gets the ones that are falling behind. Then my brain’s better off. It stays sharp and focused."

Over time, the Jesuit taught me many things. I can't deny that. But I don’t need to be ankle deep in buffalo chips to know I’m losing a battle. After a couple of deep breaths, after my anger calmed down a few notches, I looked him straight in the eye. “Stop drinking. And stop now.”

He glared back. Angry. Confrontive. And said, “I’m not a quitter.” 

In words spit-out like venom, he told me I was sick and needed to see a therapist. I reminded him that I am a therapist. And, to be precise, I’m his.

We all suffered the common malady of starkly remote assignments. No peer group. The Jesuit’s tiny flock turned to him for support, but when he turned, no one was there. It’s a relationship embedded and sanctioned in church architecture--a pulpit elevated and distanced from the congregation. A lone man on a lone pedestal.

At first, I thought we could commune with each other. And we did until alcohol won the battle. And he went bananas. And I became the father to his inner child.

It took me a while to realize I was angry and resented him. When he took himself out of the game, it was my loss, too. We all need an understanding ear, and when he went nuts, I had no other man to talk with--not about important things. 

Nuts. That word describes his behavior perfectly. And if it were up to me, I’d reduce all mental health terms to some combination of fruit and nuts. Almost no one understands psychosis, dementia, or paranoia. But if someone wears a lampshade on their head, anyone, even without special training, can tell they’re bananas.

After a while, I pulled over to finish my coffee then wrote my name in the snow in flowing, yellow letters. Back on the road, I divided my attention between the tracks ahead and the rear view mirror, tilted, for a clear view of the little coffin resting in back.

The fresh tracks were probably made by the gravediggers. It seemed too early for the magistrate or the nurse. I never expected this would be part of my duties in social services at the Regional Hospital. Working for the National Health Service sounded romantic; flying to meet clients at remote Eskimo villages as well as counseling health service workers through the stress and isolation of almost perennial winter.

Little did I know, there would be additional duty in the morgue. Not that it’s a big morgue, only provisions for two customers. But, if a family member has to identify a loved one or make preparations for burial, I escort them and assist. We’re short handed. Budget cutbacks. But there are some extra duties in life that will never feel comfortable. Sometimes the nurse is there, even when she doesn’t have to be. It helps to have a feminine touch.

How would I describe the nurse? She’s first and above all a nurse and then she’s a woman. It’s a distinction that’s required to understand her sense of duty. We’re both in helping professions, but it seems clear to her that she is helping patients. It’s less clear who I’m helping or even if I’m helping since therapists often teach what they most need to learn.

I make a common mistake when I think about her, and it happened again, just now. I start talking about her but wind up saying more about me. I've wrestled with this, wondering about her affect on me, wondering if it’s infatuation, love, or simply loneliness. For the record, I labeled this concoction of the crazies, passion fruit. It’s a blend of the bananas with mangoes and, perhaps, a few assorted nuts sprinkled here and there. No one, who has felt love, doubts for a minute that it makes you crazy.

But love never lasts. A month ago, when the fever and the pitch were tangible, I felt love. But, just as suddenly, I got over it.

She’s prettier now than I thought she was at first. When I say that out loud it sounds like loneliness talking. Perhaps it is. Nights are long, and I do think about her. But that's not what I mean. Really. Some people become more attractive when you find out what's inside.

If I would ask her to describe herself, I know what she would say. Christian. It’s a word that's never far from her lips. At first, I suspected she hid behind it and looked down at me with righteous indignation. I thought that if I made an untoward move--and believe me it was on my mind--she would grab the crucifix from her neck and thrust it at me like I was Satan. Of course, I’m not Satan. I know this because I put my hand in the Jesuit’s baptismal font, like De Niro did in that movie, The Devils Advocate, and the water didn’t burst into steam. It didn’t even get warm.

I don’t mean to imply that we didn't have a sensual relationship, because we did. Not consummated, but sensual. She allowed complete freedom from the waist up. From the waist down…no man's land. She knew how to set boundaries and enforce them. Had she represented Russia during the Alaska purchase, Seward could not have bought the land for any price.

I often tested the boundaries, but her answer was always no. There was a time, when no meant maybe, or perhaps, or later. But those days are gone. Ancient artifacts like Sky King decoder rings and singing cowboys. Roy Rogers and Trigger are dead and they’re not coming back.

In the past few weeks, I discussed two issues with the magistrate and neither encounter was pleasant. The first was a few days after Thanksgiving when I convinced the Jesuit to enter alcohol rehab. Since we’re one deep in padres, the Jesuit's absence meant additional duties for the magistrate--like today, at the gravesite. The second encounter was more complicated. Painful, actually.

It began when an Eskimo mother separated herself emotionally and physically from her stillborn son. The checklist said call the magistrate. I called.

"How much does it weigh?" he said in a clipped voice.

"I didn't weigh...it," I said searching my mind, trying to think of how to refer to this unnamed, tiny, human form.

"It should be on the paperwork," the magistrate said.

"It’s not," I replied. "There's a blank space where it says weight-in-grams."

"Get a weight and call me back," he said, then added. "If your not experienced with this type of case, talk to someone first."

"Who?" I said then realized he had hung up.

The morgue had a scale so I carefully noted the weight and called back. "The weight in grams is five hundred four."

The magistrate was silent for long time then repeated slowly, "Five hundred and four?" After another awkward silence, he said, "You didn't talk to anyone. Did you?"

“Didn't need too,” I replied. “Found a scale right here."

Ten minutes later the phone rang. In an angry voice, the city manager explained the law regarding birth weight. If remains are less than five hundred grams they can be destroyed in the same manner as human tissue from a surgery. However, if over five hundred, a stranger’s burial is required. A stranger’s burial is conducted as if an adult with no identification walked into town and died. And that meant a coffin, a grave dug in the permafrost at great expense to the city, and a ceremony. As he signed off, he said, "Do us all a favor. Checkout that weight one more time."

The legal line between tissue and humanity had been drawn at five hundred grams--about seventeen point six ounces. 

It had been hard enough the first time I had to weigh the little stranger, and I didn't know if I could keep my composure while I did it again. Especially under bureaucratic pressure to be expeditious, to save time, money, and resources. And I was right. I didn't keep my composure. And in the end, the result was the same--over the limit by slightly more than an ounce. I called the magistrate.

"Okay,” he said in a resigned tone. “I’ll make arrangements."

When I arrived at the gravesite, three workers were still digging. They had two tractors, each with a piece of hydraulic powered equipment attached to the back. One device attacked the frozen earth like a jackhammer and the other scooped up the debris and dumped it beside the grave. Twenty minutes later they finished then gathered around smoking cigarettes. Although they didn't say it, their attitudes left no doubt how they felt. Because of me, they were laboring in the bitter cold.

One of the workers, an Eskimo, a bear of a man, flipped his cigarette toward the open earth. "Hey," I shouted as the smoking butt arced over the mound of debris and fell into the grave.

The Eskimo looked away.

"What the hell are you doing?" I yelled, confronting the Eskimo, a head taller than me, with a body as big as a grizzly. "Get that butt. Get it out of there." I directed as self-appointed defender of the little stranger.

And why was I doing this? Was I trying to save an innocent from a conspiracy? Was the stranger a symbol of the child I wanted but never had? Whatever the undefined investment of my emotions, I couldn't let it go.

"Pick it up," I insisted.

The Eskimo didn't say a word, looking down at me with an indifferent smile. Out of all emotions, indifference is the worst, the one that lights a fire inside me, the one that drives me mad. I ran toward him and hit him in the stomach with my fist. Between my heavy gloves and his down jacket, my roundhouse punch landed like I had struck a pillow. The Eskimo stood his ground like a rock. He didn't recoil or flinch or acknowledge the blow in any way.

I struck him again and again and again. He stood there, indifferent, as if I didn’t exist.

I've been told that Eskimo's don’t have a word for anger. I don't know whether that's true. Even if they don’t, I’m sure they still feel it. But if he did get angry and hit me, he would probably have to dig another grave. Perhaps, that thought alone tempered his behavior and saved my life.

Finally, as he grasped my fists and held them motionless in his huge hands, I heard a voice. It was the magistrate.

"What the hell’s going on?” he said looking straight at me and pointing an accusing finger. “Don't think I won’t arrest you if you keep this up, or if someone presses charges.” He glanced at the others, then back at me. “Anyone want to press charges?"

I looked up at the Eskimo’s hollow expression. He remained silent, but after a moment, his eyes turned down toward the grave.

"Well then," the magistrate said. "Let's get this over with."

My thoughts swirled as I walked to my four-wheel drive. Although embarrassed by my behavior, I was curious about the rage--the first truly authentic emotion I had felt in years.

The nurse pulled up behind my vehicle as I cradled the little casket in my arms. She put a hand on my shoulder to steady me over the icy ground. "It's beautiful,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it."

"The janitor made it," I said, not telling her the city manager refused to pay for full-sized casket and no small ones were available. "He built it out of shipping crates then finished the outside and painted the cross on top."

"Was the stranger Christian?"

"We’ll never know. I think the cross says more about the janitor."

After placing the tiny box near the grave, the magistrate asked us to form a circle around the stranger and hold hands while he said a few words. He talked about the wanted, and the unwanted. He spoke of responsibility to protect those who can't protect themselves. Of the importance of ritual. Of acknowledging our own grief as well as the grief in others.

Finally, he said, "Our unnamed stranger is known but to heaven. The son of parents who never knew him and never walked with him hand-in-hand. But now our stranger is walking hand-in-hand, with the only Son of God."

We stood for a minute in silent prayer, then the magistrate asked, "Would anyone like to say anything before we close?"

"Wait," the Eskimo said, then pulled his hands free from the circle, jumped down into the pit and retrieved the cigarette. After the other workers helped him out of the grave, and we all rejoined hands, the Eskimo looked at me and nodded.