Рэй Брэдбери - Free Dirt

«That's quite a story,» said the young man.

«No,» said the old man, «God's truth. Want to hear more? See that big stone with the ugly angel? That was Adam Crispin's. Relatives fought, got a writ from a judge, dug him up hoping for poison. Found nothing. Put him back, but by that time the dirt from his grave mixed with other dirts. We shoveled in stuff from all around. Next plot, the angel with broken wings? Mary-Lou Phipps. Dug her up to lug her off to Elgin, Illinois. More relatives. Where she'd been, the pit stayed open, oh, three weeks. No funerals. Meanwhile, her dirt got cross-shoveled with others. Six stones over, one stone north, that was Henry Douglas Jones. Became famous sixty years after no one paid attention. Now he's planted under the Civil War monument. His grave lay wide two months, nobody wanted to utilize the hole of a Southerner, all of us leaning North with Grant. So his dirt got scattered. That give you some notion of what that FREE DIRT sign means?»

The young man eyed the cemetery landscape. «Well,» he said, «where is that dirt you're handing out?»

The old man pointed with his pipe and the stranger looked and indeed, by a nearby wall was a sizable hillock some ten feet long by about three feet high, loam and grass tufts of many shades of tan, brown, and burnt umber.

«Go look,» said the old man.

The young man walked slowly over to stand by the mound.

«Kick it,» said the old man. «See if it's real.»

The young man kicked and his face paled.

«Did you hear that?» he said.

«What?» said the old man, looking somewhere else.

The stranger listened and shook his head. «Nothing.»

«Well, now,» said the old man, knocking out the ashes from his pipe. «How much free dirt you need?»

«I hadn't thought.»

«Yes, you have,» said the old man, «or you wouldn't have driven your lightweight delivery truck up by the cemetery gate. I got cat's ears. Heard your motor just when you stopped. How much?»

«Oh,» said the young man uneasily. «My backyard's eighty feet by forty. I could use a good inch of topsoil. So…?»

«I'd say,» said the old man, «half of that mound there. Hell, take it all. Nobody wants it.»

«You mean―»

«I mean, that mound has been growing and diminishing, diminishing and growing, mixtures up and down, since Grant took Richmond and Sherman reached the sea. There's Civil dirt there, coffin splinters, satin casket shreds from when Lafayette met the Honor Guard's Edgar Allan Poe. There's funeral flowers, blossoms from ten hundred obsequies. Condolence-card confetti for Hessian troopers, Parisian gunners who never shipped home. That soil is so laced with bone meal and casket corsages, I should charge you to buy the lot. Grab a spade before I do.»

«Stay right there.» The young man raised one hand.

«I'm not going anywhere,» said the old man. «Nor is anyone else nearby.»

The half-truck was pulled up by the dirt mound and the young man was reaching in for a spade when the old man said:

«No, I think not.»

The old man went on:

«Graveyard spade's best. Familiar metal, familiar soil. Easy digging when like takes to like. So.»

The old man's head indicated a spade half stuck in the dark mound. The young man shrugged and moved.

The cemetery spade came free with a soft whispering. Pellets of ancient mound fell with similar whispers.

He began to dig and shift and fill the back of his half-truck as the old man from the corners of his eyes observed:

«It's more than dirt, as I said. War of 1812, San Juan Hill, Manassas, Gettysburg, October flu epidemic 1918, all strewn from graves filled and evicted to be refilled. Various occupants leavened out to dust, various glories melted to mixtures, rust from metal caskets, coffin handles, shoelaces but no shoes, hairs long and short. Ever see wreaths made of hair saved to weave crowns to fix on mortal pictures? All that's left of a smile or that funny look in the eyes of someone who knows she's not alive anymore, ever. Hair, epaulettes, not whole ones, but one strand of epaulette, all there along with blood that's gone to silt.»

The young man finished, sweating, and started to thrust the spade back in the earth when the old man said:

«Take it. Cemetery dirt, cemetery spade, like takes to like.»

«I'll bring it back tomorrow.» The young man tossed the spade into the mounded truck.

«No. You got the dirt, so keep the spade. Just don't bring the free dirt back.»

«Why would I do that?»

«Just don't,» said the old man, but did not move as the young man climbed in his truck to start the engine.

He sat listening to the dirt mound tremble and whisper in the flatbed.

«What're you waiting for?» asked the old man.

The flimsy half-truck ran toward the last of the twilight, pursued by the ever-encroaching dark. Clouds raced overhead, perturbed by the invisible. Back on the horizon, thunder sounded. A few drops of rain fell on the windshield, causing the young man to ram his foot on the gas and swerve into his home street even as the sun truly died, the wind rose, and the trees around his cottage bent and beckoned.

Climbing out, he stared at the sky and then his house and then the empty garden. A few drops of cold rain on his cheeks decided him; he drove the rattling half-truck into the empty garden, unlatched the metal back-flap, opened it just an inch so as to allow a proper flow, and then began motoring back and forth across the garden, letting the dark stuffs whisper down, letting the strange midnight earth sift and murmur, until at last the truck was empty and he stood in the blowing night, watching the wind stir the black soil.

Then he locked the truck in the garage and went to stand on the back porch, thinking, I won't need water. The storm will soak the ground.

He stood for a long while simply staring at the graveyard mulch, waiting for rain, until he thought, what am I waiting for? Jesus! And went in.

At ten o'clock a light rain tapped on the windows and sifted over the dark garden. At eleven it rained so steadily that the gutter drains swallowed and rattled.

At midnight the rain grew heavy. He looked to see if it was eroding the new dark earth but saw only the black muck drinking the downpour like a great black sponge, lit by distant flares of lightning.

Then, at one in the morning, the greatest Niagara of all shuddered the house, rinsed the windows to blindness, and shook the lights.

And then, abruptly, the downpour, the immense Niagara ceased, followed by one great downfell blow of lightning which plowed and pinioned the dark earth close by, near, outside, with explosions of light as if ten thousand flashbulbs had been fired off. Then darkness fell in curtains of thunder, cracking, breaking the bones.

In bed, wishing for the merest dog to hold for lack of human company, hugging the sheets, burying his head, then rising full to the silent air, the dark air, the storm gone, the rain shut, and a silence that spread in whispers as the last drench melted into the trembling soil.

He shuddered and then shivered and then hugged himself to stop the shivering of his cold flesh, and he was thirsty but could not make himself move to find the kitchen and drink water, milk, leftover wine, anything. He lay back, dry-mouthed, with unreasonable tears filling his eyes.

Free dirt, he thought. My God, what a damn-fool night. Free dirt!

At two o'clock he heard his wristwatch ticking softly.

At two-thirty he felt his pulse in his wrists and ankles and neck and then in his temples and inside his head.

The entire house leaned into the wind, listening.

Outside in the still night, the wind failed and the yard lay soaked and waiting.